August 3, 2016

Justice Breyer joins the conservatives in staying an order requiring schools to allow a transgender student to use the bathroom that fits his gender identity.

"Breyer wrote that he joined in granting the stay, as well as recalling the mandate of the appeals court decision, 'as a courtesy' because four other justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito — were voting to grant the stay and 'granting a stay will preserve the status quo (as of the time the Court of Appeals made its decision).'"

34 comments:

JackWayne said...

Demonstrating once again that The Law is as flexible as a rubber hose. Why The People continue to grant "infallible" power to SCOTUS is beyond me.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Don't worry everyone, Hillary will fix this.

n.n said...

They need to acknowledge the potential for abuse and specify the means and methods for women and children to preserve their dignity and defend themselves.

Also, what other "stable" orientations do they plan to normalize? Why stop with transgender/homosexual and transgender/crossover? Do these subclasses of the transgender spectrum disorder represent the limit of "="?

Anonymous said...

" Why The People continue to grant "infallible" power to SCOTUS is beyond me."

From the article at the link: The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the Obama administration’s interpretation of regulations implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 as providing protections for transgender students is a permissible interpretation. After that ruling, the trial court judge in the case issued an injunction prohibiting the school board from implementing its policy limiting restroom use to students’ “biological sex.”

If you're handing out "black marks" you can start with the trial court, the Obama DoE and the Title IX law (which is the real rubber hose, meaning whatever the D. of Ed. says it means), as well as the 4th Circuit court. There was enough blame and shame to go around before the matter ever reached the SCOTUS.

rhhardin said...

Jeez this is so simple, owing to the particular form the nondiscrimination laws are idiotically written in.

Make them not men's and women's rooms, but penis and vagina rooms.

Then there's no discrimination by sexual identification.

rhhardin said...

Door signs: P or V.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Is the courtesy to the conservatives or to Hillary Clinton in the upcoming election?

rhhardin said...

Perhaps a tasteful rendering of a penis, statue of David or something. I don't know what you do for a tasteful rendering of a vulva/vagina, there being some architectural chaos in the matter.

rhhardin said...

Mother's Day (2016) shows the vagina door sign problem, with the vagina float for the mother's day parade. You can't tell what the hell it is.

rhhardin said...

Go Judy Chicago or Georgia O'Keefe, I guess.

rhhardin said...

Incidentally recent DVDs, which I've gotten up to now, are mostly really awful.

Bridge of Spies was good, having the most romantic moment ever in it, by the way. If you judge movies by their best moment, that's a good one.

n.n said...

no discrimination by sexual identification

It's not sexual identification. It's gender identification. It's not a physiological aberration but rather a behavioral discrepancy. The transgender spectrum disorder includes homosexuals, crossovers, fluxers, opportunists (also tans-social), etc.

rhhardin said...

Yes but if it's a Penis room and a Vagina room, it doesn't matter what goes on mentally. It's a plumbing question.

Fernandinande said...

Lavatory
It has a separated
to the male and the woman.
Don't mistake.

Fernandinande said...

The Internet provided a portal to possibility, helping Grimm realize that the female body [s]he was assigned[sic] at birth was conflicting with his[sic] true[sic] identity.

readering said...

By joining in the stay, Breyer happens to help diffuse the issue for riled-up conservatives. If Scalia could have voted, there would have been a stay.

buwaya said...

"Do these subclasses of the transgender spectrum disorder represent the limit of "="?"

I hereby kick off the concept of the wealth spectrum disorder.
I identify as a billionaire.
Therefore the public is required to make my identity match my means.

Real American said...

Psychos should not be dictating bathroom policy.

Fernandinande said...

Real American said...
Psychos should not be dictating bathroom policy.


Well, then who will be in charge of the shower stabbings?

Mountain Maven said...

The justices themselves are stripping away all respect for the Court.

David Begley said...

Breyer just can't vote on this procedural matter, he had to announce how he will vote on the merits. Breyer must have been Obama's favorite prof at Harvard. They are both arrogant overbearing liberals.

paminwi said...

I have to believe when this issue makes it to the SC this will not be upheld. There will be a 4-4 tie and the idiot ruling from the 4th Circuit will be upheld.

effinayright said...

"The Internet provided a portal to possibility, helping Grimm realize that the female body [s]he was assigned[sic] at birth was conflicting with his[sic] true[sic] identity."

************************

The real question is: why the fuck does the world have to recognize and approve his obvious mental illness?

effinayright said...

"Breyer just can't vote on this procedural matter, he had to announce how he will vote on the merits. Breyer must have been Obama's favorite prof at Harvard. They are both arrogant overbearing liberals."

****************************

Announce how he will vote when he hasn't heard the case?

Evidence, please...

sean said...

Poor Prof. Althouse: we all know she actually doesn't like single sex bathrooms, but she can't say that, because her students would call her a homophobic bigot, which would strike at the root of her identity. It's really silly to invest your identity in the good opinion of a bunch of people with bachelor's degrees, but that's the way professor are.

jr565 said...

"Jeez this is so simple, owing to the particular form the nondiscrimination laws are idiotically written in.

Make them not men's and women's rooms, but penis and vagina rooms.

Then there's no discrimination by sexual identification.
"
What if you have a p but think you should have a v, but haven't yet had the surgery to get a v? What if you never get the surgery to have a v? Like Caitlyn Jenner. think he/she still has a p. Or what about the dude who gave birth because he/she still had a v.

Oso Negro said...

American public bathrooms have been facilitating homosexual behavior for decades. In Ukraine, to pick but a single example, many establishments have single sex washrooms. But the stalls where the toilets are located have floor to ceiling walls and solid, locking doors. American public bathrooms could be the same, save for the perverse need to use dividers with gaps at the floor big enough to suck a dick under, space at the top of the divider that can be peeped over, and cheap doors that lock barely half the time and usually have a gap big enough to see through. Great for Democrats and wide-stance Republicans alike. Not so much for people who want to do their business in private.

Owen said...

This issue is as usual being deliberately obscured and too many of us are being lured by false Constitutional and legal scents, such as one's penumbra and how it is to be given recognition and respect in the narrow confines of a rest room stall. We all get caught up in Titke IX and whether sex means gender and who can be forcibly included in somebody else's locker room.

The real issue here is money. That became clear to me yesterday as I listened to NPR interviewing "specialists in child gender identity development" (or some such term). These folks are getting paid to find problems and then treat them, ideally for decades, based on their own claims that gender identity is fluid and evolving and every child is embarked on a long journey with many twists and turns: a journey where parents and peers and ordinary life cannot be adequate guides, where the intense and regular help of cadres of professionals will be needed. Otherwise, as we have seen, literally dozens of self-absorbed head-cases will continue to dominate the media with tales of confusion and alienation.

So for me Occam's Razor explains the whole topic as one more scam in which activists, consultants, media, bureaucrats and lawyers will (semi-tacitly, informally) collude to promote their business and become rich and famous. It's for the children.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Funny, Oso, if I was looking to bang a chick in a public bathroom, the secure stall you describe would seem ideal for privacy.

Peter said...

And yet, the text of Title IX speaks only of "sex," and is entirely silent on "gender." Perhaps those who want it to include a self-declared "gender identity" should pass a new law?

Or are we to suppose judges are incapable of making the elementary distinction between sex and gender?

Or perhaps we're just supposed to accept Humpty Dumpty law, as expressed by Lewis Carroll's character in Alice in Wonderland (“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”)

GRW3 said...

I'm interested in what this signals. Does this mean the court senses an overreach by the administration that, if they supported it, could have a negative effect on the election? That is help Trump. So they just take a moderate position to kick it downstream until after the election.

Or is it possible that the court, cognizant that is has no enforcement mechanism, will moderate politically no matter who would be nominated by Hillary? If her presidency resulted in a court that was radically out of tune with the American people, a subsequent Republican administration might just ignore their rulings or overrule them by act of congress. Or prevent a reprise of "Switch in time, save nine."

Douglas B. Levene said...

All I want to to know is whether Obama' daughter will be sharing her freshman dorm room with a "transgender" roommate - someone who thinks he is a female but has male plumbing. Get back to me when you find out.

Joe said...

I propose putting a picture of a penis on men's rooms and a picture of a vulva on woman's rooms, so it's REALLY clear where each sex goes.

Getting your cock chopped off is sufficient sacrifice to use the vulva room, even one isn't there (yet.)

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps a tasteful rendering of a penis . . . . I don't know what you do for a tasteful rendering of a vulva/vagina."

The current iconography of a triangle and a circle should work just fine.