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Post by ThirdMan on Oct 23, 2018 16:50:09 GMT -8
Well, I think we can all agree that if politicians were more willing to concede minor personal flaws or negative, non-criminal actions of the past (that they quite possibly regret in retrospect), people would be more liable to consider them honest and worthy of trust when the more significant and potentially damaging stuff rolls around. Trying to present oneself as completely and utterly pure just makes folks want to scrutinize the politicians' past even more.
On a side note, yeah Jeremy, sometimes those accused of sexual misconduct or other serious crimes receive threats from strangers, but I doubt it's one-tenth the amount of threats female accusers receive, in most cases, especially when the accused is a person of great power and/or influence. And Kavanaugh has a lot more protection than Dr. Ford, I assure you. She's the one that stuck her neck out here, with very little to (personally) gain.
And yeah, the issue of corroboration is likely a huge contributing factor to why the vast majority of rape cases don't result in a criminal conviction. So, unless the person is a serial rapist, where surely some corroboration would occur as to the person's character (see: Cosby or Weinstein), what to do?
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 23, 2018 18:31:56 GMT -8
It's certainly not easy, but there are a few ways to prove guilt (beyond a reasonable doubt, anyway) without corroborative evidence. Naming times and locations, documentary evidence of lewd comments (including texts, emails, etc.), maybe pinpointing some pattern of gross behavior. If the crime is more serious, DNA evidence is very effective.
Obviously, some of these means would not apply to Ford, who testified about an event in the early 1980s. This is part of why it's so important that women who are assaulted come forward quickly - the more time that passes, the more difficult it is to assess guilt.
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Post by ThirdMan on Oct 24, 2018 8:16:20 GMT -8
It would be great if more women had the presence of mind to get a rape-kit done at a hospital ASAP after such incidents, but I imagine so many are so shell-shocked from the experience, and in some cases, (sadly) wondering what they could've done wrong, that such procedures aren't done nearly as often as they could be. Not soon enough, anyways.
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Post by Jay on Oct 24, 2018 8:33:57 GMT -8
I'm not going to go back into the SCOTUS debate because it's not productive for me, but I felt like chiming in on the subject of rape kits. Most police departments have a massive backlog of them and there isn't much funding /personnel to get them processed. Fairly recently, the Seattle Times posted an investigative article noting that statewide, roughly 6500 rape kits had gone untested. The SPD ain't the greatest, but by and large, this is a blue state that you'd expect to find funding for these sorts of measures and they did not. I've heard other similar stories coming from Oregon, though it's not an issue that I particularly have invested a lot of attention in. I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be to go through that process which is supposed to provide clear evidence and then have nothing done with it.
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Post by ThirdMan on Oct 24, 2018 11:14:25 GMT -8
Wow. I didn't realize that. How bloody depressing is that? Another in a long line of reasons why so few of these cases lead to a criminal conviction.
It really seems like the only perpetrators who ultimately go to jail for these crimes are those who are serial offenders, and so flagrant about it that the body of evidence is a virtual mountain that can't be ignored. Either that, or the victim's family has a ton of money that allows them to really go after the offender in the court of law.
I don't know why it's so hard for so many men to go through life without forcing themself on another individual.
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Post by Zarnium on Oct 24, 2018 14:38:57 GMT -8
Well, in any case, I hope there's no hard feelings after all this discussion. This has not exactly been a fantastic week for me, or a simple one for online discussion- a transgender support forum I frequent recently placed a ban on members endorsing transphobic Republican politicians in response to the Trump administration's plans to define transgenderism out of existance, and I've spent this week defending it, so I've been flipping back and forth between criticising the Republicans and criticising the Democrats constantly.
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 24, 2018 14:51:38 GMT -8
Wow. I didn't realize that. How bloody depressing is that? Another in a long line of reasons why so few of these cases lead to a criminal conviction.
It really seems like the only perpetrators who ultimately go to jail for these crimes are those who are serial offenders, and so flagrant about it that the body of evidence is a virtual mountain that can't be ignored. Either that, or the victim's family has a ton of money that allows them to really go after the offender in the court of law.
I don't know why it's so hard for so many men to go through life without forcing themself on another individual. The system needs fixing, certainly. Authorities should be aware that assault is not a rare occurrence, and despite the way it can and has been exploited by the tabloids, it needs to be taken seriously. Presumably, that is happening now, to an extent, although given the sluggish rate of the judicial process, it may be a while before we can tell for sure. Even then, there will likely be some cases that slip through the cracks. Which is why it's important for us to train young men not to go down these dark paths - to respect women, and reject the all-too-prevalent objectification of them in modern culture. That won't stop the worst of men, but it should at least make people more sensitive and responsive to the issue of assault. Well, in any case, I hope there's no hard feelings after all this discussion. This has not exactly been a fantastic week for me, or a simple one for online discussion- a transgender support forum I frequent recently placed a ban on members endorsing of transphobic Republican politicians in response to the Trump administration's plans to define transgenderism out of existance, and I've spent this week defending it, so I've been flipping back and forth between criticising the Republicans and criticising the Democrats constantly. I can't speak for others, but I think this has been a productive discussion. Definitely one of the more thoughtful ones I've had about current events lately.
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Post by ThirdMan on Oct 24, 2018 16:06:44 GMT -8
Well, in any case, I hope there's no hard feelings after all this discussion. This has not exactly been a fantastic week for me, or a simple one for online discussion- a transgender support forum I frequent recently placed a ban on members endorsing transphobic Republican politicians in response to the Trump administration's plans to define transgenderism out of existance, and I've spent this week defending it, so I've been flipping back and forth between criticising the Republicans and criticising the Democrats constantly. So there are transgender folks on that forum who are OK with the Trump administration's plans? Is it just a semantics thing, because they don't personally identify with the word "transgender"?
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Post by Zarnium on Oct 24, 2018 16:44:16 GMT -8
Some of them have fiscally conservative and/or "small government" views and place those as a priority, and also believe that the regressive social policies of the Republican party aren't much of a threat due to increasingly positive public opinion of trans people. So yes, there are a notable amount of Republican-voting transgender people. While I'm sympathetic to that to a degree, we've also reached a point where the Republicans in power right now are so staggeringly intolerant that if we don't get a lot of them out of office very soon, it could be disastrous for the ability of transgender people to be legally supported and publicly tolerated. As a result, while the forum was somewhat neutral on political matters previously, the founder of the site officially made a site rule change that banned endorsement of politicians with known anti-transgender policy and made it clear that the site endorses the Democratic party.
This... pissed a lot of people off, but frankly, it's being taken out of context and blown out of proportion a lot. The only thing that's banned is endorsing certain politicians, members can still support the whole gamut of conservative political ideals that aren't anti-LGBT. There were also a lot of subjects that were already banned from being supported by members due to their transphobic nature, so it's not like there wasn't any precedent. There's really no other option at this point, the federal government has essentially decided to erase the entire existence of transgender identity and there's no reason a transgender support resource shouldn't take an official position against that.
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Post by ThirdMan on Oct 24, 2018 16:50:43 GMT -8
Man, November can't come soon enough.
You know, it's so quiet up here in Canada, relatively-speaking. Biggest news item in the past week was the national legalization of marijuana.
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 24, 2018 18:31:43 GMT -8
So, keeping with the "get the facts" comment I expressed yesterday, I think it's worth giving some context to the current transgender controversy. I'm noticing a number of media outlets misreporting what the Trump administration is proposing, or leaving out key details.
The mandate, as proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services, refers to a Title IX expansion that was made by Obama in 2014. The original Title IX language - referring, as with the document at large, to federal education programs - stated that people in such programs cannot be discriminated against "on the basis of sex." Obama made an adjustment to these rules by expanding the definition of "sex," so that it came to include gender identity as well.
Obama's action caused a stir because he circumvented the regulatory rulemaking process in order to accomplish it, without any Congressional legislation. There were no previous rulings to support it, so it had to stand on its own merits when brought up in legal cases. And in the years since, that has led to confusion with regards to what the scope of a Title IX case entails.
For example: Imagine that a man who has not received reassignment surgery, yet identifies as a woman, applies for a job as a public school teacher. He/she is rejected for undisclosed reasons. Can he/she sue the school under the basis of Title IX discrimination? Possibly, but it isn't made clear. There's no Congressional legislation to support it or combat it.
What the current HHS department is proposing, then, is to return to the pre-2014 Title IX definition, and clear up some of the legal confusion. I should be clear that this will not make discrimination against transgender people "legal." Trans people are still protected by general anti-discrimination rights (on the grounds that one may not discriminate based on gender identity), and they still retain the same Constitutional rights as every over American.
I'm not saying people need to agree with HHS's proposed move (and bear in mind, it is only being proposed at this point). I just think it's worth putting in context. You can make the argument that rolling back the definition of "sex" is wrong. But to state that it defines transgenderism out of existence (as multiple media outlets are doing) is sheer hyperbole.
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Post by Zarnium on Oct 25, 2018 5:41:08 GMT -8
The problem is that there's been an increasing pushback to interpret "sex" as strictly genitals or chromosomes, which can weaken anti-discrimination cases since gender identity is usually not specifically included in anti-discrimination legislation. This has resulted in people losing jobs, among other things, like in the case of a transgender woman who was fired from her job at a funeral home for explicitly transition related reasons.
Additionally, since transgender people have had protection under "sex" clauses for the last few years, that means that a lot of people have had their legal documentation changed to reflect their target gender, and now it's unclear if those changes will be reversed or unrecognized by the Federal government going forward. It could also mean that transgender people who have already been receiving trans-related healthcare (such as hormone pills) through their insurance could have their insurance stop covering it if they're no longer required to by law, which is doubly troubling in cases where people have had their sex hormone producing organs removed and will not produce any sex hormones at all on their own, which leads to severe health problems over a long period of time.
In short, there's a big difference between refusing to give something and taking it away after it's already been given. I'll admit that it... may not have been wise for Obama to put these protections in place that he knew could be easily reversed, but, well, here we are.
Also, I'll point out that not every transgender person gets sex reassignment surgery, nor should it matter if they do or not since no one else can see it.
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Post by otherscott on Oct 25, 2018 6:42:02 GMT -8
I admit I'm no expert on the matter, but using the logic of "taking something away when it's already been given is an unfair thing to do" when a mandate was put in place by circumventing normal regulatory bodies just gives more ammunition to politicians to continue to not follow due process in putting things in place.
I don't think it matters where you stand on the political spectrum or this particular issue, trying to backdoor legislation without due process and having it stick once the presidency is up is not good long term. It's great when it's these sorts of legislation intended to increase transgender rights, but it sets a bad precedent and the mandate put into place next time that then becomes difficult to reverse may not be so socially friendly.
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 25, 2018 7:01:16 GMT -8
Agreed. One of my chief criticisms with the Obama administration was how often the circumvention process was used, without regards to the long-term damage it could do to the Constitutional process. (I alluded to a similar example, the termination of the judicial filibuster, earlier in this thread.)
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Post by Zarnium on Oct 25, 2018 7:05:44 GMT -8
I'd prefer that stuff like this were pushed through actual Congressional legislation instead of executive orders and the Supreme Court. As it is, that's simply how it ends up working in practice and now the little people getting tossed around as political pawns have to scramble to make the best of the situation.
Additionally, correct me if I'm wrong, but the new memo about Title IX specifically states that it wishes to define every individual as either male or female based on "genetic testing." I believe that goes a step further towards excluding trans people from protection than the previous interpretations did, where the term "sex" was simply vague and ill-defined and it was ambiguous how it applied to transgender people.
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