"This was the first time that Meriwether learned that Doe identified as a woman. So Meriwether paused before responding because his sincerely held religious beliefs prevented him from communicating messages about gender identity that he believes are false. He explained that he wasn’t sure if he could comply with Doe’s demands. Doe became hostile—circling around Meriwether at first, and then approaching him in a threatening manner: 'I guess this means I can call you a cu--.' Doe promised that Meriwether would be fired if he did not give in to Doe’s demands."
From Meriwether v. Hartop (6th Circuit, March 26, 2021), via "Professor who refused school order on transgender student’s pronouns wins in court" (NY Post).
It was a motion to dismiss, so the facts stated above are the plaintiff's allegations, presumed true and with the inferences all going toward the plaintiff. The professor will be able to go forward with claims based on freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Posts
101 comments:
What fresh hell,
Is there anything more narcissistic than expecting someone to remember what your personal preferred pronouns are?
"...sincerely held religious beliefs prevented him from communicating messages about gender identity that he believes are false."
Got a long LOL out of that sentence.
It's a "religious belief" to refuse being coerced into repeating lies?
"Doe promised that Meriwether would be fired if he did not give in to Doe’s demands."
Nasty crazy Doe is:
A - Autistic, or
B - Sociopath
?
"I am the Queen of England. When referring to me, use the royal We. Or we will have you fired. The Queen has spoken."
MayBee said...Is there anything more narcissistic than expecting someone to remember what your personal preferred pronouns are?
This is the big practical problem. If it’s just that person in the office, then the “don’t be a dick” rule applies. A decent person will call them what they want to be called without complaint. But if you have to deal with dozens or hundreds of new people every year as a teacher does, how absurd that that you’re supposed to remember everyone’s preferences and face consequences if you make a mistake!
It's a "religious belief" to refuse being coerced into repeating lies?
He filed a religious discrimination claim because they made an issue out of it.
Meriwether approached the chair of his department, Jennifer Pauley, to discuss his concerns about the newly announced rules. Pauley was derisive and scornful. Knowing that Meriwether had successfully taught courses on Christian thought for decades, she said that Christians are “primarily motivated out of fear” and should be “banned from teaching courses regarding that religion.” R. 34, Pg. ID 1473. In her view, even the “presence of religion in higher education is counterproductive.”
Apologies to our host, but when the war comes, white liberal women need to be the first to go.
Meriwether should have told the guy to bust his own balls.
It's bad law if it wins on freedom of religion. The screwup was civil rights law taking away freedom of association in other than cases of de facto or de jure monopoly markets. So to produce an exception you need another constitutional right like freedom of religion and sincerely held beliefs to outweigh that.
So compelled speech can be forced on atheists but not on christians who are pious or claim to be.
Atheists need "fuck-off" rights as much as christians do.
My pronoun is "whom," for its note of dignity and austerity.
This madness was kick started in the 60s by white middle and upper class women claiming to be “oppressed just like blacks under Jim Crow.”
That was complete bullshit too.
Look where it has taken us.
MayBee said..."Is there anything more narcissistic than expecting someone to remember what your personal preferred pronouns are?"
I noticed for the first time when I went through the drive-thru at my neighborhood Culver's yesterday that the young lady serving me had "SHE/HER" on her name tag following her name. Perhaps "Doe" and others should have a name tag with preferred pronouns. Or maybe, just for equity's sake, universities requiring compliance should require all student's/faculty/staff while on-campus to display a name tag at all times to include name and preferred pronouns. Put it on the class roster, too.
My college history professor, also my advisor, referred to all his students by their last name only. He was ex-military, career in the navy before retiring to be a professor. That's probably where he developed that approach.
So the guy that wanted Merriweather to refer to him using female pronouns became violent and was circling the professor, threateningly? Very He or Him behavior, no?
It's bad law if it wins on freedom of religion.
No it's not.
So compelled speech can be forced on atheists but not on christians who are pious or claim to be.
Nobody is arguing that, Mr. Straw Man. He filed a religious discrimination clause because they specifically said that Christians shouldn't teach in the university. You can invent some atheist hypothetical if you want to. But courts are supposed to adjudicate actual cases and controversies.
Atheists need "fuck-off" rights as much as christians do.
He filed a free speech claim, too. But the free exercise claim is stronger, in my opinion. The chair of his department specifically said he shouldn't be allowed to teach because of his religion.
I have a liberal friend who is a college professor. She was beside herself with worry about this issue because it is so easy to make a simple mistake with a pronoun and then lose her job. She said many professors are using the students’ names instead of pronouns to avoid the issue. I told her they are all being oppressed. She shrugged her shoulders and that was the end of the conversation. It was too big for her to fight.
A preference isn't a command. I have and will continue to honor people as they choose to present themselves, but when I speak to them, I use "you."
As a prescriptive grammarian, I absolutely refuse to use "they" as a singular pronoun.
You will submit.
That's all they want. They will come for everyone until we stand up and refuse to play along. It is a horrible game. Their neurosis can play out on it's own. Without me. They do not need my approval to be mixed up. They can do this all on their own. They seem to think they can demand society's assent. They cannot. They may have to just live their lives, with their multiple genders, on their own.
I don't get something. I have dealt with thousands of college students. I can't ever recall having to use their third person pronouns in their presence. In a one on one conversation, it's basically impossible. ("No, YOU are not getting extra credit on YOUR homework. YOU ALL are next to present YOUR group project.") Happily, English does not have gendered second person pronouns.
I guess in classes where the professor mediates a class discussion, it could come up. "So, MR. Smith, what do you think of Ms. Jones's comment that Jane Austen novels make HER nervous."
Never comes up with me.
Kind of a shock how dumb the trial judge was.
The district court...held that a professor’s speech in the classroom is never protected by the First Amendment.
A good thrashing would be n order.
MayBee said...Is there anything more narcissistic than expecting someone to remember what your personal preferred pronouns are?
Just put a damn dress on so we know what to call you
"If it’s just that person in the office, then the “don’t be a dick” rule applies. A decent person will call them what they want to be called without complaint."
I call bullshit, I am not obligated by good manners or any societal convention to support your delusions and be forced or threatened to do so. In fact, a decent man would refuse such coercion, and the true "dick" is the one threatening and demanding compliance.
Let's face it, this is all about control, and allowing oneself to be intimidated into compliance is a cowardly act.
"It's bad law if it wins on freedom of religion."
No it's not.
Yes it is.
Winning by religious belief is like winning because the hearing was held on the the 4th day of the month and four is your lucky number.
Besides that, some of his religious beliefs in this case are false:
Meriwether believes that “God created human beings as either male or female, that this sex is fixed in each person from the moment of conception, and that it cannot be changed, regardless of an individual’s feelings or desires.”
It's true that people can't change their sex, but it's not true that all people are male or female since about 0.02% of the population are both or neither. It's also not true that humans were created by supernatural shenanigans.
MountainMan said...
"... Perhaps "Doe" and others should have a name tag with preferred pronouns. Or maybe, just for equity's sake, universities requiring compliance should require all student's/faculty/staff while on-campus to display a name tag at all times to include name and preferred pronouns. Put it on the class roster, too."
Maybe we could develop a standardize system of color-coded shapes we could have everyone sew on there clothes...
So far I’ve not been put in a situation where I would be ‘required’ to use pronouns that went against a person’s sex, but if I was, I would avoid using gender-related pronouns completely. Therefore, if ‘Jake’ were insisting that people use feminine pronouns for her/him, then statements like “Jake is a jerk because he/she expects everyone to know that he/she expects to be referred to using feminine pronouns - just ask him/her” would become “Jake is a jerk because Jake expects everyone to know that Jake expects to be referred to using feminine pronouns - just ask Jake”.
Doe really is a vicious snowflake, isn’t it?
I've never heard a Christian state that human beings were created by supernatural shenanigans.
I wonder what else Fernandinande is wrong about?
Its not an accident
https://www.antelopehillpublishing.com/product-page/the-transgender-industrial-complex-by-scott-howard
Forcing someone to use pronouns against their will? Happened in Canada some years back. That person refused to bend the knee, launching a secondary career, becoming a near household name in America.
His name was Jordan Peterson.
Doe became hostile—circling around Meriwether at first, and then approaching him in a threatening manner: 'I guess this means I can call you a cu--.' Doe promised that Meriwether would be fired if he did not give in to Doe’s demands."
If I didn't know better, I'd suspect a case of toxic masculinity.
Certainly not very ladylike.
Many years ago — more than 20 years ago — I had a class where I had my usual seating chart that I used for calling on students. The students wrote their own names on the chart, and then it was up to them to sit in that place in future classes. I wanted to call on a person in the seat marked "Amy," and the person in the seat gave me a weird look and I looked at the chart again and said "Amy" again. The students began giggling and so on, because the person in the "Amy" position looked quite distinctly masculine. These students, who had no idea at the time how politically incorrect their laughter would look decades later, kept laughing at me as I never broke my cool and I clearly said that this person is in the "Amy" seat and it wasn't for me to question whether this is someone called Amy. I was so ahead of the times. I understood why it was funny to them, but I was protecting the possible person who looked like that and was called Amy. It doesn't matter that the person did not exist. I don't know what's going on with the various students in the class, and I don't want to abnormalize anyone.
@Masscon - sure! Up the system! Until you are hauled into HR for sexual harassment, expanded by the Supremes to include “gender” last year. I found myself discussing inappropriate communication at a location in Kansas last week. Gender identification came up. Someone googled it at my request. They got 64. This morning I am seeing 72. As much as a smirk on hearing such could constitute harassment. I am very sorry for the people who must pretend this is all reasonable.
Lets borrow a page from the Pullman Company. Henceforth, all law students, regardless of which of the 57 varieties of gender preferred, will be called "Jays" (honoring the USSC's first chief justice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_Prevention_of_Calling_Sleeping_Car_Porters_%22George%22
The problem I've always had with these situations is I don't understand what circumstances entitle someone to be sufficiently offended or hurt so as to deserve special treatment. I've always thought that most of the "offended" are dishonest and are looking for opportunities to gain attention or advantage by claiming to be injured by someone's insensitivity. There is a sense in which they appear to be seeking control over others by forcing their own special set of rules on others. Of course, when we allow them to control us they are rewarded for their behavior. We then get more of the rewarded behavior.
Years ago at the beginning of the semester I called on "Ashley" and a male responded. Before thinking I blurted out "You're not Ashley". I had never heard of "Ashley" as a male name (afterword, upon reflection, I realized I probably had and had forgotten). I apologized profusely after class and the student was very gracious; said he was used to it. In today's climate I probably would have been run out of town on a rail.
"So compelled speech can be forced on atheists but not on christians who are pious or claim to be.
Atheists need "fuck-off" rights as much as christians do."
Because in doing so a Christian is being compelled to deny their belief. Since god holds primacy in a Christians life it is tantamount to denying god. Since an athiest does nor hold that belief they can't refer back to a primary moral source other than themselves.
This is the same reason Little Sisters of the Poor will not sign any waiver. By signing you admit that the state is your ruler and not God. It isn't a convenient choice. It is rather a difficult one.
>>I noticed for the first time when I went through the drive-thru at my neighborhood Culver's yesterday that the young lady serving me had "SHE/HER" on her name tag following her name.
We all live on campus now. :(
"This is the same reason Little Sisters of the Poor will not sign any waiver. By signing you admit that the state is your ruler and not God. It isn't a convenient choice. It is rather a difficult one."
Happened to watch A Man For All Seasons last night. Had not seen it before. Excellent.
Remember when this pronoun thing was a "microaggression"?
Now, it's on the cusp of being written into our criminal code.
Why?
Because we didn't call it what it was; a childish, demented psychosis. No, we spent our time and energy 'having a discussion', engaging in intellectual debate and analysis of the correct use of a .....fucking pronoun.
Not sure what stupid, inane concept the American Soviets will come up with next, but rest assured we'll take it very seriously. The educated will once again have to educate the masses to stave off the next dangerous, national crisis.
I have only had a few sips of coffee so far this morning, so I may be missing something. How often do people refer to you "by your pronouns"?
I refer to people by their name, such as "Ann, I think ..." or "Althouse, You are ...". The only time I refer to her by her pronouns (as in this sentence) is when I am talking ABOUT her, not TO her.
How often does a college professor talk about a student while lecturing the class. When that rare occasion arises, it is easy to refer to them by name.
"I had never heard of 'Ashley' as a male name"
The indecisive suitor to Scarlet O'Hara, of Gone With the Wind, was Ashley Wilkes.
Like naming a boy Carol/Carroll, Jamie, plus others.
Worse still, being a Boy Named Sue.
Boils down to, "What were those parents thinking?"
"'I guess this means I can call you a cu--.'"
-- Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's a... that's a huge red flag. This person is not exactly nice. But, whatever. You can be nice to not nice people. Still. The university failed:
"This was Meriwether’s first time meeting Doe, and the university had not provided Meriwether with any information about Doe’s sex or gender identity."
-- If the university didn't think their policy was important enough to arm professors with the information needed to adhere to it, I can't see why a professor would have thought it was important either. The professor proposed a compromise; the Dean accepted:
"So he proposed a compromise: He would keep using pronouns to address most students in class but would refer to Doe using only Doe’s last name. Dean Milliken accepted this compromise, apparently believing it followed the university’s gender-identity policy."
-- Doe continued to complain, so the professor was again told: "Sorry. We failed you again. Stop doing what we told you to do."
"Dean Milliken referred the matter to Shawnee State’s Title IX office. Over the coming
months, the university’s Title IX staff conducted a less-than-thorough investigation. "
-- How did this investigation take MONTHS? The professor, Doe, and the Dean *all agreed to what was going on,* the problem was purely from the university yanking the professor around and being unable to provide him with answers, or providing him with wrong answers. Actually, that's probably WHY it took months, because no one running things there seems to be able to make a command decision.
"The Title IX report concluded that because Doe “perceives them self as a female,” and
because Meriwether has “refuse[d] to recognize” that identity by using female pronouns,
Meriwether engaged in discrimination and “created a hostile environment.” R. 34-13, Pg. ID
1719. The report did not mention Meriwether’s request for an accommodation based on his
sincerely held religious beliefs."
-- Wait, does Doe want to be identified using female pronouns, or they/them? The REPORT CAN'T EVEN GET IT RIGHT. Though, I am surprised the union went to bat for the professor. The university can't even keep straight what it is accusing the guy of, per later in the decision. I can't see how anyone could assume this process was in any way fair.
Like the story below this one illustrates how the trans “community” is led by progressivist bullies who don’t give a shit about your rights, your safety or your freedom. If we don’t acquiesce totally to their shit-fit demands it somehow harms all the quiet unathletic unconfrontational transies who just want to live their dysphoria in peace. This is analogous to how most black Americans are happy with the progress and opportunity America provides but their self-appointed leaders are angry, demanding racist “community leaders” in the Obama/Sharpton mold.
After class, Doe approached Meriwether and 'demanded' that Meriwether 'refer to [Doe] as a woman' and use 'feminine titles and pronouns.
"Well, let's see if I can make it any easier."
Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself...
I don't know what's going on with the various students in the class, and I don't want to abnormalize anyone.
A lot of women agree with you. Which is why today abnormal behavior is accommodated and supported rather than stigmatized and avoided.
"The problem I've always had with these situations is I don't understand what circumstances entitle someone to be sufficiently offended or hurt so as to deserve special treatment."
-- Conveniently, the university spelled out the requirement: "And they define a hostile educational environment as 'any situation in which there is harassing conduct that limits, interferes with or denies educational benefits or opportunities, from both a subjective (the complainant’s) and an objective (reasonable person’s) viewpoint.'"
It would be hard to argue that the professor's behavior did that, as the student scored well and participated frequently and willingly. It's POSSIBLE the student can make the claim that they did, but as an objective (reasonable person), I don't see how someone who appears to have been called on frequently, scored well, and was able to force concessions from the professor repeatedly to accommodate them was interfered with, limited, or had educational benefits or opportunities denied them. Could the professor have acted in a way I would have preferred? Probably; given the facts at issue here... it's hard to accept the university's argument.
A brief glimmer of sanity before the darkness closes in completely.
A simple solution might have been for the professor to explain to his classes that due to a student request to honor personal self-identification pronouns, he would be identifying all students in future as "students" without gender or race or ethnicity or religion or any other identifying features than class enrollment, and he would call the students using newly created pronouns such as "freshman" or "sophomore" or seat 51" or "annoyance."
"The indecisive suitor to Scarlet O'Hara, of Gone With the Wind, was Ashley Wilkes."
Ah, yes.
It's also not true that humans were created by supernatural shenanigans.
An example of how obnoxious snarky atheists like to be. But then without moral grounding and an understanding of power greater than themselves, how else can they be expected to behave? Next we’ll be hearing about spaghetti monsters
- Krumhorn
Note that by calling the male professor a "c***," the student both misgenders him and commits an anti-female hate-speech crime according to the school's discipline standards.
So the student should be charged. Twice. Yet nobody mentions this.
If the student had called the professor "the N word," he might have faced discipline. But "c***" away all day long.
And that hidden-but-everywhere-enforced distinction between abusing females and abusing other people by type is one sacred text of the hate crimes industry (by sacred I mean that-of-which-one-may-not-speak). To even notice it is a crime.
The hate crimes industry is terrified of this conversation because understanding it and articulating it is the shortest path to knocking down their entire house of cards. Looking too hard at the female question could bring whole, vile hate crimes cabal down. They've been trying to avoid this conversation for decades.
Maybe, ironically, the late-stage woman-loathing open to view now through transgender activism may open more people's eyes to the real destructiveness of hate crime laws.
The casualness with which the activist student uses these anti-female slurs also shows the true social consequences of the hate crime industry: more bias, more hatred, more prejudice, more division. More dehumanizing of "the other" of choice. More inequality before the law.
Doe's (using last name as per stevew@07:09) should be proud of themselves. They raised a tolerant, respectful, and decent child. NOT!
Atheists need "fuck-off" rights as much as christians do.
Atheist's don't have a belief. They have a Non-belief. They have nothing to be discriminated against.
The Civil Rights bill needs to add a section disallowing discrimination based on Political Beliefs. This would stop Big Tech from censoring people based on their politics. If we can it with Religion, we can do it with Politics. Why aren't the Conservatives pushing this?
BECAUSE THEY ARE STUPID.
Next question.
Why are the taxpayers paying for this nonsense? Just get rid of Colleges. Do the whole thing by Computer via the internet. Save $Billions. And get rid of the liberal arts.
Fernandinande said:
It's true that people can't change their sex, but it's not true that all people are male or female since about 0.02% of the population are both or neither. It's also not true that humans were created by supernatural shenanigans.
*********************
Change the original statement to: "Nature" created human beings as either male or female, that this sex is fixed in each person from the moment of conception, and that it cannot be changed, regardless of an individual’s feelings or desires.”
Wanna argue with that?
Would you also like to offer evidence that transgenders demanding that the sun shine out of their asses are members of that 0/2% you speak of? If so, why should we all be forced to kowtow and give special consideration to them?
If a Doe identifies as male, should it be referred to as a Buck?
Yes, but, what if your preferred pronoun starts with an "n" and ends with an "r" and is spelled just like a certain repellent racial slur?
Can I demand you address me as such? And if I can, can I then get you fired because you used that word? Perhaps Or maybe not, unless only if I'm PoC?
But what if I only "identify as" a PoC, is that sufficient? If not, just how and why would that differ from a male "identifying as" a woman when that's obviously not so?
Let's hear it for Dueling Dogmas. Court rulings may be useful if you don't want to lose your job, but for everyday, routine bullying one needs an appropriate tool. Such as ridicule!
(And, yes, what a nasty piece of crap must you be to try to get someone fired for refusing to participate in your sexual drama/fantasy RPG?)
Tolerance was always bullshit.
Equality was always bullshit.
You must submit.
You will be made to care.
Happy to be retired and have FU money.
He should have called her sweetheart.
Meriwether was far kinder to the administration than I would have been.
My response would have been:
You inform me taht I must treat Doe as a female because Doe "identifies" as female, despite the fact that Doe is, in really, male.
I therefore require you to treat me like the President of this University, because I identify as the President.
So, as President of this University, I order you to apologize to me for your harassment, and to adopt a policy that is in conformance with reality with respect to student's sex.
Breezy said...
I told her they are all being oppressed. She shrugged her shoulders and that was the end of the conversation. It was too big for her to fight.
Did she vote for Trump in 2020? Or did she vote for her oppressors?
I'm guessing it's the later. Which, if true, means I hope she does get fired over it
Fernandinande said...
It's true that people can't change their sex, but it's not true that all people are male or female since about 0.02% of the population are both or neither.
Your claim is that 99.98% of humans are born either male or female.
That is close enough to "all" for all reasonable purposes.
Biology is not perfect, so pretty much any biological statement will have exceptions.
So what?
If one of the 0.02% shows up in class, you deal. For everyone else, you were either born male or born female. "Gender" is bullshit.
Atheists need "fuck-off" rights as much as christians do.
1: Then atheists need to stop voting for Democrats
2: The Democrats and Left aren't currently at war with atheists. They are at war with Christians and Christianity. So your statement is factually false
3: I'm an agnostic. We need "fuck-off" rights too. But the Democrat written and passed RFRA (1993, Bill Clinton President, House and Senate controlled by Democrats) doesn't protect us
Wherever Fernandinande is, I suspect the rubble is bouncing all around him.
Atheists need "fuck-off" rights as much as christians do.
This is correct...if we have actual free speech you shouldn't need to qualify it by citing your religious beliefs.
You should be able to say whatever you want just because you feel like it.
This is not difficult...
"Why aren't the Conservatives pushing this?"
-- Because we know it won't be enforced equally, and you will very quickly have people claiming that the NRA not giving equal time to people who want mandatory gun buy backs as political discrimination.
Atheists have a faith. They have a religion (i.e. moral philosophy, its relativistic sibling ethics, its politically congruent cousin law). Everyone does. They can write a manifesto to regularize their beliefs.
Sex: male and female. Gender is sex-correlated attributes (e.g. sexual orientation): masculine and feminine, respectively.
Transgender is a state or process of divergence from normal (e.g. distribution).
Trans/neos have the physiological bias (e.g. muscle structure, lung capacity, mass distribution) of their sex from conception.
I don't know what's going on with the various students in the class, and I don't want to abnormalize anyone.
A species (sic) apology.
I wonder how many civilizations over the millennia have followed the progressive path and grade to a dysfunctional consensus and then were heard no more.
Tolerance was always bullshit.
Was, is [civility] bullshit. Normalize, tolerate, or reject?
Equality was always bullshit.
Replaced with political congruence ("=").
You must submit.
Take a knee.
You will be made to care.
Beg. Good girl.
Many -lay and -ly names were originally male and derived from place names (-ley and various spelling variants meaning ‘field). Kimberly, Lindsay, Ashley, etc were all once masculine names, as was Evelyn.
We should take a hint from that show "The Prisoner". Numbers. Let's have numbers as identifiers when in a group. Part of a class in school? School issues you a number; you wear a badge clearly stating your number...just like in The Village. Problem solved!
Let's have numbers as identifiers
Numbers imply order, quality (e.g. prime, whole, natural, white and pink distributions), implies inequity. Back to the funny farm... drawing board.
Chicken or the egg. If you suffer from gender dysphoria (if I use the term correctly), you're bound to attract a few extra slings and arrows in your battle with fate. I don't know if those sling and arrows are what cause transgendered people to have so many other mental health issues of if such problems are inherent in their condition, but they do seem to be a group of people with myriad problems...If they wish to break the stereotype that transgendered people are totally messed up, it does seem that they should address the concerns of the larger community with tolerance and sanity. This person should have just shook off the contretemps about personal pronouns. I'm sure that this person has suffered harsher treatment from other people in environments that were not conducive to fighting back. It sounds to me that this person is here trying to make the teacher pay for all the grievances that life has put upon them.
At last. The true story of how Meriwether Lewis broke up with Clark and ended up dead on the frontier. If only he'd used the right pronouns. Insufficient wokeness was a killer even back then.
Call yourself whatever the hell you want, but I'll be damned if you're going to force me do the same.
rhhardin has the better of the argument.
It may not be "bad law" to win on freedom of religion, but it is counterproductive and wrong-headed not only on the facts AND on that very religion, but because it is fairly exclusionary, in that it does pretty much leave non-believers on their own.
I've said this before. Let me say it again. IT IS NOT A RELIGIOUS BELIEF THAT A MAN IS A MAN AND A WOMAN IS A WOMAN. Religion, in this case Christianity, only recognizes what is true in the nature of the human person. Christian theology then gives that truth further exposition.
Atheists can -- and should -- recognize that truth as well and be protected in their freedom to think and say that truth. It is not a strawman to raise this point. Asserting only a free exercise claim or RFRA claim, which is even weaker, leaves non-believers exposed to these specious claims of trans discrimination.
The stronger of the arguments is, indeed, freedom of speech and freedom of association and freedom of thought. Government cannot compel people to speak fictions as if they were truth.
Meanwhile, it rather rude and unprofessional to refer to an adult by his or her first name, even students. There is a proper decorum that should be respected and it goes both ways.
Atheists need "fuck-off" rights as much as Christians do.
Again, that is absolutely right.
yes, we've done all the way down the wormhole, to abydos, if gender differences are far right, that is moderate
Let's have numbers as identifiers
But some numbers are higher than others.
Unless you're doing new math, where numbers can be anything.
Besides, math is racist as there aren't enough LGBTQ/minority mathematicians...certainly not enough Nobel Prize winners.
Christianity did not invent the idea of sexual differentiation.
If Christianity never existed, still throughout nature, whether human, other animal, fish or even plants, that part of the species that is capable of impregnating or otherwise fertilizing the eggs of the other part of the species is called a "male." Conversely, in all those species, that part which produces ova and carries the developing new life after fertilization is called "female."
In humans, regardless of religion, throughout human history, those humans with XY chromosomes, penis and testicles and capable of impregnating others is called a "man, boy or male." Those with XX chromosomes vagina, uterus and ovaries and capable of carrying and giving birth to new human life is called a "woman, girl or female."
Religion has nothing to do with this undeniable truth. What's more, irrational ideologies like transgenderism cannot undo this truth.
And it doesn't alter the truth if that penis is flayed and turned inside out and stuck inside the individual. The result is not a vagina and the person is not a female. He is just a mutilated man. Not because the Bible tells me so, but because the human body says so.
It is not necessary that atheists adopt Genesis to understand this, nor do they need to understand that God's word is not only in books, but is written in the fabric of nature itself. They too have a fundamental, inalienable right to live the truth insofar as they do grasp it.
I Have Misplaced My Pants,
Many -lay and -ly names were originally male and derived from place names (-ley and various spelling variants meaning ‘field). Kimberly, Lindsay, Ashley, etc were all once masculine names, as was Evelyn.
I know all of those as male names but for "Kimberly," which in my experience has always been female. With "Ashley" and "Lindsay," these days, it's basically a coin-flip, just like "Chris" or "Pat."
"Evelyn" -- it helps to know Evelyn Waugh, of course. The Brits pronounce his name at least with a long "E," whereas here the female name has a short "E."
I remember, long ago, my Dad reading me "The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles" (no, really, and "whangdoodle" isn't a slang term for what you're thinking, you naughty kids!). The children in the book were named Tom, Ben, and Lindy. I said, somewhere along the line, that "Lindy" was obviously a girl's name, to which Mom instantly said "No, it isn't." It took me awhile to figure out what she meant (this would've been when I was very young, ca. 1970), but now it's obvious. Lindy . . . Lyndon . . . LBJ. Since my Mom's own name is Linda, that might have been confusing.
I agree with Hardin- trying get a religious exemption here would be bad law. "I don't fucking want you putting words in my mouth" should be civil rights enough. If Merriweather had been asked an opinion in the class, "Professor, do you think trans-women are really women," he would have been fired just, or even more quickly, for replying, "No," and he would probably have been fired for even saying, "I won't offer my opinion because it might offend the class."
And, don't get me wrong- I will happily call people what they insist they be called. Seriously, I call Ken B Karen B all the time even though he alledgedly has a dick.
What I think and what my opinion is -- certainly I am entitled to both and not be compelled to disclose them. But both are irrelevant to the issue.
As much as is the question of one's opinion on 2 plus 2.
Mark,
The trouble with generalizing to "Nature" is that you get into some peculiar situations. Most plants (but not all) self-fertilize, meaning that there are male and female parts in the same individual. Then you have the kinds that do have separate male and female individuals -- I'm thinking of the natural kinds, hollies and gingkos and so forth, but with genetic engineering things have gotten very complicated for certain crop plants. (Check out the various "sweetness" genes in corn, and how some need to be cross-fertilized and others need to be kept apart from one another.)
There are also animals that change sex -- I'm thinking of a shellfish (mussel? Not that, b/c there's only one shell IIRC) that grows in colonies, one animal on top of the next, and one that began as female when it was top of the heap becomes male as others perch on top of it. (Or likely the reverse -- it's a long time since I read about this.) These and other hermaphrodites do exist, and make the universal binary hard to maintain.
Which is not to say that your picture is wrong, only a trifle incomplete.
To the extent that it is a matter of opinion, it is not the province of government to take sides in any matter of opinion and to impose that view on all others.
One of the horrific errors of American jurisdprudence is the notion that such things as human life (Roe and Casey) and the status of black persons (Dred Scott) is simply a matter of the opinion of the more powerful.
MDT, the point is that the nature of things, the essence of things, the ontology of things is not a religious dogma. Yes, there are other forms in the animal/plant world that are not sexual, but the point remains. Religion merely observes and by right reason discerns what things are.
Divine revelation then expands on that to give it further meaning.
And the fact of abnormality does not destroy the truth of the norm.
And the fact of abnormality does not destroy the truth of the norm.
Yes, separable. Furthermore, as civilized people... persons: Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, we can choose to normalize, tolerate, or reject.
Here come the lions, lionesses, and their [unPlanned] cubs.
>>Call yourself whatever the hell you want, but I'll be damned if you're going to force me do the same.
Jim, you have it right. You will be damned. Or at least punished. Your freedom of speech is gone, and the left has invented a new right: the right to command your speech.
Remember, this silliness started on campus, and was sold as "my preferred pronouns".
It has moved from campus to the rest of the country.
And "my preferred pronouns are..." has become "I command you to call me as follows or be fired"
Mark, I understand you, and agree. Looking at a thing and discerning its purpose is not "religious" per se; it precedes religion, though all right religion follows upon it.
There is an overabundance of personality disorders in the trans community
I don't know what's going on with the various students in the class, and I don't want to abnormalize anyone.
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Ah,
Better to humiliate the (likely white) guy by funning with HIS gender and calling him a girls' name when clearly, he was giving you a "weird look" and his classmates were laughing.
Instead of picking up on the context cues and what you saw presented before you, and merely correcting yourself, you doubled down and insisted he was an "amy" because somebody had written that into the seat space on the first day?
1) Don't make a seating chart on day one. A lot of students drop or never show, and a lot of students aren't expecting that to be their seat for the semester, coming from undergrad not high school. Tell them in a week or two, when the class stabilizes, then they are stuck sitting in one spot and pass the chart...
2) Don't humiliate people.
3) Don't virtue signal and remember years later your humiliating the guy by calling him a girls name as people laughed. Own up to your error. Don't assume the guys like that can all take it, and will easily shrug off such demasculinization, whether he was in the wrong spot that day... or not. (What if, he came in on Day Two, and had been sitting in that seat all along after "amy" dropped the class? Now he not only gets laughed at and called a girl, but realized you don't see who is beofore you but only know students via names scribbled into your chart... Sad.)
Shawnee needs to shut this down before discovery in order to cut its losses. Given the poor judgment described in the court opinion, there may not be anyone smart enough at Shawnee to know when to stop digging.
* I remember when you INSISTED that I had posted on your blog, identifying as "ploopusgrrrl".
When corrected, you still insisted that you had reasons to suspect I was using that handle here. But you were wrong, just like with that "amy" student.
Then, you outted me as a "former student" and even talked to the Isthmus newspaper about it. I never posted as "ploopusgrrl" though. It was just a way for you to build controversy for your blog, in the early days...
I see you have humiliated other students like that too, insisting there was virtue in yoru errors. Sad.
"The trouble with generalizing to "Nature" is that you get into some peculiar situations."
*****************
Bullshit. There's no problem here at all.
We're talking about mammals, human beings---not those few animals and plants that DO change their sex under certain situations. Not with surgery, and certainly not by consciously **deciding** they are not the sex they were born with.
The "peculiar generalization" here is the idea that some unhappy humans think they can portray themselves as not being the sex they were born with, can command others to agree with their delusions, AND to use technology in an attempt to alter their bodies (but not their DNA) to support their fantasies.
And don't call me Shirley.
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