Category Archives: rights

This, Too, Is a Start

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To paraphrase an old trope, transgenders are people, too. Whether gender dysphoria is truly the case in particular individuals, or it’s a sham claim by some boys and young men in order to gain access to girls’ and women’s sports competition (or just their locker rooms), or it’s the manufacture of woke “schooling,” transgenders, those victimized by that pseudo-schooling, even the cheaters, need a place to compete.

Just not a place where males transgendered into women compete against women. Nor should women transgendered into men be competing against men, but given the nature of transgendering, that’s not a problem.

Men and women, boys and girls, start out with the facts of biology: an XX set of chromosomes or an XY set. That beginning, at the egg-sperm uniting stage and throughout subsequent development, confers on the male stronger, heavier bones, and stronger and heavier muscles. The different origin and development paths also impart permanently different hormone sets and bodily outcomes from those differing hormones. And that’s just the start. No amount of hormone therapy, no amount of testosterone withholding—or adding, in the case of girls transgendering into boys—changes those inherent physical advantages that born-boys have over born-girls. Not even the differing hip and shoulder structures change post-transgendering. The physical advantage is permanent.

Lia Thomas, via the recently concluded season of NCAA swimming, provides a canonical example. Her performance advantage was heavily illustrated both by her margins of victory in the women’s competitions and by the level of his performance when competing as a man the prior years.

And so we have the Utah legislature enacting, over Governor Spencer Cox’ (R) veto, a bill banning transgender competition in Utah’s schools. Cox had said he’d tried to do what I feel is the right thing regardless of the consequences. His veto letter centered on his concern that ensuing lawsuits

will likely bankrupt the Utah High School Athletic Association and result in millions of dollars in legal fees for local school districts with no state protection….

His four-page veto letter listed other concerns centered mostly on the process by which the bill was amended (several times) and then enacted.

Cox’ fiscal concern is valid, if somewhat overblown—a firmly zealous early defense would forestall further lawsuits and mitigate their total costs.

Still, the legislature’s move is—can be—only a start. Transgenders do need a place, a means, by which they can participate in sports. Now it’s time to set up a Title IX athletics program for transgender athletes so they can compete against their peers, and women can go back to competing against their peers.

Ketanji Brown Jackson and the Second Amendment

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Short and sweet. And wrong. At Tuesday’s morning session of the hearing to confirm/reject Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson:

Senator Chuck Grassley (R, IA): Do you believe the individual right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right?
Brown Jackson: Senator, the supreme court has established that the individual right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right.

Notice that. A court says so. Not our Constitution—the second of our Bill of Rights—says so.

This should be disqualifying.

Support for Russia

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As the People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping considers shipping money, arms, “nonperishable foods,” any other material to support Russia President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of and atrocities on Ukraine and that nation’s women and children, and hospitals and schools, and innocents sheltering in bomb shelters against the barbarians’ rockets, missiles, and bombs, the video below is what Xi will be actively approving, not merely tacitly condoning.

As Union of South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa actually blames NATO for Putin’s naked aggression, and refuses to blame Russia for its barbaric behavior, the video below illustrates the nature of Putin’s invader barbarians that Ramaphosa actively approves.

Heads up. The video is behind Aplhabet CEO Sundar Pichai’s YouTube warning that the video is too harsh for Americans to see without being warned first. Which is, itself, an indication of the barbarism of which Xi and Ramaphosa approve.

Here is the video.

Governments that support such behavior are themselves ill-matched for the civilized world, and interaction with them should be done rarely and with great caution.

Political Disapproval of Private Enterprise Production

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors are touting the withdrawal of Sarah Bloom Raskin from the nomination to the Federal Reserve Board’s Vice Chairman position, laying that defeat off to this:

But Ms Raskin’s most significant opponent was her oft-expressed view that the Fed and other regulators should deny credit to companies that produce or heavily consume fossil fuels.

It’s good that this one failed, but it’s just an early skirmish.

The problem is broader than this. It’s dangerous to our republican democracy that anyone would be nominated to the Fed or to any Executive Branch position who would willingly abuse that position’s authority to discriminate against any government-disapproved American enterprise.

The Judge’s Ruling is Correct

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Michael Sussmann, the Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer (among other roles) moved in court to strike portions of Special Council John Durham’s indictment of him, including in particular, the indictment’s “Factual Background” section. Sussman claimed that the section had “prejudicial” information and “false allegations” and so would taint the jury pool from which his jurors would be drawn. DC District Judge Christopher Cooper waved the BS flag at Sussman’s move.

I’m not going to strike anything from the record. Whatever effect the filing has had has already passed.

That’s correct. More important, though, are these factors. One is that, of course the indictment contains “prejudicial” information: grand juries are, by design, one-sided affairs intended solely to determine whether there’s enough material to warrant a formal charge and a trial. That’s why the evidence presented to a grand jury is sealed until trial; only the fact of the indictment and the nature of the government’s case can be made public before that trial—and never made public at all if, with or without indictment, the government decides not to proceed to trial.

The other factor, regarding the “false allegations” claim, is a so what one. The accuracy of the allegations, along with the accuracy and believability of any facts or other evidence underlying the allegations, are for juries to determine at trial, not for judges to deny jury access to via prosecutorial presentation.