Gender and Sex

Twitter Is Being Attacked For Loosening Its Hateful Conduct Policy. Twitter Shouldn’t Have A Hateful Conduct Policy [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

It is increasingly obvious that the progressive critics of Elon Musk’s efforts to make Twitter a neutral platform that encourages and facilitates communication and dialogue never wanted free speech. They wanted speech that they approved of and that advanced their agendas. The pre-Musk iteration of Twitter pleased them: conservatives breached the slanted rules and enforcement of them; those using ad hominem attacks against the “right” targets and “for the greater good” knew they had a free pass.

In the Bizarro World of “DEI,” fairness isn’t equitable, equal treatment isn’t fair, and free speech isn’t “safe.”

The latest example of this attitude came as Twitter modified its “Hateful Conduct Policy” this month. The prohibitions on “Slurs and Tropes” no longer includes “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” Deadnaming is when one intentionally (or unintentionally) uses a transgender individual’s pre-transitioning name, as in calling Caitlin Jenner “Bruce.”

This reasonable and ethical removal of a restriction ripe for abuse by speech censors and WrongThink police has now been labelled proof of Twitter’s approval of transphobia. In fact, it should mark the beginning of the elimination of the “Hateful Conduct Policy” entirely.

At the threshold, the very title of the section wounds free speech goals: it supports the Totalitarian Left’s position that mere speech is conduct that makes certain groups and individuals “unsafe,” and that the “hate speech” label, which cannot be defined sufficiently precisely not to be abused as a standard, describes expression that is not protected by the First Amendment.

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Similar To The Transwomen Sports Scam, But Not Really: Cheating, But It Shouldn’t Be

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

That photo above makes me laugh. It shows 25-year-old Stanley Omondi dressed in a burka as he attempted to win the $3,000 grand prize in a Kenyan women’s chess tournament by posing as female. He looks like Cousin It from “The Addams Family.” See?

Stanley’s black burka left only his feet visible, and he registered under the fake name of “Millicent Awour.” Nobody suspected anything, and the organizers didn’t want to challenge a player for wearing Muslim garb. But his victories against notable female players eventually raised suspicions. “It would be unlikely to have a new person who has never played a tournament to be this strong,” an official told reporters. It also seemed odd that “Millicent” never spoke, either to members of the tournament staff or other players. Eventually, after beating a very strong opponent in the fourth round, Stanley was confronted by officials. He quickly admitted his deception, saying that he was just trying to solve his financial woes.

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Ethics Dunce, Rabbi and “Rolling Stone” Columnist Jay Michaelson Provides A Depressing Lesson In How “Bias Makes You Stupid”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Was this really so hard an episode to respond to competently?

As discussed in this post, the Dalai Lama got himself videoed while pressuring a young boy to kiss him (on the lips) and asking the boy to <cough> suck the holy man’s tongue. Too bad Peter Graves is dead: he could play the Dalai Lama in a movie…

“Joey…would you like to suck my tongue?” was apparently cut. But I digress.

On “CNN Tonight” panel this week, and host Alisyn Camerota asked Michaelson to comment on the disturbing video. Ethics Aalrms frozen solid, the rabbi answered,

“The Dalai Lama is a very playful human being. And we may see this in a weird, kind of gross, sexualized way, but this is about as sexual as a bowl of plain rice. There is nothing sexual … or erotic happening in this encounter. Tibetan culture just has different boundaries…[the tongue] is what we kiss with, it’s sexualized … it’s not seen that way in Tibetan culture. This is a part of the body. It’s something playful….The apology was in order. This was clearly something that was at best, you know, insensitive to how this would be seen by a large swath of the world population. [But]“the Dalai Lama is one of my spiritual heroes. I have met him. Being in his presence is really one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had in my life. And the aura of loving kindness that he has is evident, even here where he’s being playful in a way that in Western culture would certainly be inappropriate.”

Since the rabbi wasn’t defending Joe Biden, Camerota felt free to actually practice journalism and challenge this spin, saying, “the boy doesn’t want to” kiss the Dalai Lama or suck his tongue,” and adding that the Dalai Lama is “taking the boy’s head … just sort of reading the body language here. I’ll take your word for it that it seemed differently there culturally, but the boy doesn’t seem to be wanting to participate in this.”

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The Bud Light Trans-Pandering Fiasco Sucks Ann Althouse Into Her Most Clueless Post Ever

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments

I am, as regular readers here know, generally an admirer of Ann Althouse, the retired Madison Wis. law professor who has operated a long-time blog with a wide following I can only envy. But when Ann jumps the rails, she doesn’t fool around, and her post today commenting on the Bud Light-Dylan Mulroney ethics train wreck makes me marvel, not for the first time, at some of her blind spots.

As usual, someone else’s article triggered her analysis; in this case, it was “Bud Light suffers bloodbath as longtime and loyal consumers revolt against transgender campaign/’In Bud Light’s effort to be inclusive, they excluded almost everybody else,’ says a St. Louis bar owner” at the Fox Business website. The passage that triggered Ann was this:

“Bud Light vice president of marketing Alissa Heinerscheid said she was inspired to update the ‘fratty’ and ‘out-of-touch’ humor of the beer company with ‘inclusivity’ in a March 30 interview with the podcast ‘Make Yourself At Home.’But her effort to be inclusive excluded the people who matter most — Bud Light drinkers, according to St. Louis-area operator John Rieker. ‘It’s kind of mind-boggling they stepped into this realm,’ Rieker, who owns Harpo’s Bar and Grill in Chesterfield, Missouri, told FOX Business. ‘You’re marketing to an audience that represents a fraction of 1% of consumers while alienating the much larger base of your consumers.'”

Here are Althouse’s reactions, with my reactions to her, because this cannot be left unrebutted: Continue reading →

A”What’s Going On Here?” Special: Bud Light’s Promotion of Dylan Mulvaney

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, a self-promoting trans-girl who for some reason is an internet “influencer,” posted a video last week promoting the brand’s Easy Carry Contest, in which participants must demonstrate how many cans Budweiser’s worst brew they can carry to win $15,000. Bud Light had sent Mulvaney a  commemorative can featuring an illustration of the Ex-Man’s face with a message congratulating her on “365 days of girlhood.”

Then all hell broke loose. Conservatives are calling for a boycott of Bud Light. Kid Rock posted a video of himself wearing a MAGA baseball cap, shooting up a case of Bud Light and saying, “Fuck Bud Light, and fuck Anheuser-Busch!”

“What’s going on here?”

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Ethically And Legally, Yeshiva University Can’t Have It Both Ways

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Yeshiva University is in a legal fight with a group of LGBTQ students, the YU Pride Alliance, that demands that the Modern Orthodox Jewish university recognize their campus club. To make the argument that it can refuse to do so, Yeshiva is claiming that it is a religious institution, which would which would exempt it from anti-discrimination laws under the First Amendment.

There’s a problem, though, a rather substantial one. Before the 2021 lawsuit, Yeshiva held itself out as an educational institution, which made it eligible for public funds but also meant that it could not defy city and state non-discrimination laws. The institution has received an estimated $230 million in taxpayer dollars to pay for the construction and renovation of its facilities, among other expenses, when it claimed to be an educational institution before 2021.

Now Yeshiva is stuck. The chairman of the State Senate Judiciary Committee has stated, “Regardless of anyone’s motives, misrepresentation to procure public money is dishonest and could potentially violate state law.” If it acquired those state funds legitimately, then Yeshiva cannot deny the students their organization without breaking the law. If the school has always been a religious institution as it now claims, it engaged in fraud by claiming otherwise to get $230 million dollars. Continue reading →

No, This Is Not An April Fools Post. It Is A “Great Stupid” Post That I WISH Were An April Fools Post…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

The standard issue virtue-signaling woke gibberish above introduces Michigan State University’s “Strategic Plan,” which is more virtue-signaling woke gibberish. You can’t “empower excellence” if you “advance equity,” since equity now means “pay no attention to excellence or actual qualifications and ability, the goal is to make sure everyone gets to the same place.” That requires penalizing excellence, or hobbling it. The strategic plan itself is introduced with this consultant-speak blather: “We envision a Michigan State University that has significantly expanded opportunity and advanced equity, elevated its excellence in ways that attach vital talent and support, and has a vibrant, caring community. Our trajectory is positive, and our will is legendary. We can and will achieve more in the decade ahead.”

Ramalalama-ding-dong! But that’s not what prompts this post.

One of the ways MSU seeks to achieve its goals is by limiting WrongThink through the meticulous constriction of language using the excuse of, you guessed it, “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” On the MSU website, this is introduced by this self-contradictory, indeed Orwellian graphic:

Oh.

What????

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Ethics Alarms Archives Encore: “If ‘A Boy Named Sue’ Had Problems, What’s Chance Does An ‘It’ Named Searyl Have?”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Introduction (March 31, 2023)

When I was preparing for yesterday’s final post about the French family fighting to overcome France’s paternalistic government bureaucrats from inflicting the name “Hades” on their infant son, I considered introducing the tale with Johnny Cash’s famous rendition of Shel Silverstein’s “A Boy Named Sue.” But I suspected that I had used the song before, and sure enough I had, in the post that follows, from six years ago.

The main thrust of the essay is the ethical issue touched on in the Hades story as well as others here through the years: the unethical act of giving children weird names. I was surprised, however, to see the post’s prescient and remarkably currently relevant commentary about the transgender insanity that was then no more than a twinkle in the Woke-Deranged mob’s metaphorical eye.

Wow, I nailed it. (Hence my doppleganger Fredo’s appearance in the clip from the Ethics Alarms clip collection.)Too bad only a small cadre of the ethically enlightened and intellectually curious read this blog: forewarned, maybe the current madness that has teachers encouraging fifth grade girls to cut off their breasts and large swathes of society urging momentarily confused boys to call themselves by plural pronouns and “identify” as “non-binary” could have been avoided, or at least minimized. This is my fault, of course; I’m the one who hasn’t figured out how to be an “influencer,” while 21-year-old Kardashians can. I get my self blackballed by NPR by daring to defend Donald Trump on a flaming progressive’s show.

Fredo.

But I digress—sorry. The quote below that struck me was this one:

This is what happens when you let the nose of a flatulent and rude camel into your tent. Those with gender issues should not be abused, beaten, or discriminated against. Agreed. They should have access to medical treatment connected to their condition. Absolutely. They should be able to openly declare their status without fear of reprisals, and people with compassion, manners and ethics shouldn’t teat them like freaks. Got it.

But they do not have leave to re-make the world in their image, and cry foul if the majority draws reasonable lines and says: No. Behave.

Here is the post, from July 10, 2017:

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Ethics Hero: Avi Silverberg, Whose Pronouns Are “Whatever Lets Me Win”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Avi Silverberg, a Canadian male powerlifting coach, self-identified as a woman last week to participate in the women’s Heroes Classic Powerlifting Meet in Lethbridge, Alberta. (That’s “her” above.) As the current record holder, a transgender male-now-female, looked on, the large, bearded athlete broke the Alberta women’s bench press record. Appropriately, Avi didn’t even try to look like a girl. Priceless.

Silverberg could do this “fair and square” because the truly stupid Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU) had established a liberal gender self-identification policy (the “Trans Inclusion Policy”) earlier this year, so any male can now compete as a woman as long as he/she feels like a woman on that particular day. “Based on this background and available evidence, the Expert Working Group felt that trans athletes should be able to participate in the gender with which they identify, regardless of whether or not they have undergone hormone therapy,” the policy document reads, deferring to the “inclusivity” guidance from the CCES (The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport)

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring:

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Josselyn Berry, Arizona governor Katie Hobbs’s press secretary, was somehow moved to tweet this…

…just days after a transgender former student went into a Christian school and shot six people dead, including three nine-year-olds. But hey, that should teach anyone who criticizes pro-trans mania to watch what they say, right?

First Berry shuttered her Twitter account, then she resigned.

A few observations:

  • I continue to find it fascinating that the same party that flogs the talking point that conservatives peddle hate and incite violence constantly does things like this. Here, for example, is Minnesota’s Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan:

Nice! Funny, I would argue that kids need to be protected from adults trying to convince them that they need puberty blockers and other life-altering treatments that should be hidden from their parents, but I wouldn’t use a knife to do it.

  • In addition to the other things wrong with Berry’s tweet, it’s spectacularly bad timing to condemn “transphobia” after a trans individual has gone on a killing spree.
  • This is exactly the kind of tweet Twitter should just leave out there. It’s useful to know what such tweeters are really like, especially when an elected official employs them.