Why do we need to know the gender of another person?

My Sunday movie was Dear Ex on Netflix. From the start the Chinese characters show it is set in Asia, though it took a while to confirm it is Taipei. The names are hard for me to spell, so I’ll use relationships. The story opens with Mother and Son at Lover’s apartment complaining that Lover has stolen the life insurance money that was to pay for Son’s college (preferably in Canada, a long way from Mother). It’s all complicated because this is the gay Lover. Mother is quite the shrew and quite manipulative so Son leaves home and, lacking anywhere else to go, wants to stay with Lover. But isn’t he supposed to be the enemy? Son keeps saying that to himself but doesn’t quite believe it. Along the way we see how Father and Mother met and how Father and Lover met. Father declares he must have a wife and child, then realizes being gay means that won’t work. We see Lover taking care of Father during the final illness. And we understand why Father made Lover his life insurance beneficiary. The story is told quite well, with fine acting all around. I enjoyed it. I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data, updated yesterday. The peaks in new cases per day for the last few weeks are 681, 852, 807, 717. The low plateau continues. The low level of deaths per day also continues. D’Anne Witkowski wrote for Between the Lines about the web comic Assigned Male (and I think also book or book series) and talked to the author Sophie Labelle. She is trans and the book is a series of comic panels about being trans and the situations they have to deal with. Labelle describes the book as “the adventures of a bunch of sarcastic trans and queer teenagers.” Which sounds like fun. The article describes a recent comic (which I found online):

A recent comic depicts an adult and two kids in a park, an older kid babysitting a younger kid. The adult asks if the younger child is a boy or a girl. The sitter responds, “We don’t know yet, they haven’t told us.” The adult, distressed, responds that this will surely confuse the child. The sitter responds, “The most confusing part of it is actually the amount of strangers who feel entitled to ask what’s in that kid’s pants.” This shuts the adult right up.

I add: Why do we need to know the gender of another person? It shouldn’t make any difference in how we treat them. Alas, since we live in a society soaked in patriarchy the gender of the other person matters a great deal in how we treat them. Here’s the text of the comic she posted after the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs:

No matter how isolated a perpetrator of violence against our community is, they are never acting alone. They are emboldened by a society that allows our existence to be debated and questioned and by fanatics who see sexual and gender diversity as perverse and dangerous. Today we mourn. Tomorrow we shine the brightest and loudest we can.

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported that the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has abolished the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. This subcommittee used to focus on the stuff in its name, plus voting rights and criminal justice reform. Oversight committee chair Rep. James Comer insists that the parent group is still able to address all those issues. But they appear much more interested in Hunter Biden. Rebekah Sager of Kos that several House Republicans were seen wearing new lapel pins. The American flag has been replaced with a tiny AR-15 gun profile. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida is one of those seen with the pin. When asked a spokesperson for Luna says it “is about sponsoring a gun bill” though noticeably absent from that phrase is what kind of gun bill. Will it be one to add to or subtract from those already on the street? Strange that the only ones actually sponsoring gun bills are Democrats. We can tell what kind of bill they want to sponsor because the pins are being handed out by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who owns a gun store. These pins are a way to own the libs. Annoyingly, these pins are showing up during National Gun Violence Survivor’s Week. Back in 2014 Justice John Paul Stevens proposed a new version of the Second Amendment. His version would say:

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.

Kimberly Mata-Rubio lost her daughter Lexi in the Uvalde shooting. She said, “Why we would choose guns over children is not something I can comprehend.” In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

But that’s the point, isn’t it? The lapel pins — like those Christmas cards of their adorable blond kids armed to the teeth with high-powered weaponry or the right’s new love affair with the toxic fumes of gas stoves — are meant to “trigger the libs” and sustain a career arc that generates prime-time hits on Fox News and fund-raising emails without ever having to get anything done. Yes, you could argue this column, then, is a perfect example of what these cons want. But what a choice: playing along, or remaining silent while America sheds the skin of humanity.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported on a case of a man who had stalked and assaulted his ex-girlfriend and their child. In February 2020 she got a protective order against him and he was banned from owning a gun. Less than a year later he was involved in five shootings. He was indicted for violating his gun ban. The case went before the Fifth Circuit Court (the most conservative of the circuit courts) who said the law used to ban the man from owning a gun was unconstitutional. Huh? Wrote Clawson:

Following the logic of Justice Clarence Thomas’ 2022 opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a federal law banning the sale of guns to people subject to restraining orders in domestic violence cases. In striking down a New York law requiring proper cause for concealed handgun permits, Thomas explained that the law was illegitimate because it was not “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” In other words, if there was no such law in 1791, it’s unconstitutional now.

Of course, in 1791 there was no law against wife-beating. The first laws banning it were in Alabama and Massachusetts in 1871. There were no bans in 1791 because women were considered the property of their husbands. This case of banning guns of wife-beaters will likely go before the Supremes. What they will do with it no one is guessing. I had written that several participants in the Capitol attack had expressed regret for that participation when the judge was ready for sentencing. I wrote, as others noted, that they were acting like spoiled children and their only regret was they got caught. An Associates Press story posted on Kos, confirms that by noting several of these defendants, now safely outside the courtroom, have declared themselves to be a “J6 Patriot” and making statements “inconsistent with contrition.” That might make judges less likely to believe statements of remorse for those attackers whose trials are still ongoing. Kerry Eleveld of Kos looked at some of the recent Civiqs polling. Some of the things they looked at in the early part of this year was opinions on pro-science, pro-democracy, and pro-reality issues. It doesn’t look so good. Here are some of the poll results. Only 51% agree the vaccine actually worked. 45%, a plurality, believe Dr. Fauci lied to Congress about the origins of the pandemic. 45%, a plurality, believe the US might be corruptly funding Ukraine and should be audited. 47%, plurality, believe the Biden Justice Department has not been unfairly targeting conservatives. 51% believe Congress should investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop. Eleveld concluded:

If this poll accurately reflects voters' basic mindset on matters of science, sovereignty, and justice, then Democrats have a lot of truth-telling to do over the next year in preparation for the ‘24 presidential contest.

The Marketplace Morning Report for today discussed the book The Capital Order by Clara Mattei. The book is about how austerity is designed as a way to silence the working class because workers become too focused on simply living. Mussolini was at first praised because he used austerity to silence workers. Politicians can get away with enforcing austerity because it is seen as an economic issue, not a political one. From a report a few weeks ago Clawson told the story of Butch Marion, age 82, was able to retire from Walmart after TikTok donations raised over $108,000. Yeah, that sentence should make you think there are several kinds of wrong. These sorts of “inspirational” stories have been around for a while. Marion is just one of several who retired from Walmart this way. There have been stories of people walking long distances to work and being given a car, of kids paying off school lunch debt, and many more. Yes, it is great friends and colleagues, even strangers, are coming to their aid.

But celebrating those isolated events misses the point that 82-year-olds shouldn’t be on their feet eight hours a day working at Walmart because it’s their only financial option. People shouldn’t be walking more than 10 miles to then work all day and walk back home because they can’t afford a car and there’s no reliable public transit. These are signs of a broken system and reminders of how many people are not getting that successful crowdfunding campaign, not joyous occasions to be celebrated. ... Our seniors should be able to retire with dignity. Our workers should have access to reliable public transit or the money to live within actual walking distance of their jobs or buy a reliable car. Our children should be fed. The moments when these things happen shouldn’t be headlines and hashtags.