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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

ACLU on sex and biology

59 replies

andyoldlabour · 05/02/2021 14:16

According to the American Civil Lberties Union

"The ACLU went on to explain that, first of all, “trans girls are girls,” and that the idea of sex being rooted in biology is a “myth.”

Wow, where do we start, or indeed finish with that statement?

www.dailywire.com/news/aclu-issues-twitter-thread-allegedly-debunking-myths-about-trans-students-in-sports?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro&fbclid=IwAR2qZtgBD9IwAaOlMf6C6B_xFJ907VsBtwtyFmV3Pthgd1UMIdBhlOXcbYw

OP posts:
AryaStarkWolf · 05/02/2021 15:00

My brain hurts reading that whole thread of replies too

Whatwouldscullydo · 05/02/2021 15:05

How are babies Made Hmm

andyoldlabour · 05/02/2021 15:21

They thought it would be a good idea to tweet Grin

twitter.com/ACLU/status/1357129137547337733

OP posts:
AryaStarkWolf · 05/02/2021 15:24

[quote andyoldlabour]They thought it would be a good idea to tweet Grin

twitter.com/ACLU/status/1357129137547337733[/quote]
How long more can this madness carry on? Seriously though, I feel like I'm living is some bizarre alternate reality

SmallPug · 05/02/2021 15:26

This is exactly what I just said. It’s like I’m in a nightmare and can’t wake up. If feels like we’re losing our collective grip on reality.

JaimeLeeCurtains · 05/02/2021 15:30

I think they are so tangled up in misunderstandings of anthropology that it hurts my brain.

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

To read that as 'biological sex itself is a myth' is clap trap.

LurkyMcLurkLurk · 05/02/2021 20:45

TRAs absolutely need everybody to accept that transwomen belong in sports with women and girls. Once we recognise the unfairness and potential danger caused by biological differences in sport, then we have to acknowledge the need for same sex provisions in other areas. Arguing that TWAW fails if there are admitted differences in any area of society.

NiceGerbil · 06/02/2021 03:27

I will believe that everyone really believes that sex is a spectrum of is all that matters blah when chaps googling het or lesbian porn get two blokes and are totally content.

WarriorN · 06/02/2021 07:11

I've been reading the shite they've spewed and almost think they're doing it deliberately to peak every and force the issue.

WarriorN · 06/02/2021 07:12

@JaimeLeeCurtains

I think they are so tangled up in misunderstandings of anthropology that it hurts my brain.

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

To read that as 'biological sex itself is a myth' is clap trap.

What an excellent post. Filing for future arguments!

PotholeParadies · 06/02/2021 07:14

@NiceGerbil

I will believe that everyone really believes that sex is a spectrum of is all that matters blah when chaps googling het or lesbian porn get two blokes and are totally content.
I have often wondered this.
Winesalot · 06/02/2021 07:30

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.

NotBadConsidering · 06/02/2021 07:37

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.

Winesalot · 06/02/2021 07:52

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.

JaimeLeeCurtains · 06/02/2021 07:56

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

WarriorN · 06/02/2021 08:17

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.

nauticant · 06/02/2021 08:32

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.

Truthlikeness · 06/02/2021 09:22

@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.

NotBadConsidering · 06/02/2021 09:26

[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. Angry

teawamutu · 06/02/2021 09:40

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

ACLU on sex and biology
QueenoftheAir · 06/02/2021 09:48

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 Grin )

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 ... Grin

JaimeLeeCurtains · 06/02/2021 10:06

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.

merrymouse · 06/02/2021 10:15

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.

merrymouse · 06/02/2021 10:22

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.

merrymouse · 06/02/2021 10:23

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.