I want to see this video posted on every clear-thinking person’s Facebook page to force the woke and obstinate of the Mad Left to try to defend this doctor’s response, or rather non-response. I want to have progressives with any semblance of integrity take this ethics test and pass by saying, “Yes, to simultaneously argue that science and not politics should govern policy and then refuse to answer ‘No, of course not to the question, ‘Can men get pregnant?’ is ludicrous, and shows that the Democrats are deep into ‘1984’ territory.”
I have a trans daughter now. I love hi…her—30 years habits are hard to break—unconditionally, and support her life choices whatever they are…BUT she is still a biological male, having a Y chromosome. (Intersex is an exception, estimated at .5% to 1.7% of the population, probably on the lower end, that proves the rule, and is too rare to be relevant in this conversation.) Deliberately denying facts to avoid dealing with a policy position’s weaknesses, flaws and problems is cowardly and unethical.
Shake this video in front of your progressive friends and relatives like a Jack Russell shakes a rat and make them respond, one hopes with more integrity to the ridiculous Dr. Verma. She needs to enter the Federal Cowardly Idiot Protection Program.
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*For the culturally deprived: this was the go-to babbling by bus driver Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) on “The Honeymooners” when he was caught, usually by his wife, beyond salvation in a lie, a scheme, or one of his inevitably disastrous deceptions.
Ethics Alarms 
To me, Dr Verma’s crime is to not stand behind her convictions. I don’t think it’s hard not inaccurate to say “it’s rare, but there are biological women who identify as men, and rarer still, some of these men become pregnant”.
Good point. I’ve also noticed that referring to “identifying as men” doesn’t quite get the point across. It can attract mockery from people who don’t understand the significance.
I might explain it as, “Manhood has a biological aspect, but it also has social and psychological aspects. There are people who are psychologically men and who socialize as men, and we refer to those people as men even if they might not be men in the biological aspect. Is your question about biology, or about the different aspects of manhood?”
What do you think?
I think both this and your other comment to this post are nonsensical. The question was about pregnancy, and pregnancy/giving birth/breastfeeding/motherhood are as feminine as anything else in the universe.
Literally nothing has ever happened to me in my lifetime that is more associated with being a woman than pregnancy/giving birth/breastfeeding/motherhood.
I can’t fathom the cognitive dissonance that would go along with a trans-identified female being pregnant and becoming a mom who calls herself “Dad.” Because, in every respect (biological, social, and psychological) pregnancy = woman.
I agree: there’s nothing more feminine to me than childbirth/breastfeeding etc, but the answer to the original, blunt question of “can men get pregnant?” is (to EC and I, at least) yes; we’re articulating why.
It is, as discussed, vanishing rare, and I at least am not in favour of modifying existing healthcare delivery systems/vocabulary to accommodate this exceedingly rare outcome, but it is a possibility.
No, it is not. Biological men cannot get pregnant. Ever.
jvb
Right…which is why I never said such a thing. Glad we agree on that point.
200% in agreement. I think that’s the right way to disarm people who are looking to score a “gotcha” comment out of you (and, as a side effect, promote real conversations)!
It’s definitely not a “gotcha” question.As Paul Newman tells Sally Field about the various miscreants assembled by Wilfred Brimley in “Absence of Malice,” “You got yourselves.” The Left has trapped itself into dying on that stupid hill among others. It’s painful to admit it? Gee. Tough.
She could have simply said “Of course men can get pregnant, you indoctrinated fascist! Everyone knows that!”
People have just got to be more verbally quick.
Lefty’s mortal fear of being though to be racist (fact-based Reality be damned) is on a par with being whacked by the Trans Mafia.
While courting the Pro-Abortion crowd, Guvvy Gavvy dipped his toe into the “I’ll Try to Be Cute” pool, where it promptly gets highfreakin’lariously vaporized; to wit:
If Men Could GET PREGNANTÂ This Wouldn’t Even Be A Conversation
MONEY TWEET:Â “But we have an emoji!”
PWS
Dr. Verma might have handled that question a bit better, but she was under pressure, and she is correct. As phrased, it’s a gotcha question disguised as an objective question. As she said, the question can only be answered if we know why it’s asked. Until we know what decisions hinge on the question, it’s just semantics. The people who think semantics are objective are those who want the world to fit into neat categories because they think it was designed that way.
But categories are things we impose on the world for our own convenience. The territory has no obligation to conform to our maps. “Men” has multiple meanings (up to and including “humankind”). If you define “man” as a human organism that has certain physical features and lacks others, in particular a uterus, then no, men cannot get pregnant. If you define “man” according to the social roles that humans have been pressured to conform to so that human societies could more easily survive, kill each other, and profit their leaders, then I suppose the answer is “traditionally, no”. Different people have different approaches to manhood, though.
Speaking with the luxury of not sitting in a congressional hearing, I would have recommended that Dr. Verma suggest a definition that she believes the questioner cares about, and then use that to answer the question. For example, “If by ‘men’ you mean humans who have male reproductive organs and lack female ones, then no, men cannot get pregnant.” (Since that much is obvious, the real point of the question must be to see whether the doctor shares the same assumed definition of the word “men” as the questioner. It’s a shibboleth, entirely political rather than scientific.)
She could also say “generally speaking, no” but I get the feeling the questioner wouldn’t appreciate that. However, the same principle applies as with the question “Can birds fly?” The answer: “Generally speaking, yes. There are exceptions.” It’s not a biological reality that all birds can fly. If the world were designed according to neat categories called “biological realities” then we wouldn’t expect ostriches to exist, would we? What would be the point of them? Same thing with “Do mammals lay eggs?” If “mammal” were hard-coded into the structure of the universe, we wouldn’t have platypuses or echidnas.
Separate question: Does the Constitution actually protect women specifically, as the questioner claims? The 19th Amendment doesn’t refer to women. Is there another part of the Constitution that does?
Baloney, to be blunt. A simple question like that is valid and answerable, and the answer should be the same regardless of the motive behind the question. The motive doesn’t change the facts. Generally speaking, no would be 100% better than “Huminahumina.” It would draw the follow up, “When would the answer be “Yes” and that’s completely fair and reasonable.
Rancid baloney for sure.
However, the answerability of this question is similar to the conflict between originalists vs living constitutionalist usage of vocabulary. We see the SC originalists citing case law and other opinions in detail ad nauseum, yet the others cite feelings and outcomes because the words of the law and the constitution mean what they want at the time of review for outcome purposes.
It seems to be the same thing here with “What is a woman?” and “Can a man get pregnant?”. If it’s baloney that they can’t answer the question, it’s a world view problem. It’s a belief problem. Believing in nothing is going to end up worse for us in the long run than believing in something that is incorrect which has a high burden or cost of correction.
I’m not as willing to give Dr Verma so much grace; she knew she was about to face grilling and I’m certain she’s faced similar questions for much of her career; I cannot fathom being so unprepared. It seems to me rather that she chose to give these non-answers as some misguided act of rebellion against the questioner.
EC,
What “social role” is there for men (or women for that matter) that is anything other than a stereotype? I truly can think of nothing that is a “social” man/woman rather than a biological one.
I always get frustrated with this because I have never been a stereotypical woman, but I am very much a woman and no one who knows me would think differently. I know that there is a distinct difference between a woman and a man. Most of the things the vocal transwomen seem to desire are stereotypes I have fought my whole life to overcome. In addition, depending on the culture you come from and the time period described, all stereotypes are malleable.
“It’s a shibboleth, entirely political rather than scientific”
I disagree. Perhaps the doctor would admit that people with male gonads can’t have babies, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she wouldn’t admit that. The whole point that Hawley was trying to get at is that she has let politics (and maybe empathy) get in the way of science. From a scientific point of view, which she was presumably speaking, men cannot get pregnant. Perhaps, to your point, she was trying to figure out what point of view he was speaking from. However, she wouldn’t even say, on the record, that men cannot have babies, though, because she would have to admit that trans men aren’t really men, scientifically speaking. She’s uttering the shibboleths, and he’s making that abundantly clear, which is his goal.
“As phrased, it’s a gotcha question disguised as an objective question. As she said, the question can only be answered if we know why it’s asked. Until we know what decisions hinge on the question, it’s just semantics. The people who think semantics are objective are those who want the world to fit into neat categories because they think it was designed that way.
“But categories are things we impose on the world for our own convenience. The territory has no obligation to conform to our maps.“
You have brought out a very good example of ‘nominalism’ perspective. Man imposes categories and names on things. The area where this philosophy becomes problematic is mostly in those categories understood as metaphysical. So nominalism tends to undermine metaphysics. It is also the beginning of ‘postmodern’ perspectives where man assigns all meanings and values and in the end there are no solid definitions, only what a person wants, and this depends on emotions.
You are right that the senator was trying to trap her: like the wrestler or the debater who want to get the opponent in a ‘pin’. She knew this — as do all those who take here side — so she refuses to answer and gets ‘slippery’.
But in the larger cultural frame, a major factor in conflicts (the Culture Wars), there is a root the battle over metaphysical definitions. Genuine ‘intellectual’ categories, for those given to metaphysics, are understood really and truly to exist. That is, they are not invented or crafted. They exist as part-and-parcel of the cosmos.
It is hugely significant that this person cannot answer the basic question even if it has, as everything does, a political connotation. If she cannot recognize a category as real as that of a female that gestates and gives birth, then just imagine how many other categories would be impossible for her to define as ‘having objective existence’.
“If the world were designed according to neat categories called “biological realities” then we wouldn’t expect ostriches to exist, would we?”
The distinction between male and female in biology does follow neat categories in species that are sex-differentiated. Females are the sex with the bigger gametes (such as egg cells). Males are the sex with the smaller gametes (such as sperm cells). These definitions are valid across species.
A hermaphrodite is an organism with both male and female gametes. This is common in plants, in invertebrates, and in fish. E.g. a wrasse (coral reef fish) is a protogynous hermaphrodite, meaning that they start out as a female but later in life naturally transition into a male. So the bigger ones are males better able to dominate a territory and control the smaller females.
It may occur in humans; this is called intersex, and it is regarded a disorder in sexual development, as this is not typical and may affect quality of life and happiness negatively.
Finding the correct definition in biology is not a trivial exercise, as one of EC examples illustrates. You cannot define the class of avians (birds) by noticing that birds fly; as that definition simply will not fly. But all birds share certain characteristics that together identify an bird, such as a) evolved from earlier theropods making it a dinosaur or a reptile in the cladistic sense of the term b) descendants of avialans (which includes the extinct species archeopteryx) c) have feathers d) lay hard-shelled eggs e) have toothless beaked jaws f) high metabolic rate g) four-chambered heart h) lightweight but strong skeleton. You may want o try to find a definition for reptile; this is even less trivial.
A key feature of a definition is that is not flexible. A good definitions demarcates a phenomenon, and does not allow for ambiguity.
The dichotomy man/women, or male/female are very well defined in biology. That is what Senator Josh Hawley is getting at, and what Dr Verma and Justice Ketanji Jackson Brown refuse to affirm as they prefer flexible definitions that allow people to identify with whatever gender they prefer. This does not make any sense however; identifying myself as a female doesn’t make me a female and identifying myself as Napoleon does not make me Napoleon either.
I find believing in a difference between sex and gender is like believing an unborn child has rights; people just don’t agree.
Who’d have ever thought an exchange like this or a question like this would ever be entered into the Congressional Record.
What looking glass have we been pulled through?