Comments

1

This will not win over disenfranchised Trump voters.

2

Technically, you're not correct. In genetics, it is true that most people are XY or XX, but there are other variations, which we talk about to the general public as XXY XYY and some other minor variations.

Additionally, certain sex-selective coding regions can either be disabled or enabled, based upon placental or embryonic modifiers. Stress can activate certain coding segments, and pharmacological events (either natural or manufactured) can also do that.

So, for many people, it's easy to say M or F is a sex. But it is not true that this applies to all people. It depends upon what you're studying. If, for example, you happen to be a female XX person who is an athelete in South Africa, but has a high level of natural testosterone, are you regarded as male or female? What if you can't give birth? What if you're regarded as male but also have a uterus and are able to and do give birth from your ovarian capability?

Life finds a way.

Also, fix your dang SLOG headline, call Elizabeth by her given name.

3

It's really hard to take an article seriously when the headline misspelling goes uncorrected for almost an hour. I mean, it's like the writer has a habit of hastily considered hot takes she doesn't take time to even proof let alone think about.

4

Dan Quayled, wench.

5

1: Oh no, not disenfranchised Trump voters?! Those are the people we really want!

6

another nitpick: Katie I'm 60 and believe me, we get what non-binary means. 70 year olds, I don't know. But we grew up in the 60's & 70's, when the sexual revolution was raging. Watch the throw-away age-ism!

Love everything you write, though.

7

3: Honestly, Herzog has seized on this completely irrelevant culture war detritus like it matters to anyone. IF SHE DOES THIS SHE'S NOT GOING TO GET THE COVETED "PEOPLE WHO ARE VERY SERIOUS ABOUT GENDER" VOTE. Despite the fact that outside the evangelical right, this story has no legs at all. Big fucking deal.

8

@5: Yes, we really do to defeat Trump in 2020. They tend to reside in the states that tip the balance electorally. And a similar excruciatingly tight election in those states next year is a good bet.

9

Why even have sex on the drivers license in these cases? Just remove the whole field from the card and call it done.

10

... Because theyā€™re identification cards?

If a suspect was at large, would you fail to point out theyā€™re a 6ā€™2 transsexual because feelings?

11

@3: More annoying are those who call attention to trivial typos that our brains immediately disregard, and when the error is fixed the pouting comment remains for an issue that no longer exists.

12

@10. Gee, let's see.

SCENARIO
Cop reads license information:
"First name, middle name, last name. 6'2" Brown hair, brown eyes, license number (X-referenced to social security ID in many cases), street address..."

COP:
BUH... BUH... BUT THEY LEFT OFF IF THIS WAS A MAN OR A WOMAN OR A TRANS PERSON... MY GOD I'M CLUELESS AS TO WHO THIS IS!!!!

14

...

So a peep is on camera and they are identified. Their info is in a database, their license is referred to, and said details are broadcast to the populace.

ā€œAt largeā€.

Also, androgyny.

Lawsuits out the ass for wrongful searches, for instance.

15

The pronoun thing was seemingly something that became a movement overnight. I'm not particularly old, mid-30s gay dude, and suddenly it's a phenomena that rose out of what exactly?, was there a special announcement somewhere on Twitter or Instagram? It feels ridiculous to fill out that part on a Grindr profile, and seems more like virtue signaling than a "real" thing, since for 99% of the people that do fill in that answer on your typical gay app, correct pronoun identification is not in question. Also, when would you even use a pronoun when addressing someone directly to cause a slight? Considering I'm (generally) liberal and from Seattle, I can only imagine how the non-bubbled purple places feel about this stuff.

16

2016 proved that getting Democrats to form a circular firing squad in the primary season was a winning tactic. This time around it's been ramping up since nearly two years before the election and shows no signs of slowing down.

What this means for candidates like Warren, who counts on the leftmost wing of the party for her support, is that she has to say the right things on issues like this one in order to prevent being savaged by the Intersectional Left, who along with their Russian bot-friends are even now dutifully cataloging the gotchas that in their eyes disqualify each and every candidate on that list of hopefuls.

Then, whoever emerges from that pit fight will have to go into the general election and defend all the positions they were forced to adopt to appeal to the various Twitter factions of their own party in the process of securing the nomination. If that candidate happens to be Warren, she will spend exactly none of her allotted media minutes talking about her carefully constructed plans and graphs and flowcharts, and all of her time explaining why she checked the box for Native American on her applications, and whether she thinks ER doctors might benefit from a standardized ID that gave them some kind of indication what sort of physiology they are dealing with when an unconscious patient comes in.

Which is a shame, because some of her plans and flowcharts are really good.

17

Changing oneā€™s vote over this shows the voterā€™s superficiality. Our planet is quickly moving to destruction as a result of the capitalist/ industrialist ā€˜progressā€™, we have made. Children are being traumatised for life by being locked up in cages away from their parents/ caregivers. Etc. These are the sorts of issues which need to be focused on.
If Warren is ignorant re the difference, then write on her page and educate her. These cultural evolutions, eg non binary people, seem to germinate more in cities, so a lot of people donā€™t know what youā€™re talking about.
Also confronting male/ female stereotypes, is not a new thing.

18

I identify as a cat, can my license say "Pussy"?

20

ā€œER doctors might benefit from a standardized ID that gave them some kind of indication what sort of physiology they are dealing with when an unconscious patient comes in...ā€

Because everyone is confused by the fact women metabolize carbon like plants and have nine chambered hearts on the right side of the chest cavity?

It might be pertinent to know if an ER patient is on hormone therapy or taking birth control - but thatā€™s not a license. Iā€™m curious to know precisely what life saving emergency treatment requires the foreknowledge of sex? Heart attacks I guess can present symptomatically different on women than men (pain in the left shoulder blade/back) sometimes but ERā€™s donā€™t really rely on just symptom presentation because presentation is different individual to individual as well. There may be some outlier illness somewhere more unique to men or women. But none of that information will be on a drivers license.

So. Sorry. But I doubt very much this is an issue until I hear from a medical association representing ER doctors.

21

@18 no, thatā€™s your social persona

23

I donā€™t care about pronouns. I donā€™t care about driver licenses. I donā€™t care about bathrooms.

Honestly. Call yourself whatever you like. It doesnā€™t harm me if you tell me what pronoun you prefer, and I donā€™t care what pronoun you use to describe me. It doesnā€™t matter to me what your sex or gender is on your license, and I donā€™t care at all what bathroom you use.

None of that harms me.

Iā€™m not trans, btw. Iā€™m just not that bothered by what other people do with their lives. Do whatever makes you happy. If wearing a dress or a suit is the thing that keeps you from killing yourself, then wear it.

The most fundamental freedom of them all is the freedom to be left alone. If you agree to leave me alone, Iā€™ll leave you alone. Weā€™ll get along great that way. Just donā€™t piss in my Wheaties.

24

@1

You mean "disenchanted" or "disaffected."

Voters, trump or otherwise, are all enfranchised by definition.

You should consider investing in a good concise desk dictionary. You have a chronic problem with undermining your own comments via misuse of words of three syllables or more.

25

@1: No, I meant disenfranchised. I repeat, I meant disenfranchised.

Mika Brzezinski brought up the term today on Morning Joe, that's where I got it from.

Again, I repeat. I meant disenfranchised.

26

@2 Thank you. Ms Herzog doesn't seem to do much research before dashing off her articles which make reading her writing frustrating. A journalist should at least make an effort to care about facts.

There are many cultures where a third sex is recognized, and intersexed people can be designated as male in one country, and female in another depending on how the country define males and females. Some years ago I saw a documentary where an English intersex person said she was legally female in Enland, but male in Scotland.

27

*England

28

@27 Iā€™d go with the Scots. Men in skirts after all.

29

*Correction: Some years ago I saw a documentary where a British intersex person said she was legally female in Enland, but male in Scotland.

Sorry, she was living in England, but had a Scottish accent, so I shouldn't say she was English since I don't know.

30

Well, today is the day Trump just won reelection, because if the Democrats plan a running on allowing ā€˜womenā€™ with penises shower next to your 12yr old daughter, theyā€™ve just lost the election.

31

@29 Sorry, intersex is not the same as transgender. Itā€™s just a genetic abnormality in the genitals, thatā€™s all. No different than having 12 fingers. The vast majority intersex people live with their gendered chromosomes. They are also a minuscule percentage of all births. About the same ratio as people born with extra digits.

How many fingers do humans have? 10.

32

@23:

I guess youā€™re ā€œcolorblindā€ too. Interesting to learn that you donā€™t care about identity, and I guess thanks that youā€™re not ā€œbotheredā€ by it?

33

It's one tweet about a law that will have negligible impact on most people. Even if you think all this gender stuff is silly nonsense, it's still negligible. And if we worry that this is the issue that will send voters running back into Trump's arms, trolls will likely be putting out far more outrageous silliness than this.

@16 has the right of this. It's a little worrisome when candidates have to constantly show that their awareness has been raised about all the right issues, because that takes up time and energy that could otherwise be spent more productively. The stray tweet sent out by a staffer doesn't reach that level.

34

@25

At only $12.88 hardback, I don't think there's a better investment you can make in yourself:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0547708130

35

How radical!? A cis white girl in Seattle who doesn't know how to stay in her lane. Never seen that before šŸ™„šŸ™„šŸ™„

I'm sure that the 2-3 black trans women who are murdered each month specifically for being black and trans appreciate how you put your trivial little "PC" issues and other cis white people ahead of their lives. It's not like you're minimizing, erasing, and dehumanizing their struggles ib exactly the same way that putting Israelis in illegal settlements ahead of the Palestinians who that land legally belongs to or anything. /s

You also must not realize how stupid you look for failing to realize that by writing this article you are in fact promoting your own form of political correctness. It isn't like the term applies to one group alone. It's a purely descriptive term, and it describes how anyone promotes their own ideas of what is politically correct. For example, if someone said that they should be allowed to misgendered trans people, they're saying that it is politically correct to do so.

How tf did you even get this job? You seem as skilled a journalist who has been raised by southern Baptists who hasn't finished high school yet.

36

@15 is pretty much where I am on this. Somehow, through 400,000 years of human history, weā€™ve managed just fine with (generally) two sexes and two genders to go with them. And now, all of a sudden, itā€™s a huge thing.

My own theory is this: every generation needs a way of defining itself in opposition to its elders, something thatā€™s shocking. This is the most recent manifestation, the equivalent of showing up to Thanksgiving dinner with fluorescent pink hair and a safety pin through your nose. My prediction: the majority of these ā€œenbiesā€ will settle back happily into their birth gender, get married, have the standard number of kids and pets and white pickets on their fence.

37

@36 exactly. Bored middle class kids trying to get some oppression points. And whatā€™s with all the stupid haircuts and colors these days? It looks like you cut it with a Weedwhacker and dyed it with toilet bowl cleaner. I called them ā€œmaking a bad situation worseā€œ haircuts for most of these women.

But I really do hope the Democrats run on letting ā€œwomenā€ with testicles give me a good scrubbing in the showers next to everyoneā€™s 12-year-old daughters at the local pool.

38

Give me a good scrubbing! Beat typo ever. Iā€™ll own that one.

39

Transylvanian Palestinians.

40

The Democrats have gone from the party of the middle and working classes to the party of junkies, hookers, baby mamas and sexually confused, all supported by a tiny minority of college educated, woke whites who care about this shit.

Itā€™s election kryptonite folks. Be warned.

41

@39 Amazing leap from transgenders to Palestinians. So woke!

42

@39 It makes you wonder what it's like to be gay or transgendered under in the West Bank or Gaza strip, under Hamas? Maybe they have a Gay Pride parade so we can ask?

43

Eh, it is quite appropriative and belittling, equating black folks and their predisposition for avoiding a virus to a literal open-air prison.

Amistad. Nakbariffic.

I literally just found that Scott Stapp(of Apollo Creed fame) has a new album out. I heard that he went tweaker a few years back. Looking rather svelte any more.

The song I have for you, clay leviathan, is ā€œMy Own Prisonā€.

The bigger they are..

45

ā€œsomeone said that they should be allowed to misgendered trans people, they're saying that it is politically correct to do so.ā€

Facts donā€™t care about your feelings; Transgenderism is a political movement, not based in science or reality.

46

32,

Bullshit. Thatā€™s a false equivocation and you know it.

47

The survey Herzog wrings her hands over, with its "surprising" hostility to political correctness, is easily understood if you apply this practical definition of "political correctness:" it is simply being one step more tolerant and sensitive than the person speaking. If you are tolerant of blacks and Jews but prejudiced against Muslims, you consider those defending the rights of Muslims to be P.C. If you are sensitive to gays and lesbians but squicked out by trans people, you will consider New Hampshire's new law to be P.C. Most people (I'd say 80 percent, judging from the survey) think that they themselves are at the perfect level of progress and enlightenment, and anyone further along than them is just a P.C. annoyance. This certainly seems true of Katie Herzog and Amy Dyess.

48

@36 I'd agree that staking out a generational divide explains a lot of it, but at the same time I think we're better off as a society with the pink hair and safety pins* than we were without them.

@46 You mean "false equivalence." You should look up "equivocation" a few days from now, you'll get a laugh out of the way you've butchered it here.

(*) And with the skull-festooned onesies that followed, even if I do maybe roll my eyes at them a little bit. And with all that came before-- the straight acceptance of gays, the gay acceptance of bisexuals, the party drugs, the bikini, the men with long hair, the women in management, the rock and roll, Rosie and the rest of the riveters, the jazz and the dancehalls and the sex in parked cars, the shock of girls riding bicycles, the depravity of mass-produced novels, the heretics reading bibles without supervision, and that thankless 6th child running away from the farm to live in the squalor of Town.

Also something about the ancient Egyptians and the Clovis culture and whoever took the time to carve all those fierce animal dicks at Gobekli Tepe. I'm guessing they, too, managed to accidentally improve the world a few times in the course of pissing off their parents.

49

@48 Pretty sure if Hatshepsut ran on letting confused men shower with our daughters heā€™d lose the election too.

50

The only thing I got out of that article was that Herzog doesn't know any people over 50.

51

@49

You sure are fixated on this idea of adults showering with children. Why is that?
Where is this public showering supposed to be happening?

The only public showers I can think of are at swimming pools and health clubs.
People who are showering at the pool usually are just rinsing off quickly, and they normally are wearing bathing suits.
As far as health clubs go, why are children at the gym? And if they are at the gym why are they showering there?

52

If TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) are calling you regressive, you're doing something right. Trans and non-binary people have been a part of the queer community since before Stonewall, and lesbian separatist "radical feminists" are still trying to erase them. Regardless of what MAGA people and TERFs are saying, Warren is on the right side of history here. Two more nitpicks: 1. Drivers licenses might use the word sex, but they definitely show your gender. 2. This won't help Warren with people who don't care about trans and non-binary people, but it won't hurt her either. Her economic platform is still taking center stage, and she and Bernie are the only two candidates who have shown they value people over profits and corporations.

53

@52

So woke. Thanks.

55

@54 whatā€™s the saying? ...ā€if you lay with trolls you get fleas... fleas with a form of plague... that causes you to unnaturally obsess over showering with children.ā€

Herzog consistently polls pretty high with every Troll, alt-right dipshit, and overtly racist dirtbag that has ever haunted a comment board that itā€™s clear it must be some new Stranger strategy to attract clicks from the 4chan and Stormfront pro-rapist contingent. I guess they need make up for the short fall from losing rapist advertiser Dave Minert.

56

@55 Howā€™s your carbon footprint Mr. I fly 4-5 times a month? Most people see transgenderism and non-binaryism for what it is. Itā€™s punk for the kids. Theyā€™ll grow out of it. Especially once they realize that its main purpose is to erase women and gays.

But again good luck selling the idea to Voters that ā€œwomenā€ with penises should be allowed to go to womenā€™s locker rooms and let it all hang out. Youā€™re all but guarantee Donald Trump will be reelected.

57

Looking forward to ā€˜womenā€™ with penises taking over women's sports. That will do wonders for the looney left at the ballot box.

58

@48,

I stand corrected. Thanks for teaching me something new.

As for skull festooned onesies, I'm in favor of onesies, more generally speaking. I mean, why not? They're a hell of a lot more comfortable to walk around in. If I meet a guy and he likes me, its way easier to see the boner if he's in a onesie than if he's wearing underwear and pants.

60

@59 why do you hate women and want to deny space for them to feel safe, away from the predations of men?

62

@61: (re last para) Yeah, it's stupid but unfortunately it's a talking point for Trump, Fox and Friends, and Elizabeth Warren's proposal is one of the many things that should be put on the To Do list after Trump is defeated and out of office.

First things first.

63

The Stranger has sure gone downhill if they're posting this drivel. Who cares if she supports an X on a driver's license? Seriously, wtf kinda news article is this?

65

Warren: Fighting for the rights of genitally-confused Americans since 2019.

Shame thereā€™s a genetic test to show itā€™s nonsense.

66

@64: You still don't get it do you.

We have to fight for every vote to defeat Trump and that means kissing the ass of every former Trump voter who might escape his base and be restored to sanity. It will be a very close election but it might not even matter if Putin gets his way.

So every bit of what you categorize as "peal clutching" matters, because the optics matter much more significantly than you think. We don't have the luxury of disregarding how things are extrapolated by the media and our divisive culture - for this election anyway.

68

Of course since sex and gender are social constructs, I demand urinals in all womenā€™s bathrooms.

69

@67: Not one specifically, it's cumulative - that's my point. The tweet shapes her persona and stereotype (good or bad).

70

I went to Turkey on vacation back in 2004. I stopped in AHAT the ruins of Ephesus, and was greeted by a strange sight. A long stone bench with holes in it placed 2 feet apart. The guide mentioned that this was an Ephesian toilet. I asked if there were stalls that had rotted away, and he said, no. The Ephesians didnā€™t even have walls around this structure when it was in use. People just shat publicly, in front of each other and the entire world.

Egad.

Well, I guess toileting customs have changed a lot since the old days. If this show anything, it shows that whatever seems like common sense in one time and place seems like WTF in another. Iā€™m sure a hundred years from now, everyone will look back at this whole trans bathroom scandal and wonder what the big deal was. I mean, who cares whoā€™s on the toilet next to you, anyway?

Be grateful youve at least got stalls and walls. The Ephesians didnā€™t even bother with that.

71

@70 They also had slaves back then. And a life expectancy of 20. And no knowledge of genetics and chromosomes. Iā€™m pretty sure no #metoo movement. Or womenā€™s rights.

But you take that comparison, and run with it! At least if your view of the future holds true, men can dominate both menā€™s and womenā€™s sports.

72

Really of all the things people could get set off by, it's whether having an X option on the driver's license for someone who doesn't fit in the pigeon-hole society has made for them?

I've only seen two types of people object to this thing they call "Political Correctness", conservatives who are fine with old fashioned bigotry, and centrist Democrats whose politics are based more on punching left than it is opposing the institutional bigotry of the Republican Party. I guess we should be thankful that The Stranger has a liberal bias, and Katie is the conservative voice here.

73

ā€œthe pigeon-hole society has made for them?ā€

Why do you hate science? Iā€™m sorry, but your personality is not the same as your sex and you canā€™t legislate your fantasies.

74

ā€œpigeon-hole society has made for them?ā€

I identify as a cat. I demand my drivers license calls me ā€œpussyā€, every bathroom has kitty litter by law, and not using my preferred pronoun ā€œyour majestyā€ is an act of violence and should be made illegal. I will not rest until society conforms to my reality.

75

I know this problem and it's a terrible sign of the oppression that Trans-Napoleons, such as myself, face on a daily basis.

Every single day, I try to live my life in accordance with my inner identity as Emperor of the French, King of Italy and Protector of the Rhine Confederations. Every single day, I am derided and mocked. Small children come up to me in the street and yell "You'll never be real emperor, or "You'll never lead the Grand Armee against the combined army of Tsar Alexander and Emperor Francis at Austerlitzā€.

All I want is what other Napoleons have: absolute power over the French Empire and its satellites in Europe, plus a dedicated Corps of Imperial Guards and a palace to live in. But I can't even move into the Palais de Versailles without policemen trying to arrest me.
Think about that. You cis-identified people get to live in your natural homes, but if I try to move into my natural home, I get arrested. I don't even want to think how the Russians would treat me if I went to visit Moscow.

So have a heart, mes amis. Start working for greater social Justice for Trans-Napoleons such as myself.

Vive la France, vive l'empereur, vive la vieille garde!

77

73,

Post menopausal rage must be a real bitch to deal with. I feel so much pity for you. I hope you havenā€™t wrecked the car lately just because somebody cut you off in traffic.

79

@47 -- Bingo.

"Most people (I'd say 80 percent, judging from the survey) think that they themselves are at the perfect level of progress and enlightenment [THNX!], and anyone further along than them is just a P.C. annoyance."

Didja notice how PC Teabaggers got when everyone
called them what they called themselves?

@78 -- how Big can your Magical Wonderful Doc Aeryo make my Dick?
If it isn't a least a couple feet (long), why even bother?
Does he charge by the square inch?

Oh, and what about Rigidity?

80

ā€œPost menopausal rageā€œ

Yes, itā€™s a bitch, especially with my balls hanging in the way.

81

@79 If you simply say your penis is 12 inches long and hard, it is. Denying your perceived reality is violence.

Moreover, If I weigh 250lbs, but think Iā€™m slim and attractive in a bikini, well, goddammit, I am!

82

@73 I get that you are a moron. Most likely a Proud Boy pretending to be a woman, but TERF is an out-dated term. The correct term is Feminism Appropriating Reactionary Transphobe, or FART. This is evidenced by the fact that I was not talking about Transwomen or Transmen, as they are either male or female, as matches their gender identity. I've never met a woman who was mistakenly assigned male at birth who thought she was an "X". Everyone has been quite clear of their female gender.

83

herzog SUCKS

84

@83 Why are you anti-reality?

85

84: Better than being a mouth-breathing knuckledragger like you, probably.

Herzog should be real proud of the supporters she's attracted. I mean, what a shining example of humanity she's compiled.

86

@85

Why, because we refuse to go along with your delusions?

87

85: Not my delusions since I don't have a horse in the gender race. I'm just not a drooling, dehumanizing scumbag obsessed with making sure everyone plays by my rules. I don't feel oppressed because of how someone else identifies. It's their business. And certainly not yours. And if you think it is, you're the problem.

88

Regardless this article is fucking amazingly stupid.

89

88 EVERY herzog article is amazingly stupid.

91

"Bored middle class kids trying to get some oppression points"

Hmm...you know how to take away those oppression points from bored middle class kids?

Say "Cool, be he/she/they whatever. I really don't see how it affects me in any way so I will gladly use whatever pronoun you would like when I address you."

A far as dicks in the female locker room, isn't that exactly what will happen if you force post-op trans men to use the facilities that correspond with their birth gender?

91

@87 Well at least we agree transgenderism is a delusion.

My rules? Youā€™re talking the rules of millions of years of mammalian evolution. I have nothing to do with the two sexes rule.

92

80,

Are those your balls, or your ass?

93

91: Newsflash: humans diverged from other mammals in many key ways!

We have these things called culture, society, creativity, the ability to change cultural practices over time.

94

@93 Let me know when men can have babies.

95

@94You haven't seen the Documentary where Gropenfuhrer the First (Ahnold) was impregnated by Danny DeVito? Blew me away...


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