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Says people ‘are not really in agreement’ about what ‘biological sex’ means

A trans-female history professor claims U.S. House Representatives Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene have offered no proof that a trans-female freshman colleague is really a man.

Delaware’s new lone House representative Sarah McBride (formerly Tim) was the center of a recent controversy when Rep. Mace voiced objections to McBride using women’s restrooms in the Capitol.

Mace eventually sponsored a bill which “prohibit[s] Members, officers, and employees of the House from using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex, and for other purposes” (the bill’s actual title).

But in The Conversation, G. (for “Gregory”) Samantha Rosenthal of Roanoke College and Washington & Lee University says Mace and Greene did not back up their claims that McBride “is a biological man.”

“In fact,” Rosenthal (pictured) adds, “opponents of transgender rights in the United States are not really in agreement on what they even mean by ‘biological sex’”… nor are scientists.

[W]hy are Republicans seeking to rewrite “sex” in federal law to refer to gamete production, rather than maintain familiar notions of sex that have endured for centuries, such as genitals or gonads?

For once, the answer isn’t complicated: The gamete definition of “sex” will ensure that transgender women are always classified as “male” no matter how much they change their bodies. Federal bills defining sex do this by declaring that a woman is someone “who naturally has, had, will have, or would have” the reproductive capacity to produce eggs – something a transgender woman can never do. …

For most of modern history, scientists, doctors and judges have agreed that humans can change sex – they just haven’t agreed on how it can be accomplished. To change the definition now is to invite heightened government scrutiny into the private medical records of all women.

MORE: Transgender coach, rehired due to ‘transphobia’ concerns, resigns after porn video surfaces

Regarding transgender athletes, Rosenthal notes that with “advancements in plastic surgery, leading clinicians in transgender medicine believed they were able to change a trans woman’s sex by transforming her penis into a vagina.”

Rosenthal uses the (singular) example of Renee Richards, a trans-female tennis player in the 1970s who sued in objection to the chromosome test “she” was required to take to participate in the (women’s) U.S. Open.

Richards (who had undergone sex reassignment surgery) ultimately won the lawsuit, with the New York Supreme Court saying there was “overwhelming medical evidence that (Richards) is now female.”

Richards “her”self said in a TV interview around the time “Have a gynecologist examine me, […] and then you’ll have your answer, ‘Is this person a man or a woman?’”

According to “her” website, Rosenthal has tenure at Roanoke College and was a coordinator of its Gender and Women’s Studies Concentration. “She” currently is a visiting professor at Washington & Lee.

The professor refers to “her”self as a “trans dyke” and has written extensively about transgender issues, including the articles “Pseudoscience Has Long Been Used to Oppress Transgender People,” “Backlash to transgender health care isn’t new—but faulty science used to justify it has changed over time,” and “Gender-affirming care has a long history, though anti-trans laws pretend it’s ‘untested.’”

MORE: Volleyball players sue athletic conference over transgender policy, forfeitures

IMAGE: Karen Orlando/X

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