An effort to confer special rights upon individuals who want to “decide” their gender, rather than go with the biology they were born with, was greatly energized and expanded by the Obama administration.
Now the Trump administration is attempting to return that policy to normalcy, which predictably has a number of liberal technology companies steaming.
The likes of Apple and Amazon, and 50-something other companies, have joined to sign a letter opposing plans by the Department of Health and Human Services to restore definitions of sex to remove “identity” and limit it according to the genitalia an individual is born with, for the purposes of Title IX enforcement of gender discrimination in civil rights law.
The change has implications in education, health care, employment, and just about every other walk of life.
TheNew York Times reported late last month about the draft memo being composed under DHHS, which was undoubtedly exposed by rank-and-file Deep Staters left over from the Obama bureaucracy. According to the newspaper:
The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.
Any final draft would have to be made available for public comment for 60 days, which the agencies would then review before issuing their final rules on the policy, which would carry the force of law.
But the thought of returning to cultural and societal norms, when it comes to matters of others’ recognition of your God-given biology, is anathema to Silicon Valley and other major non-tech corporations.
“We oppose any administrative and legislative efforts to erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of existing laws and regulations,” the companies stated in their joint letter. “We also fundamentally oppose any policy or regulation that violates the privacy rights of those that identify as transgender, gender non-binary, or intersex.”
The letter then imagined some sort of medical authority and attempted to rationalize a mandatory civil rights expansion that they believed should be forced on the rest of us, some of whom would like the privacy and security of entering public restrooms not inhabited by members of any other sex but our own.
“Cognizant of growing medical and scientific consensus, courts have recognized that policies that force people into a binary gender definition determined by birth anatomy fail to reflect the complex realities of gender identity and human biology,” the letter continued.
“Recognizing that diversity and inclusion are good for business, and that discrimination imposes enormous productivity costs (and exerts undue burdens), hundreds of companies, including the undersigned, have continued to expand inclusion for transgender people across corporate America. Currently more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 have clear gender identity protections; two-thirds have transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage; hundreds have LGBTQ+ and Allies business resource groups and internal training efforts.”
Other major corporations that joined the effort included Airbnb, American Airlines, Bank of America, Cisco, Citi, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Dow Chemical, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Intuit, JP Morgan Chase, Marriott, Microsoft, Nike, PepsiCo, Twitter, and Uber.
Many of the same companies joined in the past on other efforts to affect social and political policies. In 2016 dozens of company CEOs signed a message to then-North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory to lecture the state about a state law that required public restrooms and dressing facilities to be utilized according to gender designations on birth certificates, and disallowed cities and municipalities from forcing private businesses to allow their restrooms to be used according to “gender identity.”
The process surrounding the Trump administration memo is familiar: Previous liberal administration unilaterally expands rules and regulations beyond any reasonable, commonsense measures or definitions originally imagined in law; Conservative (or “normal”) administration attempts to return back to standards that have been historically established to maintain order and avoid chaos; Leftists and the media then call those who would roll back those standards names such as “Neanderthals,” “bigots,” “—phobes,” and “hatemongers;” Controversy-averse (or outright supportive) corporations join the chorus; and then liberals get their way.
“My strong view is everyone should be treated with dignity and respect,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook, who is gay, to CNN, in a discussion about the letter. “That’s the way I look at everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of their religion, their gender, their ethnic history, regardless of their gender identity. That’s the way I look at things.”
No one says these corporations cannot treat individuals, customers and employees however they want. They have the freedom to offer them products, services and benefits according to whatever standards they establish.
The current administration is just looking at policy so the government cannot force everyone else to accept a wild-west, unruly “gender identity” or “gender fluidity” acceptance in their own businesses and practices, lest they be sued out of existence.