Transphobes Disturbed by Cambridge Dictionary Updating Definition of “Woman”
A writer for the National Review bemoans the addition of a second definition, one that includes trans women, to the entry for the word “woman.”
by Evan Urquhart
We’ve all seen the t-shirts that say “adult human female.” Transphobes who happen to be cisgender women post photos of themselves in these to signal their exclusion of, and animosity towards, trans women being able to describe themselves as women too. Nevermind the fact that it’s unclear if any dictionary has ever used “adult human female” to define the word (and it’s unlikely, because “female” is used an adjective, and not a noun, except in slang). But the specific wording in the dictionary doesn’t really matter to this dispute over the wording in the dictionary; what matters to transphobes is that trans women weren’t explicitly included by some definitions, in some dictionaries. Now trans women are being included by one of the dictionaries whose definition was among the closest to the motto on the shirt. A writer for the National Review has noticed this, and seems displeased.
The focus on how the dictionary defined “woman” has always had a whiny, childish quality to it. It rested on a stubborn refusal to acknowledge what dictionaries actually are or how they work. Conservatives treat dictionaries as if they contain unchanging truths about the real world, rather than being words written by people to help other people understand how language works and what words mean. They’re not unchanging repositories of permanent definitions, just books written by groups of ordinary human beings with a specific purpose. As languages change, as new words are coined, and as old words come to be used in different ways, all dictionaries must be updated to reflect how language is being used. If that’s not done the dictionary becomes divorced from the language, useless except as a historical artifact. This is, well, a fact. It doesn’t care about conservative feelings, it’s just how dictionaries and languages work.
Trans women have been included in the category “woman” by a great many English speakers for many decades. In fact, this broader usage has been widespread for long enough that perhaps the real scandal here is how long it took certain dictionaries to reflect the way the word is being used. This is not something the conservative writer for the National Review is able to easily accept, however. Instead she posits a conspiracy theory. “Transgender activists” have somehow forced the Camrbidge Dictionary, and other dictionaries, to accomodate them.
Who are these transgender activists? What did their efforts to pressure the good folks responsible for the Cambridge Dictionary consist of? Did they spend any money on these efforts? Were there public protests or social media campaigns to force this dictionary to update the definition of woman? A real news story would report such facts, but here the idea that people referred to as transgender activists are responsible is simply stated, and then nothing is written to back it up. This is common in right wing news, but we should not let its ubiquity blind us to the fact that a real journalist would never include a biased, baseless insinuation in this way. It’s only allowed here because they don’t do real journalism at the National Review.