https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/gender-is-not-a-binary-the-science-
is-in-and-there-s-no-legitimate-debate-opinion/ar-
AA1dI0AJ?ocid=msedgdhp&cvid=3f0fcf76c933492b8011812dbfce9892&ei=22

Let me start with the most important point: it is not a crime to misgender
someone in Michigan. Debates over whether misgendering someone should be
against the law are really beside the point. Recent reports have claimed
that the Michigan legislature has passed new legislation that criminalizes
using a person's wrong gender pronouns, making such misgendering a felony
punishable by law. These reports have created quite a brouhaha. But here's
the thing: They are not true.

Unreliable, extremist-right media outlets (deemed "low credibility" by the
Media Bias/Fact Check website) are manufacturing a crisis where there is
none, with the express intent to raise the ire of people who may not have
a good, fact-based understanding of the nature of gender and gender
identity. The proposed law is not in fact law yet, it is a bill that was
passed by the Michigan House of Representatives, but the state Senate
still needs to pass it. If it does, the bill would then need to go to the
governor for approval.

What the Michigan legislature actually does propose is to add categories
to an existing law against ethnic intimidation. It would add sex, sexual
orientation, gender identity or expression, physical or mental disability,
age, and ethnicity to the already included categories of race, color,
religion, gender, and national origin. Nothing else would change. Gender
pronouns are not even mentioned in the bill.

As a philosopher who specializes in ethics and equity, I find the
legislators' instinct here to be morally right and good. They should not
be getting grief for trying to keep vulnerable people safe. The problem
with the Michigan bill is not its content, but rather the way it is being
distorted and used by extremist-right groups to fuel misunderstanding by
falsely alleging that misgendering someone would be a felony.

This is part of a larger social and political moment in some U.S. states
to restrict people's human rights. I repeat: The problem with the Michigan
bill is not its content; the problem is what the backlash against the
fabricated version of the bill, along with other widespread disinformation
campaigns are doing to U.S. politics.

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, June marvels at how quickly the
U.S. morphed into the repressive totalitarian nation of Gilead by
allowing, even if tacitly, the extremist far-Right to become mainstream.
"We lived, as usual," she says, "by ignoring... Ignoring isn't the same as
ignorance, you have to work at it. Nothing changes instantaneously: in a
gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it."

Societies undergoing democratic decline usually erode gradually. We begin
to see things like the proliferation of disinformation; the facile
dismissal of facts, evidence, and the free press; and the degradation of
civil liberties, just as we are witnessing across the US.

Connected to this is an overall assault on truth. There should not be any
debate about whether gender identity is binary. (It's not.) There is no
"other side" of an issue if topics have been settled, with a right answer
emerging through scientific and ethical inquiry�which is the case with
gender identity.

But who gets to decide what's true? Won't it just depend on your political
views?

That's the thing about truth: It is not partisan. We can rely on the
evidence generated from scientific and ethical inquiry to help us
distinguish between what's reasonable and true from what's not. What is
important here is where the preponderance of the evidence lies, which
ideas and perspectives are tenable and which are not, and whether the
speech and ideas we are contesting are true or false.

Rebecca Solnit points out that political liberals and moderates simply
cannot meet far-right extremists halfway, as if each political platform is
equally worthy of consideration. There can be a right answer and people
can still disagree about it.

The extremist far-right's lies about the Michigan bill�and more broadly
about gender identity�quite literally place transgender people in harm's
way, not to mention how they exact a toll on the overall health and
wellbeing of trans persons. Good for Michigan legislators for trying to do
something positive in the name of truth and human dignity.

Michele S. Moses is Professor of Educational Foundations, Policy and
Practice, University of Colorado Boulder.

--
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.