Capture

The ACLU obsessing over trans issues again/still/always:

Using people’s names and pronouns is a matter of respect.

We all want to be respected and seen for who we are. When a young person’s name and pronouns are respected, they do better in school, have more confidence, and have lower rates of suicide.

There’s no such thing as “a person’s pronouns.” The ACLU doesn’t give any source for the claim about doing better in school and having more confidence and lower rates of suicide.

“Cisgender women should be concerned whenever an alleged concern for ‘protecting’ our well-being is invoked to justify exclusion.”

There’s no such thing as “cisgender” women. There’s no need for a special word to distinguish women from men who claim to be women. It’s only women who are women; no additional adjective is necessary. It’s not cruel or unusual “exclusion” to understand that men are not women, it’s just reality.

Attempts to legislate who is or isn’t a woman are not new. Lawmakers have often tried to exclude poor women, unmarried women, Black women, and others from legal protections.

Very true, but poor women, unmarried women, and Black women are all women. Men, however, are not women.

There’s nothing wrong with saying “woman.” Just ask yourself if that’s the most specific and inclusive language you can use.

Oh gee thank you very much. What do you mean “most specific and inclusive”? Aren’t you pulling in two directions at once? “Inclusive” is less specific, and specific is less “inclusive.” Language needs to be specific and accurate before it needs to be “inclusive.” If we’re talking about tigers there’s no need to be more inclusive and add lions and cheetahs and leopards. Is “women” the most specific word for “women”? Yes, it is.

Policing what it means to be a woman hurts everyone. That’s why the ACLU fights against sexist dress code policies and practices that push women out of the workforce.

Is that right? So it hurts everyone to try to hire and promote more women at work, including at the ACLU? We can’t do that any more because it’s hurty, so if the ACLU becomes 100% male that’s just fine? To try to add women would be to “police” what it means to be a woman? If that’s true feminism can’t exist at all.

School sports are about participation and belonging. It’s wrong to deny students the chance to try out for a team.

Nonsense. School sports are also about competition, and winning. Nobody is trying to deny students the chance to try out for a team; people with a lick of sense are trying to deny male students access to the girls’ team. It’s wrong to let boys join girls’ teams and thus make it impossible for the girls to win anything.

And on it goes – the usual childish stale much-repeated rhetoric, full of distortions and disguises and fatuous baby talk. The ACLU is making itself a joke.

18 Responses to “Capture”