LightNews LightNews
banner
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
@fractionalgirl.bsky.social
210 followers 41 following 58 posts
Trans girl, all grown up now.

I talk primarily about issues affecting trans youth, both from personal experience and in general.
Posts Replies Media Videos
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
And if something like the Altona Bloody Sunday happened in the US today, you can be sure that the Trump administration would immediately use it as a pretext for a power grab. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altona_...
Altona Bloody Sunday - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
October 6, 2025 at 6:40 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
I would have to disagree about Germany. Weimar didn't have a literal civil war, but the various paramilitary groups battling it out in the streets was close enough that it didn't make much of a difference for the average citizen. Deaths alone were probably in the thousands throughut the 20s and 30s.
October 6, 2025 at 6:37 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
I am reminded of what George Lakoff said, namely that people vote their values, not their interests. If I were an American voter, I wouldn't be able to tell what values or principles Democrats have, and nobody votes for a human weather vane.
June 21, 2025 at 5:30 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
It depends on the country, and there isn't really a clear pattern to it, either. Outside Europe, Korea and Isreal actually spend a lot more on R&D per GDP than the US, but the US is just so populous and rich. EU currently aims to raise R&D spending to 3%+ of GDP.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
List of sovereign states by research and development spending - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
May 4, 2025 at 2:53 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Trans girls participating in sports is so rare that there is no risk in them displacing cis girls, even if you were to agree with the Trump administration's claim that it is only sex assigned at birth that matters. (13/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Obviously, with the current composition of the US Supreme Court, it is anybody's guess how the courts will eventually rule, but the current precedent is absolutely in Maine's favor. (12/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Because those cases are relatively rare, they have historically not been considered to be incompatible with Title IX, as long as *numerically*, girls still have participation opportunities in proportion to their enrollment. (11/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
In MA, the state constitution did not permit this asymmetric interpretation, and so there boys have the same rights in reverse (but also only for sports for which their school does not have a boys' team, most commonly field hockey). (10/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Notably, the courts decided that not because girls are "weaker", but because girls have historically been *underrepresented* in high school sports and Title IX aims to address that imbalance. (9/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
For more context, Title IX as interpreted by the courts allows girls to try out for boys' teams if the school does not offer the sport for girls (with some exceptions), but federal law does not give boys the same right in the other direction. (8/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
The most prominent case is Massachusetts, where (since 1979) boys have been allowed to play on girls' teams in sports where there were no teams for boys as a consequence of the MA Equal Rights Amendment. www.miaa.net/educational-... (7/13)
Equal Rights Amendment | Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association
www.miaa.net
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Key is that Title IX (and the 1979 Policy Interpretation) requires numerically proportionate opportunities for participation; it is not per se about protecting girls from having to compete against boys (other than where that would result in them being effectively displaced). (6/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
This meant that in particular, you could even occasionally have (cis) boys participate on girls' teams without violating Title IX as long as girls weren't displaced, and there have been occasional state-level policies that permitted that. (5/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Sex segregation was introduced in the 1979 Policy Interpretation, but the courts only treated this as a numbers game, because it was about girls/women being the *underrepresented* sex. From the above book: (4/13)
The Policy Interpretation addresses many issues relating to Title IX compliance, but its biggest contribution to the development of the law is a three-part test that has been used by courts ever since to preserve and expand sports offerings for women. Under this test, an athletic program may comply with the equal-accommodation requirement in the Title IX regulations by satisfying any one of three tests. To comply, a school must either: 1. provide “intercollegiate level participation opportunities for male and female students in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments”; 2. “show a history and continuing practice of program expansion which is demonstrably responsive to the developing interest and abilities of the members of [the underrepresented] sex”; or 3. demonstrate that “the interests and abilities of the members of [the underrepresented] sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program.” To comply with part one, the “substantial proportionality” prong, a school must provide women with sports opportunities roughly proportionate to their enrollment. To meet this test, if a school’s enrollment is 50 percent female, for example, women must make up close to half of the varsity athletes at the school.
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." (3/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Briefly, Title IX itself does not say anything about sex segregation. The opposite, in fact, per 20 U.S. Code § 1681: (2/13)
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Man muss sich hier darüber klar sein, dass viele Amerikaner mit diesem Modell aufgewachsen sind. Amerika ist ein Land, in dem die Prügelstrafe weiterhin als normal etabliert ist und insbesondere in den Südstaaten auch in Schulen praktiziert wird. Viele kennen es von Kindheit an nicht anders.
March 19, 2025 at 8:34 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Das ist in der Tat ein Punkt, den Lakoff auch anspricht und von dem er das Modell sogar ableitet.
Now, when I first did this—and I’ll tell you about the details in a minute—I was asked to give a talk at a linguistics convention. I decided I would talk about this discovery. In the audience were two members of the Christian Coalition who were linguists and good friends of mine. Excellent linguists. And very, very good people. Very nice people. People I liked a lot. They took me aside at the party afterward and said, “Well, this strict father model of the family, it’s close, but not quite right. We’ll help you get the details right. However, you should know all this. Have you read Dobson?” I said, “Who?” They said, “James Dobson.” I said, “Who?” They said, “You’re kidding. He’s on three thousand radio stations.” I said, “Well, I don’t think he’s on NPR. I haven’t heard of him.” They said, “Well, you live in Berkeley.” “Where would I . . . does he write stuff?” “Oh,” they said, “oh yes. He has sold millions of books. His classic is Dare to Discipline.” My friends were right. I followed their directions to my local Christian bookstore, and there I found it all laid out: the strict father model in all its details. Dobson at the time was an influential figure in conservative politics, with a 100-to-200-million-dollar-a-year operation, a widely distributed and read column in newspapers all over America, as well as his own zip code because so many people were writing to order his books and pamphlets. He was effectively teaching people how to use the strict father model to raise their kids, and he understood the connection between strict father families, right-wing politics, evangelical religion, laissez-faire economics, and neoconservative foreign policy. The strict father model begins with a set of assumptions: The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There will always be winners and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Children are born bad, in the sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good. What is needed in this kind of a world is a strong, strict father who can: • protect the family in the dangerous world, • support the family in the difficult world, and • teach his children right from wrong. What is required of the child is obedience, because the strict father is a moral authority who knows right from wrong. It is further assumed that the only way to teach kids obedience—that is, right from wrong—is through punishment, painful punishment, when they do wrong. This includes hitting them, and some authors on conservative child rearing recommend sticks, belts, and wooden paddles on the bare bottom. Some authors suggest this start at birth, but Dobson was more liberal. “There is no excuse for spanking babies younger than fifteen or eighteen months of age” (Dobson, The New Dare to Discipline, 65). The rationale behind physical punishment is this: When children do something wrong, if they are physically disciplined, they learn not to do it again. That means that they will develop internal discipline to keep themselves from doing wrong, so that in the future they will be obedient and act morally. Without such punishment, the world will go to hell. There will be no morality. Such internal discipline has a secondary effect. It is what is required for success in the difficult, competitive world. That is, if people are disciplined and pursue their self-interest in this land of opportunity, they will become prosperous and self-reliant. Thus, the strict father model links morality with prosperity. The same discipline you need to be moral is what allows you to prosper. The link is individual responsibility and the pursuit of self-interest. Given opportunity, individual responsibility, and discipline, pursuing your self-interest should enable you to prosper. Now, Dobson was very clear about the connection between the strict father worldview and free market capitalism. The link is the morality of self-interest, which is the conservative version of Adam Smith’s view of capitalism. Adam Smith said that if everyone pursues their own profit, then the profit of all will be maximized by the invisible hand—that is, by nature—just naturally. Go about pursuing your own profit, and you are helping everyone. This is linked to a general metaphor that views well-being as wealth. For example, if I do you a favor, you say, “I owe you one,” or “I’m in your debt.” Doing something good for someone is metaphorically like giving him money. He “owes” you something. And he says, “How can I ever repay you?”
March 19, 2025 at 8:34 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Zusammengefasst: das hat wenig mit der amerikanischen Linken zu tun, ein großer Teil der republikanischen Wähler (und auch zuviele der "Zentristen" und demokratischen Wähler) sehen Autoritarismus (mit einem positiven Laben versehen) einfach als etwas durchaus Begrüßenswertes.
March 19, 2025 at 7:10 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Auch George Lakoff hat hierzu einiges zu sagen, mit seinem "strict father model" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_...), das es als Erklärungsansatz für republikanische Politik schon seit Jahrzehnten gibt. Hier ein paar Auszüge aus seinem Buch "The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!"
In this model there is also a definition of what it means to become a good person. A good person—a moral person—is someone who is disciplined enough to be obedient to legitimate authority, to learn what is right, to do what is right and not do what is wrong, and to pursue her self-interest to prosper and become self-reliant. A good child grows up to be like that. A bad child is one who does not learn discipline, does not function morally, does not do what is right, and therefore is not disciplined enough to become prosperous. She cannot take care of herself and thus becomes dependent. When the good children are mature, they either have learned discipline and can prosper, or have failed to learn it. From this point on the strict father is not to meddle in their lives. This translates politically into no government meddling. Consider what all this means for social programs: It is immoral to give people things they have not earned, because then they will not develop discipline and will become both dependent and immoral. This theory says that social programs are immoral because they make people dependent. Promoting social programs is immoral. And what does this say about budgets? Well, if there are a lot of progressives in Congress who think that there should be social programs, and if you believe that social programs are immoral, how do you stop these immoral people? In the strict father frame, it is quite simple. What you have to do is reward the good people—the ones whose prosperity reveals their discipline and hence their capacity for morality—with a tax cut, and make it big enough so that there is not enough money left for social programs. As Grover Norquist says, it “starves the beast.” Are conservatives against all government? No. They are not against the military; they are not against homeland security; they are not against tax cuts, loopholes, and subsidies for corporations; they are not against the conservative Supreme Court. There are many aspects of government that they like very much. Subsidies for corporations, which reward the good people—the investors in those corporations—are great. No problem there. But they are against nurturance and care. They are against social programs that take care of people—early childhood education, Medicaid for the poor, raising the minimum wage, unemployment insurance. That is what they see as wrong. That is what they are trying to eliminate on moral grounds. That is why they are not merely a bunch of crazies or mean and greedy—or stupid—people, as many liberals believe. What is even scarier is that conservatives are acting on principle, on what they believe is moral. And they have supporters around the country. People who have strict father morality and who apply it to politics are going to believe that this is the right way to govern. Think for a minute about what this says about foreign policy. Suppose you are a moral authority. As a moral authority, how do you deal with your children? Do you ask them what they should do or what you should do? No. You tell them. What the father says, the child does. No back talk. Communication is one-way. It is the same with foreign policy. That is, the president does not engage in diplomacy or ask the help of allies; the president tells. If you are a moral authority, you know what is right, you have power, and you use it. You would be immoral yourself if you abandoned your moral authority. Map this onto foreign policy, and it says that you cannot give up sovereignty. The United States, being the best and most powerful country in the world—a moral authority—should not be asking anybody else what to do. We should be using our military power.
March 19, 2025 at 7:10 PM
fractionalgirl.bsky.social
Ich erinnere hier auch (un)gerne an diese Geschichte von vor knapp 14 Jahren, die autoritäre Tendenzen bei den republikanischen Wählern, verbunden mit Ablehnung von rechtsstaatlichen Prinzipien, damals schon illustrierte. "It takes balls to execute an innocent man." newrepublic.com/article/9313...
newrepublic.com
March 19, 2025 at 7:10 PM