Marsha Blackburn Asking Ketanji Brown Jackson To Define What A Woman Is May Be The Weirdest Part Of Her Supreme Court Hearing

The Supreme Court hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s first-ever nominee to the bench, has been a wild one. Ted Cruz asked her if babies are racist. Lindsey Graham threw a fit and stormed out. But perhaps the weirdest thing to happen was Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn asking her to give her the definition of “woman” for reasons that didn’t make much sense even after her scheme became clear.

Blackburn — who once went to war with Taylor Swift, and lost — pelted Jackson with a number of big issues, including a lengthy, sketchy detour about abortion in which she grilled her about a paper she was involved with in undergrad. Eventually Blackburn moved the discussion towards another GOP bugaboo: the trans community.

It began with Blackburn questioning her about an obscure quote from the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg about “physical differences” between men and women, with which Blackburn was not familiar. So Blackburn tried another tack.

“Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” Blackburn asked Jackson. Jackson looked suitably baffled, responding only, “I can’t,” adding, “Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.”

Soon it became clear what Blackburn was up to: She, like many in today’s Republican party, are aggressively opposed to transgender rights. Soon Blackburn was asking Jackson about trans women playing sports, to which Jackson could only point out that none of her questions pertain to the legal issues they’re supposed to be discussing.

If you were playing a drinking game in which you downed a shot every time Blackburn used the word “respectfully” in response to a Republican senator’s bizarre questions, congratulations! You’re having your stomach pumped in the ER. If you weren’t, then you had to marvel at how Jackson managed to keep her composure over two days of Republican prodding thus far.

Or as one person on Twitter put it, “After spending an entire day getting harangued by Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Tom Cotton, the fact that she didn’t respond to this with ‘Oh FFS, are you kidding me?’ demonstrates all the judicial temperament you could ever hope for.”

(Via Politico)