VICTOR JOECKS: Men cannot get pregnant and saying so isn’t violence

Some leftists now consider what you learned in high school biology to be violence.

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on abortion access. One of the people who testified was Khiara Bridges, a law professor at UC Berkeley. During her testimony she used the phrase “a person with the capacity for pregnancy.” Sen. Josh Hawley then asked, “Would that be women?”

“Many women, cis-women, have the capacity of pregnancy,” she said. “Many cis-women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as nonbinary people who are capable of pregnancy.”

Based on that answer, Hawley sought to find out if she considered abortion a women’s rights issue.

“I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic, and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them,” she replied.

Later, she asked Hawley, “Do you believe that men can get pregnant?”

“No, I don’t think men can get pregnant,” he replied.

“So you’re denying that trans people exist,” she said.

This two-minute exchange is worth examining for many reasons.

Start with the major logical flaw in Bridges’ final assertion. Imagine listening to the following exchange.

Person A: Do you believe in God?

Person B: No, I’m an atheist.

Person A: So you’re denying that religious people exist.

That’s ridiculous. Disagreeing with someone on an issue doesn’t mean you think that person or a group of people who share that belief don’t exist. You just think they’re wrong about something. The First Amendment presupposes that people will disagree with each other.

Bridges’ claim that Hawley’s questions opened transgender individuals up to violence suffers from the same logical flaw.

But proponents of leftist gender ideology generally show little interest in logic or debate. For one, a debate requires defining terms such as “woman.”

During her confirmation hearing, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson refused to define that word. If she acknowledged a biological difference between the sexes, she’d undercut the assertion that a man can become a woman based on how he feels. But without a biological basis for differentiating between the sexes, why do the categories “man” and “woman” even exist?

A decade ago, Jackson’s non-answer would been considered an embarrassing gaffe. Even children can differentiate between men and women. A high school biology class provides — or at least used to — plenty of ways to define the word. There are differences in chromosomes and reproductive organs. A woman’s body is designed to produce larger gametes than a man’s body.

What’s most notable about Bridges’ testimony is how often she avoided questions and tough arguments. She wields her accusation of “transphobia” like a cudgel to silence Hawley for daring to disagree. That phenomenon is no longer contained to college campuses. Making observations such as “men cannot get pregnant” can get you booted from social media or worse.

There’s not a lot of middle ground here. One side recognizes biological realities and welcomes free discussion. The other seeks not to persuade, but silence into submission those who dare to disagree.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on Twitter.