The quotation marks in my title are deliberate. They mirror the precise wording of a question posed by Senator Josh Hawley, R-MO, to a medical witness during a recent Senate hearing—a question he repeated a dozen times and never received a direct answer to.
(Watch the Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJFuhgeNbSE).
Whatever one thinks of Senator Hawley, his question was simple, concrete, and easily understood by anyone with a basic grasp of human biology. And yet, it was met not with a “yes” or a “no,” but with a series of deflections, qualifications, and repeated reframing.
That exchange deserves attention—not because it was theatrical, but because it reveals something important about our current public discourse.
The biological facts themselves are not controversial. Pregnancy requires a uterus, ovaries, and the complex female reproductive system capable of ovulation, implantation, and gestation. Biological men—defined by reproductive anatomy, not social role—do not possess these structures. From a medical standpoint, the answer to the question “Can men get pregnant?” is plainly and unequivocally no.
That is not a statement of ideology. It is a statement of fact.
So why the hesitation? Why the reluctance to answer a question whose answer has been settled by centuries of medical knowledge?
To understand the response, we need to distinguish between two very different conversations that are often conflated. One is about biological reality; the other is about identity, language, and social accommodation. In recent years, the latter conversation has come to dominate the former, especially in elite institutions. As a result, even straightforward biological questions are treated as moral or political tests rather than factual inquiries.
The witness did not claim ignorance of biology (after all, she’s a doctor.) Instead, she expressed concern about the “binary” nature of the question, referenced patients with different gender identities, and suggested that answering directly would somehow miss the point. In doing so, she shifted the discussion from medicine to ideology. The problem is not that she acknowledged the existence of transgender-identifying patients. It is that she appeared unwilling—or unable—to affirm a basic biological truth for fear of violating an ideological boundary.
This is the crux of the issue. For many on the modern Left, certain facts have become socially dangerous. Acknowledging them plainly risks professional censure, social backlash, or accusations of insensitivity. Obfuscation becomes a form of self-protection. Precision is sacrificed to avoid offense. Clarity is replaced by ambiguity.
That dynamic should concern people across the political spectrum.
A society that cannot speak clearly about biological reality is a society that has lost confidence in its ability to reason together. When obvious questions cannot be answered honestly in public forums, trust erodes—not only in institutions, but in expertise itself. People begin to wonder whether professionals are telling the truth as they understand it, or merely repeating what they believe they are permitted to say.
It is important to say what this argument is not. It is not an attack on individuals who experience gender dysphoria, nor is it a denial of their dignity or humanity. Compassion and clarity are not opposites. We can treat people with kindness and respect while still speaking truthfully about the limits of biology. In fact, sustainable compassion depends on honesty. Pretending that words can alter physical reality may feel affirming in the short term, but it ultimately undermines serious medical, legal, and ethical decision-making.
Nor is this about scoring partisan points. If a conservative witness refused to answer a basic question because it conflicted with ideological orthodoxy, the same criticism would apply. The issue is not Left versus Right; it is truth versus evasion.
The question “Can men get pregnant?” is not complicated. What is complicated is our current unwillingness to say so out loud. When educated professionals decline to affirm obvious facts, it signals not nuance, but fear—fear of saying the wrong thing, of stepping outside approved language, of being judged morally deficient for stating the obvious. A healthy society should be able to hold two ideas at once: that biological sex is real and immutable, and that individuals deserve decency regardless of how they identify. We do not advance justice by pretending those ideas are incompatible.
Sometimes the elephant in the room is not the question itself, but the silence that surrounds it.
And that, my friends, is the latest elephant in the room.
