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This article discusses President Trump's claims that urban problems can be blamed on Democrats. This relates to the KQ because no one party can be blamed for a problem, politicians and people from across the political spectrum have contributed to problems facing cities and urban areas.

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Mayors don't have the power that the president ascribes to them.

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A police officer in Portland, Ore., last month. Over the decades, the Republican Party has participated less in the conversation on solutions to urban problems. Credit... David Ryder for The New York Times

Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Ore., and Kenosha, Wis., are first and foremost "Democrat cities" in President Trump's telling. They have Democratic mayors, Democratic policies, Democratic turmoil.

With this refrain, Mr. Trump has sharpened his party's long-running antipathy toward urban America into a more specific argument for the final two months of the campaign: Cities have problems, and Democrats run them. Therefore, you don't want Democrats running the country, either.

But that logic misconstrues the nature of challenges that cities face, and the power of mayors of any party to solve them, political scientists say. And it twists a key fact of political history: If cities have become synonymous with Democratic politics today, that is true in part because Republicans have largely given up on them.

Over the course of decades, Republicans ceased competing seriously for urban voters in presidential elections and representing them in Congress. Republican big-city mayors became rare. And along the way, the Republican Party nationally has grown muted on possible solutions to violence, inequality, poverty and segregation in cities.

Mr. Trump and his surrogates have pushed that history to its seeming conclusion: Rural and suburban problems in America today are national problems - but urban problems are Democratic problems.

"A lot of those critiques are pretty cynical," said Thomas Ogorzalek, a political scientist at Northwestern University. "They're saying: 'You can't solve these problems, so you're bad at governance. And we're not interested in solving these problems. We're going to stay out of that conversation until it gives us a partisan opportunity to win someplace else.'"

That partisan opportunity has arisen in Kenosha, where the president traveled on Tuesday as he has sought to turn the attention of voters toward issues of law and order. Some residents of Kenosha have expressed alarm at how local Democratic officials have handled the unrest there. But the president did not offer his own vision for easing police-community tensions, or for addressing the roots of violence. Instead, he used the setting to indict " reckless far-left politicians."

The argument has few parallels in American politics. Politicians, of either party, do not blame Republican county executives for rural opioid problems. Nor do Democratic mayors get credit for a quarter-century decline in urban crime that began in the early 1990s, greatly improving safety in many cities.

In reality, mayors alone wield limited control over crime rates. Several researchers could point to no studies suggesting that the partisanship of a mayor has an effect on this. And while homicides have spiked this year in big cities, they have risen by similar amounts in a number of smaller cities with Republican mayors, including Tulsa, Okla., and San Bernardino, Calif.

The president, however, has never mentioned these places - or Republican-led Miami, Jacksonville, Fla., or Fort Worth - in his vows to deploy federal forces to help control urban crime.

Numerous studies suggest that the partisanship of mayors has limited effect on much of anything: not just crime, but also tax policy, social policy and economic outcomes.

The researchers Justin de Benedictis-Kessner and Christopher Warshaw have found that Democratic mayors spend more than Republican mayors. "But the differences are pretty small," said Mr. Warshaw, a political scientist at George Washington University. "They're not enough to drive large differences in societal outcomes in things like crime rates."

This is partly because mayors are constrained in their ability to execute ideological agendas. Cities can't run deficits. States limit their authority to raise taxes and enact laws on many issues. And cities lack the power the federal government has to shape labor laws, or immigration policies that can affect their population growth.

The president has effectively ascribed a level of power to mayors that they simply do not have.

"The assumption is that cities are city-states," said Joshua Sapotichne, a political scientist at Michigan State University. "What that means is that they have the autonomy to act on the preferences of their constituents. And that's not even true with respect to social distancing, mask mandates and lockdowns on the Covid side."

The president has harshly criticized Chicago for failing to control gun violence. But in the past the city took relatively severe policy responses, outlawing handguns and gun sales. Federal judges overturned those efforts, making clear again how constrained local officials are.

"Democratic mayors don't govern as Democrats for the most part," said Elisabeth Gerber, a political scientist at the University of Michigan.

About 85 percent of all cities have nominally nonpartisan elections, in which candidates' party affiliations never appear on the ballot (researchers, however, have ways of sussing out partisanship nonetheless). And in some cities that do have partisan elections, the leading candidates may all be Democrats, making their partisan identities unimportant. Party is less relevant, anyway, to local races that may turn on who can clear the snow fastest, or negotiate with the teachers' union effectively, or build the most affordable housing.

"Partisanship isn't the story either in electoral politics, or in position-taking, or in messaging," Professor Gerber said. "It's not like they're running as Democrats."

Cities have been faced with problems far beyond their making. Deindustrialization and globalization wiped out many middle-class factory jobs, destabilizing neighborhoods of blue-collar workers. The federal policy of highway construction enabled both taxpayers and employers to leave cities. Federal housing policies dissuaded or prevented Black residents initially from joining them, cementing patterns of racial and economic segregation that persist to this day.

The coronavirus pandemic offers another example. Professor Gerber and colleagues found that nearly half of Detroit's labor force was unemployed at the worst moment of the pandemic this summer, as lower-wage workers were hit hardest by the economic crisis and Black residents were hit hardest by the virus. That pattern isn't Mayor Mike Duggan's fault, Professor Gerber said.

As cities have confronted these problems over decades, Republicans in Washington have cut funding to cities and programs they relied on.

"Republican administrations have really decided that cities should be left to market forces," said Marion Orr, a professor of political science and urban studies at Brown University. "And those cities who can survive those market forces are worthy of survival, and those who cannot really find themselves struggling."

That was true early in the Great Depression, when Republicans in Washington denied aid to cities, helping to establish the loyalty of urban voters to the Democratic Party. And it has been true this year, as Republicans have balked at aid to local governments in coronavirus relief packages.

"If you want order, it helps to keep government working," Mr. Ogorzalek said. And during economic crises, that invariably means helping cities fund programs they simply can't on their own. "Republicans have time and time and time again fought against helping especially big cities be able to do that."

There are plenty of fair critiques of decisions that Democratic mayors do control - regarding charter schools, or how equitably they deploy city resources, or whether their zoning laws and school policies perpetuate segregation. And there is room to criticize the Democratic Party's failure to devise a coherent federal urban policy.

But the president is making a far blunter claim of urban crisis, having offered cities few solutions beyond sending in more federal law enforcement.

"Just call, we're ready to go in," he offered in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last week. "We'll take care of your problem in a matter of hours."

Quoctrung Bui contributed production.

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In Cities Republicans Have Ignored, Trump Sees Only Democratic Problems

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Mayors don't have the power that the president ascribes to them. Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Ore., and Kenosha, Wis., are first and foremost "Democrat cities" in President Trump's telling. They have Democratic mayors, Democratic policies, Democratic turmoil.

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This article is an example of Trump uses labels to villainise those he doesn't like to spread misinformation and lies to his voters.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/2020-race-donald-trump-labels-protests-domestic-terrorism/news-story/dbeb2f2a485395a07689c3e4f7927d2b

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This article discusses a study done around generational stereotypes and how they have effects in the workplace. Three groups of employees (younger, middle-aged, and older) were asked how they view their generation as well as others. These results were then connected to outcomes in the workplace. For example, the stereotype that older people are slower to adapt to technology affected how older employees received tech training. This article relates to the KQ because, especially in political discussions, age and generation are often credited as the reasoning for an individual's beliefs, even when that might not necessarily be true. In this instance, labels help people to justify their views without giving a legitimate or well-researched argument.

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Look around your workplace and you are likely to see people from across the age span, particularly as more Americans are working past age 55. In fact, the Society for Human Resource Management argues that there are a full five generations on the job today, from the Silent Generation to Gen Z.

This boost in age diversity has resulted in conversations about how generational differences will impact the functioning of our organizations. After all, Millennials only want to communicate with coworkers via text - and Baby Boomers don't text, right? And you need to attract those techy Millennials with promises of flexible work schedules, but their older counterparts all want a traditional workday, correct? Well, actually, wrong.

Most of the evidence for generational differences in preferences and values suggests that differences between these groups are quite small. In fact, there is a considerable variety of preferences and values within any of these groups. For example, a thorough analysis of 20 different studies with nearly 20,000 people revealed small and inconsistent differences in job attitudes when comparing generational groups. It found that, although individual people may experience changes in their needs, interests, preferences, and strengths over the course of their careers, sweeping group differences depending on age or generation alone don't seem to be supported.

So what might really matter at work are not actual differences between generations but people's beliefs that these differences exist. These beliefs can get in the way of how people collaborate with their colleagues, and they have troubling implications for how people are managed and trained.

Why Do We Have Inaccurate Beliefs About Age?

An emerging area of research in the field of industrial-organizational psychology considers age-related beliefs from two different but intermingling angles. Work on age stereotypes looks at the content and impact of beliefs about people from a particular age group. A stereotype about young people, for example, might be that they are narcissistic.

A relatively newer concept called "age meta-stereotypes" examines what we think others believe about us based on our age group. A young person, then, might worry that other people think they are narcissistic, even if the other people are not actually thinking this. If both of these processes are occurring in an age-diverse workplace at the same time, employees are likely having knee-jerk thoughts about what other people must be like (stereotypes) while simultaneously assuming that the same people are making assumptions about them (meta-stereotypes).

Our research suggests that workplaces are brimming with age-related stereotypes and meta-stereotypes, and that these beliefs are not always accurate or aligned. In one survey of 247 young (18-29), middle-aged (33-50), and older workers (51-84), people described the qualities that might be true of people in another age group (their stereotypes). They also described the qualities that other people might have about their own age group (their meta-stereotypes).

The pattern of their responses varied by age group. People's stereotypes of older workers were largely positive and included words like "responsible," "hard-working," and "mature." Yet older workers themselves worried that others might see them as "boring," "stubborn," and "grumpy." The stereotypes of middle-aged workers were largely positive ("ethical"), and they believed the other age groups would see them as positive ("energetic").

Stereotypes about younger workers were somewhat less positive, however, resulting in a wider range of stereotypes from positive ("enthusiastic") to negative ("inexperienced"). Even so, younger workers believed that others would see them in a more negative manner than they actually did ("unmotivated" and "irresponsible"). Broadly, these results demonstrate that older and younger workers believe others view them more negatively than they actually do. These cases confirm that neither age-related stereotypes nor meta-stereotypes are accurate.

How Do Inaccurate Beliefs About Age Affect Our Workplaces?

Despite their inaccuracy, people's beliefs have critical implications for workplace interactions. In one laboratory experiment, we asked undergraduate students to train another person on a computer task using Google's chat function. Another undergraduate was asked to listen to the training and then perform the task. We varied whether each person - the trainer and the trainee - appeared to be old (approximately 53) or young (approximately 23) using photographs and voice-modifying software.

We found that stereotypes about older people's ability to learn new tasks interfered with the training they received. When trainers believed that they were teaching an older person how to do the computer task, they had lower expectations and provided worse training than when they believed they were teaching a young person. These results demonstrate that poorer training is a direct result of age stereotypes. The potential consequences of these findings are alarming, as inferior training can result in reduced learning and ultimately interfere with employees' job performance.

Moreover, people's beliefs about what others think about their age group - their meta-stereotypes - can also interfere with their work behavior. A recently published study examined how people react to meta-stereotypes over the course of a workweek. As expected, sometimes people react with a sense of challenge ("Oh yeah? I'll show them!") and sometimes they report more threat ("Oh no, what if I live up to this negative expectation?").

Importantly, these reactions can also impact interpersonal behaviors at work. Both threats and challenges led to conflict at work (like arguing or not getting along with colleagues) and avoidance behaviors (like keeping to oneself and avoiding interacting with others).

We also considered the implications of meta-stereotypes for mentoring relationships in law and medicine in another study that we recently presented at a conference with our colleagues. Surveys of mentor-protégé pairs suggested that protégé attempts to overcome meta-stereotypes sometimes had a negative effect on their relationships. Specifically, when protégés tried to deemphasize their youth by appearing or acting older, their mentors were less supportive.

So What Should Managers Do?

If there are not real and consistent differences between people of different age groups, but these stereotyping and meta-stereotyping processes end up creating artificial generational divides, what is a manager supposed to do?

First, openly talking about these stereotypes and meta-stereotypes can be a great first step. Combining this effort with practices in perspective-taking (e.g., role-taking, role reversal exercises), cooperating (e.g., emphasizing the advantages of working with an age-diverse group), and sharing of stories among age-diverse employees can help people recognize and possibly call attention to these processes when they creep into the workplace.

Another strategy that can be effective might be emphasizing shared goals. By doing so, both older and younger people can see themselves as part of the same team working toward the same outcome. Indeed, focusing on commonalities or a common direction can reduce perceptions of "us" versus "them" and can create or reinforce a sense of "we."

Finally, managers would benefit from recognizing that employees often change over time due to varying priorities, demands, experiences, and physical capacities. These changes can take many forms. For instance, research has shown that people face different types of work-family conflict at different stages of their lives, from young adulthood through middle adulthood and into late adulthood. However, not every employee within the same age group will have the same experiences at the same exact time. Therefore, engaging in an ongoing and open dialogue with employees to discuss shifting needs can help managers keep their hard-working and experienced employees engaged, happy, and productively collaborating with others for the long haul.

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Just How Different Are Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers at Work?

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Millennials only want to communicate with coworkers via text - and Baby Boomers don't text, right? And you need to attract those techy Millennials with promises of flexible work schedules, but their older counterparts all want a traditional workday, correct? Actually, wrong.

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This article discusses why it is so bad for people everywhere to give labels based on skin color. It essentially forces people to revert to a certain stereotypes that they automatically are given and it can change the different social groups of people with different labels.
This relates to the KQ because it shows how a label can automatically affect someones identity before they can themselves.

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If you lined up 1000 randomly selected people from across the earth, none of them would share the exact same skin tone. You could arrange them from darkest to lightest and there wouldn't be a single tie. Of course, the continuity of skin tone hasn't stopped humans from assigning each other to discrete skin-color categories like black and white -categories that have no basis in biology but nonetheless go on to determine the social, political, and economic well-being of their members.

Categorical labeling is a tool that humans use to resolve the impossible complexity of the environments we grapple to perceive. Like so many human faculties, it's adaptive and miraculous, but it also contributes to some of the deepest problems that we face.

Researchers began to study the cognitive effects of labeling in the 1930s when linguist Benjamin Whorf proposed the linguistic relativity hypothesis. According to his hypothesis, the words we use to describe what we see aren't just idle placeholders; they determine what we see. According to one apocryphal tale, the Inuit can distinguish between dozens of different types of snow that the rest of us perceive, simply, as "snow," because they have a different label for each type. The story isn't true (the Inuit have the same number of words for snow as we do), but research by cognitive psychologist Lera Boroditsky and several of her colleagues suggests that it holds a kernel of truth. Boroditsky and her colleagues asked English and Russian speakers to distinguish between two similar but subtly different shades of blue.

In English, we have a single word for the color blue, but Russians divide the spectrum of blue into lighter blues ( goluboy) and darker blues ( siniy). Where we use a single label for the color, they use two different labels. When the two shades of blue straddled the goluboy/siniy divide, the Russian speakers were much quicker to distinguish between them, because they had readily available labels for the two colors that the English speakers lumped together as blue.

Labels shape more than our perception of color; they also change how we perceive more complex targets, like people. Jennifer Eberhardt, a social psychologist at Stanford, and her colleagues showed white college students pictures of a man who was racially ambiguous; he could have plausibly fallen into the white category or the black category. For half the students, the face was described as belonging to a white man, and for the other half, it was described as belonging to a black man.

In one task, the experimenter asked the students to spend four minutes drawing the face as it sat on the screen in front of them. Although all the students were looking at the same face, those who tended to believe that race is an entrenched human characteristic drew faces that matched the stereotype associated with the label (see a sample below). The racial labels formed a lens through with the students saw the man, and they were incapable of perceiving him independently of that label.

Race isn't the only label that shapes perception. A classic study by John Darley and Paget Gross showed similar effects when they varied whether a young girl, Hannah, seemed poor or wealthy. College students watched a video of Hannah playing in her neighborhood, and read a brief fact sheet that described her background. Some of the students watched Hannah playing in a low-income housing estate, and her parents were described as high school graduates with blue-collar jobs; the remaining students watched Hannah behaving similarly, but this time she was filmed playing in a tree-lined middle-class neighborhood, and her parents were described as college-educated professionals.

The students were asked to assess Hannah's academic ability after watching her respond to a series of achievement-test questions. In the video, Hannah responded inconsistently sometimes answering difficult questions correctly and sometimes answering simpler questions incorrectly. Hannah's academic ability remained difficult to discern, but that didn't stop the students from using her socioeconomic status as a proxy for academic ability. When Hannah was labeled "middle-class," the students believed she performed close to a fifth-grade level, but when she was labeled "poor," they believed she performed below a fourth-grade level.

The long-term consequences of labeling a child smart or slow are profound. In another classic study, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson told teachers at an elementary school that some of their students had scored in the top 20% of a test designed to identify academic bloomers -students who were expected to enter a period of intense intellectual development over the following year. In fact, the students were selected randomly, and they performed no differently from their unselected peers on a genuine academic test.

A year after convincing the teachers that some of their students were due to bloom, Rosenthal and Jacobson returned to the school and administered the same test. The results were astonishing among the younger children: the "bloomers," who were no different from their peers a year ago, now outperformed their unselected peers by 10-15 IQ points. The teachers fostered the intellectual development of the bloomers, producing a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the students who were baselessly expected to bloom actually outperformed their peers.

Labeling isn't always a cause for concern, and it's often very useful. It would be impossible to catalog the information we process during our lives without the aid of labels like "friendly," "deceitful," "tasty," and "harmful." But it's important to recognize that the people we label as "black," "white," "rich," poor," smart," and "simple," seem blacker, whiter, richer, poorer, smarter, and simpler merely because we've labeled them so.

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Why labeling a person "black," "rich," or "smart" makes it so.

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This article discusses how being labeled a "felon", "criminal", etc. can make it difficult to find a job, house, or an education after being released from prison. Once someone is labeled as a criminal it is very difficult to reintegrate into society, whether they committed the crime or not. This relates to the KQ because it explains how being labeled something with a negative connotation can take opportunities away from you later in life.

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The Obama administration has worked over several years to steer the country away from policies that deny tens of millions of people with criminal records jobs, housing, education, consumer credit, professional licenses and the other tools they need to forge viable, productive lives.

The initiative has been driven by the Federal Interagency Reentry Council - a group of more than 20 government agencies - which has focused most closely on eliminating barriers to employment that have become pervasive since employers began using computer-based arrest and conviction records to screen job applicants.

Lately, the administration has also recognized that the vocabulary of incarceration - the permanently stigmatizing way we speak about people who have served time - presents a significant barrier to reintegration. Federal officials have set out to change that lexicon, so that people who have committed crimes have a better chance of being seen not as faceless abstractions, but as human beings worthy of a being back in society.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, for example, gave a speech in Mobile, Ala., two weeks ago on re-entry programs in which she avoided objectifying nouns - like "felons" or "ex-convict" or "ex-offender" - that define people by the worst moment of their lives.

In one particularly moving passage, she said: "I sent a letter to the governor of each state, asking them to allow citizens returning from federal prisons to exchange their federal Bureau of Prisons inmate ID card - and their authenticated release documentation - for a state-issued ID, because in order to truly rejoin society, every individual needs to be the one to tell society who they are." The reference to former inmates as "citizens" was strikingly humanizing.

The Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs, which supports law enforcement and criminal justice efforts across the country, on Wednesday announced that it would no longer use the words "felon" or "convict" on its website, in grant solicitations or in speeches, but would instead use "person who committed a crime" or "individual who was incarcerated."

Writing in The Washington Post, Karol Mason, the assistant attorney general who leads that office, said the office adopted this change in language "to solidify the principles of individual redemption and second chances that our society stands for."

This would no doubt have moved Eddie Ellis, a prominent and impassioned criminal justice advocate who was imprisoned for 23 years for a murder he maintained he did not commit.

Mr. Ellis, who died in 2014, set off a movement a decade ago with a widely circulated open letter that urged the country to move away from nouns like "convict," because such terms erased the humanity of formerly imprisoned people. "The worst part of repeatedly hearing your negative definition of me," he wrote, "is that I begin to believe it myself, 'for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.' "

When others complained that expressions like "people who have committed crimes" did not roll easily off the tongue, Mr. Ellis made clear that those extra words acknowledged the humanity of people who, having paid their debts, should not have to feel shut out forever.

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Opinion | Labels Like 'Felon' Are an Unfair Life Sentence

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The Obama administration has worked over several years to steer the country away from policies that deny tens of millions of people with criminal records jobs, housing, education, consumer credit, professional licenses and the other tools they need to forge viable, productive lives.

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Nicholas Subtirelu, a PhD student in linguistics at Georgia State University, was thinking about his own generation's rejection of once-acceptable racial labels when he decided to study the changing use of those labels in journalism. More specifically, how racial labels have changed in The New York Times between 1851 and 2014, which is the timespan of the Times' online Chronicle tool that allowed Subtirelu to track the paper's historical usage of various words. "I think the changes in racial labeling practices over time really impresses upon us that racial groups are social constructs, and not straightforward reflections of biology," Subtirelu says. "Journalists play an important role in shaping how we categorize other people." Below are selections from Subtirelu's research.

(Nicholas Subtirelu / LinguisticPulse.com)

Subtirelu found two radical shifts in the Times' labelling of black men and women from 1851 to today: during the civil war and reconstruction period, and during the civil rights movement. This graph shows a dramatic change in word use from the 1950s to 1970s that suggests a new awareness among journalists. In the 1990s, the Times began to use the term African-Americans, which remains common today, along with blacks, black people, and people of color.

(Nicholas Subtirelu / LinguisticPulse.com)

Labels for Latinos only began appearing in the Times in the 1960s and 1970s, and gradually increased in frequency, as Latinos gained political influence. Country-specific terms like Puerto Ricans were gradually replaced by umbrella terms, especially Hispanics and Latinos. Such terms remain dominant today, although the majority (51 percent) of Latinos say they prefer to be defined by country of origin or heritage, according to a 2011 Pew study. The Times ' shift from country-specific to umbrella terms is an example of how the media can reinforce understandings of diverse peoples as belonging to a single, broad category, Subtirelu says.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.

Lene Bech Sillesen is a CJR Delacorte Fellow. Follow her on Twitter at @LeneBechS. This story was published in the January/February 2015 issue of CJR with the headline, "Talking race."

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The New York Times' changing racial labels

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Nicholas Subtirelu, a PhD student in linguistics at Georgia State University, was thinking about his own generation's rejection of once-acceptable racial labels when he decided to study the changing use of those labels in journalism.

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This article talks about discrimination on the basis of sex. This is when a work place or a buisness won't allow some people to have certain right and or abilities only because of their gender. This is related to the KQ because people label themselves by their gender, so having someone deny you right/ privlages/ and or a job just off the bases of that is an on going issue. This sort of thing is still happeing today, even with all the changes we've made.

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Sex discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of that person's sex, including the person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy.

Discrimination against an individual because of gender identity, including transgender status, or because of sexual orientation is discrimination because of sex in violation of Title VII. For more information about LGBTQ+-related sex discrimination claims, see Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination.

Sex Discrimination & Work Situations

The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment.

Sex Discrimination Harassment

It is unlawful to harass a person because of that person's sex, including the person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy. Harassment can include "sexual harassment" such as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person's sex, including the person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.

Both the victim and the harasser may be any sex, and the victim and harasser may be the same sex or a different sex.

Although the law doesn't prohibit minor teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not frequent or serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).

The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, a subordinate, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.

Sex Discrimination & Employment Policies/Practices

An employment policy or practice that applies to everyone, regardless of sex, can be illegal if it has a negative impact on the employment of people of a certain sex and is not job-related or necessary to the operation of the business.

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Sex discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of that person's sex, including the person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy. Discrimination against an individual because of gender identity, including transgender status, or because of sexual orientation is discrimination because of sex in violation of Title VII.

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This article addresses stereotypes or labels given to public and private schools, and how that has an effect on how people view the students, leads to assumptions, and ultimately adds to the decision of where to enroll. This article relates to the question because almost all of these labels are false, but it seems that our society as a whole has these preconceived ideas because of these labels such as private schools only catering to rich , white, religious, etc. And the ideas relating to public school only being about fights, weapons, and the students being rule breakers. Though these ideas are not true they still have a role in our decisions.

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It's time private vs. public school stereotypes end | Post Bulletin

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Who knows, you might meet a friend By Rebecca Carns The Post-Bulletin It's the first day of school of my senior year.

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This article discusses the history of U.S. laws that forbade dressing as the opposite gender, such as an 1848 law in Columbus, Ohio that banned people from publicly dressing in another gender's clothes. As fashion has evolved over time, the laws became harder to discern as "men's" or women's", and luckily most of these intolerant laws have been overturned. This topic relates to the KQ because labels surrounding how people dress is misleading and ineffective in showing the actual truth.

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In November 2014, an appeals court in Malaysia overturned a state law that barred Muslim men from dressing as women in a historic victory for the country's transgender women.

The court found the law unconstitutional, characterizing it as "degrading, oppressive and inhuman." The verdict was heralded by human rights organizations worldwide as a step in recognition of modern human rights.

But some similar landmark rule changes in the United States were only a few years ahead.

In fact, a person perceived as male who dressed in clothing customarily designed for women could technically be arrested in New York for "impersonating a female" as recently as 2011 - the remnants of a 19th century statewide law prohibiting wearing "the dress of the opposite sex."

In Columbus, Ohio, where one of the earliest ordinances was instituted, an 1848 law forbade a person from appearing in public "in a dress not belonging to his or her sex." In the decades that followed, more than 40 U.S. cities created similar laws limiting the clothing people were allowed to wear in public.

The wave of laws in the 1850s represented a "new development specific to gender presentation," according to Susan Stryker, an associate professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Arizona.

In effect, the anti-cross-dressing laws became a flexible tool for police to enforce normative gender on multiple gender identities, including masculine women and people identifying as transgender or gender non-conforming.

But as time progressed and fashion evolved, it was increasingly difficult to even define what "cross-dressing" entailed from a law-enforcement perspective, Stryker told PBS NewsHour.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation organization defines cross-dressers specifically as heterosexual men who occasionally wear clothes, makeup and accessories culturally associated with women.

"By the time the counterculture was in full bloom, cross-dressing arrests were routinely getting thrown out of court," she said. "Arresting cross-dressing people was mainly just a form of police harassment."

The timeline above shows the evolution of several U.S. laws enforcing sex-specific dress. Most of these laws have since been overturned.
Sources: "Transgender History" by Susan Stryker, "Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet" by William N. Eskridge Jr., "A Dress Not Belonging to His or Her Sex" by Clare Sears, "Cross Dressing and the Criminal" by I. Bennett Capers,"The Cross-Dressing Case for Bathroom Equality" by Levi and Redman, "Transgender History & Geography: Crossdressing in Context, Volume 3" by G.G. Bolich, as well as the Transgender Law Center.

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Arresting dress: A timeline of anti-cross-dressing laws in the United States

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In November 2014, an appeals court in Malaysia overturned a state law that barred Muslim men from dressing as women in a historic victory for the country's transgender women. The court found the law unconstitutional, characterizing it as "degrading, oppressive and inhuman."

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This article touches on the recent controversy surrounding Trader Joes decision to remove labels that  use international names on their products. Some argued that the names were racist towards other countries. Although quite insignificant, it goes to show how a label meant to be more inclusive can result in quite the opposite, resulting in wide spread debate. This relates to the KQ because it brings up a scenario in which people have to decide what label is acceptable and which is not. At what point do other peoples opinions take effect in changing a label and similarly how impactful are they on something as simple as a food?

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The company had previously said the names of international-themed products that were intended to promote inclusiveness, such as Trader José and Trader Ming's, "may now have the opposite effect."

A petition created last month said that Trader Joe's "exoticizes other cultures" with certain branded products, like its Trader José beer. Credit... Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Weeks after admitting that some of its international-themed product labels might have fallen short of an "attempt at inclusiveness," the grocery store chain Trader Joe's is rejecting criticism of the labels - some with names like Trader José and Trader Ming's - as racist.

After an online petition denounced the company's use of labels such as Arabian Joe's, Trader Giotto's and Trader Joe San as racist because it "exoticizes other cultures," Trader Joe's announced that it would keep names that it felt still resonated with customers.

"We disagree that any of these labels are racist," the company said in a statement on July 24. "We do not make decisions based on petitions."

"We thought then - and still do - that this naming of products could be fun and show appreciation for other cultures," it said.

Earlier in July, however, Kenya Friend-Daniel, the company's national director of public relations, said the company was in the process of updating labels to bear only the Trader Joe's name.

"While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect - one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day," the spokeswoman said in a statement on July 19. "With this in mind, we made the decision several years ago to use only the Trader Joe's name on our products moving forward."

On Saturday, she said that she had been referring to new products that the company introduced after 2017, not products that existed before then.

"We will continue to evaluate our products, as we always do, and if certain products/product packaging are not resonating well, changes will be made," Ms. Friend-Daniel said.

Asked about the status of other product labels, Ms. Friend-Daniel said that "for the remaining products, we will change packages or discontinue products that do not resonate" with customers.

The spokeswoman added that labels such as Arabian Joe's and Armenian Joe's were no longer in use, and that the label Trader Joe San is currently used on only about three products.

Briones Bedell, who started the online petition that led to renewed scrutiny of the company's labels, said on Saturday she was "honestly surprised" by the company's comments.

"I see it to be a complete reversal to their previous commitment to removing the labels from the international foods," she said.

With her petition, Ms. Bedell, 17, said she wanted to raise awareness of stereotypes that are of a piece with the larger discussions about race happening across the country.

"They rely only on characters and kind of vague ideas and not anything of actual substance or legitimacy," Ms. Bedell said of the labels. "It becomes a tool of othering."

Recently, major food companies have committed to re-examining their use of racist imagery after nationwide protests over police brutality. Quaker Oats said in June it would retire the Aunt Jemima name and image. Mars Foods followed suit only hours later, saying it would "evolve" the Uncle Ben's rice brand.

According to Paul Andrew Galvani, an adjunct professor of marketing at the University of Houston, Trader Joe's most likely issued its recent defenses after consulting with customers who are part of its target market - a common practice for retail businesses.

"If their consumers are suddenly up in arms and saying, 'You know what, we're not going to shop Trader Joe's unless you change,' then, like any sensible marketer, they're going to look at that and say, 'Well, when it starts to impact our bottom line, that's when we may have to make a change,'" Mr. Galvani said.

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Trader Joe's Defends Product Labels Criticized as Racist

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The company had previously said the names of international-themed products that were intended to promote inclusiveness, such as Trader José and Trader Ming's, "may now have the opposite effect."

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The article below is about the ongoing debate over pineapple on pizza.  Stories say this debate sparked all the way back to1954 when a Greek immigrant known as Sam Panopaulos created Haiwaiian Pizza.  This strenuous debate relates to the KQ because, when people argue about putting pineapple on pizza, people fail to realize that its all based on your opinion and taste. People with the opposing view unknowingly label pineapple on pizza as terrible without considering other peoples point of view because just like the article below states. Its easy to hate pineapple on pizza.

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At some point in the never-ending debate over whether pineapple belongs on pizza, the haters, maybe with tongues pressed against cheek, invoked Godwin's Law. Yep, they compared those who like the tropical fruit on pies to Hitler. One said they were worse than Hitler. The comparison would become a common insult, occasionally even flung back at the snobs who turn their nose up at a pineapple-topped pizza.

Many foods have taken their lumps over the years. Avocado toast, cake pops and kale Caesar salads come to mind. But nothing has sustained the hate like Hawaiian pizza, the most recognizable pie that features chunks of the divisive fruit. According to recent data from YouGov Omnibus, nearly a quarter of Americans say pineapple is one of their least favorite pizza toppings. Those who live in the Northeast or are older than 55 hate pineapple toppings even more. Only two ingredients generate more loathing among American pie eaters: oily anchovies and slimy eggplant.

Celebrities, politicians, chefs and even minimum-wage pizzamakers count themselves as members of this pineapple hate group. Gordon Ramsay, a chef never at a loss for words, once opined, "You don't put . . . pineapple on pizza." He used a colorful adjective before "pineapple," to emphasize his disdain. The president of Iceland said he would outlaw pineapple on pizza if he could, a statement that made him an instant hero in some circles. A couple of years ago, a University of Arizona undergraduate tried to add pineapple to her barbecue chicken pizza, but the pie arrived sans fruit, with a note from the campus restaurant: "Couldn't bring myself to put pineapple on it. Thats gross. Sorry." A $5 bill was taped to the pizza box.

The best margherita pizzas in the D.C. area, ranked

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what's behind the animosity toward pineapple on pizza. Pineapple itself was No. 10 on a list of the most-popular fruits purchased in America last year, behind bananas and oranges but ahead of pears, cherries and avocados (!!). It probably goes without saying that none of the top 20 fruits in America is a common pizza topping, though some, such as pears and apples, make an occasional cameo. Jonathan Allen, co-owner of the superb Pizza CS in Rockville, Md., told me that he ate Hawaiian pizza as an undiscriminating kid but now frowns on pineapple on any kind of pie, especially on the Neapolitan rounds served at his restaurant. He doesn't like the texture. A sign over the counter at Pizza CS reinforces Allen's stance: "No slices. No pineapple. No ranch."

"I guess my judgments became more refined," Allen said via phone, as he vacationed in Mexico.

Allen's take argues that the more you study pizza, the more you understand pineapple has no place in this Neapolitan-influenced world, with its many prickly rules. This may well be true, but in a story last year for the Wall Street Journal, chef-turned-food-writer Arun Gupta noted that the disdain for Hawaiian pizza is just another form of cultural elitism. No surprise, the article noted, Gupta is a fan of Hawaiian pizza.

It's tempting to argue that Gupta is among a semi-silent majority of Hawaiian pizza fans. There is growing, if flawed, evidence to support this. A Change.org petition last year to ban pineapple on pizza drew only seven supporters. My own 24-hour Twitter poll found that nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were fine with pineapple on pizza. There are celebrity endorsements, too: The Rock digs Hawaiian pizza; he says, "pineapple on pizza is MY JAM." For what it's worth, Justin Bieber loves it, too.

The burning question of the age: Is pineapple acceptable on pizza?
- Tim Carman (@timcarman) April 18, 2019

The late Sotirios "Sam" Panopoulos was a Greek immigrant widely credited for inventing the Hawaiian pizza in southern Ontario, Canada. According to lore, in 1962, he spread ham and pineapples onto a standard cheese pizza at his restaurant, the Satellite Diner, and then named the pie for the brand of canned fruit that he used. The Hawaiian pizza was born, followed closely by the controversy it continues to generate. Panopoulos reportedly died not comprehending why his famous creation was so loathed. I sympathize with him. Pork and pineapple can be as graceful together as Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. No one bats an eye over tacos al pastor, that Lebanese-influenced combination of spit-roasted pork and chunks of pineapple, even though Mexican tacos have a tradition every bit as rich as that of Italian pizza.

Frankly . . . Pizza! tosses pies that reach for perfection (and come close)

Recently, I invited a group of friends and Washington Post employees to join me at We the Pizza on Capitol Hill for a tasting of Hawaiian pizza. I sought a mix of palates: Those who love Hawaiian pizza, those who don't and those, like me, who are basically neutral on the combination. For the tasting, I asked chef Spike Mendelsohn and his team if they would prepare a classic Hawaiian pie, minus the ginger, lemongrass and honey that they usually put on their interpretation. Mendelsohn agreed without hesitation.

Before we dug into the pies, we batted around theories as to why Hawaiian pizza generates so much hostility. A couple of tasters said it boils down to a basic truth: Fruit doesn't belong on pizza (and, yes, they know tomato is classified as a fruit, though not one nearly as sweet as others). "Culturally, I object to it being called Hawaiian, because the only thing Hawaiian on it would be the pineapple," said Gene Park, an audience editor for The Post who lived in Hawaii for eight years. Others just don't like the taste of ham and pineapple together. Martine Powers, host of the Post Reports podcast, compared Hawaiian pizza to an unfortunate incident from her childhood: The pie, she said, tastes like freshly vomited Orange Julius.

"Maybe this is not a nice thing to say," added my friend Lou Cantolupo, "but I actually kind of find it trashy."

But others thought hating on Hawaiian pizza was just a safe way to hate, period, maybe even a method to transfer your loathing of another group onto an inanimate foodstuff. Hate as a sign of your tribe. "I think there's a culture now where we are so disconnected that we are now grouping together by hating things," said Teddy Amenabar, editor on The Post's audience engagement team. "I think it's just a way to hate on other people."

After all that discussion, a funny thing happened during our tasting. No one actually hated the Hawaiian at We the Pizza, even the self-described haters. "This isn't as bad as I remember it being," said Powers, who told me via email that "I HATE Hawaiian pizza." Tasters pointed out that Mendelsohn's approach was the difference: The pineapple was sliced thin and roasted, so that you don't get a major squirt of sweet and acidic juice. The tomato sauce also wasn't sweet, which can contribute to the sickly, saccharine flavor profile of some Hawaiian pies. Mendelsohn's pizza, in short, had an almost cosmic balance between salty, sweet and savory elements.

Pizza CS review: A salute to Naples off Rockville Pike

"I was afraid this was going to happen," said Cantolupo, "but it's not that bad. I didn't want that to happen. I wanted to be a real [jerk] about it. Now I can't." With that, everyone erupted in laughter.

So then I pointed out the obvious: It's not the combination that some of you hate - the pineapple and ham on pizza - but the execution of it. Too many people, it seems, have been burned by poor versions of the Hawaiian, in which thick chunks of syrupy pineapple are merely dumped onto a cheese pie with similarly thick-cut ham. There was general agreement on this statement.

"I'm worried that I'm going to get lulled into a false sense of comfort with pineapple pizza," Powers said.

More from Voraciously:
Burger King's Impossible Whopper tastes even better than the real thing
Americans are drinking more 'gourmet' coffee. This doesn't mean they're drinking great coffee.
Why celebrated Mexican chef Enrique Olvera won't use a blender to make mole

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Pineapple on pizza is easy to hate - at least in theory

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We gathered a group of people to taste test a chef-driven pizza topped with pineapple and ham. The results surprised even the diners.

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This article goes into the topic of transgender people and the expression of their chosen gender in terms of the bathrooms that they are allowed to use. Transgender students often suffer negative physical and mental consequences as a result of not being able to use the bathroom that corresponds with their identity. This relates to the KQ because transgender students generally use labels to describe their gender identity.

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CHICAGO - Asked to call a transgender boy by a male name he has chosen for himself, teachers and administrators around the country have leaned toward a simple response: Sure. Allow a high school student who was born male but identifies as female to join the volleyball team? Fine.

But as transgender students assert themselves more, schools have hesitated at the locker room and the bathroom. Many have developed policies that require transgender students to use private changing and showering facilities, drawing opposition from these students, their parents and advocates who say the rules are discriminatory.

The Education Department on Monday gave school officials at a suburban Chicago high school 30 days to resolve a dispute with a transgender student who identifies as a girl and has sought to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions; otherwise, the school risks forfeiting Title IX funding. The confrontation was an echo of battles nationwide, where the locker room and often the restroom are the stage for a fierce fight over how extensively transgender students should be accommodated.

"I think it's an issue that people are thinking about a lot," said Thad Ballard, the president of the Elko County school board in northeast Nevada, which voted in September to keep transgender students out of bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. He said the move was intended to preserve "the centuries-long tradition of respecting the difference in the sexes."

"When has it ever been appropriate for a biological boy or a biological girl to be in the opposite restroom of their gender?" Mr. Ballard said. "We're all trying to think of the best way to protect the rights of all of our students, whether they're transgender or not."

California, Washington, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and the District of Columbia have already adopted policies requiring schools to permit transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on the student's gender identity. In Maine, the State Supreme Court ruled last year that under the state's antidiscrimination law, a transgender girl could use the bathrooms and locker rooms for the gender with which she identified.

Eleven other states have general antidiscrimination policies on the books that might also protect the rights of transgender students in schools, said Michael D. Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund.

But some state legislatures are trying to move in the opposite direction. Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin have proposed a bill that would bar transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, a measure that Democrats say is discriminatory. In Minnesota in April, the State Senate, dominated by Democrats, defeated a similar measure.

In Houston on Tuesday, voters defeated a proposal that would have established nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender residents. Supporters said the ordinance would have offered increased protections for gay and transgender people, as well as protections against discrimination based on sex, race, age and religion. Opponents said the proposal infringed on their religious beliefs, zeroing in on the protections it would have given for gender identity, particularly transgender Houstonians who were born male but identify as women.

Some school districts have faced threats of legal action and federal intervention if they exclude transgender students from the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

In Arcadia, Calif., the school district entered a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice and the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights after a transgender student who identifies as male brought a complaint about being forced to sleep in a separate camp cabin during a middle school science outing. District officials worked with federal officials to create a new policy that allows transgender students access to all sex-segregated facilities based on the gender with which they identify.

David Vannasdall, superintendent of Arcadia, a school district with fewer than 10,000 students not far from downtown Los Angeles, said that in assigning the student to a separate cabin, the district had followed the advice of a lawyer who was anticipating the reactions of other parents rather than simply working with the family of the transgender student. "The problem is you have people making decisions from the basis of fear and the extremes, and that's never good for kids," Mr. Vannasdall said.

In California, the State Legislature passed a law two years ago permitting transgender students to participate in sex-segregated activities and use facilities that were consistent with their gender identity in all schools. But opponents are mounting a plan to put an initiative on the California ballot next fall that would direct all students to use facilities that correspond with the gender on their birth certificates.

"I am not questioning their sincerity," said Karen England, spokeswoman for Privacy for All, a group that is promoting the ballot initiative in California. "But the reality of their biology is that their plumbing is quite different, and I have a right to privacy, and I have the right for my daughters and granddaughters to have the right to be in a bathroom or a locker room without being exposed to the opposite gender."

Jeff Johnston, an analyst at Focus on the Family, the conservative group based in Colorado, said in an email that "girls should not have to risk being exposed to boys in locker rooms, changing rooms and restrooms."

School officials say that in cases where parents or students raise concerns, they can work through them. In San Francisco, for example, a group of Muslim students sought permission last year to pray during break times and perform ritual cleansings in the bathrooms. But some of them were concerned that if a transgender student entered the bathroom at the same time, it would be inappropriate for the girls to share space with a biological male.

"We talked about how this was a democracy and students have the right to go to the bathroom," said Kevin R. Gogin, director of safety and wellness school health programs at the San Francisco Unified School District. After discussions with the religious students, he said, they agreed that they could seek privacy by using the private stalls for their cleansing rituals.

In Los Angeles, where the district has had a policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity since 2004, Judy Chiasson, coordinator in the Human Relations, Diversity and Equity Department for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said that schools have had few complaints.

"All of our students tend to be pretty modest," Ms. Chiasson said. She added that unlike students in previous generations, even after physical education classes or athletic practices, students today do not tend to undress or shower in public facilities, and in bathrooms, students can use private stalls. Because of this, she said, in many cases, students do not even know whether another student is transgender or not.

A transgender student does not want "to invade anybody else's privacy," Ms. Chiasson said. "She's in the bathroom to do her business."

The school district in Palatine, Ill., that was reproached by the Education Department this week had required a transgender student to change her clothes and shower separately from other students, causing her family to raise the issue with federal officials. John Knight, director of the L.G.B.T. Project of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which represented her, said concerns over the presence of transgender students in locker rooms "is a made-up issue."

"The kids who are most vulnerable are the transgender students," he said. "If a boy who's transgender is comfortable to be in a boys' restroom, he should be allowed to be there."

Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department's assistant secretary for civil rights, said it is possible to protect the rights of all students without forcing transgender students to use different facilities.

"The school's responsibility is to respect who that person is," Ms. Lhamon said. "And the school's responsibility is that they do not teach discrimination, but do teach civic engagement along with the three R's."

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As Transgender Students Make Gains, Schools Hesitate at Bathrooms

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CHICAGO - Asked to call a transgender boy by a male name he has chosen for himself, teachers and administrators around the country have leaned toward a simple response: Sure. Allow a high school student who was born male but identifies as female to join the volleyball team? Fine.

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This article discusses how the United States 2020 census will not support proposals for changes on how race/ethnicity is counted by the US Government. These proposals would have given greater options for those of Hispanic/Latinx and Middle Eastern/Northern African backgrounds. In this case, the labels are how people identify their ethnicity in America. Unfortunately, the 2020 census will not be as inclusive towards minorities as it should be, creating conflict over how Americans identify themselves and are represented.

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Updated at 3:36 p.m. ET Friday

A Census Bureau announcement about the race and ethnicity questions for the 2020 censussuggests the Trump administration will not support Obama-era proposals to change how the U.S. government collects information about race and ethnicity, census experts say.

If approved, the proposals would change how the Latino population is counted and create a new checkbox on federal surveys for people with roots in the Middle East or North Africa. Research by the Census Bureau shows these revisions could improve the accuracy of the upcoming national head count in 2020. Any changes would carry wide implications for legislative redistricting, civil rights laws and health statistics.

So far, though, the White House's Office of Management and Budget, which sets the standards for race and ethnicity data for federal agencies, has not released any decisions. OMB has also not responded to NPR's request for comment.

Still, on Friday, the Census Bureau's head of the 2020 census, Albert Fontenot, announced the upcoming national head count will keep the same racial and ethnic categories used for the 2010 census. It will also continue asking about those topics as two questions, despite its own research showing that changes could encourage more census participants to provide race and ethnicity data.

At the bureau's public meeting on 2020 census preparations, the chief of the bureau's population division, Karen Battle, said that a new category for people with roots in the Middle East or North Africa, or MENA, will not be added to the 2020 questionnaire because more research is needed. Battle cited public comments the bureau has received saying that MENA should be treated not as an option for race but for ethnicity, which she says the bureau has not specifically tested so far.

Before the announcement, census watchers said Census Bureau documents posted this week on the website for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within OMB provided a signal of where the Trump administration stands on these proposals.

"I think this is a big one," said John Thompson, a former director of the Census Bureau who left the agency last year, referring to the significance of the documents.

They detail the bureau's request to change the questionnaire set to be used in an upcoming practice run of the 2020 census - known as the End-to-End Census Test - taking place this year in Rhode Island's Providence County.

To prepare for potential policy changes on race and ethnicity data, that questionnaire, as submitted to OMB last year for approval, originally followed the Obama-era proposals. It combined the two census questions about race and Hispanic origin required by the current federal standards into one question, with "Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish" as an option for both race and ethnicity. Among the other checkboxes under the combined question was "Middle Eastern or North African," which was separate from "White."

But the Census Bureau has now submitted a request to go back to two separate questions with no checkbox for "Middle Eastern or North African."

"In order to ensure that the systems fielded in the 2018 End-to-End Census Test are consistent with the design for the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau made the decision to redesign the systems supporting data collection in this test to be consistent with the two-question format," the Census Bureau wrote in its request.

Thompson, the former Census Bureau director, considers the request a sign that the bureau has gotten word that OMB will not change the federal standards on race and ethnicity data.

If that is indeed the case, Thompson said lawmakers on Capitol Hill could step in later to proceed with the proposed changes before the 2020 census.

"Anything can happen," he said. "Congress can pass a law."

Other census watchers say they're disappointed that the Trump administration appears to have decided to not follow the recommendations of Census Bureau staffers who spent years researching how to collect more accurate race and ethnicity data.

"The decision to ignore years of research and the expert advice of scientists is a blow to science and the collection of the best data possible," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, in a written statement.

Last year, an advisory group of experts from various federal agencies released a report that pointed to concerns about how the proposed changes to the federal standards could affect state governments, schools and hospitals that may or may not use the standards for their own record keeping.

"Inconsistency between self-reported [federal] survey information and reporting on administrative records results in discrepancies between major sources of information for the [nation], which could be made worse by changing the standards," wrote the advisers serving on the Federal Interagency Working Group for Research on Race and Ethnicity.

Ken Prewitt, a former Census Bureau director who served under the Clinton administration, says he acknowledges that nobody wants to change any form if it can be avoided.

"But a country with demographics as fluid as the U.S. has to adjust its statistics," adds Prewitt, who is also author of What Is "Your" Race?: The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans.

Prewitt says the proposal to ask about race and ethnicity in a combined question is a "really innovative" way to address the challenge of "some other race" ranking as the third-largest racial group reported in census results from 2000 and 2010. If the Trump administration does not move the proposal forward, Prewitt expects it to be reintroduced for approval under a different presidential administration.

While the wait continues for an official announcement of OMB's decision on the proposals, the Census Bureau is expected to release its report to Congress on the final wording of the 2020 census questions - including those about race and ethnicity - by the end of March.

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2020 Census To Keep Racial, Ethnic Categories Used In 2010

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Updated at 3:36 p.m. ET Friday A Census Bureau announcement about the race and ethnicity questions for the 2020 censussuggests the Trump administration will not support Obama-era proposals to change how the U.S. government collects information about race and ethnicity, census experts say.

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"Nice White Parents" touches on the public school system in New York City in the 1970s. This episode talks about how the enrollment of white students was incredibly low at a public school. The principal learned that by simply adding a "gifted program", people would flock to the school. This new enrollment only came because of the attraction of specialized education.

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Episode Two: ‘I Still Believe in It’ (Published 2020)

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White parents in the 1960s fought to be part of a new, racially integrated school in Brooklyn. So why did their children never attend?

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This article discusses the whether a burrito is considered a taco. The author proves that a burrito is a taco based on the origin of the name and how it is prepared. This relates to the KQ. The label, taco, allows people to gain a better understanding of the food we eat. Categorizing food with labels is useful be is makes it easier to describe food, which improves communication.

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Hello, I'm José R. Ralat, your new Texas Monthly taco editor. Since the magazine announced earlier this month that such a job existed and that I was the lucky soul hired to fill the role, I've heard from media outlets from all over, from the New York Times to the BBC. During my interview with Helen Rosner, the James Beard Award-winning food correspondent for the New Yorker, I threw out the fact that burritos are tacos. When I said as much, I did so without intending to blaspheme or provoke #TacoTwitter. I certainly didn't expect it to be the headline of the piece, or for the Today show to do a segment based on the article. Stirring the pot of frijoles wasn't on the agenda. But I do need to take a moment to thank those who ran with the #tacoeditor hashtag. You turned what I consider to be an uncontroversial statement into a rush of eyes on my Twitter feed, and, most importantly, you started a fun conversation.

In the simplest terms, burritos are a type of taco, just like flautas are a type of fried taco. They come on flour tortillas that are folded and sealed. "Burritos are tacos" is supported by my work across the borderlands, especially in Texas. It's also backed up by the work of writers specializing in Mexican food who have been doing this longer than I have. Let's begin with Martha Chapa's seminal Los Tacos de México.

The prologue to Chapa's book includes a rundown of various tacos-among them tacos called "Las Burritas": "That's how they, generically, call the different types of northern tacos made with wheat flour tortillas. In Chihuahua and other regions, they are given the same name but in the masculine form." The most common burritas, explains José N. Iturriaga de la Fuente, who wrote the prologue to Chapa's book, are machaca and eggs; this would be a common breakfast burrito in West Texas and northern Mexico. What we know as burritos are referred to as tacos de harina (or flour tacos) toward central and southern Mexico, where corn tortillas rule, but in Mexico City it's now not uncommon to see them called what they are in the north: burritos. Are you following all this?

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Meanwhile, Alejandro Escalante begins La Tacopedia's section on burritos with a well-known tale: every morning a man would ride on a donkey (a burro) to a street corner in Juárez to sell tacos made in giant flour tortillas. "Now it is what is called a typical food of northern Mexico and the border United States, which has as its base ingredient the flour tortilla," Escalante writes of the burrito. He describes the burrito as perfectly closed and details how to roll and seal this "taco"; he also lists the variety of typical fillings.

What these historians are saying is that the terms "burritos" and "tacos" can be interchangeable, size is generally important, and the word "taco" isn't always necessary. For example, in Brownsville, breakfast tacos are often referred to as tortillas de harina, which translates to "flour tortillas." But restaurant servers certainly know what you mean when you order "a breakfast taco" instead. A few years ago, while eating my way across the abundance of food carts and stalls at 77 Flea Market in Brownsville, I came across an offshoot of J&D Restaurant, a vendor of "super tacos" (these are big tacos, often filled with an excessive amount of one or several ingredients), which sold me a taco of sleek, fine barbacoa served in a gauzy rolled and sealed flour tortilla about as long as my lower arm. It was delicious but way too much for me to eat in one sitting. It looked like a burrito but was described as a super taco. Why? Because of its size, the gentleman who presented my order told me. The fact that the tortilla was rolled and sealed meant nada. It mattered not one bit.

In Dallas, Gonzalez Restaurant on Jefferson Boulevard sells one of Texas's best tacos, a crispy, fried-to-order number perfumed with fresh oil (though it's not oily). It's a luscious beauty. The restaurant also offers "burritos" on its menu. They come in folded-not rolled-padded flour tortillas that alone weigh several ounces. Add bulging spicy chicharron with eggs, the thin stew carne guisada, and Sunday-only barbacoa, and what we have are large burrito tacos.

Although in that N ew Yorker interview, I referenced the size of burritos, I was generalizing because burritos are not always hefty. Using the term "burrito" for the typically large rolled and sealed tortillas we enjoy today is actually funny when you think about it, since the suffix - ito is Spanish for "small." If the food is simply named after the animal, a burro, I would expect something hearty. In northern Mexico and border states, burritos were originally relatively small, but they're now available as large as their American counterparts (thanks in part to the popularity of the Chipotle chain's Mission burrito). Burritos can even be filled with a cream cheese-stuffed chile, wrapped in bacon, and deep-fried. But not all burritos served stateside are large. I still fondly recall the burritos Luis Perez served for a short while after he opened his Dallas-based Sonoran-style tortilla factory, La Norteña Tortillas, where walk-in customers could purchase modest, narrow burritos, no longer than an average adult hand. (Perez stopped selling out of the storefront when his wholesale business took off.)

I love doing deep dives on Mexican food, and although "taco" is in my job title, I plan to explore more than just that specific, incredible food. Every week, I'll write stories that I hope are surprising and engaging. I'm especially excited to put the spotlight on the people behind the food. I want to explore topics such as the decline of certain traditions at Mexican restaurants and how Mexican food and culture have influenced favorite American eats like burgers and pizza. I'll highlight how different populations living side by side are creating new taco styles. I'll interview owners of longtime Tex-Mex restaurants and will profile prominent figures in Mexican food in the Lone Star State while delving into the history of regional dishes, like torta ahogada, a type of Mexican sandwich soaked in salsa. I'll risk brain freeze with desserts aplenty too. I can't wait to share the ways in which Mexican specialties are being used to create novel, sweet twists on tacos and pastries.

You might say that I will do anything related to the beat. In fact, I'm participating in my first trail race next month based solely on its name, El Taco Loco, in San Antonio. It will be good to hit another kind of taco trail with all the eating I'm going to do.

Look for my first Taco of the Week soon, and stay tuned to social media as I hit the road on National Taco Day.

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Hello, I'm José R. Ralat, your new Texas Monthly taco editor. Since the magazine announced earlier this month that such a job existed and that I was the lucky soul hired to fill the role, I've heard from media outlets from all over, from the New York Times to the BBC.

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do you need a motor vehicle license to drive a Tesla ? they are self driving cars that can operate with out some one controlling it. Plus they do not have an engine but a battery.

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I've ordered my M3 with FSD.

Assuming I eventually decide to gift this car to my kid, and assuming it actually does, eventually HAVE FSD, will she even need a Driver's License to, uh, "drive" it?

Indeed, is "drive" even an appropriate verb to use in that context?

One "rides" a taxi or bus. Or a horse, for that matter. If one happens to be seated on the "drivers side" of a FSD Tesla, is one still the "driver?" Or, just the "rider?"

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I've ordered my M3 with FSD. Assuming I eventually decide to gift this car to my kid, and assuming it actually does, eventually HAVE FSD, will she even need a Driver's License to, uh, "drive" it? Indeed, is "drive" even an appropriate verb to use in that context?

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This article adresses the debates and issues surrounding the labels used by the LGBTQ+ community. The article addresses the issues over oversimplification, marketing, branding and erasure. By pinpointing the different ways "LGBT" has been used in Western culture and marketing brands, the article talks about labeling in national policy and business through "pinkwashing". Pinkwashing is where a brand, company, or even country, says they support LGBTQ+ rights when there is no action to support it. Furthmore, the article talks about erasure, where the label LGBT, gay, lesbain, or transgender does not fit all in the said community, and thereby erases knowledge and funding for that particluar group. Thus, labels in this sense are very important in defining communities, education, and funding.

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It is clear from the number of LGBT advocacy organizations around the world that the fixing of particular labels of identity - like lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender - can be useful for establishing global networks and mobilizing people to claim their rights. But when the use of labels like LGBT come to be seen by those working in development as markers of 'modernity', or of 'western' intervention by those in receipt of funding for development interventions, they can also be dangerous and can harm rather than advance the realisation of sexual rights. This case explores some of the issues being debated in relation to the use of fixed labels of sexual identity in advocacy efforts.

A Global Language

"I take as a given that power inheres in the ability to name, and that what we call ourselves has implications for political practice."

Steve Epstein, 1992, p. 241

The identity categories Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender have been instrumental in raising awareness of sexuality issues and of bringing them onto national and international policy agendas. The acronym 'LGBT' (with the addition of Intersex and sometimes Queer and Questioning), is now recognised around the globe and provides a common language for talking about sexual rights and for bringing together individuals and organisations working for social justice. Understanding identity in terms of fixed categories has helped to make same-sex desire and gender non-conforming people visible to policy makers and development actors where they were not before. It has also helped to facilitate dialogue around citizenship and in some cases, enable legal reform.

LGBT identity categories have also been embraced by organisations and individuals around the world for strategic purposes. For example, in order to access funds from international donors; to fight for legal recognition; or to make themselves understood to local researchers or journalists. In this respect, using a global language of sexual identity can be very useful, especially where sexuality is rarely talked about by policy makers or discussed in public forums. It can also make a complex, diverse and generally little-understood aspect of human experience, easier to understand. This is important when it comes to building alliances and forming a cohesive argument to campaign for equal rights or legal redress. As many have pointed out, when it comes to fighting for social justice, such short-hand is imperative.

A 'Western' Model?

The dominance of LGBT categories as a way to understand and define same-sex desiring and gender non-conforming people has come under criticism for a number of different reasons. One is that it is based on a 'Western' understanding of sexual identity which cannot simply be applied in other settings. For example, the LGBT model has been criticised for being too individualistic, for focusing on the identities and rights of individuals rather than of communities. The labels themselves are also seen to reflect particular 'western' identities that do not speak to the diversity of meanings attached to same-sex desiring and gender non-conforming people in other parts of the world .

A further criticism is of the way that the recognition of LGBT rights has come to be seen as a marker of modernity. In development discourse, those countries that recognize the rights of LGBT persons are increasingly seen to be more developed, enlightened and even more civilized. This is set against those that do not recognize LGBT rights, or criminalize same-sex or non-normative sexualities, who are seen as undeveloped, backward and barbaric. It has been pointed out that this is based on a false assessment, as many Western nations still do not recognize the rights of LGBT people, or do so inconsistently, and continue to discriminate and oppress citizens on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

An often cited attack on 'Western' categories of sexual identities comes from the Palestinian scholar Joseph Massad who describes the defence of human rights on the basis of sexual orientation as a 'missionary task'. The need to adhere to Western definitions of sexual identity is cited as an example of imperialism, where same-sex relations are ascribed particular meanings and identities by the West. This has prompted significant debate around the role of development agencies and multilateral organisations in protecting and promoting LGBT rights, particularly in post-colonial nations.

Another ongoing debate relating to the global advancement of LGBT rights relates to the term 'Pinkwashing'. Pinkwashing refers to the use of LGBT rights discourse by governments for strategic rather than humanitarian purposes. It is often claimed that governments use the LGBT rights agenda to gain popular support, to give the impression that they take human rights seriously, or in some cases, to obscure or downplay other human rights abuses or conservative policies. For example, pinkwashing is often debated in relation to the Israeli state who have publicly championed their achievements in securing and protecting the rights of LGBT citizens. Many argue that this is a strategic move to obscure ongoing human rights violations in relation to Israel's policies and actions towards Palestine (See Tukkun for further discussion).

Who is Included/Excluded?

Another key criticism of the use of 'LGBT' categories to describe same-sex desire and gender non-conformity is that they are too simplistic and cannot account for the diversity of lived experience across space and time. For example, research has shown the huge variation in the terms used to describe different forms of sexual orientation and gender identity around the world. Many of these terms do not translate neatly in to 'LGBT' and the meanings and significance of those identities are often lost in the process. Evidence has also shown that while many individuals do not see or describe themselves as 'lesbian' or 'gay' in their daily lives, they may be ascribed, or forced to adopt such identities, by others (for example, through their interactions with NGOs, local officials, health professionals or researchers).
A 'Kothi' named Seethal in Pondicherry. Image courtesy of Candace Feit
Because identity categories such as LGBT do not allow for the subtle differences in sexual subjectivities (the experience of being a sexual person as understood by the individual), or for people to determine their own identities, they can misrepresent or fail to capture the lived experience of those marginalised because of their sexuality. Gender identity and sexual orientation, for example, are often conflated, where effeminate or transgender men are assumed to be gay or described as ' MSM ' (Men who have Sex with Men) because their behaviour is understood to mean they are homosexual. While fixed identity categories may allow funds to be directed towards certain groups of persons, or global campaigns to be launched, evidence suggests that it can also be oppressive and in some cases, may lead to increased persecution.

Research has also pointed to the resentment that many feel of being identified only in terms of their sexual orientation or gender identity, as if they are not also fathers, market-sellers, Muslims, etc. For those who practice non-normative sexualities, sexual identity categories may become the primary marker of identity in their interaction with employers, health providors, NGOS and donor agencies, etc. This is not the same for heterosexual individuals who are not required to define themselves in terms of their sexuality.

Some groups may remain invisible to development actors because they are not considered to be 'high priority' in terms of funding. This is particularly the case in relation to funding for HIV prevention, where, for example, lesbians - who are not considered to be a 'high risk' group in terms of contracting HIV (and other sexually transmitted diseases) - are excluded from certain interventions, funding and research. As a result, there is very little known about the lived realities of same-sex sexuality amongst women and how they relate to donor priorities such as HIV transmission, maternal health and gender based violence.

An Uncritical Approach

Some have criticised not the use of LGBT per se, but the uncritical way in which it is applied. For example, advocacy organisations or health initiatives who describe themselves as supporting LGBT persons, often work only with gay men or only target those who identify as transgender. Using the label 'LGBT' is therefore misleading as it gives the impression that all population groups are targeted equally, when this is very rarely the case. It can also encourage the assumption that the needs and experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender persons are the same and require similar interventions.

Discussion points:

Does using terms such as SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) help to avoid some of the issues described?

What kind of terms are used most by the people you work with?

What kinds of terms are used most by the donors you work with?

What are some of the uses and dangers of using terms like 'LBGT' in your work?

What are some of the values of using the term 'LGBT' in your work?

What terms would you advise policy makers to use when drawing up development programmes and why?

Further Reading

Julie Burchill, silo mentalities and international (trans)gender equality. Participation and Power blog, Stephen Wood, (date tbc)

Debating Pinkwashing. A selection of articles on Pinkwashing from Tikkun, an online magazine that brings together progressive interfairth voices to talk about social transformation and strategies for political and economic democratization.

El-Khatib, Mohammed M.(2011). Deconstructing the Gay International: A Content Analysis of Coverage of Homosexuality in Arabic Satellite News. MA diss. Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

Altman, D., 2001. Rupture or Continuity? Postcolonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Boyce, P., Coyle, D. 2013 Development, Discourse and Law: Transgender and Same-Sex Sexualities in Nepal Evidence Report 13, IDS

Boyce, P. and Khanna, A. (2011) 'Rights and Representations: Querying the Male-to-Male Sexual Subject in India', Culture, Health and Sexuality 13.1: 89-100

Correa, S., Petchesky, R. and Parker, R. (2008) Sexuality, Heath and Human Rights, London and New York: Routledge

Khanna, A. (2009) 'Queering the Sexual Subject of Development', Sexuality and Development, 52.1: 43-51

Massad, J., 2002. Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World. Public Culture, 14(2) pp.361-85.

Mos, M. (2013). 'Conflicted Normative Power Europe: The European Union and Sexual Minority Rights', Journal of Contemporary European Research. 9 (1), pp.78-93

Rao, R., 2010. Third World Protest: Between Home and the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Öktem, K., 2008. Another Struggle: Sexual Identity Politics in Unsettled Turkey. Middle East Research and Information Project. [online].

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It is clear from the number of LGBT advocacy organizations around the world that the fixing of particular labels of identity - like lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender - can be useful for establishing global networks and mobilizing people to claim their rights.

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This article talks about the controversy of transgender females and if they are considered "imposters" or if they "count as a woman". People that deny transgender females being stuck in the bodies they were born in rely on false assumptions. They believe that "all trans women have lived in the world unproblematically as men at some point."  The only valid argument is that the oppression of women is not the same for women that were born as male. On the other hand, Caitlyn Jenner states that she has always felt like a women even before her transition. I believe that transgender females are authentic women.

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THE STONE

The attempt to exclude trans women from the ranks of women reinforces the dangerous idea that there is a right way to be female.

By Carol Hay

Ms. Hay is an associate professor of philosophy.

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A woman getting a closer look at a painting by Paul Delvaux at the Grand Palais, Paris. Credit Credit Martine Franck/Magnum Photos

Who counts as a woman? Is there some set of core experiences distinctive of womanhood, some shared set of adventures and exploits that every woman will encounter on her journey from diapers to the grave? The recent debates over the experiences of trans women gives us new reason to return to a question feminists have been grappling with for decades.

Ever since Simone de Beauvoir quipped in 1949 that one is not born a woman, but becomes one, feminists have been discussing the implications of understanding gender as a cultural construct. But more recently, this approach to gender has come under scrutiny. After all, it's all well and good to say that gender is a cultural construct, but it's a mistake to then pretend that cultures construct gender the same way for all people. Let's just say that the sisterhood hasn't always been great about attending equally to the experiences of all sisters.

But thanks to the past 40 years of work from intersectionalist feminists, we're finally paying attention to what women of color have been saying since at least the days when Sojourner Truth had to ask if she, too, got to count as a woman: that what it's like to be a woman varies drastically across social lines of race, socioeconomic class, disability and so on, and that if we try to pretend otherwise, we usually just end up pretending that the experiences of the wealthy, white, straight, able-bodied women who already have more than their fair share of social privilege are the experiences of all women.

You might think we just need to get over the thought that there's anything like the female experience, that the search for a shared female experience is dicey at best, fraught with way too many historical examples of feminists getting it wrong and making things worse for less-privileged women along the way. At the limit, these concerns result in the view that the category of "womanhood" itself is fundamentally confused and thus better abandoned entirely. This is the route taken by feminists like Judith Butler in her iconic 1990 book "Gender Trouble."

There's a reason that after describing gender as fundamentally a performance, Butler counsels people to revel in messing with its scripts, to treat gender as nothing more than an ironic parody. Gender categories need to be taken down a notch, she thinks, but not only because they harm people in all the ways feminism spends so much time criticizing. Butler charges that in their focus on spelling out the harms of gendered socialization, feminists unwittingly entrenched the very things they claimed to be criticizing. By demarcating feminism's subject matter - by articulating a concrete category of harms that deserved feminist attention - feminists inadvertently defined womanhood in a manner that implies that there are right and wrong ways to be a woman. "Identity categories are never merely descriptive," she insists in "Gender Trouble," "but always normative, and as such, exclusionary."

Any attempt to catalog the commonalities among women, in other words, has the inescapable result that there is some correct way to be a woman. This will inevitably encourage and legitimize certain experiences of gender and discourage and delegitimize others, subtly reinforcing and entrenching precisely those forces of socialization of which feminists claim to be critical. And what's worse, it will inevitably leave some people out. It will mean that there are "real" women whom feminism should be concerned about and that there are impostors who do not qualify for feminist political representation.

The women who are accused of being impostors these days are often trans women. You might think that a shared suspicion of conventional understandings of sex and gender would make feminists and trans activists natural bedfellows. You'd be wrong. It all started with Janice Raymond's controversial book, "The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male," published in 1979. Reissued in 1994, the book continues to inspire "gender-critical" or "trans-exclusionary" radical feminists - TERFs, for short. (For the record, while some consider the acronym derogatory, it is a widely accepted shorthand for a literal description of the views these feminists hold; also for the record, many of us who are critics of TERFs consider Raymond's book to be hate speech.)

Feminists who deny "real woman" status to trans women seem to rely on a false assumption - that all trans women have lived in the world unproblematically as men at some point - and claim the importance of affirming the identity and experiences of those who've spent entire lives in women's shoes. Even the feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has echoed this, claiming in a 2017 interview, "It's about the way the world treats us, and I think if you've lived in the world as a man with the privileges that the world accords to men and then sort of change gender, it's difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning as a woman and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are."

TERFs also sometimes complain that the performances of femininity enacted by trans women are chiefly retrograde stereotypes, caricatures of a femininity designed primarily for the pleasure of men. When Caitlyn Jenner says that she has always felt like a woman, for example, what she seems to mean by this is that she wants to be an airheaded piece of arm candy all dolled up for delights of the male gaze. "The hardest part of being a woman," she infamously quipped, " is figuring out what to wear."

It's nonsense like this that motivated Germaine Greer to call Glamour magazine "misogynist" for honoring Jenner at its Women of the Year ceremony, claiming that the move was tantamount to affirming that with enough plastic surgery someone who is assigned male at birth can "be a better woman" than someone "who is just born a woman."

While the rhetoric used by those in the trans-exclusionary camp is frequently inexcusable, you might think that some of their frustration is understandable. Feminists who've spent the better part of their lives fighting against a status quo that uncritically affirms gender stereotypes might be forgiven for getting a little resentful when women like Jenner seem to suggest that these stereotypes tell us what it's "really like" to be a woman. On the other hand, it's worth asking why the full brunt of the most extreme TERFs' ire is so often directed at individual trans women who are just trying to get by like the rest of us, rather than on the fact that the media insists on focusing so single-mindedly on trans performances of gender that endorse a regressive, man-pleasing version of femininity to the exclusion of the many diverse others.

For the most part, Greer and Raymond and others who share their view are outliers in contemporary feminism, particularly in North America. Adichie, for instance, could not accurately be called a TERF: She thinks trans women's oppression is not the same as the oppression experienced by women who are assigned female at birth, yet recognizes that trans women are undoubtedly oppressed and should be "part of feminism." Most feminists these days go even further, however, fully rejecting trans-exclusionary rhetoric and agreeing that trans women are women, full stop.

Thankfully, feminists have finally started to realize that the varied experiences of trans women have a thing or two to teach us, if only we're willing to actually listen. All the way back in 1974, Andrea Dworkin launched an early salvo in what would become the "TERF wars," remarking, "It is commonly and wrongly said that male transvestites through the use of makeup and costuming caricature the women they would become, but any real knowledge of the romantic ethos makes clear that these men have penetrated to the core experience of being a woman, a romanticized construct." (There are some important objections that should be made about her terminology here - "transvestite" is no longer the preferred nomenclature, and she doesn't distinguish between male drag queens and trans women - but it would be anachronistic to get too fussed about it.)

Instead of complaining that trans women like Jenner are cartoons of reality, Dworkin would have us be honest with ourselves about the absurd amount of time and energy cis women are expected to invest in our performances of femininity. If cis women were honest about this, we'd admit that if some trans women occasionally camp up their femininity a little more than TERFs might like, they're not doing anything we're not just as guilty of. If we don't like what we see when trans women turn the mirror of femininity toward us, we have only ourselves to blame.

Further driving home the importance of not throwing stones when you live in glass houses, Lori Watson, a professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego, points out that when cis women live as cis, they too are affirming a world of binary gender identifications, a world of gender stereotypes, a world with a limited number of acceptable ways to be a woman, just as much as any trans woman does.

When I, a cis woman, perform my not terribly original rendition of conventional femininity, I am in part saying that this is what women should be like. "In fashioning myself, I fashion Man," Jean-Paul Sartre said. I might not always like it, but when I present myself in ways that I know that others around me will read as female, I'm not only going along with but actually affirming their conventional beliefs about what women are like. (This, in part, is the power of Butler's advice to mess with our performances of gender: doing so unsettles people's unthinking preconceptions.)

But if I'm as guilty of entrenching regressive gender stereotypes as anyone else, why do TERFs think it's trans women who are specially culpable for shoring up gender essentialism? Why aren't they going after cis women like me, too? We might all agree that the goal is to get to a world free of the shackles of conventional gender ascriptions, but that is not the world we currently live in. "The criticism of trans women as failing to act in ways that are consistent with an ideal of liberation from sex and gender," Watson cracks, "is a little like criticizing any of us for making a decent living under capitalism, or investing our retirement funds in the stock market, if the aim of liberation is the destruction of capitalism as a social, political, and economic system. Even Karl Marx had to eat in the here and now."

Talia Mae Bettcher, a professor of philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles, demonstrates how trans people are caught in a double bind. If a trans person successfully passes as cis and is later discovered to be trans, they're seen as an "evil deceiver" who has lied about who they really are. Trans people who are open about being trans, on the other hand, are seen as "make-believers" - cheap counterfeits, pathetically attempting to be something they couldn't possibly actually be. The problem with this view of trans people as either deceptive or pathetic frauds is that it presupposes that there's a real thing that trans women are failing to be. And this sounds an awful lot like the biological essentialism that almost all feminists reject.

The current debates over trans women bring us back to the question of what set of core experiences supposedly make someone who was assigned female at birth a "real" woman. Is it menstruation or childbirth? Nope - lots of women don't experience those, either by fate or by choice. What about being subject to sexual violence and harassment? Trans women face as much if not more sexual violence than cis women. How about simply a lifetime of unwanted objectifying male sexual attention?There are plenty of women who don't meet the standards of superficial sexual attractiveness who do not get such attention, and some of them even long for it. And surely we don't want to go back to the days of defining women by their hormones or even their chromosomes - if for no other reason than we'd leave out the estimated 1.7 percent of women who are intersex.

When a cis woman complains that trans women haven't had the same experiences as "real" women-born-women, then, what she's really saying is, "Trans women haven't had the same experiences as women like me." If 30-plus years of intersectional feminism has taught us anything, it's that this is precisely the move that feminists need to stop making.

Carol Hay is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and the author of the forthcoming book, "Quite Contrary: A Feminist Survival Guide."
Now in print: The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com. "Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments" and "The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments," with essays from the series, edited by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley, published by Liveright Books.

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THE STONE The attempt to exclude trans women from the ranks of women reinforces the dangerous idea that there is a right way to be female. By Carol Hay Ms. Hay is an associate professor of philosophy. Who counts as a woman?

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This article digs into the deeper understanding of the universe and how we as humans don't really know anything. Overtime, the human race has tried its best to understand how and why we exist in this universe. The amount of information we have access too is finite and there is a limit to the particles we can see and measurements we can take.

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In recent days I've had some interesting conversations. There's a giddiness going around, related to an outpouring of science love - the kind you get from President Obama introducing TV science shows, the kind that has wonderful visuals, but is, well, a wee bit simplistic (a sin that none of us could ever, ever be accused of, naturally). It's all very positive, commendable, and perfectly reasonable. But it leaves me feeling a little askew. You see, the thing is, it's relatively easy to focus on what we know, yet to me the wonder of the cosmos, the awesomeness, is never greater than when we contemplate all that we don't know.

It's true that when we take note of the impossibly brief sliver of time that our entire species has inhabited compared to the billions of years before, and the untold billions ahead, one can feel refreshingly small. Or, if we contemplate the billions of trillions of other worlds that must exist across the observable universe, we can grasp momentarily at just how tiny our daily existence is. But for me nothing compares to the perspective, the shock, or the excitement, of being reminded of what we don't know.

We don't know why the universe exists: This is really quite unfair, and could be grounds for doubting that the cosmos knows what its doing. But in terms of physics, although there are some really very appealing, very promising, theoretical frameworks that begin to answer the question, the simple truth is that we're not sure which might be right. It may be that the universe springs from an inherently unstable 'nothingness'. The most void-like void, prone to spontaneous generation of matter and energy in proportions that always balance out to zero (yep, really, read Lawrence Krauss's great book on this). Furthermore, this may not be the only universe (a terrible linguistic fail, I know), but rather one of a vast array, part of a multiverse of more than 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 16 distinguishable realities. But a big piece of the problem is that we're still waiting for the next generation of cosmic measurements to chip away at the models, and we're still waiting for theories that provide more readily testable hypotheses, not just mathematical elegance. So we don't know why the heck all of this exists. Sorry.

We don't know what dark matter, or dark energy, is: Big problem, honking big problem. Normal matter, the stuff of you, the stuff of me, planets, stars, and cheese sandwiches, amounts to only about 4.9% of the total matter and energy content of the universe. 26.8% of matter is 'dark', we know it's there because on large, cosmic, scales stuff moves around faster than it should and because the way that galaxies strew themselves across space is consistent with the existence of vast amounts of slow-moving gravitating 'stuff' that never turns into stars or planets or anything, just stays as diffuse, invisible, incredibly antisocial particles. Except we really have no idea what these particles truly are - a situation beautifully summarized recently by Mario Livio and Joe Silk. That's nasty, but perhaps nastier is dark energy. Something is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. It didn't used to. Until about 5 or 6 billion years ago the stretching of space following the Big Bang was in decline, but then something started to counter that, another unseen component, perhaps a type of vacuum energy density that fills up space as space itself grows. What exactly is it? We do not know. We have lots of ideas though, which is great, always good to have ideas about 68.3% of the universe.

We don't know whether life exists anywhere else: This one is close to my heart. Here we are, sentient beings on a planet seething with life (although perhaps not as seething as it could be) that's been busy sculpting and re-sculpting the physical and chemical environment for much of the past 5 billion years. And now we're confident that there are lots of planets out there, and that many of them could have an equal shot at playing host to life. But we still don't know whether or not we're alone. No clue. That's quite a problem. Don't get me wrong, it's a good problem, a juicy problem, one of the best. But even when the President of the United States introduces a lovely glossy TV series all about science, science that addresses the question of life in the universe, that doesn't mean that governments or industry give a fig about paying to solve the problem. As Lee Billings writes in his recent, wonderful, book, the lack of a sense of urgency is a little bewildering. So we continue to bumble along in splendid isolation, with only our towels for comfort.

We probably haven't really figured out the quantum world: What!? While it's true that our present mathematical framework of quantum mechanics can do wonders, from describing atoms and molecules to the bizarre nature of entanglement and qubits, that doesn't mean that we've nailed the case shut. Quite the contrary. One need only cast a look over the literature to see that the most fundamental aspects of the quantum nature of the universe are still causing headaches and disagreements. People are still reformulating the ways in which we cope with the quantum nature of reality (yes, they are) so it's clearly too soon to call this fully understood. Not only that, but the possibility of pure quantum effects reaching into the realm of soft, wet, and warm biology has also raised its head (although admittedly it depends on who's talking) - a rather unnerving notion. . Oh, and don't get me started on black holes and quantum firewalls...

We don't understand our own biology: It's not too radical to say this, after all, if we did understand every detail of how we worked we'd presumably be able to eliminate disease (assuming that's actually better for us, which it clearly is individually, but perhaps not as a species). We'd also be able to customize ourselves by reaching into to those 3 billion or so nucleic acids in our DNA and doing a spot of molecular engineering, getting those purple earlobes we've always wanted. But we're not close to doing this any better than we can come up with 'engineered' crops - lots of misses and a few hits. Want a good example of our pitiful lack of knowledge? It's the microbiome. Our ten trillion human cells are augmented, exploited, nurtured, by a hundred trillion microbial cells - a couple of pounds of bacteria and archaea that we all carry around and can't live without. They're in our guts, our lungs, up our noses and in every other dank corner. We're just cruise ships for the ultimate microbial Club-Med, and we simply don't know what that all means.

We don't know how the Earth works: Let's lurch back to a grander scale. No human, or robot, has ever physically traveled deeper than a few miles into the Earth's crust, everything else is extrapolation and interpolation from 'remote sensing' and clever physical analyses. It took us a ridiculously long time to figure out that the outer planetary skin is moving and sliding around; plate tectonics was not generally accepted until the mid-20th century! We're still not sure exactly how the inner dynamo works, how rolls of convecting, conducting material in the outer core generate our planetary magnetic field. There's also so much mess after 4.5 billion years of geophysics that some of our best information about the planet's origins come from meteorites and the cratering of other worlds - outsourced. Speaking of other worlds, we're not even sure we understand where the Moon came from, maybe it was a giant impact, maybe not. For an allegedly clever species on a small rocky planet this is a bit of an epic fail.

We can't prove or solve many of our own mathematical conjectures and problems: Ouch. Lest mathematics thinks it can escape this festival of ignorance, just remind yourself that there's a long list of unproven, unsolved problems and unproven conjectures. Here, take a look. All in all, best kept firmly brushed under the carpet. Another glass of sherry professor?

We don't know how to make an artificial intelligence: I'm putting this here because it's a perennial problem, and one that speaks to both our desire to understand ourselves (if you can make an artificial being you may find the secret sauce behind your own intelligence, even if ultimately it's just an emergent phenomenon) as well as to understand what might be 'out there' in the vastness of the cosmos, wrought by billions of years of alien evolution, and really quite depressed by it all. Although we've come a long way with our machines, it's not clear that predictive text or automated suggestions for shopping and movie streaming are really assembling information in any way that resembles how our minds generate ideas. This is truly a frontier.

The conclusion? There's an awful lot we don't know (far more than just the examples here). But the point is not to get despondent, because this ignorance is a beautiful thing. It's what ultimately drives science, and it's what makes the universe truly awe-inspiring. After the hundreds of thousands of years that Homo sapiens has loped around, the cosmos can still elude our fidgety, inquisitive minds, easily outracing our considerable imaginations. How wonderful.

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This Is What We Don't Know About The Universe

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In recent days I've had some interesting conversations. There's a giddiness going around, related to an outpouring of science love - the kind you get from President Obama introducing TV science shows, the kind that has wonderful visuals, but is, well, a wee bit simplistic (a sin that none of us could ever, ever be [...]

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This article dives into the on-going debate of gun control. It dives not only into major events that caused up-roar into the debate but also how differing political parties have gained a label of being either Pro or against gun control. As Trump pledge to protect the 2nd amendment, the republican party has been scrutinized for being unwilling to protect American people as more and more mass shootings occur with little to no change to gun-control laws.

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Our gun-data spreadsheet now includes spending on state- and federal-level lobbying; state and federal contributions from gun control groups, gun rights groups, and gun manufacturers; contributions to members of Congress; and current NRA data.

Gun violence is a fact of life in the United States, and mass shootings continue to occur with frightening regularity.

Mass shootings are often quickly politicized as lawmakers and members of the public alike grapple with how to address senseless gun violence. But organizations on both sides of the issue have been working in Washington for decades, contributing to decades of political gridlock broken in June 2022 by the bipartisan gun safety bill.

National outcry for solutions after several high-profile mass shootings preceded recent legislative action. Less than two weeks after a May 10 shooting left 10 people in the Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, N.Y., dead and several others injured, 19 children and two adults were in an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Between the two mass casualty events, another left one dead and multiple injured at a Taiwanese church in California. The and shootings are being investigated as hate crimes.

Congress passed bipartisan legislation that expanded background checks for buyers under 21, funds state intervention programs including so-called "red flag" laws and allocates millions for mental health and school safety resources. The bill also cracks down on gun trafficking and straw purchasers and expands the ban on domestic abusers to include serious or recent partners. Fifteen Senate Republicans voted with Democrats to pass the legislation, although a majority of congressional Republicans, backed by prominent gun rights groups including the National Rifle Association, opposed the bill as too broad.

President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on June 25, 2022.

A week later, a gunman killed seven people at a 4th of July parade in the Highland Park neighborhood in Chicago. The killing highlighted acknowledged limitations of the bipartisan bill to stop such mass shootings, but broader bans on assault rifles or other weapons are unlikely to pass the current Congress.

We've been here before

Deadly shootings across the country shock the conscience and spur debate in both communities and Congress.

In April 2019, a shooting at a synagogue in the town of Poway in Southern California killed one and injured three in what officials deem a hate crime. The Poway synagogue shooting came exactly six months after a man spouting anti-Semitic slurs opened fire on worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in an attack that left 11 dead. The Anti-Defamation League described the Tree of Life shooting as on the Jewish community in American history.

The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history occurred one year earlier, in Oct. 2017, at a Las Vegas music festival, resulting in the deaths of 58 concertgoers and injuring hundreds more.

Only 16 months before that, a gunman armed with a handgun and a semi-automatic rifle murdered 49 people and injured 58 at an Orlando nightclub in what was then the country's worst mass shooting. The horrific attack in Orlando came less than six months after a man and a woman opened fire at a San Bernardino, Calif., social services center, killing 14 and injuring 22.

The issue of how to strike a balance between gun rights and public safety has been a political hot potato for years. Prominent gun rights organizations consistently spent millions more on lobbying in Washington than their gun control counterparts, according to OpenSecrets data, contributing to decades-long stalemate.

But former President Donald Trump repeatedly pledged to protect Second Amendment rights and often warned gun owners that their Second Amendment rights are "under assault." In an April 2019 speech to NRA members, he will not ratify America's participation in the international Arms Trade Treaty, which would provide some international oversight on arms sales.

In opposition to the Republicans, the Democratic-controlled House prioritized passing gun control legislation. The House previously with some bipartisan support that strengthen and expand the background check process and reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, because of the bill's measure that seeks to prevent domestic abusers from obtaining guns.

In June 2016, Democrats mounted a successful filibuster that forced Senate Republicans to vote on four gun control proposals - none of which passed.

A .44 caliber political issue

The last major piece of gun control legislation to make it into law prior to the bipartisan gun bill passed in June was the assault weapons ban, passed in 1994 as part of a larger crime-related bill approved by Congress and signed by then-President Bill Clinton. But the ban, which applied to the manufacture of 19 specific models of semi-automatic firearms and other guns with similar features, expired in 2004, and repeated attempts to renew it failed.

81% of Americans

told Pew Research Center in 2021 that they support expanding background checks to include private firearm sales and purchases at gun shows, including a majority of Republican respondents. Preventing individuals with mental illnesses from purchasing guns is also supported by the vast majority of people on both sides of the political spectrum.

Some Democrats thought their support for the assault weapons ban cost them control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections. Whether or not that's true, there's little question that the politics of gun ownership have swung to the right. Republicans largely oppose gun control, and Democrats are split, with some lawmakers cautious about going against the views of more conservative constituencies, especially in rural districts.

Gun control versus gun rights was a major issue of the 2020 presidential election. One Democratic candidate, Rep. (D-Calif.) made the central issue he ran on. The necessity of more gun control legislation was among all Democratic candidates, several of whom own guns.

Despite highly publicized mass shootings, no earlier gun control measures, with the exception of the bump stock ban, made it into law prior to the recent bipartisan gun safety legislation.

OpenSecrets of the 46 senators who voted against the amendment had accepted significant campaign contributions from the political action committees of gun rights groups. There were exceptions to the rule, notably the measure's sponsors, Sens. (D-W.Va.) and (R-Pa.). But in general, the correlation was a close one.

Guns and money

There's no denying that much of the strength of the leading gun rights organization - the NRA - comes from its broad and passionate membership base and its mastery of grassroots politics.

But if lawmakers seem to tiptoe around gun issues, that could be in part because the NRA and other gun rights groups are loaded for bear with a seemingly limitless stash of cash ammunition.

During the 2018 midterm elections, gun control groups outspent the NRA for the first time by a $2.6 million margin. But gun control groups' total $23.5 million in 2020 election spending was dwarfed by the NRA's spending that cycle, and gun control organizations are outpacing gun rights groups in outside spending ahead of the 2022 midterms.

The NRA spent $29.1 million in 2020 federal elections, most of that to support in the final months of the cycle, with around $19.5 million of that spending bankrolled by its newly created super PAC and $9 million by its traditional .

Just four years earlier, the group spent during the 2016 election cycle, breaking the group's prior spending records. Of that, $31.2 million went to supporting Trump's first presidential campaign. Most of the NRA's 2016 spending was routed through its main " " group, which does not disclose its donors.

During the 2018 election cycle, the NRA made around $9.4 million in outside expenditures, a significant decrease from the $27 million spent during the 2014 midterm election cycle and a massive drop from its 2016 presidential election spending.

Those interests gave $52 million to candidates and party committees from 1989 through the second quarter of 2022, with nearly all of that going to Democrats.

Despite being by gun rights lobbying and campaign contributions, gun control groups have increased outside spending since the 2018 election cycle. Gun control advocates $16.6 million into outside spending in 2020 compared to just $14,000 in 2016.

Most of the gun control movement's political clout comes from two well-connected organizations. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety super PAC is the leading outside spender supporting gun control. The super PAC $3.6 million of the total $4.4 million spent by gun control groups through May in the 2022 cycle. , a super PAC backed by Bloomberg, supports a variety of causes including stricter gun laws. After spending a whopping $56.5 million on the 2020 election, mostly supporting President , the super PAC has poured over $1 million into 2022 midterms as of May. It spent around $37.5 million on independent expenditures during the 2018 midterms. The money supports federal candidates who favor gun control and attacks those who do not.

Another major gun control lobby spender is , an organization founded by gun violence victim and former Rep. (D-Ariz.) and her husband, current U.S. Sen. (D-Ariz.), who is running for re-election in Arizona in the 2022 midterms. Giffords spent about $500,000 on in 2021. The group's hybrid PAC spent more than $11 million during the 2020 election cycle and spent about $6.6 million during the 2022 election cycle as of June figures from OpenSecrets.

Powerful gun rights groups including the NRA and have poured millions into lobbying, campaign contributions and outside spending to advocate for the right to bear arms. At least Americans owned guns in 2021.

Gun rights groups are still powerful in the realm of lobbying, consistently spending more money to influence policy than gun control organizations. Gun rights groups a record $15.8 million on lobbying in 2021 and have $190 million in lobbying efforts since 1998.

Gun rights advocates spent more than $114 million of that total since 2013. Lobbying by gun rights advocates nearly tripled in 2013 after a gunman murdered 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14, 2012. The following year was the the Senate came to passing meaningful gun control legislation in the decade between the shooting and the bipartisan gun control bill.

Groups advocating for gun control spent a record $2.9 million in 2021. But gun control advocates, spearheaded by and Everytown for Gun Safety , spent just under $30 million on lobbying from 1998 through the second quarter of 2022 - about six times less than gun rights groups spent over the same period.
- Taylor Giorno, Anna Massoglia, Raymond Arke, Geoff West (July 2022)

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Our gun-data spreadsheet now includes spending on state- and federal-level lobbying; state and federal contributions from gun control groups, gun rights groups, and gun manufacturers; contributions to members of Congress; and current NRA data. Gun violence is a fact of life in the United States, and mass shootings continue to occur with frightening regularity.

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This article talks about the large debate of cat vs dog people, and whether or not there is a clear line between the two. On one side, people often jump to say which side they chose to take. Generally, dog people are associated with extroverts and love to hang out, be active and have companions. On the other hand, cat people are much more quiet and introverted and don't, or prefer, to be alone. Even though this is generally what happens, there are still outliers. Some people are allergic to one, so they opt for the other. Or some people always grew up with a pet dog, and have no experience with a pet cat, so they always chose dog. Some people don't have any pets, but they still have some sort of personality. So there really is no clear divide. This topic relates to KQ because many people often jump to chose dog or cat, but it can never really tell you about that person or their personality. As people grow they may change there mind, especially since ever pet is different.

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(CNN) -- Do you rejoice at the sound of barking but cower at a meow? Or do you look at a cat and feel an instant sibling-style connection?

With the proliferation of Web sites cultivating photos and videos of animals doing cute things, it's easier than ever to get your daily fix of the pet variety you have, or wish you had. Ever wonder what your preference for cats or dogs says about you?

A team of researchers led by psychologist Sam Gosling at the University of Texas at Austin wanted to find out. They posted a questionnaire online as part of a larger study about personality called the Gosling-Potter Internet Personality Project.

About 4,500 participants answered questions that measured their personality inclinations in five areas: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These five dimensions have been shown in previous research to encompass most personality traits. They also indicated whether they considered themselves cat people, dog people, both or neither.

It turns out that the "dog people" -- based on how people identified themselves, not on what animals they actually own -- tend to be more social and outgoing, whereas "cat people" tend to be more neurotic but "open," which means creative, philosophical, or nontraditional in this context.

Dog people scored significantly higher on extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness measures, and lower on neuroticism and openness than cat people, the survey found. The effect persisted regardless of gender of the respondent.

"Once you know the findings, it kind of falls into place," Gosling said. "You think, 'of course, agreeableness and extraversion -- dogs are companionable, they hang out, they like to be with you, they like your company, whereas cats like it for as long as they want it, and then they're off."

But this foray into your deeper pet subconscious isn't the final word, Gosling says -- after all, if the findings had been reversed, they would also make sense to some people. These are, of course, generalizations and don't apply to every individual.

"It means that if you knew nothing else about them, that would be your best guess," he said.

The findings do make sense to 12-year-old Naveen Rajur, a "loving dog boy" in Andover, Massachusetts, who considers dog people to be outgoing and active. He also agrees about the agreeableness and conscientiousness of dog people because they "always have to want to take care of the dog and always kind of be by its side."

Fabian Bonasera of Norcross, Georgia, who must give away his two cats soon because he and his wife and son are moving to Iceland, said the cat findings are about half-true of himself -- he considers himself laid-back and easy-going rather than neurotic, but the "openness" does resonate with him.

"They just like something a little more soft, more gentle," he said of cat people. "They're good pets, they're more independent, they do their own thing."

Cat rescue volunteer Eddye Sheffield, of Gadsden, Alabama, said she's seen all kinds of cat owners, and can't pin down personality traits that apply to all cat people. Outsiders might label Sheffield herself a "crazy cat lady" because she has 11 cats, she said, but she doesn't view herself that way.

"All of them are rescued cats and they need a place to go, and I had room, that's how I ended up with that many," she said. Owning that many has also gotten her more involved in rescue efforts, which has put her into more contact with other people, not less (score one for extraversion).

Veterinarian David Bessler, senior emergency clinician at NYC Veterinary Specialists in New York City, said he was a dog person growing up, but that owning a cat has "converted " him. It hasn't changed his personality, but he can imagine that dog people and cat people have personality differences.

"To love cats, you have to be able to love things for themselves; they have their own life, they aren't necessarily dependent on you," he said. "Your dog kind of lives for you."

Participants in Gosling's study were recruited to the study through search engines, portal sites, voluntary mailing lists, and word of mouth from other visitors. The study will appear in the journal Anthrozoos in September 2010.

The findings are useful for identifying the right pet for a particular person, and for pet therapies, Gosling said.

Is it that people choose pets that are like them, or that pets change people over time? Research has not come to a conclusion on this question, experts say.

Beyond personality characteristics, people may have physical features in common with the animals they like or own. A study by University of British Columbia psychologist Stanley Coren found that women with long hair liked Springer spaniels and beagles, which have long ears, and women with short hair liked the short-eared basenjis and huskies.

A study by Michael Roy and Nicholas Christenfeld found that participants could match photographs of owners to their purebred dogs about 67 percent of the time, based on appearance alone. Results suggested that the owners selected dogs that looked like themselves and did not grow to look like the dogs over time, as there was no relationship between how long the people had lived with the animals and how similar they looked.

Both of those studies are mentioned in an upcoming book called "Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why it is So Hard to Think Straight About Animals" by Hal Herzog, professor of psychology at Western Carolina University.

Herzog told CNN there are plenty of reasons why a cat person would own a dog, or vice versa: allergies as well as other lifestyle factors, such as space for the animal, come into play.

Herzog and his wife consider themselves dog people, but own a cat, Tilly, because they can easily leave her alone when they go away for the weekend.

Although he appreciates cats, he does not feel that owning one has changed his personality. But, Tilly is fairly social for a cat, he said, which may have something to do with how she was raised.

Empty-nesters such as Herzog and his wife, as well as retirees, are among those increasing pet ownership in America, he said.

About 37 percent of American households have dogs and 32 percent have cats, but the cat population (82 million) is significantly higher than the dog population (72 million), said Herzog, citing 2007 data from the American Veterinary Medical Association. That's because people tend to own multiple cats, as they are more amenable to many people's lifestyles, he said.

People tend to gravitate toward the animals they were raised with, Herzog said. Cat owners tend to be raised in cat families, and dog owners tend to be raised in dog families. In fact, one study found the animal you like is the one your grandparents lived with, he said.

The field of anthrozoology, the study of how animals and people relate to one another, only recently took off, Herzog said.

"I think our interactions with animals shed a lot of light on larger issues in human psychology," he said. "With pets it's things like attachment and why we're altruistic toward other creatures, especially creatures that we're not genetically related to."

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How are dog people and cat people different?

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(CNN) -- Do you rejoice at the sound of barking but cower at a meow? Or do you look at a cat and feel an instant sibling-style connection? With the proliferation of Web sites cultivating photos and videos of animals doing cute things, it's easier than ever to get your daily fix of the pet variety you have, or wish you had.

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A knowledge question is a question about knowledge, rather than focusing in on specific content or situations; it is an open-ended question, so you cannot answer it with a simple yes or no; it is general, meaning it is not specific to a subject.​​

Using the KQ in the top left corner of this screen, find another Real-Life Situation (RLS) that relates to the KQ in the same way the debate over a hotdog being a sandwich relates to the KQ.  Attach and then briefly describe your RLS and then explain why it relates to the KQ.  See the first column for an example.

Note:  Make sure you add your name to your post!

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This article is about how Democrats in Texas want to bring back straight-ticket voting.  This is where a ballot has the option to vote for everyone of a particular party.  For example, a voter would check "Democrat" and that would cast a vote for every Democratic candidate (President, Senate, House, etc.).  This relates to the KQ because many people choose to relate their opinions on issues by aligning with a certain political party.  The labels help them to describe their political viewpoints.

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A federal judge on Wednesday threw out Democrats' effort to reinstate the straight-ticket voting option in Texas.

Siding with the state, U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo found that Democrats lacked standing to challenge Texas Republicans' decision to kill straight-ticket voting ahead of the November general election. The judge dismissed the federal lawsuit after ruling that Democrats' claims of the electoral fallout that could come from eliminating straight-ticket voting were too speculative.

The Texas Democratic Party - joined by the chair of the Webb County Democratic Party and the Democratic campaign arms of the U.S. Senate and House - filed the lawsuit in March on the heels of Super Tuesday voting that left some Texans waiting for hours to cast their ballots.

They claimed the elimination of straight-ticket voting is unconstitutional and intentionally discriminatory because the longer lines and waiting times it is expected to cause would be disproportionately felt at polling places that serve Hispanic and Black voters.

The popular practice allowed voters to mark their support for all of the candidates of either party in a general election by simply picking a straight-ticket option at the top of a ballot.

Most states don't allow for one-punch voting, but its elimination in Texas met intense opposition from Democrats who feared the change would be most felt among voters of color and lead to voter drop-off, particularly in blue urban counties that have the longest ballots in the state. Texas Republican lawmakers championed a change to the law during the 2017 legislative session, arguing it would compel voters to make more-informed decisions because they would have to make a decision on every race on a ballot.

The change was signed into law almost three years ago, but a last-minute change to the legislation delayed its implementation until this year's general election. Starting in November, candidates will still be listed with their party affiliation, but voters will have to select each candidate individually.

In her order, Garcia Marmolejo ruled that that Democrats' predictions about the negative effects the lack of straight-ticket voting would have on voters and the election process were "uncertain to occur." She also found fault with their assumptions that the Texas secretary of state and local officials would not work to "ameliorate the situation."

Garcia Marmolejo also pointed to the likelihood that in-person voting would be transformed by the new coronavirus, which has led to long lines in other states where elections have already occurred during the pandemic, regardless of whether straight-ticket voting was eliminated.

"Considering the pandemic has already caused long lines at polling-places, many Texans will endure longer lines at polling places indefinitely, irrespective of any order issued by this Court," she wrote. "And other Texans will experience shorter lines given that voters have been encouraged to steer clear from in-person voting where possible."
Disclosure: The Texas secretary of state has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Federal court tosses suit brought by Texas Democrats seeking to revive straight-ticket voting

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A federal judge on Wednesday threw out Democrats' effort to reinstate the straight-ticket voting option in Texas. Siding with the state, U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo found that Democrats lacked standing to challenge Texas Republicans' decision to kill straight-ticket voting ahead of the November general election.