smac97

I think you are correct: we do agree more than we disagree. As for His criteria? I suppose we could look at Matthew 7:21 ("Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."). True. We will each of us be judged individually. And I don't think we need to worry much about what criteria He will be using to judge others, just those He uses to judge us as individuals. Well, that is its primary purpose. I also think it functions as "Exhibit A" in the truth claims of Joseph Smith and the Church itself. If the book is what it claims to be (the "antecedent"), then certain "consequents" follow. Sill a matter of faith, of course. But answering if the Church is what it claims to be is, I think, going to come down to the book as a testament, an authentic testament, of Jesus Christ. We do agree on a lot. I am glad of that. Thanks, -Smac

You don’t seem to care about objections (in the sense of adapting your preferred approach) from any trans advocacy group, I'm not sure why you would say that. I may not agree with much of what "trans advocacy" organizations have to say, but I certainly want to listen and give them their due consideration. In that sense, I do "care." I do see it as a "weakness." CB's proposal contradicts a number of what I think are the basic tenets of "trans" ideology, as well as the advocacy organizations that seek to present and entrench and enforce them in society. To stake out a position based on ideology, and then immediately formulate a proposal that fundamentally undercuts the basic tenets of that ideology, is - in my view - not a very strong position. Thanks, -Smac

But it does when used to create onlys and others. I am still working on understanding your perspective here. John 14:6 - "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Acts 4:12 - “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” 1 Timothy 2:5 — “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” John 10:9 — “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” John 10:7–8 — “I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers.” Was Jesus here "creat{ing} onlys and others" in John 14:6? Were His apostles doing that in the other passages? To be sure, given your experience, I can see how a poor sampling of Latter-day Saint culture has treated sacred matters as things to be bragged about or used to disparage others. I am very sorry that happened. I do not think what the Latter-day Saints said to your wife was an accurate representation or reflection or application of the teachings of the Church. Don't all Christians say that "only" Jesus saves? As for "certainty," I think it is more apt to say that "we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). There may be some very few persons who can legitimately claim to have epistemic "certainty" of certain sacred matters. For most of us, though, we believe. We have faith. That faith can, over time, perhaps be tested and strengthened to the extent that a person may claim "certainty" of some things. In contrast, there are some rhetorical conventions in the Church which, while well-intended, are the product more of culture and repetitive experiences than actual, studied faith. Hence when a ten year old girl stands up in Fast & Testimony meeting and says (recites, really) "I'd like to bear my testimony I know this church is true...", I admit I entertain the possibility that this young person has indeed had some fantastic spiritual experience that has removed all doubt, but also the possibility that she has incorporated a stock phrase she has heard several times as a workable formulated expression of faith, and in which "know" means "strongly believe." Anyway, "blind spots." Yes, we all have them. I quite agree with you there. None at all? John 14:6 seems to indicate that those who affirmatively refuse to accept Jesus Christ's atonement will not be the beneficiaries of it. Isn't that a pretty big criterion? Perhaps the most fundamental and almost exclusive one? I too value incertitude, because is gives us the opportunity to thresh our beliefs and differentiate between what we believe in with "certainty" or much potency, and what we believe in as matters for which uncertainty is the byword. Jesus Christ as the Son of God? I strive for certainty on that point. Obedience to the commandments as an expression of faith in Christ? I strive for certainty on that point. Repentance as an essential component of daily life? I strive for certainty on that point. Is the Book of Mormon what is claims to be? I strive for certainty on that point. Was Noah's flood global or local? I don't know. Uncertainty/incertitude governs that question (though I lean to the latter). Was Job a real person or not? Uncertainty/incertitude. Were the conquest of Canaan and the slaughter of the Amalekites divinely mandated as depicted in the OT? Perhaps. Lots of uncertainty/incertitude. Has God ever mandated polygamy? Apparently, but I struggle with it. Uncertainty. Unearned or false certainty likely is. But maybe certainty can happen in some limited respects. "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13). I don't know. Frankly, I'm not sure it is always incumbent upon us to pursue "certainty" where faith and obedience are sufficient to carry the day. It is a good thought, and one I endorse and share. Thanks, -Smac

This seems to be quite vague and subjective. It can be deployed to describe almost anything. How do we go about quantifying what is and is not "symbolic violence?" For example, when Christians declare that Jesus is the sole source of salvation, do you take that as "symbolic violence" leveled against non-Christians? How do we know when a thing "goes beyond disagreement?" In this context, for example, the Church presents, as a foundational truth claim, that angelic ministers descended from heaven and restored priesthood authority that had previously been lost from the earth. This is a teaching that, while public, is not really publicized. It's an important doctrinal principle, as disagreements over authority have long impeded professed Christian groups and individuals in various ways. It's in our belief system, and it's in our manuals and missionary lessons, but we don't go around and publicly flaunt it or brag about it. If two people separately approach a house, one of them being a police officer with a search warrant for the house (looking for weapons) and the other being a private citizen who keeps tabs on things in the neighborhood, one of them has legal authority to enter into the house, and one of them does not. The civilian genuinely feels cares for the welfare of his neighbors, and that is admirable, but it's not the same as actually having law enforcement authority. I don't think it is "symbolic violence" to say so. That "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The Latter-day Saints believe that the "Light of Christ" influences, or can influence, every child of God. We also believe that the Spirit can and does move and influence people of every walk of life. We do have a particularized assessment of the "Gift of the Holy Ghost" as referenced in Acts 2:38 and Acts 10:45. Acts 2:38 associates it with baptism, and so with priesthood authority. We believe such authority is something that must be bestowed by those who have it and under proper authority. And we do invite anyone who wants to join our church to do so through baptism. I struggle to characterize this as "symbolic violence." I am sorry to hear this has happened. "{W}hen we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man." (D&C 121:37.) I can't formulate a good faith circumstance in which the above behavior is expressed. It ought not to be. Gratifying pride and vain ambitions, methinks. I'm sorry about that. Also worthwhile tools to avert conflict: humility, kindness, circumspection. The Third Convention was a very interesting chapter in the history of the Church: And here: The question of authority is interesting and important. It is not in any way intended to demean or disparage any group or person. Thanks, -Smac

I think it is. You want to eliminate, either de jure or de facto or both, women's spaces by letting anyone into them. That is "something new and radical." I don't know that any of this is "incumbent" on me. This is, after all, just a message board. And your say-so about "zero evidence" is just an assertion. And whether the Kansas law was "needed" is a matter of perspective and preference and policy. This is the kind of statement that makes it hard for me to take you seriously. That biological sex is not observed, and that it is instead voted on or "assigned" by a doctor, is "something new and radical." And probably 99.98% of the time, the doctor correctly identifies the child's biological sex. What the doctor does is not a "judgment call." A judgment call is a subjective decision or choice made using personal opinion and experience because there is no clear rule, fixed formula, or single right answer. The doctor looking at the baby is working off objective criteria (external sex characteristics), not subjective ones. I don't think that is how "assigned at birth" means. I think what is typically meant is this: a doctor (or midwife) looked at the newborn and recorded a sex on the record, and they want that recording treated as a bureaucratic label rather than an observation of the child. I think the gap between us is that you seem to think that what a doctor does is subjective and/or arbitrary (a "judgment call"). I don't think that. If I say "black licorice tastes great," that is a judgment call. This is not akin to what a doctor is doing because a child's biological sex is an objective fact, not a subjective opinion. If I say "California borders on the Pacific Ocean," that is not a "judgment call," and is instead a statement of fact that I am acknowledging. My say-so does not alter the reality of what is being observed. This is akin to what a doctor is doing because a child's biological sex is an objective fact, not a subjective opinion. In very rare circumstances, yes. That means the doctor's declaration of the child's biological sex was factually incorrect. It does not mean that biological sex is subjective or left to the discretion of the doctor to choose. Right. But again, "assigned at birth" is intended to man a doctor (or midwife) looked at the newborn and recorded a sex on the record, and they want that recording treated as a bureaucratic label rather than an observation of the child. I do not think I said this. I have made allowances for the exceedingly small number of persons with DSDs and whose biological sex is insuperably epistemically uncertain. Emily Quinn is, as I understand it, an XY person with complete androgen insensitivity (CAIS). That is a disorder of sex development in a male reproductive pathway. Exceedingly rare exceptions to the rule, yes. Well, no. Your proposal has the exception swallow the rule. My maintains the rule. I don't think males who "identify" as women can rely on an exception/exemption for persons with DSDs as a basis for opening women's bathrooms to everyone. But they are exceedingly rare. And they have no relevance to so-called "trans women" who do not have a DSD. Lia Thomas. Lily Tino. Dylan Mulvaney. Drag Queen Story Hours and drag shows with children in attendance. All very public. All really trying to garner attention. As for "winning issue," I'm not sure what that means. I think men should not be in women's bathrooms, changing rooms, sports or prisons. Publicized incidents in which men have accessed these spaces openly are fairly new. I think "trans" issues have garnered a lot of attention. Outside of the few threads such as this, I think very little about the topic. I do feel that there is much harm coming from this movement, both to adults and children. At its most fundamental level, the movement affirms deluded, incongruent-with-reality notions that a man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one, that sex is a spectrum and not a binary, that biological sex is "assigned" by a doctor, that expressing suicidal ideation as a basis for obtaining sex trait modification procedures is legitimate, and that anyone who disagrees or questions these assertions, even in communications full of respect, civility and decorum, is a "bigot." I think advocates of trans ideology have done, and continue to do, a lot of harm to a lot of people. Not just those with Gender Dysphoria, but their family members and friends and co-workers who effectively feel coerced into complimenting the Emperor's New Clothes, or else lose their association, be called a "bigot," be accused of trying trans people to suicide ("Would you rather have a live daughter or a dead son" is at or near the apex of emotional blackmail and manipulation of parents). Lily Tino and Lia Thomas and Dylan Mulvaney and marchers in parades, and demonstrators/protesters, and so on are all actively courting public attention, and they are getting some. I think this point could have been made without attempting to distract and personalize. You persist in personalizing. I don't watch Fox News. I occasionally come across links to its content, but no more than CNN, MSNow, and so on. Thanks, -Smac ETA: Regarding taking each other seriously (about biological sex being assigned or not), I remembered posting this a while back: The "Letter to the Editor" responses to the above article mostly from medical professionals were . . . pretty frank. Here's an example (emphases added): Another (emphasis added): Another (emphases added): Another (emphases added): Another: Another: Another (emphases added): Much of the foregoing commentary seems to contravene some of the most foundational precepts in popular and trendy narratives about "trans" ideology. And the people speaking here have all sorts of medical credentials after their names. "{T}he alteration of language and the falsified understanding of biological sex, applied to all people, is the result of extreme activism which is increasing societal hostility towards trans people." I see this as what I am observing in many instances: altering language, falsifying understanding of biological sex, and doing these things by way of "extreme activism" or the influence thereof. "Alpert and colleagues report in a BMJ Editorial 5th June 2021 that characteristics of external genitalia at birth are 98% accurate in defining sex at birth. They go on to say that these are ‘flawed constructs’ around sex assigned at birth. Never before have I heard of a test with 98% sensitivity being regarded as a ‘fl[aw]ed construct’." Biological sex is observed, not "assigned." This ought not be controversial, but not only is it, anyone who affirms it is denounced as a "bigot." "It is true that different authors, mainly related to the ideology of gender post-feminism and from philosophical dialectics, have been affirming for years that biological sex is an artificial construction that must be discarded. Nonetheless, it is a serious danger that, on a clinical and healthcare level, a piece of data that is biological is relativized." This. There are people "relativizing" biological sex, portraying it as something subjective and arbitrary, and therefore changeable. "It is false that the sex assigned to a human being at birth is an invention or social construction, devoid of reality. On the contrary, we are facing a verifiable fact, not only by the physiognomy of some genitalia, but also by genetic evidence provided by analytics, etc." Again, this seems to be axiomatic, on par with "water is wet" and "circles are round." And yet here we are, watching people sincerely and with a straight face declare that biological sex is "assigned to a human being at birth." "{C}onsidering the sex assigned at birth as a social construction contradicts the autonomy of the person (based on complete and real information), and also the normalization of trans people. In reality, denying that transgender people have a biological sex at birth is stripping their own requests for gender reassignment of foundations." I think this is correct. "I am baffled by the idea of referring to 'sex assigned at birth'. Sex is an inbuilt biological characteristic, like eye colour, blood group or the number of fingers one has - it is discovered at birth (or, in some cases, prenatally), not 'assigned'. ... Transgender people, like everyone else, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but this in no way means that downgrading or ignoring sex as a cardinal feature of someone's biology makes any sense." "Assigned at birth." "Sex is a spectrum." "Sex is a social construct." "A woman is anyone who 'identifies' as one." "Trans women are women." And so on. These are factually and linguistically incoherent claims, but anyone who disagrees with them at all is denounced as a "bigot." I have long taken you seriously as a person. I think you are quite smart and articulate and well-educated and well-informed on a variety of issues. Taking you seriously is a rather easy thing to do. The difficulty comes when you stray into areas in which, in my view, ideological capture has caused you to say things that just aren't so. I'm not speaking of differences of opinion or taste or belief. I am, instead, speaking of things that are empirically and obviously true, and which you nevertheless deny. In any event, I do appreciate you sharing your perspective here. Thanks, -Smac

I see your point. However, the percentage of "trans men" in the overall U.S. population is fairly small. Per this article, the number of of "trans men" is about 730,500 people. A still smaller percentage of that number have had "top" surgery. And only a very small percentage of those "pass" in the way that this woman does (she really does like a male). Male adults and teens 15 and over comprise around 137 million persons, 100% of whom would, under Roger's proposal, be free to "come into a {woman's} restroom." By sheer numbers, the difference in policy outcome (legal segregation by sex v. no legal segregation at all), and the concomitant impact on women and girls who want to have sex-segregated spaces, is enormous. We cannot, of course, speak for all women, but I think many of them would prefer to maintain sex-segregated spaces. Roger's proposal eliminates them. The same would be said of the 137 million actual male adults and teens who will, under Roger's proposal, be legally entitled to enter into women's spaces. I wonder how many women and girls would prefer that circumstance. And yet, she's not male. She is a biological woman who has taken cosmetic, medical and sartorial measures to deliberately appear and "identify" as a man. If there is a legally coherent limiting principle that would allow "trans men" to go into women's bathrooms, I sure would like to hear it. Roger categorically refuses to articulate any such principle. It's entirely left to the discretion of the individual. I admire and respect CB for presenting his "Steps (A)-(E)" proposal, but holy cow, it is steeped in "objectionable" points, including from most "trans advocacy" organizations. This is, I think, why people who call for radical societal change keep things nice and broad and vague. They don't want to address the real-world foreseeable ramifications of their proposals or, worse, use silence and obfuscation to smuggle in those ramifications. Meanwhile, all this commentary centers on the impact of sex-segregated spaces on a relatively tiny number of women ("trans men") who have masculinized themselves, and essentially no attention at all is paid to the welfare and preferences of the tens of millions of women and girls who expect sex-segregated spaces to segregate by sex. Thanks, -Smac

I'm not sure what Roger's point here is. What does "conspicuously out of place" mean? And isn't a big part of the problem that this hypothetical fellow is, under Roger's policy proposal (anyone uses any bathroom), legally entitled to enter into the women's bathroom. And because he is there legally, being seemingly "out of place" and "intense{ly} scrutin{ized}" does has no legal force or effect. The women and girls in the bathroom will just have to lump it. Because hallways are not segregated by sex. Because women and girls are not relieving themselves, or undressing themselves, or otherwise having any sort of expectation of privacy from males in a hallway. These seem axiomatic. Right. But under your proposal, they can't do anything about it. They can't tell him to leave. They can't call the police and report him. Instead, they must surrender the space which they were told would be segregated by sex. Men have attacked women in restrooms in the past not because they can walk in unquestioned by others when there are multiple women using it, but because they typically wait until there is one woman alone within. Thus any law barring any biological male from entering a women’s restroom will be highly unlikely to affect these types of attacks, imo. I think they would have some real effect. Under Roger's proposal, if a lone woman enters a bathroom and finds a man there, there is nothing she can do about it. She must do her business with him a few feet away from her. In contrast, under a sex-segregated policy, if a lone women enters a bathroom, she can immediately demand that he leave, and/or call the police, and/or scream, and/or immediately take defensive measures because his mere presence in the bathroom is a violation of the law. She does not need to wait until he manifests ill intent. Thanks, -Smac

A number of these questions seem to be slanted/loaded, and reliant more on strawman caricatures of viewpoints which diverge from yours as compared to straightforward evaluation. Nevertheless, I'll give it a go: Q: What is the purpose of public bathrooms? A: To let people relieve themselves in public with a basic measure of privacy and safety. Where rooms are marked Men and Women, that purpose includes separating the two sexes. The fixtures are not the whole point. The separation is. Q: Which restroom should an individual choose when they need to use one? A: The one that matches their sex. If a single-occupancy, lockable room is available, anyone may use that without asking anyone else to share a communal space with the opposite sex. Q: Do we need a law that mandates which restroom people must use? A: Given recent changes in society, I think we do. We already had a convention, and in many places a rule, that the rooms are sex-separated. When that convention is treated as optional (as your proposal does), institutions need a written line. A law is one way to write it. It is not the only way. The question is still whether sex means something on the door, not whether every detail must be a statute. Q: Do we need a “limiting principle” governing which bathroom people may use? A: Yes, because otherwise there is no mechanism to maintain sex-segregated spaces. Previously, the operative limiting principles were often things less than laws, like social conventions and expectations. But those conventions and expectations are no longer being observed. Lia Thomas was a man competing with women in sports. Lily Tino is a man going into DisneyWorld bathrooms. And these are just high visibility/profile examples. With social conventions/expectations having been substantially disrupted, some jurisdictions feel it appropriate and necessary to resort to other limiting principles, namely, sex-segregated spaces governed by statute, with sex referring to adult human male or adult human female. Discomfort is real, but it is not a principle. Two people can be made uncomfortable by opposite choices. Sex is a public fact. Feeling is not. Q: But isn’t that functionally identical to giving people a license to use any restroom for any reason they want, or for no reason whatsoever? A: Yes. That is the foreseeable and anticipated result of your preferred policy. A sex-based rule, on the other hand, with sex as the limiting principle, is the opposite of an any-room rule. Harassment, voyeurism, and exhibitionism should remain crimes. Those crimes are not the only reason the rooms were separated (an important point I think you have never really addressed). Privacy and the ordinary fact of male-pattern strength and crime rates are reasons even when no one is committing a separate offense. Q: Who gets to decide which bathroom will minimize discomfort to themselves and to those around them? A: No one person “decides” the category. Sex is an observed fact, it is something that can be voted on or "assigned." The person who needs the toilet decides when to go. They do not decide what sex they are for purposes of a shared room. Q: But if we treat people like adults living in a free society and allow them to choose which restroom is most appropriate, won’t that lead to the eradication of sex-distinct restrooms? A: If “most appropriate” means “the one that matches how I see myself,” then sex-distinct rooms become courtesy signs. A courtesy sign is not a sex-distinct space. I would rather keep the rooms honest and add more single-occupancy spaces than keep the labels and empty them of meaning. Q: Do you have any evidence that it won’t? A: The old practice was not “choose the room that minimizes your discomfort.” It was “men here, women there,” with rare exceptions handled quietly and with forbearance. What is new is the claim that a male who identifies as a woman is a woman for the purpose of the room. That claim is, historically, very recent. I do not need to accuse anyone of bigotry to say that. People of good will disagree about what kindness requires. Kindness does not require us to say a male is female. Q: But somebody looking like a woman and feeling like a woman doesn’t override the underlying biology! The women’s restroom is for biological females and the men’s restroom is for biological males! It’s always been that way! A: I agree that feeling and appearance do not change sex (though given the sarcastic tone, I am not sure if you are saying that you think that looking/feeling "like a woman" does "override the underlying biology"). I also agree that no one historically stood at the door with a chromosome test. That is not the same as saying the room was never for females. We enforce many rules by ordinary recognition — adults and children, disabled parking, the men’s door — without labs and medical testing. When recognition and reality come apart, the honest course is to keep the category and handle the hard cases with single-occupancy rooms, not to redefine the category. Q: But those are extreme cases: exceptionally feminine-looking biological males and exceptionally masculine-looking biological females! A: Unusual appearance is a reason for tact. It is not a reason to treat sex as a costume. A feminine male is still male. A masculine female is still female. Policy written for the rare passing case becomes a general ticket for any male who says he belongs. Q: But what about cases where people suspect, or even know, that someone choosing the women’s restroom is biologically male? A: Those cases are the ones the rule is for. Social pressure does not stop everyone. “He used the toilet and left” is not a complete answer to a girl who did not agree to share that room with a male. Vigilance after the fact is not the same as a rule beforehand. A public restroom is not a sanctuary from every discomfort. It is also not a place where females must accept male presence as the price of being in public. Q: But what about locker rooms! And sports! And prisons! And drag shows! A: These are all interrelated concepts and topics of discussion relative to public policy. They all turn on the same question: does sex still name a class, or does "identity" replace it? Bathrooms are the smallest version of that question. Locker rooms add undress. Sports add fairness and safety. Prisons add captivity. It is fair to take them one at a time. It is not fair to say that because they are distinct in some ways, sex therefore suddenly stops mattering in the room with the toilets. As for exposing children to sexualized adult live performances, I can oppose them and still care about who is in a women’s room. Those concerns do not have to be hostility to a person. They can be a defense of a category and spaces that girls and women have been told are theirs. Thanks, -Smac

A correction….They believe they experience life as a woman. Since they cannot perceive what the inner world of a woman is like and how we in general react to the world, much of what they believe is based on assumptions. Aye, there's the rub. "They believe they experience life as a woman," but they don't actually do that, nor are they actually women. We are living in interesting times when such axiomatic realities not only need to be stated, but are vigorously - and apparently sincerely - rejected and contested. Even if an individual man had some sort of proximate series of events over time, such that he could lay claim to appreciating - if not actually experiencing - things that many women have experienced in relation to being women (time of the month, feelings of vulnerability, etc.), those approximated events would still not transform him from a man into a woman. Norah Vincent went to great lengths to appear/pass as a man for 18 months. She acted like a man, and was generally treated like a man, and had experiences that "men" often have, but none of that actually made her a man. Nor did John Howard Griffin "become" a black man by taking steps to look/pass like one. The sine qua non of being a woman is biology, not feelings, not subjective "identity," not "lived experiences." That is an interesting perspective. For me, the "biological realities" comprises the bulk of the attributes of sex categories, and those biological realities play out in some substantial ways: body and health, reproduction and family, safety, sex-segregated facilities, sports and physical work, identity documents and data, Selective Service, and so on. These are all matters of sex as a class and as a biological reality, not "presentation" or "passing." There are no doubt a variety of circumstances and conditions and experiences that affect a man such that he comes to "identify" as a woman. None of those things, though, matter insofar as they do not and cannot affect biological reality. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Thanks, -Smac

I agree. But I was not speaking of "potential for abuse," but of "spiritual authority as intrinsically oppressive." See here: There is no question (in my mind, at least) that some usages of spiritual authority can be intrinsically oppressive. And I would expand that to some usages of any kind of authority can be intrinsically oppressive. A police officer's legal authority to arrest someone is not "intrinsically" oppressive, but it is capable of becoming so based on the circumstances. Effectively all human relationships "have the intrinsic capacity to be abusive." But spiritual authority having the capacity to be "oppressive" is, in my view, distinct from being "intrinsically" oppressive altogether. Sounds like we agree on this point. And in mine as well. There is only one perfect person who has ever walked the earth. The rest of us can and do make mistakes. Could you elaborate here? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "violence." By this formulation any doctrinal disagreement between Party A and Party B is "violence." Without more, doctrinal disagreement is not "violence," it's just disagreement. I'm not sure I see the symmetry here. "Latter-day Saints do not believe in priesthood authority outside of that administered in their faith" is a qualitatively different statement from "Latter-day Saints do not believe in the 'Jesus' described in the New Testament of the Bible." The former is a true characterization of and statement about our faith, the latter is factually incorrect and and unfair and inaccurate characterization. Still not sure what "symbolic violence" means. As a Latter-day Saint, I anticipate Christians in other faith traditions will disagree and/or deny that John the Baptist and Peter, James and John descended from heaven and restored the priesthood to and through Joseph Smith. I don't see that as "violence," symbolic or otherwise. It's just disagreement. For me and my lawyer brain, "violence" has specific reference to the use of physical force. However, I can see how "violence" can be legitimately used in purely metaphorical ways. They help. Thanks. -Smac

I entirely agree. I am grateful to have in my life influences that are both external to me and "above" me. That way I can follow codes of conduct that I have not created for myself. Had I been the author of my own moral code, I would become the arbiter of right and wrong, and I think I am not good and decent enough to accurately arbitrate in that way. I have made many decisions which I now value, and avoided many decisions and value that avoidance, and have made bade decisions and repented. I believe we also have access to guidance from God, who is perfect, who loves us, who has our best interests at heart, and so on. There are few certitudes in life. The sexual binary is one of them. Biological sex in humans remains binary because gamete production defines biological sex, because there are only two types of gamete, and because chromosomal, gonadal, and anatomical variations exist but do not create a third sex, and instead only create variations within the male-female binary. While our ability to diagnose/classify it can be imperfect/uncertain, that imperfection/uncertainty does not create a third sex category. The biological reality here is that no human has the design to produce anything other than sperm or eggs, that there are only these two types of gametes, and that these two are the basis of sex. DSDs do not introduce new gametes, and therefore, do not create a new sex. I recognize that we disagree about the sexual binary. Tomboy, femboy, butch, femme, androgynous, “alpha,” and “beta” are personality and presentation. They are how some males and some females dress and act. They are not sexes and they are not a spectrum of sexes. Sex stays the binary that those styles culturally attach to. If “gender” only means those styles, I think we should say that and stop using “gender” on IDs, in sports, and in medicine as if it were sex. If “gender” means sex, then it is not a social construct and the costume/larping list does not apply. Using the word both ways in the same argument is the problem, not a “complex structure.” Interestingly, asking people to treat a male as a woman because he is femme is enforcing the stereotype (femininity = woman), not escaping it. The reality of the sexual binary is not about what I “want.” I may not want the earth to be an oblate spheroid. But it is one. Donald Trump is the current POTUS even though plenty of people don't "want" him to be. Sex in humans is the same kind of claim: a description of how the world is, not a creed I am trying to protect. In sexually reproducing animals, sex is the binary of two gamete types — small and large. That is the definition used in biology. There are two sexes. Developmental disorders and atypical chromosomes are variations within that system. They are not a third sex, any more than a person born with one kidney refutes the fact that humans are a two-kidney species. Calling that a “religious tenet” seems to sidestep the issue. The religious move is the one that says an inner feeling can rewrite the class. That claim is not observed in anatomy, gametes, or genetics. It is asserted, then insulated from counterexample by changing the meaning of “woman,” “man,” and “sex” mid-argument, and by attacking ("Bigot!") anyone who rejects the ideologically-motivated rejection of the sexual binary. I agree with Richard Dawkins on this point: sex is one of the few genuine binaries in biology: Things that cannot be proved or disproved — gods, souls, “gender identity” as an unfalsifiable essence — sit in another pile. Sex does not. If you think there is a third sex in humans, I would ask you to name the third gamete. If you cannot, you are not describing nature. You are describing an ideological rule you want other people to obey. You can grant the feeling and still refuse the fact-claim. That is the whole distinction they are erasing. I am not denying that some males have a persistent feeling they describe as “experiencing life as a woman” (and vice versa for some women). I have no access to their inner life. What I can deny is the next sentence: that the feeling about "being" or "identifying as" a woman transmutes those men into women. “Lived experience” is evidence of how something seems to the speaker. It is not evidence that the speaker is the other sex. People also report experiencing themselves as Napoleon, as younger than they are, as having been abducted, as being two people. The report can be sincere. The conclusion can still be false. In Arsenic and Old Lace, Uncle Teddy is not lying when he “experiences life” as Theodore Roosevelt. The other characters can treat him gently. They cannot put him on Mount Rushmore. Kindness does not require them to agree that he served two terms and charged up San Juan Hill. Same here. I can accept that the distress is real and still say: this person is male. Woman means adult human female. A male’s account of his feelings does not change that, and asking everyone else to speak as if it did is not “respecting experience.” It is demanding that we falsify a public fact so that a private feeling will go unchallenged. The question is not “why denigrate their experience?” I am not. The question is whether other people must treat a false identity claim as if it were a discovery about sex. We should not. The issue is not a shortage of paperwork. It is that bathrooms, locker rooms, and shelters are separated by sex because males and females differ in strength, crime patterns, and privacy. A rule that lets some males in after hormones or a waiver does not stop being a male-access rule. It just adds a clinic. “Pretenders” are not the main load-bearing concern. A man who wants to expose himself or get into a girls’ locker room is not waiting on a letter from an endocrinologist. Your proposal's screen will catch some and miss others. Presentation is not a background check. “Expand and open access to gender-affirming care, then require it” also does the opposite of what you think it does. It turns a facilities rule into a demand that more people be put on drugs, including people who would have desisted. A waiver for those who will not or cannot take the drugs puts you back at self-ID with extra steps. So the proposal is either more medicalization or self-ID plus a form. Trans advocacy groups have already answered this. Gatekeeping by surgery or hormones is what they call “transmedicalism.” HRC, GLAAD, and similar organizations treat self-identification as sufficient for facilities. A “minor level of scrutiny” to exclude “riffraff” is, on their terms, a denial of identity. You will get pushback from that side and you will still have males in female spaces. That is not a compromise that solves both objections. It is a policy that satisfies neither. “Letting people pee where they want” is not a workable design. The design I propose, which is to segregate by sex, means that males do not use the room set aside for females. If we want unisex single-occupancy rooms, we can say that and build them. I don't think we can call a males-in-the-women’s-room rule “easy,” and do not treat disagreement as panic about toilets. The limiting principle is, or ought to be, sex. Once you replace sex with identity plus a prescription, you have no principle left except whoever holds the waiver stamp. You comment here is not an argument about bathrooms. It is a verdict on my character, plus a conclusion that assumes the thing in dispute. You treat “presents as a woman” as the ticket into a female space. That is the claim under review. It is not a fact I have to grant before we talk. A male who presents as a woman is still male. The room was not built for "presentation." It was built for the female sex — including girls who did not volunteer to share it with males, however they dress. My position does not “force men into women’s spaces and women into men’s.” It keeps males in the male room and females in the female room. If someone hates that pairing, the remedy is a single-occupancy lockable room, not a male in the communal women’s room. Your rule is the one that puts males in the space set aside for women. “You don’t care about women” is an ad hominem. Caring about women here means caring about the class those rooms were created for: females, not a costume category. Society built sex-separated spaces because of male-pattern crime, strength, and basic privacy. That is not a sacrament. It is why the door says Women. My religious principles are, subject to constitutional constraints, as relevant to public policy as your secular principles. And my argument is not a matter of religious faith. A man does not "become" a woman by "identifying" as one. That is a statement of fact, not belief. Thanks, -Smac

There is no question (in my mind, at least) that some usages of spiritual authority can be intrinsically oppressive. And I would expand that to some usages of any kind of authority can be intrinsically oppressive. Could you elaborate on the "intrinsically" part? I agree that "spiritual authority" can be used to "oppress" someone, but the same can be said of any type of authority. As soon as we acknowledge that, as soon as we differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate uses of authority, then the "intrinsically" goes awy. Could you elaborate? If Person A denies that Person B has or can exercise "spiritual authority" over him (Person A), whom has Person A oppressed/abused? How did this oppression/abuse come to exist? I agree. But as soon as we parse out "some usages" of spiritual authority, we cannot say that spiritual authority is "intrinsically" oppressive/abusive. Some kinds are, some are not. Thanks, -Smac

Out of curiosity, I submitted your proposal (the above wording, verbatim), with the following prompt: "Here is a proposal about a solution to men (that is, 'trans women') having the legal right to enter into women's bathrooms, submitted on an online message board (about Mormonism) by a participant who identifies as gay and as a strong ally of the transgender community. What do you think the response would be from the 'transgender community' in general, and its advocacy groups in particular (HRC, GLAAD, GLSEN, etc.)?" Here is the response: Thoughts? Thanks, -Smac

Enforced by whom? For starters: trans advocacy groups. Individuals (such as we've seen in this thread). Again, here's the basic list of presuppositions: If I were to present these to @SeekingUnderstanding as a set of principles, would he agree that they exist and are broadly accepted in the "transgender community?" I think he would. If I were to use reasoning and evidence and analysis, largely free of emotionalisms, logical fallacies, personalized invectives, etc., to critique and disagree with some of these principles (which is what I have been trying to do in this thread and in others), would @SeekingUnderstanding sooner or later repeat his frequently-repeated accusation that I am a "bigot?" I think he would. Moreover, I think he would do it not because he reports to "the community" or received specific marching orders from anyone, but rather because "allies" are expected to do "ally" sorts of things, which includes silencing opposing viewpoints. There is no specific "Manifesto" about what trans "allies" must believe, so it's possible that such "allies" might actually depart from one or more of the foregoing presuppositions, as @california boy has done in this thread by advancing a proposal re: bathrooms that explicitly and necessarily differentiates between "trans women" who ought to be able to go into women's bathrooms, while agreeing that the remaining "trans women" can be legally excluded from women's bathrooms. And SU has endorsed this proposal, and so is fully on board with this differentiation. I find this quite interesting. In reviewing CB's proposal, a quote from Animal House came to mind, namely, when the Seven Commandments are abridged to just one phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Now here we have CB and SU, advancing a proposal that privileges some "trans women" over others. I would be really interested in hearing them present this proposal on a "pro trans" message board. I think we'd see something like this: "Your proposal differentiates between trans women, and so is essentially 'All trans women are equal, but some trans women are more equal than others.' Oh, and you're a bigot." And frankly, I think that critique - from other "trans allies" applying the foregoing ideological presuppositions - would be fair. Would CB and SU then be derided by their fellow "allies" as "bigots" for advancing this proposal? I suspect so. Meanwhile, my philosophical and presuppositional position doesn't need to navigate through the minefield of "trans" ideology (that is, its flawed presuppositions as noted above and itemized in further detail below). Instead, I agree with some presuppositions about trans folks (such as that they are deserving of presumptive measures of respect and civility), but I am otherwise free to critique the foregoing presuppositions, hopefully by using evidence and reasoned discourse, and by avoiding logical fallacies and emotionalisms. I'll get called a "bigot" anyway, but the baseless accusation has long lost whatever potency it had to begin with. And the "Bigot!" response will only further inform and validate my sense of things, because if ad hominem distractions are the best that well-informed and intelligent "allies" like SU can do, then reasoned discourse is effectively over. Here's an interesting thought experiment: Would CB and SU be willing to have their proposal published, perhaps as a "Letter to the Editor" or other form, in a recognized "trans advocacy" organization media outlet, such as GLAAD, HRC or GLSEN? And would they be willing to publish this proposal under their IRL names? And would GLAAD and these other groups be willing to publish such a proposal? Anyway, here are some quotes of advocacy groups referencing the above presuppositions: These advocacy groups lay out the ideological presuppositions, and self-identified "allies" go around enforcing them by, inter alia, vilifying people who do not agree with those presuppositions (hasty and unsubstantiated leaps into "Bigot!" accusations are a good example of this). Well, that's an interesting point. On the one hand, we are told that there is such a thing as "the transgender community." But if and when we try to define this "community" or identify its attributes or otherwise quantify it and its ideology, then apparently there is no "community," in that there are no commonly-understood-and-accepted ideological principles. Advocacy has institutions. HRC, GLAAD, A4TE/NCTE, Transgender Law Center, Stonewall, WPATH, and the rest publish policy, sue, and fundraise. So can they speak for the "transgender community?" If not them, then who? The "transgender community" is not the only amorphous and seemingly leaderless "movement" out there. Antifa. Anonymous. QAnon. #MeToo. Sovereign Citizens. ELF/ALF. Manosphere. Furry Fandom. "The Right." "The Left." These names work as coalition brands. Journalists and pundits and commentators and opponents need a noun. Participants need a flag. Neither fact creates a roster, a budget, or a binding platform. Here's an interesting test about a "community": Can you resign from it? You can leave HRC. You cannot resign from “the transgender community,” “Antifa,” or “the manosphere.” It does not mean the underlying people or the funded NGOs are imaginary. Thanks, -Smac

Except this is exactly what this solution does. In both cases, the state punishing speech by changing classes, ordering non-contact, and imposing disciple. All based on constitutionally protected(?) speech. You are not addressing the Substantial Disruption jurisprudence which I have cited several times. If speech passes the Tinker test, then it is not constitutionally protected speech, such that the school - part of the State - has the legal authority to regulate it in ways that in other circumstances it could not. In contrast, the article I posted about the UC lawsuit shows how school policies, mandates, "speech codes" and such can run afoul of the First Amendment and fail the Tinker test. Thanks, -Smac

I just wonder if you, having publicly endorsed a proposal that conflicts with so many tenets of trans ideology, might end up being targeted for the same sorts of invective that you so frequently dole out to others. From a previous post: I am curious about how you reconcile your willingness to stray from "trans"-related presuppositions that are rather vigorously enforced. I'm not ranking anyone. You are endorsing a proposal that differentiates and privileges (which I think is pretty much what "ranking" means in this context) one set of "trans" persons (those who meet CB's A-E criteria) over others (those that do not). One group gets access to women's bathrooms, the other - presumably much larger - group does not. And your response to complaints about bestowing this differentiated privilege is (A) state that "Politics is about compromise" and (B) make sarcastic comments about "the trans-mafia" knocking on your door. Nobody is suggesting that would happen, but what I think would happen is that you would be subjected to the same vitriolic anonymous online condemnation that you so regularly dole out here. The shoe would be on the other foot. I think all people deserve to be addressed and treated with respect. So do I, and yet you regularly accuse me of "bigotry" despite the absence of any hateful/intolerant commentary from me, and despite the presence of numerous affirmations of what you state above. As long as the knee-jerk and first-out-of-the-box response to effectively any form of disagreement with trans orthodoxy is unreasoned and unsubstantiated vitriolic denunciations (e.g. "Bigot!"), advocates for trans folks are signaling that their position is weak, that it cannot withstand scrutiny or even civil discussion, such that any departure from orthodoxy - from without or within - must be immediately shouted down. And the longer this goes on, the less potent the denunciations become. They are presented to silence and squelch and intimidate and coerce, not to contribute to reasoned discourse. I agree. The challenge with your endorsement, though, is that a large portion - perhaps a substantial majority - of the "trans women" folks are going to be legally excluded from women's bathrooms. And because "trans women are women," their "rights and freedoms" are being trampled on. And because of that, those endorsing the differentiation between these folks and those relative few who have the desire and opportunity and financial resources to complete Steps (A) through (E), may well end up being the target of the same sort of accusatory ugliness that they utilize against others. I would be interested in the justification for that. And that doesn't really resolve the issue, as any line among “trans women” is itself bigotry. Distinguishing social-only from medically transitioned, or pre-op from post-op, is “transmedicalism” or “dividing the community.” Self-identification is sufficient. No medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation is required for the identity to be valid. Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex. Ipso facto, exclusion of males who identify as women - and your endorsed proposal is discrimination. These are not my views. Those are explicitly your views. Not at all. I reject the foregoing perspective, which I understand to be an important tenet of trans ideology. Per trans ideology, any line among “trans women” is itself bigotry. Distinguishing social-only from medically transitioned, or pre-op from post-op, is “transmedicalism” or “dividing the community.” The proposal you are endorsing differentiates between "trans women." Some of them are sufficiently "women" so as to be allowed entry into women's bathrooms, and that sufficiency is explicitly connected to "medical procedures," rather than "identity." Meanwhile, huge swaths of "trans women" will be excluded under the endorsed proposal because they are not sufficiently within the ambit of "woman" to be allowed into women's bathrooms. This, per trans ideology, mimics patriarchal and essentialist definitions of gender, and negates lived experiences, negates "identity" (which is supposed to be sufficient), and erases trans women, and discriminates, and so on. These ideological tenets are not mine, and I feel no obligation to align myself with them. Candidly, I am surprised and impressed to see that you are willing to step apart, violate some of these tenets, and risk the sorts of denunciations that others have been receiving for so long. How do you reconcile this with the proposal you are endorsing, which by design and intent excludes likely the substantial majority of "trans women" from women's bathrooms? How does this proposal respect and acknowledge the "lived experiences" of those excluded by it? Invalidating someone's identity is entirely your schtick, not mine. We are explicitly talking about some type of bathroom or lockerroom standard. In that limited context I am happy to support CB's proposal as outlined. When viewed through the lens of trans ideology, the proposal you are endorsing negates the womanhood of what I think is the substantial majority of "trans women." You are invalidating their "identity" as women by saying, in effect, "Hey, you're just not enough to qualify as a 'woman,' so I think you should be excluded from women's bathrooms. Politics is about compromise. Here, I am endorsing a proposal that compromises your identity so that other trans women who have the desire and financial means to undergo stringent steps ((A) through (E)) can go into women's bathrooms, whereas you cannot." It's a gutsy thing you are doing here. Identity is sufficient lol. My aunt felt was a girl her entire life. That was her lived experience. She didn't transition until she was in her forties. She's lived openly as a woman since then. She passes. I asked a coworker that was her age (the coworker didn't know her trans status), and he said she was more attractive than my mom. Restricting her access to women's private spaces until after she transitions does not deny her womanhood or her identity. Well, that is certainly illuminating. You affirm "her womanhood," but are on board with denying her - and most of those like her - entry into women's bathrooms until and unless they meet the stringent medical and other criteria laid out by CB, which you are "happy to support." Your denial of their lived experience is your bigotry. If by "lived experience" you mean "identifying as something they are not," then yes, I deny the validity of that identity. A man does not "become" a woman by "identifying" as one, nor does he "become" a reptile, or a space alien, or a dog, by "identifying" as one. Even if these identifications are truly and sincerely felt and held - a point I am quite willing to acknowledge - they are not congruent with reality. Characterizing these incongruent-with-reality notions of "identity" as "lived experience" seems like a semantic trick to isolate these notions from scrutiny and critique, and to fabricate a "Bigot!" accusation against anyone who declines to acquiesce the them. Yes. I explained that previously. I was speaking in a legal sense. I generally refer to Caitlyn Jenner by that name because of a legal name change. On the other hand, I generally refer to Michael Sorrentino by his name, rather than his "fabricated" one ("The Situation"). Yes, but not because I "want to humiliate them," but because biological sex is, in my view, the most reasonable basis upon which to create and maintain sex-segregated spaces. That you cannot or will not acknowledge this reasoning, and that you instead fabricate an assign a malign motive, is further evidence of how unworkable and irrational trans ideology is. You can't defend it, so you vilify anyone who reasonably disagrees with it. To silence discussion. To squelch expression of reasoned viewpoints. To distract. To humiliate. Meanwhile, you want to force the substantial majority of trans women into men's bathrooms. And you want to send most "trans women" into men's spaces. Is that "horrifying?" I want men to stay out of women's spaces. Not through harassment, but through voluntary compliance with the law and, short of that, enforcement of the law against those not willing to follow it. Meanwhile, your proposal is going to be far more invasive. From a prior post: Yeesh. My proposal rests on voluntary compliance and, where appropriate and necessary, showing an ID. Most of what you say is slanted and mean-spirited caricature and imputed motives, without a scintilla of supporting evidence or reasoning. The rest is simple ideological disagreement. I think sex-segregated spaces ought to be maintained. I think the best way to do that is by segregating sex. Biological sex. This is based on reasoning and evidence and cumulative experience. I have said nothing which explicitly or implicitly does any such thing. I am speaking of policy proposals which I find acceptable under the dictates of my own conscience, and based on reasoning and evidence and so on. You are, I assume, doing the same. I don't think you are doing it very well, though, since your reasoning begins and ends with the same worn-out contrivance, namely... I disagree with you on matters of public policy. I have itemized the basis for my disagreement, and have done so using reasoning, evidence and explanation. Disagreement is often just that. That you are incapable or unwilling to substantively address reasoned argument on these matters is, to me, an indication that you are in the thrall of an ideology that is so internally incoherent that it cannot be defended through reason, and so can only be defended by ad hominem and other distracting tactics. I don't find that persuasive. Our prior interactions were more civil, but it seems things have taken a turn. I am striving to be civil in my comments, but perhaps I have failed to do so in some respects. If so, please point them out, and I will work to improve myself. Thanks, -Smac

I sort of struggled with it, since "trans ideology" is amorphous, and trying to define it with any particular precision is difficult. Nonetheless, some principles seem to be fundamental to the movement (such that departure from them is generally condemned as "bigotry," "denying trans existence," etc.). Here is what Grok generated: Items 3, 4, 13, and 14 are why I think CB's hormones-plus-ID rule will get condemned from inside the movement. The ideology’s public rule is not "serious medical transition." It is identity alone. Consequently, endorsing medical gatekeeping for bathrooms is departing from 3 ("Self-identification is sufficient") and 14 ("Any line among 'trans women' is itself bigotry"). In that framework, CB's departure from "orthodoxy" sure seems to be the same kind of offense he and SU have called "bigotry" when I do it. I propose to differentiate and "gatekeep" entry into women's spaces based on biological sex, and such differentiation is "bigotry." CB proposes to differentiate and "gatekeep" entry into women's spaces based on a fairly detailed hormones-plus-ID rule. Is that differentiation "bigotry" too (per trans "orthodoxy")? If not, why not? Thanks, -Smac

Politics is about compromise, especially when balancing competing interests. I have no issues with CB's proposal. Okay. Indeed. But I'm curious why are you able to depart from trans orthodoxy, since the "complaining" in this context almost reflexively and necessarily includes accusations of . . . bigotry. For example, differentiating or ranking transgender women based on their medical transition status, such as whether they have had surgeries, taken hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or transitioned at a certain age, is seen as a form of marginalization often referred to as transmedicalism or gatekeeping. Within the LGBTQ+ community and sociological discourse, creating a hierarchy based on medical intervention is widely recognized as harmful. A summary from Google's AI: I appreciate you sharing your perspective on locker rooms and other places where people are actually undressed. You would restrict those to people who have fully medically transitioned, and you would provide a private alternative. That is a real line. It is also a form of "gatekeeping." That is the piece I want to flag, because it sits uneasily with how this conversation has gone. CB's proposal openly does not treat identity as sufficient. It treats identity plus medical and other steps (physician care, a year of hormones, a doctor’s declaration, a changed ID) as the price of entry. Many advocates will reject that on principle. In that framework, a “trans woman” is a woman because she says so. Requiring hormones, surgery, or paperwork is itself treated as denying her womanhood. You said you don’t particularly care that some people will object. Fair enough. But that objection is not a fringe footnote. It is the mainstream activist claim. You have previously described disagreement with parts of the trans movement as "bigotry." The difficulty is that the rule you are now willing to accept would, by that same standard, put you in the same category. Distinguishing “fully transitioned” males from males who only identify as women is the differentiation I said would draw fire. If drawing that line is bigotry when I do it, it does not become something else when the line is hormones-plus-ID rather than sex. I am not asking you to please everyone. I am asking for a consistent standard. Either: identity alone controls access (per standard trans ideology orthodoxy, such as it is or can be), in which case the proposal fails on its own terms; or some objective criterion (sex, anatomy, medical status) can control access, in which case identity-as-sufficient is situated alongside my proposal (biological sex). It is a difference in degree, not kind. You can defend CB's version of (2). I think (2) is the only workable rule for single-sex spaces. What I resist is using “bigot” for people who hold (2), then endorsing a proposal that is also (2), just drawn at a different place. The accusation does not travel well if it applies only to the line you dislike. If your actual position is “identity is not enough where nudity is involved, and private alternatives should exist,” please say that plainly. That is a policy argument we can discuss. It is not resolved by calling one version of gatekeeping compassionate and the other hateful. Thanks, -Smac

Could you clarify if you endorse what I'll call CB's "Steps (A)-(E)" proposal? If so, what are your thoughts about the logistical and other challenges to it it which I itemized above? I am particularly interested in the last one: Thanks, -Smac

And would you support exactly the same remedy for to support a trans-gendered student in the same situation? Disciple for disruption and targeting. No contact orders? Certainly. And for students bullied for any other bullied/harassed for any other reason. Normative rules about bullying may well be sufficient. No need to compel or or punish constitutionally protected speech. Thanks, -Smac

Even when the trans person looks more masculine than most of the men in the men's bathroom. Well, I've been asking for quite a while that you or @Analytics or anyone else articulate a legally coherent and enforceable limiting principle whereby some men can legally go into women's bathrooms while other men cannot. So is it your position that women who (A) identify as "trans" and (B) look "more masculine than most of the men in the men's bathroom" ought to be able to use the men's bathroom? If so, can I also assume that your position holds for men? Namely, that men who (A) identify as "trans" and (B) look "more {feminine} than most of the {wo}men in the {wo}men's bathroom" ought to be able to use the men's bathroom? Would you agree to a law that allows the above but prohibits, say, men (including those who "identify" as women) who do not look "more {feminine} than most of the {wo}men in the {wo}men's bathroom"? Yet the only people that are affected by not being able to use the restroom they present themselves as are trans. That may not be your intent, but that is exactly the result of your ban. Respectfully, I disagree. I think women and girls are also affected by enforcement of sex-segregated spaces. Same with banning trans people. If a trans person grooms or abuses a minor, that person should be removed, reported and prosecuted. I am glad we agree on that. Where we do not agree, I think, is whether sex-segregated spaces should be maintained for reasons in addition to safety and privacy. I think a lot of women and girls do not want men in their bathrooms at all. And I think many jurisdictions, perhaps most, find this preference to be reasonable and justified. It is exactly the same. Banning people for possible crimes that might be committed apply to both cases. I don't think so. Sex-segregated spaces exist for more reasons than just preventing/mitigating crime. Yes, I think that sex-segregated spaces are, by definition, intended and designed to allow one sex in and exclude the other. Well, perhaps we are making headway. Whereas @Analytics has categorically refused to differentiate access to women's bathrooms based on "trans women" who sufficiently "pass" as women versus those who do not (and vice versa for "trans men"), you seem to be proposing precisely that. So in your view, men who do meet that criterion should be allowed to use women's bathrooms, but men who do not (including, I think, many - perhaps most - who "identify" as "trans women") should be excluded from women's bathrooms. Is that your proposal? I previously asked you to explain "what real trans people actually look like," and you did not respond. In any event, I am intrigued by what appears to be a proposal that differentiates male access to women's bathrooms based on whether the male sufficiently "passes" as a woman. If he does, he can go in; otherwise, he is legally excluded. Am I on track here? Okay. I'm not sure what this means relative to sex-segregated spaces, but I assume you are proposing that "all people must use the bathroom congruent with the sex listed on their driver's license or identity card." Am I correct here? Per this website, 22 states and D.C. allow residents to mark "X" on their driver's license. How would that work in your proposal? Also, per this website: Do these jurisdictions' requirements/prohibitions affect your proposal? I'm not quite sure I follow. You have made several references to "what real trans people actually look like," so I surmise that you intended to use this as a criterion - and apparently the only one - to differentiate between men who can and cannot enter women's bathrooms. Now you are adding - replacing the single one with - several additional criteria, namely, that the men seeking entry into women's bathrooms must (A) "transition" or be in the process (not sure what you mean by "transition" here); (B) do more than just socially transition, but also must medically transition and do so "under physician's care"; (C) receive, as part of their medical transitioning, "hormonal therapy for 12 months or longer." (D) have their doctor fill out a declaration that they are treating their patient who is in transition to their chosen sex ("sex," not gender?); (E) take the doctor's declaration to the DMV and obtain license/ identity card adjusted to now meet the sex (again, "sex," not "gender"?) they present themselves as (as noted above, many jurisdictions either disallow this or make it quite difficult). You don't quite finish the proposal, but I anticipate that you mean that men who complete steps (A) through (E) would then be legally allowed to go into women's bathrooms. But that all other men - including those who "identify" as women, but who have not completed Steps (A) through (E)), will be excluded from women's bathrooms. Is this a correct summary of your proposal? It also differentiates between "trans women," allowing those few who have the desire and means to complete (A) through (E) to go into women's bathrooms, but otherwise excluding any "trans women" who have not completed those steps. Well, that's worth discussing. I hope @Analytics, @SeekingUnderstanding, etc. will weigh in and state whether they agree or disagree with your proposal. Perhaps. While nobody should be "harassed," I think some women and girls will continue to object to men entering into women's spaces, including those who have completed Steps (A)-(E). Your proposal would also seem to drastically reduce the overall number of "trans women" who are legally authorized to use women's bathrooms. I am curious as to how "trans women" excluded in your policy feel about it. Cumulatively, you may well be right. Perhaps so. But again, your proposal seems to, in effect, exclude many - perhaps most - "trans women" from women's bathrooms, and requires those who want access to go through Steps (A)-(E). I feel I have been reasoned in my comments. I will try to do better. Does your solution work "better for everyone"? I'm not even sure the small handful of people in this thread agree with you. I think I have the proposal right: bathroom access would turn on a checklist — some form of “transition,” medical transition under a physician’s care, at least 12 months of hormones, a doctor’s declaration, and a DMV-issued ID listing the opposite sex. Males who complete that list could use women’s facilities; males who only “identify” as women could not. If that’s the idea, it has several problems that are practical, not theological. 1. It is hard to administer in the place that matters. A locker-room attendant, school official, or store employee cannot verify a 12-month hormone protocol or a physician declaration at the door. The only check that actually works in real time is the ID. That means the rule is only as strong as the DMV process — and DMV sex-marker rules already vary widely by state, are often based on self-report or a thin letter, and are not designed as a bathroom-access credential. You would be outsourcing a safety rule to motor-vehicle clerks. 2. “Under physician’s care” and “hormonal therapy for 12 months” are not bright lines. Which physician? Any willing prescriber, including an informed-consent clinic? What dose, what blood levels, what monitoring? What about people who stop hormones, cycle them, or obtain them outside a licensed physician? A rule that depends on medical details will be litigated immediately as vague, discriminatory, or impossible to enforce without medical-record access that businesses do not have. 3. The ID step assumes a fact the law often will not give you. Many jurisdictions will not change the sex marker, or will do so only on terms that do not match your checklist. So the same person would be “allowed” in one state and “excluded” in the next, based on DMV policy rather than any consistent standard about who is in the room. 4. It still lets intact males into female spaces. Twelve months of cross-sex hormones does not remove male genitalia, male bone structure, or male patterns of strength and sexual offense. If the concern is voyeurism, assault, or female privacy, a hormone-and-paperwork screen does not address the underlying sex difference. It only relocates the line from “male” to “male with a letter and an ID.” 5. Large parts of the activist framework will reject the line you are drawing. A rule that distinguishes “trans women who have medically transitioned” from “trans women who have only socially transitioned” (or not "transitioned" in any externally visible/obvious way at all) is, in that framework, itself the offense. The governing claim is that identity alone is determinative. Any gatekeeping requirement — hormones, surgery, a doctor’s form, a waiting period — is treated as “denying womanhood” to people who identify as women but do not, through choice or circumstance, meet such requirements. You should expect the proposal to be attacked from that side as insufficiently affirming, not as a compromise they will help implement. So I don’t think this is a stable middle ground. It is logistically weak where enforcement has to happen, medically fuzzy, geographically inconsistent, and politically unacceptable to the people who insist there can be no distinction among men who identify as women. On the other hand, if the goal is to maintain single-sex spaces, the workable criterion is biological sex. If the goal is something else — a third-space model, or facilities based on anatomy — that should be stated directly rather than routed through a 12-month hormone-and-DMV proxy. Thanks, -Smac

If that is something that matters to you, assume as you will. It's your hypothetical, and it's about a legal issue, so I'd rather have clarity than assumptions. These individuals claim to deeply believe Patricia is a boy. Such a claim seems quite implausible. Unlikely. Pretextual. Bad faith, even. But again, it's your hypothetical. On what basis do these individuals "claim to deeply believe Patricia is a boy?" In contrast, I think students have ample grounds - biological, legal, semantic, etc. - to decline to go along with ideological declarations such as "a woman is a anyone who 'identifies' as one," "sex is a spectrum / social construct," and all the other seemingly untenable presuppositions in which trans ideology is rooted. Moreover, what are your thoughts about your hypothetical's application to a situation where Student A calls Student B a boy not because Student A "deeply believe{s}" Student B is a boy, but rather because Student B actually is a boy? Student A's position is based on biological fact and reality (quite unlike the position of those individuals in your hypothetical). If Student A does not subscribe to ideologically-driven equivocations and re-definitions of basic words like "man" and "woman" and "boy" and "girl" (so as to include, for example, men who "identify" as women within the ambit of the definition of "woman"), is it your position that the school - an extension of the State - ought to have the legal authority to compel Student A to adopt semantic presuppositions that they do not want to adopt, and/or that it can punish them for refusing to do so? Again: Grades dropping, cutting class, and self-harm are reasons for the school to act on that conduct toward her: no-contact orders, schedule changes, discipline for repeated disruption and targeting, and getting her real help. None of that requires a campus speech code about “gender identity” which seeks to compel and/or punish students' speech. I doubt it. I am not persuaded that the Tinker test allows schools - agents of the State - to compel speech. I hope we all get nervous when we start hoping that the State does have this power. Thanks, -Smac

Not sure to what "nope" here is referring. Under the Tinker test, likely so. Under the Tinker test, likely so. I have never said anything like this. I have never said that my political and religious beliefs justify mistreatment of anyone. I dispute that "discrimination" = using biologically/linguistically correct pronouns (generally). I dispute that "discrimination" = using a person's legal name. I have regularly spoken against any mistreatment of anyone in the LGBT community. All of us are entitled to basic and presumptive notions of civility and kindness. My perspective on this issue is borne of reasoned analysis. Not bigotry or hate or fear. I think efforts by some in the trans community to use the power of the State to compel and/or punish speech is one of the faster ways for it to lose legitimacy and respect in society. I also think that ongoing and pervasive efforts by some in the trans community to use indiscriminate and unreasoned accusations of "bigotry" to silence other viewpoints is likewise a good way for it to lose legitimacy and respect in society. It comes across as desperate and emotional. In the absence of reasoning and evidence, go with hyperbolic ad hominem. And then do it again. And again. Until the accusation is so watered down and trivializing that it loses potency. Nonetheless, I have appreciated your input here. Irrational and unjust accusations aside, you have been willing to have some substantive discussion about a very difficult topic. While we have not changed each other's minds, perhaps we have helped each other further explore our respective positions in ways we would otherwise not have explored. Thanks, -Smac

This is getting weird. Legal analysis sometimes requires scrutiny of things that persons new to it find discomfiting. Nevertheless, what "misgender" means has, I think, some substantial legal import in this context. I think it's been pretty clear that I do not subscribe to recent trends in trans ideology. So when I reference my daughter, I think you can safely assume she is a girl, a biological female. And Patricia is unequivocally female. She does not have a DSD. She acknowledges that she is a girl (she does not "identify" as a boy). Am I on track here? Got it. These hypothetical students are doing this not because there is a plausible basis for viewing Patricia as a boy, and not because Patricia is claiming to be a boy, but rather simply to tease/bully here. Am I on track here? And these students have no legitimate basis for stating that "a male has just exited the women's bathroom" because Patricia is biologically female. Am I on track here as well? So we're back to "misgender." By "misgender your daughter" you mean they are using biologically/linguistically incorrect pronouns (he/him) to reference Patricia, correct? By "misgender your daughter" you do not mean they are using biologically/linguistically correct pronouns (she/her) to reference Patricia, correct? That would be very troubling. The Patricia hypothetical is ugly, and a school should be allowed to stop it. I think it is not the same case as a student demanding biologically false pronouns. Patricia is a girl. “Patrick,” plus hallway announcements that “a male just left the women’s bathroom,” is not a disagreement about metaphysics. It is a targeted campaign to humiliate one identified student with a false name and a false sex. That is ordinary sex-based harassment. Grades dropping, cutting class, and self-harm are reasons for the school to act on that conduct toward her: no-contact orders, schedule changes, discipline for repeated disruption and targeting, and getting her real help. None of that requires a campus speech code about “gender identity.” And it really does not require the school - an extension of the State - to compel students to speak words they do not want to speak. In contrast, a boy who "identifies" as a girl is asking classmates to treat a male as if were a female. That is an ideological request. Refusing that request is a statement about sex. It is not inventing a mock name for a girl and hunting her at the bathroom door. One is ridicule of a known person with facts inverted to wound her. The other is declining to affirm a contested and biologically incoherent claim. Lumping them together is how “don’t torment Patricia” becomes “you must say she/her about a male.” So, what a public school should be allowed to do in Patricia’s case: Stop repeated, directed ridicule of a particular student. Tinker already covers speech that materially disrupts school or invades another student’s rights. A pack following one girl and announcing her as a man in the hall is that. Keep sex-separated spaces. The cruelty in the hypo depends on the students lying about her sex. The fix need not be “gender identity” rules, but can rather be enforcing that girls’ facilities are for girls and that classmates may not run a public ritual of humiliation. Address the self-harm as a safety and clinical problem with her parents. This does not require the school to adopt one side of the sex/gender debate as official truth. The foregoing approach does not encroach on the First Amendment, and would likely be just as effective, if not more so, than an approach which does encroach on the First Amendment. What the school should not be allowed to do, in either case: Treat every use of sex-based language as “bullying” because someone is distressed. Compel other students to use words they believe are false. Collapse “don’t single out Patricia for a false name” into “you must use preferred pronouns.” If the only tool you have is “'misgendering' is harassment,” you cannot tell these situations apart. If you can tell them apart, you do not need that tool. Protect Patricia from a targeted lie about her. Do not conscript the rest of the school into a pronoun rule that would have the school - the State - punish a student for saying a boy is a boy. Thanks, -Smac

This presupposes that Student A has, or should have, a legal obligation to "avoid using any undesired name" ("undesired" by Student B). Can Student A also be punished for calling Student B "Andy" instead of "Andrew" if Student B dislikes the former? Looks like we're both on board with a "case-by-case" approach. We may differ as to how many of those cases will pass the Tinker test. I am not suggesting otherwise. Rather, I am evaluating what schools can do about it while remaining within constitutional parameters. Wife beating did not involve potential and/or actual infringements on First Amendment protections. What we are discussing here does involve that. Thanks, -Smac