What laws can’t change

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

Ah there it is.

No actually it doesn’t. A piece of paper can make something legal, but it can’t make a woman in the sense of turning a man into a woman (which of course is the sense Hines has in mind). It can create a legal fiction, but the fiction remains a fiction.

It’s odd that an adult academic either doesn’t grasp this, or pretends not to grasp it.

Laws are laws, but not all laws are good laws. There is such a thing as civil disobedience. Trump is issuing executive orders as a dog sheds fleas, but he can’t change reality. He can’t move Greenland to somewhere between Oklahoma and Arkansas. He can’t make Musk’s latest rocket unexplode. Sally Hines can’t make men into women by citing a law.

Comments

3 responses to “What laws can’t change”

  1. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    He can’t move Greenland to somewhere between Oklahoma and Arkansas.

    Lucky for Greenland. I lived in Oklahoma long enough to know that isn’t somewhere a sane country would want to be.

  2. Blood Knight in Sour Armor Avatar
    Blood Knight in Sour Armor

    He also can’t legally restrict the number of genders to two… Genderism is bollocks because it’s bollocks and an EO can’t help or hinder that view.

  3. Arcadia Avatar
    Arcadia

    California ruled that bees are legally fish. Trans women are legally women like that. You know, when a thing is legally something it really isn’t.

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