A Man's a Man for A' That

What is a woman?

“A woman is an adult human female,” the dictionaries say. And “female” means “of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes.”

Aha, objects the trans lobby--but there are some “biological women” who cannot bear offspring or produce eggs. For example, those past menopause. Yet you still call them women. So it is arbitrary to say “biological men” cannot be women.

To which I respond, by this standard nothing can be defined, and no word has meaning.

Consider the analogy of the elephant. What is an elephant?

“A heavy plant-eating mammal with a prehensile trunk, long curved ivory tusks, and large ears, native to Africa and southern Asia.”

Aha; but many elephants do not have long curved ivory tusks. Their tusks have been cut off for the ivory trade. Therefore, either most circus elephants are not elephants, or else it is impossible to define “elephant,” and if I tell you this monkey is an elephant, you must accept that it is so.

With animals, we determine what they are, in case of doubt, by looking at their DNA and their bone structure.

Human males and females can also be conclusively identified by their DNA and their bone structure.