Don’t insult us
Nope.
Not the first female four-star admiral. The first trans four-star admiral, not the first female. There has been no first female four-star admiral yet.
The Times itself got the headline right but somehow got the tweet wrong? Another case of the social media intern erasing women?
Ah, remember the classics we were fed not so long ago? Like “we just want to pee” and “woman is what we are and female is what you are because gender and sex are different, you stupid cis scum”
It’s so hard to keep up. I was told that sex & gender were two different things, but it appears that (1) they are two different things, but (2) there’s no longer an acceptable term for the female sex (“female” in the archaic sense of, you know, “female”). The erasure is complete if there is no longer a label that can be attached to what used to be understood as woman/female. Is “AFAB/cis female” all that is now available? Asking here as a (non-bearded) lefty AMAB/cis male.
@southwest88
I don’t type quickly, so I defer to your observation that sex & gender used to be distinct. When did this change, and what the hell does “trans” mean, once the change happened?
I remember 15 years ago when being a ‘trans ally’ meant that it was critically important to understand that there was a difference between man/woman, and male/female. Man/woman was your gender, male/female was your sex, and the entire idea of trans-ness was that you could be a gender that doesn’t match your sex. Now trans theory deliberately conflates gender and sex, and the idea of trans-ness is more like your soul doesn’t match your body.
I’m old enough to distinctly remember the previous version (and I’m not even THAT old) but a lot of young lefties aren’t.
It just struck me how this dumbing-down of trans theory is very much in character with how politics in general has been dumbed-down
I wonder if Rachel would have been promoted to Full Admiral if he still called himself Richard and was in compliance with Navy regulation grooming standards.
@Helicam,
Well, strap yourself in because we’re about to go for a roller coaster ride. Sex originally meant the two types of humans and other dimorphous species; gender was a term of grammar that referred to a way of classifying nouns, often, though not always, based on sex. So they were different, though related.
But then, sometime in the 20th century, sex began to be used for the act of copulation, and so some neo-puritans began to use gender for the older sense of sex. So they began to be more synonymous.
But then feminists began distinguishing between sex and gender, with sex being used for the unchanging (and unchangeable) biological categories, while gender was used for all the social baggage that goes along with sex. So they were different.
But then the trans movement came along, and the meanings began to become muddled again….
musubk: The protestations of over educated, pompous theologians aside, the dumbing down reflects how Wokeness has largely become a religion.
@twiliter #6:
Levine was sworn in as an Admiral in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, not the Navy, although they do follow the Navy’s rank structure. Levine’s position is the top rank in the Corps. From what I’m reading, it appears the rank automatically goes to the person in his position, Assistant Secretary for Health. The Surgeon General is a Vice Admiral in the same service.
Given that it appears to be an automatic rank assignment, it looks to me like the rank means no more than “Assistant Secretary for Health”, and is only being made a big deal of because “four-star admiral” sounds impressive.
That explains a lot, thanks Sack. :) The Biden administration is disturbing in their apparent reverence for the trans cult agenda, with the VP and her preferred pronouns being a big part of that. I would hope it’s just an attempt to pacify them, but I have my doubts.
Sackbut: Excellent. So when we remove all the double-speak, all that is left is: “Some man is appointed Assistant Secretary for Health.” And didn’t he get appointed already in March? So what happened now is some kind of formality.
Incidentally, here’s his current “Official Portrait”, according to Wikipedia. From the picture, I wouldn’t even have guessed that he was a TIM, but simply a man, plain and simply: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Admiral_Rachel_L._Levine.jpg/330px-Admiral_Rachel_L._Levine.jpg
I was told this morning by someone on Twitter (so they should know) that the word “female” is racist. When challenged, they admitted that they didn’t really know but it probably had something to do with dehumanising female slaves or something. I think they might have confused reality with some old episodes of Star Trek. It happens to the best of us. So anyway: didn’t know, but was perfectly delighted to hurl around accusations of racism anyway. They also demanded that we all learn the difference between sex and gender, so in the spirit of earlier posts here, this is something close to how I replied:
1. Sex is a scientific construct describing objectively observable biological classes.
2. Gender is a social construct describing harmful sex-related stereotypes which is best abandoned altogether.
3. Gender identity is a desperate attempt to conflate sex and gender.
I’m fairly sure that’s how it works.
latsot @12
The difference is…
Sex = Something that can only be understood by woke transplainers born after the invention of the internet.
Gender = Something that can only be understood by woke transplainers born after the invention of the internet.
The obsolete difference is…
Sex = (see gender)
Gender = (see sex)
My dictionary actually explains it nicely, the (obsolete) difference being only one between biology and grammar, otherwise there is no difference whatsoever (aside from the spelling). The new difference has no difference either, other than the attempt to produce definitions and explanations that are absurd and insulting to the rest of us who know better, presumably so we will all feel sorry for the confused little angels. :P
Apparently he’s not even the first ‘female’ four star admiral.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Howard
To be fair, the article and the headline both refer specifically to the PHSCC, not the military nor the eight uniformed services. It’s just that people get confused and assume “admiral” refers to the Navy (or the Coast Guard).
The other nonmilitary uniformed service is the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps.
The appointment is newsworthy. It shows an increased tolerance in that you can’t imagine this happening ten years ago.
That’s undermined somewhat by much of the groundwork for the appointment being done while Dr Levine was a man (or at least presenting as a man). To be a real ‘standard bearer for transgender youth’ I’d say you have to join, and rise through the ranks as transgender. I wouldn’t, for instance, think that if Joe Biden converted to Islam tomorrow it would show that there is no anti-muslim sentiment in American politics.
Still, as I said still something worth noting. What it emphatically doesn’t do, even if you believe that trans women are women, is send out the message “Look girls you too could be a four star Admiral if you join the Navy” which describing this as “the first female four-star admiral” implies.
Let’s not forget the Salvation Army which also uses a military rank structure. :D
Levine “rose through the ranks” through medical training and in the Pennsylvania Department of Health. He is not now and has never been a member of the military. He is an admiral in one of the two non-military uniformed services in the US. None of the small number of articles I have seen claimed that Levine is the “first female four-star Admiral” without further qualification; rather they say “first female four-star Admiral of the PHSCC” (of course not true) or “first transgender four-star Admiral in any of the eight uniformed services”.
Michelle Howard, mentioned by guest earlier, is someone who is actually female and actually did rise through the ranks in the military; she is certainly someone you can show to your daughter and say, “Look girls you too could be a four star Admiral if you join the Navy”. She is indeed the first female four-star Admiral in any of the eight uniformed services.
The first female Admiral in the US Navy was Alene Duerk, who became a Rear Admiral in 1972. She was, perhaps ironically, in the medical field.
I read that the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps also uses a Naval rank structure, and also has a top potential rank of Admiral, but that rank has not been approved by Congress, so the top rank is Vice Admiral. I don’t know why these services decided to mimic the Navy rather than the Army. (Maybe it’s confusing for the Surgeon General to have a rank of Lieutenant General or something?) I don’t know why they need a non-military commissioned officer corps in the first place.