Today in History: July 26

Complaint Filed in Bourke v Breshear- July 26, 2013

Bourke v. Breshear would late become joined with Obergefell v Hodges.

And Politics has gone to the Toilets

I have never felt that it is necessary to look up the location of public bathroom online. I never personally have had a need. I know that every store or business in America has adequate facilities. 

I am fortunate.There are people who worry about finding adequate bathrooms, where they will not be judged based on their sex. (There actually is website and an app that can help find a proper bathroom.)

This what trans activists would call privilege. I'm going way out on limb here (sarcasm) and say that everybody should be able to comfortably take a piss in public without the threat of ridicule or even violence.

I couldn't find who created this image to ask for permission and credit it. If anyone figures it out, please let me know, so that I can fix the situation.

I was really dismayed when I read about this story last week. According to this article in the Washington Post by Peter Holley, a Kentucky State Senator has proposed a bill restricting bathroom access to certain children:

If a school administrator allowed a transgender student to use a facility designated for the opposite sex or if a school “failed to take reasonable steps to prohibit the person encountered from using from facilities designated for use by the opposite biological sex,” students would be allowed to sue the school, according to the bill. Aggrieved students could seek up to $2,500 in damages from the offending school for each time they encountered a person of the opposite sex in school facilities, as well as “for all psychological, emotional and physical harm suffered,” according to the bill’s language. 

Hate the queers, and you'll get $2,500.  Thanks asshole.That's not incentivizing bigotry or anything. Fuck! I struggle to imagine what trans people go through, even though I am someone who does not conform to traditional gender-roles. It was difficult enough realizing that I am gay, but I've always had an ownership of my body, as if my body belongs to me.

Even without a scientific explanation of transsexualism, I find the bigotry against transgender people repulsive. Something is driving a group of people to not feel comfortable with either their gender or their bodies.And those people deserve support rather than ridicule.  However, when there is a scientific explanation that can predict with near certainty of who is and isn't trans based on a sexual dimorphic feature, bigotry becomes inexplicable.

Below is a video by Dr. Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University explaining the sexual dimorphism of the bed nucleus of stria terminalis.


Moving forward, let's take a look at what's being proposed. According to S.B. 76, 2015 Sen., Reg. Sess. (Ky. 2015) § 1(1)(a):

"Biological sex" means the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person's chromosomes, and is identified at birth by a person's anatomy;

The first clause of the first section is fatally flawed when it proposes sex is "determined by a person's chromosomes, and is identified at birth." 

One thing that immediately jumps out is the conjunction "and." Your chromosomes might not match what was identified at birth. 


Another problem that I notice with that clause is that there are a whole host of conditions related intersex. Just off of Wikipedia there dozens of conditions that either cause ambiguous genitals or affect the chromosomal definition given above:

• 5-alpha reductase deficiency

• androgen insensitivity syndrome

• aphallia

• clitoromegaly

• congenital adrenal hyperplasia

• gonadal dysgenesis (partial & complete)

• hypospadias

• Klinefelter syndrome

• micropenis

• mosaicism involving sex chromosomes

• ovo-testes (formerly called "true hermaphroditism")

• partial androgen insensitivity syndrome

• progestin-induced virilisation

• Swyer syndrome

• Turner syndrome

• Non-Klinefelter XXY

XXY, XYY, XXX are possible Trisomies that occur on the 47th chromosome. They are also not covered by the in the definition of the bill.

To be fair the bill proposes a solution for transgender students at  § 3(3)(a)-(b):

 A student who asserts to school officials that his or her gender is different from his or her biological sex and whose parent or legal guardian provides written consent to school officials shall be provided with the best available accommodation, but that accommodation shall not include the use of student restrooms, locker rooms, or shower rooms designated for use by students of the opposite biological sex while students of the opposite biological sex are present or could be present. 

Acceptable accommodations may include but not be limited to access to single-stall restrooms, access to unisex bathrooms, or controlled use of faculty bathrooms, locker rooms, or shower rooms.

An unisex bathroom is a good idea; however it should not be a forced issue. If a person is comfortable in a gender specific bathroom, fantastic. People just want to change cloths, urinate, or defecate. It's just silly to think otherwise.

However the modicum of civility is undercut in § 5, where the bill state:

Because situations currently exist in which the privacy rights of students are violated, an emergency is declared to exist, and this Act takes effect upon its passage and approval by the Governor or upon its otherwise becoming a law.

That's right; this is an emergency. There could be a queer in the shower. Women and children first... unless they happen to be queers. All hands on dick deck; c'mon people this a fucking emergency! A queer might be taking a piss. or worse...?! And they definitely will be violating your privacy in a public place!

Ughh. Kentucky.



Liam '15

Let's Welcome Kentucky to the 21st Century

Today the Courts ruled in favor of in-state marriages. Yay!

So let's update the mother fuckin' map.

Boom!

Stay issued of course, but onward we march.

Liam '14

Heart of Glass Rhymes With... Gov. Beshear

It's Kentucky's turn to make headlines. Although Arkansas surly would beg to differ. 

I was reading a article on Kentucky Governor, Steve Beshear, and his role in defending Kentucky's ban on gay certain marriages.

In an article in The Courier-Journal by Andrew Wolfson published on May 10th, all is explained on what Kentucky has been up to since losing in District Court:

U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II in February struck down Kentucky's law and constitutional amendment banning the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states, saying Kentucky had offered no rational basis for treating gay and lesbian couples differently.

Attorney General Jack Conway, whose office had been defending the ban, declined to appeal Heyburn's ruling, saying at the time that he thought the ban was unconstitutional. Beshear's office then hired an Ashland law firm to handle the appeal, which was filed Monday at the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Go read the full article. Seriously. I will quiz later on the material.

There is defiantly a lesson to be learned for governors, here. When your AG drops a case like this, perhaps you should likewise.By hiring outside legal representation, you are wasting government money that could be spent on education, improving infrastructure, or hell, even dildos for the poor would be a better use of the money.

If Jack Conway is running as a Democrat for Governor and you lose this case, he looks intelligent, a good leader, and fiscally prudent, while your party looks incompetent.... Wait Beshear's a Democrat... ummm. uhhh.... but... but. at least Conway looks good and smart... and at least now perhaps I will look a little less partisan... shit.

To see what Governor Beshear's odds are of success, I took a look at the Brief they filed with the 6th Circuit Court.

What scares me the most is that the Brief for the Defendant Appellant is very well written. The Brief  is grammatically flowing and avoids choppy sentences and general errors. I obviously disagree with the logic and the jurisprudence presented; however, well written briefs have a tendency of succeeding, particularly when they defend the status quo.

But let's take a look at their argumentation:

Kentucky, like 33 other states, has exercised its broad authority to regulate domestic relations by adopting a traditional man-woman definition of marriage.

That is not a definition of marriage. Marriage is defined by the statutes that promulgate the rights and responsibilities of marriage. States define marriage by whether or not they adopt the Communal Property Regime or if they use Common Law Property. Beyond that you are defining who gets married, and a state needs a damn good reason to do that (literally. Abridging the 14th Amendment requires strict scrutiny.)

So what's Kentucky's damn good reason for not recognizing same-sex marriages:

Even if Baker were not preclusive, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claims fail. Same-sex couples are materially different from traditional man-woman couples. Only man-woman couples can naturally procreate. Fostering procreation serves a legitimate economic interest that is rationally related to the traditional man-woman marriage model. Thus, same-sex couples are not similarly situated to man woman couples, and the distinction drawn by Kentucky’s statutes is rationally related to a legitimate interest of Kentucky.

So economic collapse will ensue if Kentucky.. umm.. huh!? Gay people don't stop gaying it up when denied marriage. Yes, men and women make more men and women, and people see that as being somehow good for society. But straight people will continue popping little people out of their baby cannons, even if the gayz are allowed equal benefits. This doesn't even meet rational basis. 

Furthermore the examples used by Kentucky to demonstrate their hypothesis are Japan and Germany, neither of which allow same-sex marriage. So we can't allow gay certain types of marriages, because there are problems in places where those gay certain types of marriages aren't performed. You do realize that's an argument for gay marriage, right? 

But hold up, what's this about Baker v. Nelson:

Additionally, Baker v. Nelson, 191 N.W.2d 185 (Minn. 1971), appeal dismissed by 409 U.S. 810 (1972), affirmatively rejected the notion that state law same-sex marriage prohibitions violate the Equal Protection Clause. Baker remains valid binding precedent upon the lower federal courts.

When nearly every federal jurisdiction in America is hearing the same type of case, perhaps this isn't the best argument. Baker provides no rational as it simply declined Certiorari. So after Perry, courts could adopt the 10th Circuits ruling as a primary persuasive authority. I explained it more in detail on the write up over Kitchen v. Herbert. Baker was over a statutory ban, while Kentucky has a constitutional ban. Thanks bigots! 

Liam '14

The Reader Quiz

By what day must the Plaintiffs file their response to the appeal?

A. May 30th

B. June 9th

C. July 4th

D.Butt-Sex 

The answer is D. Butt-Sex... good job reading the Courier-Journal article.