Free Republic

Sina Kramer's Excluded Within is one of those rare books that states things that seems obvious in the telling but which no one had quite thought of before. Her claim is that constituted exclusions based on race, gender, class, sexuality and other forms of social and political hierarchy are "excluded within," that is to say, are themselves deeply constitutive of what excludes them. Their appearance as being entirely "outside" of the systems of power—and even more pointedly of being unintelligible (insofar as any rubric of intelligibility is itself a function of the normative identities that are "inside")—is only retroactive, a...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday he received a letter from the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services determining that genital mutilation of a (child) through gender transitioning surgery constitutes child abuse.Abbott had directed DFPS to issue a determination on the matter last week and the department’s commissioner (Jaime Masters) replied with his findings.“Genital mutilation of a child through reassignment surgery is child abuse,” Masters wrote. “This surgical procedure physically alters a child’s genitalia for non-medical purposes potentially inflicting irreversible harm to children’s bodies,” he wrote.

Joe Biden has been hit again by a federal court blocking his administration’s mandate that would require doctors to perform gender reassignment surgeries even if they do not want to.U.S. District Court of Northern Texas, Reed O’Connor, sided with the Christian plaintiffs in issuing a permanent injunction saying they are “to be exempt from the government’s requirements to perform abortions and gender-transition procedures,” Yahoo News reported.A federal judge has blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a mandate on several religious organizations that would have required them to perform gender transition surgeries or abortions.Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court...

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska education officials announced Thursday that they have largely scrapped plans for gender identity lessons in public school curriculum after an uproar from conservatives who argued that the topics weren't appropriate for children. The new draft of the proposed sexual standards from the Nebraska Department of Education came after agency officials faced intense criticism from parents, school boards, state lawmakers and Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, who held town hall events to blast the proposal. Opponents flooded a meeting of the Nebraska State Board of Education, an elected board that oversees the agency. “What we're really trying...

MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates are joining forces to give $40 million to projects focused on advancing gender equality in tech, higher education, minority communities and caregiving. Both Scott and French Gates have previously given to causes around gender equality.