I should defer to UB here, but my impression is that the allocation of pro bono work has symbolic value to the firm, and the presumption of oppressed minority status among ‘trans’ people and esp ‘trans kids’ makes them irresistible as beneficiaries. According to UB, it has the additional advantage of appealing to the moral politics of young would-be associates from the top law schools.
I'm just genuinely confused and also wondering how it's known that it's pro bono (is it on the websites of these big law firms? do they advertise it?). I've followed the trans issue closely for 3.5 years and everything I've seen indicates they have unlimited money, and the whole point of a law firm's pro bono program is to help people who wouldn't otherwise be able to go to court due to lack of funds. Of course they can do whatever they want and represent people pro bono who don't actually need the help, but it's just weird. The ACLU could surely either do the representation itself or pay for it.
Here in Pittsburgh PA and I'm assuming throughout the country, many small TQ nonprofits have sprung up. One of them, the Hugh Lane Wellness Foundation, provided the lawyer for my former nextdoor neighbors who started a sign war with me and then lied and cried to the corrupt DA to get me charged with "harassment." It would be interesting if someone could track some statistics about these orgs -- how many there are, where the money comes from, what exactly they're doing etc. Lots of their focus is on housing, including youth homeless sheltering :( (below link has a list but it doesn't include Proud Haven which apparently is a youth homeless shelter in my zip code).
Jul 21·edited Jul 21Liked by Jenny Poyer Ackerman, Unyielding Bicyclist
So glad UB got the full Jenny. Wait that sounds bad. I am so glad that UB, who knows her shit better than anyone else writing on the legal side of things here in the US, got have this much time with an interviewer who can pull the amazing nuances out of her. Great podcast, thanks so much.
Jul 20Liked by Jenny Poyer Ackerman, Unyielding Bicyclist
This was even better than I was hoping for! There were so many interesting points that I can't begin to list them. I will say the term "law sex" is going to be part of my vocabulary! I definitely would love to further explore the ideas behind the different types of lawsuits (men in women's prisons, men in women's sports, unnecessary medical interventions harming vulnerable individuals, workplace rights) and how they will each impact each other - or whether we will end up with a hodgepodge of "law sexes."
Also, while I have been out of law school for sooo many years, I get the alumni emails that indicate (by way of the content of different presentations) that at least my law school is pretty steeped in gender insanity - and I am saddened by this. I also can't imagine that Harvard's and Yale's law schools can possibly avoid this nonsense when it is all around them. Anyone want to speculate about how different Legally Blonde would be if made today? Just a random thought.
Thank you! Yes, the question of how these lawsuits relate to each other is so interesting.
If Legally Blonde were made today then the rich preppies would be more adept at using pronouns than Elle Woods, therefore they would be the good guys and she would be the villain.
I think they’d cast Dylan Mulvaney in the lead, and no one would go, but the reviews would be ecstatic: ‘a triumph of representation that’ll remind you what a real woman is!’
> "Anyone want to speculate about how different Legally Blonde would be if made today?"
🙂 Definitely some "interesting" possibilities there that SNL or Monty Python might have a field-day with. But a movie I'll have to put on my "To Watch" list:
"The novel was based on Brown's experiences while enrolled in Stanford Law School."
But more on the general point of lawsuits -- and of defining "man" and "woman" in law -- you might want to take a gander at Kathleen Stock's article that had been posted on the Duke Law website. And not least because Stock had emphasized, probably somewhere on her own Substack, that some "gender ideologues" there had tried to put the kibosh on it, that further "hits" on the article would ruffle some feathers there:
"The Importance of Referring to Human Sex in Language":
"Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable" ... 🙂
Though not to say that Stock's essay is perfect, though a rather significant improvement from her earlier "arguments". From my Medium essay some 5 years ago:
"For instance, Stock states quite explicitly that, for her, 'there is no hard and fast ‘essence’ to biological sex, at least in our everyday sense: no set of characteristics a male or female must have, to count as such.' And that is more or less what 'professor of biology and gender studies' Anne Fausto-Sterling argued in a New York Times article last year: '… there is no single biological measure that unassailably places each and every human into one of two categories — male or female'. ...."
As we have discussed at some length ... 😉🙂, there's the crux of the matter. Arguably a case of trying to square the circle, i.e., trying to put everyone in either one category or the other, no exceptions. Seems to be something of an article of faith that everyone is either male or female, and from conception to death -- "because the Bible tells me so" ... 🙄
But if one goes with the biological definitions then the fact of the matter is that some third of us, at any one time, are sexless. And if one wants some physiological criterion to put everyone in either the "male" or "female" "bin" then the only one that halfways works -- 98.5% in any case -- is genitalia which is not terribly "flattering". Your own "designed to produce sperm or ova" might work, but it's not terribly precise -- what tangible criteria will we write into the law books that various "gatekeepers of toilets and sports leagues" might use to grant, or deny entry into those "promised lands"?
One might go with Emma Hilton's "gonads of past, present, or future functionality" -- though I notice that she has since, quite commendably, repudiated that definition for the sexes themselves in favour of the biological standards:
Yes, you and I have discussed ad nauseum, which is why I didn't read through your longer comment on this Substack. Essentially, I know what you want to say about defining "male" and "female." The difficulty in articulating in It is a problem, but the solution does not lie in indicating that only fertile women and fertile men are "females" and "males," respectively. Even if that's true (and you and I can continue to debate that forever), the real question here is what is a "girl" or "boy" or "man" or "woman," for purposes of dividing us up when necessary, as in sports, prisons, bathrooms, changing rooms, or for same-sex gatherings, or women only (or men only) groups (as in the now famous Tickle v. Giggle case).
I understand that "bodies designed around production of large/small gametes" may also raise some questions, but it goes a long way to making the division clear. Generally speaking, xx is for girls and women and xy is for boys and men, with few exceptions - but we don't go around testing people's DNA in ordinary life and, supposedly, there may be more crossover of xx and xy than we know. (I'm not sure if that has any truth to it, but I have no way of knowing.) Genitalia are also usually a good way to know if someone is male or female, absent anomalies. However, there are a few males born with something that looks like a vagina. I'm not sure if any girls/women are born with penis-like genitalia. In the end, those anomalies are not what this debate is about because society can accept those with DSDs that actually render their sex ambiguous (.02% of the population at present) in whatever space they are comfortable inhabiting without harm. It's the unambiguous men who wish they were women and want to live as if they are women that create most of the debate. Right?
And the push/rush to chemically and surgically alter the bodies of distressed and/or confused teens and vulnerable adults doesn't involve this debate at all, except to the extent that people try to confuse the issue by claiming we're all ambiguous - in which case I might argue that there is no need to chemically or surgically alter someone who is an ambiguous sex. If nobody is "really" a man or a woman, a girl or a boy, why then are we going to such trouble to pretend they are?
Jul 21Liked by Jenny Poyer Ackerman, Unyielding Bicyclist
Steers has been doing this since the UseNet days, I'm told. He has some odd and tendendious arguments and goes so far as buy subscriptions to various Substacks in order to broadcast them. He goes away if you ignore him long enough.
You're part of the problem Matt, rather much more than Jenny & UB in fact.
"They" more or less accept that "most of the gender doctors seem pretty on board with the idea that it [trans] is gender nonconformity"; that "if there's any use in the English language for the word gender, I feel like that's where it's kind of useful, you know? So I don't love gender nonconforming either, but maybe gender atypical just sort of like, I don't know, rubs me a little better than sex atypical"; that there's "a difference at the population level between boys and girls" -- sexual dimorphism in personalities and behaviours.
You might also reflect on Alex Byrne's take, even if he's kind of clueless about the biology:
AB: "And as you said, in one version of the distinction, it's between sex on the one hand and sex-typed social roles, sex-typed social expectations or sex-typed norms on the other. So there's a distinction between male and female on the one hand, and how males and females actually behave in a particular society, how they're expected to behave in a particular society, and so on. And this of course is a genuine distinction. There really is a distinction between being a female on the one hand and behaving in a certain culturally circumscribed way on the other or being subject to a set of norms that apply only to female people."
No doubt many if not most of the "gender ideologues" have disappeared up their fundaments, but, as Byrne put it, "there really is a distinction in being a female and the behaviours that are typical of them", but not unique to them. Which is usefully captured in the sex-gender dichotomy.
You might actually try reading, and thinking about, that review and Jenny's transcript -- if that's not too much of a challenge for you ...
🙄 "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here"? You seriously think that I'm some sort of gender ideologue arguing in favour of some mythical essence to "male" and "female" as genders that trump the biological definitions for the sexes based on having functional gonads?
You've created this "gnostic" strawman of yours -- for fun and profit ... and are incapable of understanding, or are unwilling to understand, that many people -- including Jenny, UB, Byrne, Scalia, Hippiesq -- see, and DEFINE, "gender" as a rough synonym for sexually dimorphic personalities, roles, behaviours, and expressions.
You might try wrapping your head around this more or less decent post from Christina Buttons -- reposted on RLS -- on a review of Jack Turban's "book":
"Gender nonconformity encompasses preferences, behaviors, and physical traits that deviate from what is considered typical for males and females."
You're almost as bad as religious fanatics yourself in your rather pigheaded reluctance to consider more scientifically justified definitions of the concept.
🙂 I might be persuaded otherwise if you gave some indication of "taking on-board" my arguments or dealing with them honestly. 😉🙂
No doubt you have a pile of fish to fry, but I'm not sure whether you're keeping your ear to the ground, are listening to what other people are saying: people are all over the map on what both "sex" and "gender" mean.
On a more detailed reading of your interview with UB, that seems a substantial part of the problem in many of the court cases she's referred to. How can we agree on laws if we can't even agree on what the relevant words mean?
Colin Wright had a decent summation of the problem many years ago:
Wright: "Most confusion about 'gender' results from people not defining it. Many definitions are in circulation:
Much of my comment was largely as a "review of the bidding" for those late to the party. 😉🙂
> " I'm not sure if any girls/women are born with penis-like genitalia".
Wikipedia: "XX male syndrome, also known as de la Chapelle syndrome, is a rare condition in which an individual with a 46,XX karyotype develops a male phenotype. .... While there is some degree of variability, a vast majority of XX males have a typical male phenotype, with male-typical external genitalia, making early diagnosis uncommon. .... Based on limited evidence, most XX males appear to have typical body and pubic hair, penis size, libido, and erectile function.[13] In all reported cases, individuals have been sterile, with azoospermia (no sperm in the ejaculate). ...."
Wikipedia and the biological sources are apparently calling them males based on the "male phenotype", yet you would apparently call them "women with penises". Why shouldn't transwomen qualify likewise? 😉🙂
That's the problem with the conflict between the folk-biology definitions for the sexes, and those endorsed by reputable biological journals. And with the insistence that everyone has to have a sex -- not very useful for social policy and corrupts the biology which would say the intersex are simply sexless.
> "It's the unambiguous men who wish they were women and want to live as if they are women that create most of the debate. Right?"
Sure. But where are the laws that specify what it takes to qualify as men and as women, as "adult human males" and as "adult human females"? That's what Jenny's interview with UB seems to boil down into. Even if they don't -- yet -- seem willing, or able, to grab that bull by the horns, to deal with the devils in the details.
Jul 20Liked by Jenny Poyer Ackerman, Unyielding Bicyclist
As an aside, Transmuted...you have a cute voice that to me sounds like Leslie Mann's. I have no idea why I think this is important enough to make a comment about.
Hehe... your comment made me smile. I adore Leslie Mann. Your interview was totally refreshing.... so utterly thankful I joined Substack to hear and read from intelligent and talented thinkers, like yourself and AB. 😁 I really will have to scramble some $ to pay for more of the privilege.
Jul 19Liked by Jenny Poyer Ackerman, Unyielding Bicyclist
> "Law sex is sexy sex!"
Lawyers do it in briefs? Kinky ... 😉🙂
But awesome interview. You both cover a lot of ground and get into some nitty-gritty thought-provoking details. Hope to respond in more depth later once I read the balance of your transcript -- only skimmed it so far. Though, en passant, it might be useful if Substack indicated who was talking at each point.
From what I’ve heard, the ADF demands gay detransitioners don’t talk about their homosexuality. The fact they are homophobic is the reason us lesbians won’t work with them. I also believe that a butch lesbian doesn’t tug at the heart strings like a straight Women who can’t nurse her baby and is ugly now because she lost her hair to testosterone.
Politics, strange bedfellows, and all that. Something of another case in point is this interview of evolutionary biologist and Substacker Colin Wright on Aporia:
Wright: @ 19:34: “So, yeah. So I have a very strong affinity to a lot of Christians. I think, you know, I don't believe in the things they believe about religion. ….
I'll talk about them being males and females, there's only two sexes and then so I'll get a lot of Christians saying like oh yes you know there's only man and woman because god created man and woman. I was like well you know at least we're on the same page that there's just two [sexes], but you know we can talk later about how that came about. Yeah, we don't we don't need to say that they were just created. There's actually like scientific reasons why there's only two. So, yeah, I mean, it's just a weird tightrope to walk.
And I give talks at churches and I don't always make sure to talk about sexes as being these evolved reproductive strategies. And sometimes they get angry that I brought up evolution. Sometimes they're on board and [sometimes not]. It's it's a really bizarre, wild place because I just people on both sides."
Somewhat more "problematic" is that many on the Right, the Christian Right in particular if that's not redundant, seem to think that personalities are intrinsic to what it means to be male and female -- apparently why so many of them insist sex and gender are synonymous. But Matt Walsh for example who seems to think that if a man isn't out raping and pillaging then he doesn't qualify as "Real Man (tm)" ...
Some rather “uneasy” alliances there that are likely fall apart if not go up in smoke when the "honeymoon" is over, when push comes to shove.
Though I'm not sure that UB -- and/or maybe Jenny? -- herself isn't part of the problem. For example, she (they ?) accepts that there's "a difference at the population level between boys and girls", but apparently balks at "gender nonconforming" and "gender atypical" because she apparently thinks that is tantamount to saying those individuals are not "completely sex perfect".
Which is more or less equivalent to saying some kid between the ages of 13 & 19 is not "completely teenager perfect" because they, for example, have clear skin and a good driving record.
Personality traits are NOT definitive of either "teenager" or the sex categories, something that far too many people seem to have a great deal of difficulty comprehending. Both "teenager" and the sexes -- "male" and "female" -- have quite objective criteria for membership in those categories -- being 13 to 19, and having functional gonads of either of two types, respectively -- that have absolutely diddly-squat to do with any personality traits, behaviours, or stereotypes.
Shannon Thrace has a decent post on a related topic that provides some illumination on that point:
ST: "Yet you [Jordan Peterson] speak often of the overlapping bell curves that demonstrate average versus outlier traits in populations. Women and men, as you often point out, are different on average, while a not-insignificant number of women (30%, in this study) exhibit male-typical traits (and vice versa)."
I appreciate your engagement, Steersman, but I will push back on your suggestion that we (UB and I) are part of the problem. While she uses the term ‘sex atypical’ and I prefer ‘gender atypical’ for rhetorical reasons that you recount much as I would, (and did here, in fact); neither of us thinks any female with atypical preferences is any less female than the archetypical woman, whoever she is. That’s pretty much why we both spend the time and energy we do here: to argue that precise point. I haven’t read the transcript but it seems something is getting lost in transcription.
Many thanks Jenny. You and UB are doing yeoman's work -- yeowoman's work? 🙂 -- here, and I sort of apologize if it looked like I was trying to tar you with the same brush that's tailor made just for gender ideologues.
But a major part of the problem with the transgender clusterfuck (excuse my French) is that virtually every last man, woman, and otherkin has entirely different and quite antithetical definitions for both sex and gender -- compounded because many on the "Right" are in pretty much the same boat as those gender ideologues in insisting they're synonymous, that they encompass the same sets of traits.
Why I thought both you and UB were on the right track with your (her) "difference at the population level between boys and girls", and likewise with her "think tank dedicated to proving human sexual dimorphism kind of thing" which recognizes, if vaguely, the distinction between the sexes, on the one hand, and the traits that correlate with them, on the other one. You both may wish to take a gander at my post on statistics -- Liked and Commented-On by Hippiesq! 😉🙂 -- that provides something of a "primer" on that difference:
But that still leaves hanging the question as to what you both think constitutes THE defining criteria for "male" and "female" as sexes. Which is arguably the crux of the matter, and the bones of contention.
Both of you may wish to consider the efforts of many States -- mostly Red ones for some reason ... to write some biological definitions for the sexes into the law books:
"These states are narrowly defining who is 'female' and 'male' in law:
Lawmakers in Montana, Tennessee and Kansas have voted in the past few weeks to narrowly define who is 'female' and who is 'male' in state law using such terms as 'gametes,' 'ova,' 'sex chromosomes,' 'genitalia' and 'immutable biological sex.' ....
The Kansas law legally defines a woman as someone whose reproductive system is designed to produce ova, and a man as someone whose reproductive systems are designed to fertilize ova."
Which I generally commend, though I don't think those doing so realize the potentially quite serious consequences of trying to use the law to supersede science and brute facts -- they might reflect on the UK's "Gender Recognition Act" for some object lessons.
The problem is that those States are touting "biological" definitions that are profoundly and fundamentally antithetical to those that are foundational to all of biology. Which has some serious consequences -- Lysenkoism writ large. Generally a bad idea to be allowing conventional wisdom and wishful thinking to trump fundamental science; we might just as well start "teaching the controversy" ...
En passant and to close, less "getting lost in transcription" than no clear indication of who is saying what -- at least without listening to the podcast. Since you're now a "star of screen and stage" in that department, you might wish to suggest some improvements there to the Substack honchos. 🙂
Jul 20Liked by Jenny Poyer Ackerman, Unyielding Bicyclist
Jenny, first great interview with UB. Hearing about the legal nuances, strategies, etc. of the cases you and UB discussed was illuminating and fascinating. Between the 2 of you, 2 more Substacks to track.
Second, you 2 are not part of any problem, unless one says you 2 are a big problem for gender idealogues in general and in particular for so called GAC, and for your efforts I applaud you both.
I had listened to this podcast earlier while doing my morning dog walk and coffee mission. After reading the comment to which you were responding here, went back and listened to the portion when the referenced definitions came up. First, you 2 were making completely valid points how misinterpretation of children's behavior is being used to push children into unnecessary, damaging medical treatments.
during that conversation, UB once used the term "sex atypical" and then later used the term gender non-conforming. You used gender non-conforming a couple of times. Then you both paused for a couple of minutes to reflect on exactly what is the right term to use. I think you pointed out that "sex atypical" was not such a great term too use when referring to behavior, as sex atypical is possibly better applied to people with DSDs. Personally agree with that, although a hard core definition person would pillory me for that, but I say that people with DSDs have a lot more on their minds than gametes, due to having some real issues with their sex characteristics and anatomy. As far as referring to various expression of gender, while I am accustomed to the term "gender non-forming", after hearing the discussion today, I'm now leaning toward "gender atypical". Nonconforming has an element of conscious purpose implied, whereas atypical implies more of an observable difference in an individual from an observed typical for a group.
Also in interesting points covered on strange bedfellows on this topic. And the point on witness selection in Arkansas. My own thoughts on this are that while far right and far left are diametrically opposed on both LGB rights and matters and gender ideology mattes, moderates/centrists are generally on board with LGB rights and skeptical of gender ideology.
> "... as sex atypical is possibly better applied to people with DSDs."
My point was the general "reluctance" to say exactly what is meant by "male" and "female", to say what are the "necessary and sufficient conditions" to qualify as members in those categories.
Given your fairly impressive background in zoology & neurobiology, and your "Musings about the intersection of life sciences with society" ... 🙂, you in particular might have some interest in my open letter to the erstwhile respectable biological journal "Cell" which had asked, apparently in all seriousness, "Is 'sex' a useful category?"
That is one of the more egregious consequences of "gender ideology", but part and parcel of that is the general reluctance to say exactly what it takes to qualify as male and female -- and to accept the standard biological definitions.
You too might want to take a gander at how reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries define the terms:
I really appreciate that comment, thanks Jeff. And I agree completely with your take on the thinking of moderates from either side. That should give us all the encouragement we need.
The big law firms are actually representing the "trans" side pro bono? I thought there was tons of money available, from ACLU and other sources.
I should defer to UB here, but my impression is that the allocation of pro bono work has symbolic value to the firm, and the presumption of oppressed minority status among ‘trans’ people and esp ‘trans kids’ makes them irresistible as beneficiaries. According to UB, it has the additional advantage of appealing to the moral politics of young would-be associates from the top law schools.
I'm just genuinely confused and also wondering how it's known that it's pro bono (is it on the websites of these big law firms? do they advertise it?). I've followed the trans issue closely for 3.5 years and everything I've seen indicates they have unlimited money, and the whole point of a law firm's pro bono program is to help people who wouldn't otherwise be able to go to court due to lack of funds. Of course they can do whatever they want and represent people pro bono who don't actually need the help, but it's just weird. The ACLU could surely either do the representation itself or pay for it.
It is indeed ridiculous. Here's a post I wrote last year about it
https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/david-vs-goliath-and-the-aclu
Here in Pittsburgh PA and I'm assuming throughout the country, many small TQ nonprofits have sprung up. One of them, the Hugh Lane Wellness Foundation, provided the lawyer for my former nextdoor neighbors who started a sign war with me and then lied and cried to the corrupt DA to get me charged with "harassment." It would be interesting if someone could track some statistics about these orgs -- how many there are, where the money comes from, what exactly they're doing etc. Lots of their focus is on housing, including youth homeless sheltering :( (below link has a list but it doesn't include Proud Haven which apparently is a youth homeless shelter in my zip code).
https://www.lgbtq.pitt.edu/find-support/local-resources
Thanks!
Well, that’s a comment I’m likely to come back and read again. Thanks, Matt!
So glad UB got the full Jenny. Wait that sounds bad. I am so glad that UB, who knows her shit better than anyone else writing on the legal side of things here in the US, got have this much time with an interviewer who can pull the amazing nuances out of her. Great podcast, thanks so much.
Thanks, Matt! Yes this interview was a great experience.
This was even better than I was hoping for! There were so many interesting points that I can't begin to list them. I will say the term "law sex" is going to be part of my vocabulary! I definitely would love to further explore the ideas behind the different types of lawsuits (men in women's prisons, men in women's sports, unnecessary medical interventions harming vulnerable individuals, workplace rights) and how they will each impact each other - or whether we will end up with a hodgepodge of "law sexes."
Also, while I have been out of law school for sooo many years, I get the alumni emails that indicate (by way of the content of different presentations) that at least my law school is pretty steeped in gender insanity - and I am saddened by this. I also can't imagine that Harvard's and Yale's law schools can possibly avoid this nonsense when it is all around them. Anyone want to speculate about how different Legally Blonde would be if made today? Just a random thought.
Thank you! Yes, the question of how these lawsuits relate to each other is so interesting.
If Legally Blonde were made today then the rich preppies would be more adept at using pronouns than Elle Woods, therefore they would be the good guys and she would be the villain.
I think they’d cast Dylan Mulvaney in the lead, and no one would go, but the reviews would be ecstatic: ‘a triumph of representation that’ll remind you what a real woman is!’
Thanks for the kind words, H’esq.🫶
> "Anyone want to speculate about how different Legally Blonde would be if made today?"
🙂 Definitely some "interesting" possibilities there that SNL or Monty Python might have a field-day with. But a movie I'll have to put on my "To Watch" list:
"The novel was based on Brown's experiences while enrolled in Stanford Law School."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legally_Blonde_(novel)
But more on the general point of lawsuits -- and of defining "man" and "woman" in law -- you might want to take a gander at Kathleen Stock's article that had been posted on the Duke Law website. And not least because Stock had emphasized, probably somewhere on her own Substack, that some "gender ideologues" there had tried to put the kibosh on it, that further "hits" on the article would ruffle some feathers there:
"The Importance of Referring to Human Sex in Language":
https://lcp.law.duke.edu/article/the-importance-of-referring-to-human-sex-in-language-stock-vol85-iss1/
"Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable" ... 🙂
Though not to say that Stock's essay is perfect, though a rather significant improvement from her earlier "arguments". From my Medium essay some 5 years ago:
"For instance, Stock states quite explicitly that, for her, 'there is no hard and fast ‘essence’ to biological sex, at least in our everyday sense: no set of characteristics a male or female must have, to count as such.' And that is more or less what 'professor of biology and gender studies' Anne Fausto-Sterling argued in a New York Times article last year: '… there is no single biological measure that unassailably places each and every human into one of two categories — male or female'. ...."
https://medium.com/@steersmann/reality-and-illusion-being-vs-identifying-as-77f9618b17c7
As we have discussed at some length ... 😉🙂, there's the crux of the matter. Arguably a case of trying to square the circle, i.e., trying to put everyone in either one category or the other, no exceptions. Seems to be something of an article of faith that everyone is either male or female, and from conception to death -- "because the Bible tells me so" ... 🙄
But if one goes with the biological definitions then the fact of the matter is that some third of us, at any one time, are sexless. And if one wants some physiological criterion to put everyone in either the "male" or "female" "bin" then the only one that halfways works -- 98.5% in any case -- is genitalia which is not terribly "flattering". Your own "designed to produce sperm or ova" might work, but it's not terribly precise -- what tangible criteria will we write into the law books that various "gatekeepers of toilets and sports leagues" might use to grant, or deny entry into those "promised lands"?
One might go with Emma Hilton's "gonads of past, present, or future functionality" -- though I notice that she has since, quite commendably, repudiated that definition for the sexes themselves in favour of the biological standards:
https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554
https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1488523777042432008
But in neither case will those definitions comport with those "promulgated" in reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3063-1
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
Houston, we have a problem ... 🙂 One which far too many -- including various so-called biologists and philosophers -- are unwilling to deal with.
Yes, you and I have discussed ad nauseum, which is why I didn't read through your longer comment on this Substack. Essentially, I know what you want to say about defining "male" and "female." The difficulty in articulating in It is a problem, but the solution does not lie in indicating that only fertile women and fertile men are "females" and "males," respectively. Even if that's true (and you and I can continue to debate that forever), the real question here is what is a "girl" or "boy" or "man" or "woman," for purposes of dividing us up when necessary, as in sports, prisons, bathrooms, changing rooms, or for same-sex gatherings, or women only (or men only) groups (as in the now famous Tickle v. Giggle case).
I understand that "bodies designed around production of large/small gametes" may also raise some questions, but it goes a long way to making the division clear. Generally speaking, xx is for girls and women and xy is for boys and men, with few exceptions - but we don't go around testing people's DNA in ordinary life and, supposedly, there may be more crossover of xx and xy than we know. (I'm not sure if that has any truth to it, but I have no way of knowing.) Genitalia are also usually a good way to know if someone is male or female, absent anomalies. However, there are a few males born with something that looks like a vagina. I'm not sure if any girls/women are born with penis-like genitalia. In the end, those anomalies are not what this debate is about because society can accept those with DSDs that actually render their sex ambiguous (.02% of the population at present) in whatever space they are comfortable inhabiting without harm. It's the unambiguous men who wish they were women and want to live as if they are women that create most of the debate. Right?
And the push/rush to chemically and surgically alter the bodies of distressed and/or confused teens and vulnerable adults doesn't involve this debate at all, except to the extent that people try to confuse the issue by claiming we're all ambiguous - in which case I might argue that there is no need to chemically or surgically alter someone who is an ambiguous sex. If nobody is "really" a man or a woman, a girl or a boy, why then are we going to such trouble to pretend they are?
Steers has been doing this since the UseNet days, I'm told. He has some odd and tendendious arguments and goes so far as buy subscriptions to various Substacks in order to broadcast them. He goes away if you ignore him long enough.
You're part of the problem Matt, rather much more than Jenny & UB in fact.
"They" more or less accept that "most of the gender doctors seem pretty on board with the idea that it [trans] is gender nonconformity"; that "if there's any use in the English language for the word gender, I feel like that's where it's kind of useful, you know? So I don't love gender nonconforming either, but maybe gender atypical just sort of like, I don't know, rubs me a little better than sex atypical"; that there's "a difference at the population level between boys and girls" -- sexual dimorphism in personalities and behaviours.
You might also reflect on Alex Byrne's take, even if he's kind of clueless about the biology:
AB: "And as you said, in one version of the distinction, it's between sex on the one hand and sex-typed social roles, sex-typed social expectations or sex-typed norms on the other. So there's a distinction between male and female on the one hand, and how males and females actually behave in a particular society, how they're expected to behave in a particular society, and so on. And this of course is a genuine distinction. There really is a distinction between being a female on the one hand and behaving in a certain culturally circumscribed way on the other or being subject to a set of norms that apply only to female people."
https://www.persuasion.community/p/byrne
No doubt many if not most of the "gender ideologues" have disappeared up their fundaments, but, as Byrne put it, "there really is a distinction in being a female and the behaviours that are typical of them", but not unique to them. Which is usefully captured in the sex-gender dichotomy.
You might actually try reading, and thinking about, that review and Jenny's transcript -- if that's not too much of a challenge for you ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBENzfvm6oY
🙄 "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here"? You seriously think that I'm some sort of gender ideologue arguing in favour of some mythical essence to "male" and "female" as genders that trump the biological definitions for the sexes based on having functional gonads?
You've created this "gnostic" strawman of yours -- for fun and profit ... and are incapable of understanding, or are unwilling to understand, that many people -- including Jenny, UB, Byrne, Scalia, Hippiesq -- see, and DEFINE, "gender" as a rough synonym for sexually dimorphic personalities, roles, behaviours, and expressions.
You might try wrapping your head around this more or less decent post from Christina Buttons -- reposted on RLS -- on a review of Jack Turban's "book":
https://www.buttonslives.news/p/free-to-believe-in-gender-pseudoscience
Of particular note therefrom:
"Gender nonconformity encompasses preferences, behaviors, and physical traits that deviate from what is considered typical for males and females."
You're almost as bad as religious fanatics yourself in your rather pigheaded reluctance to consider more scientifically justified definitions of the concept.
Dang, he doesn’t even pay for mine. 😏
🙂 I might be persuaded otherwise if you gave some indication of "taking on-board" my arguments or dealing with them honestly. 😉🙂
No doubt you have a pile of fish to fry, but I'm not sure whether you're keeping your ear to the ground, are listening to what other people are saying: people are all over the map on what both "sex" and "gender" mean.
On a more detailed reading of your interview with UB, that seems a substantial part of the problem in many of the court cases she's referred to. How can we agree on laws if we can't even agree on what the relevant words mean?
Colin Wright had a decent summation of the problem many years ago:
Wright: "Most confusion about 'gender' results from people not defining it. Many definitions are in circulation:
1. Synonym for sex (male/female)
2. A subjective feeling in relation to one's sex
3. Societal sex-based roles/expectations
4. Sex-related behavior
5. Personality traits"
https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/1234040036091236352
> "Yes, you and I have discussed ad nauseum ..."
Much of my comment was largely as a "review of the bidding" for those late to the party. 😉🙂
> " I'm not sure if any girls/women are born with penis-like genitalia".
Wikipedia: "XX male syndrome, also known as de la Chapelle syndrome, is a rare condition in which an individual with a 46,XX karyotype develops a male phenotype. .... While there is some degree of variability, a vast majority of XX males have a typical male phenotype, with male-typical external genitalia, making early diagnosis uncommon. .... Based on limited evidence, most XX males appear to have typical body and pubic hair, penis size, libido, and erectile function.[13] In all reported cases, individuals have been sterile, with azoospermia (no sperm in the ejaculate). ...."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome
Wikipedia and the biological sources are apparently calling them males based on the "male phenotype", yet you would apparently call them "women with penises". Why shouldn't transwomen qualify likewise? 😉🙂
That's the problem with the conflict between the folk-biology definitions for the sexes, and those endorsed by reputable biological journals. And with the insistence that everyone has to have a sex -- not very useful for social policy and corrupts the biology which would say the intersex are simply sexless.
> "It's the unambiguous men who wish they were women and want to live as if they are women that create most of the debate. Right?"
Sure. But where are the laws that specify what it takes to qualify as men and as women, as "adult human males" and as "adult human females"? That's what Jenny's interview with UB seems to boil down into. Even if they don't -- yet -- seem willing, or able, to grab that bull by the horns, to deal with the devils in the details.
As an aside, Transmuted...you have a cute voice that to me sounds like Leslie Mann's. I have no idea why I think this is important enough to make a comment about.
No idea is necessary, because it’s the best comment ever. Thank you, Lola Coco, and if I may: you may have the cutest name on Substack. 🥰
Hehe... your comment made me smile. I adore Leslie Mann. Your interview was totally refreshing.... so utterly thankful I joined Substack to hear and read from intelligent and talented thinkers, like yourself and AB. 😁 I really will have to scramble some $ to pay for more of the privilege.
Thank you, both, for this and for all you do.
Gender: A Wider Lens has published this link for Jesse's Economist article which allows you to avoid the paywall: https://segm.org/The-Econ-omist-WPATH-Research-Trans-Medicine-Manip-ulated
> "Law sex is sexy sex!"
Lawyers do it in briefs? Kinky ... 😉🙂
But awesome interview. You both cover a lot of ground and get into some nitty-gritty thought-provoking details. Hope to respond in more depth later once I read the balance of your transcript -- only skimmed it so far. Though, en passant, it might be useful if Substack indicated who was talking at each point.
Still, very impressive. 👍👌👏🙂
From what I’ve heard, the ADF demands gay detransitioners don’t talk about their homosexuality. The fact they are homophobic is the reason us lesbians won’t work with them. I also believe that a butch lesbian doesn’t tug at the heart strings like a straight Women who can’t nurse her baby and is ugly now because she lost her hair to testosterone.
Politics, strange bedfellows, and all that. Something of another case in point is this interview of evolutionary biologist and Substacker Colin Wright on Aporia:
Wright: @ 19:34: “So, yeah. So I have a very strong affinity to a lot of Christians. I think, you know, I don't believe in the things they believe about religion. ….
I'll talk about them being males and females, there's only two sexes and then so I'll get a lot of Christians saying like oh yes you know there's only man and woman because god created man and woman. I was like well you know at least we're on the same page that there's just two [sexes], but you know we can talk later about how that came about. Yeah, we don't we don't need to say that they were just created. There's actually like scientific reasons why there's only two. So, yeah, I mean, it's just a weird tightrope to walk.
And I give talks at churches and I don't always make sure to talk about sexes as being these evolved reproductive strategies. And sometimes they get angry that I brought up evolution. Sometimes they're on board and [sometimes not]. It's it's a really bizarre, wild place because I just people on both sides."
https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/sex-is-binary
Somewhat more "problematic" is that many on the Right, the Christian Right in particular if that's not redundant, seem to think that personalities are intrinsic to what it means to be male and female -- apparently why so many of them insist sex and gender are synonymous. But Matt Walsh for example who seems to think that if a man isn't out raping and pillaging then he doesn't qualify as "Real Man (tm)" ...
Some rather “uneasy” alliances there that are likely fall apart if not go up in smoke when the "honeymoon" is over, when push comes to shove.
Though I'm not sure that UB -- and/or maybe Jenny? -- herself isn't part of the problem. For example, she (they ?) accepts that there's "a difference at the population level between boys and girls", but apparently balks at "gender nonconforming" and "gender atypical" because she apparently thinks that is tantamount to saying those individuals are not "completely sex perfect".
Which is more or less equivalent to saying some kid between the ages of 13 & 19 is not "completely teenager perfect" because they, for example, have clear skin and a good driving record.
Personality traits are NOT definitive of either "teenager" or the sex categories, something that far too many people seem to have a great deal of difficulty comprehending. Both "teenager" and the sexes -- "male" and "female" -- have quite objective criteria for membership in those categories -- being 13 to 19, and having functional gonads of either of two types, respectively -- that have absolutely diddly-squat to do with any personality traits, behaviours, or stereotypes.
Shannon Thrace has a decent post on a related topic that provides some illumination on that point:
ST: "Yet you [Jordan Peterson] speak often of the overlapping bell curves that demonstrate average versus outlier traits in populations. Women and men, as you often point out, are different on average, while a not-insignificant number of women (30%, in this study) exhibit male-typical traits (and vice versa)."
https://shannonthrace.substack.com/p/lets-not-sacrifice-children-on-the
One of the main benefits of the concept of gender -- separating out those personality traits from what it means to be male or female.
I appreciate your engagement, Steersman, but I will push back on your suggestion that we (UB and I) are part of the problem. While she uses the term ‘sex atypical’ and I prefer ‘gender atypical’ for rhetorical reasons that you recount much as I would, (and did here, in fact); neither of us thinks any female with atypical preferences is any less female than the archetypical woman, whoever she is. That’s pretty much why we both spend the time and energy we do here: to argue that precise point. I haven’t read the transcript but it seems something is getting lost in transcription.
Many thanks Jenny. You and UB are doing yeoman's work -- yeowoman's work? 🙂 -- here, and I sort of apologize if it looked like I was trying to tar you with the same brush that's tailor made just for gender ideologues.
But a major part of the problem with the transgender clusterfuck (excuse my French) is that virtually every last man, woman, and otherkin has entirely different and quite antithetical definitions for both sex and gender -- compounded because many on the "Right" are in pretty much the same boat as those gender ideologues in insisting they're synonymous, that they encompass the same sets of traits.
Why I thought both you and UB were on the right track with your (her) "difference at the population level between boys and girls", and likewise with her "think tank dedicated to proving human sexual dimorphism kind of thing" which recognizes, if vaguely, the distinction between the sexes, on the one hand, and the traits that correlate with them, on the other one. You both may wish to take a gander at my post on statistics -- Liked and Commented-On by Hippiesq! 😉🙂 -- that provides something of a "primer" on that difference:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics
But that still leaves hanging the question as to what you both think constitutes THE defining criteria for "male" and "female" as sexes. Which is arguably the crux of the matter, and the bones of contention.
Both of you may wish to consider the efforts of many States -- mostly Red ones for some reason ... to write some biological definitions for the sexes into the law books:
"These states are narrowly defining who is 'female' and 'male' in law:
Lawmakers in Montana, Tennessee and Kansas have voted in the past few weeks to narrowly define who is 'female' and who is 'male' in state law using such terms as 'gametes,' 'ova,' 'sex chromosomes,' 'genitalia' and 'immutable biological sex.' ....
The Kansas law legally defines a woman as someone whose reproductive system is designed to produce ova, and a man as someone whose reproductive systems are designed to fertilize ova."
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/03/1172821119/kansas-montana-tennessee-narrowly-define-sex-female-male-transgender-intersex
Which I generally commend, though I don't think those doing so realize the potentially quite serious consequences of trying to use the law to supersede science and brute facts -- they might reflect on the UK's "Gender Recognition Act" for some object lessons.
The problem is that those States are touting "biological" definitions that are profoundly and fundamentally antithetical to those that are foundational to all of biology. Which has some serious consequences -- Lysenkoism writ large. Generally a bad idea to be allowing conventional wisdom and wishful thinking to trump fundamental science; we might just as well start "teaching the controversy" ...
En passant and to close, less "getting lost in transcription" than no clear indication of who is saying what -- at least without listening to the podcast. Since you're now a "star of screen and stage" in that department, you might wish to suggest some improvements there to the Substack honchos. 🙂
Jenny, first great interview with UB. Hearing about the legal nuances, strategies, etc. of the cases you and UB discussed was illuminating and fascinating. Between the 2 of you, 2 more Substacks to track.
Second, you 2 are not part of any problem, unless one says you 2 are a big problem for gender idealogues in general and in particular for so called GAC, and for your efforts I applaud you both.
I had listened to this podcast earlier while doing my morning dog walk and coffee mission. After reading the comment to which you were responding here, went back and listened to the portion when the referenced definitions came up. First, you 2 were making completely valid points how misinterpretation of children's behavior is being used to push children into unnecessary, damaging medical treatments.
during that conversation, UB once used the term "sex atypical" and then later used the term gender non-conforming. You used gender non-conforming a couple of times. Then you both paused for a couple of minutes to reflect on exactly what is the right term to use. I think you pointed out that "sex atypical" was not such a great term too use when referring to behavior, as sex atypical is possibly better applied to people with DSDs. Personally agree with that, although a hard core definition person would pillory me for that, but I say that people with DSDs have a lot more on their minds than gametes, due to having some real issues with their sex characteristics and anatomy. As far as referring to various expression of gender, while I am accustomed to the term "gender non-forming", after hearing the discussion today, I'm now leaning toward "gender atypical". Nonconforming has an element of conscious purpose implied, whereas atypical implies more of an observable difference in an individual from an observed typical for a group.
Also in interesting points covered on strange bedfellows on this topic. And the point on witness selection in Arkansas. My own thoughts on this are that while far right and far left are diametrically opposed on both LGB rights and matters and gender ideology mattes, moderates/centrists are generally on board with LGB rights and skeptical of gender ideology.
Keep up the good work, you're both doing great!
> "... as sex atypical is possibly better applied to people with DSDs."
My point was the general "reluctance" to say exactly what is meant by "male" and "female", to say what are the "necessary and sufficient conditions" to qualify as members in those categories.
Given your fairly impressive background in zoology & neurobiology, and your "Musings about the intersection of life sciences with society" ... 🙂, you in particular might have some interest in my open letter to the erstwhile respectable biological journal "Cell" which had asked, apparently in all seriousness, "Is 'sex' a useful category?"
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/is-sex-a-useful-category
That is one of the more egregious consequences of "gender ideology", but part and parcel of that is the general reluctance to say exactly what it takes to qualify as male and female -- and to accept the standard biological definitions.
You too might want to take a gander at how reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries define the terms:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3063-1
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
I really appreciate that comment, thanks Jeff. And I agree completely with your take on the thinking of moderates from either side. That should give us all the encouragement we need.
If ADF is serious about winning this issue nationally then it will change its stance toward us. But maybe it's not serious about winning.
Not at the expense of their religion. They are no different than the trans religion.