ACLU on sex and biology

So is it remotely plausible to say that Butler and Butlerists argue that humans imagine biological sex into existence, therefore it cannot be fixed or scientifically knowable?

And that those who choose to 'imagine' biological sex as binary are therefore wrong within the conceits parameters of this linguistic / philosophical argument?

Because that to me would be like using quantum theory and Schrodinger's cat to inform, say, sentencing policy in the criminal justice system.

This ability to form and impose your own reality is a gift to extremists who benefit from polarisation between groups. There can be no meaningful debate because the different groups have their own (mutually inconsistent) realities. It turns the middle ground into a wilderness because it's a very uncomfortable space to inhabit so you end up with the non-extremists, even if they're the majority, going silent and going to ground, and without debate you've got hateful mud-slinging between the extremes. It also traps people into their adopted extreme positions, moving away turns you into a heretic and you've nowhere to go except into the inhospitable wilderness.

No. You have this wrong. What you say here, ' ... our strong notions of gender [roles, stereotypes] frame how we think about biological sex is very likely true. But it is not what Butler argues.

Read it again: ' ... gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which a "sexed nature" or a "natural sex" is produced and established. The claim here is stronger. It is that this framing of how we think about sex is what produces sex. Which is nonsense.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Unfortunately for pomo beggars (amongst whom certain trans 'theorists'), wishes are not horses.

However nauticant, I think they are only successfully policing the opinions of their own tribe. In a country like America, a very large group of people will be happy to use this to show that the left are just as anti-science as the right and that the ACLU are a crack pot organisation whose views on all issues can be ignored.

Why believe in climate change if those libs don't even know how babies are made?

Meanwhile who else is standing up for voter rights or refugee rights?

The same goes for Amnesty and UN Women.

Absolutely right!

There used to be a trivia question.

"In the 1976 Olympic, who was the only female competitor exempt from gender testing?"

The answer being Princess Anne

@QueenoftheAir thanks for your input. It was when I learnt about Early Modern misunderstanding of female biology (surprise that a woman wasn’t a sort of inside out man, that women’s bodies contributed to conception other than as a simple incubator) that the reality that the (white) male is default, the female is ‘other’ really had meaning for me.

Efforts to exclude subsets of girls from sports can undermine team unity.

Exclusion is part of the nature of competitive sport, so this is an odd argument to make. A subset will always be excluded. The only question is whether the reason for the exclusion is fair.

Your comment merrymouse leads me to another thought I had in mind: these ideologues are not in the business of making the rest of us believe what they say. They're in the business of making it impossible for the rest of us to say what we believe.

I thought I heard Sharon Davies discuss it. I think many female athletes, particularly those that rely on these events for there future prospects would be happier to be tested than to lose to a male.

It's not as though elite athletes don't have to undergo testing all the time.

It's important to understand that the ACLU haven't misunderstood. It's worse than that. Rather they have decided that facts, science, even reality, simply don't matter, they can be disregarded. They've decided, exactly like Trump, that if you have a political goal, you can simply make up your own version of reality to steer things in that direction.

Which is a bit of an issue if your ability to act depends on the wider public believing that your opinions have credibility.

Although I haven't clicked on it I notice that the link in the OP is to the Dailywire, the site founded by Ben Shapiro.

This is such an easy target for right wing organisations. Meanwhile US maternity leave is laughable and rights to abortion and contraception are uncertain.

The ACLU is preaching to the choir, while creating ammunition for the organisations that block real civil rights, not made up rights like "the right to be affirmed".

What a mess.

Such interesting comments on this thread.

From my perspective, I would say first this: scientifically humans are a sexually dimorphic species.

This should be a lynchpin of sporting fairness, no matter how genuinely fascinating and important the cultural conversations and historical landscape are around social constructions of biology, medicine and hierarchies. And yes is is necessary to keep these conversations going, otherwise women would still be banned from triple-jumping.

But the lynchpin - of humans being a sexually dimorphic species - is why I think so many archaeologists raised their eyebrows at Alice Roberts. She didn't just do a tedious wokey - she did poor archaeology.

What they have mainly misunderstood is the perfectly reasonable idea that attitudes to and ideas about biological sex are culturally and historically diverse.

Which is sort of what Judith Butler actually says about sex in Gender Trouble:

gender is not to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which a "sexed nature" or a "natural sex" is produced and established

That is, Butler argues that our strong notions of gender [roles, stereotypes] iframe how we think about biological sex. Although it suits a lot of gender extremists to interpret Butler different - if they have read her work, which I mostly doubt.

For example: in the Middle Ages, in European Christianity, concepts of sex were not framed in terms of difference or binary opposition, but in terms of hierarchy ('Great Chain of Being")

God
Angels
Man
Horses, Dogs
Woman

Evidence: the Bible - Eve made out of Adam's rib ...

(I sometimes think dogs & horses were valued more than women in that hierarchy! but that's my dusty scholar's joke )

Post-Renaissance, sex started to be conceptualised as difference - as more medical material knowledge accumulated. But add ideas of difference to ideas of hierarchy, and you can see how there's still - even today - a concept of sex as a binary hierarchy ie men and women are different, but male/men still at the top of a hierarchy.

Lecture over ...

Pretty sure that's not what they're doing.

[quote Truthlikeness]@Winesalot - I also remember Sharon talking about the test. It would only need to be done once at the start of a career to prevent many years of unfairness and risk and is presumably no more invasive than a regular health check-up.[/quote]
Well, that depends. It was done when Semenya was 18/19, and it didn’t stop Semenya from denying women of medals, sponsorship and prize money for 10 years.

@Winesalot - I also remember Sharon talking about the test. It would only need to be done once at the start of a career to prevent many years of unfairness and risk and is presumably no more invasive than a regular health check-up.

It's important to understand that the ACLU haven't misunderstood. It's worse than that. Rather they have decided that facts, science, even reality, simply don't matter, they can be disregarded. They've decided, exactly like Trump, that if you have a political goal, you can simply make up your own version of reality to steer things in that direction.

In the same way that Thatcher viewed New Labour as her greatest achievement, Trump has led progressives to embrace fake news. But that's a trap, in the long run the use of fake news will benefit the Trumpians far more than those who would rely on reason.

Yes I think it would. I'm not clever enough to word it though.

I get it inately, and so really don't understand why others don't! I do think a decent grounding in biology and history (good, long standing, including anthropological and archaeological history) is essential. And understanding of how "history" we read about is interpreted and manipulated and edited. Especially by men.

@WarriorN Maybe it would be a good thread topic on its own (ie the mangling of anthropological research).

Far worse, they claimed, would be to exclude trans women from women’s sports because it would hurt all women. “It invites gender policing that could subject any woman to invasive tests and accusations of being ‘too masculine’ or ‘too good’ at their sport to be a ‘real’ woman.”

Iirc, there was a time they did tests to be assured female competitors were female. I thought I heard Sharon Davies discuss it. I think many female athletes, particularly those that rely on these events for there future prospects would be happier to be tested than to lose to a male.

ACLU is too heavily reliant on the words ‘harmful to all’. It shows they are completely detached from what females actually think. They allude to it here too.

Efforts to exclude subsets of girls from sports can undermine team unity.

Ahh. Yes.... no mention that it ‘can’ also go the other way.

This is simply a poorly written propaganda piece appealing to the kindness of others to damp down their own pain at losing to a transgirl to make that transgirl’s benefit, in esteem and maybe financially etc.

Team unity.... right... like Mouncey’s teams response to them wanting to shower with them.

The science is there and is proven. I know more research is being done, but what we already have shows there is little expectation it will be different. Frankly, I would be suspicious now of any research proving a different outcome because there is so much riding on it politically.

How does a scientist ensure the transitioned person is training and competing at the true top of their performance capacity still? Even Harper acknowledged intentional body reshaping influenced transwomen’s performance outcomes.

The ACLU is set on harming women.

That came out in one of the long AIBU threads, eventually the true colours shown. It’s touted as safety, but validation is what actually matters. Someone made a very good point that if everything was mixed sex that wouldn’t be acceptable either, because there would be nothing external to confirm someone as the sex they wish they were.

Sorry, was that ‘debunked’ or ‘endorsing’ myths?

And it is blatant the first couple led to the zinger “Trans people, like all people, may experience detrimental effects to their physical and emotional wellbeing when they are pushed out of affirming spaces and communities,” (my bold).

It’s dangerous misinformation to achieve the goal of ‘affirmation’! At least it is now obvious there is and never was any other reason to pursue this.

What an excellent post. Filing for future arguments!