Reason reports in "Miss USA Has First Amendment Right To Exclude Transgender Women, Court Says."
The Reason writer, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, opines: "I don't think the court is wrong about what allowing transgender contestants implies, though it is a shame Miss USA doesn't broaden its horizons a bit. Being more inclusive seems like not only the right thing to do but also a way it could shed some of its old-fashioned, intolerant image and help with its lack of resonance with today's audiences."
Me, I don't care about helping beauty pageants gain "resonance" with more people. They are inherently old-fashioned. They're into outward manifestations of femaleness, and that puts them on the same wavelength as transgender women, ironically. But it's all expression, and there's a problem with using someone else's platform of expression to amplify your own expression.
Here's the text of the court opinion.
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38 comments:
Why is it the business of the Federal courts to decide who gets into a beauty pagent?
Apparently plaintiff was a successful veteran of pageants, and her participation had been solicited by a pageant official. But when she said, "By the way...." Plaintiff's counsel suggested at argument that there may be a number of transgender contestants these days who have not revealed themselves.
Beauty pageants are for women to watch, not men. Men will enter farm animals, given the chance, as their own statement.
"They are inherently old-fashioned."
No, beauty pageants may be out of fashion and no longer as popular as they once were, but that's not inherent.
And so what if they're only about "outward manifestations of femaleness"? That's why they're called BEAUTY pageants. They celebrate woman who excel in physical beauty. Do you condemn spelling bees because they only focus on the contestants' spelling ability and not on the full spectrum of their cognitive abilities?
We don't need a competition where women compete based on the ENTIRE range of their abilities and traits as human beings. That competition already exists. It's called "Life on Planet Earth."
Rather tortured logic. Much simpler: because they are not women.
"Being more inclusive seems like not only the right thing to do"
Of course, prog inclusiveness always happens to exclude those who prefer tradition.
"help with its lack of resonance with today's audiences."
Cuz everything progs touch turns to entertainment gold--just ask PC Hollywood movie makers.
Brings to mind an anecdote from my days working at the university library. One of the librarians rushed into the office one day and said, "To There's a man in the women's bathroom! In a dress! And he has better legs than me!
Maybe the Miss USA organizers worried about unfair competition.
IDK. How many contestants come in with more than they were born with? Why not allow others to come in with less? All snark aside, I find most of the women too fake as it is and have no interest in watching the show. I am sure this appeals to some number of male audience, but it would turn most of those off if there were bio males competing.
There are specialty pageants already, they can "get their own pageant" rather than ruining someone else's. But Trans will never be satisfied as being separate be equal.
I don't mind beauty pageants, regardless of how I feel about what they represent or lack of joy in watching them. F1 racing represents a lot of things out of favor with today's progressives and is boring to many people, but I enjoy the sport as others enjoy other sports and activities, such as attending drag shows (and I don't mean the ones with top fuel and funny cars). I do like this ruling. Forcing beauty pageants to accept trans people competing would be like forcing F1 to accept NASCARs and drag shows to accept non-trans performers.
Courts have had a tough time applying generic public accommodation laws broadly prohibiting discrimination in providing services by commercial actors to those who object on various grounds to endorsing gay and transgendered messages. This one involves the application of the Oregon public accommodations law to the Miss USA Pageant, which refuses to allow transgendered women to compete, and the divided Ninth Circuit panel dismissed the case based on the Pageant's First Amendment expressive rights to shape its own message.
Masterpiece Cakeshop from a few terms ago was the first case in the SCOTUS on that issue, and the court decided to duck it by focusing on the obvious hostility to religion expressed by the state administrative agency in ruling against the baker. Meantime, the lower courts are all over the place, trying to weigh First Amendment claims to free expression (which includes a right not to express messages the speaker does not want to endorse) and free association against broad anti-discrimination laws that were upheld against similar arguments by segregationist-minded proprietors early in the Civil Rights era.
As it happens, SCOTUS will hear argument on Dec 5 in 303 Creative v. Elenis, challenging the application of the Colorado public accommodations law to a website designer who declines to create custom-made wedding websites for same-sex weddings. That case involves the same public accommodations law as was at issue in Masterpiece Cakeshop. In 303 Creative, the Tenth Circuit came out the other way from the ruling by the Ninth Circuit in the case against the Miss USA Pageant. As it happens, both cases were decided by divided panels. And there are widely varying rulings on the same issue by lots of other federal circuits and state courts of last resort.
Given the early Civil Rights era precedents desegregating hotels, restaurants, etc. using various public accommodation laws, the First Amendment argument gets very tricky. At bottom, I think that shows why the approach in Bostock (the case about the right of transgendered people to be free from employment discrimination, decided as a matter of statutory interpretation under Title VII) was far better than teh approach in Obergeffel (the case about marriage equality, decided on constitutional grounds). The dissenting opinions in Obergeffel predicted that constitutionalizing these issues would lead to intractable problems, and this is just the first and most obvious to bubble up. Waiting in the wings are cases, applying, e.g., the rationale of Bob Jones University v. IRS, to demands that religious institutions rejecting the new same-sex and transgendered orthodoxy should be denied tax exemptions.
Men in dresses? A male is not a female, of course, but feminine gender can be simulated (e.g. breasts), perhaps stimulated (e.g. orientation), and mocked... sculpted... carved... hacked with trans/social progress.
Can this decision be squared with the SCOTUS decision mandating that the PGA Tour allow a golfer with a medical condition that made walking difficult for him to use a golf cart? Walking not expressive enough in and of itself? Had the PGA Tour argued that requiring pro golfers to walk while playing expressed its view of the ideal golfer, fit and capable for walking 18 holes a day, for 4 days, would the SCOTUS decision have been different? I don't think that's far from what the PGA Tour actually argued, but perhaps the PGA Tour didn't express itself in a way that the SCOTUS majority understood the expression.
Sort of related: The Miss Universe pageant was bought lock stock and barrel by a Thai transgender "Woman" (as he calls himself)
Even more amazing to me was that he only paid $20 million for it. Can that really be all a major, worldwide, beauty pageant is worth? I thought at first that I must be reading it wrong and that it was only for the Thai franchise. Nope. The whole worldwide thing.
I pay no attention to such things but if I'd had to guess, I would have thought it would be worth closer to $100mm or more than $20.
Will Miss Universe have any women contestants going forward? Or will they now all be men pretending to be women?
Story here https://nypost.com/2022/10/28/thai-tycoon-jakapong-jakrajutatip-buys-miss-universe-pageant-for-20m/
John Stop fascism vote republican Henry
"Men will enter farm animals"
The next taboo to fall...
They're into outward manifestations of femaleness
No. The Miss USA organization is into -- as they themselves state in their own qualifications -- NATURAL WOMEN.
Well now that Stephen Reinhardt is off the Ninth Circus bench, their decisions may become more reasonable. At least the Justices don't need a biologist to let them know what a woman is.
There is no such thing as a 'transgender woman'. There are men and there are women, and people pretending to be the other.
Maybe beauty pageants should have short arm inspections, like in Basic Training.
The approach in Bostock (the case about the right of transgendered people to be free from employment discrimination, decided as a matter of statutory interpretation under Title VII) was far better than the approach in Obergeffel
The approach in Bostock was a tortured exercise in Roberts' style too cute by half mess-making. And it rivals Roe in the mess it has made. It was a case about SEX DISCRIMINATION under Title VII (not about the "right" of "transgendered people"), and while everyone was focusing on the statutory interpretation of the word "sex," the Court majority said, "no, the important part of the statute is 'on account of.'"
Which is how we got to the absurd point of laws meant to protect women's equality being used to effectively erase women, with men invading women's spaces and shoving them out and even lesbians being maliciously condemned because they insist that their girlfriends not have penises.
"And he has better legs than me!"
If you ever go to Patpong in Bangkok to see the sights, you will be amazed. A Chinese woman by way of Indonesia clued me in; the boys were the ones in heels, the girls were the ones in boots. The boys had better legs.
"Men will enter farm animals"
"The next taboo to fall..."
Has not that ship sailed? Or have I just been listening to fictitious jokes. I do recall that gerbils were reported to enter men though.
We have come a long way from "No shoes, no shirt, no service".
Although it shouldn't matter, it does. It was a 2-1 decision. The majority comprised a Bush II judge and a Trump judge. The dissent was by a Clinton judge.
On the other hand, Hot Lesbians are much more palatable.
Female beauty pageants are for females. This does not include males, nor does it include male approximations of females, however authentic-looking they might think themselves to be.
I find the outrage of mentally-disturbed people not getting their wish for the world to share in their delusions particularly uncompelling. And I suspect that ship has sailed for society, as well. Bon Voyage!
"Being more inclusive seems like not only the right thing to do..."
The right thing to do based upon what? A writer from Reason should know better than to assume she knows the most moral thing to do. The pageant organizers can decide what's right for their show.
Here's a standard.
In the womb a female child at 18 weeks forms all the eggs she will ever have, about 1 million, and these eggs begin the process of meiosis 1. Then they stop and nothing more happens until puberty. Every born woman has done this; no transwoman has or will.
A male child forms no sperm until puberty after which, by the process of meiosis, he produces 1500 sperm per second and this keeps up only slightly and slowly diminishing for the rest of his life. Every boy who becomes a man does this; no transman has ever done it or ever will.
amirite?
Here's a standard.
In the womb a female child at 18 weeks forms all the eggs she will ever have, about 1 million, and these eggs begin the process of meiosis 1. Then they stop and nothing more happens until puberty. Every born woman has done this; no transwoman has or will.
A male child forms no sperm until puberty after which, by the process of meiosis, he produces 1500 sperm per second and this keeps up only slightly and slowly diminishing for the rest of his life. Every boy who becomes a man does this; no transman has ever done it or ever will.
amirite?
What about beauty pageants? You can choose to make them for women. What are women? See above.
"Here's a standard."
I lurk at trans forums. Those poor girls think they can actually change their sex by taking cross sex hormones and adding/subtracting body parts.
They don't let outsiders comment.
"not only the right thing to do"
Oh, no! I sprained my eyes.
I've said before: This is not a "transgender woman". This is not ANY KIND of "woman". This is a man who wants to be treated and accepted as a woman, and should be called a "transgender man".
"there may be a number of transgender contestants these days who have not revealed themselves."
Pleas don't...
Where is the "BEAUTY" in 99+% of the world doing the judging having to avert their gaze from the lump in the "woman's" pants---or ignoring the strap-downs that keep that lump from being seen?
WHY should the world be FORCED to "consider" a new definition of "beauty" that includes FUBAR freaks?
Go ahead, Althouse: tell us that women are no different than men---then tell us why the fake women have to PRETEND they are men by hiding what they truly are?
p.s. your naked opinion that beauty contests are outdated or otherwise objectional comes with NO supporting evidence other than your disapproval.
Are men supposed to IGNORE female beauty, as THEY define it?
Are women supposed to IGNORE male beauty, as THEY define it?
Why do you support "change" pushed down upon us by freaks and misfits?
@Richard Dolan
In a special PowerLine 3WHH podcast after the Harvard/UNC oral arguments, Steve Hayward mentioned that smarter liberals realized after Bostock that it being grounded in Title VII rather than the 14th Amendment was directly applicable to overturning AA race discrimination based on Title VI.
In re 303 Creative and Masterpiece Cakes, somewhat facetiously, when did the 13th Amendment become a dead letter? I know legal reasoning gets a bit tortured at times but it seems that a line could be drawn between goods and services offered to all comers, and bespoke labor.
See Letterkenny, "Sausage Party."
For many, this will be a reason not to watch what they weren't watching.
This is an argument that could be paralleled into a case-winning freedom of association argument by female sports competitors and organizations.
'Given a [sporting competition's] competitive and performative structure, it is clear that who competes and succeeds ... is how the [competition membership chooses to associate freely].... 'Put differently, the [competition's free association rights] cannot be divorced from the [organization's] selection and evaluation of contestants.
Explain how this is wrong.
A male child forms no sperm until puberty after which, by the process of meiosis, he produces 1500 sperm per second and this keeps up only slightly and slowly diminishing for the rest of his life. Every boy who becomes a man does this; no transman has ever done it or ever will.
amirite?
What then to make of a boy who is castrated prior to puberty? Are they no longer a male because they never produced sperm?
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