Molecular geneticist at UC Berkeley debate argues why trans women should not be treated as women

A female molecular geneticist participating in a UC Berkeley debate argued that trans women are not women and should not be legally treated as such, citing examples of women’s safety fears of trans women in changing rooms and prisons.

The geneticist argued that legally treating trans women as women, and allowing them into changing rooms and prisons, means women have put a man’s comfort ahead of their own safety – claiming that the behavior of men is inherently different than that of women.  

‘Women have internalized misogyny to the point where the man’s comfort takes precedence over the woman’s safety,’ she said. ‘This is the most insane thing that has happened in my life, that women are a feeling now.’

‘There’s a reason why they (trans women) don’t want to be in men’s prisons,’ she said. ‘Men beat each other to death. Women don’t do that.’

The debate, moderated by Peter Boghossian, author and professor of philosophy, was held in April at UC Berkeley that posed the phrase: ‘Trans women should be treated as women.’

The geneticist strongly disagreed with the claim, first arguing that trans women are not women, because ‘being male or female is developmental, and you cannot go backwards.’

Another participant, a woman, an aspiring molecular geneticist, agreed with the claim, and the third participant, a man, initially stood on the ‘disagree’ line but moved over to ‘strongly disagree’ by the end of the discussion. 

When asked by the moderator why she strongly disagreed in the claim, the geneticist responded without hesitation: ‘Because I’m a molecular geneticist.’

She continued: ‘Being male or being female is a developmental process. You can’t go backwards. You cant change your sex, like you cannot do that.’ 

The geneticist appeared to get emotional while talking about the subject, telling the moderator: ‘I’m sorry this bothers me so much. My heart is pounding.’

She then gave her stance on trans women in changing rooms and prisons. 

‘I go to the women’s changing room at my gym and there’s a dude there and he’s putting on makeup and hoop earrings and this is not something a woman does when she goes to work out,’ she explained. 

The moderator said he’s not familiar with women’s changing rooms and asks, is this behavior not common?

She responds: ‘No, nor do women beat each other to death. But men do.’  

The geneticist claimed that in prisons in California and across the country, women are getting raped and impregned by other ‘women.’

‘There’s a reason why they (trans women) don’t want to be in men’s prisons,’ she said. ‘Men beat each other to death. Women don’t do that.’

The geneticist claimed that in prisons in California and across the country, women are getting raped and impregned by other ‘women’

Another participant, a woman, an aspiring molecular geneticist, agreed with the claim

A third participant, a man, initially stood on the ‘disagree’ line but moved over to ‘strongly disagree’ by the end of the discussion

She went on to explain that trans women should not be legally treated as women citing the example of being able to change their gender to female on their driver’s license. 

‘If a man is able to get F on his driver’s license and he gets arrested, they are going to put him in a cell with women,’ she said. ‘And his hands are stronger, his body is stronger and he can beat that woman to death.’

The video of the debate – which was held earlier this year – was posted this week by Women’s Voices on Twitter, bringing in both support for the geneticist, but also some backlash for her comments.

One user commented: ‘I want to hug her, the emotion in her voice made me tear up. It’s too relatable.’

Another said: ‘She’s like some kind of superhero to speak out this way at BERKELEY. She shouldn’t have to be such because what she’s saying is just FACTS/reality but here we are.’

Another user wrote: ‘Gender identity is a giant shackle. It creates more boxes than we’ve ever had. It creates mental distress and endless, useless rumination. It flattens the beautiful and varied human experience and it is devouring our feminine boys and masculine girls. It is nothing but a prison.’

One user wrote about the geneticist and the other woman at the debate who had a different view. 

‘They both added great value. The younger woman indirectly articulated the value that life experience affords when it comes to understanding human behaviour. She doesn’t fully understand the implication of the TWAW doctrine, but I think she will eventually.’   

This follows news that a transgender prisoner who impregnated two of her fellow inmates at a women’s prison in New Jersey revealed that she tried to remove one of her testicles with a razor after being misgendered at her new men’s facility.

In an August 18 post on her ‘Justice 4 Demi’ blog, transgender inmate Demi Minor revealed she ended up in the emergency room after trying to remove her testicle with a razor

Hercase gained notoriety in April when the New Jersey Department of Corrections revealed that he had impregnated two fellow inmates at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Union Township (pictured)

Demi Minor, 27, was moved from Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Union Township to the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility (GSYCF) with male inmates in June after guards learned of the pregnancies.

Minor, who is serving a 30-year sentence for stabbing her former foster father to death, has since complained that she has been mistreated and abused at her new prison, where staff are refusing to acknowledge her gender identity.

In an August 18 post on her Justice 4 Demi blog, she revealed she ended up in the emergency room after using a razor to cut out one of her testicles in an apparent suicide attempt.

‘When I began to bleed, I did not even think about dying. I just thought about finally having relief from the pain that I felt,’ Minor wrote.

‘Being here in a male prison, amplifies the harm that I once felt… I hate it all.’

Minor, who was first jailed at the age of 16, started to transition into a woman in 2020 and was transferred out of the male prison system to Mahan.

The 27-year-old has claimed she has been abused at her new prison, the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility (GSYCF), where staff are refusing to acknowledge her gender identity

Minor, 27, previously revealed she was placed on suicide watch because she had tried to hang herself while she was being transferred to GSCF (pictured) after impregnating two inmates at her old prison 

The 800-inmate Mahan facility began housing transgender women – including those that have yet to undergo gender reassignment surgery – last year after a lawsuit brought by an inmate and the ACLU. It now has 27 trans prisoners.

Minor explained she began feeling ‘hopeless’ and ‘ignored’ at GSYCF on July 28 after she was asked to prove she was transgender despite having provided staff with medical records stating she had been ‘on hormones for years.’

Minor was born Demetrius Minor, a boy, and was just 16 when she broke into the home of her stepfather Theotis Butts’s home in Gloucester Township, New Jersey 

She claims she was later told by the committee chair that there were some things that ‘we can biologically not change’, suggesting that ‘regardless of my transition without surgery I am a man.’

‘I ignored her comments. But the truth is everything she said hurt, and was hard not to cry in the meeting it was hard to know that the same people who I once admired were now responsible for placing me in harms (sic) way,’ she wrote.

‘I started cutting again, and with a razor I begin (sic) making a incision to remove my testicle. In my head, I just wanted the pain to stop. I just wanted out of this. They don’t know what the hell that I am going through.

‘Instead, if you have a penis, you deserve to be in a male prison. That is all central offices cares about,’ she added.

Minor added that she has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, meaning she is ‘five times more likely’ to die by suicide, but admitted she sometimes ‘would rather not be here.’

Minor was first jailed at the age of 16, but started to transition into a woman in 2020 and was transferred out of the male prison system to Mahan

I have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and it makes me 5 times more likely to die by suicide. I hide these thoughts. I have often not told anyone how I truly feel, and how sometimes, I would rather not be here’.

Since her transfer, Minor claimed men write her letters asking for sexual favors and that she finds herself in some ‘dark places’.

She said the women she knew in Edna were the ‘one family’ she ever had and that she was ‘stuck in a body that I hate’.

In an apparent reference to getting two women pregnant, Minor wrote that while at Edna she ‘went through many depressive nights, and often wanted to be loved’.

She wrote: ‘I simply never knew that it could have such devastating consequences. I blame myself, for the hatred that is now geared to my community, and those who I care about’.

Minor was born Demetrius Minor, a boy, and was just 16 when she broke into the home of her stepfather Theotis Butts’s home in Gloucester Township, New Jersey.

Butts had taken her in as a foster child, but Minor was no longer living with him, according to a report at the time on NJ.com.

Minor stabbed Butts, 69, several times and then fled to New York where she was arrested.

Minor pleaded guilty to manslaughter and carjacking when she appeared in a New Jersey courtroom as a 16-year-old. She is serving a 30-year jail sentence 

One of the women who Minor got pregnant was inmate Latonia Bellamy, 31 (right) a double murderer who gave birth in the fall.

One of the women who Minor got pregnant was inmate Latonia Bellamy, 31, a double murderer who gave birth in the fall.

Bellamy was 19 when she, her cousin and a second man killed Nia Haqq, 25, and Michael Muchioki, 27, in Jersey City, New Jersey, as the couple unloaded gifts from their car at 3 am on a Sunday morning in April 2010.

In a post on Minor’s website, Bellamy wrote: ‘We found love in a hopeless place,’ quoting from a Rihanna song.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the New Jersey Department of Corrections and Minor’s website for comment.

Oklahoma public schools make biological sex affidavits mandatory for all students from kindergarten through college who want to participate in sports under state’s new ‘Save Women’s Sports’ Act

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Oklahoma public schools will now require their students to sign affidavits that confirm their biological sex, not their gender identity, if they want to participate in any school sports.

The affidavits are in accordance with the state’s new ‘Save Women’s Sports Act’ signed by Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Kevin Stitts in March. The law requires that students be eligible to participate in sports teams based on their ‘biological sex,’ rather than gender identity, and covers female-only athletics in middle school, high school, and college.

Parents of the Woodall Public School district south east of Tulsa learned about the affidavits in late July after it began circulating on social media, Fox News reported. The mandate applies to all students in the district, in kindergarten through high school, for the incoming 2022/2023 school year set to begin on August 11.

Pictured is a copy of the affidavit shared by Erin Matson, a self-described ‘feminist writer.’ Oklahoma public schools makes biological sex affidavits mandatory for all students from kindergarten though college who want to participate in sports activities 

The policy was brought to parent’s attention after Erin Matson, a self-described ‘feminist writer,’ and the executive director of Reproaction, a direct action group working to increase access to abortion and advance reproductive justice, posted about it on Twitter on July 28.

‘Do you understand what is happening? This has nothing to do with encouraging girls to be athletes. This is totalitarianism. It is the white nationalist agenda. The anti-LGBTQ agenda. The anti-abortion agenda. It is all the same agenda,’ Matson wrote to her now over 15,000 followers.

‘This is real,’ Matson added. The post garnered nearly 47,000 views and anger from some local parents.

The Woodall Public School district is located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, south east of Tulsa

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill on March 30 that prevents transgender girls and women from competing on female sports teams. Stitt signed the bill flanked by more than a dozen young female athletes, including his eighth-grade daughter Piper

The Woodall Schools Superintendent Ginger Knight said the school district ‘is following a new Oklahoma law, and the affidavit is required by the state statute.’

The form requires an affiant to sign the form as well as a notary.

The act requires public schools to complete the affidavit before the school year begins. For students 18 years or younger a parent or guardian must complete the form, those above 18 can complete the form themselves.

If there is any change in the biological sex of the student, they are required to notify the school within 30 days.

Eddie Wright, Director of Athletics for the District of Oklahoma City Public Schools, which includes approximately 48 schools and 31,000 students, said its athletic department is overseeing students in 7th to 12th grade who are now required to fill out the affidavit.

Wright said it is being conducted through Rank One, an athlete management and scheduling software.

Many civil rights activists expressed their grievances with the law, including the American Civil Liberties Union.

Tamya Cox-Touré, ACLU of Oklahoma executive director, said in a statement that ‘promoting baseless fears about trans athletes does nothing to address those real problems.’

‘Ultimately, SB2 violates the United States Constitution and federal civil rights law, puts Oklahoma at risk of losing federal funding and harms transgender youth, all to solve a problem that does not exist,’ Cox-Toure said, Fox News reported.

The text of the law specifies that sports designated for ‘females, women or girls’ shall not be open to male students. It does not address male sports. Pictured is Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, with a bill he signed making it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, on April 12, 2022

It appears the Woodall Public School district has gotten a head start on following the new law, as the ‘Save Women’s Sports Act,’ ( SB 781 ) only officially goes into affect on August 28, 2022

The ‘Save Women’s Sports Act’ that covers female-only athletics in middle school, high school, and college that was signed by Governor Stitts on March 30.

The law requires that student’s eligibility to participate on a sports team is based on ‘biological sex’ rather than gender identity.

The text of the law specifies that sports designated for ‘females, women or girls’ shall not be open to male students. It does not address male sports.

It appears the Woodall Public School district has gotten a head start on following the new law, as the ‘Save Women’s Sports Act,’ (SB 781) only officially goes into affect on August 28, 2022.

According to the Missouri Senate, the law states that ‘no athletic team or sport designated for biological females, as defined in the act, shall be open to students that are biological males, as defined in the act.

‘No governmental entity, licensing or accrediting organization, or athletic association or organization shall take any adverse action, as described in the act, against a school for maintaining separate interscholastic or intramural athletic teams or sports for students that are biological females.’

‘No public or private middle school or high school or a public or private institution of postsecondary education that has biological males playing biological female’s sports shall be eligible for money appropriated by the General Assembly.’