Here's a gift link to the New York Times, which has been providing a lot of clips and quotes and summaries.
I listened to a big segment of the oral argument, which has already been going on for more than 2 hours, but it's not over yet, so drop in over here if you want to get a sense of how it is going.
I'll just make one observation, about something I was hearing for the first time, which is the idea that male-bodied persons who take puberty blockers might be disadvantaged in sports because they have larger bones but these bones are not powered by the strength and drive that the testosterone of puberty would have provided. By taking puberty blockers, they are choosing to go forward with underpowered bodies. That is, in this way, these children not only don't have an advantage if they play in girls' sports, they have a disadvantage!
ADDED: An interesting comment by Adam Liptak over in the NYT live updates: "The question before the court is whether states may exclude transgender athletes from women’s sports. Questions from Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan raise an issue not directly before the court: must states exclude them?"
AND: You can listen to the entire argument here, at YouTube.
ALSO: Here's that argument that struck me. From the transcript, page 112, Kathleen R. Hartnett, for the respondents:"But I think the point is that sometimes counter-intuitively it's like having a larger frame but not having the muscle and the testosterone to drive it could actually put the person in a worse position. And that's a study that was commissioned by the Olympic Committee -- it's Footnote 6 of our brief -- indicates that actually it could be actually put the transgender woman at a disadvantage if they happen to have larger bones and less testosterone or muscle to drive those bones."
పోస్ట్లు
97 కామెంట్లు:
They have a disadvantage compared to other males.
Surprised they took up the case. I think most men and women have moved on.
Transgendered people have never had an evolved or functional role in biological reproduction. Humans today using novel drugs and processes are...mules...with no basis for comparison to their natural/evolved peers.
This category therefore should not be allowed to participate in either natural male or natural female sports. Leave them to the Special Olympics. Everyone gets a prize.
Please provide one example of a transgender athlete (male-bodied => female-in-waiting) who has lost in a head-to-head competition with a true female. It may have happened but it must be a rarity.
By taking puberty blockers, they are choosing to go forward with underpowered bodies. That is, in this way, these children not only don't have an advantage if they play in girls' sports, they have a disadvantage!
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I call BS. I'm guessing this assertion is not supported by any legitimate science.
Big Bones? Isn't that how people explained being fat, "I'm just big boned". You can slice that argument however you want, but it's still bologna. Or, if you are from Brooklyn, they know baloney when they hear or see it.
That is, in this way, these children not only don't have an advantage if they play in girls' sports, they have a disadvantage!
Poppycock. They have a disadvantage in playing in Boys sports. and an advantage in girls. Short people have a disadvantage in basketball (though some have been successful, the disadvantage remains). The question is do people, through no fault of their own, be disadvantaged so that a person, who makes a choice for themselves, can enjoy their advantage? If I go all Steve Austin, and have a bionic advantage over all the people who did not replace their body parts with machines, is that fair? If I go all Steve Austin and take HGH to gain body mass and muscles that others do not, is that fair? Or maybe I go a different route and Lance Armstrong my blood supply. Standards matter. Set the guidelines and stick to them so that it is fair for the unmodifieds to compete, and bar the modifieds.
They can compete with themselves (,they are a tiny fraction of the population) we are reminded
If taking drugs or chemicals to modify your body to play a sport was acceptable, they would already allow it.
What is the SCOTUS wasting its time on this trivia for? where are the decisions regarding the zillions of injunctions being issued against every major action of the Trump administration?
And what does the Constitution have to do with who can play a sport in Podunk Nebraska? Why don't we just get rid of any pretense of being a Republic or a Democracy and just save money by having the Judges run everything?
Yeah, I know this is the way 'murica likes it. But its literally insane.
I am sure many of the justices are thinking "Why are we wasting our time on this?"
I guess all-transgender meets and Olympics is too stupid to consider.
So the SC of America is spending time deciding if men can be women, is that it?
And listening a bit ago to Justice Jackson, I no longer expect Justices to have an actual understanding of the Law.
Serious civilizations, those that last, don't waste time and energy on such nonsense.
A great example of mental masturbation.
"That is, in this way, these children not only don't have an advantage if they play in girls' sports, they have a disadvantage!"
Tell that to the gal with the fractured skull from a volleyball spike.
Whoever is making the argument that longer bones creates an underpowered disadvantage once testosterone is removed from the system is an idiot.
I have coached multiple sports. Almost all of the "skills" coaching is teaching youths how to correctly apply the levers of their body to optimize the biomechanics. The first little kid you teach how to extend their arms while swinging a baseball bat will hit the ball much farther than the biggest kid that doesn't yet know how to do that.
P.S. I was always the next to smallest kid in grade school ... and then I went through male puberty. I am now 6'3" with long arms and played water polo goalie as one of my three sports in college. If our gracious host would like a visual of "male development" advantage, then she could have Meade take a photo of my fist gently touching her forehead while she extends an arm to show she is probably not within 10 inches of my face.
"And listening a bit ago to Justice Jackson, I no longer expect Justices to have an actual understanding of the Law."
That does raise an important question; has someone explained to Justice Jackson what a woman is? If not, she must find this all very confusing.
If you're not transgender, but you take the puberty blockers to become a highly-influential and paid women's sports athlete, is that now a career path? I mean, that should be OK given their arguments, right?
So, if bans are overturned, boys/men can compete against girls/women if they can show they're taking puberty blocks or the adult equivalent?
I don't see how overturning this ban doesn't lead to all sex-segregated sports being unconstitutional.
Trans ideology will prove to be the reductio ad absurdem of progressive thought. Sadly, the absurdem is going to persist, regardless of the reductio.
They remind me of weird doomed religions like Shakerism or the Irvingites.
This is all about boys/men pretending to be girls/women. Not the other way around, ever. That alone answers the question of whether there is an unfair advantage in sports or physical competition.
Honest to god, that the woke mob has a day at SCOTUS about this is frightening. These are supposed to be our most noble and esteemed judges. Ugh. Where’s the tariff decision, anyway?
I think we will all be happier and more prosperous if they keep working on stiff like this and put the tariff decision off as long as possible. It could be an absolute disaster.
This should be a 9-0 decision .... but it won't be, for obvious reasons.
Oh good! “Science” informs the Court that the trans dominance of women’s sports we see everywhere can’t happen because of puberty blockers. “Science” confirms our suspicions again. /s LOL.
“I'll just make one observation, about something I was hearing for the first time, which is the idea that male-bodied persons who take puberty blockers might be disadvantaged in sports because they have larger bones but these bones are not powered by the strength and drive that the testosterone of puberty would have provided.”
I’m no endocrinologist, but I would have thought male puberty was responsible for larger bones as well as muscles. Do boys have larger bones than girls before puberty?
Next question
Riley Gaines on X: "They don't even try to hide it. Sick, evil, demented people who support a sick, evil, demented ideology. https://t.co/DyPqQTMHJ2" / X https://share.google/wxSOWfshlHY4470Dr
Mass, strength, lung capacity, and other matters of nonhomosexual transgender differences. The issue is not all trans, but sims specifically.
Most trans are homos.
Remember Mack Beggs.
If the women don't want to compete against trans women, let them compete against trans men... on testosterone. Let that into your locker rooms and competitions. You can't restrict their medicine because T provides trans men an artificial advantage...
They will be begging to reverse that, and welcome trans women, not trans men, into their school competitions. Lol.
male-bodied persons who take puberty blockers might be disadvantaged in sports because they have larger bones but these bones are not powered by the strength and drive that the testosterone of puberty would have provided.
One problem with this argument is that participation was never limited to those who suppressed testosterone prior to or during puberty. Lia Thomas, the Penn swimmer, didn't identify as a woman until after her freshman year in college, and had the sixth-fastest 1000 yard freestyle swim in the country as a freshman swimming for the men's team. Clearly had developed all the required strength and conditioning before transitioning.
Your link isn't the full argument. The first part is cutoff with some people posing outside and jiggling to bad music.
Dont you read or sample anything you put up anymore? So lazy this blog has become.
What's all this to-do about trains? Why is everybody always yelling about 'trains-this' and 'trains that'? And 'trains rights' and being 'pro-trains'? And then they argue about who's got the upper hand and why trains have an advantage, or are at a disadvantage- I guess they're comparing them to cars- and then they go on to talk non-stop about being fair to trains and...what?.
What's that?
Trans? Oh. Well...uh...nevermind.
I forwarded the argument about "underpowered trans bodies" to my younger son, who has a master's in kinesiology. I added a P. S. that I would wait on his response until he got his breath back.
He answered: "Give me time to wake up from hitting my head on the wall, too."
Marcus Bressler said...
This should be a 9-0 decision .... but it won't be, for obvious reasons.
This case shouldn’t even be in front of the Supreme Court. Who gave them the power to completely over ride a state government?
The “Justices” should be driven out of the building and pelted with rotten fruit for even taking this case and presuming they are unelected gods that determine who can play in what sports.
Im guessing its 9th circuit stupidity
The recorded performance of so-called trans athletes competing as women belies the claim of disadvantage. The only way it could be true is if the "gender reassignment" surgery and subsequent hormone therapy is performed very early in the boy's life -- before age five, for example. But who would do that? Don't tell me, I know. The depths of Democrat evil remain unplumbed.
The corollary of the plaintiffs' argument also discredits their case. If the "transition" degrades a boy's athletic performance sufficiently to make his best effort competitive with the best effort of the average authentic female athlete, then it stands to reason that the athletic performance of a girl who has undergone transition to manhood must be enhanced, putting her on a par with the best effort of the average authentic male athlete.
Of course, that's nonsense. I doubt one can find a single case of a woman competing as a man setting a new men's athletic record. Whereas there are dozens new records in women's swimming and track and field set by men posing as women. The Russians did that routinely in several Olympiads. The fact that the World's Cup women were repeatedly humiliated by high school-aged men, not to mention the joke that is the WNBA ought to have put this out to pasture before if was ever filed. The only reason anyone "transitions" is to compensate for sub-par ability against one's natural peers, and to cheat others of their opportunities to excel.
Next we need a test case of people who want to park in handicap spots. I often feel handicapped.
How do you prove you are transgender and not just a cheater?
How did Obama prove he was a peace maker to win a prize? How did Democrats prove that 2020 was an honest election?
Some things just are.
Lying by omission
Matt Whitlock on X: "7 paragraphs in - “The officials had requested early retirement prior to the Minnesota shooting.” Come on, man." / X https://share.google/BrW9RlT1ipDwXfeoh
"This case shouldn’t even be in front of the Supreme Court. Who gave them the power to completely over ride a state government?"
It's at the SC because inferior courts have overruled state legislatures.
What is taking place at the SC today is a national embarrassment.
Serious people don't debate whether men are women. It is settled science, and has been since Adam and Eve.
We are letting a cult decide the direction of our nation.
Male-bodied person?
What part is trans?
Is the court judging an imaginary part of the person we can't see, maybe an entire imaginary body?
I need the Supreme Court to decide whether or not I have to go to Conoco or Chevron for gas.
They have decided to tell us what bathrooms we need to use and who can get married.
All of these “Conservative” rulings are a deception and a ruse.
The real solution to this is putting the Supreme Court in the place it belongs according to our constitution. They just need to stfu and buzz off.
Rabel said...
"This case shouldn’t even be in front of the Supreme Court. Who gave them the power to completely over ride a state government?"
It's at the SC because inferior courts have overruled state legislatures.
So a proper ruling in this case is that the “Judges” on those inferior courts should be put in the town square and whipped by an angry trans woman who can’t wave her dick at little girls in the women’s bathroom.
Achilles: "So a proper ruling in this case is that the “Judges” on those inferior courts should be put in the town square and whipped by an angry trans woman who can’t wave her dick at little girls in the women’s bathroom."
Do you know how someone could get a job as one of these judges? Asking for a friend. CC, JSM
Temujin: "Why is everybody always yelling about 'trains-this' and 'trains that'?"
After marathon bingeing on Thomas the Tank Engine, I have realized that I am a talking train. My pronouns are Choo and Choo. I demand to be admitted to all railyards and roundhouses. CC, JSM
By taking puberty blockers, they are choosing to go forward with underpowered bodies.
That's a creative argument (points for really using your noggin!), but I'd be surprised if there is any scientific support for it. Especially considering how it works against what we know from real experience on the pitch.
It’s easy to find out if men transed to women have an advantage in women’s sports. Just count what proportion win compared to the proportion of women that win. If they have equal ability they should win at equal rates. But I tried to find data for that and it seems to be hard to find, a sports reporter could probably go thru every state tournament and find it and try to see who is trans or not but the lawyers in this case do not seem to have presented that as an argument.
"By taking puberty blockers, they are choosing to go forward with underpowered bodies."
Underpowered for a male, but still overpowered for a female.
Kind of like a white guy getting a tan and saying he's more African now.
So like brian tyree henry in bullet train
He was a hitman obsessed with thomas the tank
"This case shouldn’t even be in front of the Supreme Court."
Certainly not Kenjabi "Genius" Jackson who cannot even define what a woman is.
Lawyer representing Hecox refuses to define “man” and “woman,” leading Justice Alito to ask how courts are supposed to determine if there’s been sex-based discrimination without knowing “what sex means.”
—— Shawn Fleetwood
“Old and slow said...
I think we will all be happier and more prosperous if they keep working on stiff like this and put the tariff decision off as long as possible. It could be an absolute disaster.”
Be stiff, your honors, be stiff.
It is kind of an interesting point. If it were a trial, they would let the "scientists" tell their absurd lies, and then hand it over to a jury to disregard them. But they don't have a jury. They just have a bunch of idiots who went to law school.
Phrasing iman
But the iea is very clear
I don't care about possible miniscule bone deficiencies. Most of them are pervs, bullies, or predators just getting off on being in women's locker rooms and beating (up on) female athletes. Look at all the cases in Planet Fitness, which actually promotes men in women's locker rooms. You get what you ask for. I was there for less than a month before I encountered an obvious male dressed like a drag queen who was in the bathroom when I got there, and he was still in the bathroom two hours later when I left, pretending to apply layer after layer of make-up.
Let's just tell the truth. There were nervous women in there, but they were too cowed to speak up. I quit loudly. Leaving the gym, an older woman thanked me. That's reality, not making excuses.
I'll just make one observation, about something I was hearing for the first time, which is the idea that male-bodied persons who take puberty blockers might be disadvantaged in sports because they have larger bones but these bones are not powered by the strength and drive that the testosterone of puberty would have provided. By taking puberty blockers, they are choosing to go forward with underpowered bodies.
So is this real science, or just more junk science of the sort leftists so readily fall for, like anthropogenic global warming? Really, Althouse, feminists made such a huge fuss over Title IX, and now those same feminists want to permit biological males in the locker room and on the playing fields? If you wanted supporting evidence for the idea that women are incapable of thinking logically, that might just be exhibit #1.
I do not feel sorry for transgendered athletes. Back when I was in high school, girls with athletic skills had no high school team sport they could enter. Our league champion swim team was honored, but one of the girls in my school whom I met through competitive swimming was national class in the stroke she swam, and no one besides the swim coaches and a few of us on the team even knew it. What happened to her was wrong. What happened to girls who lose chances at college scholarships because of biological males they must compete against, is equally wrong. Now that "she" can no longer take medals away from biological women, is Lia Thomas back to William yet?
There are three compelling causes to recognize Nature's binary sex and sex-correlated gender: safety, dignity, and to normalize a favorable juxtaposition of the sexes.
In progressive sects, indulging liberal license, under the Pro-Choice ethical religion: all's fair in lust and abortion is a double-edged scalpel with collateral damage.
Trans means men pretending to be women. That won’t happen until insanity rules us.
Block putting the Block in Blockhead...
Good god that testimony was painful to watch.
ACLU apparently now stands for Absolutely Clueless Legal Utterances...
That sound you here are all the kooky, crooked school districts in Virginia paper shredding documents and burying taxpayer money in the back yard before the lawsuits start flying...
The fact this subject is even up for debate reveals just how fucked in the head some people are.
Seems to me to be a direct violation of Title IX. I do not care if states want to deny the science, and it IS a matter of science. XX vs XY chromosomes. If someone has messed up chromosomes, XXY or whatever, then they are out of luck. Like 90 percent of other children who are not gifted enough to compete. But do not try to tell me you can choose your sex. That is like saying the law of gravity is optional.
xx and xy; never the Twain shall meet.
Closely related, in the entire history of the Supreme Court has there ever been a justice as stupid as Ketanji Btown Jackson?
JACKSON: So, to the extent that you have an individual who says what is happening in this law is that it is treating someone who transgender, but does not have, because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done, who does not have, uh, the same, uh, threat to physical competition and safety and all the reasons the state puts forward – that’s actually a different class, says this individual.
And uh, so you’re not treating the class the same. And how do you respond to that?
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In other words, the as-applied challenge essentially redefines the class…So what is wrong with that number one and how do you square that with our uh, holdings, in Caban…In other words, Layer suggests that as-applied challenges of this nature do exist.
Remember Kentanji Brown Jackson is a God-Queen and this retard gets to be one of 9 people that determines what the law in the United States will be on any issue they think they should get to rule on.
She is above Congress, every state legislature, and the president.
No matter who we elect or what we want KBJ decides what the law is.
I’ve never seen this point made, but it’s important:
Male babies are bigger FROM BIRTH and that doesn’t change. The average boy is still bigger/stringer/faster than the average girl, even before puberty. There’s more overlap, but they are never 100% equal.
And about those potential extra handicaps from puberty blockers—there’s no logical nexus there if the question is whether or not male and female humans are separate and protected categories. Handicaps are not the issue.
If being handicapped is the factor that allows men to enter women’s competitions, then any handicap at all should suffice.
“Hey, I was born with a missing toe, so I can choose to compete in the women’s track events. Or the Youth division.
Tina is correct.
“ I'll just make one observation, about something I was hearing for the first time, which is the idea that male-bodied persons who take puberty blockers might be disadvantaged in sports because they have larger bones but these bones are not powered by the strength and drive that the testosterone of puberty would have provided. By taking puberty blockers, they are choosing to go forward with underpowered bodies. That is, in this way, these children not only don't have an advantage if they play in girls' sports, they have a disadvantage!”
The hidden statement here is that a boy who becomes a trans girl by taking puberty blockers is weaker than the average cis girl because of big bones. That is not my intuition but I could be convinced if the advocate for the proposition presented a reference to a paper I could read.
I think the may or must discussion is much more interesting. A middle ground would be to allow states to decide whether or not trans women can participate. So the states could be split.
In US high school sporting competitions transgender students are not required to undergo testing of their T levels. There is no requirement that they have undergone hormone treatments for any length of time. Self-identification is all that is necessary.
To argue that biological males should be allowed to compete against women because transgender girls are disadvantaged by a lack of testosterone to power those big bones therefore is a disingenuous argument. There is no requirement for testing or for them to lower their T levels. That might account for why they routinely wipe the floor with their biological female competitors.
This whole controversy has the flavor and the intellectual depth of a late-night bull session. The brightest of the lefties, Justice Kagan, takes the "what if" line of thought into waters uncharted by common sense.
Certainly not Kenjabi "Genius" Jackson who cannot even define what a woman is.
Which in a sane nation with sane senators would have disqualified anyone not subject to special privilege. Why does a dumb (or dishonest) person have such privilege?
Most of the comments I am seeing about this hearing are about how fucking stupid Ketanji Brown Jackson's questions were.
She is the gift that keeps on giving.
Where is sex segregation in sports immortalized in the Constitution?
If what they say is true about weak muscle an big bones, doesn't that violate the physician's Hippocratic oath of first, do no harm?
It’s discrimination against females to let boys compete with them after puberty. Plenty of co-ed sports teams when kids are younger. And some girls are good enough to play on boys teams until boys hit puberty. Transgenderism is a medical condition just as people who think they are the King of England is a medical condition. Society cannot be requited by law to indulge this.
How this case went:
JUSTICE ALITO: "To decide if there’s discrimination on the basis of sex, we need to define what sex is, right?
ACLU lawyer: "Yes, your honor.
ALITO: "What does it mean to be a man or woman, a boy or girl?
ACLU lawyer: "We do not have a definition.
Well then come back when you do have one.
Case dismissed.
Robert Heinlein was just a few decades off about when The Crazy Years would be.
The fact that Justice Jackson cannot formulate an intelligible question should be shocking, even to our resident Leftists.
The fact that Justice Jackson was allowed to perjure herself in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in her confirmation hearings should be shocking.
She claimed falsely not to be able to tell the committee what a "woman" is. That was perjury.
Mr. T. said...
"Block putting the Block in Blockhead...
Good god that testimony was painful to watch.
ACLU apparently now stands for Absolutely Clueless Legal Utterances..."
Whew! For a minute there I thought I was having a stroke.
I admit that I have less sympathy for the girls anymore; they could put a stop to all this by refusing to participate if a male is present, en masse. There would be some pain up front but I think it would solve it in the long run.
The ones who participate are saying they're okay with it.
"Male-bodied persons" is possibly the stupidest phrase yet. How is it any different from "males"? I'm suprised Althouse, who is usually very language adept and fastidious, would stoop to using it.
Howard - the Constitution is silent on whether sex-segregates sports are either permissible or required. However, statutes make it required. The issue is how to define "sex," and up until a few years ago, that was almost universally understood.
Sports rightly use biological sex to segregate participants into participation categories, to provide competition on "level playing fields" in sports. This doesn't seem complicated, except of course for the rare XXY player, who was not discussed in the SC hearings, AFAIK. Let's hear it for the extra-X players!
What would Howard, or the ACLU, suggest if college linebacker Jihaad Campbell sudenly identified as a five year old Pee Wee Herman League player, and insisted he be allowed to participate in games with the kiddo football players? Since gender is fluid despite biological sex being genetic, can one also ignore other biological realities such as age for an advantage in sports by claiming to believe oneself way younger (see any 50-ish woman or man for more info on this age fluidity phenomenon)?
If the boys weren't dominating the girls, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Reducing testosterone may hamper the boys, but it doesn't eliminate their biological advantages.
’ ALITO: "What does it mean to be a man or woman, a boy or girl?
ACLU lawyer: "We do not have a definition.’
Other than that, it was a great answer… lol
’What would Howard, or the ACLU, suggest if college linebacker Jihaad Campbell suddenly identified as a five year old Pee Wee Herman League player…’
I’d like for him to identify as having three more years of eligibility and return to Alabama. :)
We should just have two classes in sports: “XX” and “Open”. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about out this nonsense.
Richard Raskind was a strong amateur tennis player; he won the US Navy championship. Renée Richards, after losing upper body strength to hormonal feminization, qualified for the US Open at the age of 43 and reached the final in women's doubles. BTW, Richards (whose day job was as a physician) now believes that going through male puberty confers permanent athletic advantages.
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