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coochiequeens · 3 years ago

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In a decision that feels perfectly timed to keep last week’s cancel culture debate(part 327) going strong into this week, Lambda Literary preemptively removed the writer Lauren Hough from an awards shortlist because of recent “Twitter disputes.” According to a Substack post by Hough, after being informed a few weeks ago that her debut essay collection, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing, was a finalist, she received a follow-up email last week withdrawing the honor (presumably before Lambda announced its award finalists). Hough posted a screenshot of the second email:

As Hough outlines in her post, the “Twitter disputes” in question refer to her defense of novelist Sandra Newman, who came under attack on Twitter (and not simply from YA Twitter, as Hough suggests) after posting about her forthcoming book, The Men, which takes place in a world absent people with a Y chromosome. As a sociopolitical/moral thought-experiment, this is a premise that warrants a nuanced and thoughtful approach to how we think about gender and sex. Like virtually all of the people attacking Newman’s book, I haven’t read The Men, so I cannot say if it handles the subject of gender and sex with nuance and intelligence; but based on their past public writings, I am inclined to give Newman the benefit of the doubt.

But this isn’t about Newman being denied an award (and the money that comes with it); Lambda Literary withdrew its nomination of Hough for defending Newman on Twitter. As Hough writes:

I’d read the book. Sandra Newman sent it to me in an early form and I gave her a few notes, like we do for one another. I’m not transgender and neither is Sandra (Sandra is nonbinary), but we discussed how to make the book recognize the reality of transgender people. Other books that started from this premise—all the men disappear—have erased the existence of trans people, and it was important to her not to do that, to be as sensitive as possible. So when I saw people assuming that simple idea was the entirety of the plot, I told them to read the book before assuming the worst. For this, I was labeled a TERF.

I’m not a fucking TERF. No reasonable person could think I’m a TERF. It’s actually quite easy to find out whether or not I’m a TERF. All you have to do is ask me, or spend two minutes scrolling my twitter timeline. Sandra Newman isn’t a TERF either, something that can be easily discovered by the same methods.

Is Sandra Newman providing artistic/intellectual cover for those who would deny basic rights to trans people, who would seek to make trans people’s very existence a subject of debate? This does not seem to be the case. But surely to make that argument one would need to read the book in question? Is Lambda Literary making it easier for anti-trans activists to cry “cancel culture” at every instance of public criticism? Yes.

This decision by Lambda Literary is nothing more than the worst kind of “guilt by association.” And it is bad.

#Lambda Literary #Lauren Hough #A woman being denied the chance of an award because of guilt by association #It doesn’t matter if she insists she’s not a TERF #The gender cult wants complete submission #Sandra Newman #The Men

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dragonheart-swtor · 4 years ago

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Congratulations! You’ve random-rolled: my headcanons on Sith pureblood tradiitonal inheritance and bloodlines! Click here to claim your prize!

- The family/house name and legacy are passed down via the person who carries the pregnancy; the person who sires them is basically a footnote. This is largely a practical thing (to ensure that the child is actually of that bloodline, since you can’t exactly lie about who gave birth to a kid like you can lie about who sired them) that became Tradition™ over time.

- The passing of the family name/lineage isn't technically linked to gender; a trans man who carries a pregnancy will pass down his family line to the child even though he's a man. "Sire" is also a gender-neutral term for Sith as a result, because I don't have a better gender-neutral word for "sperm donor" that fits the setting and I refuse to make it a gendered thing because it’s my headcanon and I get to say trans rights, that’s why. In Sith, the terms for parentage are as follows:

Tatalai - father (male parent) Madalai - mother (female parent) Kadalai - parent (gender-neutral or nonbinary) Tashkatsai - sire (the parent who donated sperm to the conception, gender-neutral) Mashkatsai - carrying parent (the parent who carried the pregnancy and passes their family name and house inheritance to the child, gender-neutral)

- Similarly, inheritance isn't linked to gender either - although it is linked to birth order. The eldest surviving child is generally expected to take the majority of the inheritance and take on the role their parent(s) played politically, including any alliances, grudges, debts, etc. they may have had. This can be very advantageous or very dangerous depending who your parents are and how they behaved.

- It is technically possible for a child with a non-Sith mashkatsai to be adopted into their sire's family and be given the family name and lineage, but it's rare, mostly because these children a) are usually extramarital, b) are often accidental/unintended, c) often have a servant, slave, or otherwise lower-ranking Imperial as their other parent, and as a direct result of c, d) are often Force-deaf and e) are sometimes hybrids between species, especially Sith-Human hybrids. All of these things are looked down on by Sith culture as a whole, especially the last two, which makes acknowledging the existence of and relationship to such a child a huge risk. If they show signs of being strong with the Force, they may be officially claimed and adopted into their sire's family, but even then, the fact that they carry their sire's name instead of that of the parent who gave birth to them marks them as different and illegitimate forever, unless they rise high enough to become a darth and gain a new name for themselves. Speaking of hybrids,

- Hybrid children between the Sith purebloods and other species are extremely frowned upon by the Sith as a whole, even Sith-Human hybrids. This is in large part because the Sith as a species have been dying out for years, mostly due to crossbreeding so much that their genetic lines are becoming more and more diluted and even a Sith with the marked characteristics of a "pureblood" isn't actually pure, they're just less hybridized. Because of the danger to the continued existence of their species, willingly having children with anyone but another Sith pureblood is frowned upon at best. (Humans are marginally acceptable as partners because it's the Empire and they're Super Racist, but even that's still mostly frowned upon.)

As a side note, a question I have yet to answer: since I've established in my head that there are definitely ways to have children in my Star Wars universe that don't involve either parent actually carrying the pregnancy bc gay rights that's why - how does that interact with traditional Sith concepts of passing down lineage, especially in a relationship where a) either parent could have hypothetically carried a pregnancy if they'd chosen to, or b) neither parent could have hypothetically carried a pregnancy even if they'd wanted to?

My instinct for the former is that it would default to the one who donated the egg cell, and the one who donated the supplementary DNA that was implanted into that host egg cell to fertilize it would be considered the "sire"? but that's kind of Not The Point of the tradition, and also I think hypothetically the way for two sperm donors to have a child sharing both their genetics would be to have a third party donate an egg cell, remove the nucleus of that egg cell, and add both sperm cells' DNA - although that raises potential problems with things like sex chromosomes - and would that.. hypothetically make the third party who donated the host egg cell the "carrying parent" who would traditionally pass down the lineage even though they neither actually carried the pregnancy nor actually donated any of the DNA the child has????

My theory is that this probably would just lead to most traditional Sith denouncing the practice of non-traditional methods of having kids altogether, which would. actually explain why all Sith don't just do that to avoid the rigors of pregnancy and the vulnerability that exposes you to combat-wise, along with probably a high failure rate in the medical incubator version (especially back during the Old Republic era as compared to the modern era). But still, it has to happen sometimes. How do you handle that.

#star wars #swtor #star wars headcanons #swtor headcanon #sith purebloods #sith culture #headcanons

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nerdygaymormon · 5 years ago

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what do you think about the new handbook?

In January 2016 I received a calling that gave me access to the Church’s Handbooks and I was surprised at the amount of specific things in there on which I had never considered the Church having an official position. I imagine a lot of people are having that experience this week.

I’m glad the Church made the Handbook available to everyone, it’s a move towards transparency. Before this, people were being held to standards or facing processes that only their leaders could access.

I appreciate that in some areas there’s better framework and clarity, but am sad that it often came in the form of being more restrictive or not in line with modern science.

I’m going to outline the changes and add a few comments. ’ll put my opinion about all of this at the end, so if that’s what you want to see, scroll to the bottom.

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Miscellaneous

The Handbook covers a lot of information, so I’m certain in the days and weeks ahead more new things will be discovered. But for now, here’s some assorted policies.

Sacrament

We’re supposed to take the Sacrament with our right hands

The wording that young men are encouraged, but not required, to wear a white shirt and tie is gone. All males who pass the Sacrament are asked to be clean and well groomed.

For a long time, which hand to use has been considered a personal choice, and some associated special meaning by using their right hand.

In February 2019, Elder Oaks saw some youth take the Sacrament with the left hand and he gave a short lecture that went viral telling these kids they were wrong, and now it’s official policy in the Handbook.

Dress Standards

The Relief Society Presidency is to teach dress standards to the sisters so their appearance and clothing show reverence and respect at Church and at the temple.

These are adult women!!! They can’t figure this out for themselves? It mentions ostentatious jewelry and casual clothes without any examples of what this means. I’m afraid some leaders will enforce their personal opinions, such as pants are verboten.

Also this section included a comment about ostentatious jewelry. What is that? Having 2 earrings in 1 ear?

—————————————————————

Discipline

Disciplinary councils have been renamed “Membership Councils”

People no longer are disfellowshipped or excommunicated. They have “formal membership restrictions” or “withdrawal of membership”

Does away with the unequal disciplinary structure for adult men vs adult women.

Before, men who were endowed had a disciplinary council at the stake level. Everyone else had a disciplinary council held by their bishopric.

Now anyone who is endowed and likely to have their Church membership withdrawn will have a stake membership council. Everyone else has a ward membership council for serious sins & actions

At the ward level, membership councils still function the same (the bishopric holds a council with the person whose membership is at risk).

At the stake level, the council now is similar to the way it works at the ward level (the stake presidency meets, without the high council also being involved).

The individual’s bishops can sit in on the council. The individual can also choose for the Elders Quorum or Relief Society President to sit in on the council.

Same-sex marriage is no longer apostasy

Apostasy has been removed from a list of reasons to hold a membership council. Instead it is on a case-by-case basis.

The stake president can place informal membership restrictions on the person and the stake president counsels with the Area Presidency (which are Seventy) about anything more than that, such as a membership council

The language is softer but the results are the same.

I like that men & women are treated equally in this new system. It always struck me wrong that most men in the church automatically had a council of 15 men and women had 3 men.

The reversal of the 2015 Policy of Exclusion finally made it to the Handbook.

—————————————————————

Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Same-Sex Attracted

Families & members should be sensitive, love and respectful of people who are gay, lesbian & bi

Sexual activity with someone of the same gender is on the same level as an unmarried sex.

Membership councils are optional in these cases, based on the leader’s discretion.

As long as an LGBTQ member is “striving” to live the law of chastity, they’re allowed to hold a calling and temple recommend

“Sexual cohabitation” used to be forbidden, now it’s “cohabitation”. So I guess gay people living together is a problem regardless of whether they have sex. I do know of a few couples who live together, but have given up sex in order to be temple worthy. I guess that’s no longer an option.

The mormonandgay website was done away with and some of the items moved to a new page titled “Same-Sex Attraction.”

Most of the links on this new page don’t work. I’m sure this will get fixed

Most of the “resources” from the old page aren’t on the new page.

The last 4 video stories of members from the former site are on the new site.

Credit for finally making this page available in languages other than English.

I wonder if it will still say it’s okay to identify using the terms gay, bi or lesbian.I know President Oaks prefers the phrase “same-sex attraction” and a lot of his influence is seen in the new Handbook changes.

The best section of the previous site was a collection of 17 members who are gay, bi and lesbian (well, 2 of them are parents of gay kids). Hearing them tell their story in their own words was powerful. Most of them have asked for their video to be removed.

The only stories remaining are 2 people in a mixed-orientation marriage and 2 parents who have a gay son. Each of those 4 members now has multiple videos (Laurie, Laurie’s husband, Laurie’s bishop, Laurie’s friend).

The experience of most LGB people in the Church is now absent from this page, which again confirms for me that this has been a site for leaders & family, not actual members who are bisexual, lesbian or gay.

—————————————————————

Transgender

Preferred names can be noted in your membership record and Church leaders are encouraged to use them.

People can also to ask others to use their chosen pronouns

Elective surgical or medical intervention (which I believe means hormone treatment) for the purpose of transitioning, and social transitioning will result in membership restrictions.

These restrictions include not getting to exercise the priesthood, receiving or using a temple recommend, and receiving some Church callings

Even if the hormone therapy is prescribed by a medical professional to ease gender dysphoria or reduce suicidal thoughts, membership restrictions will result

Transgender people who don’t transition can have Church callings & temple recommends

Gender is defined as “biological sex at birth.”

This is recorded on Church records and determines whether someone can receive the priesthood and how they experience the temple ordinances

Transgender people & their family are welcome to attend Sunday church meetings and social events

There is now a page for transgender people, just as there has been for LGB people

This whole section of the Handbook makes me sad because it reduces these members to being a mistake and they need to choose a side. Nevermind they were born this way and have complex lives, they need to look and act like a cishet member.

I’d love if the church leaders could show scriptural backing & the words of the Savior to justify their views on trans folks other than the Family Proclamation.

Credit to the Church for switching from “transsexual” to “transgender

While trans people are welcome to attend the 2nd hour of church, no guidance was given about if they can choose either Relief Society or Elders Quorum

It’s problematic to define gender being as your biological sex at birth. If gender is eternal, why is “at birth” needed? A doctor or nurse assigns a biological sex at birth by taking a look at the newborn’s external genitals. This is only 1 of 5 markers of gender. A doctor or a nurse is not God.

5 components of biological sex

external genitalia

inner reproductive anatomy

sex hormones

chromosomes

gonad differentiation (gonad secretions cause sex-specific patterns in many other tissues & the brain)

This section of the Handbook still speaks of gender as binary–you’re either male or female and trans. Genderfluid, nonbinary, or any acknowledgement of a spectrum doesn’t exist.

To say a trans person will face consequences for social transitioning is really troubling. What does “social transitioning” mean? Do pronouns count as “social transitioning?” Long or short hair? If people must dress according to gender stereotypes, then it seems like leadership is more concerned about the feelings of the 99 and not the health & well being of the 1.

Why is it only transgender members who have a ban on these surgeries? Lots of breast enhancements, reductions and mastectomies take place every month with not a whiff of interest by church leaders, but if it’s done to affirm one’s gender identity, then it’s forbidden, even if it’s life saving.

It did make me feel queasy to read that even if medical or surgical intervention is prescribed by medical professionals to deal with gender dysphoria or suicidal thoughts, too bad, we’re still going to punish you. What kind of monsters came up with this?

—————————————————————

Intersex, aka People Whose Sex isn’t Clear at Birth

The Handbook says the incident rate of intersex is extremely rare

Questions about membership records, priesthood ordination and temple ordinances for youth or adults who were born with sexual ambiguity should be directed to the Office of the First Presidency.

This is the first I’ve seen Intersex given their own section in the Handbook.

While policies about LGBT people are listed as “moral issues”, the section on intersex people is under “medical and health policies.” That’s a good sign, it means that the medical profession determines what is best, not a church leader.

I appreciate that church takes this out of the hands of local leadership. It’s a complex issue that untrained people shouldn’t get to have say over.

The Church assumes that surgical & medical intervention is needed for this group of people. Unfortunately it implies the default is to do so in infancy or early childhood when current best practices would be delaying, if possible, until the individual can weigh in on their body & identity.

The idea that intersex is rare, well that depends on what they consider rare.

The rate could be as high as 2% of the population or as low as 1 in 2000.

If we think of that in terms of Church congregations, it suddenly seems not so rare.

In North America, a ward must have 300 members. If 1%-2% are intersex, that’s a couple people in each congregation.

If we go with the lowest rate of 1 in 2000, consider that in the US & Canada a stake requires a minimum of 3000 members. So 1 or 2 members per stake would be intersex.

—————————————————————

I think these changes show that the Church is willing to include queer people up to a point. We can feel & be the person we believe ourselves to be as long as we don’t actually act in a way that affirms who we are.

We are to be loved, respected and welcomed, however these homophobic and transphobic policies remain in place. Love & respect is more than smiling & being nice to someone.

The policies of the Church regarding queer people is out of line with science. As science continues to advance and confirm that gender identities and sexual orientations are real and biological and not changeable by will, the tension for the Church on these topics will continue to grow.

“The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor. Jesus never commanded me to love my religion.” -Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor

Considering Jesus admonishes us again and again to love each other and that we are all alike to God, I can only guess that Jesus wept. Again.

#handbook #tumblrstake #queerstake

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trendingnewsb · 7 years ago

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The Creepy Genetics Behind the Golden State Killer Case

For the dozen years between 1974 and 1986, he rained down terror across the state of California. He went by many names: the East Side Rapist, the Visalia Ransacker, the Original Night Stalker, the Golden State Killer. And on Wednesday, law enforcement officials announced they think they finally have his real name: Joseph James DeAngelo. Police arrested the 72-year-old Tuesday; he’s accused of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders.

In the end, it wasn’t stakeouts or fingerprints or cell phone records that got him. It was a genealogy website.

FBI

Lead investigator Paul Holes, a retired Contra Costa County District Attorney inspector, told the Mercury News late Thursday night that his team used GEDmatch, a no-frills Florida-based website that pools raw genetic profiles shared publicly by their owners, to find the man believed to be one of California’s most notorious criminals. A spokeswoman for the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office reached Friday morning would not comment or confirm the report.

GEDmatch—a reference to the data file format GEDCOM, developed by the Mormon church to share genealogical information—caters to curious folks searching for missing relatives or filling in family trees. The mostly volunteer-run platform exists “to provide DNA and genealogy tools for comparison and research services,” the site’s policy page states. Most of its tools for tracking down matches are free; users just have to register and upload copies of their raw DNA files exported from genetic testing services like 23andMe and Ancestry. These two companies don’t allow law enforcement to access their customer databases unless they get a court order. Neither 23andMe nor Ancestry was approached by investigators in this case, according to spokespeople for the companies.

But no court order would be needed to mine GEDmatch’s open-source database of more than 650,000 genetically connected profiles. Using sequence data somehow wrung from old crime scene samples, police could create a genetic profile for their suspect and and upload it to the free site. As the Sacramento Bee first reported, that gave them a pool of relatives who all shared some of that incriminating genetic material. Then they could use other clues—like age and sex and place of residence—to rule out suspects. Eventually the search narrowed down to just DeAngelo. To confirm their suspicions, police staked out his Citrus Heights home and obtained his DNA from something he discarded, then ran it against multiple crime scene samples. They were a match.

“It’s fitting that today is National DNA Day,” said Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, at a press conference announcing the arrest Wednesday afternoon. A champion of genetic forensics, Schubert convened a task force two years ago to re-energize the cold case with DNA technology. “We found the needle in the haystack, and it was right here in Sacramento.”

After four decades of failure, no one could blame law enforcement officials for celebrating. But how they came to suspect DeAngelo, and eventually put him in cuffs, raises troubling questions about what constitutes due process and civil liberty amid the explosive proliferation of commercial DNA testing.

FBI

DNA evidence has been a cornerstone of forensic science for decades, and rightly so. It’s way more accurate than hair or bite-mark analysis. But the routine DNA tests used by crime labs aren’t anything like what you get if you send your spit to a commercial testing company. Cops look at a panel of 20 regions of repeating locations in the genome that don’t code for proteins. Because those repeating sections vary so much from individual to individual, they’re good for matching two samples—but only if the suspect is already in the criminal databases maintained by US law enforcement. Investigators in the Golden State Killer case had long had DNA, but there was no one in their files with which to match it. And so the case went cold.

Companies like 23andMe and Ancestry, on the one hand, probe the coding regions of DNA, to see what mysteries someone’s genes might be hiding—a heightened risk for cancer, or perhaps a long lost cousin. While those areas may be less prone to variation between individual samples, the number of customers who have received these tests—more than 10 million between both services—means that detectives can triangulate an individual. Maybe even a mass murderer. Thanks to the (biological) laws of inheritance, suspected criminals don’t have to have been tested themselves for bits of their DNA to be caught up in the dragnet of a criminal fishing investigation.

So far, these leaders in the consumer DNA testing space have denied ever turning over any customer genetic data to the police. Not that they haven’t been asked for it. According to the 23andMe’s self-reported data, law enforcement has requested information on a total of five American 23andMe customers. Ancestry’s published transparency reports state that it has provided some customer information—but it was in response to requests related to credit card fraud and identity theft, and none of it was genetic in nature.

Representatives from both companies said that police can’t simply upload a DNA profile they have from old crime scenes and sign up for the company’s services, allowing them to find genetic relatives and compare detailed chromosome segment data. Not because impersonating someone necessarily constitutes a violation of the their terms and conditions—people use fake names and email accounts occasionally to maintain privacy—but because they don’t accept digital files. The database entrance fee is a mandatory three milliliters of saliva.

Cops have found ways around this before. In 2014, a New Orleans filmmaker named Michael Usry was arrested for the 1996 murder of an 18-year-old girl in Idaho Falls, after investigators turned up a “partial match” between semen found on the victim’s body and DNA from Usry’s father. A familial connection they found by sifting through DNA samples donated by Mormon churchgoers, including Usry’s father, for a genealogy project. Ancestry later purchased the database and made the genetic profiles (though not the names associated with them) publicly searchable. A search warrant got them to turn over the identity of the partial match.

After 33 days in police custody a DNA test cleared Michael Usry, and Ancestry has since shuttered the database. But it highlighted two big potential problems with this kind of familial searching. On the other are questions of efficacy—nongovernmental databases, whether public or private, haven’t been vetted for use by law enforcement, even as they’re increasingly being used as crime-fighting tools. More worrying though are the privacy concerns—most people who get their DNA tested for the fun of it don’t expect their genetic code might one day be scrutinized by cops. And people who’ve never been tested certainly don’t expect their genes to turn them into suspects.

Those questions get even thornier as more and more people have their DNA tested and then liberate that information from the walled off databases of private companies. GEDmatch’s policies don’t explicitly ask its users to contemplate the risks the wider network might incur on account of any one individual’s choices. “While the results presented on this site are intended solely for genealogical research, we are unable to guarantee that users will not find other uses,” it states. “If you find the possibility unacceptable, please remove your data from this site.” GEDmatch did not immediately respond to a request for comment

Legal experts say investigators wouldn’t break any laws in accessing a publicly available database like GEDmatch, which exists expressly to map that connectivity. “The tension though is that any sample that gets uploaded also is providing information that could to lead to relatives that either haven’t consented to have their information made public, or even know it’s been done,” says Jennifer Mnookin, dean of the UCLA School of Law and a founder of its program on understanding forensic science evidence. “That’s not necessarily wrong, but it leads to a web of information that implicates a population well beyond those who made a decision themselves to be included.”

That’s the same argument that critics have made against more traditional kinds of forensic familial searches—where a partial DNA match reveals any of a suspect’s relatives already in a criminal database. But those searches are at least regulated, to different extent, by federal and state laws. In California, investigators have to get approval from a state Department of Justice committee to run a familial DNA search through a criminal database, which limits use of the technique to particularly heinous crimes. A similar search on a site like GEDmatch requires no such oversight.

In the case of the Golden State Killer, the distinction doesn’t seem that important. But what if police started using these tools for much lesser crimes? “If these techniques became widely used there’s a risk a lot of innocent people would be caught in a web of genetic suspicion and subject to heightened scrutiny,” says Mnookin. While she’s impressed with the ingenuity of the investigators in this case to track down their suspect, she can’t help but see it as a step toward a genetic surveillance state. “That’s what’s hard about this,” she says. “We don’t have a blood taint in this country. Guilt shouldn’t travel by familial association, whether your brother is a felon or an amateur genealogist.”

More Genetic Informants

Did you know your fingerprints contain traces of DNA? Cops do. But that doesn't mean they always get it right.

Here's the full story on how one Mormon ancestry project turned innocent people into crime suspects.

When regular DNA lab tests fails, more and more investigators are turning something called probabilistic genotyping. But can code from an unknown algorithm really deliver justice?