May 11, 2016

"Can a law, written in the heat of the civil rights movement generations ago, apply to people the drafters never intended to cover?"

"The word sex made it into the [Civil Rights Act of 1964] at the last minute, almost accidentally. It was inserted only after the drafting and congressional hearings, when the bill went to the House floor. Representative Howard W. Smith, a Virginia Democrat who opposed the bill, introduced an amendment adding sex discrimination, prompting laughter from his colleagues, who mockingly offered other suggested additions. Despite speculation that Mr. Smith meant to weaken support for the bill — he said his concern for women was sincere — his amendment passed, and so did the act. The rights of transgender people never came up."

From "Transgender Fight in North Carolina May Hinge On 1964 Law" (in the NYT).

68 comments:

sinz52 said...

Once the Civil Rights Act of 1964 creaed the concept of "protected classes" to protect blacks from discrimination,

it was inevitable that every minority group (and even women, a majority group) would want to be part of the fun. Get named a protected class, and instantly all those nondiscrimination and even affirmative-action policies apply to you.

So over the years, that list of protected classes has grown and grown:

Pregnancy
Age
Familial status (can't discriminate against adults who have children)
Disability
Veterans
Genetics

That last one is really absurd. Every human being's DNA is carrying one more more alleles for life-threatening illnesses. (You're going to die of *something*.) We might as well declare the ultimate minority group--the human being--to be a "protected class" and let it go at that.

So yes, once you've got this list of protected classes, how can you exclude gays, transgendered, little people, obese people, mentally ill people--the list goes on and on.

traditionalguy said...

North Carolina will be better off if it just submits and stops "protecting" female people in gender specific public bathrooms.

Life in a borderless society is never dull.

Fritz said...

The Congress must immediately pass a law making all Federal restroom facilities unisex. The federal workers will love it, trust me. Especially all the little old women who really do all the work.

Paco Wové said...

"The rights of transgender people never came up."

That's some serious imposition of the present day onto the past, there.

Lyssa said...

Althouse, I would really like to hear your thoughts on this issue. I don't always agree with you, but the way that you break things down is usually interesting to me. I'm not sure why you've refrained from offering any personal opinions so far, but if the reason is that you are still trying to figure it out yourself, then all the more reason that I would like to hear your process.

I'm really trying to understand the thought processes in general on this issue. It's like this suddenly came to solid factions overnight, but with no one offering any reflection or wrestling whatsoever. It's strange. It's nothing at all like the gay rights/marriage debates that lasted throughout the aughts and involved real changes ("evolutions," if you will) of hearts and minds.

Ann Althouse said...

"Althouse, I would really like to hear your thoughts on this issue."

I think it needs to be cranked through the judicial system, with lots of briefs and arguments and public reactions and sober parsing of precedent done by serious judges.

gerry said...

Making a psychological disorder a civil right, we have entered amok time.

Hagar said...

You can crap with the girls and you can shower with them, but you cannot play on their teams!

Lyssa said...

I think it needs to be cranked through the judicial system, with lots of briefs and arguments and public reactions and sober parsing of precedent done by serious judges.

OK, fair enough. Why is this different from your position during the gay marriage debate?

Oso Negro said...

In 1974 I lived in the residence halls during my freshman year of college at Washington University in St. Louis. All bathrooms were unisex in the residence halls. So in the morning you might enter a shower stall next to a girl or sit in a toilet stall next to a girl. I always wondered what the parents thought about that. And the dope smoking! It was as if all the adults had abdicated. I have no idea how the unisex bathrooms came to pass or how long they lasted, but I bet the experiment didn't survive the 1970s.

Bruce Hayden said...

I think that unisex bathrooms may be the bridge too far. Tushnet yesterday was a topic after they claimed that the culture wars were over. But their claim of victory may be premature. The reality is that bisexual bathrooms, or even allowing people wth male genetalia in female bathrooms, will most likely enable many more sexual predators than it will convenience true transvestites. If all it takes is for a male sexual predator to go into a female bathroom is to put on a dress, where the women have their pants down, and along with a lot of young girls, a lot of sexual predictors wells do just that, I expect it to happen. A lot.

Ann Althouse said...

"Making a psychological disorder a civil right, we have entered amok time."

But we do have civil rights laws that require accommodation of persons with disabilities and these do include mental as well as physical disabilities. Those laws have been around for decades... and we've survived.

Rick said...

Ann Althouse said...
I think it needs ...and sober parsing of precedent done by serious judges.


More realism please, "solutions" requiring unicorn participation aren't helpful.

Ann Althouse said...

"Why is this different from your position during the gay marriage debate?"

SSM had been debated for decades and was already part of the law in some states, so there was a uniformity interest as people moved from state to state and as they dealt with the federal government. (For example, Windsor was married in NY yet treated as unmarried in dealing with the IRS, and it was COSTING her over $300,000.)

The govt had already undertaken to make thousands of things depend on marriage -- taxes, Social Security, etc. — and it was an equality problem to treat one married couple differently from another. That needed to be set straight.

As for transgender persons choosing which bathroom to use... you're already dealing in an area where we accept sex discrimination, classifying people by sex, sending them to one door or another based on sex. We don't think that's wrong, the way we easily see that it's wrong to divide people by race when they go to the bathroom. And now, you have some people who have to go to the bathroom and it's not clear which one they should go to. These people have been around for a long time, being discreet about their decisions and not getting harassed about it. That was the social accommodation, and it was probably the best solution. Let's all be discreet, polite, and don't call attention to other people's difficulties. But that might not be enough now because some governments have decided to push it and make some new rules. So now we'll have to get all legal about it.

Bruce Hayden said...

OSo is right that campuses have had unisex bathrooms for quite some time, and even when it wasn't official, it was often de facto, esp after the guys had drunk enough. Know one school where the bathrooms were fficially segregated, but the women dreaded Fri and Sat nights there, where the guys would pck the closest bathrooms, instead of the apprpriate ones, to do their business. I was in college a couple years earlier, and experienced the first of this, along with even allowing males in female dorms (at my school, I was, I think, the first guy to live in the freshman women's dorm, thanks to daily inter visitation starting my sophomore year - I came and went openly, just didn't leave at night).

But the difference is that the males and females involved are similarly situated - all are young adults in ther prime, and everyone is subject to the same peer pressure. In the case of public restrooms, there is going to be a big mismatch there, with adult males unsupervised with older women and young girls. To me, a big, critical, difference

Bruce Hayden said...

Let me clarify my previous post - I was maybe 6 years ahead of Oso in college, starting in 1968. And during that time we went from fully segregated dorms where males were never allowed in the females' living areas (you met the co-eds downstairs in the lobby) to alternating male and female rooms in the dorms.

CStanley said...


The govt had already undertaken to make thousands of things depend on marriage -- taxes, Social Security, etc. — and it was an equality problem to treat one married couple differently from another. That needed to be set straight.


Much like doctors who prescribe drugs that cause side effects and then prescribe more drugs to treat the side effects, never considering that perhaps the initial prescription was unnecessary and the best course would be to withdraw it.

David Begley said...

AA

In a serious - I mean a non-political judicial system - this is not even a close case. Sixty days from argument to decision and a 20 page decision. No dissent. The plain language of the statute does NOT include transgender. Sex does not include transgender. The DOJ Complaint was crazy.

CStanley said...

I'm glad I went to college in the South, where in the 80s we still had house mothers keeping guys out of the women's dorms. Gross enough to use communal bathrooms with other females and have to shower with flip flops on your feet.

Michael K said...

"people who have to go to the bathroom and it's not clear which one they should go to."

I think toilets (also called "bathrooms" although few take baths in them) are less of an issue. The real question is shower rooms and locker rooms.

I don;t see a serious judge trying to unwind that distinction.

Laslo Spatula said...

I am Mr. Spooky Scary Bathroom Man.

I am dressed as a woman who dresses like a man dressing like a woman and through the stalls in the women's bathroom there are the sounds of preparation: zippers undone, paper seat covers rustling, the soft hush of hiked-up dresses: it is an Overture, and my heart races.

Indeed, I can't help but think that they can sense my heartbeat, the pulse of a Conductor for their Symphony to come.

There is a movement akin to an oboe first: slow, mellifluous, fluctuating, only to be pierced by a short stab of flatulent piccolo, followed by the long low rumble of intestinal cello.

Oh, the sweet sounds of the women's restroom! As the music of bodily functions ebbs and flows I am in ecstasy! I alone hear this Music, and I can feel the hair on my arms stand on end.

If only I could applaud!

I need a tissue.


I am Laslo.

David Begley said...

Lynch's speech equating the NC bathroom law with Jim Crow laws was a complete embarrassment and disgraceful. Why isn't BLM and Jesse Jackson calling her out?

Fabi said...

"...the short stab of flatulent piccolo..."

I listened to that particular movement a few minutes ago.

Sebastian said...

"That needed to be set straight." Right. And Prog uniformity only works one way.

"As for transgender persons choosing which bathroom to use... you're already dealing in an area where we accept sex discrimination, classifying people by sex, sending them to one door or another based on sex. We don't think that's wrong" What do you mean, we? What do you mean, accept? The day after tomorrow, what "we accept" will be declared outrageous discrimination, and you will invent a legal rationale after the fact.

"sober parsing of precedent done by serious judges." Ah, yes. Leave it to our overlords, and forget the voters. Just so long as the parsing reaches the right result. Then Progs can crow again, "we won," declare this battle in the culture wars over, and move on to the next target. As Tushnet made clear, law is simply a tool, and only results matter. The only question is how long it will take for the parsing to break con resistance.

Lyssa said...

Thanks, Althouse. That's the sort of processing that I've been struggling with.

William said...

It seems to me that the entire debate hinges on gender IDENTITY. With respect to restrooms, I think it should depend solely on the person's plumbing.

I think back to that creature, Rachel Dolezal, who IDENTIFIED as black. Using the govmnt's restroom position, Dolezal could file a civil rights complaint saying that she was discriminated against because she was black ... even though she is white.

I think the court has to decide what matters most: biological gender (race) or identity gender (race). And then the debate will have to turn to the fundamental question: how does one unequivocally establish identity?

It's a world gone mad ... something out of Gulliver's Travels.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...That was the social accommodation, and it was probably the best solution.

Are you really this wedded to the idea that it was the mean ol' Right who started this legal fight over transgender restroom access? What will it take to change you mind?
LGBTQ activists have been working to get the law changed for YEARS.
Here's a Time article from 2014 talking about a successful lawsuit wherein a transgender adolescent got $75k out of a Main school district because the school violated the Maine Human Rights Act: Transgender Student Wins Restroom Lawsuit in Maine That article's dated Dec 2014. But yeah, you're right, those stupid NC lawmakers just MADE UP a problem and made it a legal issue...they weren't in any way reacting to activism from the other side.

Social accommodation isn't enough. The Left has been crystal fucking clear on that, over and over again. Minding your own business isn't enough. Tolerance isn't enough. You will be made to agree and celebrate the things the Left insists are good. The Law, the Media, and the State will all push and push and push--resistance is hate.

But yeah, those stupid NC people started it, somehow. Ridiculous.

CStanley said...

As for transgender persons choosing which bathroom to use... you're already dealing in an area where we accept sex discrimination, classifying people by sex, sending them to one door or another based on sex. We don't think that's wrong" What do you mean, we? What do you mean, accept? The day after tomorrow, what "we accept" will be declared outrageous discrimination, and you will invent a legal rationale after the fact.

She means that many progressive people still think this is "normative". She doesn't yet realize that this is an orientation, and some people do not feel that pull.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Transgender Student Who Fought District 211 Will Get Lockerroom Access

From the article (Chicago Tribune): Friday marked the deadline to provide the student locker room access under a controversial agreement adopted by the school board last month. After a lengthy battle with federal authorities, tense negotiations and rancorous board meetings attended by hundreds, the board agreed to the settlement to put an end to the student's discrimination claim.

My bold. Lengthy battle. But yeah, stupid NC people started this whole mess. By the way, read up on that Chicago case. The school seems to have done quite a lot to try and accommodate the student, up to and including providing a curtained-off privacy area for just that student to use...but that wasn't enough, that was deemed insufficient (because it still had a stigma of "otherness" attached), so it was sue, sue, sue, and bring the Federal Gov down on the school.

But you're right, if only those regressive NC idiots would have tried social accommodation we wouldn't be in this mess. Ridiculous.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

From June 2013: Transgender 1st Grader Wins Lawsuit Against School

I mean, right off the bat "transgender 1st grader" seems a bit odd to me, but here we are.
Anyway, those dumbass NC legislators made up an issue and just HAD to get the law involved...before them everything could have been handled with good manners, common sense, and social accommodation. Ridiculous.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said.... But that might not be enough now because some governments have decided to push it and make some new rules. So now we'll have to get all legal about it.

Do I have to keep posting news articles to show that the people "pushing it" for several years now have not been "some governments" but instead have been transgender activists? I can; there are plenty. Or do those pushes not count, for some reason?

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

"Althouse, I would really like to hear your thoughts on this issue."

I think it needs to be cranked through the judicial system, with lots of briefs and arguments and public reactions and sober parsing of precedent done by serious judges.


I thought the public hearings were to come in front of Legislative bodies before passing laws, and the Judicial branch was to make judgement on constitutionality of the law without regard to public opinion.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said... where we accept sex discrimination, classifying people by sex, sending them to one door or another based on sex. We don't think that's wrong

We? What do you mean we, kemo sabe?
Oscar Brown Jr: The Lone Ranger
We accept it? We are hateful bigots, then. Remember the elapsed time from candidate Obama saying he believed marriage should be just for opposite-sex couples to the classification of anyone who holds that belief as evil, hate-filled homophobes spewing hate speech and who should be given no place in polite society? "We" were happy with DOMA under Clinton and up through Obama's first pres. candidacy "we" were confident it was at the very least valid to disagree with SSM. "We" were wrong--"we" were terrible, awful people the whole time as it turns out.
Why in the hell would the issue of transgender rights play out any differently?

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...These people have been around for a long time, being discreet about their decisions and not getting harassed about it.

They were discreet. WERE. Now the ethos is that practicing that discretion is akin to oppression--being made to stay "in the closet." They decided to fight against that by declaring that they would no longer be discreet and must have the rules, laws, and physical reality that applies to every one else changed for their benefit so that they would no longer have to be discreet. They started suing, and winning. That upset quite a few people. Those people then used their voices and votes and started passing laws. Somehow THAT is the part that you've decided broke with the past/"made it a legal issue." Ridiculous.

Michael K said...

Gramsci explained this a long time ago.

It is a Marxist principle to destroy the culture so that it can be replaced.

The West is filled with millions of people like Alex, all of them waiting for Someone. They are the product of a multi-decade campaign to deliberately empty people of their culture; to actually make them ashamed of it. They were purposely drained of God, country, family like chickens so they could be stuffed with the latest narrative of the progressive meme machine. The Gramscian idea was to produce a blank slate upon which the Marxist narrative could be written.

Too bad for the Gramscians that the Islamists are beating them to the empty sheets of paper. And they are better at it too. Maybe the old Bolsheviks could have given ISIS a run for its money, but today's liberals have declined from their sires.


The Islamists are ready to step right in. At The Citadel, for example where the family of that student will now sue to force them to accept the hijab.

The Islamists are better at this than the old Marxists who are mostly in faculty lounges these days.

Lyssa said...

But that might not be enough now because some governments have decided to push it and make some new rules. So now we'll have to get all legal about it.

I read "some governments" who decided to push it as referring to the governments of Charlotte, etc., not the responses from North Carolina, et al. I could have read it incorrectly, but I would think that that's the reference. It certainly started with government pushes.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Your friends and allies now say that people who have a problem with the "transgender rights" package are hateful bigots and morally equivalent to people who supported Jim Crow laws, segregation, and slavery. That's what your pals are saying about fellow Americans who happen to disagree, Professor Althosue. But in your mind it's those people (the ones being called morally equivalent to vicious racists simply for trying to prevent changes from being forced onto them) who are causing all the trouble.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I don't have kids. I honestly don't care. This is another one of those "we won" issues. Remember what you said back when the topic was SSM, Professor? Get on board now, it's all about love, don't be on the wrong side of history. Fine, sure, whatever. Why is this any different? We're talking about such a small population I really doubt there'll be much of a real-world impact one way of the other, but the Left has decided that when it comes to issues of sex/gender/identity they actually care about individual civil rights, so the numbers don't matter. Fine.

Places that pass laws like NC will lose. The people who support the status quo ante will lose. They will be called all sorts of nasty names (bigots, haters) and even though they're probably the majority of the nation the Media will make sure they're not given a real voice (they'll be represented by some ultra-religious Westboro Baptist-style bigots, if at all). Fine.

What pisses me off, though, is the unabashed hypocrisy of the Left combined with the willful distortion of the record that people like Althouse engage in, as here. The Left is happy to do business with Arab nations, with oppressive regimes around the world, but will boycott NC. They're full of shit and the Media lionizes them constantly despite (or perhaps because of) it. Professor Althouse, on the other hand, probably takes a consistent position vis a vis "oppressive" rules/laws/beliefs, but she nevertheless can't help but get the facts wrong (regarding who "struck" first) and calls a reaction an action...on that basis she blames the wrong people and gets things wrong. The Left is all too happy to support that wrong view since it allows them to attack people who disagree with them as evil. Thanks.

boycat said...

Transgenderism is the only mental disorder in which we indulge the mentally ill in their psychotic fantasies.

boycat said...

It'd be like taking a delusional patient who believed he was Napolean and giving him a horse and a sword, and cutting off his feet if he is too tall to be Napolean.

CStanley said...

"Making a psychological disorder a civil right, we have entered amok time."

But we do have civil rights laws that require accommodation of persons with disabilities and these do include mental as well as physical disabilities. Those laws have been around for decades... and we've survived.


But at some point we run up against reality, where legislation and legal battles can't fix everything or create level playing fields. Abortion on demand doesn't fix the biological fact that females of the species can become pregnant when they engage in sexual intercourse. Laws to accommodate people with disabilities can't remove stigma, or make people function at levels that their disability might not permit. And going beyond reasonable accommodations with existing restroom and dressing facilities which in some cases serve a protective purpose with sex segregation will not help transgender people become more accepted.

You can't legislate morality, or tolerance.

Static Ping said...

I dunno. The argument that we have had a law for decades and "survived" seems very unconvincing. The Western Roman Empire "survived" for a century while almost certainly doomed without major reforms which never came since they were "surviving" sufficiently. The Polish sejm survived for centuries before its accumulated weakness destroyed the country. Very often bad ideas will work fine initially until someone learns how to game them and then it all goes to heck.

mccullough said...

I agree the high school locker room is where this issue is going to end. Unisex locker rooms and showers in all public facilities.

Unknown said...

Well said, Static Ping

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Static Ping said...
I dunno. The argument that we have had a law for decades and "survived" seems very unconvincing


"There's a lot of ruin in a nation."

Ann Althouse said...

"In a serious - I mean a non-political judicial system - this is not even a close case. Sixty days from argument to decision and a 20 page decision. No dissent. The plain language of the statute does NOT include transgender. Sex does not include transgender. The DOJ Complaint was crazy."

You're just announcing "Sex does not include transgender," but do you know the precedents and how lawyers will put it together? You have sex-segregated bathrooms, first of all, and then you have the govt telling people, by sex, which bathroom they must use. Why is the govt allowed to do that? You have people who will be mistreated if they use the bathroom the govt is telling them they must use and who are just trying to go about their business in a low-profile way. If the do the most normal thing for themselves in their situation, they are violating the law. Saying the answer is obvious and anything but what you think is crazy may satisfy you, but it doesn't impress me. .

JAORE said...

Years ago I was an instructor for a Federal agency about women in highway construction. We covered the CRA including the addition of "sex" in the act. The congressional record is replete with comments that this does NOT refer to (fill in the blank with your favorite sexual leanings/activities).

Back then, ah those simpler times, the distinction between gender and sex was largely irrelevant.

n.n said...

Both homosexual and crossover orientations are transgendered. Also, for purposes other than Posterity, there is no legal reason to privilege couples and couplets. And after liberals excised Posterity from the constitution, and feminists normalized the "final solution" and planned parenthood, not even them. The distinction raised by transgender/homosexuals and their liberal patrons is based on a pro-choice or selective premise that favors their special and peculiar interests.

Anyway, transgender, trans-social, transitional, ... They are all part of a trans spectrum disorder that exhibit varying degrees of incompatibility with a natural, legal, and normal state. So is renting women's bodies and purchasing men's sperm. I wonder what came first, simulated transgendered normalcy or compensation for the diverse consequences of the feminists' dysfunctional revolution.

JAORE said...

File under be careful what you wish for:

If all restrooms become unisex, women will rue the day. A LOT of men's rooms are filthy. I oft compare notes with my wife and the cleanliness factor is WAY different. When urinals go the way of the Dodo it will be far worse.

Laslo might appreciate the more toned thighs from the need to hover for extended periods, so there is that.

In the mean time guys, lift that lid.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...You're just announcing "Sex does not include transgender," but do you know the precedents and how lawyers will put it together?

Well, as a law professor, does it? The Attorney General (the one before thisone, I think) announced that Title VII protections would apply to transgenders. The EEOC did, too, back in 2013 or so (I think). Up until then, I guess, the government took the position that "sex" didn't include transgender. After that they did. Same deal w/the 1964 CRA, I guess--it didn't cover transgender people until a few years ago, but now it does.


You have sex-segregated bathrooms, first of all, and then you have the govt telling people, by sex, which bathroom they must use. Why is the govt allowed to do that?

Why? Because the Left hasn't gotten around to changing that yet. They will. They won, remember? Why is the government allowed to do anything the Left doesn't like? It won't be allowed to for long. Why is the government allowed to restrict marriage to only two people? It won't be. Etc.

I think the commenter's point was that if you look at what the law says and take how that law's been interpreted and used since it passed (up through a little while ago) "transgender" wasn't something the law addressed. People who care about the law/rule of law might say "the old law doesn't address transgender rights/issues, so if you want the law to address that pass a new law" but of course that's hateful.

ccscientist said...

It is not correct to think this is only about trans persons because the laws the left wants are to open all facilities to everyone so that a few people will feel more comfortable. Like the Target policy or Charlotte law. There is no way to make a law just allowing trans people to use whatever facility they want because no one can verify who is trans. In NYC, it is illegal to ask for proof if a man goes in to ladies room.

Society does in fact have an interest in preserving the right to privacy. we have laws against peeping toms, illegal videotaping, public indecency. But if any man can go in the bathroom and shower with women and little girls, then how can we have a law against public indecency? How can we say running around naked is illegal?
The case of college dorms is not a valid precedent: students can choose which college to go to and not all do this. They can live off-campus. As well, children are not in those bathrooms.

Jason said...

If a dude in a dress follows my niece into the ladies' room, he's going to be wheeled out on a fucking stretcher.

Jason said...

How stupid do you have to be to look at a womem with women's plumbing, height, build and upper body characteristics on one hand and men with male anatomy, height, weight, criminal procliviities and sexual interests and male upper body strength on the other and call that "a distinction without a difference."

After we've been saying Vivre la difference! for generations with everybody who can fog a mirror knowing exactly damned well that there is a difference and what the difference is to go to the Attorney General of the United States calling the differnece between actual women and a man in a dress "a distinction without a difference," and being willing to press the point home to the point of absurdity, no matter how many women and girls are rendered vulnerable or victimized, because damn their feelings.

To be a liberal now, you have to look at a thousand women and one transgender woman with a dick, and tell those thousand women to suck it up because they all of a sudden have no right or expectation of privacy or safety in their own protected spaces that is enforceable in any way.

Hey, how does the number of registered sex offenders in the United States actually compare to the number of transgender women? Now consider that only a fraction of rapes every generate a prosecution and conviction, so assign some multiplier there. I'll let the feminist libtards pick the number as long as it's one they've used previously to bitch about rape culture. What do the odds look like? How many sex offenders will now have open access to women's spaces thanks to libtard intervention, compared to how many actual pre-op transgender women?

Since HB2 focuses on state government properties, such as universities and schools, congratulations, libtards - you just opened the door to the henhouse. Those co-eds and high school girls are going to be catnip to America's sex offenders - and you removed an important layer of protection for them.

I hope you're proud.

Paul Snively said...

The principle problems with the entire program of the Left are:

1. Identification of Leftist subjective values to normative good.
2. Elevation of Leftist subjective values to legal mandates.
3. Guaranteeing endless political conflict as a result.
4. Making resolution by peaceful means—social or political—impossible.

We've seen the beginning of the end in the riots started by the Left at Trump events. At some point, the peaceful right will stop being peaceful and defend itself. I'm not looking forward to it, but it does seem increasingly inevitable, especially with out-and-out triumphalist crying from folks like Dr. Althouse about "winning the culture war victory" and the rest of us just need to get over it.

Static Ping said...

It is always wonderful to learn that our laws mean whatever various lawyers and judges decide they mean. Real strong Rule of Law stuff.

Real American said...

Delusional people don't have a right to impose their delusions on the public.

Real American said...

Allowing men who believe they're women use women's restrooms and showers but not sane men who acknowledge reality discriminates against those men. It expressly violates the civil rights act. Go figure.

jr565 said...

Sigh. Why would it apply to transgendered. The word is "SEX" they are talking about "gender" gender is different from sex, as per THEM. They make a big deal about separating the two whenver someone says "but they are men biologically" Ah, but sex is what you are born with gender is how you identify.See?
WHat does the law protect? SEX. NOT GENDER.

Other laws always protect SEX. you can't discriminate on the basis of SEX. Thefore you have to have separate facilities for men and women. That's in the god damn Title IX law. So then, if it suddenly meant gender, and not sex, you couldnt even have Title IX. It would be invalidated. Because having separate facilities for different sexes would discriminate on the basis of gender.
ALl because the left is trying to be too clever by half and making words mean what they want them to mean. Only the defintion they gave us gender is separate from sex. So....

SO, YOU LOSE! YOU GET NOTHING! GOOD DAY SIR!

jr565 said...

althouse wrote:

You're just announcing "Sex does not include transgender,"

YES. It doesn't. Sex is not gender. That is the whole point of gender as social construct. THat's what we've been lectured to about. Sex does not include trasngeder by their own defintion. Thanks for playing.

Can you please stop now?

David Begley said...

Glad I defeated Althouse here. Now if it was only so easy in real life.

The commentators here impress me.

jr565 said...

How soon till Otherkins who think they are dogs are allowed to compete in the Dog show?

jr565 said...

what about people who are TRI GENDER? they think they are both genders at once, or can switch genders, almost at will? Are we first establishing that this is a real thing? Why wouldnt it be? considering it has as much basis in fact as any other "gender" what rights do THEY have? The right to be on the womans team AND the mens team? What about agendered. They don't know what they are. Does that mean, even if they are biologically a certain sex they can't be on any teams or go to any locker rooms?

Miley Cyrus a WOMAN came out recently saying she was agendered. She didnt know what gender she is. So, that must create many conundrums in her mind about what bathroom to use. She just doesn't know! I'd assume that because she has a SEX that it would make it easy for her.I also call her "Her" which suggests I know what she is. But she doesn't. It's tough!
I guess she just can't use any bathrooms at any public places that are not unisex. Poor her/him/it/xer whatever the fuck her/him/it/xer's pronouns are.

jr565 said...

Way back in 1975 when talking about the ERA Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the following about womens rooms:
"Separate places to disrobe, sleep, perform personal bodily functions are permitted, in some situations required, by regard for individual privacy. Individual privacy, a right of constitutional dimension, is appropriately harmonized with the equality principle."

And this was after critics of the ERA said that such policies would lead to 'integrated" (as in sexually bathrooms. That was the slippery slope, the left assured us it would never happen.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/09/prominent-feminist-bans-on-sex-discrimination-emphatically-do-not-require-unisex-restrooms/?postshare=5671462840192413&tid=ss_fb



jr565 said...

and you know what? said laws actually protected WOMEN. guys would love to see a woman disrobing in a mens locker room. But women generally shy away from the reverse> But, swallow your pride ladies. Becuase men are now going to ogle the shit out of you while you change. Dont like it? blame the left. they invited us in to your safe space. Thanks, Left.

Zach said...

Bourgois textualism must bow before revolutionary justice!

Zach said...

Do we even have laws anymore? All of the stuff people care about seems to be legislated in Dear Colleague letters and executive memoranda.

Erasmus said...

I think we can make this easy, though. Sex is not gender. Sex is immutable. It is a biological classification. You are born with it. It is what you are. Your belief system can not change what it is. It is anciently scientific.
Gender is what words are. It is a construct. An intellectualism. It can be whatever you want it to be.
Just change it.
Study a language with gender classifications. Ask yourself on the odd ones: why? Why is Switzerland female? The Germans think that it is. Why don't you?
Then look back at this textually. Congratulate yourself that in 1964, our Congress was not as stupid as it now seems to be. Because in 1964 our Congress said "sex."
And "sex" is not "gender."
For if it were, they would have used the same term.

Jason said...

Mark Twain gave that gendered language concept a hilarious send-up in "The Awful German Language."