Gender and Sex

More Evidence California Doesn’t Get That First Amendment Thingy…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

It’s not the only one, but still…

Assembly Bill 1831, introduced by California Assemblyman Marc Berman (D–Palo Alto) this month, would expand the state’s definition of child pornography to include “representations of real or fictitious persons generated through use of artificially intelligent software or computer-generated means, who are, or who a reasonable person would regard as being, real persons under 18 years of age, engaging in or simulating sexual conduct.”

Does Berman comprehend why the possession of child pornography is a crime in the first place? Clearly not. Somebody please explain to him that the criminal element in child porn is the abuse of living children required to make it. The theory, which I have always considered something of a stretch but can accept the ethical argument it embodies from a utilitarian perspective, is that those who purchase or otherwise show a proactive fondness for such “art” in effect aid, abet, encourage and make possible the continuation of the criminal abuse and trafficking of minors. It is not that such photos, films and videos cause one to commit criminal acts on children. That presumption slides down a slippery slope that would justify banning everything from Mickey Spillane novels to “The Walking Dead.”

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From the “Res Ipsa Loquitur” Files…Ethics Dunces: Parents Who Allow Their Daughters To Be Subjected to THIS

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

That’s Henry Hanlon, apparently a male basketball player who “identifies” as female. Clearly, it’s good for his ego. (Can’t tell who I’m talking about in the photo? Guess!)

The San Francisco Waldorf high school girls basketball team is on a roll, thanks to its court domination by team captain Henry Hanlon. No, he doesn’t even bother to carry a female name. California’s Interscholastic Federation (CIF) established “Gender Identity Participation” rule in 2013, and it is bats.“All students should have the opportunity to participate in CIF athletics and/or activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity,” the policy states. As CIF’s Associate Executive Director Brian Seymour explains, “All of our athletes, all the eligible athletes, are afforded the opportunity to compete with the gender they feel most comfortable with.” Oh. I can see where a high school athlete might be “most comfortable” with a fanciful gender ID that allows him to feel like the Harlem Globetrotters playing against their eternal patsies, the Washington Generals.

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A “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias” Classic: CBS Reports on the Fani Willis Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Now that the anti-Trump, Democrat propaganda-promoting, biased and incompetent mainstream media has been forced to cover the unfolding Fani Willis ethics debacle that threatens to swallow her partisan “Get Trump!” prosecution, it is giving us blazing examples of just how untrustworthy its coverage can be. The headline above looms over CBS’s “news” story that is really a lame and transparent effort to try to spin the Fulton County DA out of the mess of her own making.

The focus of the report is that poor Fani just about had to hire her lover as one of the prosecutors in the high profile case against Donald Trump, because she was “unable to find someone in the DA’s office with the stature and credentials needed for the case,” and “turned to at least two other legal heavy hitters in Atlanta who turned the job down.” Then the article, while conceding that Nathan Wade had little relevant experience, tells us that Wade was Willis’s “friend and mentor” <cough!> and that she told colleagues he “had the toughness to handle the scorched-earth legal tactics that Trump’s lawyers and their co-counsel were likely to employ in the legal battle.” You know, because Trump is such an evil bastard.

Then the article explains that…

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“Confronting My Biases” Meets “The Ethicist”: The Webcam Model Son

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“The Ethicist,” Kwame Anthony Appiah, was oh so sensitive answering this query from a concerned parent:

….I have just found out that my [college age] son is a “model” on a pornographic streaming service. My initial reaction was shock, revulsion and shame. But the longer I think about it, the more I wonder, is there really anything immoral or otherwise wrong about what he is doing? He does it from the privacy of his home, alone, and seems to earn a substantial amount of money. If he likes what he does, is there any reason on my part to feel alarmed, ashamed, guilty or worried?

The NYU philosophy prof essentially says that nobody is being hurt by the son’s activities, so they cannot be called “wrong.” He then explains, as I cut through the verbiage…

“If we agree that your son’s camming isn’t wrong, what explains your initial sense of revulsion? Part of your response might arise from the familiar intrafamilial squeamishness about sexual disclosures. That response, then, may have been connected not with what he was doing but with you, as his parent, knowing about it….you can also have prudential concerns. How would his prospects be affected if word got out about his webcam gig? Livestreams can be recorded and uploaded. Even if you think that erotic livestreaming is neither wrong nor shameful, it’s natural, as a parent, to worry about how others might react…There’s nothing hypocritical about compartmentalizing a cam gig. Pretty much all cultures — and subcultures — have ideas about modesty, privacy and discretion, and so understandings about the contexts where erotic display or simply nudity is appropriate.”

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Comment of the Day: “Army Policy Is Apparently That Its Prosecutors Must ‘Believe All Women’”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

As I thought it might, the post about the Army’s head sexual assault prosecutor being fired because a decade’s old email suggested that defense attorneys would have to fight hard for the rights of accused servicemen being targeted by politicians “with an agenda” quickly attracted intense commentary. (Oddly, or perhaps not, the story has been largely ignored by mainstream media. My mining of obscure legal ethics sources has its benefits.) No commentary was more illuminating or useful than this, the Comment of the Day by 77Zoomie, on the post, “Army Policy Is Apparently That Its Prosecutors Must ‘Believe All Women’”…

***

Some thoughts from someone who has both prosecuted and defended sexual assault cases in military courts.

Although it is a difficult concept for most civilian attorneys to grasp, the military justice system that was put in place in the early 1950s (as the Uniform Code of Military Justice) Is designed to accomplish two, sometimes contradictory, tasks. The first is to provide constitutional due process to service members accused of any of a specific list of crimes delineated by the UCMJ. Military defense counsel are obviously crucial in this process because they are frequently the only individuals with the capability to adequately overcome the tremendous advantage possessed by the prosecution on a military installation. Prosecution authority rests ultimately in a series of commanders at various levels. These individuals have unlimited resources at their disposal, including the ability to select potential jurors and to influence proceedings in any one of a thousand different ways, some obvious but most not. Military defense attorneys are generally removed from the formal chain of command so that local commanders cannot affect the career of a zealous defense counsel working to protect the interests of her client.

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Army Policy Is Apparently That Its Prosecutors Must “Believe All Women”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This story, initially reported by the Associated Press, is at very least ominous, and at most a reminder that the Biden Administration’s position is that a man accused of sexual assault is considered guilty until proven innocent.

Unless the man is Joe Biden, of course.

At the beginning of last month, the Army’s head sexual assault prosecutor, Brig. Gen. Warren Wells, was fired from his job by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. The justification given was a 2013 email in which he had the audacity to remind Army defense lawyers that they were the last line of defense against false accusations. The message read,

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The Vagina Dress: What’s Going On Here?

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Actress Gillian Anderson of “X Files” fame caused a stir at last night’s Golden Globe awards by wearing a dress decorated with meticulously embroidered vaginas. They were impossible to see on TV since they were the same color as the dress (thank goodness for that) but see? Look closely now…

Vaginas. Though she later said they were “peonies,” Anderson told several reporters that her dress was embroidered with vaginas. Why? “For so many reasons. It’s brand-appropriate,” Anderson explained cryptically.

What is this? A feminist statement, like the infamous “pussy hats”? A diabolical insult to the Golden Globes? If an obscene design can only be detected up close and with the aid of hints, does that make it less obscene? Would a male tux with almost invisible embroidered black penises in the fabric be considered appropriate formal wear? How about nearly invisible embroidery showing various graphic sex acts? What if the designs reveal to the sharp-of-eye acts of pederasty? What if Gillian dress had “Fuck you!” beautifully embroidered on it? Is a vulgar design at a public event not vulgar if nobody notices it? Has polite society vanished so completely that a stunt like this is considered acceptable? Social media apparently loved it.

Dana expresses my reaction perfectly…

I just don’t know, Dana. I really don’t.

Will Someone Please Explain To Me Why A School Board Would Settle This Case?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The settlement was for the defendant school board to pay the grand total of $101 toformer student Brielle Penkoski three years after she was sent home from the Livingston Academy public high school (in Tennessee) for wearing the shirt above. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media hasn’t carried this story, as damages that tiny are considered symbolic at best. However, the fact that the defendant paid at all is symbolic, and from my viewpoint, it symbolizes a misreading of the First Amendment.

Yeah, yeah, the settlement came with the typical boilerplate language stating that the result comes “without acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of any party or the agents or employees of any party, which wrongdoing is expressly denied.” But Christian Right publications and websites are cheering the result—the school board will also pay the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees and costs—as vindication.

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Fire The Teacher And School Board, Pull Out All The Students, Raze The Building And Sow The Grounds With Salt…But First, GET OUT!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Ugh. Here is another one of those “conservative stories” that so far the progressive media has ignored. I can’t find any non-conservative reports, but it appear to be real. A tenth-grade teacher of “Ethnic Studies World History” at Chief Sealth International High School (Could there be a description that screams “Woke mania!” any more shrilly?) failed a student on a class quiz called “Understanding Gender vs. Sex” because he wrote that only women can become pregnant as an answer to one question and and that only men have penises on another.

According to local radio 770 KTTH, some of the questions on the quiz focused involved personal pronoun use (“When someone uses ‘they/them’ pronouns, what does that mean about their gender identity?”) and stereotypes. (“True/false: Transgender people are gay”). Question 4 asked for a true or false response to the statement, “All men have penises.” The student chose “true” because 99.9% of the time it is true. The teacher marked it incorrect. Question 7 was another true or false question, “Only women can get pregnant.” Again, The same student marked this statement “true” as well. The teacher believes that men can get pregnant, though 99.999999999999999999999+ men throughout history and currently could not and can not.

The child’s mother is perplexed, reportedly telling the Jason Rantz Show on the radio station that her complaints have gone unanswered, and that her son says he has been called “fucked and racist” and “a product of the patriarchy” by teachers in the school.

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A Boy Who Identifies As A Girl Won An Irish Dancing Competition…Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I was thinking of making this an ethics quiz, but I couldn’t decide what to ask.

The Daily Signal reports—an exclusive!—that a teenage boy who identifies as a girl is heading to the Irish Dancing World Championships after placing first in the U14 2023 Southern Region Oireachtas competitions. The conservative website tells us that the winner competed as a boy and placed 11th in the world in the Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) World Championships just eight months ago, in April 2023. (These kids just grow up and change sex so darn fast these days!). In the meantime, a “non-binary” contestant won another Irish dancing competition in August.

Irish dancing competitions are typically divided by gender. The Daily Signal reports, “Parents of girls competing in Irish dance are frustrated and outraged, saying that they cannot understand why a boy with physical advantages is allowed to dance against their daughters.” Huh? I would think a male would have only physical disadvantages in competing against girls in a dancing competition, just as a male dancer would be at a disadvantage trying to win the part of the Sugarplum Fairy in “The Nutcracker.” I assume female Irish dancers are supposed to appear, well, feminine while wowing judges with their footwork. If not, why is the competition restricted to girls?

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