How Many Judges Does It Take To Define 'Woman?' | Opinion
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By May Mailman Senior fellow, Independent Women's Law CenterFOLLOW
Today's most pressing women's rights issue is not abortion. It's not equal pay, domestic violence, or child care. It's whether society is willing to recognize "women" at all. Without this basic understanding, there can be no "women's" interest demanding or deserving of protection.
That's why Independent Women's Law Center is representing six Kappa Kappa Gamma sisters at the University of Wyoming in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The lawsuit alleges that Kappa's national leadership ran roughshod over the sorority's bylaws to provide membership to a biological male: a 260-pound, 21-year-old individual with a 1.9 GPA (well below the sorority's 2.7 cutoff) who discussed his "desire to be near cadavers and to touch dead bodies" during the recruitment process. The sisters say they were forced to vote publicly and informed that a "no" vote would be a sign of bigotry and a basis for expulsion. Since joining, the male member has taken unwanted pictures of the women, asked them to describe their vaginas, and watched the girls undress.
Time and again we see injustices like what happened to these sorority sisters egged on by elitists who congratulate themselves for such devout commitment to diversity and inclusion, having already reaped the benefits of single-sex living years ago. But despite their professed commitment to inclusion, by pretending that "women" includes biological males, they in fact deprive women the say they are owed. That sounds pretty exclusionary to me.
Sadly, the district court ruled in favor of Kappa leadership. In the process, it stripped the organization's bylaws of any meaning. "Woman," the court said, is "undefined," and cannot be constrained by the "circumscribed definition Plaintiffs urge." "Woman" might mean anyone who claims to be a woman, at least according to a federal court.
Of course, this is nonsensical from a basic definitional perspective. Identifying oneself as a "woman" still requires an underlying definition of "woman." Self-identification can never provide a definition since it has no boundaries on its own. Even an inanimate object like my iPhone can "identify" as a woman, but it's still an iPhone.
Dissolving "woman" into an unknowable void is more than senseless, it's extraordinarily consequential.
For one, it wrecks our ability to use language. We rely on contracts for countless purposes. If I order a shirt but receive pants, I can point to language in the contract to fix the issue. And if the supplier won't fix it, I can take my issue to court. Interpreting contracts—including, for example, bylaws—is a quintessential duty of judging. Where activists dismantle language and threaten social consequences for those who apply ordinary meaning, we lose more than common sense. We lose the ability to function as a society.
And if that were not important enough, there's more: the truth.
Women exist, as biologically distinct from men. And single-sex spaces are beneficial to women. That includes domestic abuse shelters, given that, on average, more than three women are killed by their husbands or boyfriends per day. It also includes sex-specific sports. After all, thousands of high-school boys can outpace star female Olympians and biological males can severely injure women on the field, as we learn again and again. And it also includes single-sex social and scholastic organizations. As Kappa itself has argued in court, "the benefits of having participated in a single-sex environment persist even after the woman has graduated or otherwise left the environment."
Women's organizations are worth preserving.
The fight won't be easy. Kappa alumnae have already been kicked out for the mere act of speaking the truth. Sorority women have experienced a smear campaign, and have been accused of inventing sexual misconduct and even instigating murder.
But these women are not deterred. Women have fought for suffrage, property rights, education, and protection from violence. We are more than willing to fight for our existence and for the truth.
May Mailman is a senior legal fellow at Independent Women's Law Center (iwlc.org) and attorney appealing the Kappa Kappa Gamma case.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Absolutely no Trump, fascist, or dumb memes.
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
Who is online
47 visitors
I'm more curious about the GPA restriction not applying. That's defined. Seems pretty enforceable.
They threw out everything else. Looks like this was thrown out as well.
Scientifically, one's gender is more defined than one's GPA. GPAs have been dumbed down at secondary and post-secondary levels and have never been used to scientifically define biological males and females.
No. You currently have various experts in various fields calling the whole idea of gender into question. I think it's moronic, but there is no denying the debate is open.
GPA is strictly math. There isn't any debate on the relationship of 1.9 to 2.7.
I am not discussing that fact, because GPAs are not the topic of this seed.
What I am discussing is that a biological male cannot become a biological female and should not be allowed to become a member of women's sororities and sports teams. My reasons have nothing to do with anyone's GPAs but everything to do with women's sororities , their sports, fairness, and their physical safety.
The topic of the seed is a sorority being forced to admit a man.... who also failed to meet other minimum requirements for membership.
Those other requirements are totally empirical and indisputable. There are zero mathematicians who hold the opinion that a 1.9 GPA is high enough to meet the 2.7 GPA threshold.
Yet those requirements were somehow suspended for the sake of favoritism toward a man who is now displaying behaviors commonly associated with sexual predators.
So the GPA point supports your objections to his admission and, if anything, indicates that they do not actually go far enough.
Well expand your horizons a little. It's like putting a 2nd barrel on your shotgun.
This should be illegal and would be if a heterosexual or homosexual male was doing the same. But put "trans" in the equation and it has become legal in the United States for a male to sexually harass and even assault females.
I truly can't understand the people who champion males abusing females. How can anyone hate females this much? Is the goal to make the US #1 on the list of most dangerous countries for women? The US made the top 10 list a few years ago. I don't know the current status.
The biological males are not and cannot ever be biological females. These biological males need their own category and their safe spaces and sports where they can discuss their sex organs (or lack thereof) with the people similarly endowed.
As far as the world's safest and most dangerous countries, the US places 131st out of 163 independent states and territories.
It appears to me that only NT members who have genuine common sense are commenting on this seed and those who support the ridiculous judgment dare not comment. My opinion is that nobody is going to stop me from using the same language that's been good enough for hundreds of years and I am going to continue to say "man, men, woman, women, male, female, he, she, him, her" ONLY for the rest of my life where it is obvious to do so.
This morning I read the story about the car explosion on the Rainbow Bridge either on Canada's Global News or USA Today and I was really disgusted when I saw the language when it said something like 'A customs control officer was injured but they did not suffer serious injuries'. THEY did not suffer? I thought it was only ONE. I wanted to know if it was a male officer or a female officer. Good luck with that.
In keeping with the image I posted above, here is a song that those crazies can adopt as their themesong:
Sat on a curbstone covered in ice
The horse he slipped and fell on the flea
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Giggly and foolish the whole day through
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
A flea stepped on an elephant's toe
The elephant cried, with tears in his eyes
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Giddy and foolish the whole day through
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
There lived a penguin and his name was Joe
He got so tired of black and white
He wore pink slacks to the dance last night!
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Giggly and foolish the whole day through
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
A dollar a pair and a nickel a box
The more you wear 'em the better they get
And you put 'em in the water and they don't get wet!
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Giddy and foolish the whole day through
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Just to hear that golden tone
Asked myself out for a date
Said be ready 'bout half-past eight!
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Giddy and foolish the whole day through
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Sat myself on the very last row
Wrapped my arms around my waist
Got so fresh I slapped my face!
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Giddy and foolish the whole day through
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Reminds me of a song called "Polarized" by Brittish band Carcass :
You have a dick, you are not a woman.
Yet, about 1% are born with indeterminate sex...
The main sex organ for humans are their brains!
The men, claiming to be women, need their own sports and locker rooms.
Why is anyone supporting putting men in women's changing rooms?
This 30 year old man was a sex worker just prior to joining women's football in England.
Why are people supporting the man over the women/girls in the league? Why do they hate girls/women enough to want to see them crippled by men?