Trans Activism Ethics Train Wreck

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC.)

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

During a House Oversight Committee meeting, Rep. Nancy Mace used the derogatory term “tranny” in discussing legislation aimed at various aspects of the contentions transgender issue. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, objected. “The gentlelady has used a phrase that is considered a slur in the LGBTQ community and the transgender community,” he said.

That is correct. Moreover, this is not a new development: “tranny” is an old slur, and unlike some terms that have been declared slurs after once being considered acceptable (I forget: is “queer” a slur now, or isn’t it?) that term for a transexual has always been used as an insult.

Nevertheless Mace, emulating the outburst that ended Dr. Laura’s radio career (Except that she said, “Nigger, nigger, nigger!”), spat back, “Tranny, tranny, tranny! I don’t really care. You want penises in women’s bathrooms, and I’m not gonna have it. No, thank you.”

For this illogical and needlessly uncivil response, Mace has been cheered by some conservative pundits. Now that’s transphobia and bigotry. “Tranny” is in the same ugly category as nigger, spic, gook, retard, fag, dyke, cunt, and other indisputably denigrating terms that have no redeeming feature. Their purpose is to demonstrate hatred and contempt for the group or individual being described. Such a purpose is per se unethical: disrespectful, unfair, cruel and uncivil.

Connolly replied, logically enough, “To me, a slur is a slur, and here in the committee, a level of decorum requires us to try consciously to avoid slurs.” He was right.

Connelly continued, “You just heard the gentlelady actually actively, robustly repeat it; and I would just ask the chairman that she be counseled that we ought not to be engaged — we can have debate and policy discussion without offending human beings who are fellow citizens. And so, I would ask as a parliamentary inquiry whether the use of that phrase is not, in fact, a violation of the decorum rules.”

Mace, putting in her entry for Asshole of the Year, refused to submit. “Mr. Chairman, I’m not going to be counseled by a man over men and women’s spaces or men who have mental health issues dressing as women.”

That response, like her previous one, made no sense, but still, some conservative pundits applauded. Matt Margolis, for example, argued that “tranny” isn’t really a slur. Bologna. I knew the word was a slur decades ago. He lionizes Mace for refusing to submit to a Democrats because, he claims, “everything” is a slur to progressives now. That might be a justifiable exaggeration in some cases, but not when a real, undeniable slur like “tranny” is involved. Connolly is 100% correct: there is no excuse for members of Congress to deliberately use terms that only exist to offend and marginalize minorities. To do so gives a license to citizens to behave hatefully, because our elected representatives are supposed to be role models and to exemplify the best conduct in public, not the worst.

I say this with full recognition that my ethics, decorum and civility standards for members of Congress is so alien to so many current members today that it is almost futile to keep insisting on it. Just watch the ridiculous spectacle House members and Senators made of themselves protesting against Elon Musk yesterday.

A civil, responsible elected official should be able to make her points without stooping to gutter slurs.

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Rep. Moulton must have read wrong. See, Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Somehow the Massachusetts Democrat thought the sage words were, “Speak loudly and be a big weenie.”

After the election last year, Moulton criticized his party for avoiding controversial issues like biological men competing in women’s sports. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest…I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” The reaction by his constituents confirmed why: His comment on the topic were widely criticized and there were resignation from his staff. 

But Moulton continued to channel “Profiles in Courage.” “I stand firmly in my belief for the need for competitive women’s sports to put limits on the participation of those with the unfair physical advantages that come with being born male,” he said. “I probably will be primaried,” he told CNN. “And that’s great. That just proves my point: you can’t speak a sentence that’s out of line and not get backlash from the left. But that’s OK. This is a democracy.”

Impressive. Then, last month, Moulton quietly voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which bans biological males from competing in girls’ school sports. Only two Democrats voted for the bill. He had been the most vocal Democrat in supporting its purpose, but when the time came to vote consistently with his fervent devotion to the safety of his daughters in their future athletic pursuits, he decided that he didn’t want to be primaried after all.

Coward. Liar. Hypocrite. Weasel. Hack.

Ethics Observations on a Hollywood Controversy I Could Not Possibly Care Less About

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This story gets a Kaufman, the Ethics Alarms label for a topic that rates George S. Kaufman’s famous assessment of his interest in Fifties crooner Eddie Fisher’s difficulties finding younger women to date. (Eddie, you may recall, was the husband Elizabeth Taylor divorced to hook up with Richard Burton, and who earlier, with Debbie Reynolds, fathered Carrie Fisher.) Kaufman said, when posed with Fisher’s dilemma on a TV panel show,

“Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the development and construction of the Mount Palomar telescope. The Mount Palomar telescope is an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope. Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn’t be able to see my interest in your problem.”

And yet there have been dozens of news stories and social media posts about the current story, and I feel compelled to comment.

“Emilia Pérez” is a 2024 Spanish-language “French musical crime comedy” about a Mexican cartel leader who enlists a lawyer to help her disappear so that she may transition into a woman. [Comment: Well, other movies with insane premises have managed to be good…] At the 97th Academy Awards, “Emilia Pérez” will have 13 nominations, including Best Picture. Karla Sophia Gascón, who plays the cartel leader, is the first openly trans woman to be nominated as Best Actress.

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Paging Moral Luck! Paging Moral Luck!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Judge S. Kato Crews, a progressive appointee by President Biden to the U.S. District Court in Colorado, refused to allow an injunction against the San Jose State women’s volleyball team from including a biologically male “transwoman” (above) to compete with the team in a women’s volleyball conference tournament this week. He ruled that appellate and Supreme Court precedents clearly establish that the protections of Title IX and the 14th Amendment apply to transgender individuals.

A key factor in the decision seems to be that the plaintiffs, which are the other colleges in San Jose State’s conference, a current co-captain of the San Jose team, other former players and the recently-suspended assistant coach, should have filed the suit earlier. The conference’s transgender participation policy has been in effect since 2022 and four conference opponents and one non-conference opponent forfeited games against San Jose State beginning in September.

“The rush to litigate these complex issues now over a mandatory injunction,” Crews ruled, “places too a heavy burden on the defendants”—the Mountain West Conference and its commissioner, two administrators at San Jose State, the school’s head volleyball coach and the board of trustees of the California State University System. That’s a reasonable judicial call under most circumstances, but the judge and the entire pro-trans movement in the U.S. is now at the mercy of moral luck. That is the annoying life reality that random occurrences out of the control of decision-makers have a way of retroactively defining a decision as either prudent and wise or reckless and wrong. Crews’ decision neatly tees up the perfect conditions for moral luck to settle the trans athletes in women’s sports controversy

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Comment of the Day: “Apt Analogy of the Month: Jaguar’s Suicidal Ad=Kamala Harris’s Campaign”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The various issues being discussed around Jaguar’s weird, woke-pandering, car-less video ad have been covered twice at Ethics Alarms, initially here. The always trenchant EA comment whiz Mrs. Q issued this emphatic Comment of the Day explaining “What’s going on here?” from her perspective, and as ever, she doesn’t mince words. Here its is, on the post, “Apt Analogy of the Month: Jaguar’s Suicidal Ad=Kamala Harris’s Campaign”….

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“Like most adverts now, this is a story of rich white heterosexuals selling stuff to other rich white heterosexuals, using images of multi-ethnic, pansexual, differently abled humans in order to appear progressive, without actually doing or changing anything…“

Recently, it was mentioned on this blog that furries were accepted by the “LGBTQ community.” First off there is no such thing as community here. Most gays can’t stand bisexuals and most trans don’t like gays. But let’s get to the real shit here.

The people who always have and always will sign off on supposed “edgy” lifestyles and content like this has always been what my wife and I refer to as the elite, bored, rich, and white. Ever heard of the term “academic lesbian?” Learn about it and the picture starts to become clear.

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Trans-Mania Loses Disney But Gains…Jaguar?

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

What’s going on here?

A couple of things, I think. The two ethics issues are trustworthiness and competence.

Apparently Jaguar has decided that it is within the mission of a car manufacturer to promote transsexuals and other forms of dubious sexuality. Or maybe clowns, based on the characters above that inhabit the company’s very strange ad. Have you seen it? No?

Here you go….

That’s right, no mention of driving, cars, or anything related to transportation. This is a cognitive dissonance scale maneuver for someone seeking a ridiculously narrow market. The ad says “being sexually ambiguous is cool.” Is it? I don’t think so; I think being sexually ambiguous is a problem. Like many minorities with problems, I understand the urge to insist that the problem is really an advantage and a badge of honor, something to take pride in, but why is Jaguar making that argument at the expense of promoting their product?

The ad is propaganda tinged with virtue-signalling for those who think extreme advocacy for marginal sexual identities is virtuous. I don’t regard it as virtuous. I regard this ad as a company abusing its influence by presuming to indoctrinate the public to achieve an interest group’s agenda. Meanwhile, the ad is incompetent advertising, since it doesn’t promote the product the company is supposed to be selling.

At least when Bud Light decided to promote transsexuals while marketing beer, the beer was somewhere in evidence. For all we know after watching that Jaguar ad, the new Jaguar looks like a Stanley Steamer.

And the Great Stupid is still rolling on…

Wait, What? Disciplined For Objecting To WHAT at a Law School?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I don’t understand this story at all. Of course, it would help a bit if the news media thought it was worthy covering. Instead the story gasps in the rarefied and suffocating atmosphere of a few conservative websites. I get it: this idiocy makes progressive extremism look bad. But then, it is bad.

Third-year Scalia School of Law students Selene Cerankosky and Maria Arcara (that’s the George Mason U. law school in Northern Virginia) have been sanctioned by the school in the following bizarre scenario. On September 27, 2024, a classmate solicited their opinions in a “Scalia Law ‘25” GroupMe chat regarding their support for his proposal that the student government put tampons in the men’s restrooms. (Yes, this again.) Cerankosky was critical of the proposal, arguing that “allow[ing] biological females into male restrooms to access period products as ‘trans men,’” would mean “female bathrooms will welcome male occupants.” She found that development unacceptable because female students might be “considerably uncomfortable if there are males using private women’s spaces on campus.” “Women have a right to feel safe in spaces where they disrobe,” she added. Arcara posted her agreement with that assessment.

The male classmate then ridiculed their concerns and called the two women anti-trans bigots. Two weeks later, on October 11, both Cerankosky and Arcara received “no-contact” orders from GMU’s Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion prohibiting them from having any contact with the male classmate, aka “Asshole,” who had complained to the administration alleging harassment. Neither of the women had ever spoken to the guy, other than to exchange messages in the chatroom.

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When Ideology-Driven Fads Harm the Innocent…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

On Twitter/”X,” the advocacy organization “Restore Childhood” documents the horrific case study of a little boy pushed into “gender affirming care” by his woke-lunatic mother, facilitated by unethical medical professionals. Below is the tweet series. You can watch the disturbing videos here.

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Cowardly Grandstanding Of The Month:

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Yeah, Nike is to blame for biological men invading women’s sports. Sure.

What a lazy, intellectually dishonest, cowardly campaign this is. The people that these women should be petitioning and complaining to are progressives and Democrats who have abandoned their commitment to women’s sports because they are determined to pander to the sweet ‘smell of wokeness in the morning’ emitted by LGBTQ activists.

Women are a huge voting bloc, and the trans community is tiny (though demanding). If women put up a united front against biological men competing in women’s sports and made it clear that they were going to hold the Democratic Party responsible if this absurd distortion of common sense, biology and competitive ethics continues, the issue would evaporate like sweat on Lia Thomas’s stubbly chin.

These women don’t have sufficient integrity to do that, however. They would rather lose while blaming a corporation that gains nothing by injecting itself into a sports policy battle that isn’t any of its business anyway. Women’s sports being destroyed by unethical participation rules is the government’s business, but instead of protecting female athletes, the Democratic Party is rolling over and showing its belly to the trans lobby because it considers the female voting bloc “in the bag.”

This is essentially the same cynical calculation that allows Democrats to support its party’s anti-Israel and anti-Semitic component: they don’t believe reflex-Democrat Jews will ever abandon them for the Republican Party.

At least American Jews aren’t blaming Nike for the explosion of anti-Semitism.