Betty:The Arizona Supreme Court just upheld a law from 1864 which totally outlaws abortion in the state...from before they became a state. WTF?
Pam: Time for women to remember we don’t need doctors to acquire abortifacients.
Betty: I think we need to make laws to protect women's right to reproductive health, not expect women to just google pennyroyal and be able to give themselves a safe abortion.
Pam: Women have been getting by without doctors for 5000 years. And I'm not one who thinks that every culture except ours are idiots. They have knowledge. I say this not from googling, but from serving as a midwife apprentice for two years and studying cultural anthropology, including birth methods around the world, and how to induce abortion.
M&M:This is the wedding night advice offered to brides by Josh Howerton, a senior pastor at Lakepointe Church.
Claiming that the bride has "been planning this day her whole life," and so the groom should indulge her, he advised: "Stand where she tells you to stand, wear what she tells you to wear, and do what she tells you to do. You'll make her the happiest woman in the world."
Then, he says: In exchange, the bride should take a submissive role in what he pointedly calls "his wedding night," to "make him the happiest man in the world."
"Stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear, and do what he tells you to do."
R&R: So they live out marriage the way they see fit, what's it to you?
Cera:It’s almost like Biden is trying to lose at this point.
When given the choice between a slain NYPD officer’s funeral and a fundraiser with a musician who is under fire right now for making her backup dancers go to sex shows where bananas were shoved up the performer’s vaginas and the audience members take bites out of the banana as it’s “in place”… and those backup dancers are now suing because of it.
Dude seriously need to fire whoever sets his schedule.
The optics are intense.
Finnie: At my daughter's school they are having an educational, empowerment event, just for girls...and non-binaries? Since when?
Halo: Many non-binary people have female reproductive systems and might need to know the information too.
Dee: On other words, feminists are kicking boys out of the cool club.
Dee: Or maybe we can grow up and stop deciding things like this by the genitals, hmm?
03-22-24 • Trans People Are Coming for your Daughters
Dee: This happened -
Planet Fitness revokes a woman's membership after she takes photos in the women's locker room of a transgender shaving
Carole: Um, transgender is an adjective, not a noun, it's kind of slur-ish when you use it like that. And it's not like anyone was naked.
Dee: In THIS particular story no one was naked… Naked people are in locker rooms though.
12 year olds are in locker rooms…
We’ve now gotten so “inclusive” that if a 12 year old girl is sitting on the benches in a locker room and a naked grown man walks by with his dick at face height of that child, we tell the child to shut the f**k up and deal with it because the adults in your life are ok with that now…
Carole: Why would that happen? Trans people have just as much human decency as the rest of us.
Dee:Because that is what’s NORMAL in locker rooms.
Naked people walking around.
There’s nothing “indecent” about being in a locker room naked.
So no… walking around naked is not against any policies. It’s no one’s fault that a woman in a man’s body who also has a penis has their dick at face height of those who are sitting down… that’s just down to a person’s height…
So yeah, if a 12 year old is sitting on a bench and a penis is at face height to her, we tell her to deal with it because we’re inclusive now.
Dee:Yes, genders DO actually really matter on this one…
Carole: With the policies being be as modest as possible and also expect very temporary nudity, a 12 year old actually seeing a dick is odds-defying lol.
Dee:Girls feel uncomfortable around random men’s penises, In a way that they’re not uncomfortable if a 70 year old naked woman is in the locker room.
Why? Because of the way we evolved as humans really… the instinctual reasoning probably goes back THAT far…
Either that’s just something you accept as the way some people feel, or you don’t think their feelings are valid and attempt to deny them the social ability to challenge what is being normalized.
But, even supposing a parent misjudged and a kid felt uncomfortable, you would have to show that some kind of actual harm could occur as a result of this exposure in order to justify a ban. Feeling uncomfortable for a moment is a part of growing up that is caused by millions of things every day and it's nothing to be afraid of. In the absence of harm, it's not a reason to discriminate against trans people.
ETA: I also don't agree that it's just evolved human behavior - many human groups have much less stricture about nudity throughout the lifetime and it's perfectly healthy.
Dee:Well, that’s one way of thinking…
But a lot of people say No, sparing my daughter that “moment of uncomfortableness” is well worth keeping naked men away from her.
Dee:It’s extremely interesting whose discomfort we prioritize, isn’t it?
Women’s spaces can’t be for women anymore, women’s sports can’t be for women anymore, and women will always just be expected to “make space” for the wants of men no matter how uncomfortable that is or they are vilified….
It’s blatantly apparent who’s comfort we are prioritizing.
Yes, it's always uncomfortable when a group which was being oppressed starts exercising their rights in public. When segregation was made illegal, people were so uncomfortable with the thought of different races swimming together that they actually closed the pools rather than allow them to become integrated. It was considered too risky to allow the possibility that black men would see white women in their bathing suits, or get near them in the water. Thousands of public swimming pools around the country were drained and paved over. White people continued to swim in private pools, which could still be segregated; many black people never had the chance to learn to swim.
Dee:this is sick. Don't bring up Black people to try and make a point about transgenders. They’re not something to be compared or even discussed as equivalent…
Dee:It’s legitimately a scientific fact that the male body and the female body differ.
It should not be a man’s right to be anywhere women hold as a women’s space.
And if the main issue really is the discomfort of children at the sight of different human bodies, what about people with handicaps, missing limbs or disfiguring scars? That kind of thing could be pretty uncomfortable for a child to see too. Is it so likely to be so uncomfortable for children that those people should be prohibited from changing in a locker room too?
You see I don't think an inadvertent glimpse of a different human body is really the main issue. At least some of it is prejudice against trans people, and that is why it has historical parallels.
Dee: Well, I’m absolutely not going to discuss Black rights as equivalent to transgender rights...i’m also not going to discuss a man’s body as equivalent to someone who lost a leg…. I’m not going to teach my daughters that they HAVE to be ok with naked men around them. They should absolutely have to be ok with someone who lost a leg being around…
A transgender person is no more danger to your daughters than any other person. The difference in their body is just another difference along a huge spectrum of human variation. (There are some women with more obvious genitalia than some men, who cares?) Singling out trans women, constantly equating them with cis men, and acting like they have some power to harm girls which no other sight could have makes no sense.
I think that in the near future there will be much more private and individual restrooms and changing areas which will not be segregated at all by gender, much like the Family restrooms at the mall today. People like more privacy and it's better use of the space to have facilities open to all. In other words, I think this issue is because of old-fashioned, binary institutional design. With new designs it will disappear, and people will marvel that we ever had trouble integrating open transgender people into society at all.
Carole: The whole "coming for your daughters" narrative sounds very similar and that is purposeful. I see parallels there.
Dee: The issue is not that they are more of a danger.
The issue is that there are women who are wholly uncomfortable being around a stranger’s naked male body.
If dressing rooms are changed into single person areas, problem solved…
In the meantime we have to honor peoples rights to participate in such spaces as we have. And, especially in the absence of harm, it would help if we could avoid invoking lurid, but unlikely, imagery. Traditional locker rooms are just uncomfortable for everyone and that's something people who use them have to live with until they get better.
Dee: You may believe that these are short sighted conventions that turn out to be wrong.
Other believe there are completely real differences between the male and female body and they are not comfortable being naked around each other.
We can beat this problem with better institutional design. In the meantime, we should understand that everyone in a public locker room is uncomfortable and try to be extra considerate of each other and we'll get through it without harm.
_______________________________________
I did a really fascinating study of the organization and institutional assumptions of public bathrooms. Society enforces many of its unspoken strictures through the construction of its public spaces.
In this case, two university student organizations, one for students with disabilities, and another for transgender students, recognized their common interest and teamed up to send patrols to all the many bathrooms on campus to make sure that the spaces conformed to requirements for physical accommodations and that there were no barriers to use of restrooms by identified gender. Along the way they ran into another student group called Aunt Flo and the Plug Patrol, who were checking all the bathrooms on campus to make sure they had sanitary supplies. The student groups had to confront some stigma about exploring such taboo issues, but in the end there were improvements to access for all three groups, and everyone, so their project was a success.
I don't disagree with the premise that people can feel uncomfortable and they just do. I think sometimes people have the right to do things that make others uncomfortable, but discomfort does matter and we can fix it. I do think we should be able to discuss it like adults. Thanks.
Carole: IMO bringing in violent crimes or sexual crimes to this discussion does nothing to prove any kind of point.
Dee: Statistically, men are responsible for most violent and sexual crime. Men are dangerous! That’s what the discussion rests on…
Women are showing themselves to be uncomfortable around a stranger’s naked male body regardless of how the person identifies. Which is what happens in locker rooms.
Why is that?
The same reason women are uncomfortable being around strange men naked…
Why is that?
…
Maybe you have a better answer as to why they’re feeling uncomfortable?
People should do what makes them comfortable, but I don't think there is any data to suggest that trans women should not be allowed to use the locker room they identify with while we change the world of locker room design to fit the new reality.
Dee: So, just fuck the rape victims that don’t want naked men around them, they can go home, fuck the young girls that aren’t ready to see naked men, they need to grow up quicker, fuck the husbands that don’t want naked men around their naked wives, they need to get over it… Whatever the man in the situation wants, he should get. Fuck all women who have a problem.
Carole: I do think some of it is plain old bigotry.
Dee: If the society you want to create demands that I am now called a bigot because I don’t want random penises out on display around my daughters, so be it…
I get it… you REALLY WANT that to be the reality we live in… You believe that it is a man’s right to show his penis to any girl or woman, and there is something wrong with those women who don’t feel like that’s ok. Teenage girls be damned, if a 45 year old man wants something, he should have it, that’s his right and they most definitely supersede the rights of those girls and women.
I’m not onboard.
You know perfectly well that what you are saying is not true. You know that is not what people think or want. This kind of gross exaggeration is destroying our civic discourse.
You may not support Trump, but you are doing Trumpism, right there - demonizing perfectly reasonable political positions (like, people have a right to determine their own gender) by claiming that it means the sickest thing possible and the daughters are next. Yes, that IS the "coming for your daughters!" argument, just as Carole said, and it's used to vilify the opposition and widen the divide.
This is why Trumpers hate, and I mean HATE the libtards, and think that being a liberal is a mental illness - because on every single issue, all day long, this is the kind of demonizing exaggerations they hear. Liberals want penis in your daughters face, right at eye level! Liberals want you to be robbed and murdered by an immigrant! Perfectly reasonable efforts to help people, to save lives, to honor human rights, to make life better, are treated like a sickness. It's not right.
I really appreciate having you in the discussion, but I weary of these games. Could you stop implying that we are perverts for no reason, please? Thanks.
Dee: Do you know what?
Fuck you. What I’m saying is FULLY TRUE. You just don’t like it.
YOU KNOW YOUNG GIRLS WILL BE EXPOSED TO NAKED GROWN MEN AND YOU DONT GIVE A SHIT!
You know that can be dangerous for young girls and you don’t give a shit.
You don’t think it’s damaging to the young girl so you fucking ADVOCATE for those men to be around a naked young girl….
THEN YOU TRY TO ACT LIKE ANYONE WHO HAS A PROBLEM WITH THAT IS SICK… YOU'RE SICK!
That is what you are doing, right?
Dee: Males are typically comfortable changing clothes around other males, but not around females.
Boys can easily be uncomfortable, they should get their own private dressing room.
Females are typically comfortable changing clothes around other females, but not around males…Girls can easily be uncomfortable, they should get their own private dressing room.
How is this a new idea to you?
And to my point about the discourse...
You can easily use calm and leveling language, suggest that this is nothing new, make exceptions for the uncomfortable, etc. when it's young boys in the locker room with grown men. At the same time, you use hysterical all-caps accusations of not giving a shit about girls. Even though the problem is, you suggest, that men are dangerous, and not to be trusted. Boys are just as likely to be abused by men as girls. Boys are going to be in locker rooms with men millions of times more often than girls being in a locker room with a trans woman. Nothing, really?
I could easily claim that you just don't give a shit about all the boys who are being abused in the locker room, which is actually a thing, especially when you consider hazing. That's a problem a thousand times worse than a trans woman shaving at PF. But, I'm not trying to make it out like you want boys to just grow up, get used to it, who cares. I think you do care, and would work with me to put a stop to it when you think about the actual harm. I can give you the benefit of the doubt.
I actually give more shits about both boys and girls than you can believe. I just don't agree that trans women are such a risk to girls that they need to be discriminated against by laws governing their bathroom use, especially in light of the real locker room risks, to boys. That does not make me a "severely destructive force." Please think about the real risks and I hope you'll agree.
03-20-24 • UHI in the Best City
Mare: Get this - Elon Musk Predicts A 'Universal High Income' As Jobs Are Phased Out And Employment Becomes Obsolete. What do you think of this?
Mare: I thought of you when I read it, lol. But seriously, could we do this?
Later, his student Plato decided to codify a civic system in his work Laws. Plato's Laws is so influential, it's pretty much the blueprint for what would become western civilization and democracy today. However, by this time Plato decided that humans were not capable of living in the best city, holding property in common, or having women as equals. So, in Laws he describes the "second-best city," where only men with sufficient property would be voting citizens and everyone else was essentially their servants. And that is the city we have been living in ever since. Only in the last hundred years did we even think to extend full citizenship to women.
The point is, we have known since ancient times that humans should live in fundamental equality. But, it wasn't possible. When asked, "But Socrates, in the best city, who will till the fields?" the old man answered, "The slaves, of course." We had to have a servile class as long as there was hand-agriculture.
But now, and I mean very soon, we truly will have no need of any servile class. All toil will be better done by our marvelous machines. So, at last, we can live in the best city, where all can be equals and all share in the prosperity of the whole, for the good of each and all. Truly, property and material wealth should mean less than nothing in this world, where anyone can have anything with the touch of a button. Every person will be completely free to pursue interests, become good at what they enjoy, create and nurture fulfilling relationships, and live in a beautiful environment, with no concern of material want.
We just have to decide...was Plato right? Are humans capable of living in the best city, of sharing wealth and power? Or are we stuck in the second-best city forever?
I hope we can choose better, because if we don't, we will destroy the machines and each other before we can ever see what's possible. And we may not get another chance.
03-12-24 • Why Oh Why Trump?
Dua: I STILL question how that fucking moron ended up our president and what the fuck is fundamentally wrong with the people that voted for him. Like, are they all on drugs, were they dropped on their heads as children, was it lead paint? Or did mommy and daddy simply not love them enough and now they want everyone else to know what it feels like to be fucked over on a daily basis.
The Civil Rights movement, and the hyper-predatory capitalism of Milton Friedman, have taken the working class from successful and dominant to unsuccessful and non-dominant. People want that success and that dominance back. Trump's retrograde attitudes toward women and non-whites hearken back to that "happier" time. He's a lawless asshole who gets away with everything; people who have been socially displaced want him to be a lawless asshole and get away with everything FOR THEM, to restore their previous glory, to Make America Great Again. They care a lot more about restoring their past dominance than maintaining democracy.
It's right out the fascist playbook.
The only answer is to change the economy so everybody can have healthcare, a job that gives them their fair share, and some choices in life. That is what makes people trust and love democracy. If we don't, there's no reason to stay in the nice game...people turn to strongmen and start using force. That's where we are now.
Dua: With Christian Nationalism, there is a religious aspect to it too. We seem to be imploding on all fronts.
We just have to survive and stay democratic while we work out the details.
03-12-24 • Prejudice vs. Racism
Layers: I saw this quote: "Racism was not simple hatred or prejudice based on skin color. Racism occurred when power was added to prejudice — the power to affect someone’s life physically, economically, educationally, politically or otherwise." They are explaining why only whites can be racist.
Is this really what liberals today believe? That black people are so powerless physically, economically and politically that they have no power to affect someone's life? They can't be racist?
03-12-24 • Changing Times
Rita: What do you think of this poem? Do you think there is any validity to it?
Clara: I see a point, and the point I see is to create hostility toward transgender people. And what rights are being "obliterated"?
Rita: I think it’s ok to be against redefining women and for reproductive rights.
Rita: This article proves it: Gender Neutral Language Hurts Women
Rita: So you don't mind being referred to as a "breeder."
When I was a kid there was a riddle that made the rounds. A boy and his father are in a terrible car crash, and the father is killed. The boy is rushed to the hospital, wheeled in for emergency surgery, but upon seeing the patient, the surgeon says, "I cannot operate on this boy; he is my son." How can that be?
Today it's hard to believe this was a stumper, but you should have heard the guesses back then. "It was the boy's step-father! It was his godfather! The man who died wasn't his real dad! The surgeon was his uncle, who thought he was his cousin!" Many people just did not think of the obvious solution because it was so far out of public consciousness to imagine. Yet, look at how far we have come. Such a riddle makes no sense at all today.
This poem strikes me kind of the same - in the future people will puzzle that it was ever a stumper to figure this out.
Rita: But, don't you think this could be true? From the article: “Removing references to the sex of mothers could also reduce visibility of women in medical research and potentially threaten their autonomy.”
Rita: Gender Neutral Language Hurts Women
I'd have to see what the actual problems are before I could tell you if they are more serious and threatening to society than the lack of progress on equality for trans people.
Read more in the Archives.