The Redefinition of ‘Woman’ Is Beyond Even Orwell’s Imagination

Commentary

George Orwell could not make this up. In his book “1984,” he famously coined the term “doublethink,” whereby political leaders change the meaning of language to achieve political objectives. In his work of fiction, this included “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.”

Today, in real life, we have doublethink at a level more bizarre than even Orwell conceived. We have “Man is Woman” and “Woman is Man.” That is according to the latest edition of the Cambridge Dictionary, which recently changed the definition of woman and man.

The old definition of woman was straight forward: “an adult female human being.” The new definition expands the definition to also include, “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.” (It modifies the definition of a man similarly.)

Leroy Thomas, the communications director at the National Center for Transgender Equality, said the new definition affirms that “transgender women are women.”

“Language shapes our understanding of the world,” Thomas told the Washington Post.

This is true, and precisely why the definition is so important. As Orwell wrote, “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” If transgender women are women, then what is a transwoman?

In a deep dive into the transgender movement on my Hidden Truth Show podcast, I interviewed transgender activist Sabrina Robinson, a transwoman. Unlike many activists, she was straightforward in stating, “A man cannot become a woman. He can become a transwoman, but not a woman.”

This is perfectly logical and something most people are willing to accept. What most people are not willing to accept is the idea that a biological male can become female, whether by simply “identifying” as female, or by taking drugs to change the composition of his hormones, or by going all the way and removing his genitals and creating the appearance of female genitalia through plastic surgery.

Stating that a man can become not just a transwoman, but an actual woman, creates unnecessary confusion on numerous levels. If true, it means that a man can become pregnant, which then leads to the term “birthing person” to describe pregnant women. It also means men who identify as women can compete in “women’s” sports.

It also raises the obvious question of what else people are free to identify as. Can they “identify” as the race of their choice? Or the age of their choice? Or the height of their choice?

The Cambridge Dictionary definition refers to a person who “may have been said to have a different sex at birth,” as if the designation could simply have been a clerical error. It also provides how the newly defined word can be used in a sentence: “Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth.” So, sex is not determined based upon X and Y chromosomes, but rather is something simply “assigned” by someone at birth.

The definition also adopts the convention of using the term “they” to refer to a single person in order to demonstrate gender neutrality. In so doing, the dictionary effectively has also changed the definition of “they.”

The movement to create more acceptance of the transgender community is damaged by nonsense like this. Most people want to be loving and accepting of others. Most believe that people should be free to live their lives however they wish. But a sincere movement to create understanding has been highjacked by leftists with a political agenda. This has sent the movement beyond acceptance into propaganda, promotion, and the denial of science.

No one is born transgender. Identical twin studies have shown that when one twin is transgender, the majority of the time the other is not, i.e., same DNA, different gender identity. Decades of science identified transgender as caused by gender dysphoria, a mental disorder.

This new movement is causing parents to believe that hormone blockers and surgery for their children is the loving choice. If science and common sense is allowed to prevail, children will receive the treatment they need for gender dysphoria (or no treatment, since it usually resolves itself without it). But thanks to the new radical movement, such treatment is illegal in many states, including California and New York. Treatment to reduce a child’s gender dysphoria is banned. Only treatment which embraces the dysphoria is allowed. These states call this “gender-affirming” care. By “gender-affirming” they really mean “gender-changing,” again demonstrating their mastery of “doublethink.”

We know the objectives of this movement. Black Lives Matter, led by trained Marxists, stated clearly on their website they opposed patriarchy and seek to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children.” Creating a world where men can be women advances those objectives.

It is no coincidence that Orwell wrote about doublethink as part of a cautionary tale about the consequences of Marxist totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and censorship. It is clearly time to take heed of his warnings.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.