Thread by @WomensLibFront

Arguments were heard in this case Thursday: Why might a case involving a Christian conservative male professor matter to women & girls generally? Everyone has the right to discuss these issues, but women and girls have the most personal & immediate need.

womensliberationfront.org/news/women-spe…

From our brief, re: significance of claims made under the auspices of “gender identity,” “WoLF is particularly concerned that it deprives women who appear before the court of the ability to speak accurately about the issues they face as a sex-class.”
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“WoLF maintains that preserving and advancing women’s rights, liberties, and other interests necessitates a recognition of sex, consistent with the longstanding meaning of that term ...”
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“Sex is observed & recorded (not “assigned”) at or before birth by qualified medical professionals, & it is an exceedingly accurate categorization: an infant’s sex is easily identifiable based on external genitalia & other factors in 99.982% of all cases”
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“The meaning of “sex” is both objective and longstanding. Like all mammals, in order to survive, our earliest human ancestors had to be able to distinguish between male and female even before they developed the relevant language.”
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“Since then, biologists have developed a more sophisticated understanding of sex, but the basic biological distinctions between the male reproductive class and the female reproductive class remain.”

“In contrast, the earliest appearance of the term “gender identity” in any law review article maintained by the Westlaw legal database appears to have been in 1985.”

“... Doe is entitled to hold the belief that he is female, just as people are entitled to believe either that the Earth is flat or that the sun revolves around the Earth. But one person’s belief in those things (or many people’s, for that matter) does not make any of them true.”

“Further, it is axiomatic that a person’s subjective belief about himself confers upon him no power whatsoever to compel others to adopt and voice his beliefs as their own. ...”

“Respondents can allow their staff to indulge Doe’s demand to be addressed by female pronouns & titles if they wish. What Respondents may not do, without running afoul of the Constitution, is require anyone else to adopt or voice a political viewpoint ...”

“Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief ... nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold religious views abhorrent to the authorities.” Employment Div., Dep’t of Human Res. of State of Or. v. Smith, 485 U.S. 660, 670 (1988)

“...In ruling against Dr. Meriwether, the district court adopted the precepts of “gender identity” sotto voce, then imposed on Dr. Meriwether the burden to demonstrate how speech that contravenes the ‘gender identity’ belief system involves a matter of ‘public concern.’”

“... After citizenries around the world rejected “divine right” as a source of legitimacy for kings and emperors, there emerged in the resulting void numerous different systems of “political religion,” which took the form of secular ideology.”

“... Such ideology “offers a holistic worldview, easily mobilizes masses, and acts with the power of a myth . In this sense, it is a ‘secular religion’ with its own ‘priests’—the intellectuals .”
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... “[S]uch ‘religions’ are understood to share some properties of generic religion [that are] conceived [as] negative—fanaticism, intolerance, and irrationality.” A. JAMES GREGOR, TOTALITARIANISM AND POLITICAL RELIGION, AN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY 3 (2012).

“... Pertaining to this case, the ideas surrounding “gender identity” arose in rebellion against the “gender binary,” ...”

“... which is more accurately described as the
sex binary, i.e., the understanding that human beings can meaningfully be classified into the two sexual reproductive classes, male or female.”

“... It is this ideology that informs and purports to legitimize Doe’s demand to be recognized as “a woman,” as well as the University’s policy mandating the use of “preferred pronouns.” That policy bears the markers of a political religion.”
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