So this is Karen Davis who runs a YouTube channel called “You’re Kiddin’ Right?” where she shares her Gender Critical views which go beyond mere opinion as she cites hard scientific and medical facts.
She also uses humor to discuss these issues with all the precision and devastating effect of a smart bomb.
Karen first came on the Gender Critical scene 10 months ago with her YouTube channel and she’s managed to garner nearly 10,000 subscribers (with more coming) and has quickly made a name for herself as a prominent feminist voice countering what she describes as “the gender fracas” having been cited amongst the leading Gender Critical discussion boards such as Mumsnet, Ovarit and has even managed to land an interview on The Mess We’re In with Graham Linehan almost as quickly as her YouTube channel went up.
For the record, Graham Linehan doesn’t invite just any Johnny Come Lately’s on his show. You have to be a person of some notoriety in the GC movement to rate a billet around him and that Karen managed to do this as a newbie is testament to her passion and forcefulness to the cause. Karen is, without a doubt, a brilliant rising star of the Gender Critical movement and, as such, I am a fan of hers and a rabid consumer of her videos.
The other day I was, per usual, watching one of her videos where she mentioned in passing that in New York City, if you misgender someone, you can face a maximum fine of $250,000.00.
I repeat: misgender someone in New York City and you can be fined $250,000.00.
Karen is as honest as the day is long but even I found this hokey and hard to digest. Has it really come to this where Trans Rights Activists have succeeded in enshrining into law that we must use their preferred pronouns or else?
Well, one session on the Google and…she was right - this is an actual law in New York City and has been for the last six years.
Discrimination based on gender identity has been illegal in New York since 2002, but in December of 2015 the New York Commission on Human Rights released a new set of guidelines that specify the many ways one can violate the law. The guidelines apply to employment, housing, and public accommodations, though some exceptions exist for particularly small employers and for religious organizations.
“New York has always been a diverse and welcoming city and our laws are designed to protect every New Yorker, regardless of their gender identity,” mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement.
This law enacted in 2015 makes New York City the most aggressive city in America to protect the rights of the transgendered.
Just how aggressive? The New York Commission on Human Rights outlines in it’s guidelines examples of just how aggressively they’re going to go after anyone for misgendering.
Repeatedly referring to someone other than their chosen title such as “Mr.”, “Ms.”
Refusing to call a person by their chosen pronoun, not only “he” or “she” but also explicitly gender-neutral ones like “xe” and “hir” if that’s what they desire.
Requiring a person to legally change their name before using their preferred alternative. For example, if “John” wants to be called “Jane” you can’t still call him “John” even if John is his legal name.
Prohibits any demand of proof that this person is undergoing gender reassignment before referring to them by their chosen pronouns.
Dear NYCHR: You’re kidding, right?
The new rules also apply to more than just issues of misgendering. The policy also requires all covered entities to let people use a bathroom and locker room consistent with their chosen gender identity, “regardless of their sex assigned at birth, anatomy, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on their identification.” Interestingly, the policy explicitly allows transgender individuals to use bathrooms of either gender, though this right is not given to others.
Other aspects of the policy include a ban on gender-specific dress codes (such as compelling men to wear a tie at a restaurant), and a requirement that company health plans cover gender-transition and gender-affirming care, such as hormone treatments, voice training, and surgery.
The law defines such treatments as “necessary” and “life-saving.”
Ordinary violations of the guidelines can result in fines of up to $125,000, while offenses stemming from “willful, wanton, or malicious conduct” can incur fines of up to $250,000. In addition to these civil penalties, the commission may award an unlimited amount of compensatory damages to anybody deemed a victim of discrimination.
And y’all thought California was bad.
Speaking of California, the Court of Appeal of the State of California, 3rd Appellate District in a 3-0 unanimous decision struck down a state law that would have penalized elder care workers in the state for not using a patient’s preferred pronouns.
The July 16, 2020 ruling sided with First Amendment speech protections over activists.
In 2017, California enacted the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights. (Health & Saf. Code, § 1439.51.)
Taking Offense, an unincorporated association, petitioned for a writ of mandate asserting facial constitutional challenges to two provisions: (1) the pronoun provision (§ 1439.51, subd. (a)(5)), which makes it a crime for long-term care employees to “willfully and repeatedly” fail to use a resident’s preferred name and pronoun that they know; and (2) the room-assignment provision (§ 1439.51, subd. (a)(3)), which makes it unlawful for a facility that uses gender-based room assignments to non-consensually assign a transgender resident a room not matching their gender identity.
Taking Offense alleged the pronoun provision is a content-based speech restriction that violates employees’ free speech rights, and the room assignment provision violated nontransgender residents’ equal protection rights because they lack the same opportunity to choose whether to be assigned a roommate based on their gender identity or their sex assigned at birth.
The trial court denied the petition and Taking Offense appealed.
The Court of Appeal reversed in part and affirmed in part, holding that the pronoun provision violated the First Amendment but the room assignment provision was not unconstitutional. The court subjected the content-based restriction in the pronoun provision to strict scrutiny because its enforcement required analysis of an employee’s speech and the Legislature’s reason for prohibiting it. The court declined to rely on the “captive audience” doctrine to apply a lesser standard because neither employees nor residents could readily express their views elsewhere.
Applying strict scrutiny, the court held that the State had not narrowly tailored the pronoun provision to achieve its compelling interest in eliminating discrimination in long-term care facilities. The pronoun provision burdened more speech than was necessary by criminalizing speech that did not amount to actionable harassment, including isolated instances of misgendering, regardless whether the resident was negatively affected or even aware of the remarks.
“We recognize that misgendering may be disrespectful, discourteous, and insulting, and used as an unartful way to express an ideological disagreement with another person’s expressed gender identity,” reads the 42-page opinion, which was reached unanimously. “But the First Amendment does not protect only speech that inoffensively and artfully articulates a person’s point of view.”
While the justices agreed that combating LGBTQ+ discrimination is “legitimate and laudable,” they also argued that not all instances of misgendering necessarily create a discriminatory environment.
The ruling is a welcome sign that sanity does sometimes prevail here in the Golden State but we still have a long way to go, especially now that we allow males to be housed with females in prisons if said males self-identify as women.