But on to the serious stuff. From the new article:
[T]he Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times."Wrongfully" is the wrong word. The question is what the statute means, and the argument is that the Obama administration wrongly — incorrectly — read the text to include gender identity. It's much easier to say that the Obama administration got it wrong than to say it read the statute "wrongfully," which means that it pursued injustice or unfairness. The interpretation could be incorrect — a wrong interpretation of the statute — but consistent with principles of fairness and justice. Indeed, legal minds are often drawn toward incorrect interpretations of statutes precisely because they want to get to fairness and justice. Those who defend the Obama administration's interpretation will deny that the interpretation is wrong, and of course, they don't think it's wrongful. But those who attack the Obama adminstration's interpretation only need to say that it's wrong. They don't need go so far as to say it's unjust or unfair to protect transgenders from discrimination. They only need to say that's not what Title IX does.
The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing....
For the last year, health and human services has privately argued that the term “sex” [in the text of Title IX] was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to wrongfully extend civil rights protections to people who should not have them.
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184 comments:
One can rightly say that if Obama did it, it's fully wrong.
The interpretation could be incorrect — a wrong interpretation of the statute — but consistent with principles of fairness and justice.
One cannot possibly arrive at "fair" and "just" when one begins with a false premise. Arguing that it is "fair" and "just" that snow falls equally in Florida and Wisconsin is just as fatuous as arguing that males or females may not be, actually, males or females.
You cannot fool Mother Nature and only damn fools try.
I support science. I will not deny the science.
About time for common sense to raise its head.
Let us be clear: Trump is closing a legal sucking chest wound that Obama inflicted on the government.
Let us leave aside the human right fatuous hand wringing. This sets up a protected 'class' based purely, as described by their own adherents, a sexual opinion on who they are from day to day.
To wit: a woman, sans drastic surgery, always has her vagina.
A black man, save Michael Jackson, is always black.
These are unchangeable aspects of a person.
A chubby girl, unhappy at being ridiculously ordinary, can suddenly sport a mannish haircut and a flannel shirt and 'become trans'.
The government is not and should not be in the business of protecting you from your self loathing and ennui.
However questionable the protections of women and real minorities, they are based on unchangeable factors and how they are TREATED.
The assertion 'gender is fluid' means they have choices. Well, choose differently.
Go ahead and try to say that it's "wrongful" to protect people who say they are transgender from discrimination based on their presenting themselves as transgender. All I am saying is that it isn't necessary to say that to reject what the Obama administration did with the statute.
But it really doesn't matter what the "correct" science is. Legislators could choose to protect people with false beliefs from discrimination that is aimed at them because of their beliefs. If that were not possible, how could they protect people from discrimination based on religion? We don't get involved in the question whether the religion is true! Similarly, it doesn't matter whether transgenderism is an anatomical reality, only that people believe in it and build their sense of personal identity around it.
And if you want to talk about science, you should look at the science of psychology and the importance of feelings of belief to an individual.
When should genitalia be important to the government? What's the science on that?
Here's another belief that could be studied scientifically: the belief that you are following science.
"To wit: a woman, sans drastic surgery, always has her vagina."
"Woman Born Without a Vagina Speaks Out About Rare Condition."
"Moats was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a condition that affects about 1 in every 4,500 newborn girls, according to the National Institutes of Health. It happens when, during embryonic development, the female reproductive organs (including the uterus, cervix and vagina) do not develop properly. As a result, the uterus and vagina may be underdeveloped or absent entirely, the NIH said."
"Wrongfully" is the wrong word.
"Wrongfully" is the correct word.
the Obama administration ...pursued injustice or unfairness.
Yes, that's what they did, for political purposes; hence "wrongfully".
I think the way the Trump Administration will “handle” this is to treat it like the non-issue it is. The Buckwheat Administration was consumed with idiot issues like the rights of mentally ill 40 year old men being able to pee beside 7 year old girls, and bathing the Whitehouse in all the frooty colours of the rainbow. Other than a few purple faced rage heads, the hormonal liberal cat ladies, and psychotic social justice warriors... nobody cares about this stuff anymore. It got voted out with the last election; it’s time to move on and deal with important issues.
Alternatively: Trump Administration Eyes Exiting Transgenders out of Definition
DHS's definition is obviously what Congress had in mind when it enacted Title IX in 1972. No one (or almost no one) back then would have thought the word "sex" includes one's "gender identity," that is, one's subjective feeling about what sex one is. Sadly, the fact that DHS is simply trying to adhere to the original meaning of the statutory term will not be enough to keep this proposal from being bogged down in legal challenges for years. Liberals will try to run out the clock on this proposal until a Dem is elected president.
Good on Trump.
I love your schtick. You must have giggled "as usual I gave those suckers red meat under the guise of an English lesson" after you wrote this blog.
I love the way you assume the position the English maven teaching her ignorant audience. After all most of us are deplorables that drive Chevys instead of Audis.
You have a right to be disturbed and even act out your mental illness. You should not have the right to reorder society to accommodate your whims and fantasies.
"The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.”"
-- Sounds like arguing a fetus is not a person or a fee is not a tax; arguing over what words MEAN is pretty common. I also agree you need a rule that you can actually administer.
How you work that in the sphere of gender identity/politics vs. biological reality is a question that is beyond me though.
Arguing biology is destiny has it's own moral hazard. You can pretty much justify anything on biological principles.
One strong reason to include transgenders under the definition of sex in Title IX is because that's where the discrimination is.
"The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing."
-- I'm generally against having the government say: Prove this to us by letting us test your body. If they want to know a person's sex, we should either have a birth certificate or similar document to reference -- we shouldn't be having the government test people to figure it out.
Ms. Althouse. If you are one of the one in a 100,000,000 born without genitals, you have far more REAL problems than your feelz. And a compassionate human being (obviously not ME) will extend all kinds of courtesies to a cripple.
That black guy with a feminine aspect and that chubby girl with purple hair does not share the same space.
Further, trans are trying to criminalize people who do not follow the beliefs of the 'First Church of the Perpetually Aggrieved'.
If Obama saw fit to blatantly ignore the internal beliefs of the Catholic Church as it applied ONLY in their own institutions, I have less than zero sympathy on this 'religion' trying to weaponize DHHS to inflict their beliefs on others by Federal Fiat.
Keep their faith off my laws. They are at best 1% of the population. They don't get to dictate pronouns.
I appreciate that the Trump administration has the guts to take on that weird hobby horse. It's not even remotely important except to the personal lives of a very small group of people, but somehow it's become the new civil rights crusade.
Moats was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a condition that affects about 1 in every 4,500 newborn girls, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Crappy example to counter FIDO's rhetorical point. No one is talking about congenital defects and besides Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing....
... Wait. Why did the NYT mention the part about "genetic testing" when this is the next paragraph (and why you should read the whole article before commenting:)
"“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”"
I guess the genetic testing would be saved for times when there is no birth certificate, but then we're looking at it as an extreme corner case, not the go-to, end-all method of determining things.
Give it 10-15 years and almost every major women's college sports program will be dominated by men thanks to Title IX.
Most people who say they are transgender are just trying something out, like a new fashion, a personal style. They are not "transgender" in the sense in which the term is used.
There are a small number of people who suffer from a delusional obsession that focusses on living according to ("identifying as ") a gender other than that which they were born into. These people suffer from a mental illness and should not be discriminated against for their condition. Neither, however, should they be treated as though their delusion is grounded in reality. It is monstrous to encourage these people to get surgery to alter their bodies to conform with their delusion.
"And if you want to talk about science, you should look at the science of psychology and the importance of feelings of belief to an individual."
If I believe I am a 7 foot tall Puerto Rican woman with Eskimo parents, should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
The Left/libs/LLRlapdogs argue "yes", if it makes me feel better.
Plus I get to hang out in chick's ...er...uh...my fellow females, bathrooms and locker rooms!
Blogger hawkeyedjb said...”You have a right to be disturbed and even act out your mental illness. You should not have the right to reorder society to accommodate your whims and fantasies.”
Thank you for that.
I guess the genetic testing would be saved for times when there is no birth certificate, but then we're looking at it as an extreme corner case, not the go-to, end-all method of determining things.
It seems reasonable to me that one's sex is determined by whatever birth attendant signs the certificate, and that is that person's legal sex. If they want that changed, there would be a legal route to that, including possibly genetic testing, just like there is a route to having one's name changed.
Elizabeth Warren really really really wants to be known as a Cherokee.
Therefore the Cherokees need to shut up and make her Chief of the Tribe, otherwise Warren will get BadFeelz.
"You have a right to be disturbed and even act out your mental illness. You should not have the right to reorder society to accommodate your whims and fantasies."
You're leaving out the legislation. The argument here isn't about whether the individual has a natural right or a constitutional right, it's whether the legislature has the power to accommodate what you call "whims and fantasies" and whether an actual statute already has exercised that right.
When you say "You should not have the right to reorder society to accommodate your whims and fantasies," do you mean that Congress doesn't have the power to choose to accommodate?
Compare the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which accommodates people with sincere religious beliefs that nonbelievers could impugn as "whims and fantasies." Before RFRA, the Supreme Court said there was no entitlement to accommodation, and Congress passed a statute requiring accommodation. RFRA was challenged as a violation of the Establishment Clause, but it was upheld.
The vast majority of the current trans movement were not trans 5 years ago until Obama gave them an excuse to be aggrieved.
A smaller segment are arguable mentally ill. Well, I won't treat them bad, but I also won't cater to their delusion. We don't let a man who thinks he is Napoleon rule France just on his say so.
But I disagree with Tim. If they got the cash to pay for a dick-sticking or a gelding, it is their money.
The fact that post op trannies still kill themselves in alarming numbers suggests to the less credulous that the unhappiness of the person is not associated with their actual gender and is merely a deep depression seeking expression.
In the interest of having a rule that’s easily administered, I’d opt for defining sex as the genitalia you have. If you want to go through the trouble of changing them, fine. But it shouldn’t be sufficient to just change your clothes.
"I guess the genetic testing would be saved for times when there is no birth certificate.."
The lunatic left/libs are already passing laws in some states which can make it impissible to track the sexual identity of persons.
These lysenkoist morons want to force us all to agree that you can, by mere thought, alter your biology.
Sorry.
The answer is "no".
"ndeed, legal minds are often drawn toward incorrect interpretations of statutes precisely because they want to get to fairness and justice."
Kinda like Roe v Wade.
”When you say "You should not have the right to reorder society to accommodate your whims and fantasies," do you mean that Congress doesn't have the power to choose to accommodate?”
Does Congress have the power to define pi to be equal to 3.0?
"Wrongfully" is the correct word.
It's a play to extend the courtesy that gentlemen extend to women's crazy space to all sorts of other weirdos.
"“This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients — what people understand about themselves — is irrelevant because the government disagrees,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the Obama administration and helped write transgender guidance that is being undone."
-- I mean, but the government rejects what people understand about themselves all the time. I think a better quote from Lhamon would have been WHY say, I can't identify as a Military Veteran or a Disabled Person, but I can identify as a woman.
People should have civil rights protections; people shouldn't be discriminated against whether you think it is a choice, a mental delusion or a biological reality. But, the government needs to understand how their rules are structured. Then we have this:
"But officials at the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that their push to limit the definition of sex for the purpose of federal civil rights laws resulted from their own reading of the laws and from a court decision."
-- Which court decision? I mean, it seems like that should be a pretty major thing to help us understand what Health and Human Services is thinking. Why didn't the NYT tell us what the court decision was? Did HHS not tell them? [Spoiler: They tell you, paragraphs later, because the NYT doesn't know how to write an article. And, it is a court case that says, basically, the terms sex and gender identity are different because they're consistently used differently in other statutes.]
Also: "Civil rights groups have been meeting with federal officials in recent weeks to argue against the proposed definition, which has divided career and political appointees across the administration."
-- Was there any division under Obama? You'd assume yes with the career people, since they're mainly the same. But, what about the political appointees?
"If the Justice Department decides that the change is legal, the new definition can be approved and enforced in Title IX statutes, and across government agencies."
-- You know how this could have been avoided? If Congress had set a clear definition and didn't cede that power to the Executive Branch.
The NYT also grossly misrepresents the memo they cite from Sessions. Sessions is absolutely right in his legal reading; Congress has defined "sex" and "gender identity" as different things, so if they want to protect one or both, they have the means to do so. (And, perhaps, should, in my opinion.) Wait! In fact, Sessions says that the government WILL continue to protect transgendered people from discrimination: "In addition, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act prohibit gender identity discrimination along with other types of discrimination in certain contexts."
If Obama and Congress had wanted the law to do one thing, they should have *written it to do that thing,* not relied on the courts to say that's what they meant, like happened with the ACA.
"If I believe I am a 7 foot tall Puerto Rican woman with Eskimo parents, should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?"
Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
My question is intended to show what's wrong with your question.
Does Congress have the power to define pi to be equal to 3.0?
Sure. That would be called Miss American Pi.
Bye-bye.
It is also not about the Obama Administration wrong and wrongful twisting of the argument -- as AA does here -- to characterize the issue as "protect[ing] transgenders from discrimination."
Fairness for who? Justice for who?
Is letting a sliver of the population dictate language 'just' to the vast majority?
This legal parsing is picking legal winners and losers, and the vagueness of the regulations in question, and their ability to be abused means that non biased and non judgmental people should be wary of this.
The Left has abused Title IX already so they have sacrificed the benefit of the doubt of good faith on this issue.
"The Education Department did not respond to an inquiry about the health and human services proposal."
-- Why would they? Also, it annoys me that the NYT has such a huge proofing mistake here. "Health and Human Services' proposal" not "health and human services proposal."
WAIT.
Why is this buried near the bottom of the article: "The department would have to decide what documentation schools would be required to collect to determine or codify gender. Title IX applies to a number of educational experiences, such as sports and single-sex classes or programs where gender identity has come into play. The department has said it will continue to open cases where transgender students face discrimination, bullying and harassment, and investigate gender-based harassment as “unwelcome conduct based on a student’s sex” or “harassing conduct based on a student’s failure to conform to sex stereotypes.”"
So... basically, the Department is saying: "Hey, here are the documents you need to say if a student is male or female. But, if you have a male student who identifies as female and is discriminated against, we're still opening a case against you."
So... WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL!?
Oh. I see the big deal; they're equating telling students to use facilities based on their biological sex not their gender identity as discrimination. Ok, I get how that point of view works.
I reiterate that the mentally ill should not have the right to reorder society, but recognize that congress has enacted and will continue to enact all manner of idiocies. "Should not" is not the same as "will not."
”If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?”
I don’t understand how the government is forcing others to believe it.
It is wrongful for the government or the culture or bloggers to seek to compel others by the force of law to abandon objective truth and conform to what is objectively false.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four."
“If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well? ”
Um, no. What point are you attempting to make?
Obama's interpretation of the law is incorrect.
Is there any evidence that the legislators in 1972, meant anything other than sexual discrimination, no. Sexual discrimination as written into the law meant disadvantaging males or females because of their biological sex. The law in explicit terms only prohibits sex discrimination, there is no mention of either "sexual harassment" or "gender identity". If Congress wants to add "sexual harassment" or "gender identity" protections they should pass appropriate legislation.
Elizabeth Warren identifies as a Cherokee. Who the fuck are the Cherokee Tribe to tell her she’s wrong.
Everyone should identify how they want. If you apply to Harvard, check the African American box if you feel like you are black.
When you apply for a job, identify as an MIT graduate if you feel like you are one.
Let’s have fun with this.
And are we really discussing forcing anybody to believe anything? We’re only discussing what bathrooms people get to use and whether they get to enter the marathon as a man or a woman. No?
Well, we’ve always given special status to eunuchs.
Sex is genotype: male and female. Gender is phenotype: masculine and feminine, respectively, including physical and mental (e.g sexual orientation) attributes.
AA: "If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
My question is intended to show what's wrong with your question."
There is nothing wrong with my question.
The govt doesn't force you to believe in the tenets of Christianity.
The govt very much is shoving your fake "science" down childrens throats in govt run schools.
See what's wrong with the question you posed?
What the legal restrictions and protections for “normal”?
Althouse pulls the old law prof Socratic crazy hypo trick.
Ok. What if numerous contemporary accounts from 2,000 years ago establish that this guy was crucified by an occupying power at the insistence of the religious establishment and he then rose from the dead according to many, many people.
Althouse: "legal minds are often drawn toward incorrect interpretations of statutes precisely because they want to get to fairness and justice."
I don't like those kinds of "legal minds."
If you have a problem with the law, ask Congress to change the law or pass new laws. Don't deform existing law out of all recognition just to fit your own personal opinion of what "fair" is.
"Fairness" will always be a matter of personal opinion.
next up for the Fake science libs: Christine Blasey-Ford develops recovered memories of a past life where she was male and and Brett Kavanaugh abused her/him in that life so that makes Kavanaugh a closet-dwelling self-loathing gay in this life.
Why not?
Ann:
What about Pascal’s Wager? It is mentioned in a new movie that is sure to win at least one Academy Award.
For quite a long time, scientists have maintained that sex, gender, and sexual orientation are two different things.
Sex really is biologically determined by the presence or absence of the Y chromosome and the extent to which those genes are expressed in the phenotype. (A few people are intersexed in that the Y chromosome produces androgen but they are insensitive to its effects.) The only way to change your sex is through surgery.
Gender and sexual orientation are more fluid.
A man can be gay or straight. But most gay men don't think of themselves as lesbians.
When "laws" are routinely allowed to be "interpreted" beyond what has been passed there is no law at all.
Neo-females (i.e. male sex and masculine/feminine gender including sexual orientation) pose a progressive risk and have perpetrated rape-rape of transgender/homosexual and feminine females in captive spaces (e.g. prison).
What Althouse and the gang are attempting to justify here is no different than the Indiana legislature attempting to define the value of Pi as something other than what it was, simply to make calculations easier.
Attempting to alter physically reality by fiat.
Which is what the left/libs always get around to sooner or later. It's necessary for everyone to not just accept a lie as "truth", but also to become activie participants in the lie.
Barack isn't going to just let you sit back and not get involved!!
Thus another stone is placed in road to totalitarianism.
"And if you want to talk about science, you should look at the science of psychology and the importance of feelings of belief to an individual"
That statement made me laugh. You can have lots of feelings as an individual. Does that mean the federal government needs to pass legislation based on your feelings?
Didn't John's Hopkins stop doing gender reassignment surgery because they realized that changing genitalia does not change the mental issues those folks had? And today, we have crazy parents allowing hormones to be given to thir children in their early teens by nutty doctors.
What a crazy world we live in.
should the govt force those around me to believe [Christian faith] as well?
When has the government EVER forced someone to work for a Christian employer?
Any person who works for a religious institution or for an employer whose faith is important to that employer does so freely and voluntarily. People are totally free not to work for them or to work for them. And if they do choose to work for such employers, then like every other employment situation, they can rightly be required to not undermine the interests and identity of that employer.
Free and voluntary association of people is not that hard of a concept, even a law professor should be able to grasp it.
Diogenes of Sinope: "When "laws" are routinely allowed to be "interpreted" beyond what has been passed there is no law at all."
Bingo.
Alternatively, the laws can always be bent in the direction that the lefty powers that be want them bent.
Heads they win, tails you lose.
Which is why leftist societies spend so much time rewriting history.
"They only need to say that's not what Title IX does."
You mean, like, sayin', all deplorable-like, that legislation has an original meaning or sometin'?
Nah, law is a living thing, ya know, and merely a prediction about what judges will do in fact--which in the case of progs and the cases progs care about, will be what prog judges want.
Let's play poker for $100,000 a hand. The rules will be "interpreted" by my sister. So sometimes, my 3 of a kind beats your 4 of a kind. But, this is okay because my sister thinks it is fairer. No need to officially change the rules.
Legislating something that does not exist out of existence is redundant if not impossible. Trump's policy here is the most pro-science thing he's done.
Althouse is off on one of her hobby horses, like gay marriage.
When should genitalia be important to the government? What's the science on that?
Here's another belief that could be studied scientifically: the belief that you are following science.
Science is concerned with the sex chromosomes. Female phenotype is the default for humans. That's why the XO chromosome condition results in short stature people who have female anatomy but are sterile and have a number of other pathologies or risks of same.
There are two options, plus several abnormal conditions such as XYY and XXY.
Johns Hopkins opened the first sex assignment clinic in the US. About 15 years ago they closed it because of the number of suicides and the number who came back wanting to be returned to their birth gender.
The psychiatrist who ran it and founded it is now dismissed as being "bigoted" against transgenders.
There are sane people who decide as adults that they wish to live as the other gender. One such example is Deirdre McCloskey, who is a well known author.
McCloskey was born as Donald McCloskey, and this was the name she was known by for the first three decades for her research career. Married for thirty years, and the parent of two children, she made the decision to transition from male to female in 1995, at the age of 53, writing about her experience in a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Crossing: A Memoir (1999, University of Chicago Press).[11] It is an account of her growing recognition of her female identity, and her transition—both surgical and social—into a woman (including her reluctant divorce from her wife). The book describes her new life, following sex-reassignment surgery, continuing her career as a female academic economist.
Such people should be tolerated but there is no sane reason to rearrange government organizations and public bathrooms to accommodate such people.
Children are being abused by disturbed parents into making changes in normal lives.
You can't fool Mother Nature. The most famous transgender, Christine Jorgenson died of prostate cancer in my hospital.
They should be treated as gays and tolerated but there is no sane reason to uproot civilization to accommodate them.
The slur on Christianity is beneath comment.
Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well? )))
Religious beliefs are specifically protected by the First Amendment. What constitutional right would mandate protection of beliefs about one's sexual identity?
The loaded use of the poison word "discrimination" might (and has) fooled a lot of people, but upon examination is exposed for the wrongful and intellectually dishonest ideological ploy for what it is.
Thought experiment: Is it unjust or unfair to prohibit Democrat members of Congress from refusing to hire or otherwise discriminating in employment against people who support Trump?
Is it unjust or unfair to prohibit the NCAAP from discriminating against people who believe that whites are superior to blacks?
Is it unjust or unfair to protect commenter(s) from discrimination by bloggers who have banned commenter(s) because of the obnoxious things the commenter(s) has said?
"...should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?"
But it doesn't.
Here's one for you --
How about a law that would "protect" abortionists and abortion supporters from "discrimination"? Would it be fair and just to prohibit a pro-life pregnancy center from refusing to hire an abortionist like Gosnell or an abortion zealot like Cecile Richards?
The reason I ask is that the D.C. Council is considering such a bill right now.
If I believe I am a 7 foot tall Puerto Rican woman with Eskimo parents, should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?"
Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
To answer Althouse's question...no. In fact we have explicitly said the government cannot force anyone to believe in Christianity. We merely protect your right to believe so. Court case after court case has limited the public expression of religious belief precisely because others don't believe. If someone wants to believe they are a 7 foot Eskimo Puerto Rican they may do so. They just can't make me act as though I believe them. Two gay guys are welcome to believe they are getting married. They just shouldn't be able to force me to believe it or participate.
Religious beliefs are specifically protected by the First Amendment. What constitutional right would mandate protection of beliefs about one's sexual identity?
The "right" to privacy as created by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. This is the true elastic clause in the US Constitution.
As for the particular regulation at issue --
First we get the argument that sex and gender are two entirely different things, such that biology/anatomy does not determine whether a person should be deemed to be male or female, for example on a birth certificate or in using bathrooms, etc.
With the regulation, now we get people arguing the opposite -- that the word "sex" in the regulation means "gender" as well.
Of course, reason and logical consistency have nothing to do with this attempt to impose a radical relativistic ideology on others.
We have normalized the self-identification of a human life from a fetus, offspring, baby. Most women err on the side of human rights and evolution, which is a human life from conception to death. It seems that medical corruption in isolation to accommodate a transgender/neo-male or neo-female poses the lesser immediate risk to the coherence and sustainability of society and humanity.
That statement made me laugh. You can have lots of feelings as an individual. Does that mean the federal government needs to pass legislation based on your feelings?
Isn't this a plank in the Democratic Platform?
Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well? )))
Also, can we say that the freedom to believe and to exercise one's religion is in all cases analogous to the (putative) freedom to believe and exercise one's subjective sexual identity? One is free to believe that one is a woman despite having all biological makeup of a man. One is free to express that, just as one is free to believe in Gaia. However, one is probably not free to successfully assert that one's belief in Christ or Gaia mandates that one be permitted to use the locker room of the opposite sex. I also can't think of an instance where courts would hold that OTHER PEOPLE must affirm that Jesus is the Messiah, or that Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah. However, people are currently being forced to not only call transpersons "he" or "she" according to their new identify (I have no problem using these pronouns btw) but are also being forced upon pain of losing jobs etc. to affirm that they accept that this person is in all ways truly a "woman" or "man." I will gladly call Caitlyn Jenner by this new name, and say "she," but I believe it is immoral and should be illegal for me to be fired if I don't affirm that I believe she is a woman. No, I believe she is a transwoman. People do not stand to lose their jobs, or to be expelled from university, or to be charged with violating protected civil rights if they refuse to say that Jesus is the Messiah.
Indeed, legal minds are often drawn toward incorrect interpretations of statutes precisely because they want to get to fairness and justice.
I thought the purpose of legal education was precisely to train people not to do exactly this.
NYT : [T]he Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination….
Oh no it doesn’t !
NYT : The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender…
Oh no it didn’t !
NYT : The agency’s proposed definition would define sex ….
Yay ! One out of three ain’t bad. Actually it’s shockingly bad. Or, if you prefer, predictably dishonest.
It is really simple- what did Congress mean by "gender" when it wrote the fucking thing. That we run around pretending to try and figure it out just shows how fucking stupid this country has become. If you want it to mean something else, go pass a fucking law already.
sinz52 : Sex really is biologically determined by the presence or absence of the Y chromosome and the extent to which those genes are expressed in the phenotype.
The chromosomes are nearly, but not always, decisive because of things like the SRY gene crossing over to the X chromosome. Primarily, sex is a characteristic of gametes (sex cells) and the attribution of sex to organisms is secondary to that. A male organism is one which makes male sex cells, a female organism is one that makes female sex cells, and a hermaphrodite is an organism that makes both.
Strictly, therefore, focus on either genes or genitals is incorrect. What really determines sex is what kind of sex cells are produced. Here things are relentlessly binary. There are only sperm and egg. There's no third kind.
The only way to change your sex is through surgery.
Not under current technology. In the future it may be that surgery and hormonal treatment will actually be able to convert an egg producer into a sperm producer, or vice versa, but at present all we can do with humans is adjust some of the gross physiology and the appearance of some of the secondary sexual characteristics to create a better than usual drag act.
FIDO, 8:45:
"The fact that post op trannies still kill themselves in alarming numbers suggests to the less credulous that the unhappiness of the person is not associated with their actual gender and is merely a deep depression seeking expression."
I don't think you're totally wrong here. But how do you disentangle that from an accumulation of slights and petty or not-so-petty torments reinforcing their feeling that they don't belong, in the gender they left or the one they tried to join, until they decide they don't belong in this life or this world? Before you can use their suicide rate as evidence that they're crazy anyway, don't you need to identify a population of transgenders who've been supported and loved, and treated with kindness, and who still want to change back or kill themselves?
"If I believe I am a 7 foot tall Puerto Rican woman with Eskimo parents, should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?"
Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
Horrible example: the State in America does not dictate religious creeds, but does not allow its members to be abused.
And even if historically it influenced adherence, it was based upon NUMBERS. Most folks were adherents, and so the influence was proportional to the demographics. As the Christian faith has shrunk, so has its influence. Further, RELIGION is self governing and has a 'standard' of behavior.
In all aspects, transgenderism is the opposite: chaotic, non-institutional, opinion based, non-verifiable and demographically microscopic.
To wit: Althouse is implying support for that good old fashioned Liberal trope 'Tyranny by the Asshole'. It is exemplified by a town having thousands of religious adherents who put up a crèche, but that one pretentious credentialed self important asshole brings a suit to 'make a point''.
We have all met this douchenozzle and we don't like him. This move on transgenderism is more of the same but institutionalized by regulation.
Yancey Ward : what did Congress mean by "gender" when it wrote the fucking thing
Congress never mentioned "gender" it mentioned "sex." Which is the whole point - not that you would discover that pretty basic point from the NYT.
We don't get involved in the question whether the religion is true! Similarly, it doesn't matter whether transgenderism is an anatomical reality, only that people believe in it and build their sense of personal identity around it.
Our hostess has migrated her argument. Her post was about the poor diction of the word choice “wrongfully”. She has moved on to argue that legislators surely have the right to protect those who feel or believe certain things about themselves. Of course they do. But that’s not the same as interpreting the words of the legislation.
I think there is a strong case for the fires that Obama’s extension of the word “sex” to how one self identifies was, in fact, wrongful. He knew perfectly well that sex is a biological assignment and in furtherance of the leftie confusion on the point twisted the word in a wrongful effort to achieve a political goal that was not intended by the legislature. Lefties are like that. If it doesn’t say what you want, you merely dictate what you want it to say.
Marriage, for example, has always been about a man and a woman. Not satisfied with that and not waiting for a legislature to vote on a different structure, the lefties just wrongfully declare the language changed.
Whether a religion is true or not is irrelevant. We don’t discriminate on the basis of religion as a class. Similarly, we don’t discriminate on the basis of sex, and the concept of biological sex is not a debatable point. It’s not only wrong to assert otherwise, in the context of political action, it’s wrongful to supplant the authority of the legislature to choose other words more to your liking. But that’s how the lefties roll.
- Krumhorn
Before you can use their suicide rate as evidence that they're crazy anyway, don't you need to identify a population of transgenders who've been supported and loved, and treated with kindness, and who still want to change back or kill themselves?
You are at liberty to find such a group. The problem is that some areas of research are out of bounds by the zealots' veto.
Try to find valid research on children raised in gay marriage families.
I gave one example of Dierdre McCloskey but that was a decision at age 53 after what sounds like a happy marriage.
Malcolm Forbes decided as an adult and after several children that he was gay.
Transgenderism. Its medical, moral, psychological and social support will be looked back upon 100 years from now as one of the great ethical catastrophes of the 20th and 21st centuries. It will be looked upon as medical and social malpractice of the highest order.
Screencap this. Debate me.
The procedure merely produces a deformed caricature of what you were hoping for. Why wouldn't you despair ?
I think that may well be a major part of the problem but what is to be done ?
.....for the fires?? For the argument.
- Krumhorn
The question is what the statute means, and the argument is that the Obama administration wrongly — incorrectly — read the text to include gender identity. It's much easier to say that the Obama administration got it wrong than to say it read the statute "wrongfully," which means that it pursued injustice or unfairness.
There is no question that the Obama administration routinely and willfully used Title IX to pursue injustice and unfairness.
The interpretation could be incorrect — a wrong interpretation of the statute — but consistent with principles of fairness and justice.
Could, in theory, be consistent with “principles of fairness and justice,” but there is no evidence that the Obama administration ever cared about fairness and justice.
And none of the social “sciences,” psychology included, should be grouped with real science until their published results turn out to be reproducible.
Before you can use their suicide rate as evidence that they're crazy anyway, don't you need to identify a population of transgenders who've been supported and loved, and treated with kindness, and who still want to change back or kill themselves? )))
This is a crucial determination. Data from Sweden--a country that HAS had the most understanding and supportive society and laws relating to trans identity for many years--seems to indicate that the rate of mental illness and suicide remains extremely high for transpersons. Unfortunately, objective research into these crucial questions is already verboten.
@Lucid Ideas, I will debate you. No way it takes a full century.
And there is more wrong with the headline. defining transgender out of existences is incorrect. Would that it could be so easy.
Presumably, the perverts will continue their strut regardless of how Title IX is enforced based on the actual meaning of the text. But that won’t stop the kinky boots from kicking. I make no appogies for referring to Bruce Jenner as a “he” and Chastity Bono as a “she”. If they want to self-mutilate, that’s fine with me, but Title IX, as written, offers them no particular protection not offered to me. Perversity is not a protected class.
I find it exceedingly odd when a guy, married for many years to a woman and with 4 kids, chops off his pecker.......and then declares himself to be a lesbian. Just when a pecker could come in handy!
- Krumhorn
"but what is to be done?"
There is nothing to be done.
There are endless dissatisfactions and non-idealities in human existence.
If one is inclined to take action on all of them, to attempt to bind every wound in sight, and moreover to seek out every one currently out of sight, that is madness.
It is just as mad, or worse, to obsess about ones own dissatisfactions. It is the modern fashion to do just that.
Particularly when fixing some problem is certain to create more problems, probably worse than the original.
Unamuno's "Tragic Sense of Life", for one, is the most sensible approach. Or, if you like, Epictetus' Stoicism.
It will be looked upon as medical and social malpractice of the highest order.
Screencap this. Debate me.
I'll bet that you also dispute the well-established and respected science of phrenology.
Nature, that stingy Mistress, has given us only two sexes.
However Psychology is generous. It has given us unlimited ways to be crazy, envious and dissatisfied and the rationalizations to justify these feelings.
Half of psychology papers can't be reproduced. Including Milgrahm. Including the State Prison experiment.
Psychology has blatantly lied to us before so no, Ms. Althouse, I don't give them any specific weight in a serious conversation.
RigelDog, 10:22 - thanks for this example. I didn't know, and that's interesting. (And sad.) I wonder if it has to do with Lee Moore's point at 10:06, that at some level (for some anyway), the simulacrum never could be good enough.
I don't know. I've encountered very transgenders. One committed suicide by cop despite, to all appearances, a very supportive family and circle of friends. Another was cheerful, self-deprecating, and came off as happy at last.
(Very few.)
Oh Lord! I left my strap-on in the OR hazardous waste bag. I’m being discriminated against!
- Krumhorn
And, of course, given the very novel nature of this particular obsession, emerging as it has very recently and very rapidly, its clear that it has little to no biological basis.
It is I think a truly social llness, a particular expression of mental or emotional instability influenced by prevailing memes. In other times and places these vulnerable people would find other obsessions, influenced by the prevailing culture. There are fashions in madness.
For the sake of argument, you can look at Thailand for research into the phenomena.
Ge-toui are culturally accepted transgendered. There is a significant population who are not sex workers (sex work would certainly taint the mental health 'pool')
The few I spoke to were a bit nasty. But that is anecdote, not data.
The arguments concerning transgenders does not belong with the law, but with science. Specifically, the medical profession.
People who look like concentration camp inmates that won't eat because they believe they are fat.
Children who take hormones to prevent puberty because they believe they are a different gender.
People who believe they have multiple personalities within their minds.
Paranoids, addicts, schizo-affective, and suicidal ideation.
These all appear to be under the purview if the medical profession.
Do people who believe in Jesus belong in this group? Plenty of people believe they do.
Here is a far more important and enlightening question:
Why does Althouse care if Obama was 'wrongful'?
Can't he be wrongful?
But if he is characterized as wrongful, that discredits the movement.
I think she is defending the wrong horse. 'Gender is fluid' is poison to the Gay and lesbian communities. Because it reopens the question of choice vs nature.
I have known only one transgender well, a colleague.
He was always homosexual, and unhappy about it I think. He was early in the transgender trend, "doing it" over 20 years ago. Subsequently he went from "female" presentation to rather male-tinged asexuality. Interestingly, among the retiree cabal he hangs with, all male, all hetero, all completely "guy", he's just one of the guys, hunting and fishing and sports fandom. He's a guy you can and would have a beer with.
I have no idea whether the attempt to change gender did him any good, but at this point it seems to be irrelevant as its not apparent.
Psychology has blatantly lied to us before so no, Ms. Althouse, I don't give them any specific weight in a serious conversation.
I'm listening to the audio of Stephen Pinker's "How the Mind Works."
I got to the section about the beginnings of Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. He has a hilarious section of what he calls "The SSSM" and the reaction to the beginnings of modern psychology
According to their proposed SSSM paradigm, the mind is a general-purpose cognitive device shaped almost entirely by culture.
Pinker demolishes this in his book "The Blank Slate" but the reaction of the Social Science Model supporters is hilarious. The man who showed that Margaret Mead was duped by Samoans who convinced her that casual sex was the standard social practice has been vilified by the SSSM adherents.
Pinker does not look like a conservative, but like Greg Cochran who wrote "The 10,000 Year Explosion," he shows that science, real science, bends to the conservative side.
Good book, like all his books.
People who look like concentration camp inmates that won't eat because they believe they are fat.
The most effective treatment of anorexia nervosa is antidepressants, but don't say that out loud.
So, there were no transgender people before 2009?
One of the problems with having a federal government that determines public policy via the justice department is that it is not well suited to that task. You end up with bureaucrats and lawyers issuing decrees that say that men can bear children and that a woman can have a penis and impregnate other women, or even men.
Jesus, they are frikkin' loonies on the Left.
"Wrongfully" is the wrong word.
Unless the governmental department has "privately argued" in writing, the word was chosen by the Harvurd Graduates at the NYT. The same dimwits who failed to capitalize Health and Human Services.
In the 18th century there was a woman who worked and lived on a British ship as a common sailor.
Her name was Ann Bonney, IIRC. She lived as a man. It is a mystery how that could work -- given the living conditions of British sailors, it would have been impossible to hide the fact that she had breasts and lacked male genitals. Also, IIRC, she was eventually convicted of piracy, and delayed her hanging by becoming pregnant, so we know that she had the right equipment.
Get rid of Title IX. With women over 50% of college students, it’s not needed; and since one can now ID as a women, it’s not needed.
Free the money to be used elsewhere.
As to the substance of the issue, the First Amendment protection for religion was intended to limit the scope of the federal government*. The extension of that limitation to State and local governments was arguably wise. The extension to sex and race may well also have been wise, although, as this thread makes clear, problems arise from the fact that the sexes are inherently different, and to treat them equally may not be to treat them fairly. In any case, the further extension of those protections to private employers, and indeed to any commercial setting, was unwise in the extreme. The Civil Rights Act was a worse legislative blunder than Prohibition.
*Of course, at that time, no one could imagine that there would ever be any significant number of Muslims in this country, whose "religion" is actually a criminal conspiracy. It amazes me that people who think it is hard to tell a person's sex believe it is simple to define what is "religion", and that every last one of them deserves protection.
Go ahead and try to say that it's "wrongful" to protect people who say they are transgender from discrimination based on their presenting themselves as transgender. All I am saying is that it isn't necessary to say that to reject what the Obama administration did with the statute.
It’s not protecting, it’s paying for it.
Go ahead and ID. This is about the benjamins on college campuses and who dictates who gets what and how their fiefdoms can keep the money flowing.
"Clinton Eyes Higher..."
My eyes are up here, Mr. President.
I’m thinking of the sports angle only. Wasn’t that part of Title IX about equal funding of men’s and women’s sports?
New Title New funding.
Problem solved.
Blogger Lewis Wetzel said...
In the 18th century there was a woman who worked and lived on a British ship as a common sailor.
There were a number of women who fought in the Civil War as men. One was not identified as female until about 1910 when she was injured in an auto accident and taken to a hospital.
The people who were most upset about the DOD plan to admit transgenders were the enlisted staff of the military enlistment centers who had no idea how they would cope with it.
Now than men ID as women and are winning competitions and women won’t have a chance overall because women are still fundamentally built differently, cage match. Women will demand the government determine who is what. That’s the road we’re on, it’s just going to take time for law to catch up.
It seems Trump’s just trying to get ahead.
Now than men ID as women and are winning competitions and women won’t have a chance overall because women are still fundamentally built differently, cage match. Women will demand the government determine who is what. That’s the road we’re on, it’s just going to take time for law to catch up.
It seems Trump’s just trying to get ahead.
Blogger rhhardin said... It's a play to extend the courtesy that gentlemen extend to women's crazy space to all sorts of other weirdos. I suppose you can relate to that accommodation field men make for house nerds.
This is a mistake.
Using bureaucrats to fix a mistake with another mistake is fail.
You people are all giving the government the right to define gender.
That means they will define it depending on who is in power.
This power must be taken away from the government.
>If I believe I am a 7 foot tall Puerto Rican woman with Eskimo parents, should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
>>Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
Ann, your question is not at all like Drago's.
It's deflects from the point Drago was making.
Drago's question refers to what a person believes in the present moment about *themselves*, right now, today; an obviously testable proposition.
1) Is he the daughter of a female and male Eskimo?
2) Is he Puerto Rican?
He's not asserting some untestable proposition about someone else 2000 years ago.
Your parallel would be for Drago to assert that Mohammed was a 7 foot tall Eskimo, and should the government offer him/her protection based on that belief?
You seem to be equating religious faith and objective, testable reality. I can't examine your DNA to see what you believe about things that may or may not have happened 2000 years ago.
I for one do not want flat-earthers prosecuted. But nor do I think their lunacy is a new civil right.
Is it just me, or is there a sizable part of the modern American population who want to roll back The Enlightenment?
Facts are whatever those in power say they are.
Laws mean whatever we say they mean, and generally do not apply to aristocrats.
Science is whatever a priestly class says it is.
Political power belongs to a select few, and not to the masses.
Who thinks this is a good idea?
Ann Althouse said...
"If I believe I am a 7 foot tall Puerto Rican woman with Eskimo parents, should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?"
Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
My question is intended to show what's wrong with your question.
Ann demonstrates the hypocrisy of the left and the right by failing to deal with Drago's question.
You are all so anxious to use the government to smash the other side and force them to think like you.
MK: "You can't fool Mother Nature. The most famous transgender, Christine Jorgenson died of prostate cancer in my hospital."
In future lefty-world this statement of fact will be outlawed.
Because it will have to be outlawed, as hate speech, defined as any statement of objective fact which undermines the feelings of the "protected" class, as stipulated and interpreted by members of the protected class. And by parameters which the protected class is free to alter at the drop of the hat.
I mean, what could go wrong with that?
Identity politics has a fatal flaw, at least in the US.
You can identify as whatever you like. More power to Elizabeth for ridiculously identifying as a squaw. People will identify as whatever sex & ethnicity gives them the greatest advantage. When people are accepted into Indian nations or ejected from them, their DNA does not change. The "Hispanic" designation seems ripe for exploitation. What the Hell does it mean to be half Hispanic? What does it tell you about a person if they claim to be half Hispanic?
Achilles said...
"You people are all giving the government the right to define gender.
That means they will define it depending on who is in power.
This power must be taken away from the government."
Achilles, they have the power to define the time of day, and they abuse it. They have the power to control the currency, which they abuse. Thus far, they have mostly kept their mitts off weights and measures, except for the metric system nonsense. But what would you suggest? That the government will govern people without a definition of sex? That it will enforce contracts without definitions of weights, measures, and money?
Jupiter said...
Achilles, they have the power to define the time of day, and they abuse it. They have the power to control the currency, which they abuse. Thus far, they have mostly kept their mitts off weights and measures, except for the metric system nonsense. But what would you suggest? That the government will govern people without a definition of sex? That it will enforce contracts without definitions of weights, measures, and money?
All of this stuff was meant to be handled at the State level.
There was never supposed to be a "Federal Reserve."
There was never supposed to be Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare etc. That is all State level stuff.
The federal government deals with national defense, borders, and interstate commerce.
The senate is elected by state legislatures.
All of these problems are solved once conservatives stop trying to use the government to push their morals on everyone. You all are teaming up with leftists to give the federal government more power.
Stop being tools.
I just can't wait for the federal law banning 3rd trimester abortions.
You know the retards are going to push for it.
10/21/18, 11:57 AM
Blogger Achilles said...
".....You are all so anxious to use the government to smash the other side and force them to think like you...."
Maybe I was hasty in questioning people from Wisconsin on the "Melancholy" article. But hey, "Achilles" hit it out of the park. "...Both sides are in love with their "Tribes" propoganda and are willing to have the government intervene against the other side. We should admonishing those people on both sides...." On the other hand, I am assuming, Achilles is from Wisconsin?
Daniel Webster said, "....There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters...."
A bit off topic, but there is something called "Androgen (testosterone) insensitivity", in which men look an awful lot like women, complete with something that looks and feels like a vagina. They often don't even know they are a man: the testicles stay where the ovaries are, what appears to be a clitoris, but there is no uterus.
House had a fun episode on this, Skin Deep, with the great line "The perfect woman is a man."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_androgen_insensitivity_syndrome
Meanwhile, it's too bad we have to have all these laws, when it would be so much better if folks could react as sensitive human beings to each other. There are too many different kinds of people, each with their individual issues, to codify all this stuff into law.
Instead, it depends on where the public's interest roams (see, I was going to use public's eyes roam, which seems more visual and so more persuasive, but Ann taught me better).
I particularly find the Defense of Marriage Act to be the longest lasting legacy achievement of Bill Clinton.
He tricked stupid conservatives into giving the Federal Government the power to define marriage.
And boy did the conservatives fall for it.
And now it is the supreme court that defines marriage.
All because when conservatives had power they used that power not to limit the federal government, but to force their beliefs on others.
Just like leftists do.
Was Title IX EVER Meant to do 1/2 the things its being used for?
Doubtful. Of course, going to back to the original meaning, CANNOT be tolerated.
Because that's Nazi/White Bigot/Raciss thinking.
BTW, when I asked what the next Liberal crusade would be after "Gay Marriage" become enshrined in the US Constitution, someone said "Transgenders" - I forgot who that was at Althouse - but points for you!
So once we get Transgenders enshrined a Constitutional protected group, what's the next victim group to be created?
Because we know the SJW/Social Liberals NEVER rest, they love changing society and will never stop.
Jeff Shafer of Alliance Defending Freedom says:
"...it is not gender-identity discrimination to exclude males from female restrooms (or vice versa) because of their sex. Gender identity plays no role in that policy enforcement. The law has no reliable access to a person’s gender identity. Nor does anyone else. Nor (again) in this context does the law care. On the other hand, for a school to allow a male student who identifies as female into a woman’s shower facility while refusing such shower access to a male student who identifies as male (or as androgynous, or pangender, etc.), does discriminate on grounds of gender identity. If “discrimination on grounds of gender-identity” is what the law forbids (thus consuming and nullifying the incompatible category of sex discrimination), here again, the existence of sex-specific facilities themselves (being binary) and any attending enforcement of the policy would be unlawful. All “toilet, locker room, and shower facilities” that Title IX regulations explicitly authorize to be separated on the basis of sex must now be open to all persons without distinction. Sex-specific facilities disappear along with the legal category of embodied sex.
Behold the regime wherein Title IX is interpreted to unlaw itself.
The created truth manifest in sexed bodies cannot endure in law as “one among many” incompatible human identity markers. It can only either be (1) the norm, or (2) subservient to some other norm. There is no sharing of power in these precincts. Once male or female embodiment no longer legally anchors human identity, the venerable practices and policies dependent on the identity-profundity of male and female bodies only survive as fugitives, or in a tentative position of contingent state permission, ever vulnerable to the in-fact erasure already accomplished in principle. So, for instance, draining legal meaning from body and its natural functions correspondingly drains legal weight from the body-concepts of motherhood, fatherhood, kinship, and ancestry—from family itself. All to say, this trip doesn’t terminate at the bathroom."
From: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/03/supreme-incoherence-transgender-ideology-and-the-end-of-law
"legal minds are often drawn toward incorrect interpretations of statutes precisely because they want to get to fairness and justice. " Oh really Ann!. What do you know about justice and fairness. In your relativistic world these words have no meaning. How do you define justice and fairness in this case . As far as polls go lawyers are distrusted and agenda driven and most are atheists and liberal. Your justice as an atheist and cultural marxist is not the same as mine as a Christian.
C'mon define your justice.
This is pretty ironic, given that leftist activists, Democrat politicians, and the hate crimes industry have labored mightily to exclude what they often call "biological females" from being counted as victims of so-called "gender based hate crime" on the grounds that doing do so would "distract" from the sorts of statistics they wanted, as the ADL put it in a carefully wormholed 1996 report, or because "there's just too many of 'em," meaning women victims, as Bill Clinton said with Elena Kagan and Eric Holder snuggling at his feet at the 1997 White House conference on Bias and Hate.
Occasionally, when you act the pig, you reap what you sow, apologies to innocent porcines everywhere.
You would think that justice would be paired with equality under the law, but it isn't by today's lawyers. The ABA forces its members to endorse affirmative action, which is deliberate discrimination based on race.
Simple concept - if you’re genetically a man, but “feel” you’re a woman, but don’t know what it’s like to give birth or menstruate or go through menopause, well, you just might not be thinking straight.
This nonsense will end when women get tired of sharing their stalls with men.
Let’s see where this ends up as more and more transgendered males win at female sports events. I’d like to see an all transgendered male team compete in the WNBA. You want fairness? OK! Let them have it.
First, they came for the babies. Then, they came for transgendered, the homosexuals, bisexuals, transvestites, and neo-sexuals. The polygamists et al were politically incongruent ("!="). It's been a progressive slope ever since the first man and woman, the first couple, appeared in public, and the woman cradled her unPlanned baby in her arms. Anyway, the transgendered are not being redefined, but perhaps the spectrum is being integrated despite the protests of "=" elitists.
The next target of progressives and the militant social justice warrior faction, is not transgender/neo-sexuals, but rather "white girls next door". Color diversity (e.g. racism) is still the most politically congruent (i.e. profitable) Democratic policy.
"Justice is the advantage of the stronger"
"Political power belongs to a select few, and not to the masses. Who thinks this is a good idea?"
The Few.
Is the headline an example of “eliminationist” rhetoric?
And if justice is just a social construct what is the point of law professors.
science of psychology
Separated only by one degree from phrenology. Practitioners known to be crazier than their patients, even when equipped with the MD making them psychiatrists.
Legally protecting-by-special-treatment-izing people who are living in an alternate reality is ridiculous, but you know that. That 'alternative reality' will come to a painful end the minute some wackbag with a dick steps into my granddaughter's bathroom at Target. And I mean painful, Perfesser.
JML said...
Let’s see where this ends up as more and more transgendered males win at female sports events. I’d like to see an all transgendered male team compete in the WNBA. You want fairness? OK! Let them have it.
10/21/18, 2:35 PM
This. I have a feeling that this issue will take care of itself eventually, without the government having to do anything.
Ann Althouse said...
"If I believe I am a 7 foot tall Puerto Rican woman with Eskimo parents, should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?"
Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well? "
No in both cases. That wasn't difficult.
It is monstrous to encourage these people to get surgery to alter their bodies to conform with their delusion.
Even more monstrous that taxpayers must foot the bill (Armed Forces and prisoners.) One wonders, however, if the real mental disease rests in the lawyers, not the trannies...
It is wrongful to force girls to let a guy into their locker room / changing area, just because the guy claims to feel like a woman.
It is wrongful to make females compete in athletic event against males, just because the males claim to feel they're really female.
The Obama Admin interpretation is legally wrong.
But, societally, that interpretation is both wrong, and wrongful. Which is to say it is harmful, and evil
And yes, it really IS good to call out the Left on their BS.
Lewis Wetzel said...
In the 18th century there was a woman who worked and lived on a British ship as a common sailor.
Her name was Ann Bonney, IIRC. She lived as a man. It is a mystery how that could work -- given the living conditions of British sailors, it would have been impossible to hide the fact that she had breasts and lacked male genitals"
Well, it's not like they were all taking showers together in the 18th century. If she bound her breasts tightly and wore a loose, heavy smock she could have gotten away with disguising her figure - which was probably not very curvy to begin with. My guess is that she was taller and thinner than the average woman. Personal hygiene being what it was at the time, most of the sailors undoubtedly went long periods without changing or even removing their clothes.
But urination would have presented a big problem for her. I don't know how she got away with that. Poor Ann Bonney must have developed great bladder control, waiting to scurry off into some corner to drop trou while nobody was paying attention.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"To wit: a woman, sans drastic surgery, always has her vagina."
Fine: To wit: a woman, sans drastic surgery, never has a penis.
Go ahead and try to say that it's "wrongful" to protect people who say they are transgender from discrimination based on their presenting themselves as transgender. All I am saying is that it isn't necessary to say that to reject what the Obama administration did with the statute.
It is wrongful to allow someone to use the claim of "transgender status" as a justification for invading the other sex's private spaces.
But it really doesn't matter what the "correct" science is. Legislators could choose to protect people with false beliefs from discrimination that is aimed at them because of their beliefs. If that were not possible, how could they protect people from discrimination based on religion? We don't get involved in the question whether the religion is true!
Generally speaking, the beliefs of a religion are not testable scientific questions.
Whether or not you are male or female IS a testable scientific question.
And if you want to talk about science, you should look at the science of psychology and the importance of feelings of belief to an individual.
Psychology is NOT a science.
If feelings conflict with facts, any and all science goes with the facts. That's the whole point of the scientific method.
When should genitalia be important to the government? What's the science on that?
(Different post): You're leaving out the legislation.
Someone with a vagina can not rape and impregnate another female. Someone with a penis can.
Science!
More importantly in this case: The Federal law was note written to impose the left wing delusions about "Gender" upon schools. Stopping people from abusing the law IS an important job of the Government. The Trump Admin people are not trying to overturn any actual Legislation, they're trying to keep Leftist bureaucrats from creating "Legislation" that was never actually legislated.
I joined one of the cults Crack writes about and now believe all the money in the universe is at my disposal. I am surprised my card was declined, but know this is only an illusion, a test of my faith.
Are you going to let me drive this new Ferrari off the lot, or are you a bigot?
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"If I believe I am a 7 foot tall Puerto Rican woman with Eskimo parents, should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?"
Thought experiment: Let me change some of the words and make a different question: If I believe a man 2,000 years ago died to save me from something I call sin and cause me to continue to live after I die should the govt force those around me to believe it as well?
Actually, the whole point of the First Amendment's "no established religion" clause is that no, the Federal gov't should NOT force those around me to believe that.
So, if the Feds and States can't force you to believe something that's NOT scientifically disproved, they most certainly can NOT force you to believe something that IS scientifically disproved.
Your height and your sex are scientific facts.
"Gender" is a bullshit term, and, IIRC, is not part of the legislation at issue.
Title IX protects against Sex discrimination, not against "Gender" discrimination.
I just can't wait for the federal law banning 3rd trimester abortions.
Don't hold your breath. Kavanaugh & Co. will re-discover the 9th and 10th amendments, putting a helluva lot of D.C. people on the unemployment lines. FEATURE!!!
"legal minds are often drawn toward incorrect interpretations of statutes precisely because they want to get to fairness and justice. "
"Fairness" and "Justice" are incomplete terms, they require a moral standard to supply the measuring stick used.
So, what your'e actually saying is that "legal minds have no respect for democracy, the rule of law, or the written Constitution, all they care about is getting their way, and forcing it on everyone else."
Or, shorter version: "legal minds are evil monsters".
You left out the "Left wing", there.
If you can't convince your fellow American Citizens that their moral measuring stick is wrong, then the odds are that you have the wrong stick
This nonsense will end when women get tired of sharing their stalls with men.
Depends on whether the tranny leaves the toilet seat up or down.
BTW, when I asked what the next Liberal crusade would be after "Gay Marriage" become enshrined in the US Constitution, someone said "Transgenders" - I forgot who that was at Althouse - but points for you! }}}
May have been me, I remember making that point in various forums. Forii? I remember being struck by the (at the time unique) story about a couple in Sweden who was raising their baby without disclosing its sex to anyone and that led me to think more about gender identity than polyamory as the Next Big Thing. I believe there is a good chance that it will soon be viewed as ignorant and bigoted to give your newborn a gendered name. No more Jennifer and Jason---more like River, Keegan, or Davis. It's already becoming more trendy in general to give such names; my conservative cousin and his wife just named their baby girl "Addison." Which seems so odd to me because this name literally means "SON of Adam."
"Fairness" and "Justice" are incomplete terms, they require a moral standard to supply the measuring stick used.
Ethical standards suffice. Thus the establishment of Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, including diversity (i.e. color judgments), political congruence (i.e. selective exclusion), social justice adventures (e.g. elective conflicts), immigration reform (contrast with emigration reform), and selective-child (a.k.a. In Stork they Trust).
If this trend towards defining things in a common sense way continues, we may never again have a man finish first in a woman's bicycle race. Is that really the kind of world you want to live in?
Blogger RigelDog said...
BTW, when I asked what the next Liberal crusade would be after "Gay Marriage" become enshrined in the US Constitution, someone said "Transgenders" - I forgot who that was at Althouse - but points for you! }}}
I would have guessed bigamy but that may be next. Of course, bigamy requires two people and that may not go well with the cat people.
Actually, I should have said "Polyandry" but most of these women would have trouble attacking one male, let alone two.
Cannibalism will be next. You deplorables have already figured out how to get away with incest and beastiality, so no incentive to de-closet.
Republicans hate gays and we know it.
Blogger Titus said...
Republicans hate gays and we know it.
I guess that's why Twitter banned Gaypatriot.
Blogger Howard said...
Cannibalism will be next.
I dunno. I understand that Colorado has legalized cannibalism due to a slight typo in the cannabis legalization bill.
Republicans hate obnoxious gays and we know it.
FIFY. And doesn't everyone?
The Love which dares not speak its name has become the love that never shuts up. Put a cork (That is an R!) in it.
Blogger Titus said...
Republicans hate gays and we know it."
Brandon Straka doesn't know that. Neither does this black, gay Iraq war vet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfUcxfK6yMM
But they're intelligent and brave. We know Titus would rather drink out of a toilet bowl than challenge a fashionable idea. He's a conformist to the core.
We know that islam has a real problem with gays (they tend to burn them aluve, stone them to death or simply toss them off buildings).
Yet Titus digs them.
Discuss.
I think the best approach for Title IX is to define a hierarchical structure of victims. Establish a rule for every conflict. A black female will trump a black male. A male Jew will trump a white female. A white female will loose to a black male. A white Trans female will trump a black female. Thus each decision from admission to Harvard to who gets on the cross country team can be easily made.
Oh, dear. The queers are at it again. Time for Althouse to shed 50 IQ points.
I'm so glad I'm not a law student, so I'll never have to sit in a class and pretend to go along with this outrageous stupidity.
Let’s see where this ends up as more and more transgendered males win at female sports events. I’d like to see an all transgendered male team compete in the WNBA. You want fairness? OK! Let them have it.
This is one of those instances where you get to find out who really runs the country. Middle aged white women were all for treating transgendered women the same as biological women, but now they've realized that means their daughters will eventually be locked out of athletic scholarships. So the rules will change. It doesn't really matter what the official excuse is.
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...
. . .
But urination would have presented a big problem for her. I don't know how she got away with that. Poor Ann Bonney must have developed great bladder control, waiting to scurry off into some corner to drop trou while nobody was paying attention.
If you weren't an officer you had zero privacy. You worked, ate, slept, and relieved yourself within inches of your fellow swabbies for weeks at a time. She later became pregnant so Bonney must have menstruated. It is inconceivable that she could pass for a man under those conditions.
I have no explanation.
So Wikipedia says, about Ann Bonney & Mary Read (also a female passing as a male sailor):"A victim of the pirates, Dorothy Thomas, left a description of Read and Bonny: They 'wore men's jackets, and long trousers, and handkerchiefs tied about their heads: and ... each of them had a machete and pistol in their hands and they cursed and swore at the men to murder her [Dorothy Thomas]." Thomas also recorded that she knew that they were women, "from the largeness of their breasts.'"
So says the Wiki. The Wiki article floats a far-fetched theory that since all women in those days wore dresses, by wearing pants the other sailors were literally unable to think that Bonny & Read were not men (I would imagine that sailors in the 18th century saw an occasional nekkid woman once in a while).
tranny wins womyn's bike race
Trumps timing to bring up this issue is right before the midterms.
Tranvestite response will be beyond Crazy...
Valerie Jarret did say tranvestite was the next civil right.
All just a coincidence?
This is an amazing Alinsky by Trump on the Dems.
Make the Dems live up to their own rules!
Unfortunately for the Dems, middle America will be turned off by the their position in support of Tranvestites.
that since all women in those days wore dresses, by wearing pants the other sailors were literally unable to think that Bonny & Read were not men
I've read that the men they served with (they meaning women passing as men not necessarily these two individuals) knew that they were women, but conspired with them to hide the fact from the officers.
There are two genders; male and female. People may not LIKE their gender, ad may desire to act as if the are the other, but it's an ACT.
Some people would rather be something other than human; dogs, horses, dragons - but again, these people are PLAY-ACTING. For some folks, this slides into mental illness.
@Howard: now's the time to buy stock in HUFU, the human flesh tofu alternative designed to allow anthropology students to experience cannibalism.
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