Plurals and gender, what's an old person to do?

"Each is" or "each are." No matter how many are in the group, club or lunch bunch, it's still Each of the ladies is going to pay her own bill. But I have to admit, with all the gender blending going on beginning in the lower grades with woke trained teachers, trying to align a noun and pronoun is a challenge.

Sometimes I just have to blog it.  If I say anything, I'd be asked to be the editor.

Magical thinking about biology and gender

I'm so done with the magical thinking that people can retroactively change their biology. The prefix "trans-" has been very useful in our language until the Left took a hold of it and then attached it to the word gender. It seems to me that trendy, confusing terms come either from prisons, or academe. Both habitats are closed, bound, narrow societies.

 
The root of GENder means birth, descent, race, kind, to beget, to be born; from that root we have useful words like Genesis, genre, gene, genealogy, general, generate, generic, genital, genocide, genuine, genius, progeny, indigenous, gentile (not belonging to the race), and gentle (noble birth). It's basic. Even as a suffix GEN means origin. There are no do-overs, except in being born again (from above, and that has nothing to do with the topic).

The prefix TRANS is used for across, beyond, or change. Transubstantiation (bread and wine after consecration change to the body of Christ in the eucharist), transnational, translation, transportation, transfusion, transgression, transform, transcription, transcendentalism, and so forth.

Transgenderism cannot exist in reality--it can be a philosophy, a religion, a fantasy, a mental illness, but it is not origin or from birth; removing a penis and then using the flap to create a vagina is mutilation, not affirmation of a personal desire to be something else.

 
Stop coddling these word thieves who insist that the other 99% be blind, deaf and stupid about reality and biology. Every cell in the body has a sex. Cutting off some parts or padding other parts doesn't not change sex. Mascara and rouge for sure doesn't. This doesn't mean there aren't accidents that happen in the womb or at conception, but usually the whole world doesn't need to genuflect to these anomalies. There are no transwomen, no transmen, no transgender, no T in LGBQ; and for those barking at the door of reality, remember there are also no transspecies or Otherkin so we don't have to have litter boxes in the classroom. They can fantasize at home.

Queer Theory is big in anthropology

It's shocking how stupid educated people can be. Maybe it's because women outnumber men in college degrees (since 2008). And you can't compromise with them. It's gone way beyond using the correct pronoun with a colleague or not dead naming people, now they must foist their insane beliefs on people dead for thousands of years. We lost the battle when we agreed to use the word "gender" as a biological thing instead of a sick fantasy. Leftists have created a new tower of Babel in attempting to be god. It won't end well.

"We used to say there’s sex, and gender. Sex is biological, and gender is not. Then it’s no, you can no longer talk about sex. Sex and gender are one, and separating the two makes you a transphobe, when of course it doesn’t. In anthropology and many topics, the goalposts are continuously moved. And, because of that, we need to stand up and say, “I’m not moving from my place unless there’s good scientific evidence that my place is wrong.” And I don’t think there is good scientific evidence that there are more than two sexes." Elizabeth Weiss, a professor of anthropology at San José State University, whose panel discussion for the November Toronto conference was deep-sixed as not being "settled science." https://www.city-journal.org/article/dis-empaneled?

There is much to respond to in this portion of AAA’s statement. First, it’s ironic for the organization to accuse scientists of committing the “cardinal sin” of “assuming the truth” of something, and then to justify cancelling those scientists’ panel on the grounds that the panelists refuse to accept purportedly “settled science.” Second, the panel was organized to discuss biological sex (i.e., the biology of males and females), not “gender roles”; pivoting from discussions of basic biology to murkier debates about sex-related social roles and expectations is a common tactic of gender ideologues. Third, the AAA’s argument that a person’s “gender role” might not “align neatly” with his or her reproductive anatomy implies the existence of normative behaviors for members of each sex. Indeed, this is a central tenet of gender ideology that many people dispute and warrants the kind of discussion the panel intended to provide.  (Colin Wright, author of the CJ article)

Critical Theory and Woke

It's not Diversity Inclusion and Equity. It's not ESG.  It's not BLM Woke. It's not Climate Change or Sustainable Development. It's not Feminism. It's not LGBTQ or Intersectionality. But you'll need all those words. It's all of them, trussed and tied and tortured together.

Together they mean the Oppressed and the Oppressor. Marxist-inspired movement in social and political philosophy. No matter the color or race of the speaker, or the income, or the sex or gender of the agitprop, or whether they wear a pink hat or a black hoodie, it's all critical theory, so someone has to be oppressed, got to have victims. In this class/race/gender system, the poorest, disabled white child in Appalachia is the oppressor of the billionaire black NBA star.

And it's all the mischief of a bunch of old white guys, mostly European--Marx, Nietzsche, Sarte, Foucault and Freire (he was Brazilian). They've danced, partied and slept promiscuously with academics for 40 years, then moved in to seduce politicians, and now are colonizing the largest corporations, the very oppressors they've learned to love (because that's where the real money is).

The original perps failed in real life, and their claim to fame until recently was a hundred million dead in the 20th century; but now it's constant turmoil, death and destruction in the 21st.

Joe Biden worsens the danger for children--Why do Democrats support him?

 " . . . when a school strives to create a “safe, welcoming, and inclusive” environment for transgender-identified students, it greatly increases the chance that children who might otherwise go through a temporary stage of identity exploration or confusion will reject their bodies in favor of a risky experimental medical protocol."

The School-to-Clinic Pipeline | City Journal (city-journal.org)

Sex is not gender

According to Institute of Medicine, “sex” is a biological construct dictated by the presence of sex chromosomes and in animals and humans the presence of functional reproductive organs. On the other hand, “gender” is a cultural concept referring to behaviors that might be directed by specific stimuli (visual, olfactory) or by psychosocial expectations that result from assigned or perceived sex and therefore can influence biological outcomes.

I'd translate this as "God made sex, and man (specifically left leaning, European males with PhDs working in the social sciences) made gender." By now, you know more about women than Justice elect Jackson. (She is married to a white physician and has two beautiful bi-racial daughters, at least that's apparent.)

In God's plan, each person has as many as 30-40 trillion cells, and each cell has a sex. Men and women should not be competing for the same drugs in disease, nor the same medals in athletics. The amount of oxygen transported to your body parts depends on your red blood cell count and men have many more than women. Diseases that affect the brain, the gut, the skin, the skeleton, etc. act very differently in men and women. Women will be the ones hurt most in my opinion because in the transagenda, they are made infertile, there's no data on the long term effects of the hormones, healthy body parts are amputated and drugs must be taken. Even if they trick the eye to ignore sexual dimorphism and keep their reproductive organs, they aren't men at the cellular level.

Unfortunately, "wokeism" has moved from the social sciences to the STEM, and now this article (2014) probably would not be published.

Males have a Y chromosome as well an an X and females have 2 X chromosomes. That doesn't mean "mistakes" don't happen. Some boys get an extra Y and grow very tall, but may have low muscle tone and widely spaced eyes. Some girls are born with XO--missing one X--and may have numerous developmental problems including no ovaries and heart defects. We don't judge all people based on the needs of just 2 examples of biological misfiring before birth. Before the last 2 decades we didn't encourage systemic body failures with "gender studies" and then ask the rest of the world to pretend things are normal.

That's what is happening in some school districts which want "gender" rather than "sex" taught to very small children in the early grades. Ohio House Bill 616 would ban both instruction and materials about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade in all public and most private schools. I heard on the Bruce Hooley Show (https://989theanswer.com/radioshow/bruce-hooley) that Hilliard students are planning a protest on April 14 (it's not a law, hasn't even been debated) with the administration's blessing, although it is a violation of the state law to do so without being charged with tardiness. To listen start with segment 1 around 20 min. in.

"Do you know the sex of your cells?"
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpcell.00281.2013

The ultimate cultural appropriation--transagenda.

"Trans ideology robs women of their history and takes male privilege to a whole new level—all in the name of women’s rights." Carl R. Trueman

What is a woman these days?

 

Joan’s new great grandchild, guest blogger

“Our granddaughter is a few weeks pregnant - still in the first trimester. She had tests this week that tell doctors what gender that baby is, whether he/she has any abnormalities such as Down Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, etc., and whether the developing body parts are developing normally. His/her gender is part of the basic structure of this little human being. Nobody is “assigning” a gender or forecasting his/her humanity. The doctor doesn’t say, “The clump of cells that might be his head is forming normally.” They say, “The baby’s head is normal size and shape.” This baby IS already who he/she is. Just sayin’ “

Politics and religion going public

“Were I to launch into a sermon on the upcoming presidential election, my email box would short-circuit from the deluge of opinions many would need to communicate. However, because this sermon is on the life of Meister Eckhart, chances are good that when it comes to email I'll receive nary a byte. Face it, theology fails to generate the same temperature of heated discourse as politics, despite the admonition against bringing up either politics or religion on a first date.

On the other hand, were these the Middle Ages, the ceaseless subject matter of CNN or Fox News would be the moods and moves of God rather than the latest exploits of kings and princes. In medieval Europe, where earthly life was precarious and death the daily dread, the life to come was the only life that warranted debate.”

You can read the rest of this interesting sermon on Eckhart,  but I really chose this part because of its truth on speaking out and the dangers of writing about politics and religion.  So few people are passionate these days about religion that if you have a belief or opinion about the nativity, baptism, end times, or communion few will challenge you because they may believe all ways lead to God, or all truth is what I say it is.  Politics, however, especially if made public can get you fired, lose friends, destroy relationships, or even get your home attacked by Antifa, as Tucker Carlson found out (and he’s not even a Trump supporter but has spoken out about the D.C.  “elites” in his latest book, “Ship of Fools.”)

• Are you pro-life?  That used to be a religious issue, but is now such a hotly debated topic on heartbeats, selling baby parts and tax support, good friends best not discuss it.
• Marriage?  That also used to be a religious issue, but divorce and infidelity were the morality topics.  Not now.  It’s about baking cakes and fixing floral arrangements, and whether you can lose your business for being on the wrong side of Democrat party politics.
• Gender? God created man and woman used to be a debate about long day, short day, and whether this Biblical story was myth or fact, and now it’s about transphobia and your first amendment right to not only have a religion belief, but freedom of speech.
• Pronouns for God? Feminists used to rail about the masculine pronouns used in the Trinitarian Godhead,  or in traditional hymns, now we can not even use the pronouns he, she, him, her in ordinary discourse or writing!

So yes, it’s far safer to blog or Facebook about religion—it’s just that liberal politics have been co-opting religion so picking a topic is dancing in a mine field. 

Blood transfusions from women to men

If further study shows that men receiving blood transfusions from women who have been pregnant is more risky than receiving blood from men, I wonder if the research will be accepted or condemned as transphobic. It would show that men and women aren't interchangeable based on feelings. Just in case history and biology haven't shown that to be obvious.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2657356?redirect=true

https://www.sciencealert.com/blood-transfusions-from-women-could-be-more-risky-for-men

Where is the divide between liberal and conservative?

What is the dividing line between liberal and conservative?  Government.  The bigger the better for liberals, smaller and only as much as necessary for conservatives. At least that's in the speeches, both have contributed to our own bloated government. And as in many issues, some go farther to left to extreme statism like the USSR or Nazi Germany, and some farther to the right to libertarianism or anarchy, the absence of government like Haiti with no services, no army, no infrastructure.

It’s not that abortion didn’t happen before 1973 when it was legalized nationally, but now it’s government protected and supported with tax money.  Now it’s in the platform of one major party. Now many churches support it, unthinkable when I was growing up. Now it takes the lives of many blacks, females and disabled, people expendable unless old enough to vote as a block.

There's also a religious divide. 92% of Congress say they are Christians compared to only 73% of American adults.  That probably reflects the average age difference. Conservatives are more likely to be Evangelical Christians than members of Mainline denominations, and see life as sacred, even if born into poverty or difficult circumstances. At the 50% mark, half to the right, and 39% to the left with 11% uncommitted, eight denominations are Evangelical and two are Mainline.  Of the "nones" 26% are Republican, 26% uncommitted, and 49% Democrat. So you can be a liberal in good standing with no religion at all, but might have some push back on that if you are a Conservative. (Pew Research)

It’s not that families didn’t suffer from divorce and children weren’t left with no father before 1964, but now Uncle Sam brings home the bacon and women are told they can do it all--with enough government and no dad at home. Conservatives are more likely to believe that men matter. It is liberals seem to have a war against men, pushing the LGBTQ agenda and advocating for the cis-gender. The income gap is also viewed as a liberal/conservative issue--conservative economics seems aware that it depends on the number of earners in a household, with over twice as many earners in the top income quintile households (1.98) than earners per household in the lowest-income households (0.41). Two is more than 4/10th, but we're in the age of dumbed down math also encouraged more by liberals than conservatives.

It’s not that both liberals and conservatives don’t claim the rights to our constitution.  Liberals want a plastic, expanding and growing constitution. Something modern for times of crisis and dysfunction. Conservatives want the one on which our country was founded. Conservatives are much more likely to quote the founders; liberals think that could be racist since a few owned slaves, and prefer some ideological progeny of Karl Marx or Saul Alinsky. (The great lie.)

Both liberals and conservatives acknowledge we have three branches of government for checks and balances, but liberals want a weak Congress with its power shifted to the Executive or to the Judicial.  Congress, after all, represents the people through the ballot, and they can’t be as easily controlled from a central location like Washington, DC. It’s disorganized and partisan, as it was designed to be. Conservatives press for a stronger Congress, which has the power of the purse, and that‘s just unthinkable in the White House which sees all tax money as its own.  And that’s the case whether a Bush or an Obama is living there.

Liberals want higher taxes to support a stronger central government.  Conservatives claim to want more power residing in the corporate world, with more profit going to investors, not to the government directly, but they want to control politicians through their own lobbyists. Both the left and right, liberals and conservatives, accuse the other of being fat cats, made rich on corporate influence and lobbies. Of the top ten in Congress, eight are Democrats, although in looking over the entire list, no one is poor, and after doing their “public service” both liberals and conservatives enter think tanks, corporate boards and lobbyist groups.  John Boehner, recently one of the most powerful men in Congress, is now representing Big Tobacco interests. Also, I've never heard of the wealthiest Democrat, so perhaps he doesn't show up much. (List of current members of Congress by Wealth)

Who's behind the latest organized harassment of women?

What exactly is the political motivation of this attack on women? 51% of the population we are, almost. Is it more men competing in athletic competitions designed specifically for women? Maybe some smaller men can't compete with men, so they'll go for the gold against women? Would you really want Bruce Jenner in the senior women's games? 

More voyeurs in dressing rooms? Shouldn't peeping Toms be in the bushes where they can be arrested instead of being protected by city ordinances or the federal government? More photos of women on toilets uploaded to the internet so men can laugh at them? 

Is it passive aggressive hate because we're just getting too much power--women running for president in both parties? Filling top positions in government and business so let's harass them. First the media tried to inflate campus rape statistics (perhaps to scare women away?), while college administrations demand that students having sex use consent forms, then they offer to give away our privacy for some political cause which can easily be solved other ways. 

It seems to be entirely coming from the left. And Democrats. Are they conflicted about their sexuality?

50 shades of gender

If progressives have their way with us, men will have no say in what happens to their unborn children, and women will have no say in what happens in the stalls of the restrooms. Last week the head of Planned Parenthood told men to sit down, shut up, and just write the checks when it comes to abortion and Bruce Springsteen told women to shut up and find another place to take of business.


   

http://freedomdaily.com/creepy-man-dressed-woman-arrested-spying-mall-bathroom-stall/

When you see statistics about HIV in women, keep this in mind. In New York City, from 2007-2011, there were 191 new diagnoses of HIV infection among transgender people, 99% of which were among transgender women. This is "self-identification" according to the CDC and the external genitalia doesn't matter. But in gathering data on diseases, they are called "women." Two-Spirit is not yet a category for health.

If you go to the CDC website on treating STDs of transgendered people, you'll see the definition does not include what the genitalia look like or whether they've had hormone shots and breast implants like Bruce Jenner, but it is how they feel about their gender assignment. Springsteen's not siding with "freedom fighters," he's siding with potential perverts. He lost some money in this deal, probably covered by insurance, but mostly it was the fans and the small vendors who have to eat the costs of his ignorance and hypocrisy. Some one percenters are just that inconsiderate.

I didn't think about the airlines collecting data on gender. How long will this be legal, does it discriminate against transgender or questioning and does Bruce Springsteen fly commercial? "Recent research by Javier Donna, assistant professor of economics at Ohio State, examines a large dataset with 6.4 million flight bookings in 2014 to analyze gender differences in the demand for planning business travel. The research finds female travelers book two days earlier than their male counterparts on average. Female travelers save about $17 per trip, or about 2% of the average ticket price."

Gender Identity and homeless shelters

Emergency shelters are the next target for regulations from the federal government elevating gender identity over health, safety, privacy, and religious liberty concerns. Why is this tiny fraction of a fraction of the population considered more important than the health, safety, privacy and religious liberty of women who have been women since conception and who have struggled for centuries for the crumbs of laws and protections given to men?

 http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=%2Fpress%2Fpress_releases_media_advisories%2F2015%2FHUDNo_15-150

Social gatherings segregated by sex

I've been to hundreds, maybe thousands, of social gatherings--church, neighborhood, clubs, academe, etc.--almost everyone is white, mid-west and Christian, but a few are black and Asian, particularly when I was younger.  Always by choice men and women separate themselves and discuss what they care about--sports, children, career, fashion, food. If the event is art or music, there might be some mixing, but by the end of the event, even those are divided by gender. Now that I’m retired, age is the big divider.  Now a Muslim woman objects.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/07/i-m-boycotting-sex-segregated-parties-in-my-muslim-american-community.html?source=TDB&via=FB_Page

You can choose from 51 genders on Facebook; what does God say?

Fifty one genders listed on Facebook?  Does language have meaning?  Some of you may be old enough to remember when “gay” and “queer” were pejoratives, now they seem to be the preferred terms. But does language matter? Our church (Lutheran) doesn’t discuss the language—or the acts—or the marriage—or the culture. Need to go elsewhere—to the Catholics.  Some insights.  Attorney Charles LiMandri explains why the Catholic Church does not use the terms "gay" and "lesbian" in Magisterial documents.   http://www.catholic.com/video/the-importance-of-language-in-the-homosexual-marriage-debate

What the people of California (and many other stats) said in 2008 and how the SCOTUS undid the will of the people.

LiMandri is smeared in every pro-same-sex program/article I’ve seen on the internet. Anyone who stands for traditional, scriptural or historical definition of marriage will now be called homophobic, hater, bigot, etc. So if that is also your opinion of scripture and culture and me, don’t bother to leave your hate comments here.

Caitlyn Bruce Jenner

She wants to be real, but the cover of Vanity Fair isn't it. Although most cover girls are photo shopped and digitized. She's also a Republican and a Christian. Bruce Jenner had 6 children, 3 wives (married a total of 37 years), was father to 4 step children, was an Olympic athlete who visited the White House, made commercials based on his fame and TV reality star with his Kardashian family. But Bruce Jenner is gone--we know that because if we use his name or the wrong personal pronoun, we'll be corrected or called “transphobic.” We'll have to see what Caitlyn can accomplish after the media find a new darling to chase.

What’s your gender?

A survey published in 2008 had a question about gender—and choices were male/man (26%), female/woman (41%), part time one or the other (20%), or fill in the blank with responders own term.  The fill in choice got 860 possibilities including genderqueer, hybrid, third gender, twidget, birl and pangender. 

I guess I’m not shocked that the researchers were shocked to find employment discrimination.

And I suppose that makes most of us anti-trany if we can’t figure it out.

“A gender not listed here,” The Williams Institute, UCLA, 2012

Planet Fitness expels female member for complaining about a man in her dressing room

Planet Fitness Welcomes Men in Women’s Locker Room, Kicks Out Objector

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
~Isaiah 5:20

On Saturday, Feb. 28 Yvette Cormier entered her Midland, Michigan Planet Fitness gym to work out. To her surprise, she found a man just inside the locker room entrance. She reported the incident to the front desk and was told that the man “identifies” as a woman and that Planet Fitness gyms—including their locker rooms—are “no judgment zones.” It should be noted that girls as young as 13 can join Planet Fitness and enjoy their “no judgment zones.”

I’ve seen his photo.  There’s just no way this is a woman. I don’t know why men think a padded bra, tights and a wig makes them  women.

Planet Fitness

“In the service of maintaining a “non-intimidating, welcoming environment,” corporate bigwigs allow a man in a women’s locker room and expel a woman from the gym because she doesn’t want to get naked in front of a strange man. Yes, the man in question was an actual man—you know, the kind born with anatomically correct penises. Even “transactivists” know humans can’t change their sex.

How, pray tell, do club managers verify the “sincerity” of a male member’s or guest’s claim that he wishes to be a woman? And why does sincerity of desire about one’s sex trump the objective state of one’s sex?”

About that pay inequity?

Mr. President,

the 60s called Tuesday night. They are upset that you don't know your history, employment law or what JFK did. The law about equal pay for equal work was passed in 1963. Employers are not allowed to discriminate based on gender. If they are not obeying the law, why didn't you do something? If they are not obeying that law, why will another one help? Also, women have earned 9 million more college degrees than men since 1982. They haven't been earning the same kind of degrees nor working the same number of hours, however. Last I checked, a mining engineer earned more than an art museum curator. Also for over 5 years, young, single college educated women have been earning more than young, single college educated men--in some cities like Atlanta and Memphis it's as much as 20%. Black women are so outpacing black men in college degrees, it is alarming. I think they get about 71% of the masters awarded to blacks students. What will you do about those gaps? Demand more laws?

Georgetown University did a study in 2011 of differences in gender and race in selecting a major. The study found that white men are concentrated in the highest-earning majors, including engineering and pharmaceutical sciences, while women gravitate toward the lowest-earning majors like education, art and social work.  The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education noted that educated white women were less likely to work full time than educated black women, accounting for the difference in their pay (educated black women earn more).

https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/omooxnult5yvuctf0ftl

http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html

http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/47_four-year_collegedegrees.html

http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/64_degrees.html

Employers can't discriminate by law, but I’m sure they can read resumes.  And HR reps can talk among themselves and note absences, difficulties with co-workers, willingness to travel, etc.