Academics who do not know what a woman is should not be the taxpayer-funded gatekeepers of women’s history. But ever since Congress authorized the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum in 2020, the Smithsonian Institution has made it clear that gender ideology matters more than biological truth in its version of women’s history.

Congress’s next move on the project is to grant the Smithsonian federal land on the National Mall for the museum. In a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing last month on the subject, Congressman Tom Tiffany (R-WI) pressed a Smithsonian Institution representative with a simple question: “How can we be sure that the women celebrated in the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum are not men?”

The Smithsonian staffer dodged the question, and subcommittee members ripped the congressman for what they deemed a baseless inquiry. But the question hit the nail on the head: the Smithsonian pretends that men can be women.

While the brick-and-mortar Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum has yet to earn a permanent building, the Smithsonian’s mobile exhibits prove Rep. Tiffany correct. In its 2023 exhibit “Girlhood: It’s Complicated”, the Smithsonian exhibited Jazz Jennings, a trans-identifying male reality TV star.

Jazz was socially transitioned by his parents at age two, pumped with puberty blockers at eleven, and surgically mutilated at eighteen.

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 28: Jazz Jennings attends the 30th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at Beverly Hills Hotel on March 28, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California.

David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Here’s what the Smithsonian has to say about Jazz:

For many, the rigid rules about what it means to be a girl are too small and too simple. Jazz Jennings is one of those girls. She shares her girlhood with millions of Americans on television and reminds us that girls can be assigned male at birth and that girlhood comes in many forms. Jazz always knew she “was a girl trapped inside a boy’s body.” As a toddler, she felt a roar of emotions at not being able to communicate what she was experiencing. But Jazz was lucky because her family listened, learned, and supported her.

First, Jazz is not a girl. He was deceived at just two years of age. Second, girls cannot be “assigned male at birth.” Girls are young human females; sex is immutable, not “assigned.” Finally, no toddler is “a girl trapped inside a boy’s body.”

If the Smithsonian flunks a single-room exhibit, how can they be trusted with an entire building? The Smithsonian’s feature of Jazz in its “Girlhood” exhibit is flagrantly disqualifying.

The institution’s problem boils down to its own academics and advisors. On the website’s featured “Biographies: Every Woman Has a Story” page, Smithsonian-associated scholars hail men and historical “women.” First in the list is Roderick “Lavergne” Cox, a trans-identifying male actor described by the Smithsonian as “assigned male at birth,” and “the first openly transgender person nominated for an Emmy.” The Smithsonian made a distinct choice to acknowledge “Lavergne” as simultaneously male and “woman.”

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The Smithsonian also features seven other males: United States Congressman Timothy “Sarah” McBride and Biden-era Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Richard “Rachel” Levine, “the highest-ranking openly transgender government official in U.S. history,” Cecilia Chung (a California based advocate for sex-rejecting procedures), Marsha P. Johnson, Andrea Jenkins, Sylvia Rivera, and Janet Mock. It is unacceptable that eight men are hailed as historical women on a taxpayer-funded “.gov” website.

Visitors outside the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. The White House is raising the pressure on the Smithsonian Institution to turn over extensive internal records as part of a broader effort to assert control over how US history is presented - and threatening to withhold congressionally authorized funding if it doesn't comply by Jan. 13. Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images

If the Smithsonian Institution — with its hordes of PhD-clad ideologues — cannot acknowledge that a woman is an adult human female, it should not be trusted to narrate women’s history, especially with the taxpayer’s dime on federal soil.

The Smithsonian’s demonstrated radicalism must be top of mind as Congress works to authorize the construction of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum. On March 18, the House Committee on Administration held a markup to advance the authorization, this time, however, with an amendment offered by Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) to prohibit the new museum from portraying men as women. The bill passed in committee, but Democrats uniformly voted “No.”

How ironic. Democrats care more about transgender ideology than a long-awaited women’s museum.

The Smithsonian Institution cannot be trusted with women’s history. If the Women’s History Museum goes up, Congress must do its due diligence to ensure that it operates under a strict, brazenly explicit federal authorization requiring that no male be presented as a “woman” in its exhibits — no exceptions. Better to have no museum at all than one that presents males as “women.”

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Hannah Lape is Legislative Strategist for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization. On X: @CWforA

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