Court rules California law requiring use of transgender pronouns is a violation of free speech

[ScreamingMeMe]

www.theblaze.com/news/california-trans-pronouns-free-speech#toggle-gdpr

The State of California Third District Court of Appeals ruled that a state law requiring the use of preferred pronouns by nursing home workers violated their free speech rights.

The court struck down the pro-transgender regulation on Friday in a unanimous 3-0 decision.

The State of California Third District Court of Appeals ruled that a state law requiring the use of preferred pronouns by nursing home workers violated their free speech rights.

Well that article was hardly impartial, but thanks for posting that news.

Excellent.

The law could have punishedd^ a health care provider with a year in prison and as much as a $1,000 fine for "prolonged" abuse involving the violation of the provisions including the misuse of preferred pronouns.

There is no way anyone anywhere should ever be at risk of going to jail over pronouns. Frightening.

@oxalisRed

Well that article was hardly impartial, but thanks for posting that news.

Do you have any, less partial source?

And you're welcome.

"Let's be clear: refusing to use someone's correct name and pronouns isn't an issue of free speech — it's a hateful act that denies someone their dignity and truth," said Rick Chavez Zbur, an executive director of Equality California.

It's like the insidious conflation of LGB with T, creating false equivalence: using the name a person has chosen for themselves is completely unconnected to using the third person pronouns they have chosen for themselves.

The name you choose for yourself is an expression of your freedom of speech. The third person pronouns I use to describe the people I see is an expression of my freedom of speech.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

There is no way anyone anywhere should ever be at risk of going to jail over pronouns. Frightening.

I would have liked to read headlines saying: Free Speech Upheld as State of California Third District Court of Appeals rules against compelled speech

However, as PPs indicate, it's good to have this covered at all and I need to cope with my irritation at the state of affairs that makes me grateful for any coverage even when it is all an homogenised perspective and cites similar comments.

www.eqca.org/trans-nursing-home-decision/

www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/nursing-homes-can-deadname-transgender-seniors-court-rules-rcna1468

The judgment: www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C088485.PDF

OP I think the ^ was directed at whoever wrote the article not you.

This is reassuring. Transactivism (aside from the misogyny) seems to be about making ordinary people’s lives harder.

I think I see what oxalisRed means, all of the articles very quickly go to an 'ain't it awful, let's challenge this' stance. Nonetheless, good news, thank you ScreamingMeMe

The reporting of this would give anyone who didn't understand the wider issues pause for thought.

It is being framed as cruelty to a (presumed) vulnerable population. In the context of deeply shaming cases such as Winterbourne View Care Home - I am sensitive to anything that gives cover to such behaviour.

Would health and social care devolve into dystopian systems of emotional and mental abuse for some populations if the liberty that permits freedom of thought and speech is not balanced by the careful nuance of manifestation and some assessment of intent (beyond the assumption of malice and bad faith? Is absolving people of compelled speech a recognition of mutual rights and responsibilities. In a UK context, I'm aware of the protected characteristic to hold a belief and the distinction between holding that belief and a manifestation of it. I'd hope that there's something similar in California.

No matter what one's ideological or political beliefs, I can not think anybody wants a society, system of government, or conditionality of employment/education/health or social care that is predicated on compliance with threat-induced conformity. A conformity that is broadening in such a way in some countries (looking at Scotland and its Hate Crime Bill) that is more adjacent to the expressions of the pre-history of events that we associate with tyranny, totalitarianism, and oppression than with the values of a democracy.

I don't know what it will take for people to understand some of the undercurrents of contemporary events and the implications for the freedoms we take for granted. It is made all the harder with such relentlessly one-sided framing of such discussions.

I’m more worried about this part in the NCB news article.

”The appeals court upheld a second challenged portion of the law prohibiting facilities or employees from assigning rooms based on anything other than a transgender resident’s gender identity.”

I wonder how exactly the rooms are allocated and whether any are shared. Potentially I feel this could have much more serious side-effects on vulnerable elderly women.

Sorry for ambiguous posting. The face was purely for the article and how the issue was framed.

Sincere thanks for bringing the issue to light :)

No probs. Sorry for getting defensive, oxalisRed

I wonder how exactly the rooms are allocated and whether any are shared. Potentially I feel this could have much more serious side-effects on vulnerable elderly women.

I share your unease and need to confess that reading the judgment has not clarified the matter for me - I can't see any provision made for the preferences of vulnerable residents who are not ready to have a non-consensual room-sharing arrangement with someone of the oppposite sex.

Imagine hearing that elderly people in care homes may have to suffer the indignity of being misgendered on top of all the other indignities that come with being elderly and in care and describing this state of affairs as "excellent" and "reassuring". I genuinely have no idea how some of you can possibly be as cruel as you seem happy to be to people as long as they're trans.

@BlueberryCheezecake

Imagine hearing that elderly people in care homes may have to suffer the indignity of being misgendered on top of all the other indignities that come with being elderly and in care and describing this state of affairs as "excellent" and "reassuring". I genuinely have no idea how some of you can possibly be as cruel as you seem happy to be to people as long as they're trans.

So you think soneone referring to you by the 'wrong' pronoun when you are not present is cruel but forcing an elderly woman to share a room with a man and get changed in front if him is fine so long as the man identifies as a female with a penis?

Totally disingenuous post there from you, Cheezecake

I'll spell it out, shall I?

We are "celebrating" that it will not be a criminal offence. Deliberate and prolonged misgendering of someone should be a disciplinary matter for the employer, surely? Anyone who would do that to deliberately hurt someone is an arsehole and a bad employee.

And yes, pronouns are usually used when the person isn't present. Policing someone's speech when the person being discussed isn't present is chilling.

BlueberryCheezecake If your outrage is actually real...

In all likelyhood, it will not be the elderly people requesting that others use their chosen pronouns, rather the young people working in the care home.

I would argue therefore that it is the elderly people who are being protected from suffering the confusion, gaslighting and indignity of having to refer to a person they clearly perceive as one sex, as another.

Elderly people who may already be suffering from cognitive decline do not need the confusion and anxiety this would cause, and certainly should not be dragged into someone else's validation exercise.

@Mulletsaremisunderstood

BlueberryCheezecake If your outrage is actually real...

In all likelyhood, it will not be the elderly people requesting that others use their chosen pronouns, rather the young people working in the care home.

I would argue therefore that it is the elderly people who are being protected from suffering the confusion, gaslighting and indignity of having to refer to a person they clearly perceive as one sex, as another.

Elderly people who may already be suffering from cognitive decline do not need the confusion and anxiety this would cause, and certainly should not be dragged into someone else's validation exercise.

It specifically says care home workers. I hope that not even California is insane enough to write laws criminalising the elderly in care homes for misgendering.

I want to cry at what they’re doing to the women in care homes though. I know people don’t care about women in prison, but don’t Californians care about their grandmothers?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

There is no way anyone anywhere should ever be at risk of going to jail over pronouns. Frightening.

Particularly not a Californian women's jail.

Imagine hearing that elderly people in care homes may have to suffer the indignity of being misgendered on top of all the other indignities that come with being elderly and in care and describing this state of affairs as "excellent" and "reassuring".

Imagine wanting low paid care workers to be criminalised over pronouns.

Particularly not a Californian women's jail.

Indeed.

I'm really really confused.

Is there an issue in care homes with deliberate misgendering of residents by staff?

I mean, is this an issue? That needed a court case?

They say it's elderly people. So transsexual presumably pretty much all the time. Transgender is recent. How many elderly people have trans identities?

I don't get it. I imagine this case was to create s precedent for other scenarios?

If anyone knows of info that this was a big problem then please do share.

Anyway.

1. Care home workers should be respectful to their clients. Deliberately using s name they don't use, even pronouns. In that situation. Would be really horrible and I assume they'd be disciplined and then sacked if they kept going.

The pronouns thing has loads of real life issues. In this situation though regular staff who know residents using their preferred pronouns or just their names seems reasonable.

Seems a no brainer that doing this on purpose to upset is totally off. And disciplinary processes should handle it.

(Again. How many elderly people have transgender IDs? And the number of transsexual people is pretty low and it would be a dick move to not call them she/ he as they have been presumably for years).

1. What about the residents? Is this just about the staff? Because expecting people with dementia to adhere to this, or just elderly people to use zir etc. That's not right to me. Again though. How many transgender people are in these homes?

????

Ah blueberry you are disappointed by this decision.

Do you have any info on why this was brought? In terms of presumably a fair amount of misgendering of the elderly by staff, in order to bully or make a political point. And that were not handled via disciplinary procedures.

Tia.

Noted that it was the staff not the residents who would have been obliged to adhere under this law.