I listened to the whole thing today, too. Ultimately, I found it very depressing, deeply maddening and scary. Yes, there were some good questions and some good points were able to be heard, however, I kept yelling to the live feed, ‘you mean boy, you mean male, YES, thats the point you ignorant Justice, HE is being excluded from girls sports BECAUSE HE IS NOT A GIRL.’ Ugh. It was exhausting. Almost all of the judges complied with the pronoun game. And finally, we kept hearing about Hecox and BPJ, the boys, —hardly ever about the girls. What about the girls? How do they feel? What about THEIR exclusion?
These people don’t give two figs about the women and girls affected by this poisonous cult ideology. This does not bode well for the future even if the ruling is in favor of protecting women. The fact that we are here means the liberals will comply with NO LAW and NO RULING, EVER.
I'm so with you. It was depressing and disturbing to listen to all the 'transgender girls blablabla', from EVERYONE, when they were referring to BOYS. Also is it just me or did nobody point out that no matter what hormones or drugs boys take they will never have a period in their life? Something that is somewhat relevant to athletic performance and femaleness, yes?? Even if this case is a 'win', it's not feeling like a win. It was all too stupid.
Caroline :> ... however, I kept yelling to the live feed, ‘you mean boy, you mean male, YES, that's the point you ignorant Justice, HE is being excluded from girls sports BECAUSE HE IS NOT A GIRL.’ Ugh. It was exhausting.
👍 A hearty "Amen" to that. 🙂 I can often feel the smoke coming out of my ears -- literally!!! -- when I read such language. 😉🙂
But y'all might have some interest in my open letter to 3 or 4 so-called journalists at the New York Times "taking them to task" for similar language:
QUOTE; Substack, Human Use of Human Beings; Steersman: Open Letters; Ideological Capture; New York Times and Slate ...
The following is a publication of three letters I recently sent off to a trio of authors at the New York Times, and to one at Slate. The reason for the letters was that I had very much objected to what has to be either sloppy, careless and imprecise terminology; and/or “ideological capture” by transactivists; and/or scientific illiteracy if not pigheaded ignorance.
The crux of the problem is the too common use of phrases like “transgender girls” and “transgender female athletes” in the two Times articles, and the view, in the Slate article, that humans can “transition from one sex to another”. UNQUOTE
Phrases like "transgender girls" and "transgender female athletes" really chaps my hide. At best, the former are simply rather badly confused feminine juvenile males, and the latter, probably an older cohort including men like Lia (William) Thomas, are no more than male transvestites (guys in drag) if they still have their nuts attached, and sexless eunuchs if they don't.
"At that point, it is not just women’s sports at risk, but sex-based protections across the legal system."
Sex-based protections have already been obliterated in most blue states by "gender self-ID" laws.
That will happen nationwide if the Democrats ever again have control of both Congress and POTUS.
Today, EVERY Democrat in Congess (both House and Senate, and including Bernie Sanders and Angus King) is a co-sponsor of a bill (the so-called "Equality Act") that would mandate gender self-ID nationwide.
Whatever SCOTUS has to say about the cases today would be rendered moot by passage of the Equality Act.
If a swimmer were to have synthetic fins surgically attached, the finned human could beat out competitors regularly. Would supreme court justices accept the reality of the finned human? Why is it that transgender people get accepted as real, much less a class? Is it that that they come with medical diagnoses, as bogus as the diagnoses may be? The primary lie (that gender identity is real and can be different from sexed realty) must be addressed. Everything else - sports, prisons, bathrooms - is downwind. The abuse/discrimination begins with the patient who's so-called treatment is based on a lie.
If biology doesn't matter anymore, what's to stop the Men's 2nd string basketball team to ID as female, take over the Women's team and squeeze out the ladies altogether? Or my female Golden Retriever who overtly believes itself to be a human female and would love to join the Women's track and field team?
In the first case, nothing. I'm actually surprised that this hasn't happened yet in women's pro tennis, where some real money could be won. State law in Caliornia, New York, and most other blue states mandates that a man be admitted to a women's tournament if he claims to have (at that moment) a female "gender identity".
In the second case, I imagine there is existing case law about animals not being humans.
Furriness appears to be growing in popularity among the craziest leftist subcultures.
I have not heard anything about the assassin's cohabitant since shortly after the murder. I have a hunch that he may not have wanted to become an informant in a high profile murder investigation.
Excellent analysis. As you point out, it’s absolutely bonkers that the highest court in the land has to weigh in on whether sex is real. I disagree with the conservative majority on many issues, but I’m glad that there are a number of sex realists on the court for this case. I’d be shocked if these state laws are not upheld. The Democratic Party needs a hard reality check on this issue.
Some girls are exceptionally gifted athletically and can qualify for the boys' teams.
However even an exceptional female athlete like Serena Williams would be ranked well below the top male athletes, which is why women need their own protected sex category for athletic competitions. Without a sex protected category, no woman or girl would ever win a sports prize.
👍 "That this even needs answering tells us how far we have drifted — culturally, legally, and intellectually — from first principles."
Have yet to read all of the gory details -- the blow by blow tales from the trenches, so to speak.
But, offhand -- and apart from maybe being another case of "American Blind Justice" (a reprise of Alice's Restaurant?) -- it was, at least possibly, a case of too many Justices, Experts, "Lawyers", and Law-makers, along with sundry "usual suspects" and Members of the Public disappearing up their fundaments, many of them apparently or sadly lost without a trace, by intent or not.
But as an English-Canadian humourist, Stephen Leacock, of some repute once put it circa 1900, "everyone riding madly off in all directions". Not terribly conducive to any sort of social progress.
To whom you are attracted sexually is mostly a subjective feeling (although there are some objective tests that can identify it) and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
🙄 The testosterone is fucking immaterial. The only issue, or about the only one in most cases, is whether the contestants <strike> have ovaries or testicles, i.e., males or females.</strike>
ETA: ... have ovaries or testicles, i.e., females or males, respectively. /ETA HTH, particularly for those unclear on the concepts ... 😉🙂
Those with the former get to play in sports designated for the sole use of females, and those with the latter don't. Q.E.D. Easy peasy.
You might want to listen to Andrew Gold's interview with Dr. Emma Hilton, a developmental biologist, who explains how testosterone works in regard to the differences between males and females. This interview was filmed during the Imane Khelif case..
It's an hour well-spent for people interested in this subject.
If that's your "understanding" then you might want to pick up a decent introduction to biology. Or even read Wikipedia's article on sex and the sexes (below).
The single feature that is common to every last male or female on the planet -- and for the last billion years or two -- is the production of either small reproductive cells (sperm by males) or large reproductive cells (ova by females). That production is part and parcel of the twin, and complementary, reproductive processes of spermatogenesis (males) or oogenesis (females). See below.
Those two common features are what DEFINES the categories male and female. If an organism produces those small reproductive cells [sperm] then it is a male, and if it produces those large reproductive cells [ova] then it is a female. And if it produces neither small nor large reproductive cells then it is neither male nor female; it is sexless.
Wikipedia: Sex is the biological trait of an anisogamous reproducing organism in producing either male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male [gamete, a sperm cell] and a female gamete [an ovum] fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inherits traits from each parent.
I'm not a doctor or scientist or other authority, and I don't want to paste in an AI response or go pouring through Google results. My understanding is it's a thing, Google will tell you how it could happen? If you find different, I would be interested to hear.
There's only one way to have a very high level of testosterone, and that is to be born male.
Testosterone starts to be secreted by male embryos at around 8 weeks' gestation. That's the reason that male fetuses are born seven months later with male equipment rather than female equipment.
Female embryos never develop this level of testosterone secretion, which is why the embryo develops into a female rather than a male.
Cripes, the interpretation of "gender" is exactly what the Supreme Court should be doing. Then it should be left to the constraints of Title IX, and sports organizations for adults. Enough of your ideological drama. Let the process play itself out.
Gender is a malleable term that seems to have many definitions. The law should confine itself to sex. We all have a sex, it is set at conception and can't change. The vast majority of the population can be seen as either male or female just by eye. For any that can't, there is a simple cheek swab that will reveal either XX or XY (or in maybe 1/10,000 cases something else, such as a lone X (Turner's Syndrome and female), XXY (Kleinfelter's syndrome and male) etc. Zero people well enough to play competitive sport are truly unable to be classified male or female.
I'm sorry, you can have an opinion, I can have an opinion. Whether sex or gender, the terms need to be legally defined, and the issues of civil rights need to be pinned down by judges (not legislators). But this should be a civil rights case, period. Not an ideological debate about what it means to be a girl or boy (a legal definition is different). Take the case of the Boston Marathon, which has many thousands of runners who aren't competing for the top spot. Woman vs. Men have different qualifying times. Why what should be the qualifying time for a trans athlete who does not have the testosterone of a male, and may well have the frame of a woman? In my opinion these are hard questions. I hope these questions for adults is left to the sports organizations. I hope over time, as a society, we work these things out in a way that achieves some sort of fair inclusiveness. Maybe a trans category, I don't know.
It's not a hard question. Should meth users get their own athletic category and Boston marathon qualifying times too? No. Dudes who choose to disadvantage themselves by taking harmful meds don't have some right to their own special sports category.
Transpeople are exactly like other people in that they are all born sexed. Humans cannot change sex by taking cross-sex hormones or having body parts surgically removed.
Athletes need to compete in their same-sex category, regardless of how much medication they take, when they start taking it, or whether or not they've had surgery.
Every part of a male is different from every part of a female, starting from the earliest weeks after conception and continuing throughout their lives.
Transwomen have been offered a trans category, and they have refused to sign up. That's because they want to be affirmed as women, and they want to win the women's prizes.
You won’t find the words “gender” or “gender identity” anywhere in Title IX. The statute protects women on the basis of sex, not “gender identity.” The Supremes aren’t going to rewrite the statute by reading some half baked queer theory gibberish into it; when Title IX was drafted, this nonsense wasn’t yet even a figment of Judith Butler’s imagination.
Hope they do the right thing.
I, too, cannot believe we cannot agree on this.
And as a Democrat -utterly ashamed of my party.
I listened to the whole thing today, too. Ultimately, I found it very depressing, deeply maddening and scary. Yes, there were some good questions and some good points were able to be heard, however, I kept yelling to the live feed, ‘you mean boy, you mean male, YES, thats the point you ignorant Justice, HE is being excluded from girls sports BECAUSE HE IS NOT A GIRL.’ Ugh. It was exhausting. Almost all of the judges complied with the pronoun game. And finally, we kept hearing about Hecox and BPJ, the boys, —hardly ever about the girls. What about the girls? How do they feel? What about THEIR exclusion?
These people don’t give two figs about the women and girls affected by this poisonous cult ideology. This does not bode well for the future even if the ruling is in favor of protecting women. The fact that we are here means the liberals will comply with NO LAW and NO RULING, EVER.
I'm so with you. It was depressing and disturbing to listen to all the 'transgender girls blablabla', from EVERYONE, when they were referring to BOYS. Also is it just me or did nobody point out that no matter what hormones or drugs boys take they will never have a period in their life? Something that is somewhat relevant to athletic performance and femaleness, yes?? Even if this case is a 'win', it's not feeling like a win. It was all too stupid.
Caroline :> ... however, I kept yelling to the live feed, ‘you mean boy, you mean male, YES, that's the point you ignorant Justice, HE is being excluded from girls sports BECAUSE HE IS NOT A GIRL.’ Ugh. It was exhausting.
👍 A hearty "Amen" to that. 🙂 I can often feel the smoke coming out of my ears -- literally!!! -- when I read such language. 😉🙂
But y'all might have some interest in my open letter to 3 or 4 so-called journalists at the New York Times "taking them to task" for similar language:
QUOTE; Substack, Human Use of Human Beings; Steersman: Open Letters; Ideological Capture; New York Times and Slate ...
The following is a publication of three letters I recently sent off to a trio of authors at the New York Times, and to one at Slate. The reason for the letters was that I had very much objected to what has to be either sloppy, careless and imprecise terminology; and/or “ideological capture” by transactivists; and/or scientific illiteracy if not pigheaded ignorance.
The crux of the problem is the too common use of phrases like “transgender girls” and “transgender female athletes” in the two Times articles, and the view, in the Slate article, that humans can “transition from one sex to another”. UNQUOTE
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/open-letters-ideological-capture
Phrases like "transgender girls" and "transgender female athletes" really chaps my hide. At best, the former are simply rather badly confused feminine juvenile males, and the latter, probably an older cohort including men like Lia (William) Thomas, are no more than male transvestites (guys in drag) if they still have their nuts attached, and sexless eunuchs if they don't.
"At that point, it is not just women’s sports at risk, but sex-based protections across the legal system."
Sex-based protections have already been obliterated in most blue states by "gender self-ID" laws.
That will happen nationwide if the Democrats ever again have control of both Congress and POTUS.
Today, EVERY Democrat in Congess (both House and Senate, and including Bernie Sanders and Angus King) is a co-sponsor of a bill (the so-called "Equality Act") that would mandate gender self-ID nationwide.
Whatever SCOTUS has to say about the cases today would be rendered moot by passage of the Equality Act.
That's extremely depressing. I hate the Equality Act!
Then vote accordingly.
If a swimmer were to have synthetic fins surgically attached, the finned human could beat out competitors regularly. Would supreme court justices accept the reality of the finned human? Why is it that transgender people get accepted as real, much less a class? Is it that that they come with medical diagnoses, as bogus as the diagnoses may be? The primary lie (that gender identity is real and can be different from sexed realty) must be addressed. Everything else - sports, prisons, bathrooms - is downwind. The abuse/discrimination begins with the patient who's so-called treatment is based on a lie.
Agree. There is no win until gender ideology is denounced as the nonsense it is.
If biology doesn't matter anymore, what's to stop the Men's 2nd string basketball team to ID as female, take over the Women's team and squeeze out the ladies altogether? Or my female Golden Retriever who overtly believes itself to be a human female and would love to join the Women's track and field team?
In the first case, nothing. I'm actually surprised that this hasn't happened yet in women's pro tennis, where some real money could be won. State law in Caliornia, New York, and most other blue states mandates that a man be admitted to a women's tournament if he claims to have (at that moment) a female "gender identity".
In the second case, I imagine there is existing case law about animals not being humans.
"In the second case, I imagine there is existing case law about animals not being humans."
The leftists are already working on changing that by claiming that some humans are animals (furries) and by promoting bestiality.
That's right! Charlie Kirk's assassin's roommate is (was?) a furry. Wonder how his life has changed?
Furriness appears to be growing in popularity among the craziest leftist subcultures.
I have not heard anything about the assassin's cohabitant since shortly after the murder. I have a hunch that he may not have wanted to become an informant in a high profile murder investigation.
But, biology doesn't matter, eh?🤷♂️
Under blue state law? No, biology doesn't matter. And that will become federal law if the Democrats ever take control of both Congress and POTUS.
Excellent analysis. As you point out, it’s absolutely bonkers that the highest court in the land has to weigh in on whether sex is real. I disagree with the conservative majority on many issues, but I’m glad that there are a number of sex realists on the court for this case. I’d be shocked if these state laws are not upheld. The Democratic Party needs a hard reality check on this issue.
https://timothywiney.substack.com/p/disorder-in-the-court
every media publication uses the term "transgender athlete." Hah.
We all know it's a boy forcing his way onto a girl's sports team and into the girl's locker room. It's never the other way around.
Some girls are exceptionally gifted athletically and can qualify for the boys' teams.
However even an exceptional female athlete like Serena Williams would be ranked well below the top male athletes, which is why women need their own protected sex category for athletic competitions. Without a sex protected category, no woman or girl would ever win a sports prize.
👍 "That this even needs answering tells us how far we have drifted — culturally, legally, and intellectually — from first principles."
Have yet to read all of the gory details -- the blow by blow tales from the trenches, so to speak.
But, offhand -- and apart from maybe being another case of "American Blind Justice" (a reprise of Alice's Restaurant?) -- it was, at least possibly, a case of too many Justices, Experts, "Lawyers", and Law-makers, along with sundry "usual suspects" and Members of the Public disappearing up their fundaments, many of them apparently or sadly lost without a trace, by intent or not.
But as an English-Canadian humourist, Stephen Leacock, of some repute once put it circa 1900, "everyone riding madly off in all directions". Not terribly conducive to any sort of social progress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Leacock
To whom you are attracted sexually is mostly a subjective feeling (although there are some objective tests that can identify it) and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
If an athlete born with a vagina is also born with a very high amount of testosterone, is it unfair for her to compete?
🙄 The testosterone is fucking immaterial. The only issue, or about the only one in most cases, is whether the contestants <strike> have ovaries or testicles, i.e., males or females.</strike>
ETA: ... have ovaries or testicles, i.e., females or males, respectively. /ETA HTH, particularly for those unclear on the concepts ... 😉🙂
Those with the former get to play in sports designated for the sole use of females, and those with the latter don't. Q.E.D. Easy peasy.
Remember when people didn't have to cuss to make their point?
The only reason testicles and ovaries make a difference is because of hormones, from what I understand.
You might want to listen to Andrew Gold's interview with Dr. Emma Hilton, a developmental biologist, who explains how testosterone works in regard to the differences between males and females. This interview was filmed during the Imane Khelif case..
It's an hour well-spent for people interested in this subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9rynD9KlU0
If that's your "understanding" then you might want to pick up a decent introduction to biology. Or even read Wikipedia's article on sex and the sexes (below).
The single feature that is common to every last male or female on the planet -- and for the last billion years or two -- is the production of either small reproductive cells (sperm by males) or large reproductive cells (ova by females). That production is part and parcel of the twin, and complementary, reproductive processes of spermatogenesis (males) or oogenesis (females). See below.
Those two common features are what DEFINES the categories male and female. If an organism produces those small reproductive cells [sperm] then it is a male, and if it produces those large reproductive cells [ova] then it is a female. And if it produces neither small nor large reproductive cells then it is neither male nor female; it is sexless.
Wikipedia: Sex is the biological trait of an anisogamous reproducing organism in producing either male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male [gamete, a sperm cell] and a female gamete [an ovum] fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inherits traits from each parent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermatogenesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oogenesis
How does she get that testosterone? Does that athlete have ovaries or testes?
I'm not a doctor or scientist or other authority, and I don't want to paste in an AI response or go pouring through Google results. My understanding is it's a thing, Google will tell you how it could happen? If you find different, I would be interested to hear.
There's only one way to have a very high level of testosterone, and that is to be born male.
Testosterone starts to be secreted by male embryos at around 8 weeks' gestation. That's the reason that male fetuses are born seven months later with male equipment rather than female equipment.
Female embryos never develop this level of testosterone secretion, which is why the embryo develops into a female rather than a male.
Normal testosterone levels for premenopausal women typically range from 15 to 70 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL).
Normal testosterone levels for adult men generally range from 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL).
In other words, normal testosterone for females is in a completely different category than that which is normal for males.
Cripes, the interpretation of "gender" is exactly what the Supreme Court should be doing. Then it should be left to the constraints of Title IX, and sports organizations for adults. Enough of your ideological drama. Let the process play itself out.
Gender is a malleable term that seems to have many definitions. The law should confine itself to sex. We all have a sex, it is set at conception and can't change. The vast majority of the population can be seen as either male or female just by eye. For any that can't, there is a simple cheek swab that will reveal either XX or XY (or in maybe 1/10,000 cases something else, such as a lone X (Turner's Syndrome and female), XXY (Kleinfelter's syndrome and male) etc. Zero people well enough to play competitive sport are truly unable to be classified male or female.
I'm sorry, you can have an opinion, I can have an opinion. Whether sex or gender, the terms need to be legally defined, and the issues of civil rights need to be pinned down by judges (not legislators). But this should be a civil rights case, period. Not an ideological debate about what it means to be a girl or boy (a legal definition is different). Take the case of the Boston Marathon, which has many thousands of runners who aren't competing for the top spot. Woman vs. Men have different qualifying times. Why what should be the qualifying time for a trans athlete who does not have the testosterone of a male, and may well have the frame of a woman? In my opinion these are hard questions. I hope these questions for adults is left to the sports organizations. I hope over time, as a society, we work these things out in a way that achieves some sort of fair inclusiveness. Maybe a trans category, I don't know.
It's not a hard question. Should meth users get their own athletic category and Boston marathon qualifying times too? No. Dudes who choose to disadvantage themselves by taking harmful meds don't have some right to their own special sports category.
Transpeople are exactly like other people in that they are all born sexed. Humans cannot change sex by taking cross-sex hormones or having body parts surgically removed.
Athletes need to compete in their same-sex category, regardless of how much medication they take, when they start taking it, or whether or not they've had surgery.
Every part of a male is different from every part of a female, starting from the earliest weeks after conception and continuing throughout their lives.
Transwomen have been offered a trans category, and they have refused to sign up. That's because they want to be affirmed as women, and they want to win the women's prizes.
You won’t find the words “gender” or “gender identity” anywhere in Title IX. The statute protects women on the basis of sex, not “gender identity.” The Supremes aren’t going to rewrite the statute by reading some half baked queer theory gibberish into it; when Title IX was drafted, this nonsense wasn’t yet even a figment of Judith Butler’s imagination.