House Speaker Mike Johnson at a Capitol press conference yesterday
"The far left wants to allow biological males to beat the living crap out of women in boxing."
Candidate JD Vance
Republicans have a useful wedge issue: Pretend a nuanced issue is black and white, then appeal to prejudice, calling it common sense.
That is the trouble with reality. Sometimes it is more complicated than we let on.
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| Khelif |
Imane Khelif, the Olympic boxer from Algeria who got JD Vance and others upset, has female external genitalia. She was born with a vagina and no penis, so she was marked as female on her birth certificate. Well, of course. She was raised as a girl and has always considered herself female. Her passport conforms to her birth certificate. She meets the Olympic criteria for being female, so she boxed as a female.
Life is more complicated than the usual gender categories. Her exact medical condition has since been examined in detail and, against her will, leaked to the media. She is alleged to have "five-alpha reductase deficiency," which means that despite her external appearance, she has XY chromosomes, internal testes, and no uterus.
So in the minds of some people she is really male, and the external genitalia and birth certificate don't count. Conservative Americans insist that the birth certificate rules everything. Well, it says she is female. People want this to be simple.
Then there are the cases of people born with androgen insensitivity. It will emerge about once or twice at any given time in public school systems like those in Jackson County, Oregon. These women are identified as female at birth because they, too, had thoroughly female external genitalia: vagina, no penis. They each have XY chromosomes. 
A common characteristic of that condition is hyper feminine beauty characteristics: perfect complexion and faint or missing body hair.
Gender isn't as simple as boy or girl. Birth certificates don't necessarily conform to chromosomes. Chromosomes don't necessarily match with phenotypes. Does Mike Johnson really want to insist that these XY women share a urinal and locker room showers with his teenage son? If he doesn't trust a birth certificate, does he now trust XY chromosomes?
Sex and gender are not as clear and absolute as Mike Johnson and Republican attack ads would have it.
Democrats have made their own mess on trans issues, being too absolutist in arguing that gender is wholly a social construct and that gender is portable and self-identified. I consider quite reasonable Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton's statement that he didn't want his daughters getting "run over" by "formerly male" trans athletes on the soccer field. "As a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that,” he said, and indeed he wasn't. He got in trouble from Democrats. A Tufts University political science professor threatened to block students from volunteering in his office. A Salem, Massachusetts city council member demanded Moulton resign from Congress. Moulton's campaign manager resigned in protest, calling him transphobic for saying that.
Kamala Harris was silent while she was sustaining $150 million in attack ads calling her extreme and out of touch on the trans issues. Why? Because Harris did not dare say what Seth Moulton said, that there is a problem with older boys and men competing head-to-head in women's athletics. Democratic orthodoxy insists that gender is solely self-identified. They have analogized it to one's personal choice on sexual orientation, which most Americans agree is a zone of personal freedom. But gender expression involves and disadvantages others in some places, most directly in competitive sports.
Democrats can fix this -- if they have the courage. They should embrace the nuance that is the reality of gender. In arenas of transgendered adults in normal civic life, use the template of generalized respect, live-and-let-live, and willingness to accommodate the differences between people. We know how to do this. We accommodate the special needs of the elderly, of nursing mothers, of the handicapped. Do the same here with bathrooms and gender.
Meanwhile protect women's athletics. This arena has been very positive for establishing the equality of women in American life. Males, especially after puberty, are in a different league than women. It is unfair to ignore that reality.
Democrats need to shed their ideological handcuffs. They should accept two realities simultaneously. One is that gender is complicated and requires nuance and respect. The second is that biology is real.
Let Republicans pretend this is simple. Eventually reality will win out.
14 comments:
A doctor once told me that Kim Novak has that same condition. Hyperfeminine. Incredibly beautiful, even more that Marilyn Monroe. Can't have kids, etc. I haven't seen it anywhere else, but he seemed to know.
I hope you’re right about reality winning out. It seems that some of the willful ignorance around Trans issues is driven by religion. If God made you a woman, physically, then you’re meant to be a woman, period. There is no middle ground with those people. But I do think it’s time to tackle the issue of athletic competition so that people feel every contest is a fair one. Although “experts” are out of favor these days, there need to be studies on the effect on athletic ability of suppressing testosterone and adding estrogen. There is plenty of evidence that it reduces lean muscle mass, but no solid evidence that it reduces athletic performance. If a person transitions after going through puberty, they will probably always have physical advantages in some sports (e.g. larger hands). Of course, the position of the right wing is that no one should be allowed to transition until they’re at least 18, so there will never be a way to satisfy them. I wouldn’t want to be an athletic director trying to please everyone on this issue.
Yikes Peter C. I always thought Kim Novak was incredibly sexy when I was a kid. Does that mean I was gay? Yes to not letting transgender formerly males compete in sports. I find it silly to condemn anyone for saying that. Really liberals, that is so intolerant. Culture policing can get out of hand on both sides, such as men having to grow beards, women have to wear skirts, Muslim women have to cover their hair. I am against adult men having sex with teenagers though, it is nuanced.
You’d think sports organizations could decide competition rules without state and national legislatures getting involved. But this is America, where Republicans are trying to pass a bill that would ban the first transgender congresswoman from using the women’s room. They’re fine with Trump inciting his followers to attack the Capitol Building and smear feces on the walls, but God forbid a trans woman should use the bathroom there. Only in America.
I totally agree with Peter. The Democrats were afraid to go against “woke“, and ended up electorally broke.
I hope the donkey learned its lesson this time. If not, that same 2 x 4 will be waiting for it in 2028.
I've also wondered, Mike, why lawmakers need to weigh in on cultural issues.
Sure, they want to weigh in to score points with bigots.
I'd like to hear from the usual suspects how treating people disrespectfully makes their lives better.
First, just listen to Martina Navratalova on this topic; quite sane and a sold platform (greatest female athlete) to stand on. Second, I think it's just weird that born-men who become trans-women also, at the same time, decide to adopt all the supposedly superficial and culturally determined female stuff, like makeup, jewelry, clothing and colors. Why? I'm a regular guy but if I suddenly became a woman, why would I not just stay in my comfortable routines, my regular old sweatshirt, my short hair, my normal habits? Whoever I am, just be myself, right? And, God knows, "regular" females certainly manifest themselves in every kind of shape, size and format, from butch to Barbie. Why the costuming and acting? Why the superficial performance art of announcing what one is, a male or a female, whatever that means? Just a question....
Boxer Khelif, from birth a biological and statistical outlier, is hence not the best example to reflect the purported complexity underpinning this controversy.
Swimmer Thomas, however, presented male into early college, before announcing a transition to female, normal penis intact. Social science? Law? In that order?
Society's understanding evolves over time, much like how we now accept same-sex marriages. Only time will determine whether we will accept XY women and trans athletes. This is still an open question for me, especially as I have a son who is transitioning to a daughter.
So, Democrats lost the 2024 election because of those pesky “wokes.” And don’t forget the “elites” – but only the Democratic ones, of course.
A bigger factor is the number of voters gullible enough to believe Trump’s tariffs and mass deportations will cure inflation and improve their lives. What it comes down to is, this election had the most badly informed electorate in modern American history. We’re talking about people who believed him when he told them immigrants are eating our pets. Trump is a convicted felon, was judged liable for sexual abuse, he incited a violent uprising in an attempt to overthrow his 2020 election loss and his campaign rhetoric echoed Hitler. His supporters could relate.
If Republicans really gave a rip about protecting women, they would have put the molester-in-chief in prison rather than back in the White House.
Same-sex marriages aren't accepted by all,.unfortunately.
The bigots still exist.
And if they really cared about children they wouldn't complain about vaccinations or school lunch programs.
People against trans/drag support a rapist who wears makeup and elevator shoes.
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