How Do We Define Gender?

During the confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson as supreme court judge, Senator Marsha Blackurn of Tennessee asked the nominee, “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” Jackson responded, “No, I’m not a biologist.” Blackburn questioned, “The meaning of the word woman is so unclear and controversial that you can’t give me a definition?” Jackson responded that her job is to settle disputes and that if there was a dispute about a definition there would be arguments and she would look at the law and make a decision, to which Blackburn responded, “The fact that you can’t give me a straight answer about something as fundamental as what a woman is, underscores the dangers of the kind of progressive education that we are hearing about.”[1] It would have been interesting to hear what Blackburn’s definition would be.

As Politico.com remarked, “The Tennessee Republican’s line of questioning hit on nearly every political hot-button issue, from critical race theory to teaching children about gender identity in schools, to Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s team.”[2] To say that the question of gender is being debated today is an understatement. It has become a dominating issue for countless parents and children and, unsurprisingly, for politicians as well.

Definition of Terms

Webster’s Dictionary of 1828[3] defines a woman as “The female of the human race, grown to adult years,” and a female as “that sex which conceives and brings forth young.” Of course there are some women, females, who cannot conceive or bring forth young, yet they are still women, right? Webster’s definition of a man is “A male individual of the human race, of adult growth or years,” and its definition of a male is “Pertaining to the sex that procreates young,” which definition has the same problem as that of a female. There are men who cannot procreate. And maybe this is why the Webster’s New World Dictionary[4] takes a slightly different tack, defining a woman as “The female human being” and the female as “Designating or of the sex that produces ova and bears offspring…Of, characteristic of, or suitable to members of this sex.” But aren’t there women who do not produce ova? And what are those characteristics that are suitable to women? It defines a man as “An adult male human being” and a male as “Designating or of the sex that fertilizes the ovum of the female and begets offspring…Of, characteristic of, or suitable for members of this sex.” This, of course, is generally true, but we all know people we deem to be men who do not or cannot fertilize an ovum, and not all characteristics we associate with men are there in all men.

So would it be better to define a woman or man chromosomally?[5] Human males are formed by the XY chromosome, whereas females are formed by the XX chromosome. This, of course, is something that has only recently in human history become known as we were able to study the molecular level.[6] However, throughout history there have been individuals born who had ambiguous or atypical genitalia (e.g., a poorly formed penis, or enlarged clitoris) making it uncertain by observation whether they were male or female, yet whose chromosomes were XY male or XX female. And there were people born with clearly feminine genitalia (a vagina) who were XY male, and people born with male genitalia (a penis) who were XX female. Do we determine they are male or female by their chromosomes?

How would you define a woman or a man, a male or female? Would you define it by chromosomes (XX for females and XY for males)? By genitalia (vagina and breasts for females, penis for males)? By gonads (ovary for females and testicles for males)? By gametes (ovum or egg for females, sperm for males)? By social and behavioral characteristics?

When we consider not just humans but all of God’s created animals and insects, the only consistent means of determination of male and female in all species is gametes.[7] There are some exceptions. Planarians, a kind of marine worm, are hermaphrodites, that is, they possess both male and female gametes.[8] And there are microorganisms, like bacteria and archea, that are truly asexual and that reproduce without gametes.[9] But for the most part, male and female can be determined by the kind of gametes they have, ova (eggs) or sperm.

However, there are people we would consider male or female who do not produce male or female gametes. Their gonads (testicles or ovary), the source of gamete production, do not function properly. How do we decide if they are women or men, male or female? Do we decide by the fact that they have male or female gonads, whether these gonads work or not? And what if they have both gonads (true hermaphroditism, or Ovotesticular Disorder of Sex Development)?  Or do we decide that at all? Do these exceptional individuals decide for themselves? If they “feel” like a man, are they a man? If they feel like a female, are they a female? And where does that feeling come from. Is it hormonal? Is it the way they were treated as children by their parents and community?

Perhaps we can say that a female is designed to ovulate (produce the egg that can be inseminated) and a male is designed to inseminate. A female is designed to gestate (develop the inseminated ovum in the womb) and a male is designed to generate. Whether the female can ovulate and gestate or not, she is designed to do so, and whether the male can inseminate and generate or not, he is designed to do so. There will still be exceptional individuals whose

• design is not fully differentiated (they are designed to do both, like the true hermaphrodite),
• and individuals whose design is not completed
  • (they are designed to ovulate but can’t, and they look like men, or, they are designed to inseminate but can’t, and they look like women),
  • and individuals whose design is incomplete and their appearance is just ambiguous.

It seems there is a complexity to defining woman and man that Marsha Blackburn was unwilling to acknowledge. What makes a woman a woman and a man a man? Does the Bible define male and female for us?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWtGzJxiONU

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/22/blackburn-jackson-define-the-word-woman-00019543

[3] https://webstersdictionary1828.com/

[4] https://www.yourdictionary.com/

[5] A chromosome is a package of DNA containing part or all of the genetic material of an organism. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome)

[6] “Sex chromosomes were first identified in 1905, but it was only much later that genetics could actually provide detailed descriptions of sex-determining developmental pathways.” The past and future of “sex genes,” Christoph Rehmann-Sutter, Nadine Hornig, Birgit Stammberger, Heiko Stoff, PMCID: PMC10842558  PMID: 38840815 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10842558/)

[7] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-025-03216-0; https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/bill-london-science-sex-gender-evolutionary-biology-sjbn/ ; https://www.sciencenews.org/article/biological-sex-male-female-intersex ; https://open.lib.umn.edu/evosex/chapter/8-4-sex-its-about-the-gametes/

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planarian

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea