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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
One event, two views. It all depends on the ideological glasses you filter the event through.
Berkeley Law Professor Expertly Sautées Senator Josh Hawley In Terse Exchange On Trans People
Senator Josh Hawley thought he had a gotcha question for Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges, but he ended up getting got, as her rhetorical savvy left him speechless and embarrassed.
People on the right claim she "melted down."
Please watch the two minute video and tell us, what say you?
In this expanded/unedited clip, you can see what went on before and after the exchange in this post.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU7nzwbJ-Hk
What hubris. The professor tries shaming the Senator into believing that it is his position, and not hers, that is the cause of the "trans" suicide rate. Talk about a lack of self-reflection.
ReplyDelete...but such is the inevitable end result of the farce previously known as the women's movement.
DeleteThe "trans" movement is the 2nd derivative of this mistake.
DeleteThe professor celebrates her "indifference" to sex by insisting that we all become "indifferent" to the realities of "sex" and proclaim a "universal indifference"... in the name of pretending to believe that men can get pregnant and have babies.
DeleteAs if the realization that they "can't" will drive them to suicide, and not the pretense that "but for the prejudices of some "haters"" they could.
...as women extend their indifference to the "realities" of sex by insisting upon the right to kill any biologically imposed realities resulting from random and indifferent acts of procreation.
DeleteI believe trans ideology is an invasive species.
ReplyDeletehttps://thelastenglishprince.wordpress.com/2022/08/02/a-greek-chorus-invasive-species/
It is bringing intense harm and emotional and mental suffering to young children. As an aside, I was unaware that Planned Parenthood was no promoting a blank slate for sexual identity.
A friend of my brother had the clerk walk into the post partum room and ask him what sex he wanted on the birth certificate. His response? "Look at him! He has a cock, doesn't he?"
I’m no intersex expert but I remember growing up, there was a farmer who had a 200 pound goat with both a vagina and a penis. The older farmers said the size was nature’s way of protecting it from being killed by the other goats.
ReplyDeleteI’m reading where around 1 out of 2000 babies are born with genital differences. Can’t help but wonder how many times the doc looked at the parents asking “whadda ya want me to do, snip or sew?”.
Why do either?
DeleteWhy is it a "problem" requiring a "choice"?
DeleteWell, FJ, how do we officially identify these folks. What sports can they play? What bathroom can they use? Considering some states have a binary check box of sexual gender for voting registration with fines and prison for falsifying, how can they vote? Or, should they be allowed to?
DeleteI’m sure you have some nonsensical YouTube zinger for a response.
Why not let them decide and identify however they choose to? Or is it something that you, personally, have to know?
DeleteSurely these people have always existed, right? So why are you creating these "new problems" and need for special recognition?
I doubt that they were committing suicide at their current high rates back when we ignored them and the so-called associated "problems".
DeleteThe "big Other" must need to see the "forms" filled out correctly?
Delete...especially on your new "surgically determined" Island of Dr. Ronnie Moreau?
DeleteWhy insist that we publically force choices upon the Divergent"?
DeletePointing to statistically infinitesimal exceptions does not help your argument. There are always exceptions on the fringes, and there are always corner cases.
DeleteAlso, I doubt your statistic about genital deformities. That sounds like something cooked up by people with an agenda. I have not researched the issue, but I do find it plausible that that number could reflect all gender deformities if someone made the category capacious enough, and I bet, if we dived into the data, most of them are some kind of mirror deformity and not some kind of intersex or hermaphrodite type of situation.
I’ll concede you’re likely correct the .05% of the genital differences aren’t quite that extreme but it’s a small piece of the puzzle. I haven’t studied this issue as it really isn’t an interest to me but I think we’ve all encountered or have know people with gender issues or homosexual tendencies. And the intensity of these issues and tendencies vary. I think we’ve all know someone who was no surprise of coming out of the closet or never marrying.
DeleteI think it’s an issue that would be better dealt with had the right wing not found it advantageous to use them as political pawns.
We're using them as pawns? lol!
DeletePerhaps you could provide an example of one of these gender voter laws?
DeleteHere's my take on the ""hassles" of the transgendered...
DeleteIn 14 states, trans and nonbinary people have to provide proof of gender affirmation surgery — an expensive operation that is inaccessible to many — in order to update the gender marker on their ID. Another 16 states require name changes to be published in newspapers, another costly ordeal.
"This kind of high barrier in order to update your identification to feel good about presenting your ID makes it really difficult for trans folks to be able to have an ID that really represents them," Rosenblum said.
Sounds like SUCH a "hassle"... LOL!
ps... there is no "gender" marker on their IDs. Only a "Sex" one.
Delete...and I'm pretty sure that no one asks them to unzip when they enter the polls to vote.
Delete...which is why the "proof of gender affirmation surgery" (to the correct Sex) is required.
Deleteps - What is the cost of placing a newspaper classified ad these days? Is it more than $5?
Delete...and I hate to be the one to inform you, but vaginal sex isn't "sodomy".
Delete...it represents a different set of STD transmission vectors and probabilities (ie MPXV and AIDS).
DeleteAs Emerson said, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind".
Delete@sf dunno how much it has to do with trans, but intersex is not unusual eg Klinefelter syndrome (xxy sex chromosomes) alone
Delete(not the only form of intesex) affects about 1:500 males.
It's called Klinefelter syndrome when they're born as boys. Xxy babies can be born with a female phenotype too (rarer, I think). Like I say, dunno how this relates to trans, but if the senator's "sex is simple" stance were an honest appeal to biology, this shows how it is actually complicated and not in a super rare way.
DeleteNo Jez, it is not complicated. A woman is a female human. A biological woman has the potential to give birth. Biological men do not.
DeleteA non-trivial number of biological women are infertile. If a trans man is legally male, he could be fertile. The professor makes both these points, of course.
DeleteBut I guess this is the senator's point, he wants to anul the legal status of the trans man's gender reassignment, but he wants to disguise his campaign as a linguistic quibble.
I usually try to dilute or account for my lefty bias, but not bothering here so you can see the kind of cynical motives we ascribe to our opponents on the right. I assume that you are likewise ascribing cynical motives to the professor.
DeleteIt is messy. You yourself, not a fault but you have to because of the discussion, have mixed up biology and law. Two separate things. Note I said a woman has the potential to give birth. Just as men have the potential to fertilize an egg. Obviously there are exceptions.
DeletePeople with agendas are purposely muddying this up and an attempt to force us all to say 2 + 2 = 5
Jez,
DeleteI agree with you that cynical motives and bad faith arguments exist on all sides of this and most other debates of this type.
I note without cynicism that I don't know what potential means here in the face of unambiguous infertility. It looks to me like you're creating a circular definition.
DeleteWill it work better if we always write "legally" or "biologically" - maybe you're reading tacit "biologically"s where they weren't intended?
Does anyone have an opinion on the exchange in the video? Who won?
ReplyDeleteSenator Hawley won, because he didn't reduce the argument to ad hominems or morality... the professor did.
Delete“Before impugning an opponent’s motives, even when they may rightly be impugned, answer his arguments.” - Sidney Hook</a<
DeleteWhat was this hearing about?
DeleteTweet from @SenWarren: “With Roe gone, it’s more important than ever to crack down on so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ that mislead and deceive patients seeking abortion care. My bill with @SenatorMenendez would stop these harmful practices.”
What would the bill touted by Senator Warren do? A justifiably irate editorial in National Review gave the nasty details:
Under Warren’s bill, charities could be fined $100,000 or “50 percent of the revenues earned by the ultimate parent entity” of the charity for violating the act’s “prohibition of disinformation” related to abortion. But the legislation itself does not define prohibited speech. Warren’s bill directs the Federal Trade Commission to “promulgate rules to prohibit a person from advertising with the use of misleading statements related to the provision of abortion services.” Warren’s bill would thus turn the Federal Trade Commission into a national abortion disinformation board.
And who would define “disinformation”? One likely suspect would be Liz Warren’s friends at NARAL Pro-Choice America, whose study of crisis pregnancy centers complained that “more than 67 percent” of the centers surveyed “intentionally referred to the fetus as ‘baby.’”
Gee, a fetus isn't a baby... what a serious "disinformation" problem!
It's the "Affirmative Action for Newspeak" bill.
DeleteMaybe we should just ban the future tense of the English language so as to match with DemSoc (Democratic Socialism).
DeleteThe senator wasn't advancing an argument, he was asking questions. Moral observations are not invalid.
Delete@SF who won?
DeleteFirst, we have to establish between ourselves what the game is. The Senator's game is to entertain his base by needling the professor for her inclusive language. The professor's game is to defend the concept of inclusivity and explicitly note that the Senator's line of questioning is not honest -- he's not the slightest bit confused about what "capacity for pregnancy" means, he's just trolling to generate an entertaining clash.
Maybe the youtube clickbait content packagers are right, and they each win at their respective games. It comes down to which game you as a content consumer thinks is most productive. I'm not that taken with either of them.
As to which was the most effective on their own terms, you'd have to ask the Senator's own base; his performance wasn't aimed at me (nor the professor he was onstensibly debating with; it's entirely performative) so I can't possibly judge. As for the professor, I think she made a bit of a meal of it. I can see why it's good not to play along with a bad faith line of questioning, but if it were me I'd try to treat the like the idiot he's pretending to be and take his feigned confusion seriously, try to drill down to which bit he was having trouble with and force him to admit that his questioning was more about "why didn't you say 'women'" than "i don't know what 'capacity' and/or 'pregnancy' means". That's a high risk strategy though.
...only the bill under discussion was related to "pregnancy centers" and regulating the "speech" that would be permitted at them, making "speech" and "terms used" the very issue. Would everyone be FORCED to speak like the professor so as to not "disinform" patients? Would a non-profit be "fined" for suing terms like "women" instead of "humans capable of becoming pregnant"? His "questions" went to the very heart of the debate.
DeleteSo yes, "moral issues" were an irrelevant distraction. The professor should have answered his questions.
DeleteLanguage and the categories words describe can be narrow or broad. Is it "disinformation" to use a broad term, rather than a narrow one? Such are the issues when you attempt to regulate and censor human speech.
DeleteAs an example, should a counselor at a "pregnancy" be permitted to counsel a woman who hasn't become pregant, but doesn't know that she's physically incapable of becoming pregnant, hence the need for some "leeway" and "imprecision" in the language. Or is the fact that she is a "woman" sufficient"?
DeleteThe "game" was to debate and discuss the bill under consideration.
Delete:P
DeleteWords mean things.
Delete...and upon further examination of this hearing and the article linked to, I now realize that this hearing wasn't on Warren's bill, but on a broader issue of the consequences of repealling Roe. My bad. Sorry. Your points stand, jez.
DeleteI erroneously made the leap to Warren's bill based upon the testimony of the other two witnesses present.
DeleteThanks FJ. Must confess, I only watched the short clip so not aware of the context.
DeleteYeah, I had watched Silver's longer clip, but the other two witnesses were from Pregnancy Crisis Centers of the type being legislated against in Warren's bill. I had read about Warrens bill and "assumed" it to be the subject of the Hearing in the clip. It wasn't. My apologies.
DeleteGEICO has closed all of its 38 California offices and has stopped selling insurance to those living in California.
ReplyDeleteNot true. While it has closed offices, it continues to offer insurance to residents of CA... here's a statement from Geico provided to the Sacramento Bee.
Delete"We [Geico] continue to write policies in California, and we remain available through our direct channels for the more than 2.18 million California customers presently insured with us.”
This is all part of a larger shift from in person insurance to mostly online so as to save money.
Not anywhere near as nefarious as Anon hopes...
I have been insured by Geico for more than twenty years, in California, and I didn't realize Geico had any offices. I've been under the impression it was online only for the past several years. I check rates every other year. and no one has beat them yet. USAA would beat them slightly if they offered their rebate up front, but Gieco doesn't insist on holding my money all year before giving it back.
DeleteAs a Missourian, I have to ask, why does Virginia get three Senators when we only get one?
ReplyDeleteAs an American, I have to ask, when did we winnow down the issues facing America to the bottom of the list where if we solve why delusional people kill themselves we win a Kewpie doll?
Not to put too fine a point on this, but why is the Senate having a committee hearing on this when we still don't know who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?
All bread and circuses all the time.
DeleteHonestly, nobody wins, the American people lose as the entire discussion had absolutely nothing to do with the senate hearing on access to abortion care, counseling, etc. and what you viewed was simply two fringe wingnuts grinding their axes. Honestly it annoys the heck out of me that few commenting on the topic seems to grasp the concept that gender while influenced by is not 100% determined by biology. Biology is immutable, the XXY issue a distraction, XXY people are biologically male as it is the Y chromosome that determines sex, the X chromosome is irrelevant. If you have a Y chromosome you are biologically male. If you have a Y chromosome and don't develop as a biological male than it is 100% guaranteed that you either have a genetic defect or that you were exposed to foreign contaminants in the womb that interfered with normal development. Nascent gonads are neutral and contain both germ and somatic cells and it is the influence of genes and proteins introduced by the Y chromosome. That said it's not a binary coin flip. Sexual development is influenced by roughly 32% of the approximately 20,500 genes that make up a human being as well as other factors that are maternal, fetal, placental, and environmental. So yes, you can be a biological male with a wee itty bitty and rather nice pecs, ;) Gender however is a social construct whose primary purpose was to enforce societal norms and keep us apex predators from killing each other before reproducing. It was a fairly important thing when we were living in caves, foraging for berries, and trying to kill mammoths with pointy sticks, probably not so much today. I personally don't care what gender anyone identifies as; I'll call you by whatever name or English pronouns you wish, i.e. I'll call you he or she but I ain't calling you ze, hir, or zir... they're silly and made up, call me old-fashioned. That said trans women shouldn't compete against biological women as there are developmental differences in the distribution of various types of muscle fiber that are established during development and no amount of hormone therapy is going to change that. Not really relevant amongst us mere average humans, but at the apex a tran woman is going to physically out-perform a biological woman in physical strength. I once had a girl friend who qualified for the 1988 US Olympic Taekwondo team who could easily have kicked my ass any time she wanted (no she didn't medal she was disqualified early for kicking her opponent in the head) but I did get to see her beat up three dudes in a bar parking lot once. Still, take my advice if you bet on sports, bet on the trans woman. Nuff said?
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you!
Delete"If you have a Y chromosome and don't develop as a biological male than it is 100% guaranteed that you either have a genetic defect or that you were exposed to foreign contaminants in the womb that interfered with normal development"
ReplyDelete"Defect" is subjective, and doesn't alter the fact that xxy women do exist.
She might even be fertile https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11173857/#:~:text=The%20fertility%20of%20the%20XXY,female%20described%20who%20is%20fertile.
DeleteWould this be, by your definitions, a male with a capacity for pregnancy?
I have already acknowledged statistical anomalies, and that is not what the professor in the video was referring to.
DeleteI refer you back to my previous comment stating the basic biological facts of what is a male and what is a female.
...or instead of calling them 'male' or 'female', we simply call them fertile gonadally digenetic and keep our previous definitions
DeleteMy chromosomal remarks are directed towards Finntann, not in response to a video clip. SF's "basic biological facts" ("potential to give birth") are not compatible with Finntann's assertion ("If you have a Y chromosome you are biologically male"). And what does "potential" to give birth mean for a woman who is unambiguously infertile? If "potential to give birth" just means "female", that's a circular definition.
DeleteYes, defect is subjective and language is imprecise, but from your own citation "can be attributed to mutation or deletion of the SRY gene". In essence, a non-functional Y chromosome as it is primarily the SRY gene that results in the development of a biological male. Some mutations are pathogenic, a mutation of MARK3 gene results in failure of the development of the eyes resulting in blindness yet no one is advocating for removing the eyes of sighted children. Our hubris is remarkable, we are far closer to leeches and bloodletting than you may think.
DeletePotential to give birth, potential to fertilize an egg. Means, female reproductive systems contain eggs ovaries etc, and males contain sperm.
DeleteI can't believe you are playing this game with us.
You can chop off clock weights, or so them on, etc. And if you're an adult and it's your choice I fully support you, but those are changing external things not basic biology is certainly not anything at the chromosomal level
@Finntann: mutations and deletions are routine occurrences in nature, not reserved for "defects". If the individual is healthy and viable, who are we to declare her (I'm choosing pronoun based on my understanding of biology, IDK her preference) to be "defected"?
DeleteTo be clear, I'm not arguing in favour of underage sex reassignment surgery. I'm not commenting on that, only on your reductive definition of gender. I can see you're worried, but rest assured that conceding this point would do nothing to harm plenty of lines of argument against the surgery.
@SF: you're asking more from this point than it can answer, since it's really very specific and small. I agree that reassignment surgery is largely cosmetic (plus or minus some hormonal impact). I'm just talking about how biological gender is slighlty -- only slightly -- more complicated than the anti-woke right pretends. I'm not arguing that a trans man and a cis man are biologically the same. I feel like you're putting words in my mouth.
My point, which I seem to be failing at adequately making, is that gender is a social construct, biology is not. A transwoman is still biologically a male, that doesn't mean that they should ostracized, shunned or deprived of anything, it means simply that they are biologically male, in sports they shouldn't be competing with biological females. As gender is a fluid social construct it also means we shouldn't be turning little girls and boys into little boys and girls when they are not intellectually and emotionally mature enough to make the decisions for themselves. You're not old enough to get a tattoo but you're old enough to get a sex change, it's absurd. That's the hubris of the parent(s), not the child. Once you reach the age of maturity, be whatever you want to be, I have no problem with that.
ReplyDeleteJez,
ReplyDeleteIt is clear I am not getting it. So, could you please explain, how a man can become pregnant and deliver a baby.
A biological male (as I understand it, not how Finntann understands it) cannot become pregnant and deliver a baby. A legal (trans) male may become pregnant and deliver a baby.
DeleteThis isn't complicated. It only appears complicated if we a) insist on reading "biological" gender in contexts where legal gender is obviously intended, or b) rely on a reductive definition of biological gender (Finntann's Y chromosome rule). But b) is really a special case of a), since the ultimate purpose of oversimplifying the definition of biological gender is to strengthen the case for preferring biological gender to legal gender for general usage.
Okay, we are tracking. A biological female who chooses to present as a male, as long as all her lady parts are still intact, can give birth.
DeleteI don't include you in this, but My opinion is that activists purposely obfuscate and muddy the waters for these types of discussions. This is what happens when certain words and phrases become taboo, and causes everyone to start screaming if you say the wrong thing.
I don't like pointlessly upsetting people, but I never met a taboo I didn't instinctively want to break it.
DeleteJez, you're confusing the heck out of me. 1. I agree with every you say above except my definition is objective not reductive. Biological sex is scientifically and objectively measurable. My definition, that is not actually my definition, but the diagnostic definition directly addresses Silverfiddle's statement that "activists purposely obfuscate and muddy the waters". My point is that you can't muddy biology, you can say your green eyes are brown... but if they reflect light in the 495-570 nm wavelengths, they are green regardless of what you say. You're entitled to your own opinions; you are not entitled to your own reality. Color like biology is measurable.
ReplyDelete2. I never linked gender to biology, in fact if you recall I called it a social construct if you want to differentiate between biological and legal gender, I have no problem with that nor do I believe that people should be forced to categorize into their biological gender in most cases. I really don't care if you have male, female, or parrot on your driver's license, whatever floats your boat. I do however believe that biological sex has a significant impact on sports and that being biologically male confers a distinct advantage over biological females due to significant and measurable physiological differences most of which occur during fetal development, but then again that is only at the apex of competitive sports. I don't believe that a biological male identifying as female deserves an Olympic gold medal in a biological female competition regardless of their currently measurable testosterone levels. I think you and I are in violent agreement and we are talking past each other.
I do agree with most of that, but I'm trying not to talk past you. My only issue is with your definition, which since it leads you to label a mother as a male, IMO must have something wrong with it. Since I can't see a way of improving it without introducing complications, I call it reductive.
Delete*biological* male
DeleteYour case is an edge case, and the citation itself explains that the y chromosome in that mother is non-functional; the mutated or deleted SRY gene. Is a screwdriver with the tip broken off still a screwdriver? What I find odd is that I can't find any analysis or data on the relationship between Klinefelter's syndrome and gender dysphoria aside from a request for participation of XXY persons in a study by St Thomas Hospital in the UK. Rather odd, you think we'd be looking at that.
ReplyDeleteIf the broken screwdriver somehow works perfectly as an angle grinder, it's an angle grinder.
DeleteWhy should we be interested particularly in xxy gender disphoria? Do you want to donate towards that research?
Simple curiosity regarding nature vs. nurture, I'd suspect it's far more nurture than nature. There was something in the news this morning about a 4-year old girl having a gender reveal party thrown by her parents and coming out as a boy. I tend to agree with the commentor who said his 4-year old thinks he's a dinosaur.
DeleteWhatever we think privately about their parenting, I think both of us is very cautious about curtailing our freedoms to raise our children as we see fit. My strongest line of questioning is reserved for the journalists who saw fit to publicise this eccentricity.
DeleteHe looks rational. She looks stupid and evasive.
ReplyDeleteBAYSIDER
In fact, illustration:
ReplyDeletehttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe2c704ce-cb5b-4a80-ac74-72fbe1b3e462_776x604.png
BAYSIDER