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Sex vs. Gender?

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“A transgender man’s sex is male and a transgender woman’s sex is female.”

In their lawsuit against the State of North Carolina, the United States Department of Justice laid out one of the clearest definitions for what it means to be transgender I’ve ever seen. 

In line 34, they said, “Transgender individuals are individuals who have a gender identity that does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. A transgender man’s sex is male and a transgender woman’s sex is female.” 

It’s simple, it’s clear, and it’s accurate. Most people understand the first line – that trans folks are those who were assigned a gender or sex at birth that’s not accurate. The doctor looked at their genitalia, made a proclamation, and everyone went along with it until the person in question spoke up and said, “not so much.”

It’s the second sentence in that definition – that a transgender man’s sex is male and a transgender woman’s sex is female – that caught so many folks off guard, including many folks who proudly call themselves allies to the trans community.

This column is directed at them – the folks who, like me, are not transgender (you know, cisgender), but dedicate at least some part of our activism to raising up our trans friends and family. I’ve got a favor to ask of y’all, and I hope you’ll come along with me here. 

We’ve all heard the trope that sex and gender are two different things, right? We may have even used it ourselves when we’re out doing our thing. We’ve probably also gone so far as to use the phrase “gender identity,” implicitly inferring that cis people have a gender but trans people have a “gender identity.”

It’s an easy idea to parrot, but it’s really dangerous and we need to stop. I know, we feel like we’re helping when we can get a fellow cis person to understand what it means to be trans, but in reality, we’re helping spread the false and harmful narrative that trans folks are playing pretend and we’re just humoring them. 

When we assert the idea that sex and gender are two separate things, we’re perpetuating the myth that someone’s “biological sex” is real but their gender is just an identity – a personality they’re trying on. We’re saying that, no matter how much someone changes their hair, their clothing, their hormones, or even their bodies – deep down, they’ll never truly be who they say they are. That’s harmful, and it’s even worse when it comes from those of us who consider ourselves to be allies.

There are some things we’re going to have to re-learn. (Yes, friends, we’ve got to do the work and change our thinking.) A woman who has a penis doesn’t have a “male” body. She has her body. And since she’s female, it’s a female body. It’s a female penis. Same goes for a man who has a vagina, or someone who’s genderqueer and the genitalia they may or may not have.

Some people choose to have genital reconstruction surgery. Some don’t. Even the thought-to-be-progressive terms “sex reassignment” or “gender confirmation surgery” assume that body parts have inherent genders or that something is wrong with a person that needs to be “reassigned” or fixed.

As the DOJ points out, “an individual’s ‘sex’ consists of multiple factors…Among those factors are hormones, external genitalia, internal reproductive organs, chromosomes, and gender identity, which is an individual’s internal sense of being male or female.” All of those things together are what define our sex. Gender identity is part of that – it’s not a separate concept, and that goes for all of us, both cis and trans. 

When we, as cis folks, continue to push the sex-isn’t-gender paradigm, we’re undermining our trans family and friends’ abilities to control their narratives. Every time we use the phrase “male-bodied” or “female chromosomes” or any other gendered name for something physiological, we’re claiming a power that does not belong to us. How is it that we all become scientists every time we talk about trans folks? If I’m not someone’s doctor, do I really need to concern myself with what types of chromosomes someone has? Does anyone? No, we don’t. (Besides, to repeat it one more time – if someone’s female, they’ve got female chromosomes. Simple!) 

This idea certainly isn’t new – trans and cis experts have been saying it for years. We just haven’t been listening. That needs to stop, like, yesterday. We can’t call ourselves allies if we refuse to listen to and learn from trans people. 

Allies don’t concern themselves with someone’s chromosomes or someone’s genitalia. We focus on someone’s happiness, safety, and well-being. We’re here to support our friends and family in whatever it is they need from us – and that’s different for everyone. We’re the cheerleaders, the backup dancers, and the step-stool holders. Let’s stop doing damage under the guise of being “helpful.”

 

 

Robbie Medwed is an Atlanta-based LGBT activist. Follow him on Twitter: @rjmedwed

 

Image by torbakhopper via Flickr and a CC license

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News

Trump Won’t Commit to Accepting Election Results if He Doesn’t Win State He Falsely Claims He Won

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May 2, 2024

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Falsely claiming he won the state of Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election Donald Trump is now refusing to commit to accepting the 2024 results for the Badger State this November.

In an interview with Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Trump appeared to dance around the issue, declaring he would only accept the official results “if everything’s honest.”

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump told the paper’s Alison Dirr and Molly Beck in an interview Wednesday. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

“But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results,” he said.

The Journal Sentinel reports Trump “offered similar conditions when asked the same question by news outlets in 2016 and 2020.”

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“I’d be doing a disservice to the country if I said otherwise,” he said.

In that interview Trump once again falsely claimed he won Wisconsin in 2020, a state President Joe Biden actually won by more than 20,000 votes.

“If you go back and look at all of the things that had been found out, it showed that I won the election in Wisconsin,” Trump told the newspaper. “It also showed I won the election in other locations.”

Trump’s “Big Lie,” that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him, along with his support for the January 6, 2021 insurrection, have been central to his 2024 campaign.

“Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the last presidential election in Wisconsin and his new comments placing conditions on when he would accept the results of the next election come as Republicans are seeking to persuade GOP voters to restore their trust in the state’s system of elections and embrace absentee voting,” the Journal Sentinel reported. “There’s no evidence to support that Wisconsin’s election was tainted by cheating or fraud in 2020. The results have been confirmed by recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties that Trump paid for, court rulings, a nonpartisan state audit and a study by the conservative legal firm Wisconsin Institute of Law & Liberty, among other analyses.”

READ MORE: Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

In October of 2016, weeks before Election Day, during the final presidential debate, Trump was asked if he would make the commitment “that you will absolutely accept the results of this election?”

“I will look at it at the time,” Trump replied. “I’m not looking at anything now, I’ll look at it at the time.”

He then went on to sow doubt about the credibility of the election.

Trump’s refusal to accept election results stretches back more than a decade, even before he ran for president.

After he refused to accept his loss in 2020, ABC News reported “Trump has longstanding history of calling elections ‘rigged’ if he doesn’t like the results.”

“On election night in 2012, when President Barack Obama was reelected, Trump said that the election was a ‘total sham’ and a ‘travesty,’ while also making the claim that the United States is ‘not a democracy’ after Obama secured his victory.

“We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!” Trump wrote on Twitter

One month later, in December of 2012, Trump tweeted, “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” Ironically, four years later he became president after losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, but winning the Electoral College.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

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‘No Place for Antisemitism’: Biden Denounces Violent Campus Protests, Hate Speech and Racism

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3 hours ago

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May 2, 2024

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President Joe Biden made rare, unscheduled remarks from the White House Thursday morning, denouncing the recent violent protests on college campuses, and telling Americans there is “no place” for antisemitism anywhere across the nation. He also denounced “hate speech” and “racism,” while declaring his support for the right to peacefully protest.

“There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students,” President Biden declared. “There is no place for hate speech, or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong. It’s un-American.”

“Violent protest is not protected,” Biden said strongly. “Peaceful protest is.”

Stressing “the right to free speech,” and the people’s right “to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard,” President Biden also declared the importance of “the rule of law.”

READ MORE: Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” the President also said, praising the ideal of peaceful protests, which he said are in the “best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues.”

“But,” he added, “neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society and order must prevail.”

America is a “big, diverse, free thinking and freedom-loving nation,” Biden said, denouncing those “who rush in to score political points.”

“This isn’t a moment for politics, it’s a moment for clarity.”

“It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest,” he warned. “Threatening people, intimidating people. instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Dissent is essential to democracy but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others so students can finish a semester and their college education.”

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“Look. It’s basically a matter of fairness. It’s a matter of what’s right. There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked.”

“I understand people have strong feelings and deep convictions in America. We respect the right and protect the right for them to express that. But it doesn’t mean anything goes. It needs to be done without violence. Without destruction, without hate, and within the law. And I’ll make no mistake. As President, I will always defend free speech. And I will always be just as strong standing up for the rule of law. That’s my responsibility to you the American people. My obligation to the Constitution.”

The President also responded to reporters’ questions, including saying he saw no need to call up the National Guard.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

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5 hours ago

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May 2, 2024

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Embattled South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem, under fire the past week after an excerpt from her new book revealed her boasting about shooting to death her 14-month old puppy she “hated,” has repeatedly defended her actions as proof she can do hard things that need to be done.

Governor Noem, who has been considered a leading contender to become Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, appeared on Fox News Wednesday night and blamed the “fake news” for publishing excerpts from her book, which she has not claimed were inaccurate.

She also insisted the 14-month old wirehaired pointer named Cricket was “not a puppy,” appearing to suggest that made the killing justified, as she again promoted her book so Americans can “find out the truth.”

“Well, Sean, you know how the fake news works,” Noem told Hannity (video below). “They leave out some or most of the facts of a story. They put the worst spin on it, and that’s what’s happened in this case. I hope people really do buy this book and they find out the truth of this story, because the truth of this story is that this was a working dog, and it was not a puppy. It was a dog that was extremely dangerous. It had come to us from a family who found her way too aggressive. We were her second chance and she was, the day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock that were a part of our neighbors, she attacked me and it was a hard decision.”

READ MORE: ‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

“The reason it’s in the book is because this book is filled with tough, challenging decisions that I’ve had to make throughout my life,” she added.

Noem’s dog shooting, which she recently said took place 20 years ago, has been strongly criticized by the left and right.

Earlier this week two people close to Donald Trump, his former Senior White House Counselor Steve Bannon, and his son, Donald Trump Jr., “questioned Noem’s judgement Monday on Donald Trump Jr.’s show ‘Triggered,'” USA Today reported, noting also that “both men laughed” about it.

“Bannon called Noem ‘a little too based,’ using a slang term popular on the right to describe someone who, among other qualities, speaks and acts without fear of being politically correct, and Trump Jr. said shooting the dog ‘was not ideal.'”

The Guardian, which broke the news of Noem’s dog shooting last week, reported Tuesday “apparently even [ex-president Donald] Trump sees the bad optics in having a ‘puppy killer’ as a running mate.”

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Meanwhile, criticism, which had been subsiding over the past few days, returned after Noem’s remarks on Fox News.

“She honestly think boasting about killing a dog who was too happy makes her tough,” observed former Lincoln Project executive director Fred Wellman. “I have served with women in combat. They endured horrible conditions. Got blown up. They were tough. Her two examples of tough are killing animals and keeping her state open as hundreds of thousands died. That’s not tough. That’s psycho.”

Calling Noem “broken,” former Republican and former U.S. Congressman Denver Riggleman said: “She wrote the book. She allowed those words to be published. Her ghost writer seems to have despised her. Exposed her. And Kristi liked it… thought it was ‘cool’.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., responding to video of Noem on Fox News, commented: “Here’s donald trump’s leading contender to be vice president defending her butchering a puppy and hawking her crummy book on rightwing propaganda tv. This is the republican party.”

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold offered this criticism:

Jared Ryan Sears, who writes “The Pragmatic Humanist” at Substack, said, “Yes, the issue is the debate on whether or not a 14 month old dog should be called a puppy and not the fact that you murdered it because you refused to train it and could not think of any other possible solution than shooting a young dog in a gravel pit.”

“Keep hawking that book,” he added.

Watch Noem’s remarks below or at this link.

RELATED: Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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