The category consistent with her self-identification
Yay another win for men invading women’s sports.
For Minnesota powerlifter JayCee Cooper, a trans woman who has been one of the prominent faces in an ongoing debate over inclusion and participation in sports, a four-year fight yielded a victory in court Monday.
Inclusion and participation in sports should not be interpreted as meaning inclusion and participation of men in women’s sports.
A Ramsey County, Minn., District Court judge ruled that USA Powerlifting violated portions of the Minnesota Human Rights Act through continued efforts to keep Cooper and other transgender competitors out of their events.
It isn’t about “transgender competitors,” it’s about male competitors invading women’s sports.
“Trans athletes across the country deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else, and we deserve equitable opportunities to compete in the sports we love,” Cooper said.
Certainly – the same rights and protections as everyone else, not a new and unworkable “right” for men to invade women’s sports.
The ruling by District Court Judge Patrick Diamond stated that USAPL failed to uphold certain responsibilities codified in law when Cooper was granted membership status in 2018.
“By denying Cooper the right to participate in the female category, the category consistent with her self-identification, USAPL denied her the full and equal enjoyment of the services, support, and facilities USAPL offered its members,” Diamond wrote in his ruling. “It separated Cooper and segregated her and, in doing so, failed to fully perform the contractual obligations it agreed to when it accepted Cooper’s money and issued Cooper a membership card.”
What the hell is “the category consistent with her self-identification” supposed to mean? We can’t just “self-identify” ourselves into any category we feel like invading. I can’t “self-identify” as Judge Patrick Diamond, or any other judge. Self-identification makes sense for some categories, but not for others. “Women” is one of the others.
Attorneys for Cooper welcomed the ruling and noted the potential future impact. “After today’s ruling, we are one step closer to making sure trans athletes like JayCee, and trans people everywhere in Minnesota, can pursue their dreams and goals without experiencing discrimination simply for being who they are,” attorney David Schlesinger said.
It’s not “being who they are.” It’s claiming to be who they are not. Major difference. How I wish adults would stop talking this babyish “affirmative” bullshit.
For Cooper, the ruling is a welcome sight after four years of struggle, uncertainty and being sidelined in a sport
she loved being a part of[he loved destroying for women].“I fought as hard as I could to ensure that every
trans[male] athlete has the opportunity to compete, and be recognized with full dignity and humanity,”she[he] stated. “I am thrilled that this ruling recognizesour rights and our humanity[our campaign to kill women’s sports] and hopefully opens doors fortransgender[male] athletes everywhere toparticipate fully in sports[ruin women’s sports].”
We will we will rock you [boom boom].
This is where I live. I sent a disresss call to Kara Dansky
AAAaaargh!
It seems as if every time we take a few baby steps back into reality, along comes another event which pushes us back into mad world.
Thanks for the translation from Cultish to Reality.
From an article in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press:
Apparently the judge was convinced that according to USA Powerlifting’s rules, transwomen are women, so I don’t know if they’ll bother to appeal at this point, and instead rewrite their rules regarding eligibility for women’s events. Women are a protected category also and deserve fairness when it comes to competing with males claiming to be females.
FWIW, I work in St. Paul and am not surprised by this ruling. I don’t think the problem is that the judge ruled improperly, it’s that the legal fiction that transwomen are women clashes with the reality of sex and the physical differences between men and women that matter, especially when strength is a factor. Women’s sport will become occupied more and more by mediocre males if this sort of thing continues.
I read the decision which is just bonkers. But part of the problem is Minnesota’s human rights law is bonkers. The statute prohibits discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation. But sexual orientation is defined to include gender identity:
Sexual orientation. “Sexual orientation” means having or being perceived as having an emotional, physical, or sexual attachment to another person without regard to the sex of that person or having or being perceived as having an orientation for such attachment, or having or being perceived as having a self-image or identity not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness. “Sexual orientation” does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult.
The statute then provides an exception for athletics regarding sex, but not “sexual orientation”:
Subd. 2.Athletic team, program, or event. The provisions of section 363A.11 relating to sex, do not apply to restricting membership on an athletic team or in a program or event to participants of one sex if the restriction is necessary to preserve the unique character of the team, program, or event and it would not substantially reduce comparable athletic opportunities for the other sex.
So you can keep men out of women’s athletics, but under the judge’s decision, you can’t keep a transwoman out of women’s athletics because the law doesn’t allow for an exception based on sexual orientation, which includes gender identity.
The judge actually decided that USAPL is entitled to a trial as to whether they fall within the exception for Cooper’s claim about sex discrimination, but found for Cooper on sexual orientation discrimination because there is no exception available to USAPL.
What is really ironic is that Minnesota’s law doesn’t define sex in a meaningful way: “Sex” includes, but is not limited to, pregnancy, childbirth, and disabilities related to pregnancy or childbirth.
Basically the decision is one gigantic semantic clusterfluck. I would love to read the motion papers, but I did not find them online.
I do think this can be reversed on appeal, but it is like threading a needle to get around the contradiction created by including gender identity in sexual orientation. USAPL needs to really emphasize that the statute interpreted as the judge did eliminates the exception for sex based categorization in athletics. Usually you can’t interpret a statute in a way that a general provision eliminates a specific provision, and that is the result the judge ended up with.