WASHINGTON ― Republicans mocked Supreme Court docket nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson final month for refusing to outline the phrase “lady” throughout her Senate affirmation listening to.
However it seems those self same Republicans on the Judiciary Committee don’t agree on the way to outline a lady, and a few wouldn’t ― or couldn’t ― give a definition when HuffPost requested Tuesday.
“I don’t have something for you on that,” mentioned Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).
“I’m not going to indulge you,” mentioned Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) dodged the query thrice in a row, citing her coverage of not speaking to reporters in Senate hallways ― though it was Blackburn who made this a problem with Jackson within the first place.
13 hours into the primary day of Jackson’s listening to final month, the Tennessee Republican tossed out the query: “Are you able to outline the phrase ‘lady’?”
“Can I present a definition?” Jackson mentioned, showing confused. “No, I can’t. I’m not a biologist.”
After some backwards and forwards, Blackburn concluded: “The truth that you possibly can’t give me a straight reply about one thing as elementary as what a lady is underscores the hazards of the form of progressive training that we're listening to about.”
The following day, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) laid into Jackson too, telling her: “I believe you're the solely Supreme Court docket nominee in historical past who has been unable to reply the query ‘What's a lady?’”
The actual purpose of Blackburn’s query was nearly actually to attempt to nook Jackson on the problem of transgender girls collaborating in girls’s sports activities ― a part of a broader, ugly GOP assault on LGBTQ folksheading into the 2022 elections. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is pushing for youngster abuse investigations of oldsters whose kids search gender-affirming medical care. Florida’s new “Don’t Say Homosexual” regulation prevents lecturers from speaking about sexual orientation or gender identification to college students youthful than fourth graders. The Human Rights Marketing campaign, in the meantime, is monitoring greater than 300 anti-LGBTQ payments throughout the nation.
In a follow-up electronic mail to HuffPost, a spokesperson for Blackburn mentioned her definition of a lady is “Two X chromosomes.”
The spokesperson didn't reply to questions on whether or not Blackburn considers girls born with just one X chromosome to be girls, or if she considers males born with two X chromosomes to be girls.
In a written assertion, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) provided the identical definition as Blackburn: “A lady is born with two X-chromosomes.”
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Britannica Dictionary outline a lady as “an grownup feminine particular person” and “an grownup feminine human being,” respectively. Do senators agree with this?
“I've extra of a conventional view of what a lady is,” mentioned Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
What's that?
“My spouse.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) mentioned a lady is solely somebody who's “biologically a lady,” including that he thinks most Individuals can work out who’s a lady and who’s a person.
“The birds and the bees stuff ― it’s been some time, however I believe I bear in mind the overall gist of the variations,” Graham mentioned. “To have a tough time answering that query is form of odd to me.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) shouted his definition of a lady earlier than slipping right into a Senate elevator: “An grownup feminine of the human species.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was bolder than most.
“Somebody who can provide delivery to a toddler, a mom, is a lady,” he mentioned. “Somebody who has a uterus is a lady. It doesn’t appear that difficult to me.”
So if a lady has her uterus eliminated by a hysterectomy, is she nonetheless a lady?
“Yeah. Nicely, I don’t know, would they?” he requested. (Sure.)
Requested once more later if he would take into account a lady to nonetheless be a lady if she misplaced her reproductive organs to most cancers, Hawley mentioned: “I imply, a lady has a vagina, proper?”
Cruz, when requested, instantly answered that a lady is “an grownup feminine human.”
He denied that he had just lately seemed it up in a dictionary.
“I simply occur to talk English,” Cruz mentioned, including: “A Homo sapien with two X chromosomes.”
Post a Comment