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Coyle and Ed start a two part series examining the recent controversies in North Carolina regarding gay and transgender persons, and public accommodations.
Episode 9 Show Notes
The North Carolina Law
The Letter from Obama
Discrimination, freedom, and compulsion.
Books/Readings Mentioned in the Podcast
- North Carolina HB2
- ‘The Letter from Obama’, aka ‘Dear Colleague Letter on Transgendered Students’
- The Federal Government’s Guide to Guidance
- Questions about choice and determinism from Garrett Kell (as promised in the podcast)
- The NC Bill and local anti-discrimination policies.
- Identity terms (at the top of the article).
Ed Coyle’s point about transgender people having brain structure opposite to the gender they were born in may be true in some cases. However, so far as I understand contemporary gender theory, this is a secondary point to personal choice and self-determination. If a man chooses to identify as a woman, that choice makes him/her truly a woman regardless of how his brain scans may or may not line up. Same if he/she identifies as “non-binary” or something else. According to this point of view, the biology of a transgender person is at most an interesting ancillary point.
Here is leftist contrarian Fredrik de Boer, who’s usually an interesting read even to disagree with:
http://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/06/06/against-biological-determinism/