On How to Achieve Reference to Covert Social Constructions E. Díaz-León Department of Philosophy, University of Barcelona What does it mean to say that some features, such as gender, race and sexual orien- tation, are socially constructed? Many scholars claim that social constructionism about a kind is a version of realism about that kind, according to which the corre- sponding kind is a social construction, that it, it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructionism, then, is a version of realism about a kind that as- serts that the kind is real, and puts forward a particular view about the nature of the kind, namely, that it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social construc- tivists about human kinds such as gender, race and sexual orientation oſten make an additional claim, namely, that these kinds are social constructions but they are typically believed to be biological kinds (that is, people are typically wrong about the nature of these kinds). Ron Mallon (2017) calls social constructions that are (falsely) taken to be biological kinds covert social constructions. is paper is about how we could have terms in our natural language that come to refer to covert social constructions. Keywords: social construction, theories of reference, externalism, race, gender What does it mean to say that some features, such as gender, race and sexual orientation, are socially constructed? Many scholars claim that social con- structionism about a kind is a version of realism about that kind, according to which the corresponding property is a social construction, that it, it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructionism, then, is a version of realism about a kind that asserts that the kind is real, and puts forward a particular view about the nature of the property, namely, that it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructivists about human kinds such as gender, race and sexual orientation oſten make an additional claim, namely, that these kinds are so- cial constructions but they are typically believed to be biological kinds (that Corresponding author’s address: E. Díaz-León, Department of Philosophy, University of Barcelona, C/ Montalegre, 6, Barcelona 08001, Spain. Email: ediazleon@ub.edu. © All Copyright Author Studia Philosophica Estonica (2019) 12, 34–43 Published online: December 2019 Online ISSN: 1736–5899 www.spe.ut.ee http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/spe.2019.12.1.03