Reposted from My Substack.
Here AOC makes the case that Nancy Mace’s bigoted Trans bathroom ban would essentially require an intrusive “genital check” in order to implement.
And frankly, she makes sense. How exactly do you implement this policy? Station a policeman at the door over every Woman’s bathroom and have them check everyone entering to see if they have the right genitals, or they have a birth certificate indicating the correct gender.
Even though Mace denies this would be necessary, she has the following image retweeted on her Xwitter profile.
Yeah, it’s like that.
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Like many TERFs Mace is making the argument that someone born with one particular set of genitalia can only be that gender, but under the roles of biology and science that isn’t strictly the case. Secondly, she’s arguing apparently the so-called “biological men” are completely unable to control themselves and are a predatory sexual threat to women at all times.
She uses the fact that she is a Rape survivor to further this rhetoric, but she was also the first woman to Graduate from the all-male Citadel military school. How exactly did she feel while invading that male space herself?
In this video, Emma Vigeland makes the point that Mace is making a broad and completely unfounded sexual violence allegation against all Trans persons.
False allegations of sexual violence go back over 100 years. They were used to falsely convict and imprison the Scottsboro Boys, they were used as the excuse for the lynching of Emmet Till and a similar harmless incident was accelerated into an attempted lynching in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1912. When the black citizens of what was then called “Black Wall Street” tried to rescue the victim from the lynching, things escalated into a massacre that destroyed and burned own their part of town and killed over 100 black citizens.
More recently an Oklahoma bathroom ban contributed to Nonbinary 16-year Nex Benidict being attacked in the bathroom and then shortly afterward killing themself with an overdose of medication.
A 16-year-old Oklahoma high school student who died a day after an altercation in a school restroom that may have been prompted by bullying over gender identity did not die as a result of injuries sustained in the fight, police said Wednesday.
Police in the suburban Tulsa community of Owasso are investigating the death of 16-year-old Nex Benedict, whose family said identified as non-binary and used they/them pronouns.
Although the cause of death has not been determined, Owasso police said in a statement preliminary autopsy results indicate the teen did not die as a result of injuries sustained in the fight.
"At this time, any further comments on the cause of death are currently pending until toxicology results and other ancillary testing results are received," the statement says.
Neither police nor school officials have said what led to the fight. But Benedict's family says there had been harassment because of the teen's non-binary identity.
Forcing Benedict to go to the girl’s bathroom didn’t do anything to protect them from the harassment that led to their taking their own life. For them, it was no solution at all.
Mace is certainly playing the victim saying she has received death threats for her stance, but she is clearly milking this for all it’s worth and doubling-down with legislation that will make going to the bathroom of your birth gender required in all Federal office buildings.
So this is about a lot more than just Sarah McBride being in Congress. All Federal employees or visitors to Federal properties would have to abide by this law if it passes.
These people are going against the guidelines of the AMA and American Psychiatric Foundation with these proclamations. They’re going against science, biology and facts.
Also, they’re going against freedom and the bottom line is that people like Sarah McBride deserve their basic human dignity. What bathroom someone goes into doesn't really matter, but doing her job as a representative of the people of Delaware that elected her is what she is in Washington to do. McBride made that very clear this weekend.
Because this issue has come up I’ve had to do some research on the subject and what I’ve found - for starters - is that there are more than just XX and XY chromosome pairs that determine someone’s base gender. There are also XXX, XXY and XO chromosome possibilities. These examples lead to Intersex persons who may have partially formed gender organs or may have organs from both sexes. The TERF Right seems to be completely oblivious to this fact. Reportedly the boxer who won the Gold at the Paris Olympics, Imane Khelif, has XXY chromosomes. She was born with female genitalia and has lived as a female her entire life, but she does have a “Y” chromosome. She never went through any trans surgery or procedures because they are illegal in Algiers.
From further reading, I found that gender is not determined entirely by chromosomes. All embryos initially have female organs, male organs only develop with the introduction of testosterone during development. Usually, this is related to the presence of. a Y chromosome, but not always.
At around week seven in utero, the sex-related gene on the Y chromosome initiates the development of the testicles in male infants. The testicles produce testosterone. Testosterone triggers the development of the male internal and external reproductive organs during fetal development.
Since the introduction of testosterone can be independent, and levels can either be high or low — it’s possible to have XX chromosomes, but have male organs or to have XY chromosomes but female organs.
Such was the case with Olympic running Champion Caster Semenya whose organs are female, but she had an XY chromosome.
On Tuesday, the Swiss Federal Tribunal ruled against Semenya, banning her from defending her 800-meter title in the Tokyo Olympic Games next summer. There is a barbarism in the court’s demand that this two-time Olympic gold medalist medically change her body — suppressing her natural testosterone levels — in order to compete. Semenya carries one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell — the medical system has called this “46, XY,” a “disorder” of sexual development. For Semenya, this genetic variation has resulted in what the medical system, and now the Switzerland court, has deemed above average levels of testosterone in her body.
The tribunal ruled in favor of discriminatory rules of eligibility set by international track and field's governing body, World Athletics, that state that Semenya must submit herself to medical alteration for a minimum of six months before being permitted to compete on an international level — otherwise, she is barred from competition.
Neither Semenya or Imane Khelif are transgender - neither has had any gender surgeries. They have female organs as all embryos start with, but they have a Y chromosome indicating they didn’t receive enough testosterone to form male organs in utero. That is all.
From all this, I began to wonder if the main issue with gender dysphoria is actually when a mismatch like this occurs. It was just a hypothesis and I tried to look up if the medical profession has found anything like that, and this is what I found.
Transgender men are individuals born with two X chromosomes but whose gender identity is male. Transgender females are individuals born with an X and a Y chromosome but whose gender identity is female. This is a population not to be confused with those with defined disorders of sex development.
However, there are some studies that have shown there is no exact correlation between transgenderism and a chromosomal mismatch.
The assessment of patients with gender dysphoria will sometimes include investigation of sex chromosomes. A consecutive sample of 52 transsexual people had chromosomal analysis prior to commencing hormonal therapy. Only one of the patients had an abnormal karyotype of 47XYY/46XY. There is no justification for routine analysis of chromosomal karyotype in patients with gender dysphoria. Consideration may be given for identification of the karyotype in patients requiring gamete storage.
So study of this issue is not fully established, the book is still open. And admittedly, this was a fairly small sample size of just 52 people.
The National Library of Medicine says this on the matter.
Despite recent calls to distinguish between sex and gender, these constructs are often assessed in isolation or are used interchangeably. Our study quantifies the disagreement between chromosomal and self-reported sex and identifies potential reasons for discordance using data from the UK Biobank. We show that among approximately 200 individuals with sex discordance, 71% of discordances were explained by intersex traits or transgender identity. These findings imply that health and clinical researchers have a unique opportunity to advance the rigor of scientific research as well as the health and well-being of transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people, who have long been excluded from and overlooked in clinical and survey research.
Not every transgender person has a chromosome mismatch, but many people with a chromosome mismatch tend to be either transgender or intersex.
As I understand it this indicates, quite clearly, that in some cases - though not every case - transgender persons are literally born that way. It’s not just something in their heads, it’s not a personality disorder and it's not just somebody playing dress up because they feel like it. It’s not a man pretending to be a woman or vice versa — [Doctors and Psychologists extensively screen those with possible gender dysphoria for all these possibilities] — it’s sometimes a person who was born male at the chromosome level, but then didn’t develop male organs during gestation. It’s sometimes a person born chromosomally female, but they developed male organs.
This means that gender-affirming care and gender surgeries can be a medically necessary correction to that mismatch.
It also means that Nancy Mace and other TERFS are completely off base in the attack on Trans persons as being potential deviants and sexual predators, and her legislation is a bigoted attempt to implement gender discrimination into the law.
And even for those who are transgender when this isn’t the case — shouldn’t people have the freedom of choice to live how they want to live? Can’t people be who they want to be? Who the fuck is Mace to make all these ridiculous armchair diagnoses of people she doesn’t even know in situations she doesn’t even understand? I don’t care what Mace says but someone who has gone through hormone therapy and organ reconstruction is no longer physically a “biological male.” [Or female as the case may be.]
This is the treatment recommended by medical professionals specifically to prevent those with gender dysphoria from seriously harming themselves and potentially attempting suicide — which they do at alarmingly high rates [31%]. If this helps someone lead a happy and healthy life, who is Mace to stand in the way of that and continually harass these people?
I understand the concern that someone who has initially developed male organs, but is in fact an XX chromosome female — due to the physical benefits of testosterone — can potentially physically outmatch other XX chromosome females. That remains an issue on the basic issue of fairness in sports.
I even understand that some women may naturally feel uncomfortable in a private space with someone who visually presents as a male.
But what are we going to do force everyone to walk around with a chromosome card to prove who they really are? We have to develop some understanding and tolerance for people in this situation, it’s the only humane thing to do.
This is an issue of human rights.
Does this person, Sarah McBride, seriously look like a crazed sexual predator?
I mean really?
