Nebraska governor Jim Pillen, a Republican not noted as a women’s rights supporter, yesterday issued an executive order “defining” males and females and the attributes thereof. The anti-transgender political grandstanding offers fusty explanations of the sexes–men are “bigger, stronger and faster” on average–in pursuit of Rowling-esque calls for sexual segregation (and even echoing her ostensibly feminist rationales) and not a lot else.
The order declares that, in matters of the state, the “biological differences between the sexes are enduring” and that the “sex” of a person will be defined by the gender designated at birth. In addition to specifically noting how boy, girl, man, and woman will be defined, the order also includes biological descriptions. …
“It is common sense that men do not belong in women’s only spaces,” Pillen said in the news release. “As Governor, it is my duty to protect our kids and women’s athletics, which means providing single-sex spaces for women’s sports, bathrooms, and changing rooms.”
The reaction, at least from Democrats, is to point out that if it were enforced, the likely outcome would be Nebraska losing federal funding for womens’ shelters.
“Today Governor Pillen, famous women’s rights supporter, signed this offensive and ridiculous proclamation establishing a “Women’s Bill of Rights.” He should try saying this stuff to my face then we would see who’s got what biological advantage,” wrote State Senator Megan Hunt on Twitter.
Headline is clickbait. The executive order does not define men as “bigger, stronger, and faster,” and the headline contains zero information about how the executive order actually does define “sex”. This shit really gets under my skin. Misinformation like this makes it more difficult to educate people about what is wrong with the system, why it needs to be changed, and the actions necessary to change it. It greatly reduces a person’s ability to advocate for a cause effectively.
The bigger, stronger, faster part is in the section of the order called the preamble, not part of the definition. The preamble is all the WHEREAS shit you see at the beginning of bills and explains the rationale for the bill, or executive order as is the case here.
In this instance, the preamble is grandstanding, and the article even refers to it as such:
Here’s the preamble, which doesn’t mean shit:
This is the part that contains information about defining someone’s “sex”, and is actually enacted:
I honestly think that’s semantics. If the preamble doesn’t matter, then why is it there? Why have it if it doesn’t mean anything? Just because one is called a preamble and one a definition doesn’t mean that people won’t use either as the “real” definition. Maybe you could have argued that several years ago, but you certainly can’t now.
I may be incorrect, but I do not believe this is sematic.
I had a short explanation in my comment: A preamble may be inserted between the title and the enacting clause of a bill for multiple reasons: to explain the state of affairs that caused the bill to be introduced; to make clear the purpose of the bill; as a sales pitch to improve the chances of enactment; or to serve some other purpose of the sponsor.
The actions the government are to take to enact this order are described after this portion of the order:
That does not include the preamble.
I do see what you’re saying, but I’m talking about it in practice of the current political climate, not the ideal, normal way of doing things.
IANAL but isn’t there an issue with “if any data is collected it must define someone as a man or a woman” doesn’t allow there to be an “unknown.” Therefore you could potentially skew things like crime or Healthcare statistics by counting all unknowns as one gender or the other.
Secondly, the definition “shall identify each individual… as male or female at birth” also provides a problem as one presumably can now kick back a whole bunch of stuff with the message “yes but this data doesn’t contain their sex at birth, please provide birth certificates for all 128,323 members of this list”
It seems so to me.
We all knew where this was going and making fun of the preamble is way more fun than going “well shit there’s another state ruining lives.”
I’m not from there and didn’t know where it was going, and this user’s explanation is very important, I’m glad they shared it <3
My apologies. Carry on.