Walter E. Williams: We Have an Identity Problem

According to a recent report in The New York Times, Health and Human Services Department officials have been circulating a proposal to define sex. Their memo says, “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.” They add, “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.” I think the latter statement lacks complete rigor. It’s chromosomes, not what’s on a birth certificate, that determine one’s sex. Therefore, if a fetus has XX chromosomes, a female is born, and if a fetus has XY chromosomes, a male is born.

What’s an open-and-shut case in biology can become confused in the political/social arena, particularly when one’s sex is referred to as one’s gender. By the way, before modern times, the term gender was used solely when referring to the grammar of some languages, such as French, in which nouns and pronouns are masculine, feminine or neuter and require words syntactically associated with them. Gender has become completely disassociated with biological reasoning. For example, in the past when a person signed up for a Facebook account, “male” and “female” were the only options. In 2014, Facebook introduced 50 gender options, including intersex, gender nonconforming, non-binary and androgynous.

In addition to the muddying of waters about one’s sex, race has become muddied. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has long claimed that she has Native American heritage. Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania saw her as making a contribution to their law schools’ racial diversity agenda by being on their faculties. Recently, many doubted her heritage and lampooned and harangued the Massachusetts Democrat as “Pocahontas.” (She also has been dubbed Lieawatha.) Warren’s recent effort to settle the issue through DNA analysis blew up in her face. She is only between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American.

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