The fix has always been in

Jul 15th, 2024 9:48 am | By

Three lawyers a year ago on why Cannon shouldn’t be involved in this case at all:

Soon after the news broke that Donald Trump will become the first former president to face federal criminal charges—37 counts that include willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing documents, and false statements—it was also revealed that Judge Aileen Cannon is scheduled to oversee the case. In our view as experts with more than a century of collective experience in judicial and other ethics questions, that cannot stand. She must recuse herself from the case or, if she refuses, be reassigned by the appropriate judicial oversight authorities.

But she wasn’t, and here we are.

 Cannon heard Trump’s challenge to the government’s classified-documents investigation, appointed a special master to review the documents, and temporarily barred the Justice Department from using those records in its investigation. That much-maligned decision was later reversed by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit consisting of three conservative judges: two Trump appointees and the G.W. Bush–appointed Chief Judge William Pryor. They wrote that her decision violated “clear” law and that her approach “would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations” and “violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

Of course violating those separation of powers limitations was the whole point. Limitations would mean she couldn’t hamstring the case against Trump, and she’s there to hamstring the case against Trump.

Now that the same investigation has resulted in an indictment against Trump, Cannon’s prior, fundamentally erroneous approach casts a shadow over the proceedings. Because her earlier handling of this case went well outside the judicial norm and was roundly criticized by the Court of Appeals, reasonable observers of this case could question her impartiality. Federal law has a way to deal with this challenge: Under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), a judge “shall disqualify himself [or herself] in any proceeding in which his [or her] impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Cannon’s situation clearly fits that test, and she is obligated to recuse herself in Trump’s case.

But of course she didn’t do that, and here we are.



The unthinkable

Jul 15th, 2024 9:37 am | By

I’m looking around for some law people takes.

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1812852062255788276

Judge Cannon just did the unthinkable: She dismissed the Trump classified documents case on the repeatedly rejected basis that DOJ violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause by appointing Special Counsel Smith at all! DOJ must appeal right away. On SCOTUS, only Justice Thomas took that view in Trump v. United States. This finally gives Jack Smith an opportunity to seek her removal from the case. I think the case for doing so is very strong.

https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/1812855922957422821


Mainly meltdown

Jul 15th, 2024 9:06 am | By

Guido Fawkes on the pompous absurdity and absurd pomposity of Mr Maugham:

Jolyon Maugham has been having quite the weekend – mainly consisting of a meltdown over Wes Streeting’s decision to continue the ban on puberty blockers being given to children. He issued advice to every trans family: Evacuate the UK now…

The fox-beater has been barraging Wes Streeting with tens of “questions” including such killer takedowns as: Why are puberty blockers still allowed to be used in clinical trials but not outside of them? To be fair to Jolyon, he isn’t a medical expert…

Last night Jolyon threw off the blinders of privilege and declared himself in possession of the “skeleton key” to “a whole new moral universe” thanks to his trans work.

Someone should do a new comedy series: Yes Barrister.



Don’t ignore me or else

Jul 15th, 2024 8:57 am | By

Jolyon is outdoing himself in the pomposity stakes.

Just look at that. Hello Government Person, if you ignore what I, alone among mortals, am telling you, bad things will happen. Yes I really am that important.

How do people not get that marching around shouting about how important you are is not a good look?

If you’re wondering who Pooter is, he’s the diarist of Diary of a Nobody. Hilarious book, a must-read.



Winning longshot argument

Jul 15th, 2024 8:16 am | By

Sigh. Of course. Trump’s judge has thrown out the documents case.

The federal judge overseeing the classified documents charges against former president Donald Trump has dismissed the indictment on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed, according to a court filing Monday.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s ruling is a remarkable win for Trump, whose lawyers have thrown longshot argument after longshot argument to dismiss the case. Other courts have rejected similar arguments to the one that he made in Florida about the legality of Smith’s appointment.

But none of that matters, because he had the good luck to be able to put his own chosen patsy in that job and she is doing the expected.

One Reichstag fire after another.



A hostile work environment

Jul 14th, 2024 11:09 am | By

Ursula Doyle speaks up:

My name is Ursula Doyle, and I have worked in book publishing for more than thirty years. Since 2008 I have worked at Hachette UK, one of the UK’s leading publishing groups, first at its Virago imprint (a sub-brand of the publisher) before setting up my own imprint, Fleet, in 2016. Fleet publishes a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, and Fleet authors have between them won numerous awards, including four Pulitzers.

In 2020 I published Kathleen Stock’s influential book on sex and gender, Material Girls. Since then, I have been a target for abuse by colleagues in the book industry, who have used social media to accuse me of – among other things – bigotry, prejudice, transphobia and hatred, often tagging in my employer, Hachette, and Hachette’s Pride network. 

Hachette have done nothing to protect me, and have created a hostile working environment for me and anyone else who shares my views. When two of Fleet’s authors complained that my views were transphobic, the company agreed to move paperback editions of the authors’ books away from the imprint to another part of the business, damaging my reputation both inside and outside the company. I became ill with stress and associated conditions, and finally resigned. I am bringing a claim of discrimination on the grounds of my gender-critical belief (sometimes known as ‘sex realism’), and of sex discrimination.

Pledges are pouring in.



Why there’s the culture of fear now

Jul 14th, 2024 10:05 am | By

Gender critical women are the new…what…bosses? Priests? Scabs? Enslavers? Colonialists? The new all-powerful sneering unjust overlords who need to be overthrown and punished.

There it is. Knowing that men are not women is equivalent to being racist or homophobic. But Sunshine there is not at all shilling for men, so don’t you dare think she is.


Making a hash of it

Jul 14th, 2024 9:53 am | By

I’m taking a look at the publisher Hachette’s incloosion policy. I’ve spotted something quite funny (in its own warped way).

It lists a bunch of networks – AgeWise Network, AllTogether Network, Accessibility Network, Gender Balance Network – ah yes that’ll be the one, let’s look at the caption under that one.

The Gender Balance Network aims to eliminate the gender pay gap by focusing on equal recruitment and progression for all genders, at every level of the business.

What?

What is this “the gender pay gap” of which they speak?

If you google it you find it’s the pay gap between men and women. This doesn’t surprise you, because that’s what it’s always meant. What else would it mean?

But, Hachette says this is about all genders – which has to mean more than two, because otherwise they wouldn’t bother to say all. It would be stupid to say “this is about all two genders.” When it’s two you say both, not all.

So what pay gap is Hachette talking about then?

There’s no way to know.



See also: blood into wine

Jul 14th, 2024 4:59 am | By

So now the church is ordering people to forget all that pesky sciencey crap about human bodies and just focus on the soul believe Gender Dogma.

Church of England set to issue advice telling teachers to challenge ‘outdated terms’ around biological sex as critics argue new guidance is pushing gender ideology that a person’s sex is ‘assigned’ at birth

Church of England advice for teachers has been criticised for pushing the gender ideology that a person’s sex is ‘assigned’ at birth rather than a biological fact.

Guidance set to be issued to thousands of schools states that a transgender man is someone ‘who was assigned female at birth but identifies and lives as a man’, and a transgender woman ‘was assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman’.

The statements are in the document Flourishing For All, which is backed by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and tells teachers to challenge ‘outdated terms’.

Outdated terms like “god” and “soul” and “sin” and “blasphemy” you mean?

About a million children attend 4,630 Anglican schools.

That random remark seems to imply that Welby’s “advice” is to Anglican schools as opposed to all schools, which you would think the Mail would say explicitly instead of hinting.

C of E chief education officer Nigel Genders presented the draft anti-bullying document, which is out for public consultation, at the General Synod on Monday.

Wait. Nigel who? Genders? Is this a joke?

He said it was in response to the Government’s trans guidance for schools and a review of NHS children’s gender services that found transgender treatments were based on ‘weak evidence’.

But Ms Marsh and Ms Davies-Arai said the guidelines actually conflicted with the Department for Education’s draft transgender guidance, which says pupils must not be taught about the ‘concept of gender identity’.

Oh not be taught. Oops! Our bad! Sorry!



Not an ideologue but a bulldozer

Jul 13th, 2024 5:54 pm | By

Sarah Kendzior on the real danger:

1) Yes, Trump knows what Project 20205 is. No, he likely doesn’t care, because policy is a thing other people do while he steals money and ensures impunity for himself and his backers.

2) Trump is not an ideologue. He is a bulldozer used by two GOP-linked networks that often collaborate.

3) The first network is made of hard right-wing ideologues that have been gradually implementing a neo-fascist US since the Reagan era, chipping away at courts, regulations, rights, etc. This is the Project 2025 network.

4) The second network is transnational organized crime, the network in which Trump is most at home. Their goal is to collapse the US and strip it and sell it for parts, much like the oligarch wars that followed the collapse of the USSR. This network has been active for decades as well. Its dynamics and Trump’s role are laid out in my book HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT.

5) Both networks contain fanatics of varying faiths who deploy rhetoric with apocalyptic overtones. Some are true messianic believers. Others exploit religion for financial and political gain.

7) Blackmail, threats, and bribery play a role in solidifying their power, but many officials are simply complicit, including in the Democratic Party.

8) The two networks may clash at some point, depending on whether their goal is American autocracy or collapse. Either way, Americans will get some form of mafia state kleptocracy, which is what we have already.

So. We’ve got that to look forward to.



Shots fired

Jul 13th, 2024 5:37 pm | By

Better to get a foreign take, so the BBC reports:

Secret Service agents have rushed former President Donald Trump off stage after what sounded like gunshots erupted at a rally in Pennsylvania. Footage showed him grimace and raise a hand to his right ear, before ducking as sharp cracks – apparently shots – broke out.

He was quickly swarmed by secret service agents and rushed off stage to a waiting vehicle. He raised a fist as he was bundled into the car. In a statement Trump’s campaign said he was “fine” and was being “checked out” at a local medical facility.

And now he’ll be able to make hay off it.

Trump’s Vice-President Mike Pence said he and his wife were praying for his former ally, adding that he urged “every American to join us”.

Pence’s former ally who tried to get him killed by the insurrectionists. “Hang Mike Pence,” he said.

Everything will get worse. We’re doomed.



Progressive how exactly?

Jul 13th, 2024 11:34 am | By

When Ted Cruz gets it and the Dems don’t

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday rejected the nomination of a progressive judge who approved the transfer of a 6’2″ transgender-identifying male child rapist to a women’s prison.

Just for the record – there is nothing “progressive” about trying to put a male rapist in a woman’s prison. If he needs protection from other men then deal with that, but not by transferring the danger to women.

Nominated by the Biden administration to join the federal bench for the Southern District of New York, Sarah Netburn allowed male sex offender July Justine Shelby to be sent to FMC Carswell, a female federal correctional facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Her order overturned the Bureau of Prisons’ rejection of his request for female housing.

What a sadistic thing to do.

Born William McClain, Shelby pleaded guilty in 1994 to molesting a nine-year-old boy and to raping a seventeen-year-old girl. After his release 18 years later, Shelby violated parole by using the internet in his apartment, landing himself in prison for another six years, until 2015. After being released again, Shelby underwent hormone therapy to begin transitioning to a female.

At the May hearing, Netburn testified that she found concerns that Shelby would sexually abuse female inmates “overblown.”

Something wrong with the arithmetic there, but anyway, seriously? Overblown? Would she like to be locked in a cell with him for a few days, see what happens?

Shelby was entered into administrative segregation recently for exposing himself to female prisoners, the Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday.

Is that overblown?

Democratic senator Jon Ossoff broke with his party Wednesday to oppose the nomination of Netburn.

After Cruz pressed Netburn over her decision to move Shelby to live among women, current and former female inmates sounded the alarm over gender-inclusive prison housing policies in letters to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Most incarcerated women have already experienced sexual trauma and violence during our lives,” female former inmate Amie Ichikawa wrote to the committee in a letter sent by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and obtained by National Review. “We are trying to heal and prepare to be productive citizens after serving out our sentences. Having men in our prison systems disrupts all of this. We fear for our safety.”

Thank you Jon Ossoff. The rest of you Dem senators – you’re despicable.



People who use tampons

Jul 13th, 2024 10:27 am | By

NPR takes care to insult women again, via a story about metals found in tampons.

Researchers have found toxic metals — including arsenic and lead — in over a dozen popular brands of tampons, raising questions about a menstrual hygiene product used by millions of Americans.

American whats? Dogs? Cars? Barbecue grills?

Researchers say the study marks an important first step in confirming the presence of toxic metals in tampons, which are used by an estimated 52% to 86% of menstruating people in the U.S.

Ah there we go. They start slowly and build. Americans instead of American women is a jab, and menstruating people is a smash in the head with a hammer.

They say more studies are needed to determine to what extent such metals might “leach out of tampons” and into peoples’ bodies. They’re calling not only for more research, but also for stronger regulations.

“We plan to evaluate the study closely, and take any action warranted to safeguard the health of consumers who use these products,” Hils added.

Ah that’s a good one – consumers. What kind of consumers? Shhhhhhhh.

Catherine Roberts, a health and science journalist at Consumer Reports who has written about tampons, says it’s more surprising that the question wasn’t investigated sooner.

“It’s in the most sensitive part of people’s bodies. It’s so close to us,” she says. “We use so many [tampons] over a lifetime. It’s just wild to me that this is so both so little researched and so little regulated.”

Of people’s bodies – so there goes the opportunity to discuss the ways women’s health is neglected or overlooked because women are still viewed as inferior.

People who menstruate may use more than 7,400 tampons over the course of their reproductive years, the study authors calculated, with each tampon staying in the vagina for several hours at a time.

In what vagina? The people’s vagina? Are vaginas like noses and kneecaps – everyone has them?

Dr. Nathaniel DeNicola, an OB-GYN who served as the environmental health expert for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says the more pressing question is not whether there are chemicals in tampons, but “when does it convert to a dangerous amount?”

Some of the metals found in the tampons — including copper, calcium, iron and zinc — are not only considered safe, but recommended for patients by many doctors, he notes. They would not be damaging in low amounts, but a cumulative amount could have a lasting effect on a person’s endocrine functions.

That’s an awkward piece of writing. The self-conscious swapping of “a person” for “a woman” creates a pointless clunker of a sentence.

It’s not clear from the study whether people are getting harmful amounts of each metal from tampons, DeNicola says.

Well it damn well is clear that half of “people” aren’t – the male half.

To Roberts, one of the main takeaways from the study is that the “organic label was clearly not a guarantee that these products would not have heavy metals.” So what are concerned shoppers supposed to do?

Ideally, she says, regulators would mandate heavy-metal testing for tampons to take some of the pressure off consumers.

Until then, she says, there are some measures that tampon users can take to try to reduce their exposure to chemicals in general.

Shoppers, consumers, tampon users – but never women. Never never never women. It’s a filthy word, and it must not be uttered.

DeNicola recommends relying on a combination of “third-party testing and some personal due diligence.” He says there are apps shoppers can use to scan product barcodes and see what chemicals they contain, which could be useful for personal care and feminine hygiene products.

In some cases, people might want to consider alternatives to tampons, such as pads or menstrual cups. The reusable cups have become increasingly popular in recent years, especially given their lower environmental impact compared to tampons.

Shoppers shoppers shoppers, people people people.

DeNicola notes that plastic from tampons is one of the biggest sources of waste worldwide (and that some brands are more eco-friendly than others). Roberts points out that even if they didn’t contain chemicals, tampons would still pose a risk of toxic shock syndrome, a rare but potentially life-threatening illness (wearers can reduce their risk by changing their tampons frequently).

Wearers?? You don’t wear tampons.

DeNicola stresses that this study doesn’t have him running to tell his patients not to use tampons at all.

And so we come to the end without ever using the word “women.” NPR is despicable.



Guest post: They all think they’re Gregory Peck in Gentleman’s Agreement

Jul 13th, 2024 8:35 am | By

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Please, insult us some more.

According to the cult, ‘transwomen’, who are actually men who want to pretend (and who also want the rest of us to believe) that they are women, actually are women; but the words ‘woman’ and ‘women’ aren’t ever to be mentioned in regards to adult human females; just people who can be pregnant.

In trying to decouple “sex” from the concept of “woman,” genderists are attempting to break the female monopoly on womanhood, as if menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation were as inconsequential to the definition of “woman” as hair colour and shoe size. They want an “expansive” definition of “woman” that has nothing to do with the biological facts of the female body, allowing their use of womanface to be sufficient qualification for entrance to what they believe to be a hatefully excluding club. They all think they’re Gregory Peck in Gentleman’s Agreement.

In their minds, the only real women are the ones who choose to be women, and work hard to “become” women. Being born female is the easy way, and shouldn’t count. It’s as if women were born into inherited wealth, and trans identified males have to work their way up, starting from the mail room. They ask “How can you deny us womanhood? We’ve earned it!”. This is part of the reversal of power relations, with women being privileged Karens, spitefully barring hardworking TiMs from their hard-earned, just reward. This isn’t male entitlement at all; it’s the story of an oppressed minority demanding justice, thwarted by a powerful, selfish, entrenched ruling class. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE LIPSTICK!



Poor child A

Jul 13th, 2024 8:15 am | By

On the one hand anybody can be a woman, men can be women, men are absolutely definitely without question women if they say they are – and on the other hand women exist for the purpose of pumping out children and can be rented for the purpose of child-production.

Or to put it another way, when greedy callous rich people decide they want to have a baby but the mommy doesn’t want to do that whole horrible carrying it and pushing it out thing, the people they pay to do the gestating for them are always, without exception, women. Never men, not even men who say they are women; always women.

The global trade in babies is big business. Research company Global Market Insights estimates the surrogacy industry was worth $14 billion (nearly £11bn) in 2022 and expects this to grow to $129bn by 2033.

Celebrities think nothing of renting a woman’s womb to secure a baby. Singer Robbie Williams and his wife used a surrogate for two of their four children. Actor Sarah Jessica Parker, she of Sex and the City fame, was delivered twin girls by a surrogate.

And we know for sure both of those surrogates were women, not men cosplaying women. How do we know? Because the result was actual babies, not fantasy babies.

[I]t was a decision in Edinburgh Sheriff Court a few days ago that exposed the ethical questions at the heart of this most controversial practice. A judge decided that a 72-year-old man and his now-dead wife were the legal parents of a three-year-old boy, Child A, who had been born in the USA under a surrogacy arrangement.

And while Sheriff Sheehan admitted that she would not have granted an adoption order to a man in his 70s, she said the child’s welfare would be compromised if the court did not grant a parental order in these circumstances.

If people in their 70s can’t adopt (for very obvious reasons) why can they exploit a younger woman to make a child for them to leave an orphan in a few years?

“These concerns must be balanced with the fact that A’s welfare would be gravely compromised by the court’s refusal to make an order,” she said, “His gestational carrier has had no contact with him since birth. He is now aged three years and 10 months.”

And there, in a judgment handed down by Edinburgh Sheriff Court, is the reason that surrogacy is unethical. The child’s birth mother, a woman who rented out her womb to elderly strangers in circumstances we will never know, is dismissed as a “gestational carrier”. She is dehumanised. Reduced to nothing more than a living incubator for a rich couple who were far too old to have a baby but wealthy enough to buy one.

She is dehumanized and the child is born to be an orphan.

A surrogacy pregnancy is also more dangerous for a woman’s health. Only this week, Canadian researchers who looked at the records of nearly one million births revealed that surrogates, who usually become pregnant by IVF, have double the chance of dangerous pregnancy complications such as high blood pressure and heavy bleeding. Around seven per cent of surrogates suffered severe complications, compared with 2.4 per cent of women with natural conceptions and 4.6 per cent who had undergone IVF.

Marina Ivanova, the study’s author, said there could be several reasons for this, including the “physiological and psychological impact associated with carrying a pregnancy for another person” and “the socio-demographic characteristics of those who choose to become gestational carriers”. In other words, surrogates are more likely to be women living in poverty, and carrying a baby for strangers will have an adverse impact on a woman’s physical and mental well-being. Tell me again, which aspect of this practice is ethical?

No can do.



Please, insult us some more

Jul 12th, 2024 5:14 pm | By

Man who gets celebrated and flattered and high office for pretending to be a woman makes a point of pretending men can be pregnant.

Is that a male body right there?



Guest post: If Og and Mog hadn’t known which was which

Jul 12th, 2024 4:37 pm | By

Originally a comment by What a Maroon on Hollowed out?

This hits close to home, for reasons I mentioned in the other thread. I hope that people don’t take this as a reason to dismiss the branch of (non-Chomskyan) linguistics that Vyv espouses, which goes under the (unfortunate) name of “cognitive linguistics”.

But anyway, yes, “gender” is a sociolinguistic construct. And I think he would agree with me when I say that the concepts expressed by language are not a direct reflection of an objective reality, but rather a result of our embodied interaction with the world, as filtered through our senses and our brain and also influenced by the culture we’re raised in.

But that doesn’t mean that those concepts are arbitrary, with no basis in reality. We wouldn’t survive long if our mental representation of the world (however incomplete and distorted it may be) had no relation to the real world. You have to be able to distinguish between an apple and a rattlesnake, and know that one is good for eating and the other is something to avoid, even if your language doesn’t distinguish between apples and pears, or red and orange. And knowing that there are two sexes that are immutable, and being able to distinguish between them, is pretty key to the propagation of our species–we wouldn’t be around to argue about gender if Og and Mog hadn’t known which was which. But that is not gender essentialism (it may be sex essentialism, I suppose, but then some things do have essential characteristics). Gender essentialism is saying that if you like to play with dolls and dress up in frilly clothes, you must be a girl regardless of your anatomy. Or that you have an inner sense of your gender that overrides your anatomy.

I know y’all know all this, but it irks me to see someone whose linguistics I largely agree with making such a weak, dishonest argument.



Hollowed out?

Jul 12th, 2024 12:15 pm | By

And just one more thing about this Evans fella, because I hadn’t seen it, and because he’s being a ridiculous dogmatic twerp in that he’s blocking anyone who disputes his claims even though they are actual scholars in the field and he is not.

His polite, informed, in no way misogynist or anti-feminist sharing of his exciting article:

Ouch:

We agree that gender is a sociolinguistic concept, and therefore isn’t necessary in the first place, given the harm it wreaks on women. GCs don’t think gender identity must necessarily align with biological sex – we (mostly) don’t think it is a real or useful thing. We think the word « woman » describes biology, not a sociolinguistic concept. This is not tricky and I have no idea why you’ve failed to engage with what you are trying to tear down.

I have a tentative idea why. I think it might be because he’s not very sharp.



Block first, answer questions never

Jul 12th, 2024 11:47 am | By

Ah I hadn’t realized when I shared Carole Hooven’s response to Vyvyan Evans’s Explanation of Woman that he (Evans) had responded to it by blocking her. Not by offering a reasoned response, or even by offering an unreasoned response, but just by officially ignoring her. How adult.

And he didn’t stop there.

https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1811699962842869996

Guy has PhD right there on his profile, yet he instantly blocks fellow academics who dispute his claims. That’s a good look.



Seems off the mark

Jul 12th, 2024 11:36 am | By

Carole Hooven disputes Vyv Evans straight on the “biological essentialism” question:

Picking one point to explore in this article in @PsychToday that claims, among other things, that “TERF has been ‘rebranded’ as gender critical (GC) feminism, a ‘linguistic pivot’ from ‘anti-trans’ to ‘pro-woman’”. Take the idea of “biological essentialism” and Evan’s claims about “GC ideology.”

@VyvEvans: “GC ideology invokes biological essentialism: the idea that sex is binary and immutable, determined at the level of chromosomes. Thus, one’s gender must inevitably align with biological sex as assigned at birth.”

While there’s no consistent definition of bio essentialism, Evan’s seems off the mark. Nor does his claim about gender (a “sociolinguistic construct” with a “basis in biology”) follow logically from his definition.

Here’s a definition of “biological essentialism” from Oxford Reference:

“The belief that ‘human nature’, an individual’s personality, or some specific quality (such as intelligence, creativity, homosexuality, masculinity, femininity, or a male propensity to aggression) is an innate and natural ‘essence’ (rather than a product of circumstances, upbringing, and culture). The concept is typically invoked where there is a focus on difference, as where females are seen as essentially different from males: see gender essentialism.” https://oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095507973…

An example of a “gender essentialist” idea is that being nurturing is an “essential” part of being female: all females possess the trait, it is innate, determined and immutable. Not a product of socialization, etc. This kind of claim is, I hope everyone knows, false. Nonetheless, it is consistent with the idea that there are real and biologically influenced sex differences in nurturing. The existence of a sex difference in a particular trait— that exists *on average* —does not mean that the trait is “essential” to one sex or the other.

The claim that sex is binary and immutable (in mammals, including humans) is a fact of biology, not an “essentialist idea.” (Sex, however is not always determined by chromosomes.) And there is nothing that necessarily characterizes being male or female, other than the only trait that reliably differentiates the sexes: whether the reproductive system is organized around producing large or small gametes. The “gamete size” trait is the only trait that is “essential” to being one sex or the other.

There is no other particular behavioral or physical phenotype that necessarily follows from being male or female (e.g., some male animals can give birth or do all of the parenting, some females are larger and more aggressive than males, etc.), even in humans. BUT even with all this variation within and between species, we still observe dominant patterns of sex differences in nature. And human male and female bodies and behavior fit the dominant pattern in mammals (and other taxa), on average (bigger, stronger, more aggressive males, smaller, weaker, more nurturing females).

Dr. Evans claims that since GC feminists “invoke biological essentialism,” they believe that “one’s gender must inevitably align with biological sex as assigned at birth.” They do? That’s news to me. My understanding is that CG feminists understand that sex is binary and immutable, and most (not all!) believe that #sexmatters because on average, males and females are different in ways that matter in society.

Happy to have some GC feminists clarify their views on this.

Ok. Why yes, I do believe that sex matters because on average there are physical differences between women and men that matter a fuckofalot in society.