Key points:
- Recent events spark concerns about existential crisis in the country.
- Anti-trans activist Beth Bourne protests at a school board meeting.
- Schools should prioritize creating safe spaces for all students, not exclusion.
Here we are facing a potential existential crisis in this country this week — Charlie Kirk is murdered, Jimmy Kimmel pulled off the air, ICE Agents in masks grabbing children off the street, President Trump publicly demanding his AG prosecute political foes and then, locally, anti-trans activist Beth Bourne stripping down to her… she claims bathing suit … at a school board meeting in opposition to students undressing in locker rooms.
I swear I almost titled an op-ed earlier this week… the return of weird Davis… in homage to my friend, the esteemed UC Davis sociologist emeritus John Lofland, probably the premier local history expert as well.
Given everything that has happened in the last week it all seems a bit absurd and, yet, there was also a perceived level of threat… some in the room told me that they weren’t sure what Bourne was actually up to when she pulled down her pants (yes this was a school board meeting and while there were no kids there, there well could have been).
After what has transpired really in the last six years or more, we should be a bit more careful about how we conduct ourselves — particularly at public meetings.
On the Vanguard the response was pretty tame, but on our Facebook page, the conversation has generated over 300 comments at last check. Lots of debates.
Bourne in response to our article on one of the social media pages argued that she is not “anti-trans” and that, in fact, there is no such thing as transgender.
So let me start there…
In my view, the claim that “there is no such thing as transgender” flies in the face of what modern science has actually shown us.
We now know that gender identity is not simply a matter of external anatomy at birth.
Studies of the brain have found that transgender people often show patterns that don’t neatly match those of cisgender men or women.
Instead, their brain structures fall in between, or reflect aspects more in line with their gender identity. That doesn’t mean there’s a single “transgender brain,” but it does mean that gender identity has real biological roots.
Scientists have also found evidence that genetics and prenatal development play a role. Certain variations in genes that affect how the body processes sex hormones show up more frequently in transgender people than in the general population.
And we’ve long known that exposure to hormones in the womb can shape later gender identity. This makes it clear that biology, not just environment or “choice,” is part of the story.
None of this suggests that science has a simple, one-size-fits-all explanation. Human identity is complex and shaped by many factors, from biology to social experience.
But the consistent findings across brain studies, genetics, and developmental biology point to the same conclusion: being transgender is a real, measurable part of human diversity.
That’s why the idea that transgender identity is somehow “made up” doesn’t hold water. It dismisses the growing body of scientific evidence and ignores the lived experience of millions of people. To deny the reality of transgender people is to deny both science and humanity.
But let’s make this a bit simpler.
In April I went to San Quentin Rehabilitation Center for the first ever Transgender Visibility Night.
Angie Gordon, a transwoman who is at San Quentin, is also a board member of the Vanguard and helps to run our Vanguard Incarcerated Press (VIP) journalism program which highlights the work of incarcerated people.
She invited me to the prison for the program and it gave me a new perspective on things.
The Transgender Visibility Night was framed around the concept of “transgender joy”—a powerful antidote to the dominant narratives of trauma and victimization that so often define public understanding of incarcerated trans people.
“If you don’t have a livable life, it’s hard to wake up in the world,” Gordon said. “So today this project is about reaching into our community and finding the stories of joy and perseverance and resiliency.”
But it really is about the importance of concepts like safe spaces and sanctuary — two terms that somewhat lost their meaning as they have been appropriated but are actually at the heart of the issue.
I got to meet that night about 20 transgender women who are in a vulnerable place being housed at a male prison.
The community stressed the need for a safe space — a space that has been more than just a room, but a home, a place of refuge from the daily stresses of prison life and the constant threat of judgment or reprisal.
One woman spoke of the need to be in a place where they can be themselves, not worry about being gawked at in the shower because their bodies don’t look like the other people around them, and the need not to be judged.
“It’s just having somewhere where I can be me totally 100%,” one woman said during the panel discussion. “Where all of us can be ourselves without having to worry, without having someone to judge you or give you a side-eye.”
Another woman echoed that sentiment: “For the first time… I was like, this is home.”
One problem is that we often do not put ourselves into the place of others. When the woman spoke about wanting to be in a place where her body was not being judged, I could empathize with the pain that was caused.
Often we hear about the safety issues generated by the potential intermixing of genders into spaces such as a bathroom or a locker room.
On Facebook, there were long and heated debates over transgender use of restrooms and showers. But in most cases, it’s not like people are walking around a restroom naked. People tend to be pretty discreet in public restrooms, for example.
As we know, in places like prison, sexual assault is pretty frequent. They recently had to shut down the Dublin Women’s Federal Prison because hundreds of women were sexually assaulted — by the male prison guards.
Sadly, the real threat to public safety for women who are incarcerated are the very people employed to protect them.
That gets me back to Davis and these issues — our schools should be safe spaces for all students.
The scary thing is the very person who claims to be trying to protect students from some invisible threat is the one causing anguish and trauma.
My daughter in her first week at high school encountered this very individual who was yelling and screaming at students and school staff.
My daughter.
What about my rights as a parent? My rights not to have someone who has no business being on campus yelling and screaming less than ten feet from my child?
The students don’t want her presence there. And I’m willing to bet that the majority of parents just like myself don’t want our children subjected to this either.
Beth Bourne wants to stand up for parental rights — what about my parental rights?
At the end of the day, this would be largely a non-issue for me and most of the community — especially at a time when our actual democracy is under serious attack.
So the “scientific claim” is that one’s own brain is at war with the rest of the body (in regard to the construct labeled as “gender”). As if the brain isn’t part of the body, or was somehow “separated out” from the rest of the body in regard to a term which didn’t even exist a few years ago.
And that this is somehow happening more-often in SOME communities, these days.
I didn’t even realize my own brain has a “gender”. In fact, I didn’t even know that this fake, made-up terminology was separate from sex, until recently. I’ll have to explain this to the neighborhood cat, I guess – since it only seems to understand sex at a rudimentary level. (I now wonder if the veterinarian “assigned” the correct sex for the cat when born. Or perhaps they’ll need two assignments from now on – one for “gender”, and one for “sex”.
As far as Beth Bourne is concerned, there’s a photo of her in the Enterprise which does indeed show that she had a bathing suit on.
I didn’t hear what she had to say, but I suspect that the point of it is that if makes school board members uncomfortable, imagine how it feels to some students to be undressing or see someone else undressing of the opposite sex in locker rooms, etc. Similar to how some parents read books out loud (that they deem are “obscene”) which are assigned to kids or otherwise available at school during school board meetings. (At which point, boards usually attempt to shut them down.)
For what it’s worth, Beth represents the majority view across the country – by far. It’s enclaves like Davis where she doesn’t (and is continually harassed and attacked as a result).
Now, would I do what Beth does? No way – I ultimately don’t care if some kid cuts off their own genitals and become medical patients for life as a result. But if I was a parent, I’d be pretty upset at institutions which promote this as “normal”.
Wow you are right – lots of comments on the Vanguard’s Facebook page regarding this. Some of them pretty amusing.
Given that I haven’t seen Beth post anything on Facebook for awhile, I’m going to guess that she’s (once again) in Facebook prison as a result of the “free speech” advocates on there.
Scientifically these concepts are separate:
1) A person’s sexual functions driven by the person’s DNA.
2) A person’s sexual orientation
3) A person’s sexual identity
4) A person’s personality
5) The labels society assigns for archetypes.
Scientifically, the labeling in (5) is irrelevant in describing what a person is unless you want to study the influence of labeling on the rest of (1) to (4). Science could have just enumerated each variation without using any cultural/historical terms.
So the term “transgender” would not meet the criteria of scientific neutrality because science itself cannot “decide” which combination is “trans” and which is “cis” without referring back to the social norm, which is just a culturally biased term.
If a kid is born XY, likes pink color and playing with dolls, likes to cooperate, but has not yet developed a sexual orientation. Pure science itself would not have labeled that the kid is “transgender”. Pure science would just take that as an observed combination. When the kid develops their sexual orientation freely without prejudice, one of the possible outcomes is that they might like someone who is XX, and there might be someone who is XX and parts a spouse who someone who likes pink, play with dolls and is cooperative. And together they could have kids with a higher chance that their lineage is empathetic and cooperative regardless of XX or XY.
In science, having that lineage develop INCREASES the diversity of humanity. (Think of birds, due to their diverse selection biases, result in more diverse species of birds). If you want humanity to have diversity, you need to respect individual choices so that different lineages can develop. That is the same as saying that science itself would not promote the concept of “transgender” (because it is not a pure neutral scientific concept, it is a culturally biased concept, at least in its labeling). It can only offer sex change as a choice for those who want one.
Fact checks:
1) True or false: Most “transgender” people don’t see their identity as “transgender” but as a “gender” they identify with.
2) True or false: Most “transgender” people would have this priority in resolving their dysphoria if the method is medically safe and affordable:
a) Instant sex change, as easy as choosing your avatar’s sex and appearance in a computer game.
b) Neurological change: That you no longer feel the distress that your body “doesn’t match”.
c) Hormonal plan to get the traits you want for the appearance.
d) Surgeries to get the traits you want for the appearance, but you become sterile.
Scientifically, all four are just choices. Science cannot tell a person what to choose. The person can use science as statistics to decide what they want. An unbiased education would introduce all choices even when it is not currently available. One ethical purpose of education is to introduce new people to currently desirable but unavailable options so that they can make them available.
3) True or false: A government does not violate individual rights when it does not breach its citizens’ personal boundaries.
4) True or false: A government violates individual rights with it breaches its citizens’ personal boundaries, or uses its power to help one group of people to breach the personal boundaries of another group of people.
5) True or false: A government does not violate individual rights when it allows its citizens to define social labels in their own ways.
6) True or false: A government violates individual rights when it forces its citizens to accept one version of social label definitions while outlawing another.
7) True or false: A government does not violate citizen rights when its membership is opt in and allow its citizens to opt out with their fair share of resources. (Imagine a bank where you can withdraw your deposits. Now imagine the deposits are your land rights.)
——–
Known solution to this type of principal-agent problem:
The public resources for schools are allocated based on parent choices. By default the parents choose for the child until the child can choose for themselves. The “decision test” that determines whether a child is ready to choose can be taken by both the parent and the child. In general if the child scores higher than the parent, the child can choose by themself.
The conflicts that would disappear:
1) The principal-agent conflict where a parent (who is one of the principals), does not does not get what they can get if they are allowed to hire their own agent directly.
2) A parent would not need to complain to a school board or a school for what courses and books are in the library because the parent would not have enrolled their child in that specific school, and that specific school would not have received the parent’s share of resources.
3) A child who grows up dissatisfied with their parent’s decision could have challenged their parent and broken free, or could have enrolled their child in the type of school their parents didn’t allow them to attend. (So that over generations, the clearly weaker choices would phase out.)
“there was also a perceived level of threat… ”
From a woman in a bathing suit?
“some in the room”
No idea who you’d possibly know at a school board meeting.
” told me that they weren’t sure what Bourne was actually up to when she pulled down her pants”
Still not seeing the threat. Did ‘some in the room’ think she was packing down there?
(yes this was a school board meeting and while there were no kids there, there well could have been).
Still not seeing the threat. I mean if ‘threat’ means she didn’t have a bathing suite on, she would have been arrested for indecent exposure.
“After what has transpired really in the last six years or more, we should be a bit more careful about how we conduct ourselves — particularly at public meetings.”
Someone call Alan Miller. Mr. Miller, are you going to be ‘more careful’ about how you conduct yourself? No? Ok, thanks for talking with us. What’s that? Ask DG what he means? About what? Oh that. Ok. This . . .
“After what has transpired really in the last six years or more . . . ”
What has transpired? Lots of things have ‘transpired’. What are you referring to? Otherwise, people just fill in what they think you mean.
“On the Vanguard the response was pretty tame, but on our Facebook page, the conversation has generated over 300 comments at last check. Lots of debates.”
What is this “Facebook” of which you speak?
**** Then you seem to have an article on trans persons in prison nested within this article on BB, not seeing the why ****
“The scary thing is the very person who claims to be trying to protect students from some invisible threat is the one causing anguish and trauma.”
For attempting to strip down to a bathing suite to make a point?
“My daughter in her first week at high school encountered this very individual who was yelling and screaming at students and school staff.”
Sounds like a ‘teachable moment’.
“My daughter. ”
As you said.
“What about my rights as a parent?”
And you accuse other people of ‘whataboutism’. (I still don’t know ‘what’ that is ‘about’)
“My rights not to have someone who has no business being on campus yelling and screaming less than ten feet from my child?”
Your child, yes. You daughter I believe you said. Twice. BB certainly thinks she has business there. Kind of a weird thing to be doing on a weekday. But I guess y’all who wanted her fired from UCD got your wish, and now she has a lot of time on her hands.
“The students don’t want her presence there.”
Has anyone taken a poll?
“And I’m willing to bet that the majority of parents just like myself don’t want our children subjected to this either. ”
But isn’t the issue, like the Jew-hater in the other article, is what she doing against the rules?
“Beth Bourne wants to stand up for parental rights — what about my parental rights?”
What about whataboutism?
“At the end of the day, this would be largely a non-issue for me and most of the community — especially at a time when our actual democracy is under serious attack.”
Such a non-issue that you wrote an an article about it, and 300 people wrote about it on Facebook. What’s wrong with y’all? Don’t you all know that our actual democracy is under serious attack?
Another point that someone pointed out to me yesterday – the students at these schools are not complaining about the bathrooms or locker rooms, they are complaining about Beth coming on campus when she has no business there and yelling and screaming and carrying on.
Students are influenced by their parents, each other, and staff.
Just as they would be in other school districts which don’t go along with gender nonsense. (In which case, they’d run out some of these Davis-type teachers, parents, and gender-bending students with pitchforks.)
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there were at least a few students (mostly actual girls) in Davis who aren’t happy about undressing in front of boys and competing against them on sports teams – whether or not they feel welcomed in expressing those thoughts.
Lightbulb! Doesn’t that kind of undermine the point that Beth is trying to make?
I’d say that it reinforces the point that Beth is making.
She is essentially challenging “group think” (the tyranny of the local majority). The same tolerant majority that comes pretty close to actually “tarring and feathering” her.
Truth be told, I suspect there’s also boys who aren’t totally comfortable undressing in front of girls, either. (Whether or not they admit it.)
She’s saying she is for parents rights, but the parents in this community do not want her inserting herself into our schools.
I’d agree that the majority (locally) do not, and some of the louder voices have made that clear.
Perhaps she also views herself as speaking for the kids, who will (later) regret undergoing medical interventions.
Or maybe she’s speaking for the minority.
Have you asked her the reason she does this? My guess is that it started out with anger regarding what she perceives as institutional intervention regarding her own daughter, and has taken off from there. (I wouldn’t be surprised if a few other parents end up feeling that way, as well.)
There are likely some parents who feel that “Davis isn’t for everyone” – especially themselves. I’ve periodically heard that type of sentiment for decades, at this point (not just from parents, and not just in regard to this one issue).
And no – it has nothing to do with housing costs.
Is that any of her business especially if she is disrupting public meetings and the schools and she is not wanted there?
There’s a reason they call it public comment.
I could go there and speak myself, despite not having kids in the system.
Actually, this might have also started with the librarian’s actions (not directly related to the school district). The actions by the librarian are a sign that something is “wrong” in the community itself – he didn’t operate in a vacuum.
I know I said “disrupting”
I view her “show” at the school board meeting as appropriate, given the point she was apparently making.
I’ve seen her approach other people (including students) in videos, and found them more than capable of handling themselves. (Usually responding with some type of obscenity directed at Beth.)
There was one student (a guy) whom I believe was transitioning that Beth spoke with in a video. He was hostile, but he also said something along the lines of wishing that his genitals could be removed. I found it both sad and somewhat enlightening regarding the struggle he was obviously going through. It was the most “honest” exchange I’ve seen between Beth and an apparent transitioner.
Beth’s opponents seized upon that exchange, in a manner that didn’t reflect it. (In other words, an immediate return to political dishonesty and hostility.)
But it’s actually Beth’s safety that anyone should be concerned about, at this point. She puts herself into situations where others believe it’s o.k. to physically attack her, despite being on video. (These are likely the same type of people who may be supportive of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, whether or not they’re making public statements regarding that.) In other words, the side of the political spectrum that has historically claimed tolerance as its own. (Though I do see that some have acknowledged abandoning that concept – so at least they’re honest regarding that.)
I think in journalism you can tell this comment is void because if you already have evidence that the school board is not listening to a public commenter, you already have evidence of systemic bullying by government officials. All things considered there is no ethical priority to address the denied griever before addressing the agent that is denying the principal.
So instead of just saying the “students are not complaining about the restroom but Beth” you should at least note whether there is an actual survey and counterbalance facts (?) such as whether what Beth claims about the schools are factual and whether she only protest against public schools and not private schools.
“It’s admittedly unusual, perhaps, to express oneself during public comment by stripping down to their bikini,” said David Loy, the legal director for the First Amendment Coalition. “But that alone shouldn’t be considered a sufficient disruption to justify limiting the person’s right to public comment.”
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article312216500.html#storylink=cpy
“Jimmy Kimmel pulled off the air,”
Well Jimmy has been reinstated by Disney but Sinclair and Nexstar aren’t going to carry his show. Why? Because maybe his ratings are terrible?
And speaking of political censorship coming from the Whit House:
“Google to reinstate banned YouTube accounts censored for political speech
Tech giant admits Biden administration pressed platform to remove COVID-19 content”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/google-reinstate-banned-youtube-accounts-censored-political-speech
Suppose someone attacks you and your attack them in return to defend yourself, a fair court would not conclude that since you used force to defend yourself, the original attack is not guilty. A fair court would conclude that the original attacker is guilty and is liable for the costs you used in defense.
In the case where a public agent violate a parent’s individual right and the parent suggests that the other parents’ right should also be violated, the complainer takes the role of the defender while the public agent takes the role of the original instigator. It is ethically incorrect to focus on the complainer but on the original instigator which is the public agent that violated individual rights creating and sustaining an ongoing injury.
An ethical duty of journalism is to help the powerless victims against powerful violators, not to help powerful violators suppress weak victims.
Beth Bourne disrobing down to her bathing suit to make a point at a board meeting is not without precedent. There have been previous examples of this occurring where the person disrobing was allowed to continue. I tried to post a video of one such incident but the Vanguard did not allow it.