Patterico's Pontifications

3/9/2022

Duke Law Students Resign from Journal When Contributor Questions Whether the Trans Lobby Can Change the Definition of Words

Filed under: General — JVW @ 3:44 pm



[guest post by JVW]

It’s getting so that the whiny crybully children are now taking advantage of every single opportunity for showy grandstanding. Here’s the latest:

Kathleen Stock’s essay in the latest issue of Law and Contemporary Problems was controversial before she even wrote it. Last summer eight student editors resigned from the journal, which is published by Duke University’s law school, rather than be associated with the essay. The remaining student editors elected not to work on the issue in protest, and they voiced their objections in a note appended to the journal’s masthead. The proposed topic, along with Stock’s reputation, was enough to prompt a staff revolt.

The essay, titled “The Importance of Referring to Human Sex in Language,” is part of the journal’s “Sex in Law” special issue, which is dedicated to the “high-stakes, highly polarized” debate surrounding how sex is defined by courts and legislatures. In it, Stock, who until last fall was a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, in England, argues against what she calls “sex-denialism.” The core of her case is the following: “Though it is normally polite and desirable to observe the preferred descriptors and pronouns of trans people in interpersonal contexts, there are times when literal and accurate reference to actual sex is important.” Among the times she cites: medical settings, sports teams, and prisons. Stock insists that “the concept woman does vital cognitive work that simply could not be done were the concept changed to refer to gender identity or social role.”

Here in full is the “note” appended to the essay by the woke budding legal eagles:

As a general matter, student staff members of the journal Law & Contemporary Problems (L&CP) do not select articles for the symposium issues in its volumes. As L&CP is organized and operates, issue proposals are approved by the journal’s faculty board and article selections are made by the special editors. The student role is typically to produce the issues once articles have been finalized by the authors and special editors. In the case of this issue, 85-1: Sex in Law, no articles have been read, edited, or reviewed by any L&CP student staff editors or executive board members acting in their official capacities as journal members. Over the summer of 2021, eight 3L students resigned from the journal and the remainder of the 3L membership voted not to have student members contribute to this symposium in their official capacities; these decisions were in response to the inclusion of Kathleen Stock’s essay and the faculty board’s rejection of the student executive board’s request for use of a style guide on uniform language for the issue which the student executive board’s membership considered necessary to avoid harm to the transgender community.

The unearned sanctimony, the denial of legitimacy of viewpoints outside of their own narrow parameters formed in the smallest of echo chambers, the snide little boycott of their assigned duties because their tender feelings were hurt, and the utterly ridiculous (but expected) invocation of the superstition that provocative ideas cause “harm” to various communities designated for hyper-vigilant protection is exactly the toxic stew we have come to expect from melting snowflakes like these students. And what sort of invitations to mayhem were hidden in Professor Stock’s otherwise dryly academic essay? Oh, I suppose the following:

For centuries, the English language concepts of woman and man have been understood as referring only to adult female and male humans respectively, whilst girl and boy have been understood as referring to the younger versions; and nearly all – perhaps all – other natural languages have had equivalent ways of systematically differentiating between male and female humans. Yet we live in a cultural moment when adjustments to the traditional understandings of womanhood, manhood, girlhood, and boyhood are being urged upon language users, sometimes by those with great institutional influence in Global North societies. We are told by progressive-styled organisations and leaders that, quite literally, transgender women (henceforth, “trans women”) are women, and transgender men (henceforth, “trans men”) are men. Since on ordinary understandings, trans women are by definition biologically male and trans men biologically female, this looks like a radical shift in usage.

Professor Stock seems to be willing to accept the definition of “woman” applying to one who was born male but has undergone the hormone therapy and cosmetic surgery necessary to align oneself with the sex one has chosen, yet she draws the line at allowing an individual to just willy-nilly declare themself to be a member of a group with which they share no defining characteristics and then forcing the rest of us to play along. And the most insidious (and effective) way for the crybullies to advance their argument is simply to redefine the language by denuding words of their millennia-long acknowledged meaning and then enforce mandatory acceptance (“. . . the student executive board’s request for use of a style guide on uniform language for the issue which the student executive board’s membership considered necessary. . .”) of the new contrived definition. For instance, it’s accomplished by conflating the established concept of “sex” which is determined by biology with the more trendy and post-modern notion of “gender” which in today’s inane parlance can be “fluid.” Foucault and Marcuse no doubt heartily approve of how far traditional standards have fallen in their old industry, but Professor Stock is having none of it.

Once upon a time, the whole point of higher education was thought to be to expose callow young minds to a world of ideas and opinions that exist outside of the narrow and insular bubbles in which they had previously existed, especially in a contentious discipline such as law. But somewhere along the way we got to the point where we grossly over-expanded our higher education industry to the degree that it became dedicated to babysitting and credentialing marginal students, some of whom will receive degrees of questionable employment value and many of whom will not receive any degree at all. It’s sad to contemplate that this sort of coddling now extends to prestigious law schools such as Duke, which once gave us the brilliant legal mind of Richard Milhouse Nixon. After years of seeing this percolating through the undergraduate body at our nation’s universities through outlandish student claims of abject fear triggered by provocative ideas, or in attempts to infantilize students by confining them to “safe spaces” of the sort you might see in a kindergarten, it is not surprising that our top professional schools — those which we are told are molding our future leaders — have gone all in with this bullshit. Frankly, I hope that future employers see these virtue signaling resignations as off-putting and a red flag, but given the way this nonsense has crept into the modern professional world I would imagine that they will not.

– JVW

74 Responses to “Duke Law Students Resign from Journal When Contributor Questions Whether the Trans Lobby Can Change the Definition of Words”

  1. Kathleen Stock, it should be mentioned, resigned from her position at the University of Sussex last year after a campaign led by British crybully children and their faculty enablers who complained about the exact same thing that the Duke children complained about; namely that Prof. Stock refuses to genuflect at the altar of trendy and insipid transgender advocacy. The inmates truly do run the asylum these days.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  2. There are more ways to keep women as second class citizens besides barefoot and pregnant and one of them is to dilute their identity as women.

    nk (1d9030)

  3. Great post and 2 great comments

    DRJ (03cb91)

  4. @2. ‘There are more ways to keep women as second class citizens besides barefoot and pregnant and one of them is to dilute their identity as women.’

    The pantsuit:

    ‘The pantsuit was introduced in the 1920s, when a small number of women adopted a masculine style, including pantsuits, hats, canes and monocles. However, the term “trouser suit” had been used in Britain during the First World War, with reference to women working in heavy industry.

    During the 1960s pantsuits for women became increasingly widespread. Designers such as Foale and Tuffin in London and Luba Marks in the United States were early promoters of trouser suits. In 1966 Yves Saint-Laurent introduced his Le Smoking, an evening pantsuit for women that mimicked a man’s tuxedo. Whilst Saint-Laurent is often credited with introducing trouser suits, it was noted in 1968 that some of his pantsuits were very similar to designs that had already been offered by Luba Marks, and the London designer Ossie Clark had offered a trouser suit for women in 1964 that predated Saint Laurent’s ‘Le Smoking’ design by two years. In Britain a social watershed was crossed in 1967 when Lady Chichester, wife of the navigator Sir Francis Chichester, wore a trouser suit when her husband was publicly knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

    Pantsuits were often deprecated as inappropriately masculine clothing for women. For example, until 1993, women were not permitted to wear pantsuits (or pants of any kind) on the United States Senate floor. In 1993, Senators Barbara Mikulski and Carol Moseley Braun wore pants onto the floor in defiance of the rule, and female support staff followed soon after, with the rule being amended later that year by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Martha Pope to allow women to wear pants on the floor so long as they also wore a jacket, thus allowing pantsuits, among other types of clothing.

    Hillary Clinton, who is well known for wearing pantsuits, once referred to her presidential campaign staff as “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuits” (in her August 26, 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention), a play on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

    During the 2016 Presidential election, the pantsuit became a symbolic rallying cry among supporters of Hillary Clinton, many of whom donned pantsuits when they went to the polls to cast their ballots. This was in part due to the influence of a Facebook group of 2.9 million Hillary Clinton supporters called Pantsuit Nation.’

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantsuit

    ‘Thomas Jefferson was said to have been the first to come up with the idea of pant suits. He was the one who said that pants suit women better than dresses did. He was also the one who created the pants suit for himself and for the US government.’

    https://www.menpant.com/who-invented-pants-suits/

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  5. I was excited for this post. Thanks, JVW.
    The states need to bring back the mental hospitals.

    mg (8cbc69)

  6. , the denial of legitimacy of viewpoints outside of their own narrow parameters formed in the smallest of echo chambers

    By them, this is just like denying the legitimacy of racism.

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  7. JVW, this is increasingly my life in academia.

    If you sit down and read some of the things written, they really do read like 1920s and 1930s Soviet essays. The clunky jargon, the intolerance, the tone of superiority and self congratulation.

    John McWhorter is correct: it is a new and very intolerant religion.

    Simon Jester (fc6a39)

  8. Unless I’m dating someone, I don’t care what their underwear covers. However, their doctor definitely needs to know. If people leave their jobs as an exercise of free speech, that’s their right, but they also have to realize that they may not get their jobs back.

    @DCSCA@4 Pants suits are practical. Hose are the devil’s invention and no hose can lead to chaffing.

    Nic (896fdf)

  9. The Chronicle has more about this brouhaha (at some point this article is likely to disappear behind a firewall, so let me excerpt some of it before that comes about). This stuff is so incredible that it can’t be made up:

    Dylan Jarrett believes Stock’s argument is wrong, poorly argued, and dangerous. Jarrett, a third-year law student at Duke, resigned as editor in chief of the journal last June because of Stock’s proposed essay (according to the note on the journal’s masthead, students do not select articles for special issues, though they are normally involved in editing and producing issues). In her resignation letter to the faculty editorial board, Jarrett predicted that the essay would be a “direct attack on transgender people and their identities.” Now that she’s read what Stock wrote, Jarrett says her fears have been confirmed. “I think it’s really clear that this is not scholarship — it’s transphobia,” she says. “It’s a bad article. It’s badly written. It’s badly argued. It’s embarrassing that Duke would publish something like this.”

    Jarrett’s take was echoed by Duke OutLaw, an LGBTQ+ student group, which condemned the essay in an open letter. The letter also questioned the quality of the essay, saying it was “hardly a meaningful contribution to academic discourse.” Among the 21-page essay’s shortcomings, according to the letter, was the “mere 70 footnotes.” Duke OutLaw condemned Stock’s essay for causing “unnecessary harm” and denounced the law school for providing a “platform for this harmful scholarship.”

    [. . .]

    In an email, Stock responded to the Duke OutLaw letter, writing that it “manifests the usual clichés beloved of people who wish to strike moralised poses in public without the effort of providing academic arguments.” She went on to say that the letter offers “unspecified claims about harm done by my conclusions” and encouraged those bothered by her essay to write a detailed rebuttal. Stock added, “I appreciate that this won’t give them quite the buzz of self-aggrandisement they are apparently after, though.”

    Lee Garza took Stock’s essay personally. Garza, who is director of recruiting for Duke OutLaw and identifies as nonbinary and a transgender masculine person, started taking testosterone injections last week, he said, in part prompted by his frustration over the essay’s publication and the need he felt to speak out against it publicly. “You always want to be able to go on your identity journey on your own time without having to feel like you have to come out in order to be heard,” said Garza. “But it’s also nice to have a little bit of a push in my process.”

    Garza and Jarrett placed blame on Doriane Coleman, a law professor at Duke and the chair of the journal’s editorial board. She was the special editor, along with Kimberly Krawiec, a law professor at the University of Virginia, of the “Sex in Law” issue in which Stock’s essay appears. Coleman, a former competitive track athlete, has become known for her scholarship on sex and sports. In a 2017 essay, published in Law and Contemporary Problems, Coleman wrote that if competitive sports are divided based on gender identity rather than biological sex, “female athletes would almost always lose to males and both sport and society would lose many of the practical and expressive benefits that inure from including and celebrating females in competitive sport.”

    Jarrett doesn’t believe that Stock’s essay would have appeared in the issue if Coleman hadn’t been one of the special editors. She considers Coleman’s views on transgender women’s participation in sports discriminatory and isn’t comfortable with Coleman being on the Duke faculty. “I hate that part of my tuition money has gone to pay her salary,” says Jarrett, who has avoided Coleman’s classes. For his part, Garza thinks Coleman’s work is “at its core transphobic.” He also doesn’t believe any testosterone-suppression requirement should be in place in order for transgender women to compete, and that testing testosterone levels is itself transphobic.

    And there you have it: the children have their tender feelings hurt and thus look around to start censoring. I’m not concerned that the Dylan Jarretts or the Lee Garzas of the law school community will one day be trying cases at the Supreme Court demanding that a female-to-male transman who stands 4’10” and weighs 100 pounds be accepted as a Navy SEAL or that a 40-year-old ex-Olympic gold medalist men’s sprinter be allowed to change sexes and compete as a woman now that he can no longer hang with the times posted by younger men. I doubt very much that either one of them has the poise or the wit for that job. What worries me though is that people like Jarrett and Garza will become mid-level bureaucrats — faceless, but with a great deal of regulatory power thanks to our feckless Congress — and will initiate their mean-spirited woke jihad on us from deep within the bowels of state. That’s who Duke is preparing to foist upon us, and that’s why this sort of balderdash should be pushed back against whenever it rears its ugly head.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  10. If you sit down and read some of the things written, they really do read like 1920s and 1930s Soviet essays. The clunky jargon, the intolerance, the tone of superiority and self congratulation.

    Exactly. Right down to the cavalier dismissal of Prof. Stock’s carefully-argued and emotionally-detached essay as “transphobia” or “hate speech.” They know they can’t possibly win (as of yet) in the battle of ideas, so they turn this into raw emotion: if you don’t accede to 100% of our belief system and agenda then you are a bigot who hates us and wishes to do us harm. If academia wasn’t suffused with cowards and frauds at the highest levels of administration, this would be the perfect battle for rational voices to join.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  11. @8. In business, it projects an effort to ‘blend’ into the so-called ‘man’s world’ as an equal, yet and can veil insecurity as well.

    Margaret Thatcher wasn’t a pantsuit gal.

    HRC is.
    _________

    Power Play: The fascinating history and evolution of the female pantsuit

    ‘The pantsuit, once again, has come to the vanguard of our consciousness – largely in part due to the iconic Hillary Clinton pantsuits. While it is not new that what women wear is often heavily scrutinized by the media down to the finest detail, the fascination in the pantsuit is symbolic in its significance of the evolution of women in society through history. It can be argued that no other item of clothing has seen such a distinct evolution through the century, fascinatingly reflecting the gender and social mores of the time.

    What started out in the late 1890s as a way to defy gender norms by women like actress Sarah Bernhardt, it is now essential for women in male-dominated spaces, symbolic of her ambition to be taken as an equal force.’

    https://www.mariefranceasia.com/fashion/trends-and-tips/trend-guide/history-of-pantsuit-218702.html#item=1

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  12. The Power to Empower

    Even with its long and complicated history, the pantsuit continues to hold a weird place in society where it symbolizes strong women throughout time seeking to defy typical gender norms while also being used as an item to continue keeping us in our place. Even while women try to fit in with their pantsuits, there are plenty of people who continuously use them to push the women down. Nevertheless, the pantsuit has a long and rich history that is extremely meaningful and important. Pantsuits are proudly worn by women to claim their spot in places that have been historically dominated by men.

    https://forwardhamfashion.wordpress.com/2018/05/08/the-history-of-the-pantsuit/

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  13. Really gives one confidence in the future of our justice system!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  14. @DCSCA@11 Hose are the devil’s invention and no hose causes chaffing.

    Nic (896fdf)

  15. The claims made by the extreme “trans” advocates are inconsistent with the theory of evolution. If a person is born unable to form a relationship with a person of the opposite sex, they are unlikely to have children, such an obvious point that I am almost embarrassed to mention it.

    Such a trait would disappear quickly, though it might appear from time to time as a birth defect. (And if and when it does, we should treat that person with sympathy and tolerance, but should not upset society’s ancient rules for them.)

    Jim Miller (406a93)

  16. Since some would rather discuss clothes, I’ll add this: On the average, men have a metabolism about 20 percent higher than women do, so, if you are just looking for clothes that are more comfortable for each sex, it would make more sense for women to wear pants, and men to wear . . . Scottish kilts, or something similar.

    Jim Miller (406a93)

  17. @16. Power ties.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  18. @Jim@15 There is an argument at a smallish percentage of childless couples able to dedicate time or resources to the children of close relatives or take in orphaned children can help increase the survival rate of the children in the community, especially since raising human children is very very time and resource intensive, so it would offer some evolutionary advantage to have a community that did produce some people that were same sex attracted or uninterested in reproducing.

    Nic (896fdf)

  19. @14. Hose are the devil’s invention and no hose causes chaffing.

    LOLOLOL!

    “We’re men / We’re men in tights / We roam around the forest looking for fights / We’re men / We’re men in tights / We rob from the rich and give to the poor / That’s right! / We may look like sissies / But watch what you say / Or else we’ll put out your lights / We’re men / We’re men in tights!” – “The Merry Men” – ‘Robin Hood: Men In Tights’ 1993

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  20. #18 nic – I am familiar with that argument, but think it implausible. It is often stated that such childless people are really great uncles and aunts — but if you do the arithmetic, it just doesn’t work out, because the children aren’t closely enough related to them. A person’s nephews and nieces, for example, each have, on the average, only one-fourth of the person’s genes, whereas the person’s children have, again on the average, one-half.

    (As some of you will recognize, I am following Haldane on this question.)

    Jim Miller (406a93)

  21. @jim@20 In a small community/tribe, there tends to be a lot of genetic overlap, so a nephew or niece may have more than a quarter of their genes and a grand niece or nephew might also have a similar amount of their genetics as their own grand-child might. It also might depend on how much of an advantage an extra 2 pairs of hands might make.

    Nic (896fdf)

  22. #21 Nic – As I am sure you know, there are good reasons for even small groups to avoid inbreeding, and to practice exogamy.

    For example, cousin marriages are detrimental, as much experience from the Middle East has shown.

    (I think the most common pattern among primates is for females to go to a different group.)

    Jim Miller (406a93)

  23. @22 I don’t disagree, just that the genetic mix might not be as clear in smaller communities vs what we might have in a modern society. Frex one set of my ancestors were mennonite and are an unfortunate vine weave of cousin marriage (that stopped about 5 generations ago, so I’m good :P).

    I suspect the advantages and disadvantages are more complicated than we really understand.

    Nic (896fdf)

  24. You guys do know that Simon Jester, the commenter @7, is a geneticist, right? Just thought I’d mention it.

    Now, me, I’m a lawyer and when I think about survival of traits in the context of human communities, I don’t think about Darwin. I think about Moses and Socrates and Christ and maybe even Hobbes and Locke and possibly Jefferson and Hamilton. People will be born in a community who will be “different”. In many different ways. Whether they survive for any length of time will depend on the extent to which the community tolerates them and cares for them. With very little relationship, if any, to why fawns who are born with spots have a better chance to live long enough to make little spotted fawns of their own.

    So, honestly, trust me on this, you don’t need Folsom Man chopping off his baby-maker with an obsidian blade so he could help raise the orphaned children of the tribe. You really don’t.

    nk (1d9030)

  25. John McWhorter is correct: it is a new and very intolerant religion.

    Simon Jester (fc6a39) — 3/9/2022 @ 5:06 pm

    Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left. As to the scope of this tolerance and intolerance: … it would extend to the stage of action as well as of discussion and propaganda, of deed as well as of word. The traditional criterion of clear and present danger seems no longer adequate to a stage where the whole society is in the situation of the theater audience when somebody cries: ‘fire’. It is a situation in which the total catastrophe could be triggered off any moment, not only by a technical error, but also by a rational miscalculation of risks, or by a rash speech of one of the leaders…

    The whole post-fascist period is one of clear and present danger. Consequently, true pacification requires the withdrawal of tolerance before the deed, at the stage of communication in word, print, and picture. Such extreme suspension of the right of free speech and free assembly is indeed justified only if the whole of society is in extreme danger. I maintain that our society is in such an emergency situation, and that it has become the normal state of affairs.”–Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance”

    Modern academia in a nutshell.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  26. @nk@24 In fact I did not. I think I started posting here after he had tapered off. My background is in, psychology and history (and English, but that’s irrelevant for this discussion) which you can probably see in my comments. Though I did spend a fair amount of time studying Hobbs and Locke and Jefferson and Hamilton and John Stuart Mill and Rouseau.

    Nic (896fdf)

  27. This is still a semi free country and you can resign if you don’t want to do something. The stone wall riots proved you could fight back against bigotry. Its what gen. Eisenhower said in world war II we don’t take snipers prisoners you don’t shoot at us and when you get cornered surrender! The homophobes are cornered and now want to surrender.

    asset (8d4b7b)

  28. Thanks for the insight, Simon Jester.
    Who’d a thunk growing up in the 50’s that this issue would be primetime?

    mg (8cbc69)

  29. Brainwashed kids. Stalin would be proud.

    NJRob (8660ea)

  30. Heh! Tis an ill wind that ….

    asset brings up a good point. Why should we not want the fatuous factotums of fetishism to resign from positions of prestige and influence?

    nk (1d9030)

  31. Simon Jester (fc6a39) — 3/9/2022 @ 5:06 pm

    John McWhorter is correct: it is a new and very intolerant religion. It’s something even more intolerant of dissent.

    It’s established “medical science”

    Kathleen Stock and others were too late to the battle. They have won on another front. They successfully lobbied the professional associations:

    https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/the-human-rights-campaign-applauds-the-american-psychological-association-for-affirming-gender-identity

    The Human Rights Campaign Applauds the American Psychological Association for Affirming Gender Identity

    The Human Rights Campaign responded to a resolution adopted by the American Psychological Association that opposes efforts to reject or attempt to change a person’s true gender identity, citing research that conveys those actions as harmful. “The Resolution on Gender Identity Change Efforts” aligns with the APA’s position against similar efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation.

    “There is no question that denying a person’s gender identity is wrong. It’s detrimental to their mental health, their physical health, and their overall sense of self worth—and this includes young people. The consensus from the American Psychological Association further reinforces that we must rely on transgender people and their healthcare providers to determine treatment for gender affirming care in accordance with current medical best practices—this is not the place for politicians. It is incredibly dangerous when strangers can legislate personal healthcare decisions.”

    It’s the professionals who are the crybullies. I know blaming the students makes it look easier to reverse this trend, but it’s not where the problem originates.

    To disagree is to go against medical ethics. Anyone who fights it is considered worse than an anti-vaxxer.

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  32. Formatting problem.

    The following are my words:

    It’s the professionals who are the crybullies. I know blaming the students makes it look easier to reverse this trend, but it’s not where the problem originates.

    To disagree is to go against medical ethics. Anyone who fights it is considered worse than an anti-vaxxer.

    This is all already one year old.

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  33. Once more we see how “Diversity” increasingly requires “Conformity.”

    Kevin M (38e250)

  34. What would Professor Kingsfield say?

    Kevin M (38e250)

  35. By them, this is just like denying the legitimacy of racism.

    In a symposium on the subject of “Race and Society” I’d expect to see an article taking the racist position. Of course, that would be in a society that actually believed in diversity and free thought.

    But here we see that nearly everything they don’t agree with is “literally Hitler.”

    Kevin M (38e250)

  36. John McWhorter is correct: it is a new and very intolerant religion.

    And one that is established, or at least promulgated, by government. It is a religion in the sense that it is dogmatic, demands certain moral behavior and belief, and is intolerant of those who do not belong to the cult. It does not, however, have a god unless you want to call the deification of the State “God.”

    Kevin M (38e250)

  37. Unless I’m dating someone, I don’t care what their underwear covers.

    If transphobia is “racism” then this is like saying you won’t date other races.

    However, their doctor definitely needs to know.

    This is a basic part of Stock’s position, and an issue that has caused issues in emergency rooms.

    If people leave their jobs as an exercise of free speech, that’s their right, but they also have to realize that they may not get their jobs back.

    Nic, since you’re in the education system, do you feel constrained to toe a line on this? Your comment about the doctor needing to know is heretical.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  38. People used to find this sort of behavior embarrassing. Now it is celebrated.

    steveg (e81d76)

  39. I think about Moses and Socrates and Christ and maybe even Hobbes and Locke and possibly Jefferson and Hamilton.

    You may, but this crop of students? Dead white men, some of whom owned slaves. They know Hamilton mostly from a play.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  40. I wonder how much of this is driven by an unhealthy perception of what is required to be “on my team”. Gender dysphoria is a medical condition…not a social phenomenon. It should be treated as a mental health condition and not lobbed around like a political grenade…..and it should be especially excised from the classroom. The harm done to impressionable young people is criminal.

    The question becomes how do we bring rationality back into a discussion dominated by emotionalism? I have no special insight into sex reassignment, but have heard a fair number of horror stories that lead me to conclude that except for extremely rare circumstances, changing the body parts is not the answer to the problem. Further normalizing this thinking is wrong. How do you challenge this in an environment that is polarized and dripping in sanctimony? Just as people on the Trump side will be required to dump-Trump, someone on the Left will have to challenge the current wisdom. That’s hard because it’s framed as “non-judgmentalism”…and who’s against that!? But it’s the wrong framing and there’s just not a lot of courage out there these days….and not a lot of cover for someone like Kathlene Stock.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  41. The official expert position on gender dysphoria now is that every person, regardless of age, who says they are of another sex is correct regardless of how they came to that conclusion and they should never be talked out of it

    https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-gender-identity-change-efforts.pdf

    Also, as a matter of (unadmitted) fact, it is perfectly correct to talk people into it, and therapists should be on the lookout for heretofore undiagnosed cases)

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  42. ….the incongruence between sex and gender in and of itself is not a mental disorder (World Health Organization, n.d.) so, any behavioral health or GICE technique or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s gender identity or expression is not indicated; thus, any behavioral health or GICE effort that attempt to change an individual’s gender identity or expression is inappropriate (Hill et al. 2010; SAMHSA, 2015).

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  43. Both sides do this otherwise the southern baptists and southern methodists wouldn’t have broken off from their churches. Resigning is a long held form of protest. Socraties was forced to drink hemlock by people who disagreed with his views. Hamilton died in a duel with burr and we all know what happened to jesus.

    asset (0922a0)

  44. Baseball Back!

    urbanleftbehind (c6f17b)

  45. Another way to dilute women is to elevate the unserious into serious business because they check “all the right boxes”. It is dumb to do that with men, dumb to do it with women.

    steveg (e81d76)

  46. #44

    Glad somebody knows what’s important around here.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  47. The Twins have to have a better season than last year.

    mg (8cbc69)

  48. Inflation and crippling price increases are what’s important, but no one wants to talk about them. Easier to pass around the political football.

    NJRob (fa02f3)

  49. Jussie Smollett sentenced for lying to police in hate crime hoax

    CNN — Former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced to 30 months of probation, ordered to pay a $25,000 fine and spend 150 days in jail on Thursday for making false reports to police that he was the victim of a hate crime in January 2019.

    Don’t lie on the stand and be found guilty. Pick one or the other but not both.

    nk (1d9030)

  50. NYC convicted killer, 83, arrested after allegedly dumping body parts, human head found in apartment
    Harvey Marcelin, who identifies as a woman, previously convicted in killings of two ex-girlfriend, reports say

    An 83-year-old transgender woman who has twice been convicted of killing women has been arrested after the dismembered body parts of another woman were found in New York City over the past week, according to police and local reports.

    I can’t even. If you can, please do.

    nk (1d9030)

  51. Baseball Back!

    So much for my Lentian resolution.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  52. I can’t even. If you can, please do.

    I stumble over the “twice been convicted of killing women.” Perhaps the sentence would have been longer if they were transwomen.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  53. We crack wise about how these snowflakes will melt when they hit the real workforce, but judging by the utter wokeness in the corporations, I think it’s going the other way.


    “You’re gonna get your mind right–and I mean right”

    Kevin M (38e250)

  54. @50: He did serve moire that 50 years in state prison, so I really can’t fault him on the trans-woman thing, but I gotta believe that it puts a damper on paroles for other elderly killers.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  55. no hose can lead to chaffing.

    Nic (896fdf) — 3/9/2022 @ 5:06 pm

    Softball, middle of the plate. Must resist joke.

    norcal (a4a1aa)

  56. We crack wise about how these snowflakes will melt when they hit the real workforce, but judging by the utter wokeness in the corporations, I think it’s going the other way.

    Anything going through academia tends to get mainstreamed in the following 10-20 years. The whole point of these institutions now is to create marxist activists, and everything from “climate justice” to gender affirmation to various forms of critical theory is geared in the service of that agenda.

    The only thing that might slow it down, at least temporarily, would be a massive societal backlash similar to what happened in the early-mid-70s, which essentially put the left on their heels until the 1991 recession.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  57. Come on, man! Here’s the deal: Harvey Marcelin is as much a woman as our mothers, our sisters, our wives, and our daughters, because he says he is, and if we say he is not then there’s something wrong with us.

    nk (1d9030)

  58. @Kevin@37 Nic, since you’re in the education system, do you feel constrained to toe a line on this? Your comment about the doctor needing to know is heretical.

    Generally speaking most teachers in my experience are more moderately liberal than crazy liberal.

    The district policy is that if a student says they are trans, we take it seriously. It is the district policy to call a student by their chosen name and pronouns and if you don’t you will take flack for it. However, we are also allowed to solve the locker room issue by having the student change for PE in the unisex restroom.

    Here’s how I generally deal with the issue (and it hasn’t ever caused me any issues with the DO or parents). I work mostly with students between the age of 11 and 15, so it’s a huge and confusing transition time regardless of gender and/or sexuality. What my students feel is real, but it often isn’t permanent and when a student is having difficulty with gender or sexuality issues (they don’t always have difficulty, sometimes it’s just matter-of-fact “Yup, this is who I am, I’m happy with it even if you aren’t.”), there are often other mental health things going on as well. So usually if I’m talking to a parent who is trying to figure out what is going on, I tell them that puberty is a hugely confusing time with floods of hormones they aren’t used to and where kids bodies are doing strange and sometimes icky things and that that can be confusing and traumatic for the kids and give them a lot of feelings about themselves that might or might not end up being long-term. My advice is for them to not do anything permanent at least until they’ve talked to a doctor and worked with a mental health specialist for a while.

    Because the student’s feelings are real (but not necessarily permanent), I have no problem calling them whatever name they want or their pronouns, but if they are a student I work with frequently and they talk to me about the issue, we also talk about how it’s OK to feel one way for a while and then feel differently later, so even if they feel like the opposite sex right now, that might change, so it’s also OK for them to go back to their former name and pronouns. But if their feelings about their gender and/or sexuality end up being both real and permanent, that’s OK too. Biology can be a strange and variant thing.

    Nic (896fdf)

  59. Nic, thank you for that. It sounds like you’ve spent some time and energy sorting this out. I’ve come to some similar conclusions in another setting (AA) which presents some of the situations you describe.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  60. A lot of times kids will know if you are BSing them and parents need answers, so I needed to nail down my own thoughts on it a few years ago. Also gender issues oddly seems to come in waves, even when the kids are entirely unconnected with each other. It kind of makes me wonder if there are some kind of environmental/agricultural things that effect pregnancies in certain years.

    (and puberty is insane. I think God or nature or the universe or whatever you happen to believe in makes us forget just how crazy it is so that we don’t have to deal with just how insane it was for us.)

    Nic (896fdf)

  61. You think puberty is insane? Add drugs.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  62. For the kids it’s all weed right now. It’s the parents on the harder stuff (I hate it so much when my office smells like meth, though there’s less of that than there was 10 years ago).

    Nic (896fdf)

  63. But …. I have it on good authority that legal pot will never be sold to kids.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  64. Kevin’s legal pot law:

    We have pot licenses for sale, but only to holders of retail liquor licenses. One in 10 retail liquor store may buy a pot license, at auction. But beware: violation of the pot laws wrt minors will lose you both licenses.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  65. Kevin M (38e250) — 3/10/2022 @ 11:29 pm

    This sounds good, especially knowing that most Liquor stores also sell tobacco – but – it might be like having gas stations that sell fireworks. In the 60’s I had to deal with too many drunk and high kids to ever assent to a plan whereby alcohol and weed get to share shelf space.

    Yes, I know, even though grocery stores knew enough to keep the Jolly Ranchers and NyQuil separate, kids managed to pair them together into cocktails. So why make it that much easier?

    Come to think of it, Gas stations might be a better fit. while security is definitely lax at gas stations, weed sales/theft may result in less traffic accidents. (cue comedians weed & driving bits)

    Chong: Dude, I can’t see anything. Open the window and see where we are.
    Cheech: [opens window and stretches out his head] Uh, I think we’re parked!

    felipe (484255)

  66. The same quackery that gave rise to transgender and hydroxymectincubi also stepped into the breach with medical marijuana. Parents can get it for their kids by prescription. Kids who are under the age of eighteen. And there are parents who do. Enough of them to keep the racket in existence.

    nk (1d9030)

  67. And there you have it, comrades. Why should the proletariat not trust a storefront witch doctor with an MD who prescribes hydroxychloroquine for Covid, when a guy who calls himself Sheila is the head of the United States Public Health Service and is entitled to wear an Admiral’s uniform?

    nk (1d9030)

  68. nk, because one of them is using Science!

    Kevin M (38e250)

  69. I’m not sure how many people need “medical marijuana” but I think it’s roughly the same number who must avoid glutens due to celiac disease.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  70. Harvey Marcelin, who identifies as a woman, previously convicted in killings of two ex-girlfriend, reports say

    The Daily News (which made this, not the settlement of the baseball labor dispute, its major front page headline today) and the New York have played it completely deadpan, although the Daily News calls “her” a sicko serial killer in its front page headline, but not because of any transgender issues,.

    No word on when or how he became transgender. I don’t think the papers know. All they have is the announcement from the authorities that Marcellin now identifies as a transgender woman. He still kept the first name Harvey.

    I am sure he couldn’t have been transgender when he killed the two other women years ago because such a thing didn’t exist. I think it all a fraud, like Vincent “the Chin” Gigante playing crazy, even though he went around with a wig, nails and lipstick.

    The Daily News reports that Harvey Marcellin lives (or lived until March 4, when he was arrested for concealment if a human corpse and remanded without bail) in a newly constructed affordable housing develop,ent. I guess his two previous murders were so long ago that he didn’t need to register as a sex offender

    Ar quote from the Daily News:

    Murdering someone is something. But killing and chopping?

    – A contractor who worked on the building. He said something told him to stay away,

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  71. We have awoke into a 3 bathroom country, nk.

    mg (8cbc69)

  72. Blaming the Ukraine Invasion on … the Gays?
    …….(I)n a Sunday sermon, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, offered a startling new explanation that is sure to resonate with the Sohrab Ahmari wing of the modern American right: It was to save Eastern Ukraine from the gays.

    The patriarch—who, it should be noted, began his clerical career in the Soviet era when the church was a loyal handmaiden to the atheistic state and who was reportedly a KGB agent, like the rest of the church hierarchy—summed up the situation as follows:

    For eight years, there have been efforts to destroy what exists in the Donbas. What exists in the Donbas is a rejection, a principled rejection of the so-called values that are now being offered by those who lay claim to global domination. Today, there is a certain test for loyalty to that power, a certain pass into that “happy” world, the world of excessive consumption, the world of illusory freedom. Do you know what that test is? It’s very simple but also horrific: it’s a gay parade. The demand to hold a gay parade is in fact a test for loyalty to that powerful world, and we know that if people or countries resist this demand, they are excluded from that world and treated as alien.

    Alternatively, one could say that “what exists in the Donbas” is an enclave ruled by armed gangs of separatists controlled by shadowy people with likely ties to the FSB, the Russian state security service. Freedom is nonexistent even by the standards of Putin’s Russia…….

    During his fifteen-minute sermon on the Eastern Orthodox holiday known as Forgiveness Sunday (the last day before Lent), the patriarch did not say a word about fellow Christians under fire in Ukraine outside Eastern Donbas. He did, however, return more than once to the evil of gay parades and to his claim that holding such parades was a requirement for membership in the “club” of powerful countries. The patriarch also asserted that resistance to such demands is “suppressed by force,” which amounts to “forcible imposition of a sin condemned by divine law” and which means that the war for Ukraine is “not a physical but a metaphysical struggle.” (Ironically, the patriarch used the forbidden word “war” rather than the prescribed “special operation”; but, unlike media outlets critical of the government, he is not in danger of getting canceled by Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media oversight agency.)
    ……..
    ……..(T)he Putin-loving “trads,” in Russia or in America—be it Patriarch Kirill, Pat Buchanan, Steve Bannon (who recently praised Putin on his podcast for not being “woke” and pointed out that “they don’t have the Pride flags” in Russia), or Hanania—are at least as obsessed with the idea of the Putin regime as the nemesis of LGBT rights.
    ……….
    ……. (F)or all its problems, Ukraine is sufficiently hospitable to free expression that thousands of people have been able to march under rainbow flags year to year—in contrast to Russia, where attempts to hold such events have ended in violence from both police and anti-gay vigilantes.

    ……. Patriarch Kirill’s obscene wartime sermon shows us one place where this path leads: the place where the dreaded “gay parade” is a greater evil than a war of aggression.
    #########

    Rip Murdock (b274da)

  73. https://www.newser.com/story/317970/texas-clinics-abortion-law-fight-is-over.html

    The decision by the Texas Supreme Court, which is entirely controlled by Republicans, spelled the coming end to a federal lawsuit that clinics filed even before the restrictions took effect in September, the AP reports.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  74. @kevin@63 Mostly they get it out of their parents’ stash. Which I knew was going to happen. Bah.

    Nic (896fdf)


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