Trans terminology taking over - being used in the US Supreme Court

[meade6487]

Greetings from the US. I'm not sure how much this will interest everyone here, but I keep an eye on what the UK is doing, so I figure you folks keep an eye on us too.

Last week, a transgender woman, Aimee Stephens's case came before the US Supreme Court (Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC). Stephens was fired from a funeral director job when Stephens advised his employer of his upcoming transition and said when he returned to work, he would follow the female dress code. The family owned business fired Stephens because they felt Stephens's appearance as a woman may distract from the very solemn and serious nature of services the funeral home provides its clients.

Something I haven't seen anyone talk about yet regarding the case is the language / terminology used by Aimee Stephens's counsel David Cole (of the ACLU). Cole's language was very deliberate. Cole used the word "assigned" as in "assigned at birth" 22 times.

The counsel for Harris Funeral Homes & Solicitor Gen. used only "biological." Chief Justice Roberts used only "biological(ly)." Cole used "biological" 8x. But 7 of those times, he also surrounded it w/ "assigned at birth" or referenced that he was using other side's terms.

The only Justice to use "assigned" was Justice Kagan. She used "biological" 3x, but never to reference Stevens. Then she used "assigned" 2x later, but only after catching herself about to use "biological man" to describe Stephens. It's obvious in the audio she caught herself.

The transcript reads: "Yes, if she had not been a --if she had not been assigned at birth the sex that she was assigned at birth..."
supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-107_4gcj.pdf
If they already have a US Supreme Court Justice using this phrase, that is NOT a good sign.

(For those of you unfamiliar with the US Supreme Court, Roberts was appointed by a Republican and tends to side with the conservative wing of the court while Kagan was appointed by a Democrat and tends to side with the liberal wing of the court.)

This was VERY deliberate. The trans activists are trying EXTREMELY hard to control the language and use this made up phrase "sex assigned at birth," to avoid the fact that their movement is based on scientific falsehoods.

We need to recognize this and make sure not to ever use it and challenge them on it when they use it. We have all heard the George Orwell 1984 line, "If you control the language, you control the argument." We can't let them control the argument. If we do, we've already lost.

twitter.com/meade6487/status/1184211273271185408

This is my first post on mumsnet because someone on twitter recommended I share it here. I apologize if I posted in the wrong place or if something I wrote is not allowed on this forum. Thank you for reading and commenting.

So you are no longer born you are assigned to life?

What a time to be alive (or assigned to life).

Looks to me that you're in the right place - welcome. Have only skimmed so far, will read in detail later. Thanks.

@meade6487 - This is part of their huge push for Institutional Capture - the "capturing" of particularly public-run institutions. Their language is an essential part of the capture. The objective is to obfuscate facts through the use of transgender "new-speak", which effectively renders language meaningless.

Language is powerful and words have defined meaning. The defined meaning of language poses problems for trans-activists. Defined language, defined scientific terms, defined facts. All this is promoted as "exclusionary".

By creating a new-speak language, trans-activists and their staggeringly misguided allies are helping muddy the waters of truth and constitutional law. By blurring these boundaries through meaningless language, they hope to erase women's sex-based rights via the back door.

Human beings cannot change sex.

This statement is true, and presents the crux of the matter. So this statement has to be buried in new-speak. The happenstance of a man wanting to wear women's clothes to work is irrelevant. That case was already heard and won. This case, as far as I can see, is about destroying the fact stated above: human beings cannot change sex.

In the UK, our police are now entirely complicit with the new-speak narrative, and have been lobbied very effectively by powerful trans activist lobby groups. The police are actively refusing to apply the law and refusing to uphold women's existing defined rights.

Today is "pronouns day" on social media and - trust me on this - a police chief, wearing a rainbow lanyard, posted a twitter speech about how damaging and dangerous it is to use the wrong pronouns. The police, who are meant to be upholding the law.

So this is where we are at in the UK, and this was an open letter I saw to the police posted up somewhere today in response to the pronoun police.

DEAR POLICE:

Forcing a woman to ignore the evidence of her own eyes, compelling her to deny what she sees and knows to be true, and dictating what she has to say in response is ABUSE. It is GASLIGHTING, it is CONTROLLING and COERCIVE behaviour.

You, the police, are openly advocating and attempting to enforce precisely the kind of controlling behaviours that were declared by the Home Office to be a SERIOUS CRIME.

You, the police, have wilfully ignored the constant harassment, abuse and violence against women who meet peacefully to discuss women's rights. You are all complicit in promoting a level of misogyny that leaves women with no recourse or protection in the face of escalating male violence.

You, the police, have entirely lost the confidence of women. You have broken your own codes of conduct, ignored guidelines, and breached restrictions designed to ensure impartiality in your duty to uphold the law.

And now you have the audacity to tell us what words we must use? Well how about these words: FUCK YOU.

YOU WILL NOT ERASE OUR RIGHT TO SPEAK THE TRUTH.

Signed,
Women

Welcome to Mumsnet.

Hi OP. Thanks for this and welcome to Mumsnet.

I agree that language is vital. Have you read the fabulous essay written by one of our number?

fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

Welcome to Mumsnet OP. Please stick around, strength in numbers!

I'm watching this case with interest. We have some landmark cases happening here soon.

I recommend looking up the court cases for Maya Forstarter and Harry Miller with the Fair Cop campaign. I'm sure they have already hit your radar, both very important for points on language and free speech. Both are imminent.

A few years back I would have embraced judicial activism without reservation but since then seeing how the gender identity ideology works by stripping meaning from words which have had a commonly understood meaning forever, I'm far less enthusiastic about judges, however venerable, joining in. If you want to change the law, do it through the legislature.

What a fabulous open letter to all UK police services!

The bot assinger on every maternity ward.

What a pile of shite this is

Controlling language compelling speech

This is why #nodebate is crucial to trans lobby groups. They have only been able to institutionally capture the law, law enforcement and government agencies by silencing all challenge and debate. It's why there is such a determined effort to silence women on Mumsnet and elsewhere. Because truth, facts and honesty are a threat to those seeking to impose harmful ideologies and fantasies like TWAW on society. This only works when citizens are bullied and coerced into compliance and silence.

Hi OP, I'm also living in the USA (though I was violently assigned British citizen at birth) and in one of the wokest of woke states where all of this is already enshrined in state law (conveniently having never appeared on any ballot to my knowledge) so I'm watching this with some concern.

I'm no Supreme Court Justice, so it's probably not my place to criticise those who are, but I honestly am not sure they get all the the implications in the case before them right now. I wish I could trust them to do the right thing but I already have a bad feeling about this.

Thank you all for the warm welcome. We may not agree on everything, and I suspect we may not agree on much. But I am very happy to join forces to stop what I see as one of the most damaging movements I've ever seen. What is being done to women and especially children in the name of trans ideology terrifies and angers me.

While I have no personal contempt for Aimee Stephens and many other transgender individuals, I see this court case, and the many like it, as one step in multi-step plan by trans activists to silence parents and women from speaking out about how they are destroy confused children's bodies and women's private spaces and sports.

I'm a father to little boys and am acutely aware of what sort of gender nonsense will be pushed upon them when they are in public school, but if I had girls, I would be utterly terrified.

And over the border:

www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2019/10/15/authors-warn-theyll-boycott-toronto-public-library-over-speaker-accused-of-being-anti-transgender.html

@meade6487 - the freedom to disagree, discuss, and come to deeper understandings is central to the whole tenet that is freedom of speech.

I for one very much appreciate the open, tolerant and intelligent discourse that takes place here on Mumsnet.

Women's hard-won sex-based rights, as enshrined in law, must be upheld. And we are all deeply invested in the protection of women and children from predatory men.

Hi OP, and thanks for sharing your very interesting observations on the Supreme Court case.

I think most of us here watch what's happening in the the States and in Canada very carefully, as it seems that the transmadness there somewhat precedes our own version here in the UK (not sure if this is true, but that's the impression I get).

We are catching up fast though - it is already some time ago that a British feminist was forced to use female pronouns when referring to her attacker in court. I'm not sure of the exact details but I know he was subsequently found guilty of some level of physical assault in a public space.

In no way does a man have the right to coercively control women's speech in the home or in public, never mind in the courtroom.

@ChipOnMyOvary
It seems like the US, Canada, and the UK trade the title of peak trans back and forth weekly. With the I Am Jazz shows and surgeries on super young kids we're doing, the state sponsored erasure of women the UK is doing, and Canada's Human Rights Tribunals featuring a male sexual predator suing female estheticians that don't want to touch his testicles, it's hard to tell who is the worst. Everytime I think we've hit peak trans, something tops it.

I am not a fan of Trump, and I think the US Republican party is extremely weak in their fight against the trans ideology, but I am thankful that there are enough places here where the Democrat party does not have enough power to change public opinion to support some of the crazier ideas that were on display at their recent "equity" town hall.* This fight in the Supreme Court is significant, because if the trans side wins, it goes a long way in convincing everyday people that don't follow this like we do that they should be giving deference to the trans activists. If that happens, we will have a lot of work to do to dig our country out of a big hole. But dig we will. This isn't something I plan on giving up no matter how much ground we lose.

*Since I'm new here, I don't know if you had a thread on here about the trans crazies at the Democrat Presidential Candidate "Equity" Town Hall interrupting their own speakers, taking microphones away, loudly protesting, saying "misgendering" is violence, and how the moderators kowtowed to them. They made the moms with 9 year old trans kids (poor kids) seem like the sane ones. If not, I'll find some youtube links so you can see how insane it was.

@LangCleg
That's a great article.

"Incongruent pronouns also make your brain work much harder; not just when you are using them, but when you are receiving them as information. You are working constantly to keep that story straight in your head. Male or female? Which one, again? Concentrate harder. Ignore your instincts, ignore your reaction.

And that’s just you. You’re already aware of all the pertinent information, already alert, you know the score, no flies on you.

And you’re still affected emotionally and instinctively by incongruent pronouns, nouns, and names. Despite your efforts to be immune. You’re not immune to this effect. You can know perfectly the actual sex of a male person, and yet you will still react differently if someone calls them she instead of he."

This is a great description of how I felt while listening to the audio of the transgender supreme court case. It makes me angry because I can see how people that don't look at this issue the way we do hear the argument by the other side and say, "what she wants is completely fair." Sure it is... when you keep calling him she, but he isn't she. Take that away and what he wants is ludicrous.

Here's the link to the audio if you want to try and play the mental gymnastics yourself.
www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2019/18-107
(Turn speakers down, it starts playing automatically. But you can pause it and listen or download from that page.)