A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by Chap »

Let us try to clarify the situation in relation to the question of gender and transgender identity. We can take it step by step as follows.

A: The initial big picture (but too crude to use nowadays)
At birth it is simple to identify who is a girl and who is a boys. You just look at the genitalia, and it is obvious. If you do a chromosome check, you will find that the girls have two X chromosomes, and the boys have an X and a Y. The girls grow into women, and the boys into men.

B: A developmental complication: (but not really relevant to this thread)
In about 1% of cases the baby has somewhat abnormal genitalia, but is still clearly a somewhat abnormally developed girl or boy. In 0.1-0.2% of cases, the genitals are abnormal enough to make it difficult to tell:
https://www.childrensmn.org/services/ca ... genitalia/
This is not however very relevant to transgender identity as nowadays discussed.

C: Taking account of the transgender issue.
In about 1% of the population, people are born with unambiguous genitals that enable them to be identified as a girl or as a boy, and those genitals match their chromosomes. However, as they grow up, they begin to make it plain by their behaviour or by their explicit statements about themselves that instead of being a girl (as identified at birth and by their normally developing genitalia and chromosomes), they consider themselves to be a boy, or vice versa. In what I have just written, the figure of 1% is deliberately taken from a source with no interest in minimising the data, so we can take it as a realistic maximum:
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/truth-about-trans

D: Finding a more useful terminology to talk about the issue
At this point, we will find it useful to adopt a more precise terminology that will enable us to talk about this issue with less confusion than is usually found in relevant discussions. We distinguish:
(1) Sex: Based on genitalia at birth and XX/XY chromosomes, we can easily classify all but about 1% (see (B) above) of human bodies as female or male. This is a matter of objective medical science.
(2) Gender: This is a social distinction, based on the roles people play in society, how they are recognised by others, and how they think about themselves. We may classify most people as being, in social terms women or men.

E: Talking about the trans issue:
In all but about 1% of cases (see (C) above), sex and gender correlate: possession of a body with female sex expresses in gender terms as identifying a person as a woman, and male sex expresses as identifying a person as a man. Overwhelmingly, what trans people want from the rest of us amounts to no more than saying:
"I was born with a female body, and my parents called me Mary and dressed me as a girl. However, I passionately wish to be recognised in gender terms as a boy/man, to call myself Mike, and to dress and be treated as a man."
"I was born with a male body, and my parents called me Mike and dressed me as a boy. However, I passionately wish to be recognised in gender terms as a girl/woman, to call myself Mary, and to dress and be treated as a woman."

F: Dealing with transgender people
In the overwhelming majority of cases, the 1% of the population (at most) who wish to live in a gender not usually associated with their birth sex simply want the rest of us to let them live normal lives in their preferred gender. They just ask, in effect, that we should be kind and tolerant, and let them live trouble-free existences, in which (most of the time) we shall not notice that the accountant, store clerk or taxi driver we meet has crossed from one gender to another (i.e. is "transgender"). Overwhelmingly, people being transgender causes the non-transgender 99% of the population no problem at all, and the accommodation needed is no more than (say) providing toilet or changing room accommodation that takes account of their otherwise not troublesome identity. And that is the decent and humane standpoint from which this issue should be approached.

G: Rare cases
Non transgender men are about 50% of the population. The overwhelming majority of violence and sexual assault against women is committed by non-transgender men. A very small proportion of the 1% of the population who are living transgender lives may act so as to be a threat to women, but mathematically the threat they pose is a minimal part of the dangers women face. All the same, it needs to be dealt with in the case of artificial environments such as prisons and women's refuges. But since we do not treat all non transgender men as a threat to society, there is no reason to treat the overwhelming majority of the 1% of people who are transgender as any kind of threat.

Such, at any rate, is the way I see things.
Last edited by Chap on Thu Apr 28, 2022 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Dr. Shades wrote:
Thu Apr 28, 2022 8:06 am
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:13 pm
The inmate in question is a man who claims to be a transgender woman, . . .
So Uncle Rico's thread title "A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison" was 180° inaccurate.
It was deliberately inaccurate. It was facetious sarcasm designed to troll. Jesus I hope you’re just trolling at this point, and not this dense.
Ah. Had you used the miracle tool known as Google, and taken about a minute of your day to find the answer instead of asking others to do your legwork for you, . . .
Nobody needed to do any legwork for me. Since females can't impregnate females, the option that I recognized regarding a male being mistakenly (or foolishly) placed into a female prison was correct after all.

Plus, his caption above his photo identifying the impregnated female was incorrect; it was actually the impregnator male.
Ok, let’s break this down a bit. Nothing in his troll job was meant to be accurate. Accuracy wasn’t the point. The point of his OP was to ‘trigger the libs’ because Liberals generally support the transgender movement. As such, an absurdity such as a man being placed in a women’s prison happened because Liberals, in the mind of a Conservative like uncle Rico, support irrational thinking over common sense. In this case the irrational thinking was putting a man in a women’s prison because the man claimed to self-identify as a woman, and as such he impregnated women prisoners. This naturally should result in cognitive dissonance for a Liberal who believes in the science around sex and gender identity, or politics of ‘individual supremacy’. Uncle Rico took the Conservative talking point around this ‘transgender’ man who was placed in a women’s prison, that was hot about a week ago, and dropped it on this ‘Liberal echo chamber’ to ham-handedly poke the Libs who post here.

I have a hard time believing you, Dr. Shades, couldn’t have figured out OP’s intent had you been paying attention to the board, and put in an effort to Google the content.

* Edited to be a little nicer in tone.

- Doc
Last edited by Doctor CamNC4Me on Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by Chap »

UNWRITTEN RULE NO. 43:

Everybody should be nice to dear Dr Shades, since without him we would not be here ...

(Even when he might be a bit wrong about something.)

It's sorta Perfume, only more so.
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by Moksha »

Chap wrote:
Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:46 pm
It's sorta Perfume, only more so.
So you are saying he had a Perfume moment, which is somewhat akin to a senior moment? Makes sense.
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by Kishkumen »

So, the point of the OP, as I see it, and placing trolling aside, is to show how progressive policies regarding gender and sexual orientation can lead to absurd outcomes. In this case, the outcome was indeed absurd. Because a pre-operation transgender person who was born with male equipment was allowed to be housed in a women's prison, they were able to impregnate a fellow prisoner, leading many to question whether the transgender identity of this person was not some kind of opportunistic way of getting around the system to have easy access to sex.

This is the kind of story that really helps those who fear the fake transgenders in the bathroom scenario. A teenage boy throws on a skirt, walks into a bathroom, and has access to teenage girls. "You can't deny them access to the girls' bathroom, they identify as a girl!"

In any case, this is the issue that I find most difficult to grapple with. "Gender." I didn't anticipate how difficult it would be. Chap's breakdown looks OK, as far as it goes, but the combined issues of gender, sexual orientation, and identity are somewhat disorienting to me. In some cases, I feel like the "identity" of "non-binary" is more of a fad, dodge, or political statement of some kind. "Non-binary" might be generation Z's "I vote independent." Since almost everyone these days seems to believe men are mostly responsible for the ills of society, being "non-binary" is a great way to distance yourself from the stigma of maleness without committing to being a woman. A lesbian who identifies as non-binary can present in a masculine way but avoid being accused of wanting to be a man. Asexual is another interesting case, although I credit it with being more of a plea to be left alone, and I am sympathetic with that position.

I feel for people who really struggle with all of this stuff. Right now, however, I think everything is so messy that it is difficult for me to be so confident that the path to the best outcomes is clear. My operating manual for how to navigate the present is as follows:

1. Use names and avoid pronouns.
2. Treat everyone with respect.
3. Avoid arguments on the issue of transgenderism, especially where children and athletes are concerned.

The last item is especially important, since so many people think the right answers are obvious and represent moral imperatives, but the situations involved are actually so much more difficult, problematic, and murky. Usually, the strongest believers in any particular position are strident, accusatory, unforgiving, insulting, and full of questions that are either rhetorical, leading, or insulting.

But, bottom line for me--I think the whole thing is tedious. I don't want to know about the sex lives of most people. I don't want to hear about people's sexual navel gazing. How I wish we could just drop the subject and live and let live. I know that's a pipe dream, but I wish it were possible.
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by Res Ipsa »

Kishkumen wrote:
Fri Apr 29, 2022 3:01 pm
So, the point of the opening post, as I see it, and placing trolling aside, is to show how progressive policies regarding gender and sexual orientation can lead to absurd outcomes. In this case, the outcome was indeed absurd. Because a pre-operation transgender person who was born with male equipment was allowed to be housed in a women's prison, they were able to impregnate a fellow prisoner, leading many to question whether the transgender identity of this person was not some kind of opportunistic way of getting around the system to have easy access to sex.

This is the kind of story that really helps those who fear the fake transgenders in the bathroom scenario. A teenage boy throws on a skirt, walks into a bathroom, and has access to teenage girls. "You can't deny them access to the girls' bathroom, they identify as a girl!"

In any case, this is the issue that I find most difficult to grapple with. "Gender." I didn't anticipate how difficult it would be. Chap's breakdown looks OK, as far as it goes, but the combined issues of gender, sexual orientation, and identity are somewhat disorienting to me. In some cases, I feel like the "identity" of "non-binary" is more of a fad, dodge, or political statement of some kind. "Non-binary" might be generation Z's "I vote independent." Since almost everyone these days seems to believe men are mostly responsible for the ills of society, being "non-binary" is a great way to distance yourself from the stigma of maleness without committing to being a woman. A lesbian who identifies as non-binary can present in a masculine way but avoid being accused of wanting to be a man. Asexual is another interesting case, although I credit it with being more of a plea to be left alone, and I am sympathetic with that position.

I feel for people who really struggle with all of this stuff. Right now, however, I think everything is so messy that it is difficult for me to be so confident that the path to the best outcomes is clear. My operating manual for how to navigate the present is as follows:

1. Use names and avoid pronouns.
2. Treat everyone with respect.
3. Avoid arguments on the issue of transgenderism, especially where children and athletes are concerned.

The last item is especially important, since so many people think the right answers are obvious and represent moral imperatives, but the situations involved are actually so much more difficult, problematic, and murky. Usually, the strongest believers in any particular position are strident, accusatory, unforgiving, insulting, and full of questions that are either rhetorical, leading, or insulting.

But, bottom line for me--I think the whole thing is tedious. I don't want to know about the sex lives of most people. I don't want to hear about people's sexual navel gazing. How I wish we could just drop the subject and live and let live. I know that's a pipe dream, but I wish it were possible.
Good thoughts, Kish. I think you can never go wrong with your second point.

I think it's very hard to discern whether something is a fad or an emerging societal change. Based solely on my observation in changes in my children's friends and acquaintances over time, I'm hesitant to dismiss the "non-binary" identifier as a fad, dodge or political statement. I see "non-binary" used commonly by both biological men and women. Dividing anything into two categories always presents the problem of the excluded middle, so I don't think it's strange that people would resist being forced into one of two inflexible categories. It appears to me that, once the identification "non-binary" gained some degree of acceptance, it revealed, not surprisingly, that people don't neatly fit into one of two rigid categories. Rather, they fall along a spectrum.

I don't think this case should bolster fears about bathrooms. The concern about bathrooms is sexual assault or rape. According to the article, the sex in prison was consensual.

My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong here, Shades) is that sexual contact between prisoners is against the rules. My understanding is also that sexual contact between prisoners happens all the time, both consensual and nonconsensual. So, does the fact that, in this case, the sexual contact was between people with different genitals in contrast to the same genitals? Is heterosexual sex between prisoners somehow worse than homosexual contact?

To me, the problem is the the creation of children by two incarcerated people. in my opinion, absent a way to eliminate the possibility of pregnancy, it's a bad idea to house individuals that can create a baby in the same place.

There is a piece of information I'd like to have that isn't in the article: are transwomen assaulted, including sexual assault, at higher rates than cis men if they are housed together? And, if so, are there steps that can be taken to reduce that risk? I'm not sure that any increased risk would outweigh my concern about creating children in prison, but I'd at least like to know whether there is an increased risk of harm and the magnitude of any increased risk.
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by dantana »

And then there's this -

I have four granddaughters. Their mom, 'T' has been divorced from my middle son for about four years. She still brings herself and the kids down to visit us a couple times a year. Oldest Grand-d, 'S' is 14. Two years ago, at 12 she decided she was non-b, started dressing masc., Goth-ish and wanted to be called a masc name, 'M'. during those two years M has been standoffish.

A couple weeks ago they all came down for Easter day. M was still 'M', still dressing Goth-ish, the dressing was back to fem., she was back to being interactive, and ... M brought a boyfriend. Ok then. No worries.

Worries: T gave M and boyfriend their own bedroom for the night. My wife told me she had talked with T about birth control for M. T said not to worry, she was working on it, and besides, M had told her they don't have sex very often. Brilliant!

Anyway, I'm not sure I can aim too much blame at the kids. Adolescents brains and all. Maybe Mr. Clemens was onto something when he said, (paraphrased) ' At 13 children should be put in a barrel and fed through the bunghole, at 16, plug the bunghole.' Prob. that needs to include doofus moms. And dads.
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by Kishkumen »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Fri Apr 29, 2022 4:23 pm
Good thoughts, Kish. I think you can never go wrong with your second point.
Thanks, Res Ipsa!
I think it's very hard to discern whether something is a fad or an emerging societal change. Based solely on my observation in changes in my children's friends and acquaintances over time, I'm hesitant to dismiss the "non-binary" identifier as a fad, dodge or political statement. I see "non-binary" used commonly by both biological men and women. Dividing anything into two categories always presents the problem of the excluded middle, so I don't think it's strange that people would resist being forced into one of two inflexible categories. It appears to me that, once the identification "non-binary" gained some degree of acceptance, it revealed, not surprisingly, that people don't neatly fit into one of two rigid categories. Rather, they fall along a spectrum.
The spectrum has always existed, and people dealt with it differently than they do today. Some of the methods of dealing with it were bad, and other methods were fairly innocuous. I just want to get to a place where mutual respect rules, and people of differing views are not needlessly provoking each other or policing each other closely.
I don't think this case should bolster fears about bathrooms. The concern about bathrooms is sexual assault or rape. According to the article, the sex in prison was consensual.
I love how you handle this stuff. So, going back to what I wrote--and I admit it could have been more clearly worded--I said that people who make an issue out of the bathroom question will use this kind of story. I would guess that in your legally-oriented lens, you are not presently speaking to the larger issue of traditional categories of identity and the gendered spaces that went along with them. People who respond to the upsetting of category and place will look to cases like this and say, "See, we told you mixing up identity and upsetting spaces would result in nonsense."

And, I tend to think that there is a point here. I don't think you are completely correct about the nature of the concern in regards to bathrooms. That may be what people are saying, but the overriding concern of parents has usually been to control the reproductive behavior of their kids. Rape or sexual assault is a worst case scenario. Unwanted pregnancies are another.

I also tend to think that what usually works in large groups is simple stuff. The latest gender/sexual orientation/identity theories are dizzyingly complex, and for that reason I think they are doomed to failure. The only way we could possibly keep up with all of this, as human communities, is to turn these issues and practices into a kind of religion. Honestly, I don't want to join that one either.
To me, the problem is the the creation of children by two incarcerated people. in my opinion, absent a way to eliminate the possibility of pregnancy, it's a bad idea to house individuals that can create a baby in the same place.
Yep. I think everyone agrees. But our current gender politics created a situation in which this could happen.
There is a piece of information I'd like to have that isn't in the article: are transwomen assaulted, including sexual assault, at higher rates than cis men if they are housed together? And, if so, are there steps that can be taken to reduce that risk? I'm not sure that any increased risk would outweigh my concern about creating children in prison, but I'd at least like to know whether there is an increased risk of harm and the magnitude of any increased risk.
And, while we're at it: how many pre-operation transwomen are there in US prisons? If they are victimized more, what will it cost to provide them special facilities so that they neither suffer at the hands of violent men nor impregnate women prisoners?
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by ajax18 »

What happens to the children born to women serving life sentences in prison?

I first wanted to express my outrage at how this woman continues to manage to impose tremendous costs upon the taxpayer even from the inside of a prison. But I felt strongly impressed that this child, quite possibly born to the worlds worst parents, is still by lds definition a child of Heavenly Father, God of the Universe. I guess this dichotomy of beliefs is what creates a result where it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Don't have kids out of wedlock or before you're financially independent, but if you do, you'll be rewarded by a direct transfer of income from your neighbors who are still working to gain the skills that will allow them to compete in the marketplace and honestly provide for a family because to do anything less would be unfair to the children.
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Re: A miracle! Female impregnates Female At New Jersey Women's Prison

Post by Res Ipsa »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:29 pm
Res Ipsa wrote:
Fri Apr 29, 2022 4:23 pm
Good thoughts, Kish. I think you can never go wrong with your second point.
Thanks, Res Ipsa!
I think it's very hard to discern whether something is a fad or an emerging societal change. Based solely on my observation in changes in my children's friends and acquaintances over time, I'm hesitant to dismiss the "non-binary" identifier as a fad, dodge or political statement. I see "non-binary" used commonly by both biological men and women. Dividing anything into two categories always presents the problem of the excluded middle, so I don't think it's strange that people would resist being forced into one of two inflexible categories. It appears to me that, once the identification "non-binary" gained some degree of acceptance, it revealed, not surprisingly, that people don't neatly fit into one of two rigid categories. Rather, they fall along a spectrum.
The spectrum has always existed, and people dealt with it differently than they do today. Some of the methods of dealing with it were bad, and other methods were fairly innocuous. I just want to get to a place where mutual respect rules, and people of differing views are not needlessly provoking each other or policing each other closely.
I don't think this case should bolster fears about bathrooms. The concern about bathrooms is sexual assault or rape. According to the article, the sex in prison was consensual.
I love how you handle this stuff. So, going back to what I wrote--and I admit it could have been more clearly worded--I said that people who make an issue out of the bathroom question will use this kind of story. I would guess that in your legally-oriented lens, you are not presently speaking to the larger issue of traditional categories of identity and the gendered spaces that went along with them. People who respond to the upsetting of category and place will look to cases like this and say, "See, we told you mixing up identity and upsetting spaces would result in nonsense."

And, I tend to think that there is a point here. I don't think you are completely correct about the nature of the concern in regards to bathrooms. That may be what people are saying, but the overriding concern of parents has usually been to control the reproductive behavior of their kids. Rape or sexual assault is a worst case scenario. Unwanted pregnancies are another.

I also tend to think that what usually works in large groups is simple stuff. The latest gender/sexual orientation/identity theories are dizzyingly complex, and for that reason I think they are doomed to failure. The only way we could possibly keep up with all of this, as human communities, is to turn these issues and practices into a kind of religion. Honestly, I don't want to join that one either.
To me, the problem is the the creation of children by two incarcerated people. in my opinion, absent a way to eliminate the possibility of pregnancy, it's a bad idea to house individuals that can create a baby in the same place.
Yep. I think everyone agrees. But our current gender politics created a situation in which this could happen.
There is a piece of information I'd like to have that isn't in the article: are transwomen assaulted, including sexual assault, at higher rates than cis men if they are housed together? And, if so, are there steps that can be taken to reduce that risk? I'm not sure that any increased risk would outweigh my concern about creating children in prison, but I'd at least like to know whether there is an increased risk of harm and the magnitude of any increased risk.
And, while we're at it: how many pre-operation transwomen are there in US prisons? If they are victimized more, what will it cost to provide them special facilities so that they neither suffer at the hands of violent men nor impregnate women prisoners?
Thanks for the detailed response, Reverend. We do tend to see things through different lenses, which is why I enjoy engaging with you and find it helpful in thinking about things.

I agree that the spectrum has always existed. To me, just thinking through the whole issue of gender is a little surreal. We have biological criteria that allow us to classify the vast majority of humanity into one of two categories: men and women.

But on top of that, we have this mass of socially constructed ideas about the significance of that distinction: what it “means” to be a man. How should a woman behave? And those two things — biological distinction and socially constructed meanings, expectations, and consequences — are entangled and jumbled up to the extent that we mostly don’t think about the difference.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen many of those socially constructed gender roles collapse into each other. At some level, the notion of saying “Screw your gender roles — I’m just going to be who I am and not worrying about which box you think I belong in” really resonates with me. What’s weird for me personally, having a trans daughter, is that she isn’t really rejecting the socially constructed boxes — she’s saying she belongs in the box that was constructed for the other biological sex. I don’t care about the boxes — be who you are and don’t worry about the boxes. But she cares, and that’s important to me.

I think that’s why I like the idea of non-binary. In terms of gender roles, just be you and don’t sweat the boxes. I have my hands full with what it means to be Res Ipsa without having to think about which gender box I belong in and what it means to be in that box.

All of which is a long winded way of saying yes, I’m not focused on two this incident will fuel the overblown outrage machines that seem to be driving society these days. If there aren’t sufficient actual events around to fuel the outrage, people will simply make stuff up. There is plenty of material for outrage junkies to get their fixes, whether real or fake.

I’m becoming more and more of a pragmatist. I look at the events we are discussing and I really have only three questions: is this event a problem? If so, is it something that it makes sense to fix? If so, what’s the best solution to the actual problem?

I think your questions about how common the situation is and the cost of possible solutions are good ones. What I find myself not caring about so much is finding someone or something to blame. Whatever politics you may subscribe to, there will always be instances in which they produce bad or stupid results. To me, whatever “woke culture” is, it doesn’t require housing a person with a functional male reproductive system in the same Prison with other people who have functional female reproductive systems. Based on the information I have, it looks like a bad decision — one of perhaps millions of bad decisions made every day. Rather than becoming a herd of outraged rhinos, just make a better decision.

I’m too old for all the manufactured histrionics and outrage. It’s both idiotic and exhausting. Bad decisions will always be made by imperfect human beings. Just fix the problem and learn from bad decisions to make better decisions.

It sounds to me like we both would like the same thing. I agree that a complex system of gender categories is not sustainable. But I don’t think that trying to reimpose a binary distinction for gender is sustainable either.

US society used to have a set of terms to differentiate Americans based on their fraction of “blackness.” When was the last time you ever anyone referred to as a quadroon, octoroon, or even mulatto? All of that has collapsed into a much more generalized category of “mixed race.” And even the distinction between “mixed race” and “pure race” is fading in importance. That’s my hope for gender roles. People will settle down and be kinder to each other s rigid categories collapse into each other and become less important than, well, being kind.
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