Summary
Representative Sarah McBride, the first out trans congresswoman, criticized Donald Trump’s executive order defining gender as strictly male or female.
McBride points out that biologically all embryos develop as female until the SRY gene activates weeks after conception.
The order, which ties gender to reproductive cells at conception, unintentionally categorizes all humans as female from conception based on biological facts.
McBride’s remarks highlight scientific flaws in the policy.
“This is logically flawed because <drops a stack of biology textbooks on the table>” won’t really bother a bunch of Young Earth Creationists. You’re arguing with people who will retreat to the baseline argument “because God said so” in a pinch. Getting into the messy details of embryonic development won’t save you, because that’s not how their nominations to the FBI, the DOJ, or the Federal Judiciary are going to interpret any of it.
Actually it being poorly written helps a lot with court challenge. That was one of the reasons why so much was overturned in his first administration. There was a fear that this time he’d sign better written executive orders that would survive challanges instead we’re getting a lot of them like this
The truth is, they don’t care how poorly written it is, they’re just trying to flood the zone with stuff, and they win no matter the outcome. If it’s not challenged, they have policy, if it is challenged, it occupies time and resources and most importantly, if it’s challenged unsuccessfully, they have legal precident.
It also takes up their time and resources to which I say: good. Slow it all down
They’d rather be able to steam roll through it all. Make them waste time defending everything so they can’t sue as much about things they do care about or move on to putting other things in effect
This is where I’m at too. Even rubber stamping shit takes a non zero amount of time. We should be bouncing back anything that has so much as a misplaced comma, let alone shit like this.
They have more time and resources as many of the challenges are spun off and subcontracted to their cronies. And they don’t especially care if things grind to a halt, that’s also a win for them, they can play victim to the public with it and scream about how they really want to get on with running a government.
Many of the orgs fighting them also aren’t governmental like the ACLU, the EFF, and other groups. Plus even localities like cities are even filing lawsuits against his EOs
Biden had tons of his stuff blocked in courts and got all the blame for the courts blocking it. The public isn’t really good at paying attention to why something happened only that it didn’t
Yeah, Biden got blamed because his orders failed in courts that were stacked by Trump, pointing to it like it was a sign of his incompetence.
Dems will be blamed for Trump’s agenda being stalled causing any and all problems for people stemming from his policies that do go through.
They’re great at twisting everything against the Dems (and, honestly, the Dems suck at pushing back in any effectual manner)
No it doesn’t slow them down. They will do the fucking thing anyway. Why do you think they’d stop just because they used the wrong wording?
Who the fuck is going to stop them?
It has slowed them before. Make them have to keep rewriting it to survive challenges
Make them deal with the companies who don’t trust the next admin won’t just go the opposite way. Apple for instance is keeping TikTok delisted from the App Store despite trump trying to extend it
Make them have to deal with federal worker strikes
Make them have to deal with local & state officals who won’t comply with invalid orders
There is a fight. Don’t let them get away without one
How is it not already abundantly clear that this is not “before.” There is no precedent for what is currently happening
Who “makes” them exactly? This is fascism now. The person with the biggest army gets what they want, and everyone else better shut the fuck up or die.
This isn’t fascism yet, even though you’re fast-tracked to it.
No, it is. It is at the very least, Ur-fascism as described by Umberto Eco, and has been for at least a decade.
If electing Trump to a second term, and handing the entire federal government over to Republicans isn’t fascism yet, I have to wonder what one’s definition of the word is…
It’s YOUR TIME AND RESOURCES! They do it on public employee time and with tax money. They are weaponizing the state against the people. There isn’t an upside to this.
So stand down and never fight? Absolutely not
There is a fight, don’t let them go without one
Progress will happen at the local and state level. The goal at the federal level is damage control
https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manual.html
And every challenge is a chance to kick it up all the way to the Supreme Court where it can be enshrined as constitutional precedent.
You think the supreme court won’t side with whatever schlock trump puts out? You should listen to a few of their hearings. The ones on free speech and transgender issues are specifically telling.
Not all cases make it up to SCOTUS. Massive numbers of suits are being filed right now, they can’t take them all up with just 9 justices. Many of these lawsuit are intentionally filed in places with more dem appointees on the district and appeals courts
SCOTUS is insane, but they are also not in lock step with Trump. They have their own agenda that often align with Trump but not always. For instance, they just ruled 9-0 on the TikTok ban while Trump was calling for the courts to rule the opposite way
We won’t we every fight, but there’s fights we can win. Use every tool we can against them
https://newrepublic.com/post/190366/gorsuch-supreme-court-tiktok-ban
The average intelligence of his hanger ons has dropped through the floor. Not to say there arent some possibly smart ones but those ones are probably having to spend way more energy keeping themselves sane, imagine being stuck in a room with both Trump and Musk youd have to expend so much willpower just to not go into a suicidal and homocidal rage.
This assumes the courts will challenge it.
There are already groups that have pledge lawsuits on this specific executive orders. The courts don’t just decide to do a lawsuit, people and organizations
Others have already filed multiple lawsuits on multiple of his executive orders. There’s 4 different lawsuits already filed against his one trying to overturn birthright citizenship for instance. ACLU, group of 22 state attorney generals, separate group of states, and some other orgs.
Also note that they’re also filing many of these in courts with more dem appointees who are much more likely to grant injunctions, rule favorably, etc. This is a tactic called judge shoping that republicans have historically loved to exploit and now it’s being used against them. Most cases never reach SCOTUS so this stuff matters. SCOTUS can only take up so many cases with 9 justices and there’s already massive numbers of suits here
No, it assumes that they will give a shit what the court says if they rule against them.
You’re acting like this is still a country of law and order.
“God made me a woman at conception and changed me to a man. I’m correcting God’s indecisiveness.”
This exactly. It’s disconcerting to see how many people seem to be laughing this off.
They have zero interest in logic and consistency. We know what they mean, the actual words they used don’t matter.