The Cambridge Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary are not the standard…their authority is not final. But there is a book which is the final authority. It’s God’s book, the Bible.

Following the fall of the Cambridge Dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary has slipped from the same cultural precipice only to dashed on the blunt rocks of wokeness below.  The evidence? A secondary definition has been added to define the word female. Now, claims the book that is supposed to normalize our use of language, the word female may mean, “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male.”[1] Of course, the words “gender identity” have a hyper-link.  Click and you will be treated to a definition of the concept. And according to Merriam-Webster Online, this is “a person’s internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female.”[2] Now, since the words “female” and “gender identity” are linked in this cultural standard, let’s use it as a map down this rabbit hole where, like Alice, we will likely be shrunk, stretched, scratched and stuffed into a tea pot before we make it out!

The key words in Merriam-Webster’s Online definition of “gender identity” are “a person’s internal sense.” Let’s take this phrase apart. Internal has several definitions in the Merriam-Webster online edition but not all of them are equally relevant. For example, the first definition is “existing or situated within the limits or surface of something” and an example given for such a thing is that which is inside the limits of the body. However, the second definition is “existing within the mind,” that is, in the thought life of a person. So, the word internal can mean either in the body or in the mind. But since the transgendered person feels that they are in the wrong body the “internal” referenced in the phrase “internal sense” must be “in the mind” or situated in the limits of one’s thinking.

Now, what about “sense”? Well, the Online Dictionary gives several definitions. However, all of them have something to do with either sense perception or a “conscious awareness or rationality.” Again, these definitions have to do with body or mind. Now, those definitions that connect sense with sense perception acknowledge that humans are fitted to the world around them. We see a friend and recognize him as such. We touch a hot stove and pull our hands away. We smell coffee in the morning and know that someone loves us. Senses connect us to the world.

The transgendered person understands this fitted-ness, but thinks it is wrong. Not because the body doesn’t fit the world, it certainly does, but it doesn’t fit their thinking. In other words, a person prior to transition can still recognize friends, smell coffee, and know the oven is hot. Their body fits the world around them. So, apparently the word “sense” in the definition of gender-identity has something to do with “conscious awareness or rationality.” Once again, the problem is in the mind.

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