During Donald Trump’s first term, CNN made a big deal about how an apple is an apple, and even if you call it a banana, it is still an apple. However, on Thursday, the cast of CNN News Central echoed the Washington Post and claimed there are more than two sexes, with health reporter Jacqueline Howard going so far as to say an HHS order affirming the sexual binary could lead to “discrimination.”
Co-host Brianna Keilar came out of a commercial warning, “In one of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s first moves as Secretary of Health and Human Services, the agency has released new guidance that gives a narrower definition of sex than the ones used by most scientists.”
If you want people to believe that RFK Jr. is a threat to Americans’ health, playing with the definition of sex is the worst way to go about that. Nevertheless, fellow co-host Boris Sanchez then introduced Howard, “And this language aligns with an executive order that President Trump signed last month and includes new definitions for words like sex, female, woman, male, man, and more. CNN’s Jacqueline Howard joins us now. Jacqueline, walk us through this new guidance.”
Howard began by recapping, “Yeah. What I can tell you, this new guidance defines sex as, quote, ‘a person's immutable biological classification as either male or female.’ So, this means this definition cannot change, and a woman is defined as an adult human female and a man as an adult human male. So, that's what the guidance states. That was just recently released.”
Rather than being “facts first,” Howard then moved onto the “critics say” genre of journalism, “Now in response, Boris and Brianna, we are hearing from some critics who say the new definitions fail to account for people like those who are intersex. Up to two percent of the U.S. population is born intersex, meaning that their reproductive anatomy does not really fit the male-female binary, and then there's other criticism saying that this perpetuates discrimination against the trans community, and this could lead to discriminatory policies and practices. So we are seeing these responses in the wake of this new guidance being issued.”
The first part about intersex people and reproductive anatomy is not quite accurate. Intersex people do not have a third kind of sex organ that violates the male-female dichotomy; rather, their genitals would not match their chromosomes.
As Howard was lamenting the supposed effects “against the trans community,” CNN’s chyron put up the banana, “Furthers White House efforts to deny existence of transgender people,” but what do transgender people have to do with anything? Advocates are constantly telling us sex and gender are different things, so if that is true, what is the problem with defining sex as HHS does?
Here is a transcript for the February 20 show:
CNN News Central
2/20/2025
2:53 PM ET
BRIANNA KEILAR: In one of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s first moves as Secretary of Health and Human Services, the agency has released new guidance that gives a narrower definition of sex than the ones used by most scientists.
BORIS SANCHEZ: And this language aligns with an executive order that President Trump signed last month and includes new definitions for words like sex, female, woman, male, man, and more. CNN’s Jacqueline Howard joins us now. Jacqueline, walk us through this new guidance.
JACQUELINE HOWARD: Yeah. What I can tell you, this new guidance defines sex as, quote, “a person's immutable biological classification as either male or female.”
So, this means this definition cannot change and a woman is defined as an adult human female and a man as an adult human male. So, that's what the guidance states. That was just recently released.
Now in response, Boris and Brianna, we are hearing from some critics who say the new definitions fail to account for people like those who are intersex. Up to two percent of the U.S. population is born intersex, meaning that their reproductive anatomy does not really fit the male-female binary and then there's other criticism saying that this perpetuates discrimination against the trans community, and this could lead to discriminatory policies and practices. So we are seeing these responses in the wake of this new guidance being issued.
