The phrase is described by scholars as a dog whistle for transphobic beliefs, and part of organised transphobic discourse.[1][2][3] Criminology researchers Brightman, Lenning & DeJong identify the term as a common catchphrase in anti-trans discourse, alongside "gender ideology" and "groomer".[7] Sociologists Amery & Mondon say the phrase frames anti-trans movements as guarding scientific "truths" (e.g. that sex is immutable) against an emotional "trans ideology", which they compare to the red pill metaphor used by the alt-right and manosphere.[8] Researchers in natural language processing and computational social science investigating dog whistles and hate speech in computational models found that dog whistle terms such as "adult human female" are often employed to evade automated hate speech detection models.[2] Researchers from the University of East Anglia investigating the distinction of the ordinary and legal framework of hate speech contrasted explicit or overt hate speech in identity denials against terms such as "adult human female" as an example of "implicit, covert, sneaky, implied, sanitized, coded, or dog whistle hate speech."[5]
A handout on identifying common hate speech examples by the New Zealand Police called out an incident of an individual reporting pro-trans chalk writings as "graffiti" in a public space. After police attended to the report and took no further question, the individual then posted about it online and then proceeded to replace the writings with "woman = adult human female", which was flagged by the police as perceived hate.[9]
"Adult female human" is sometimes given as the answer to the rhetorical question "what is a woman?", another popular rhetorical strategy in anti-trans discourse.[6]:22 The answer was also featured in Matt Walsh's documentary film, What Is a Woman?.[10]
History
Adoption by anti-trans movements
British anti-trans[11] activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull is credited with coining the phrase.[12] In 2018, Keen-Minshull purchased billboards in Liverpool which read "woman / wʊmən / noun / adult human female"; Keen-Minshull said they were in response to the mayor of Liverpool's support for trans rights.[13] The poster was removed following complaints that the poster was part of a transphobic "hate group" campaign by Ms Keen-Minshull. The ad company which installed the billboards removed them following social media complaints, saying they had been "misled" by the campaign and was "fully committed to equality for all".[13][14] On 19 September, the Liverpool city council unanimously passed a motion declaring that "trans women are women" and that "there is no place in our city for hatred and bigotry".[15]
In 2023, a screening of the film Adult Human Female, which asserts that women are defined solely by biological sex, was cancelled at Edinburgh University after the film had faced repeated protests.[16][17][18] The screening was rescheduled following initial protests and on the second date, Protesters blocked entrance to the film to "challenge hate speech" and vowed to show up "every single time" that the event was rescheduled. Protesters called the film transphobic and said it "has no academic merit” to be shown on campus.[18]
Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump campaigned heavily on opposing transgender rights, especially trans women in sports and gender pronouns.[19][20] As president he has initiated a broad persecution of transgender people aimed at denying their existence, removing transgender rights and protections, and employing dehumanizing language.[21] On 20 January 2025, the first day of his second term as president, he signed Executive Order 14168, which rolled back federal recognition of transgender people and ended gender self-identification on identity documents such as passports and visas. The order declares that women and girls refer to "adult and juvenile human females, respectively".[22][23][24] The Trump transition team had presented the planned executive order as part of a wider agenda of "restoring sanity".[25]
In dictionaries
Various English dictionaries have defined woman as "an adult female human" or "an adult female human being".[26][27] In 2020, Merriam-Webster expanded its definitions of female and girl with trans-inclusive senses ("having a gender identity that is the opposite of male"; "a person whose gender identity is female"). In October 2022, the Cambridge Dictionary added supplemental definitions of man and woman: "an adult who lives and identifies as [male/female] though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth".[28]
In 2022, a California man was arrested for threatening to bomb Merriam-Webster's offices in response to this definition, and in 2023 was sentenced to a year in prison and three years of supervised release.[29][30]
1 2 3 Mendelsohn, Julia; Bras, Ronan Le; Choi, Yejin; Sap, Maarten (26 May 2023). "From Dogwhistles to Bullhorns: Unveiling Coded Rhetoric with Language Models". Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: 15162–15180. arXiv:2305.17174v1. doi:10.18653/v1/2023.acl-long.845.
1 2 Moyal-Sharrock, Danièle; Sandis, Constantine (2024). Real Gender: A Cis Defence of Trans Realities. John Wiley & Sons. pp.20, 22. ISBN9781509555864.
↑ Brightman, Sara (2022). "Anti-Transgender Ideology, Laws, and Homicide: An Analysis of the Trifecta of Violence". Homicide Studies. 28 (3): 265. doi:10.1177/10887679231201803.
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