A Woman Is Someone Who Identifies as a Woman Is Someone Who . . .

Conceptual Confusion in Transgender Ideology

My friends and I recently watched conservative commentator Matt Walsh’s documentary, What Is a Woman?, which makes it clear that some key ideas involved in transgender ideology are quite confused. According to those who affirm the ideology, a man can be a woman—or alternatively, a trans “woman” is a real woman. In response to this idea, Walsh asks the titular question, “What is a woman?” This is a perfectly legitimate question. After all, when someone makes a claim, let alone one as radical as that a man can be a woman, it’s good to ask the person what exactly he means.

However, in response to the question, some of Walsh’s interviewees said that “a woman is someone who identifies as a woman.” This is a circular definition, since the term to be defined (“woman”) is included in the definition itself (“someone who identifies as a woman”). The problem with circular definitions is that they aren’t very informative, if at all. Rather than pointing us to some other thing or concept which can elucidate the term we’re trying to define, we’re referred back to the term itself. The result is often that we’re no further along in our knowledge of it. Suppose you asked me what “jimmies” are, and I told you that jimmies are jimmies. In this case, you wouldn’t have learned anything about jimmies. If I told you, instead, that jimmies are sprinkles you put on ice cream, then you would have learned something.[1] Or suppose that you asked me what “en passant” is. It wouldn’t be informative if I gave you a self-referential answer, but it would be informative if I told you that it’s a scenario in chess where you’re allowed you to use a pawn to capture your opponent’s pawn that has just moved from the second to fourth rank. Even if you don’t understand much of the description, you can at least grasp that en passant pertains to chess and pawns, which you’re probably already familiar with. In the case of the definition of a woman, as someone who identifies as a woman, because “woman” appears in the definition, the definition is circular, and hence, it fails to sufficiently inform us about what a woman is.

To be fair, this definition of a woman includes the phrase, “identifies as.” This phrase introduces a subjective element to what it means to be a woman. The idea here is that for someone to “identify as” some x (be it a woman, a man, a cat, a pineapple, etc.) is for that person to have an internal sense of being an x. When a transgender “woman” says that he feels as if he were a woman trapped in a man’s body, he is identifying himself as a woman, that is, he claims to have an internal sense of being a woman despite his male anatomy. While the notion of “identifying as” is itself problematic,[2] it nonetheless introduces something new, and hence, the definition of a woman, as someone who identifies as one, is somewhat informative. But despite this, the definition of a woman remains viciously circular. Even if we were to define a woman as someone who identifies as a woman, the next question we should ask is “It’s a person who identifies as what exactly?” Unless the term “woman” in the definition is substituted for something else, the definition remains circular, and hence, it fails to be a proper definition of what a woman is.

Now, compare this definition of a woman with the definition that What Is a Woman? ends with. At the end of his documentary (spoiler alert), Matt Walsh arrives home to his wife after having travelled the globe in search of an answer to his question. His wife then tells him that a woman is an adult human female who needs help opening a jar of pickles. The bit about pickles aside, we can see that this definition is much more helpful in telling us what a woman is. A woman is human, that is, she is part of a particular species (i.e., homo sapiens). A woman is female, that is, being part of a sexually reproductive species, she is of the sex capable of bearing offspring. And a woman is an adult, that is, she is a mature instance of a species that experiences certain developmental stages. Unlike the first definition, this definition avoids circularity, and hence, it is informative.

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[1] Circular definitions do have rhetorical uses, though, even if they are poor at providing informative descriptions. I once asked an American man what a “jimmy” is, and he responded by saying, “What’s a jimmy? A jimmy’s a jimmy’s a jimmy!” Here he wasn’t intending to give me a proper definition of a jimmies, but rather was expressing his surprise at my ignorance of something that’s taken for granted south of the border. With respect to transgender ideology, though, the definitions of the relevant terms are not mere instances of rhetoric or expression, but are fundamental concepts, and as such, are in need of clarity.

[2] Just because you identify as, say, a cat, it doesn’t follow that you are a cat. Insistence that it does follow (and toleration of such claims) might be rooted in a kind of relativism, or it might be a sign of mental confusion or delusion.