“There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE. “Trust The Science.”
– Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga put up this sign outside her office
The House of Representatives voted on February 4, 2021, to remove Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from her assignments on the education and budget committees because of violent and incendiary comments she’s made, including her endorsement of the assassination of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
Ms. Greene has also falsely suggested that 9/11 was a hoax, President Barack Obama was a Muslim, and the Clintons were guilty of murder. She is a promoter of QAnon's baseless theories.
Well, Greene is back at it.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., placed a sign outside her office Wednesday, February 24, mocking Democratic Rep. Marie Newman, whose office sits across the hall, after Newman hung a transgender pride flag next to her door in protest over Greene's opposition to a LGBTQ rights bill.
Newman, who has a transgender daughter, tweeted a video of herself putting up the flag Wednesday after she said Greene tried to block the Equality Act on the House floor "because she believes prohibiting discrimination against trans Americans is ‘disgusting, immoral, and evil.’”
“Thought we’d put up our Transgender flag so she can look at it every time she opens her door,” Newman, of Illinois, wrote in the tweet.
Earlier in the day, Greene attempted to block the legislation, which is set for consideration Thursday, with a motion to adjourn. She tweeted that the move was “to give every Member of Congress time to rethink destroying #WomensRights and #WomensSports and #ReligiousFreedom before voting for the #EqualityAct!”
According to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., the bill would amend existing federal civil rights laws and prohibit “discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community in the areas of employment, education, credit, jury service, federal funding, housing, and public accommodations.”
After Newman hung the transgender flag and posted her tweet, Greene retweeted a video of Newman speaking on the House floor in support of the legislation earlier in the week, in which she said, “I’m voting to pass the Equality Act for my daughter — the strongest, bravest person I know.”
Greene tweeted, “As mothers, we all love and support our children. But your biological son does NOT belong in my daughters’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams.”
A number of lawmakers immediately denounced Greene’s behavior on Twitter.
Rebecca Shabad. “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene hangs sign mocking congressional neighbor's transgender pride flag in Twitter spat.” NBC News. February 25, 2021.)
In the eyes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and others who believe the International Dark Web, trans people and their advocates are destroying the pillars of our society with such free-speech–suppressing, postmodern concepts as: “trans women are women,” “gender-neutral pronouns,” or “there are more than two genders.” Asserting “basic biology” will not be ignored, the IDW proclaims. “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”
The irony in all this is that these “protectors of enlightenment” are guilty of the very behavior this phrase derides. They espouse unscientific claims that have infected our politics and culture. Especially alarming is that these “intellectual” assertions are used by nonscientists like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to claim a scientific basis for the dehumanization of trans people.
(Simón(e) D Sun. “Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia.” Scientific America. June 13, 2019)
For all too long, the government, the medical system, and even our parents have assumed that sex is binary. Based on science, this is not biologically or medically accurate.
Science keeps showing us that sex also doesn’t fit in a binary, whether it be determined by genitals, chromosomes, or hormones.
Please Read the Memo
Dear Ms. Greene,
Trust me. “Science” tells us that sex determination – the way we are “coded” into a biological sex – is complicated in and of itself. There are far more options than just “male” or “female,” and countless instances of species that can actually transition from one sex to another within a single lifetime.
Katherine J. Wu Ph.D. in microbiology and immunobiology from Harvard University, a reporter for The New York Times covering science and health, says …
“Science tells us that gender is certainly not binary; it may not even be a linear spectrum. Like many other facets of identity, it can operate on a broad range of levels and operate outside of many definitions.
“And it also appears that gender may not be as static as we assume. At the forefront of this, transgender identity is complex – it’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to attribute it to one neat, contained set of causes, and there is still much to be learned. But we know now that several of those causes are biological. These individuals are not suffering a mental illness, or capriciously “choosing” a different identity. The transgender identity is multi-dimensional – but it deserves no less recognition or respect than any other facet of humankind.”
(Katherine J. Wu. “Between the (Gender) Lines: the Science of Transgender Identity.” Harvard University. October 25, 2016.)
Unfortunately for those who believe in a gender binary like you, your position is not scientifically or medically correct. Gender can’t be binary because it is a personal identity and is socially constructed.
Sex—which refers to one’s biological characteristics – also exists as a spectrum because intersex people do exist.
Now, it might be more convenient for the U.S. federal government to have a binary system for determining legal sex; many U.S. laws and customs are built on this assumption. But just because it’s a convenient system of classification doesn’t mean it’s right.
Some countries, such as Canada, and some states in the U.S., including Oregon, now allow people to declare a nonbinary gender identity on their driver’s license or other identification documents. Where anti-discrimination laws apply to sex or gender, it is a step in the wrong direction to be writing either into law as a strictly binary phenomenon.
Alexandra Kralick writes in Slate …
“The famous cases of strong, athletic, and audacious female athletes who have had their careers derailed by the Olympic 'gender tests' exemplify how misguided it is to classify sex or gender as binary. These women are, like all of us, part of a sex spectrum, not a sex binary. The more we as a society recognize that, the less we will humiliate and unnecessarily scrutinize people – and the less discriminatory our world will be.”
(Alexandra Kralick. “We Finally Understand That Gender Isn’t Binary. Sex Isn’t, Either.” Slate. November 13, 2018.)
My impressionable and misinformed Ms. Greene, I ask YOU to “trust the science” and to realize that whether you define sex based on chromosomes, gametes, gonads, or genitals, two categories doesn't work. The sex categories of “male” and “female” are social constructs.
Many – like you – who oppose transgender rights believe that gender is determined solely by biological sex. But, biological sex isn’t as straightforward as they likely think, and there is no one parameter that makes a person biologically male or female. In fact, many conditions make assigning a biological sex quite difficult.
Ms. Greene, I understand you would like sex to be “black or white,” yet there exists a substantial gray area you prefer to ignore and even consider taboo.
Dr. Eric Vilain, director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at UCLA, where he studies the genetics of sexual development and sex differences, says …
“People tend to define sex in a binary way — either wholly male or wholly female — based on physical appearance or by which sex chromosomes an individual carries. But while sex and gender may seem dichotomous, there are in reality many intermediates.”
“Understanding this complexity is critical; misperceptions can affect the health and civil liberties of those who fall outside perceived societal norms. Society has categorical views on what should define sex and gender, but the biological reality is just not there to support that.”
(Veronica Meade-Kelly. “Male or female? It's not always so simple.” UCLA Newsroom. August 20, 2015.)
Kim Elsesser Ph. D., author of Sex and the Office: Women, Men and the Sex Partition that's Dividing the Workplace and a regular Forbes.com contributor, says …
“The biology of sex is extremely complicated, and there is sometimes no easy way to draw a line between the biologically male and female. According to the BBC documentary, Me, My Sex and I, 'There are about a dozen different conditions that blur the line between male and female. They’re known as disorders of sexual development or DSDs…. Altogether, DSDs occur as frequently as twins or red hair.'”
(Kim Elsesser. “The Myth Of Biological Sex.” Forbes. June 15, 2020.)
And, Ms. Greene, just in case you think this scientific view is fabricated, you can review the works cited by Jessica J Cameron and Danu Anthony Stinson in “Gender (mis)measurement: Guidelines for respecting gender diversity in psychological research” published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass: Volume13, Issue11, November 2019.
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