PROF. JENKINS: On 'gender,' we must stop using the Left’s language

Rob Jenkins is a Higher Education Fellow with Campus Reform and a tenured associate professor of English at Georgia State University - Perimeter College. In a career spanning more than three decades at five different institutions, he has served as a head men’s basketball coach, an athletic director, a department chair, and an academic dean, as well as a faculty member. Jenkins’ opinions are his own and do not represent those of his employer. 

There’s an old saying that those who define the terms usually win the argument. That dynamic has been playing out on the political stage now for at least half a century, as the Left constantly attempts to control the language.  

We see this on college campuses all the time. Back in January, Campus Reform reported that Stanford University had labeled an entire slate of innocuous words “racist” or “biased”—words like “white paper,” “she,” and “American.” 

 More recently, Michigan State University released a new “language guide” with its own list of “harmful” words and phrases, including “tipping point,” “cake walk,” and “bonkers.” I’m guessing that last one was added to prevent people from accurately describing the guide’s editors.  

Even more insidious than what we’re not allowed to say, however, is what we are required to say—the words that, according to leftists, we MUST use or else face their wrath. And nowhere is this terminological tyranny more evident than in the debate over “transgenderism.”  

 The Left’s corruption of common, simple words like “man” and “woman” is well-documented, as are their strident demands that everyone use their “preferred pronouns.” But even the term “transgender” itself, viewed rationally, is absolute gibberish.  

“Trans” is short for “transition,” which according to Merriam-Webster refers to “a change or shift from one state…to another.” And “gender” is simply another word for “sex.” Since changing one’s sex is biologically impossible, “transgender” is thus incoherent. 

Of course, leftists will insist that sex and gender are not the same—right up to the moment they start screaming “transwomen ARE women,” meaning that, um, sex and gender are the same. 

 The truth is, there’s no such thing as a “trans” person. And no, I’m not denying the existence of people with gender dysphoria. I’m just pointing out the fact that they haven’t actually changed their sex. 

 Another term invented by “transgender” activists is “sex assigned at birth.” I picture some pink-haired, bestudded nurse wandering around the neonatal unit, pointing at each newborn and randomly calling out, “Boy, girl, boy, girl, girl….” 

 What nonsense. Sex is an immutable characteristic, observable at birth in almost all cases. My three-year-old granddaughter can look at a baby and tell if it’s a boy or a girl, but somehow the geniuses at the American Pediatrics Association haven’t figured it out.  

Unfortunately, conservatives fall into the trap of using the Left’s terminology—and thereby granting the Left’s premise—whenever we place the word “biological” in front of “male” to describe someone who styles himself a “trans-woman.”  

 As if there were any other kind. All males are by definition “biological males,” since the question of whether a person is male or female is entirely a matter of biology.  

 If conservatives hope to gain ground in this argument—much less win—we must stop capitulating to the Left’s linguistic bullying. Everyone is a simply male or female, man or woman, boy or girl, regardless of how they “identify.”  

We also need to stop using “transgender,” except inside quotation marks to indicate it’s their absurdity, not ours. It might take longer to say “a man suffering from the delusion that he’s a woman” (hat tip: Daily Wirehost Andrew Klavan), but it’s more honest and accurate. 

Such honesty and accuracy are exactly what is required right now. Otherwise, every time we open our mouths, we’re just making the Left’s arguments for them.