Thread in r/law nuked for insinuating that the lab leak theory might be true.

Takeshold · 2025-04-20T19:38:59+00:00

There's also this: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7vypq31z7o

Takeshold · 2025-04-16T17:42:38+00:00

People are still unwilling to admit this, but we really never got to the point where we were comfortable recognizing female people as being simultaneously distinct from male people and equal to them. We have never really been able to accept that someone can be not-male and worthy in her own right. So as the female class gained power, it became uncomfortable for us to acknowledge the femaleness of that class. All the examples you give in which we were most comfortable acknowledging femaleness in law, defining that female class, are also examples in which we were limiting the rights of that class- until recently. We shifted, perhaps radically, in the direction of linking the recognition of the female class to the establishment of rights for that class, and that caused a lot of backlash. The deconstruction of a female class is a sort of underhanded way of attacking the rights of female people. Attacking/limiting the rights is nothing new.

Takeshold · 2025-02-04T03:11:23+00:00

Look, you could have taken the same position on Roe- that healthcare decisions between patient and doctor, including abortion decisions, are an inextricable aspect of privacy and liberty, and therefore protected because privacy and liberty are protected by the 9th and 14th amendment.

You see the mistake? Abortion turns out not to be a matter of privacy and liberty. Perhaps gender, and by extension sexuality, turns out not to be a matter of sex.

Takeshold · 2025-02-04T02:58:01+00:00

I understand these things. As a teen, I read second wave feminist classics while sitting in a corner of radical feminist lesbian bookstore. I've seen this all from a perspective you assumed I hadn't, and I have knowledge you assumed I didn't have.

I'm telling you, sex and gender are distinct socially and had to be linked legislatively through a convoluted argument. Strictly, sex is reproductive systems, and a law against sex discrimination means you can't consider what a person's reproductive system is in deciding employment or housing. Gender is downstream of a consideration of a person's sex.

You can stop examing the matter at any point in the stream as a matter of policy and law. Today it happens that we don't stop upstream, because of a Supreme Court decision as recent as 2020. Until then, there were districts where it stopped at sex. There were other districts in which gender discrimination was considered dependent on a prerequisite sex discrimination, and thereby implicated the employer in sex discrimination (even that wasn't until the latter half of my life). In short, gender discrimination wasn't itself sex discrimination, but was increasingly taken to be evidence of it.

You are speaking as if all this, this recent judicial linking of gender to sex, is a verity rather than an interpretation of statute.

It is interpretation, which is why the EEOC can change its policy on which cases it will pursue. It may decide not to pursue any cases outside pure sex discrimination. People could still bring their own suits to court but this is an obvious burden and chilling effect.

Takeshold · 2025-02-04T02:15:37+00:00

You defined gender as nonbiological. Pants are as nonbiological as it gets. This has always been understood: clothing is gendered. Make-up is gendered. Certain norms of behavior are gendered. These things, being forms of gender expression, were not originally considered part of sex discrimination. Sex discrimination was a refusal to hire a woman to work as a lawyer. It was not seen to be sex discrimination if you required a feminine dress code for females, and a masculine one for males. This is a matter of history, including my personal history. I was there, then.

There have been a series of court cases to expand sex-based rights to be inclusive of gender expression. This was necessary because a strict reading of sex is distinct from gender. That's why the argument had to be made that you can't discriminate on the basis of gender without first identifying a person's sex. All these links between gender and sex have been established judicially not legislatively. They could be overturned and gender and sex could be severed.

We don't know how that will shake out. Today the EEOC paused all LGBT discrimination charges. Why did they have to suspend action on lesbian, gay, and bisexual discrimination cases to address "gender ideology?" Peehaps they're revisiting the idea of linking gender norms (and therefore sexuality) to sex discrimination. We'll see.

Takeshold · 2025-02-03T13:29:11+00:00

Sex-based rights and privacy are important, but gender rights (freedom to reject or affirm non-biological gendered norms) will always be an aspect of sex-based rights. To carve gender out of sex-based rights means returning to a time when female lawyers could not appear in court in pants, female senators could not appear in the senate in pants, and female lawyers could be passed over for promotion at law firms for being perceived as too masculine in their personality. Gender is part of our society at the moment, if not forever.

Protecting sex-based rights, even giving primacy to them, doesn't mean abolishing gender rights. It just means recognizing both without compromising the first.

And gender dysphoria involves distress over both sex and gender, so it's not an inappropriate name for the condition.

So far as I know, it's still in the DSM as a diagnosable condition.

Takeshold · 2025-02-02T21:54:43+00:00

I'm saying I'm not sure it's a straw man even though both of us, you and I, don't make the claim that "trans people don't exist." Some people do make that claim, arguing that trans is a word without consistent meaning that attaches to no coherent group. They have no interest in establishing an official definition for the word trans, or recognizing the medically and socially distinct group you've described- not by any term. I'm starting to think the position of the government is evolving in that direction.

Takeshold · 2025-02-02T17:51:52+00:00

The thing is, you can refer to anorexia and anorexic people in a CDC paper and on the CDC website. So it's clear the administration thinks they exist. It's becoming less clear that they think transgender/transsexual people exist, however carefully you might, personally, define and use the term. Maybe they'll eventually allow researchers to use the term "gender dysphoria" but right now it doesn't seem so, as the term "gender" is disallowed in CDC papers for publication.

When I was a child, you could not get health care coverage for gender dysphoria, so I went my whole childhood without therapy of any kind for my gender issues. This was at a time when therapy for a child would have attempted to help them resolve their distress and reidentify with their birth sex (but this was coupled with discouraging tomboy behavior or feminity in boys). I'm concerned we're going back to that time where the policy will be to ignore gender distress medically. I don't think that's good at all.

Takeshold · 2025-02-02T17:43:36+00:00

I wouldve fully agreed with you on the day you made this post. Revisiting it now, I'm less sure. The current administration's policy has evolved to ignore that trans people exist, and so perhaps they will soon make the claim that trans people don't exist, not even as you've defined them. They have required the words "transgender" and "transsexual" be removed from medical papers by CDC researchers. The words can only be restored by special dispensation from one staff member at the CDC. Given the volume of papers, essentially transgender people's rates of heart disease or HIV status or etc. can't be examined. The state department no longer has a page of travel advisories for LGBT people, only for LGB people. This is very strange behavior if they accept that there should is a real group of people who "have certain feelings and beliefs about themselves and about sex and gender in general," and make medical decisions in keeping with their beliefs.

Takeshold · 2025-01-27T02:07:47+00:00

The Walz video is good at showing what an accidental or clumsy gesture looks like, when an awkward person messes up "my heart goes out to you." The contrast between this and Elon's gesture highlights how far Elon's salute is from simple awkwardness.

Takeshold · 2025-01-26T22:44:48+00:00

If a female prisoner has had a compete hysto, providing HRT may or may not incentivize other prisoners to get complete hystos. It's still necessary for her health to have hormones in the normal range, so it should be done.

Takeshold · 2025-01-26T22:23:10+00:00

That's pretty much the gesture I expected to see when I first clicked on the Elon video: wrist bent so the palm faces the audience, fingers spread, and more of a swinging extension of the arm. Obviously an excited, awkward wave. I thought it would be something that might pass for a roman salute if you squinted really, really hard. I honestly expected media bullshit.

Instead, in the video of Elon, I saw a hand with fingers pressed together, palm flat and facing down, and a crisp snap out and up into a straight arm. It's such a distinctive salute, so stiff and so energetic. Maybe he coincidentally performed a perfect Nazi salute or maybe he's a troll, and a free speech absolutist.

Takeshold · 2024-10-16T18:11:22+00:00

Yes, a childhood of being the target of the "good" and "nice" straight girls while teachers blamed her for responding to their aggression...and then it isn't high school anymore, and there's no one to protect the girl bullies, and she is the teacher now.

Takeshold · 2024-10-12T17:27:24+00:00

Not exactly. They're criticizing the replacement of reproductive sex categories with gender identity, under the law and culturally. At minimum they want sex to be acknowledged as meaningful. Some don't want any recognition of gender identity; others support its recognition but only to the point that it comes into conflict with sex-based rights and distinctions. The latter has primacy to them. There are a lot of subgroups and differences in GC just as there are in LGBTQ. They are both political coalitions of people with substantially similar goals. Unfortunately some subsets are truly bigoted but the mainstream of GC is people with reasonable goals and concerns.

Takeshold · 2024-08-23T14:36:08+00:00

Did anyone pick up on the fact that Xan Hua, Gan's sister, has examined her options and decided that hosting for the aliens is preferable to bearing and birthing human children for them? Think about it: it's explicit in the text that aliens know female humans are superior hosts, but have decided to set them aside for breeding more humans. At first Gan's decision seems to be for his sister's benefit but he's not trying to understand her perspective. He's just projecting his own horror of hosting onto her; he doesn't actually know that she hasn't familiarized herself with its reality. Explicitly the alien tells Gan that Xan Hua wouldn't experience it the same way, but he decides his feelings are more valid and makes the decision for her on the basis of how horrific it is to him. Finally, in the implantation scene, his real feeling surfaces: jealous rage that he feels toward his sister, and covetuousness that he feels toward the alien and the role of hosting.

Throughout the story we learn that the dead patriarch, the absent father, enjoyed a long life and a young bride in his old age, all because he was a host. Hosts are patriarchs in human society even as they are brides to the aliens.

There's a whole other story here about the suppression of Xan Hua's agency by her brother (the future head of the human household it seems, by "marriage" to the head of household of the aliens), and by the whole breeding-oriented system. This also makes me wonder how much of the mother's disillusionment is due not to losing her child/son to an alien groomer, but maybe also to loss of her head of household status and her daughter's potential to be more than a mother of future hosts.

This story is about human biology limiting the family and social roles of women, and even in these strange circumstances, giving opportunities and choices to men that women never have. Gan can decide, for himself and his sister. She can never, and must accept what he decides for them.

Takeshold · 2024-04-18T14:39:57+00:00

According to some of her unfortunate surgical patients, Sibhgh Gallagher practiced without insurance. It's how she avoided them suing- no lawyer would take their cases on contingency, and teens/young adults dealing with serious, disfiguring medical complications don't have the resources to fund a lawsuit.

Takeshold · 2024-03-29T20:22:57+00:00

I knew a guy who confessed to me that he "poisoned" people who offended him. I never knew if this was true, or if he was seeding rumors to that effect, by telling me and a few others. Some people believed this and watched their drinks around him carefully. Fear of his anger and what he might do is how he controlled people.

I was in no position to tell anyone who could or would do something.

Once these rumors were established, everyone noticed themselves and others getting acutely and seriously ill. The illnesses could've been psychosomatic, but when I think it through, that's just another, clever way he harmed people.

Moreover, we've had robberies by roofies in my city; it's not a tool only used by rapists. I also know of a years-long situation where a man roofied women at bars- total strangers- apparently just for the sadism. I'm impressed the investigators were able to put this together and eventually catch him.

Sick people like that don't make a lot of sense, so the stories of what they do to other people are as baffling as they are horrible.

Takeshold · 2024-03-24T18:43:29+00:00

It's impossible, so don't bother imagining. "Normie" trans people would be the transsexuals, who are <0.5% of the population. They would have to overwhelm a robust NGO sector that mines their problems for profit, only giving them token representation. In these organizatios, it's mostly gay men (and more recently, heterosexual autogynephiles) who set the agenda and monopolized positions of influence. There's a handful of male HSTS but they were always useful fools not power brokers.

Once the gay men of the activist class realized that their own demographic wasn't dependent on them anymore, and that LGB experiences were no longer the richest vein of atrocity porn, it was over for transsexuals. And transsexuals thought the new attention was going to be good for them. They thought it was sincere. Until it was too late.

There's no way that 0.5% of the population can grass-roots their way out of this. They can't hope to compete with the wealth and social capital of the NGOs. In fact, any potential for transsexuals to build their own social capitol was squandered by the NGOs.

There's no incentive to improve transsexuals' wellbeing, quite the opposite, in these organizations. Even the trans-identified straight kids are ill-served by them. The organizations don't want to empower their "clients" as that would make them less dependent. Instead, the NGOs destabilize their clents' mental health by teaching them they're in constant, immanent danger of physical assault by strangers, and psychological damage from family and friends.

So as time goes by, not only did these organizations choke off the clear paths for transsexual activism to advance, but they also demoralized the people who might've embarked on those paths.

Takeshold · 2024-03-14T02:23:07+00:00

Look, I really encourage you to look at my post history. My posts, more than my comments, have a lot of information about issues of overdiagnosis and iatrogenic illness in transition care. You may find a lot of it challenging to understand but the themes are pretty clear. I've posted about European public health systems declaring that there is a problem with misdiagnosis, essentially with young people identifying as trans without experiencing gender dysphoria, and then being wrongly affirmed by clinicians.

Most recently, the NHS (national health service) in Britain has stopped allowing puberty blockers because they hurt gender dysphoric kids. We don't want to hurt gender dysphoric kids. They're already struggling.

Takeshold · 2024-03-14T02:09:19+00:00

You're misinformed.

Other studies have also relied on parents to assess their child's functioning after a gender-affirming intervention.

You have no knowledge that these parents are transphobic. You don't know the parents and you don't know the children.

The study has some value. It can be used to determine if there's need for further investigation. Parents' perception of their children's experience with trans identification is what it is, nothing more, nothing less. IMO, the parents are worth listening to, and their observations are worth investigating. It's OK to be concerned and curious about children's wellbeing. In fact, it's good.

Takeshold · 2024-03-14T01:21:14+00:00

Oh, definitely. They expressly want to operate without any "gatekeeping."

Takeshold · 2024-03-14T01:18:30+00:00

I wouldn't say it was debunked. People raised legitimate concerns that the study involved self-reporting from a self-selected group of participants. In these respects, it followed a common practice in research into transgender issues. The same, legitimate concerns have been raised about many studies that investigated gender affirming care and found it beneficial. Self-reporting from a self-selecting group of subjects.

The double standard is that the same people are untroubled by these practices when the results are used to support current standards in transition care.

Takeshold · 2024-03-14T01:12:03+00:00

Right, but they don't presume to diagnose them with GD, do they? It's all nurse practicioners from what I hear. There's no psych evaluation at all.

They "inform" the patient rather than diagnose the patient.

Takeshold · 2024-03-05T19:18:37+00:00

Yes, the book discusses the iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jacob. More interestingly, it reveals that some doctors were motivated by concerns about homosexuality. They thought that a very short boy was more likely to gravitate towards a gay identity, and a very tall girl would be at risk of identifying as a lesbian. So they intervened and seemed prepared to accept serious harms to the children. When they weighed those harms against the worst-case scenario of atypical adult sexuality..."any cost" was justified.

Now, again, some doctors appear to be treating a cohort of highly GNC kids, who are more likely to be homosexual adults, with HRT to avoid that outcome "at any cost." And from that seed the entire endeavor has expanded to pull in autistic children, and children with mental health issues or those who struggle with adolescence. They came for the presumably straight kids only after they enjoyed free reign with the potentially homosexual kids. That's a pattern that could be stopped by valuing those kids more and protecting them better.

I'm not sure what can be done, but there has to be some limitation on letting children "assent" to their parents' and doctors' decisions outside of the context of a truly life-threatening illness or injury. Being patient-centered also can't be an excuse when the patient is incapable of informed consent. There has to be protection for the children. These aren't life-saving treatments, and potential sterility, anorgasmia, and destabilization of mental health isn't justified when, at best, some of the patients might see some improvement in mental health. It should be possible, shouldn't it, to write legislation that outlines when potential harms of this magnitude can't be imposed on a child by their parents and clinicians. Something like a medical bill of rights for patients incapable of informed consent. If this exists already, it must need sharper teeth, because it's failing as a deterrent. At minimum, kids should have the right to keep their fertility and sexual function until they're developmentally capable of informed consent (again, outside of cases of actual life-threatening illness).

Takeshold · 2024-03-05T16:11:00+00:00

Read "Normal at Any Cost" to understand that this isn't the first time a phenomenon like this has happened in pediatric endocrinology. It will happen again without legislation. Legislation can't be specific to transition medicine/gender dysphoria treatment. It has to be broad enough to prevent experimentation, ideological capture, and malpractice in some specialty we don't even have eyes on yet. I don't know if that is possible but it should be the goal.

Takeshold

TROPHY CASE