Lord Muck oGentry
Graduate Poster
When you read a law that was written in, say, 2000 and it uses the term "women" what group of people does it refer to? At the time, it meant "adult human females." A law written today may mean "cis women or trans women," but that is a different group of people from what was referred to in the law.
If you say that previous laws that contain the word women are now to be interpreted by the new definition, you aren't updating language, you are changing the law without passing legislation to do so.
Indeed. This is ancient as well as modern.
https://audiolatinproverbs.blogspot.com/2007/05/caesar-non-supra-grammaticos.html
The legislature may stipulate how a word is to be understood for certain purposes, but it can do so only by spelling out the intended meaning in natural language. The meaning of a word in ordinary use is a matter of fact; and, like any other matter of fact, wholly beyond the power of Canutists.