Education Secretary Miguel Cardona refused to define what a woman is during a committee meeting this week.
“I’m here to talk about the budget and if you’d have a question about the budget, I’d be happy to respond,” he said, in part.
The remarks came as the Biden appointee faced questions during a U.S. House Appropriations Committee hearing from Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09), who said, “…our nation’s top executive branch officials cannot clearly define what a woman is. So, Mr. Secretary, I’m sure you remember that in our last hearing last year, I gave you an opportunity to answer the question and I’ll give you a second chance. Can you define what a woman is?”
Cardona replied, “I’ll respond, Congressman Clyde, the way I did last year. I’m here to talk about the budget and how to support the students in your district.”
Clyde continued, “Well, I think it’s very important that you determine that you know how to define a woman…if you can’t define what a woman is, how in the world can you determine that they get their fair share of funding? If you cannot understand and clearly define what a woman is, how can you make rules that protect women’s rights? You can’t. So, I would ask you to please respect this committee and the U.S. Congress by answering my question.”
“I respect your role,” said Cardona. “I respect this committee, and I said I’m here to talk about the budget and if you’d have a question about the budget, I’d be happy to respond.”
Clyde said, “I’m asking you a question, and you’re refusing to answer.”
After Cardona continued to avoid providing a direct response, Clyde said, “Your answer is cagey, evasive, and reveals to me that you have an inability to serve and protect the interests of young women, especially women athletes in this country.”
Additionally, Clyde raised concerns about how biological males competing in women’s sports jeopardize female athletes’ rights and safety.
“Yet despite the grave need for protections to cover female athletes,” he told Cardona, “the Department of Education is moving to eradicate these protections by redefining gender in clear contradiction of biology.”
Clyde also called out Cardona in a Twitter (X) post on Wednesday, “Joe Biden’s Education Secretary still can’t define what a woman is.”
The Left’s gender ideology and attempt to redefine gender reaches beyond education. The Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), states that an individual’s “gender identity (e.g., woman, man, trans man, gender-diverse, nonbinary) is self-identified, may change throughout their life, and may or may not correspond to a society’s cultural expectations based on their biological sex traits. For example, a person with typical female (sex term) sex traits may or may not be a woman (gender identity).”
The World Health Organization also defines gender as a social construct. “Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed,” and “[a]s a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time.”
Clyde has often been an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s promotion of gender ideology. Previously, on Twitter (X), he expressed his determination to support female athletes.
“I will always fight to protect girls’ and women’s sports from the Left’s radical transgender agenda,” the representative said.
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Debra McClure is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and The Star News Network. Follow Debra on X / Twitter.
