thefederalist.com
2026-03-07
The phrase "sex assigned at birth" was dreamed up to suggest that biological sex (male or female, determined at fertilization and encoded in chromosones) is not an objective reality but a label slapped on a baby by a doctor in a delivery room. As if maleness and femaleness were within the purview and authority of adults to decide. As if the biology was negotiable.
Most people now recognize this for what it is: a denial of biological reality. The fact of male and female can be suppressed for a while -- dress it up, pump hormones into a body, issue new documents. But like pushing a beach ball under water, the truth surges back to the surface. Doctors cannot assign sex. We can only recognize it.
Now another denial of biological reality is surfacing, one that has quietly reshaped American family law for decades, and one most people don't even know exists: surrogate parenting.
Erasing the Word "Woman" by Karleen Gribble
What are they really protecting? by Sandra Pertot