"Many of us view the practice of pronoun declaration as asking us to sign on to an ideology we do not share: that we all have an internal gender identity..."

"... which may or may not 'match' our sex, and that the third-person pronoun someone uses to describe us should reflect this identity rather than our sex. People call me 'she' because that is the third-person pronoun we generally use to describe female humans (and other animals), and I take that to mean nothing more than that they have correctly recognized me as female. However, announcing that 'my pronouns are she/her' would mean something very different: an indication that 'woman' represents my identity rather than simply my bodily reality; in other words, that I identify in some way with the social role of 'woman' or with stereotypical femininity (which I do not). People who have transitioned should of course be addressed with courtesy, but imposing the idea of 'gender identity' with corresponding pronouns on all of us is regressive and coercive. Not to mention that women in particular have good reasons for not wanting to foreground 'gender' in our interactions with others, particularly in a work setting."

That's a comment on a NYT advice column titled: "Do I Really Need to State My Pronouns?/A reader asks whether a workplace policy actually makes trans and nonbinary people feel more included." 

The reader was someone who worked in sales and had experienced losing a sale to a customer who said he was "turned off by the pronoun thing." The advice columnist only gave a vague answer. The commenter made a brilliant point and put it quite well. It fits my tag "gender privacy."

(This is a post about a comment over at the NYT, a comment that interested me more than what the NYT advice columnist wrote. But how, you might wonder, can a reader comment on this Althouse post? The answer is — because some trolls made open comments impossible — you have to email me here.)

FROM THE EMAIL: Lyssa writes

I’ve often thought that the gender concept is functionally a religion - the idea that there’s some deeper, non-biological concept of “man” or “woman” is non-falsifiable, a matter of faith which is, at least for some, deeply and sincerely held. Like a religion, it’s not appropriate for me to disrespect, or to point out my disagreement with its dogma outside of an open discussion. I won’t stop you from praying to say you’re doing it wrong, or “correct” you if you make a benign statement about your faith with which I disagree. But when you expect me to pray with you, to personally declare the beliefs of your faith, that’s a bridge too far.

I have 2 responses to that. First, being required to declare your faith at all — even your own true faith or lack of faith — is a fundamental violation of your privacy. This is the domain of your thoughts, and it belongs to you and deserves respect.

Second, the conjunction of religion and your experience of the meaning of your own body can be seen Supreme Court's understanding of the right of privacy, as articulated in the most important opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which declared: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." 

AND: Another emailer, who requests not to be named, writes: 

"No One Wants to Campaign With Bill Clinton Anymore."

Headline at the NYT.

As Democrats search for their identity in the Trump era, one aspect has become strikingly clear: Mr. Clinton is not part of it. Just days before the midterm elections, Mr. Clinton finds himself in a kind of political purgatory, unable to overcome past personal and policy choices now considered anathema within the rising liberal wing of his party....

In an election shaped by the #MeToo movement, where female candidates and voters are likely to drive any Democratic gains, Mr. Clinton finds his legacy tarnished by what some in the party see as his inability to reckon with his sexual indiscretions as president with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, as well as with past allegations of sexual assault.

"Inability to reckon with his sexual indiscretions"? Does the NYT use the phrase "sexual indiscretions" when writing about other celebrities who've been accused of rape and sexual harassment? "Sexual indiscretions" is very pre-MeToo.

Rebecca Kirszner Katz, a veteran Democratic strategist, says... “It was an abuse of power that shouldn’t have happened and if the Clintons can’t accept that fact 20 years later, it’s hard to see how they can be part of the future of the Democratic Party”....

Few Democrats were eager to talk publicly about Mr. Clinton’s future role in the party. Though they’re reluctant to say it out loud, Mr. Clinton’s political exile is an open secret in Democratic circles....

[M]any Democrats are mystified by what seems like the Clintons’ inability to respond to questions about Mr. Clinton’s past that are inevitable in the #MeToo era.

Efforts to promote a thriller novel he wrote with author James Patterson were overshadowed after the former president said he would not handle the Monica Lewinsky scandal any differently today. Earlier this month, Mrs. Clinton said in a television interview that her husband’s affair was not an abuse of power because Ms. Lewinsky was “an adult.”...

What's mystifying? Unless you can articulate a better response, you shouldn't be mystified at what Bill and Hillary came up with. It's not mystifying. It's infuriating. But go ahead. Say you're "mystified," because you who have consorted with Bill Clinton for the last quarter century have no good response for why you stood with him so long.

But "mystified," like "sexual indiscretions," is the NYT's word — the NYT's mystification.

IN THE COMMENTS: Lyssa said:

IMO, anyone who ignored their principles to give him a pass when he was still trendy should be named and shamed as well, including Ms. Clinton and quite a few folks at the Times.

Meade said:

#your indiscretions are rapey rapes while my indiscretions are merely peccadilloes.

"To think, just a few short weeks ago, we were getting lectured about how unfair, sexist, and racist it was to judge a woman for expressing anger during a tennis game."

Wrote Lyssa in the comments to yesterday's post "The intemperance of the law professors' 'judicial temperament' letter."

I had to go back to see what I'd written about Serena Williams back on September 9th:

I felt that Williams was trying — very hard — to intimidate the umpire. She was actively bullying him. Hey! That reminds me of Trump. People say he's lost it and is raging when he's using a style of emotional manipulation.

As I've already written (somewhere in the Kavanaugh posts and comments) that I think Kavanaugh made a decision — after his calm, bland interview on Fox News — to allow his experience of emotion to be visible during the Senate hearing. He's getting criticized and mocked for letting emotion show, but that doesn't mean he'd have been more successful if he had maintained a stoical front.

As I said, above, about Serena Williams and Donald Trump, I think the emotion is displayed as a means to an end. The emotion isn't completely fake, but it's not out of control. There's real emotion, but it is also performed, with an idea of getting something the emoter wants. We need to be careful not to get conned, so we're right to be somewhat skeptical of those who let emotion show. But everyone's trying to get something they want, and people who suppress their emotion aren't inherently trustworthy.

Someone who truly loses control belongs in a different category. But you have to watch out for the accusation that someone has truly lost control. The accusers — like everybody else — are human beings with a will to get something they want. Sometimes their game is so obvious — like the lawprofs' "judicial temperament" gambit — that no one is fooled (though many are fooled into thinking that others will be fooled, because what they want is for those others to be fooled).

IN THE COMMENTS: Noting my statement, “But you have to watch out for the accusation that someone has truly lost control," Kevin writes: "Because those accusations are civility bullshit." Yes. Thanks for reminding me that this is the "civility bullshit" problem I've written about so many times. Calls for civility — don't get angry and emotional, speak only with cool rationality — are always bullshit. In our present-day American political discourse, it's always an effort to get your opponents to unilaterally disarm. When the tables are turned, and expressing emotion is what the people on your side are doing, you'll vaunt their passion and commitment and scorn your opponents for their bloodlessness.

ADDED: Remember when liberals thought this was exactly what was needed:

"Students Filed Title IX Complaints Against Kavanaugh to Prevent Him From Teaching at Harvard Law."

The Harvard Crimson reports, naming a student who supposedly said she'd filed a complaint with the University’s Office for Dispute Resolution and has been urging other students to do the same. We're told that "at least 48 students had signed an online petition certifying they had filed a Title IX complaint against the nominee."

The student who got this started argued that Kavanaugh could be accused of gender-based harassment under Harvard's definition: "verbal, nonverbal, graphic, or physical aggression, intimidation, or hostile conduct based on sex, sex-stereotyping, sexual orientation or gender identity." Kavanaugh's mere presence on campus, she and others said, makes a "hostile environment" under Harvard's definition.

[The student] said she hopes students who have previously felt reluctant to file complaints with the University — whether related to Kavanaugh or to other experiences — will see that the formal process gives them “power” and “a right to our feeling of being safe.”

“I hope that, as students file these complaints and engage with this process of singling out accusers and harassers on campus, that it actually can be seen that this process is a little less formidable than the reputation of the process is on campus,” she said.

Another leader in this activism said:

“If you had a meeting in Wasserstein, you don’t know if he’s going to be there... It would be pretty terrifying for any survivor or any person to walk into a building on campus and see someone who has been alleged of a very serious crime.”

Terrifying to see a person accused of a serious crime? Kavanaugh's temperament is being questioned, but what about the temperament of these potential lawyers? Do they not feel called to deal with the difficult world of legal problems? This made me think about one of the most reviled Supreme Court cases, Bradwell v. Illinois, which allowed the state to bar women from the practice of law, back in 1873. From the concurring opinion of Justice Bradley:

The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.... 

Why don't activist, feminist women aspire to strength?  Promoting the timidity and delicacy of women and running to the authorities with specious, backhanded complaints — what lowly, destructive activism!

IN THE COMMENTS: Lyssa said:

Every now and then, quote-unquote feminists have s minor freak out because some female celebs or young women in general don’t want to be associated with the word “feminist.” This is why. I don’t claim to know what feminism really means; it seems to be something different to everyone, so I generally avoid the term entirely. But if feminism involves this kind of weakness, I want absolutely no part of it.

If I were still in law school, I’d get that Bradley quote put in a t-shirt. It’s awsome.

"Awsome" = a typo or a word that means cute (that is, inspiring people to say "aw").

Anyway, I've had that problem with feminism for close to half a century, but I still care about salvaging the word. Why give it away to people who are undermining the very cause that matters to you? I remember saying — 35 years ago — that I didn't want to call myself a feminist because I didn't want to wear a label with a meaning that wasn't clear and stable and within my control. But that never meant I didn't care about participating in the struggle over the meaning of the word. It's a big struggle, and I say never surrender.

CORRECTION: I thought the activist students were law students, but now I'm seeing the word "undergraduate" in the first and second paragraphs and have deleted the references to law students. I hope it is true that law students know better than to engage in this maneuver and that they are leaning into strength and readying themselves to confront the roughness of the real world.

Love is love and I love this.

"Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner withdraw their divorce."



IN THE COMMENTS: Lyssa steps on my dreams:

So, no reasonable person believes that this is about anything other than testimonial privileges in marriage, right?

"Did Trump really come and meet with Moscow prostitutes?"

Putin asks and answers:

Firstly he is an adult, and secondly he is a person who for many years has organized a beauty pageant, socialized with the most beautiful women in the world. It is hard to believe that he ran to a hotel to meet with our girls of a low social class, although they are the best in the world. But finally, you know, what I want to say, prostitution is a serious, ugly, social phenomenon, young women do this connected to the fact that they cannot survive any other way and that is a problem of society but people who order false information and spread this information against the elected President, who fabricate it and use it in a political fight, they are worse than prostitutes.

Ah! This pithy statement proceeds in stages:

1. Defense of Trump: He's got so much access to the most beautiful women that it makes no sense to think he'd consort with low women.

2. Defense of prostitutes: Our prostitutes are great prostitutes!

3. Feminist/left-wing critique: Don't speak of prostitution in terms of low women choosing a degraded way of life. Society forces them into it, and society deserves the blame, and we must improve it.

4. Attack on the purveyors of fake news: Worse than prostitutes!

IN THE COMMENTS: Lyssa quoted "It is hard to believe that he ran to a hotel to meet with our girls of a low social class, although they are the best in the world" and asks: "Did Trump craft this statement? It sounds so much like something that he would say. Maybe he'll fire back at the perceived slights to America's prostitutes."

Freeman Hunt scripts tweets for Trump:

"Even prostitutes are poor in Russia. Sad! American prostitutes at all income levels. Bad work but more money in US!"

"Poor women forced to hook in Russia! Sad! Americans prostitutes by choice. Some big $$$! Against law though. Don't do it! Gross!"

"Americans richer than Russians. No need to be prostitutes! Russian prostitutes better because American prostitutes lazy. Just guessing!"

"Putin wrong. American prostitutes best in world! Have heard. No experience. Always gotten from classy women free. Not prostitutes!"

"Who do you want to be president? The answer may say less about Donald or Hillary and more about which Simpson character you identify with — Bart or Lisa?"

Writes BYU polisci prof Richard Davis, author of "The Liberal Soul: Applying the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Politics."

Davis is reacting to the debate, which I was just saying had me thinking about the archetypes of the brother and the sister. The post of mine bounced off something written by a Catholic priest, who'd gotten into talking about Hillary in terms of Nurse Ratched. In the comments, Lyssa suggested, taking into account my brother/sister idea, that Bart and Lisa Simpson might be the better comparison. No one roots for Nurse Ratched, but we do root for Lisa Simpson. Meade texted me the link to Professor Davis's piece. So we move from the musings of the Catholic priest to the Mormon professor, who says:

For better-educated, professional Americans, the idea of Hillary Clinton taking the reins of government is reassuring. She will continue many of Obama’s policies, seek to improve relations with other nations, and stand up to Vladimir Putin. She will not make outrageous statements, offend people or challenge the status quo.

Those Americans shudder at the idea of a Donald Trump presidency. They wonder why anyone would want to put a Bart Simpson-like character in the White House running the government. The result would be disaster.

However, for other Americans — those who feel isolated and left behind by economic and social change — a Lisa Simpson-like president would be distant, out of touch, and more of the same. Yes, Hillary Clinton would be dedicated to doing a good job. But, in their view, she would not make life better for them because she doesn’t speak for or relate to them.

IN THE COMMENTS: TosaGuy takes the position that people don't like Lisa, not anymore.

The Egyptian with the "Shut Up America" sign is more like us than you may realize.

"Professor, I hope that you will make your addendum a second post," said the commenter Lyssa. "These rights that are so fundamental are not so protected as we would like to think."

All right. That's what follows. And here's what it was an addendum to — a post about a man in Cairo holding a "Shut Up America" sign and saying "We never insult any prophet — not Moses, not Jesus — so why can’t we demand that Muhammad be respected?" People in the comments at my post assume that protecting blasphemous speech was obviously the American tradition, and the man's request was outrageous. But:

We're not that far from criminalizing blasphemy in the United States, though it seems obvious to educated Americans today that these laws are unconstitutional. Here's a quick summary of the history of blasphemy law in the U.S.

And here's the 1952 case Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson where the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that banned showing "sacrilegious" movies. New York's highest court had interpreted the statute to mean "that no religion, as that word is understood by the ordinary, reasonable person, shall be treated with contempt, mockery, scorn and ridicule." The U.S. Supreme Court said:

[T]he state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views. It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches, or motion pictures.

My point is: it took a Supreme Court case as recently as 1952, to establish that principle in our country, with its rich free-speech tradition. Lawyers even saw fit at that time to argue that movies shouldn't get free-speech protection at all because "their production, distribution, and exhibition is a large-scale business conducted for private profit."

Oh, wait, the President of the United States today argues that corporations don't have free-speech rights, and many Americans, including highly educated lawyers, are saying the Constitution should be amended to delete those rights.

Let's not be so quick to assume the man with the "Shut Up America" sign is thoroughly alien. The threats to free speech lie within. They always have.

Photo-free "café" post...

... for Lyssa... and everybody.

We don't want Lyssa to burst!

("Café" is Althouse blog code for open thread.)

Elvis and Adam Lambert.

Oh, there was so much potential for extravagant self-indulgence. But in the end, they were pretty much on the same level. And 2 must go this week. So everyone's at risk, and no one can be saved. Angsty!

IN THE COMMENTS: Lyssa says: "What I couldn't believe was that nobody, not even Randy, commented on Siobhan's 'sexy Elvis' Halloween costume."

Ha ha ha. Stray thought: When are they going to have Lou Reed night?