A demand to define ‘woman’ injects gender politics into Jackson’s confirmation hearings.

Republicans have spent hours this week making an attempt to painting Choose Ketanji Brown Jackson as an extremist on problems with race and an apologist for youngster sexual abusers. Late Tuesday, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, added one other social concern to the listing of cultural grievances the G.O.P. is foisting upon her in her affirmation hearings: gender — particularly, what makes a lady a lady.

Transgender rights are dominating outrage on the fitting, after the Republican governors of Indiana and Utah vetoed bans on the participation of organic males in ladies’s sports activities in current days and a transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, received a collegiate swimming championship.

Ms. Blackburn introduced that swimmer up late Tuesday as Choose Jackson’s first day of questioning was coming to a detailed, then requested, “Are you able to present a definition for the phrase ‘girl’?”

As she and different judicial nominees earlier than her have completed commonly, Choose Jackson dodged the query as outdoors of her function on the bench, saying, “I’m not a biologist.”

However Ms. Blackburn pressed the purpose — and the hot-button concern.

“The truth that you possibly can’t give me a straight reply about one thing as basic as what a lady is underscores the hazards of the sort of progressive training that we’re listening to about,” she stated. “Simply final week, a whole era of younger ladies watched as our taxpayer-funded establishments permitted a organic man to compete and be a organic girl within the N.C.A.A. swimming championships. What message do you suppose this sends to ladies who aspire to compete and win in sports activities on the highest ranges?”

Social points which can be animating Republican voters, notably problems with race, are additionally dominating Republican questioning of Choose Jackson, the primary Black girl to be put ahead for the Supreme Courtroom. Ms. Blackburn’s insertion of gender into the hearings was not related to any explicit case coming earlier than the Supreme Courtroom, or determined by the excessive courtroom in recent times, as is custom at such hearings. A dialogue of stare decisis this was not.

However it was related to the politics of the looming midterm elections. At 11 p.m. Tuesday night time, the senator’s workplace blasted out an e-mail with the headline, “BREAKING: Choose Jackson Can’t Outline The Phrase ‘Lady.’”

As they did all day on Tuesday, operatives on the Republican Nationwide Committee grabbed on to the most recent line of social assault on Wednesday morning to amplify Ms. Blackburn’s message.