One of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees who ordered the federal government to send a biological male to a women’s prison told Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham that she is “unqualified” to define what a woman is.
United States Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, who was nominated for a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by President Joe Biden, responded to written questions from Graham, who announced her response in a Tuesday release by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. One of the questions asked Netburn about phrasing she used in her August 2022 ruling ordering that a biological male be housed in a women’s prison.
“In your Report & Recommendation, you open your ‘Factual Background’ section by stating: ‘At birth, people are typically assigned a gender.’ … Is it possible to determine a person’s sex by only analyzing their chromosomes?” Graham asked, according to the document with written questions and answers.
“I have never studied biology and therefore I am unqualified to answer this question,” Netburn responded.
The ruling detailed the criminal history of the biological male who sued for the transfer to a women’s prison.
“Petitioner pleaded guilty in two Indiana state cases: to child molestation of a nine-year-old boy (a Class B felony) in the first case, and to rape of a seventeen-year-old girl (a Class B felony) and criminal deviate conduct (a Class B felony) in the second case,” the ruling said. “She was sentenced to two 18-year terms in state prison to run consecutively. She was released on parole after 18 years but violated the terms of her parole (for having internet access in her apartment) and was returned to prison for six years.”
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas questioned Netburn about the ruling during a May 22 confirmation hearing, during which he noted the biological male’s multiple convictions for sex-related offenses, including the molestation of a nine-year-old boy and possession of child pornography.
“So you took a six-foot-two serial rapist, serial child rapist, with male genitalia, and he said ‘You know, I’d like to be in a women’s prison,” Cruz said during the May 22 hearing. “And your answer was, ‘That sounds great to me.’”
“Let me ask you something, the other women in that prison, do they have any rights?” Cruz asked.
Biden’s only nominee to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, similarly claimed to be unable to define what a woman is during her May 2022 confirmation hearings.
“Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman?’” Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee asked Jackson, who said, “Can I provide a definition? No, I can’t.”
“Not in this context, I’m not a biologist,” Jackson responded when a stunned Blackburn asked why she was not able to provide the definition.
