Sitting for her second day of questioning on Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court said she is “not a biologist” and is therefore unable to define what a “woman” is.
The exchange came when Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Miss.) asked Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed in 2009 to the U.S. Sentencing Commission by then-President Barack Obama, to define a “woman” in the context of the court’s 1996 ruling on United States v. Virginia, when then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority, striking down the male-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute.
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Ginsburg stated that “supposed ‘inherent differences’ are no longer accepted as a ground for race or national origin classifications” and “‘inherent differences’ between men and women, we have come to appreciate, remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual’s opportunity.”
For her part, Jackson told Blackburn she could not offer a definition of the word “woman.”
“I can’t,” the judge told the senator. “I’m not a biologist.”
Seemingly taken aback by Jackson’s unwillingness to define the word, Blackburn asked, “The meaning of the word woman is so unclear and controversial that you can’t give me a definition?”
“Senator,” the judge replied, “in my work as a judge, what I do is I address disputes. If there’s a dispute about a definition, people make arguments and I look at the law and I decide.”
The Republican lawmaker’s line of questioning came less than a week after University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas beat two biological females — one of whom is an Olympic silver medalist from Florida — in the 500-yard freestyle event of the Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.
Thomas is a biological male who identifies as a female and competes on the women’s swimming team.
“The fact that you can’t give me a straight answer about something as fundamental as what a woman is underscores the dangers of the kind of progressive education that we are hearing about,” Blackburn told Jackson. “Just last week, an entire generation of young girls watched as our taxpayer-funded institutions permitted a biological man to compete and beat a biological woman in the NCAA swimming championships.”
“What message do you think this sends to girls who aspire to compete and win in sports at the highest levels?” the senator asked Jackson.
After the judge refused to answer, Blackburn told her, “I think it tells our girls that their voices don’t matter. I think it tells them that they’re second-class citizens. And parents want to have a Supreme Court justice who is committed to preserving parental autonomy and protecting our nation’s children.”
There are a handful of prominent figures willing to speak out on behalf of the rights of biological women.
Among them is “Station 19” star Natasha Ward who faced intense rebuke from her ABC co-stars for writing in a post to her Instagram account, “Supporting trans freedom does not mean it’s OK to violate the rights of biological women.”
“Pretending that trans women are not men who have a biological advantage, and therefore place an undue burden on biological women, is make believe and it is not science nor fact,” she wrote. “In the long run, women will have to take illegal substances in order to beat men ‘identifying’ as women in women’s sports.”
You can read more about Ward here.
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