Criminology researchers Brightman, Lenning & DeJong identify the term as a common catchphrase in anti-trans discourse, alongside "gender ideology" and "groomer".[2][pageneeded] 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.[3]
British anti-trans[4] activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull is credited with coining the phrase.[5] In 2018, Keen-Minshull purchased billboards in Liverpool which read "woman / wʊmən / noun / adult human female", Keen-Minshull said were in response to the mayor of Liverpool expressing support for trans rights.[6] The ad company which installed the billboards removed them following social media complaints, saying they had been "misled" by the campaign.[6][7] 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".[8]
In 2023 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 protests.[9][10]
On 20 January 2025, the first day of his second term as president, Donald Trump 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".[12][13][14] The Trump transition team had presented the planned executive order as part of a wider agenda of "restoring sanity".[15]
In dictionaries
English dictionaries commonly define woman as "an adult female human" or "an adult female human being".[16][17]
In 2020, Merriam-Webster expanded its definitions of female and girl to add trans-inclusive senses ("having a gender identity that is the opposite of male"; "a person whose gender identity is female"). In 2022, a man from California was arrested for threatening to bomb Merriam-Webster's offices and kill its employees.[18] In September 2022 he pleaded guilty to communication of threatening communications to commit violence, and in April 2023 he was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and three years of supervised release.[19]
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."[20]
↑ Brightman, Sara (2022). "Anti-Transgender Ideology, Laws, and Homicide: An Analysis of the Trifecta of Violence". Homicide Studies. 28 (3): 251–269. doi:10.1177/10887679231201803.
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