Nebraska governor Jim Pillen, a Republican not noted as a women’s rights supporter, yesterday issued an executive order “defining” males and females and the attributes thereof. The anti-transgender political grandstanding offers fusty explanations of the sexes–men are “bigger, stronger and faster” on average–in pursuit of Rowling-esque calls for sexual segregation (and even echoing her ostensibly feminist rationales) and not a lot else.

The order declares that, in matters of the state, the “biological differences between the sexes are enduring” and that the “sex” of a person will be defined by the gender designated at birth. In addition to specifically noting how boy, girl, man, and woman will be defined, the order also includes biological descriptions. …

“It is common sense that men do not belong in women’s only spaces,” Pillen said in the news release. “As Governor, it is my duty to protect our kids and women’s athletics, which means providing single-sex spaces for women’s sports, bathrooms, and changing rooms.”

The reaction, at least from Democrats, is to point out that if it were enforced, the likely outcome would be Nebraska losing federal funding for womens’ shelters.

“Today Governor Pillen, famous women’s rights supporter, signed this offensive and ridiculous proclamation establishing a “Women’s Bill of Rights.” He should try saying this stuff to my face then we would see who’s got what biological advantage,” wrote State Senator Megan Hunt on Twitter.


  • Veraticus@lib.lgbt
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    1 year ago

    All we need to do is find a woman bigger, faster, and stronger than him, and then he’s officially a woman by his own legislation.

    • bartolomeo@suppo.fi
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      1 year ago

      What’s with the Ben Shapiro jokes here? I know who he is and I’ve read some of his (often comically) idiotic takes on world events, but care to explain it as it relates to this topic?

      • mateomaui@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        properly answering that would require spending entirely too much time talking about Ben Shapiro, this will have to do

      • iheartneopets@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        He’s a right wing pundit who claims to only care about “facts” and “logic” to make himself seem more intelligent and credible to his base. Of course, none of his views hold up to much scrutiny, showing that he doesn’t actually care about facts and logic, meaning that really he’s just another bigot.

        That would be pathetic enough, except that he’s kind of the king of self-burns. Like, shit the CIA couldn’t get out of most people. You should look up ‘ben shapiro WAP’. It’s fucking hilarious that he felt the need to commentate on the song in the first place, but the things he said solidified him as a meme. “Wet ass p-word” is a classic quote, and the fact that he admitted to his wife telling him that being that wet isn’t normal is hysterical.

        • mateomaui@reddthat.com
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          One of the most amusing things about him is how he routinely “destroys” people with debate superiority and yet he does what he does now because he completely failed as a hollywood nepo baby screenwriter or some shit… so now he just complains all the time about inequality for white men and wokeness like a leaky helium balloon, telling women to stay in their lane and making bad related predictions, like saying the Barbie movie will burn out after a week or so from irrelevance, only to see it top a billion in sales. Dude can’t help punching himself in the nuts on the regular.

        • mateomaui@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          damn I totally forgot about the WAP self-own, good stuff, for everyone except his wife obviously

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The order declares that, in matters of the state, the “biological differences between the sexes are enduring” and that the “sex” of a person will be defined by the gender designated at birth.

    That makes zero fucking sense

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This means that insecure men in Nebraska can now go in to the dive bar they get drunk at starting at 1030 AM, and hit on any woman in the place without fear of her secretly having a penis.

      Not that there are any women in that bar, that they’d ever have a chance at taking one home, or, that this executive order actually means any of that. But the idiots who support this kind of thing will think it does.

      • StandingCat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        God i hate living here, because this is exactly how the rest of the idiots here think. But it’s too expensive to move right now.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          My wife didn’t want to move to Minnesota, so we bought a house here, and aren’t likely to leave now. Had I not met her when I did I likely would have left a few years ago.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think you don’t know how often it’s not one of those two, and if someone is going to get to pick, maybe we should also let individuals pick for themselves too.

        Edit:

        Looked at that profile…

        Pretty sure you don’t think at all, easiest block of the week. Have fun shouting hated into the void

        • Throwaway@lemm.ee
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          I do. Less than a percent of a percent. It’s so rare, we can effectively handle it on a case by case basis, and not bog ourselves down in pedantry.

          • Wogi@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I got it. I have a perfect solution. The perfect definition to solve all debate.

            Man is a featherless bird.

      • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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        You are thinking of sex. Gender comes from the same root as genre - like how you categorize books. It was initially used to define things loosely by cultural traits like “tribe” or “type” and was used in the 15 century to describe men and women in a tongue in cheek way. Basically saying “the tribe of woman” right before trying to be witty about how women don’t make any sense because they are like another culture. Other uses would have been to distinguish differences between any different nations, families, groups. So your gendre could have been “English” or “From this specific village where they eat a lot of cheese” or of a social class.

        The word got hijacked by Victorian sensibilities which used it euphemistically in that “tribe of” way for the word sex because having a woman saying the word sex aloud to a room in the scientific sense of the word caused monocles to shoot out of men’s eyesockets at lethal speeds and early feminists needed language they could use without being censored… But the modern usage of gender is not a euphemism for sex. They are two distinct words.

        Gender does not concern itself with any part of the person’s body. It refers more to classification by cultural attributes. Like how you would decide if a book belongs in the mystery section or romance. Whether the book is hard or soft cover is not relevant to genre classification in the same way male /female/intersex is largely irrelevant in regards to gender classification.

        • Throwaway@lemm.ee
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          Im not disagreeing with you? Sex is the physical body, xx/xy/others, gender is the societal/mental.

  • Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    I wonder if you can legally change genders with this. If you’re a woman who’s bigger, stronger, and faster than the average male in Nebraska, then you satisfy this biological condition set forth in law.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    The nazis are back, Russia’s trying its best to cause WW3, our rights are dropping like flies, oligarchs have become cartoonishly overt in fucking the rest of us cuz they know we’ll just bend over and take it, and we’re literally cooking our planet with cow farts and dinosaur juice to the point that its ability to support life is rapidly approaching a hard stop.

    …and the thing we’re putting our energy into is the dangly bits in our pants.

      • bemenaker@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Unfortunately, this isn’t the comedy version where they hid in a secret base on the moon.

      • lemmyseikai@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        While I know what you meant I am just imagining Nazis sitting at a table playing poker with seconds XD

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      All this is just smoke and mirrors. These governors don’t give a shit about any of this. However, their rabblerousing bases do, so they pull this shit because they know it’ll keep the press and protestors busy enough so they don’t look at the real issues. It’s easy to rob a man or woman blind if they are busy protesting some nonsense stupidity you out up there to distract them.

  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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    So if a body builder woman beats him up in one-on-one combat, he’ll have to be redefined as a women? Where’s the Celebrity Death Match reboot?

  • CandyPants@lemmy.ml
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    Out of all of the problems we have, this joker decided this made up one was actually worth his energy and effort. What a fucking stupid time to be alive.

  • gnuplusmatt@startrek.website
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    So in Nebraska a two men with a measurable difference in size and strength in a relationship are actually heterosexual?

  • A_A@lemmy.world
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    @Wogi@lemmy.world wrote in here 6h ago :

    There’s no legal reason to define the genders, no ongoing court drama in Nebraska that hinges on this definition, nothing legally will ever be decided because of it. It’s just one idiot shouting out to a bunch of other idiots that he doesn’t like it when people who were born with one set of genitals want to have a different set of genitals.

    What this will accomplish is added brain drain, an issue Nebraska sorely needs a remedy to, it will cost millions in court cases that will now be filed against the state and the governor, and it will cost women’s centers in Nebraska Federal money. All while doing absolutely nothing worthwhile for the state of Nebraska.

    It’s Jim Pillen saying he wants a fight with a minority group. And it’s an idiotic call to arms at that.

    N.B. : This excellent comment was unfortunately part of a thread which was deleted by the mod. I read the other comments in this post and, compared to the above, they’re mostly not worth one cent.

    • A_A@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Confetti // Charlotte Cardin
      Always been loud in a quiet way
      I always feel alone in a crowded place
      I always wanna stay, wanna go, wanna stay, lwanna go
      I don’t know
      I don’t know

      I get sad on my birthday
      I wanna talk back in the worst way
      I always wanna stay, wanna go, wanna stay, wanna go
      I don’t know what to say
      I wanna throw it all away

      I feel like a zombie, I’ll die at the party
      Yeah, you’ll find my body fully covered in confetti
      I tried calling somebody to tell them come get me
      But you’ll find my body fully covered in confetti
      Singing la da da da da

      La da da da da
      La da da da da
      La da da da da

      Find me in the club looking golden
      I know everyone, I got no friends
      I always wanna stay, wanna go, wanna stay, wanna go
      I don’t know
      I don’t know

      And I never know what to say
      'Til I’m already walking away
      Wanna punch you in the face
      But I won’t, but I might, but I won’t
      And I don’t wanna play
      I wanna throw it all away

      I feel like a zombie, I’ll die at the party
      Yeah, you’ll find my body fully covered in confetti
      I tried calling somebody to tell them come get me
      But you’ll find my body fully covered in confetti
      Singing la da da da da

      La da da da da
      La da da da da
      La da da da da

      Look at the people, they’re crazy
      Look at the people, they’re crazy
      Look at the people, they’re crazy
      Look at their pupils dilating
      Look at the people, they’re crazy (crazy)

      I feel like a zombie, I’ll die at the party
      Yeah, you’ll find my body fully covered in confetti
      I tried calling somebody to tell them come get me
      But you’ll find my body fully covered in confetti
      Singing la da da da da

  • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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    Apparently, from what I’m reading, this will also potentially cause women’s shelters to lose federal funding. They aren’t legally allowed to discriminate against trans-women, which means they’ll be disqualified for getting funding.

  • Nikki@lemmy.world
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    yeah cuz im such a big scary guy in my striped thigh highs, weighing in at 120 pounds

    i can run away in a flash though :3

    • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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      I honestly think that’s semantics. If the preamble doesn’t matter, then why is it there? Why have it if it doesn’t mean anything? Just because one is called a preamble and one a definition doesn’t mean that people won’t use either as the “real” definition. Maybe you could have argued that several years ago, but you certainly can’t now.

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      IANAL but isn’t there an issue with “if any data is collected it must define someone as a man or a woman” doesn’t allow there to be an “unknown.” Therefore you could potentially skew things like crime or Healthcare statistics by counting all unknowns as one gender or the other.

      Secondly, the definition “shall identify each individual… as male or female at birth” also provides a problem as one presumably can now kick back a whole bunch of stuff with the message “yes but this data doesn’t contain their sex at birth, please provide birth certificates for all 128,323 members of this list”

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      We all knew where this was going and making fun of the preamble is way more fun than going “well shit there’s another state ruining lives.”

      • Obinice@lemmy.world
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        I’m not from there and didn’t know where it was going, and this user’s explanation is very important, I’m glad they shared it <3