Sunday, April 10, 2022
This day in Herstory: Frances Perkins, born Fannie Coralie Perkins on April 10, 1880 (died May 14, 1965), was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the United States secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of the Democratic Party, Perkins made history as the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her longtime friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped make labor issues important in the emerging New Deal coalition. (more)
‘Grossly offensive’ Scottish minister compares women’s rights activists to racists and anti-Semites
Scottish Greens' Lorna Slater also claimed feminists who fear the self-ID laws are secretly funded by ‘certain right-wing American groups’
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Daniel Sanderson
April 10, 2022
Feminists who fear a radical overhaul of transgender laws in Scotland will threaten their rights and safety have been compared to racists and anti-Semites by a minister in Nicola Sturgeon’s government.
Lorna Slater, who was handed a ministerial post last year under the SNP’s coalition pact with the Greens, was accused of making “grossly offensive” remarks as she appeared to demand that media organisations censor critics of the Scottish Government plans.
In remarks about the trans rights debate published on Sunday, she said the BBC had “only recently stopped putting on climate deniers because they required balance”.
She added: “We wouldn't put balance on the question of racism or anti-Semitism, but we allow this fictional notion of balance when it comes to anti-trans [views]. The whole thing is disgusting.”
In a further claim which enraged grassroots groups which have mobilised to fight plans to allow Scots to change their legal sex simply by making a declaration, Ms Slater claimed her opponents were secretly funded by “certain right-wing American groups”. … read full article (web page archive)
A conversation with my therapist about my gender identity
From The Michigan Daily (USA)
by Anonymous Contributor
April 10, 2022
Editor’s Note: The author of this contribution has requested anonymity for safety. In accordance with our ethics policy (which can be found in full in our bylaws), the Editor-in-Chief is aware of and has verified the author’s identity.
(If there’s nothing specifically on your mind today, I wonder if you maybe want to talk about your gender identity a little bit?)
Yeah, actually I do. I didn’t even realize it, but I actually have been thinking about this a lot lately. So, yeah, let’s talk about it.
Here’s where I’m at with the whole gender thing: One of the reasons I first wanted to go to therapy was because of some new gender dysphoria I started feeling a year or so ago. And after a lot of struggling and wrestling with the concept and the feelings, I feel like this semester I was finally more confident in where I landed. Which is why we haven’t talked about it yet. But lately, I have been questioning again.
Basically, I thought I was nonbinary, like yeah for sure I don’t feel super like a woman but I also don’t have a penis, so like, what do I do with that? And this semester I finally just bit the bullet and started introducing myself with they/she pronouns. And that felt fine, I suppose. …
But recently, I’ve been like HMMM … Maybe I AM a woman? I like when people say “hey, lady!” or when I’m grouped in as one of the “girlies!” But do I like it, or have I maybe just gotten used to it?
So I don’t really know what to do with that. Am I nonbinary? Or do I want to be a woman again?
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY WHY DO I HAVE TO CHOOSE?
I don’t want to choose. … read full article
Press pause on Conversion Therapy Bill
From The Times (UK)
A letter from Debbie Hayton and 82 additional signatories
As professionals, parents and concerned adults, we urge the government not to rush through ill-judged legislation to ban so-called conversion therapy. Abusive and harmful practices are already illegal, but ambiguous language and weak definitions risk criminalising ethical exploratory therapy.
In particular, we worry about children who are presenting with gender dysphoria. Similar legislation in other countries has had a chilling effect on therapists, leaving vulnerable youngsters on a one-way path to irreversible medical interventions. We cannot make the same mistake in the UK. Increasing numbers of detransitioners — with their physical and emotional scars — show that children change their minds.
… read full letter and list of signatories (share token)
Women May Be Cited With “Hate Incidents” if Objecting to Strip Searches by Trans Police Officers: New Guidance
From REDUXX (USA)
By Reduxx Team
April 10, 2022
A whistleblower has revealed new guidance issued to police forces across the UK which could potentially lead to the criminalization of female detainees unwilling to validate a transgender police officer’s identity.
Cathy Larkman, a 30-year police veteran, has come out and stated that she was “gobsmacked” when she saw the new guidelines distributed amongst the Police Chiefs, ones which were quietly issued in December. Larkman told the Mail on Sunday that the guidelines would allow trans-identified male officers to participate in the strip-searches of female detainees.
The guidelines state that “Chief Officers are advised to [recognize] the status of Transgender colleagues from the moment they transition, considered to be, the point at which they present in the gender with which they identify,” continuing: “Thus, once a Transgender colleague has transitioned, they will search persons of the same gender as their own lived gender.” … read full article (and SUPPORT REDUXX!)
Stonewall accused of 'holding No 10 to ransom' after £650,000 wasted on cancelled LGBT summit
Charity triggered a boycott of the 'Safe To Be Me' conference over Boris Johnson's move to exempt trans people from a conversion therapy ban
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Ewan Somerville
April 10, 2022
Stonewall has been accused of "holding the Government to ransom" after £650,000 of taxpayers’ money was wasted on an LGBT summit which was scrapped when the controversial diversity charity triggered a mass boycott, The Telegraph can disclose.
Policymakers from dozens of countries were due to attend the three-day 'Safe To Be Me' conference in June, a key Conservative manifesto pledge to advance LGBT rights. It was the first event of its kind, to coincide with the London Pride march's 50th anniversary.
But the summit was left in tatters this week when Stonewall, which was being paid to co-chair the conference’s external organising body, walked out in protest at Boris Johnson’s U-turn to exempt transgender people from the conversion therapy ban.
No 10 intervened to officially ditch the event on Tuesday after some 100 other activist groups came out to support Stonewall’s boycott, followed by the resignation of the Government’s own LGBT adviser Iain Anderson, who is a Stonewall ambassador.
The trans lobby group’s top role in the conference raised eyebrows, months after an exodus of Government departments from its contentious diversity training scheme and in the midst of its failed attempt to strip the EHRC, the equality watchdog, of its special UN status. … read full article (web page archive)
A Twitter Thread from Candice Jackson
From Twitter
By Candice Jackson
April 10, 2022
Gen X, & especially millennials, grew up surrounded by “feminism” infected by an anti-material reality twist on intersectionality plus Queer Theory conversion of women’s studies into “gender studies” that left “liberal feminism” pursuing (1) sex based exploitation as “liberation”
(2) pursuit of “inclusivity” that obliterates women as a sex class, & women’s rights became men’s rights. So it’s easy for conservatives to blame “feminism” for gender ideology, but truth is for a couple generations feminism’s been hijacked so women work for our own exploitation.
Gender ideology is spurring a revived feminism (& gay rights movement) grounded in material reality, bypassing our legacy orgs that have sold out their constituencies, w/ new groups analyzing & acting with clarity around why being a woman or homosexual matters in life & law.
These reinvigorated women’s rights & gay rights movements are able to work with conservatives to beat back gender ideology because most conservatives have cooled their jets on expressing moral disgust for homosexuals or insisting women’s biology dictates subservience to men.
Conservatives cannot defeat gender ideology w/o a pro-reality coalition of women & homosexuals, & would be well served to understand that gender ideology isn’t some inevitable outgrowth of women’s rights or gay rights but the result of “queered” perversions of each.
Trump calls for an end to ‘woke war on women’ at North Carolina rally: Former president says 'far-left gender theories' are 'child abuse' and that public schools have replaced 'reading and math with pronouns and gender studies'
Trump was speaking about how he wanted Republicans to take back both houses of Congress in 2022 and ban teaching of 'far-left gender theories'
'A Republican Congress must stand up for parental rights and parental choice, I think that's a good idea,' he said
'No teacher should ever be allowed to teach far-left gender theories to our children without parental consent,' he added. 'It's truly child abuse'
He then honed in on the public education system, which he believes has 'traded reading and math for pronouns and gender studies'
Trump argued a Republican Congress should allow parents to send their children to any public, private or charter school of their choice
'Our government-run education system has forfeited the trust of American parents, they really, really have'
From Daily Mail (UK)
By STEPHEN M. LEPORE
April 9, 2022
Former President Donald Trump called for an end of the 'woke war on women' and likened the teaching of 'far-left gender theories' to child abuse at his North Carolina rally.
Trump was speaking in Selma on Saturday about how he wanted Republicans to take back both houses of Congress in 2022 and ban the discussion of 'far-left gender theories,' in addition to the teaching of Critical Race Theory. … read full article
"The Cruelty Is the Point"— Or Is It?
Can you find even one person who "hates" trans kids and wishes them harm?
From The 21st Century Salon (USA)
By The 21st Century Salonnière
April 10, 2022
If I could magically make everyone understand one idea, it would be this: We all believe we are on the side of Right and Goodness. People who oppose us politically also believe they are on the side of Right and Goodness. When we believe our opponents are Bad Guys, this prevents us from engaging with them and solving the problems that face us all.
We are stuck in what seems to be a permanent state of political ineffectiveness because we are perpetually caught up in this high-emotion belief that people who oppose us are Evil and can’t be reasoned with. We continue to vote for “our side” — while our ruling class continues to govern in ways that don’t benefit regular people — because we are utterly convinced that the “other side” is Evil and must be stopped.
Jobs, wages, health care, education, inflation — real-world concerns are placed on the back burner because Those People Over There are pure evil and must be stopped first. That’s the important thing! … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to The 21st Century Salon!)
The logic of trans activism leads to surreal debate, but the grown-ups are fighting back
From The Times (UK)
By Sarah Ditum
April 10, 2022
ut of the many accounts of Ukrainian resilience and bravery, there was one that didn’t pull my heartstrings in quite the way it was intended to. The website Pink News published an article claiming there was a “war within a war” against Ukrainian trans people. The problem was that trans women were trying to flee the country but being turned back at the border — along with every male of fighting age — if their passport still said “male”.
One trans woman said that she was scared not only of Russian bombs but of being pressed into the army. “I don’t want to shoot people. I don’t want to kill anyone,” she said. To which, I must confess, my gut reaction was: “Yes, and?” I imagine a great many of the conscripted, on both sides, would rather not be in a war at all. That’s war for you. … read full article (web page archive)
Sex
Some beliefs are smarter than others
From Structured Openness
By Structopen
April 10, 2022
Idea: the scientific method has generated a large body of useful knowledge. This method discovers ‘facts’ if facts are things that are highly likely to be true; it doesn't create dogma. The biology of sex is just one area of knowledge generated by this method. Some people are trying to redefine sex based on their own set of beliefs. However, these beliefs are dogmatic and can’t compete with the effectiveness of the scientific method and the body of useful knowledge it’s generated. This knowledge shows that sex in humans is binary and too complex to change.
I need a post about the biology of sex to complement the one I wrote on Gender. What I would like to do with this post is give you a genuine account of how science understands sex, and then discuss how the scientific method has generated this knowledge.
I’ll describe some concepts first:
-(Biological) Function – this is the purpose behind some biology and the glue that coordinates its parts. In the case of sex, it’s reproduction.
-Genotype – the set of instructions (eg, genes) that define the limits and potential for an organism.
-Phenotype – the realisation of an organism’s genotype within some environment. This will also be influenced by random variation during development (ie, because the genotype can’t exactly plan the outcome). … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Structured Openness!)
… read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Structured Openness!)
A Twitter Thread from Carole Hooven
From Twitter
By Carole Hooven
April 10, 2022
1/10 A couple of days ago, Emma Barnett, the host of Radio4’s Women’s Hour, asked Grace Lavery (a literature professor) whether it was possible to change one’s sex. Lavery responded “I would claim that it is possible to change that.” She described how
2/10 replacing her high testosterone with estrogen “was profoundly transformative & completely reorganized my sense of myself.” This is a typical response to transitioning with hormones; they're powerful chemicals. But Lavery takes this power a step further, claiming that because
3/10 people can alter hormones, which then alter secondary sex characteristics like breasts and beards, they can change sex. That sex is a “natural, organic type” is “a difficult concept [for people] to get their heads out of,” because “after all, that is what patriarchy tells us
4/10 every day.” She also thinks that “sex based rights [are] precisely what feminism was created to oppose…and are a bad deal for women.” She knows this because she is a scholar of feminism with “20 years of active research & teaching in the field.” This is about the same
5/10 amount of time I’ve spent researching & teaching in my own field, evolutionary biology and endocrinology. Her views are the result of research; mine, apparently, have been compromised by the patriarchal agenda.
6/10 No matter what words one uses, there are still only two reproductive categories, defined basically by the capacity to produce either small, mobile gametes, or large, immobile ones. Sex is not defined by our hormones, beards, breasts, behavior, or even our chromosomes. These
7/10 are traits that can vary within & between sex. The “essence” of sex is about gamete production. Most of the time sex allows us to make accurate predictions about things like genitalia, relative strength, or propensity for sexual assault. But in some cases it provides very
8/10 little relevant information, or can even be misleading. Some females may go through a masculinizing puberty with the use of HRT, and could grow to be big, strong, and sexually aggressive; and some males may be castrated, and/or small, weak, and unthreatening. None of these
9/10 facts change the very basic one: sex is a real, biological, binary category, and nobody can change sex. That does not by itself dictate policy, but it doesn’t help to promote falsehoods. I’ll gladly defer to Lavery on topics like Jane Austen;
10/10 but when it comes to sex and feminism, I’ll look elsewhere.