#and i already have invalidation issues at baseline
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i have had a single day of class and am ready for the semester to be over
#cw: sui mention#in tags#kat rambles#granted it is quite a heavy course#3 hours of talking about sui-related stuff with a professor that doesn't approach it in an entirely respectful way is not great#and i already have invalidation issues at baseline#so getting my own experiences invalidated in favor of some paper this dude wrote from an incredibly removed POV is just-#anyway i made a vow to not dissociate in class if i can help it but i do not think i can in this case#esp if i'm being bombarded with the message that i should be ashamed of having constant passive ideation
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How to (slightly) calm down about being criticized while having cptsd:
Since this is trigger for your childhood abuse, it will take a While because you'll have to dismantle all the horrific things you were told about yourself in your youth, and be 120% sure none of it was true, you're not a burden or a failure, and there was malicious intent behind saying these things to you. You were a good kid, and you will always, now and forever, be a valuable part of society, regardless of how well you do in any area of your life.
This is likely to take years, in the meantime you can also try these steps:
1. Realize that nobody on earth is open to criticism at every moment in your life, and you don't have to be, either.
We're all sensitive to criticism, and none of us would be able to live our lives constantly bombarded by criticism for every single thing we do. People usually allow only a select group of people whose opinion they highly value, to criticize them, and will rarely if ever accept criticism from strangers or people who are not a part of their professional or personal life. You do not need to be open to criticism at all times, from everyone, in order to grow and better yourself, especially if you're traumatized! In this case, you're already harshly over-criticized and need the exact opposite in order to learn and grow. In your case, criticism paralyses and stops you from growing. It's not what you need to heal.
2. Who is criticizing me?
Ask yourself, if this criticism is coming from a source whose opinion you value and respect? If it's one of your abusers, ex-abusers, or their associates, the criticism is 100% likely to be delivered with intent to control and hurt you, so you can write it off as manipulation, and divert with 'ya that doesn't work anymore lol'.
If it's someone else, ask: Is this a person who continually has my good interests at heart? Do they actually understand the issue they're criticizing me about, or is their perspective shallow, misinformed and skewed? Is this a person I would ask for advice? Do they continually do work equal or better than mine? Are they giving me positive feedback as well, or do they only ever criticize everything I do?
Because you don't ever have to be open to criticism from a skewed, misinformed and ill-intentioned source. You don't have to accept criticism from someone who takes confidence in putting you down. You especially never have to take criticism from anonymous source, as they're keeping themselves hidden for good reasons. Remember the rule: If you wouldn't take an advice from them, you don't have to take criticism either.
3. Does this need to be criticized?
Am I hurting anyone doing this? Am I doing this just for fun? Am I doing this in private and it doesn't affect anyone whatsoever? Is this a matter of my personal time? Am I obliged to explain myself for indulging in my own interests in my own time?
If you're doing things for fun, for free, in private time, hurting and affecting no one, and it's getting criticized, while you've never reached for any criticism? You got scammed. Criticism is invalid. Throw it into the dumpster.
4. Is this criticism constructive at all?
If you are opened to criticism in a certain area, but feedback you're receiving is not only negative but completely shutting you down and putting you in a place where you feel like you should just quit, then that is debilitating, paralyzing, ill-intentioned insult, and not a useful piece of criticism. Trying to get better usually simply means doing something more and more, and generally what will help you do more and more of it, is encouragement, support, someone pointing out what you did well, and believing in you. If you're not at a point where you actively look for criticism and are ready to hear concrete ideas on how to grow and develop, you don't have to be receiving it.
5. Do I have a baseline perception of myself that enables me to deal with the criticism?
Most people rely on their family, circle of friends, or a relationship to provide them with a sense of social identity; when you're surrounded by people who value and enjoy your company, who seek you out and offer you caring feedback, any criticism you receive outside of this circle will not become a definition of you. You already have a good baseline perception of your self worth, so any malignant criticism will sound obviously untrue, and any fair-sounding criticism will not be the end-all, decisive factor in how you see yourself, it will only build on your baseline and create a more complex image. It will not keep you up at night, it will not make you feel desperate. If you don't have this baseline, and you're already plagued with negative or even horrific perceptions of yourself from abusers who used to be close to you, the criticism can and will fall very heavily on your self worth because you never got a chance to develop it properly. In case of a no-baseline, all criticism is likely to be harmful, and it's okay to keep to yourself until you have a very good idea of who you are and what you stand for. Once you know this for yourself, criticism will not be able to make you forget it.
6. Is this a criticism or abuse?
Tactics of abuse often include criticizing when you want to control someone; if certain types of criticism of your character come only after you refuse something, it's not criticism, it's berating you into trying to appease them (if you allow yourself to be controlled, the criticism will stop.) If criticism is wildly inaccurate of your behaviour, it's possible for it to be projection, or baiting, or fear-mongering, or catastrophizing. They're all designed to shut you down, make you feel guilty and afraid to make your own decisions, poke at your insecurities and make you easily controlled. You're free to refuse the intimidation and do as you please. Abuse masked as criticism is not a reflection of your character.
7. Is this criticism something I want consistently in my life?
The truth is that nobody enjoys criticism, and it's okay to decide that you'd rather have support. It's support, encouragement, and faith in you that builds passion and resilience, not constant pointing out of your flaws. If you're continually bothered by a person criticizing you, it's okay to get some space and get away from them. It doesn't mean you're weak, or running away, the criticism will eat up your fulfillment in life, and you do not have to let it.
8. Am I being criticized for actually doing harm?
Prevention of harm is a a good time and place for criticism; if you're criticized by a group of people on whose human rights you're infringing, that is something you should sit with, and look at from their perspective. This doesn't mean your identity needs to get crushed by it, as these people will not benefit from it at all, it's just the time to listen and understand. This will rarely be personal, and more concerning the power imbalance you might not understand, and it can be fixed by you understanding them.
9. TLDR
Even as there is a time and place for criticism, it's not constant, everyday, discouraging, triggering and controlling that victims of abuse are often used to. Criticism that attacks your character and tries to make it seem irredeemable is nothing but a manipulative lie, and criticism is not something you have to be opened to every day, on every area of your life, from anyone who feels like criticizing. It's okay to set boundaries in who is allowed to criticize you and on what. It's okay to establish that your opinion of you matters more than an opinion of a stranger, peer, a friend, or anyone who isn't in your shoes. Shame, guilt, anixety, panic, pain and self-hatred are not constructive feelings, so if criticism invokes all these in you, it's not productive, it's not helping, it's stropping you from growth, and you don't have to take it.
You're not over-reacting, I promise. You're experiencing traumatic level of pain because criticism was used to demolish your self-worth and you never deserved to experience that once. You don't deserve to experience it again either. Until you feel safe and valued, believed in, encouraged and supported, criticism is not vital for your growth.
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🌟May I have a moment of your time? I have a question about disability and validity that I'm having trouble with. I've been invited to the volunteer team of my college's PWD club, and I'm concerned about whether it's fair for me to act as a representative. The PWD club explicitly includes mental health conditions anyway and I do have a serious mental health diagnosis, but I want to put that aside for a moment. I would feel self conscious representing the PWD group without a physical or sensory disability, and I'm not sure if it "counts" when my medical team hasn't been able to diagnose the cause of my chronic joint pain and its effects on my ability to walk and lift objects. I'm wondering if it doesn't "count" because I'm still able to walk unaided even if a cane would help me a lot, and I'm still able to work and lift 40lbs with only minor pain. I know that I'm already "qualified" by virtue of my mental health condition, but without knowing if an unknown joint pain and mobility difficulty is "disabled enough" for the offline world, I worry I'd feel fake helping alongside, say, the others on the team, including VI and wheelchair users.
Thank you for reading all that, I appreciate it.
hey, firstly i’m super flattered that you trusted me with this question, & it’s a testament to your character that you’re thinking about these dynamics and want to do right by the folks in your community. i’m gonna be super honest with you out of respect, because i don’t want to dismiss any of the facets you’re already considering, but please know that none of this is to invalidate your experience as a disabled person. the short answer, though, is i think yes, you absolutely “count,” and at least from this brief interaction you sound like exactly the kind of person i’d want representing me 🖤
to expand some on my thoughts:
not having a diagnosis & having an invisible disability do not make you any less disabled. i had undiagnosed joint pain for almost six years up until less than a month ago, and i wasn’t any more disabled on June 28th than i was on June 27th. i was in your position four years ago when i made this blog: invisibly disabled due to undiagnosed joint pain, not using a mobility aid, diagnosed for some (but not all) mental health conditions.
having an invisible disability does affect how you move through the world. most if not all abled people are going to treat you with a baseline assumption of personhood that they do not offer to visibly disabled people. that doesn’t erase the fact that it fucking sucks to know your personhood is contingent on not revealing a major fact about your life to people around you, and it doesn’t change that you experience ableism; i don’t ascribe to notions of “passing privilege” because that doesn’t adequately encompass the nuance of the situation. but you’re correct that you can’t fully understand my experiences and needs as a mobility scooter user—what matters to me is that you aren’t trying to. you wouldn’t be the only disabled person here, you’d be working with blind/VI folks & wheelchair users & other people with different disabilities than your own. as long as you listen to them, don’t assume that you know their needs, and don’t meet them with lateral aggression, you’re fine.
unfortunately, because abled people suck, sometimes it can help to have someone who isn’t visibly disabled there to reinforce our humanity, redirect questions to us rather than about us, and generally be an ally/accomplice. plus, people whose energy isn’t as limited due to their disability (whether usually or just on that day) are so vital because there are many times when i can’t attend an event, etc, to self-advocate.
there’s such a broad spectrum of disability that no one group could ever represent it all, and though we face different variants of discrimination, your experience matters, too. chronic pain and chronic illness have historically been left out of disability studies, an issue that’s being addressed more & more, and i can’t describe how thrilled it makes me every time i see someone with an invisible physical disability aligning themselves with the disability community and/or claiming crip, which is the main thing:
if you are anti-ableist and have a disability consciousness, i want you in the room. i want you in the movement. i want you to represent me, so long as you don’t communicate over me. crip spaces often contain some degree of disdain for able-bodied people with less stigmatized mental illnesses, which is totally understandable & justified when directed at people who think their experiences are the same as mine or qualify them to speak over me, but i would rather have an able-bodied person with anxiety who has actually done the work to learn about issues affecting visibly disabled people (both those like & unlike myself), who believes in collective liberation, who has sources of scholarship from multiply marginalized crip theorists, and who respects me as a person to advocate for me than someone with my exact condition who operates from their personal lived experience alone and who only wants to improve their own conditions.
that’s a long response, and definitely not a comprehensive one, but i hope that helps some! & i wish you all the best with your work 🖤
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If the Gender Critical position on gender is correct, then angels are real
Disclaimer:
I want to provide some context, but before I do, I want to be very clear that although I do have an opinion about whether trans women are women or not, this write-up is ultimately not about that. But if we’re going to get to a baseline of understanding, we need to at least agree on some ground rules. This conversation is not about whether or not trans women are women; however, it is very important to understand what the two main arguments here, in order to understand where the breakdown of communication happened. Try not to engage in the argument of whether or not trans women are women, and just keep in mind that people may have a perspective different from yours, even acutely different to the point where it sounds absurd.
The Gender Critical Position:
I’ve put “gender critical” in the main title, but in all honesty, I don’t think all of these individuals would describe themselves as gender critical. However, this is the term that most authorities on the position would use about themselves, so in the interest of steering this conversation away from a “who’s right, who’s wrong” argument, it’s the term I’m going to be using. The gender critical position is that there is no such thing as gender, just sex, and “woman” as a word is a synonym for female, and is not, in any way, shape or form, different from female. But I think there is a broader category of people who believe that biological sex informs one’s gender to enough of a degree that trans women aren’t “really” women, but do believe that gender is a real concept distinct enough from sex to merit conversation.
The Gender Theory Position:
I initially put “transgender” but if we’re being honest, calling it “the transgender position” is a worse misnomer than calling the opposite view “the gender critical position.” Not all trans people ascribe to this viewpoint, and not all people who do ascribe to it are transgender. A better descriptor would be to call it ‘gender theory’ because when we’re talking about academia, this is in fact what gender theory is. The core understanding behind gender theory is that gender is tangibly distinct from sex. What specifically that means varies depending on the model within gender theory that you are using, but it’s generally the case that gender is a combination of how others see you and how you see yourself. If you see yourself as a woman but you have a masculine build and demeanor, it may be the case that someone who does not know your sex will treat you as a man. If you see yourself as a man and have a masculine build and demeanor, and people who don’t know your sex treat you as a man, then from a functional standpoint, you are in fact a man, because sex doesn’t really come into day-to-day interactions. Most gender theorists agree that this is heavily informed and influenced by one’s sex, but there is debate about whether that influence is strictly biological, strictly sociological, or a mix.
Now that that’s done, what the hell happened?
So. There are individuals who believe that there is no such thing as gender, or if there is, it is primarily biologically-informed, and there are those that believe that gender is separate from sex to the degree that the two can differ without issue.
So someone on Twitter asked what exactly it was that JK Rowling said that was so transphobic. Someone else pointed out that it was the whole “not regarding trans women as women” thing, and the response to that statement was this:
Trans women aren’t actual women though. That in itself is not a transphobic view. It’s simple fact. The vast majority of people hold that view but at the same time do not wish trans women any harm.
This is the point that I joined the conversation. When I read this, I immediately saw something that struck me as wrong. Depending on your position on gender theory vs gender criticalism, you may either see nothing wrong with this, or think that the issue is the first part: trans women aren’t actual women. But for me, the thing that struck out was the last sentence. “The vast majority of people hold that view but at the same time do not wish trans women any harm.”
Now, if you also hold the opinion that trans women aren’t actual women, you may see nothing wrong with this. But here’s the thing. Not only is this individual claiming a stance that most of the 6 billion people on earth share (which is true for almost no position), but because they are saying that it’s a “vast majority” that means that this is not just a generalization, but a statistic. Unlike something like, “most” or “many” this is “a vast majority” which, in my mind, says “85% of the population or higher.”
That’s a tangible claim, and it’s something I don’t believe is true. So I asked for evidence. I wanted to know where it was that this person got the statistic that the vast majority of people believe trans women aren’t (actual) women.
Clever folks in the audience might guess that already, there’s a problem here, which is that if you are coming from the gender critical position, that question itself is already absurd, because “women” is synonymous with biological females. Therefore, you’re essentially asking “can you prove that the vast majority of the population believes that trans women are biologically distinct to cis women.” Which, honestly yeah, it’s probably true that a vast majority of people believe that trans women are biologically distinct from cis women.
However, as I have established, the definition of gender is what is in question here. There are people who believe that gender is separate from sex, and therefore trans women would be actual women. They’re just using a different definition of “woman” than the gender critical stance. For the gender theorist, “trans” as a modifier has as much legitimacy on woman as “biological” does. So in order for it to be true that a vast majority of people believe that trans women aren’t actual women, it needs to be true that a vast majority of people agree with the gender critical stance of the definition of women as being synonymous with biological females. And this, I believe, is simply not the case.
I was, in this argument, taking a pyrrhic stance. I wasn’t trying to make a claim on which position was right, merely pointing out that it was an assumption that could easily be proved or disproved that “the vast majority of people” held this same belief.
But the interesting thing was, not a single person provided a link relevant to prove or disprove that statement. This conversation spanned four hours, and about a dozen people chimed in. A lot of people got bogged down in trying to prove or disprove whether trans people were the gender they say they are. This was on both sides of the debate. I stuck to my guns. About four people answered me saying that it was a biological fact that trans women weren’t the same as women. I responded pointing out that I wasn’t arguing that, but merely asking for proof that the vast majority of people agree with them.
I genuinely thought that someone would go to the trouble of looking up sources, but instead, the defense I was presented with was: “Most people believe things that are true. Since this is true, most people believe it.”
No one grabbed any stats. No one tried to justify their belief. Instead, multiple people shifted to claim that because most people believe things that are true, most people believe trans women aren’t women. As the kids say... there’s a lot to unpack here.
Most People Believe Things that are True
So going back to the title of this write-up: if the gender critical position on gender is correct, then angels are real. This is a bit of a hyperbole, but it’s based on this real interaction. When I asked for justification to why the author was assuming that the vast majority of people believe trans women aren’t women, the explanation I received was that the statement “trans women aren’t women” was such an indisputable fact that it would be impossible for people to not believe it, much like not believing the sky is blue. Most people have to believe it, because people believe facts, and this is a fact.
I’m sure a lot of people are having an opinion about that statement but again - I want people to set aside their opinions on that and really look at the construction of this argument. The issue I have is that it is a provably false claim that most people believe things that are true. More importantly, it’s a dangerous statement to make, because in order for “most people believe facts” to hold up the belief “trans women aren’t women” then a lot of other things would need to be facts as well, solely on the basis that most people believe them.
So in the interest of cleaning our palette from the hot gender topic, let’s take a break and talk about logic. From a philosophical stance, logic is the method of building an argument that makes sense. If an argument is valid, it means that the conclusion logically follows the premise. If an argument is valid and all of the statements are true, then the argument is also sound. An argument cannot be sound if it is invalid: ie, the conclusion does not logically follow the premise.
So an example that trips a lot of people up:
Some people are tall
Some people are men
Therefore, some men are tall
This is an invalid argument. One would not be able to say that the statement, “therefore, some men are tall” is true, even though some men are tall, because the conclusion doesn’t follow the premise. It’s possible based on this argument that the “some people” who are tall don’t include men at all.
A simpler way to see why this doesn’t work is to use something that you know is untrue. For example:
Some fruit are blue
Some fruit are bananas
Therefore, some bananas are blue
It’s easy to see in this construction, because we already know bananas aren’t blue, that the two statements refer to two different groups of fruit.
So the issue then, is that this stops being the case once we cross the 50% threshold. If we were to say
Most fruit are blue
Most fruit are bananas
Therefore, some bananas are blue
This would be a valid, but unsound argument, because it could not possibly be the case that no bananas are blue. It is valid because the conclusion follows the premise, it is unsound because it is not true that most fruit are blue, or that most fruit are bananas.
And here’s an easier example to see by using something we already know is true.
Most cats can hear
Most cats have four legs
Therefore, some cats that have four legs can hear
This is a very obviously true statement, because most cats that have four legs can hear. But it also makes sense. If 90% of cats can hear and 90% of cats have four legs, then there is a guarantee that these two demographics overlap by at least 80%; therefore, it is a valid argument regardless of whether it’s true or not.
So what’s the point? What am I getting at? Let’s read that statement again.”Most people have to believe that trans women aren’t women, because people believe facts, and this is a fact.”
So what is the argument being made here?
Most people believe facts
It is a fact that trans women aren’t women
Therefore, most people believe that trans women aren’t women.
Because of the way this argument is constructed, we can actually rearrange this argument to see if it’s valid. And when we rearrange that, we discover that the entire argument is begging the question.
Most people believe facts
Most people believe that trans women aren’t women
Therefore, trans women aren’t women.
The reason I can do this is because if “most people believe facts” is true, then anything that “most people” believe is, by virtue of the first statement, true. Based on the 50% rule described above, this is a valid, but unsound argument. I.e. the conclusion logically follows the premise given. If “most people believe facts” is true, then anything that “most people” believe would overlap with “most people believe facts” and therefore something most people believe would be a fact. If those two groups are true, that most people believe trans women aren’t women, and most people believe facts, then it has to be true that it is a fact that trans women aren’t women.
But that’s the trick with logical fallacies: they sound right if you’re not paying attention. As I said, the real argument here is begging the question. We are assuming without proof that “trans women aren’t women” is a true statement, and building the argument with that assumption in mind even though the only proof given that it is true is the argument we made to support the conclusion. In other words, the only reason “most people believe that trans women aren’t women” is true in this argument is because it must be true to support the assumed conclusion that trans women aren’t women.
Here’s an extremely simple example from Wikipedia:
The best color is whichever color is greenest
Therefore, green is the best color
And one which is a little more similar in construction to our original debate:
The Bible says that God is real
We can trust the Bible because anything God says is true
Therefore, God is real
If the fact “trans women aren’t women” relies on “most people believe ‘trans women aren’t women’ is a fact” being true, then it makes more sense why someone would put up huge walls, assume someone disagreed with their core argument despite not stating so, and refuse to provide evidence, when presented with a logical, reasonably-presented explanation as to why that doesn’t make any sense.
It doesn’t make any sense to assume that just because the majority of the population believe something, it is therefore true. And I think most people would realize that fairly quickly, because it isn’t even technically what was said. What was said was that “since most people believe things that are true, most people believe this true statement” and not “this statement is true because most people believe it.” It was, again, simply assumed that both statements were true, because they needed to be true for the real conclusion to hold water. But as I already explained, because of the way majorities work, if it is a true statement that most people believe things that are true, it does logically follow that if most people believe something, it is a true statement.
So this is an unsound argument because it is obviously not true “most people believe things that are true.” The example I used was belief in angels. I didn’t cite sources, because of the limiting nature of Twitter, but there are plenty of places where you can go to check that at least 7 out of 10 Americans believe that angels are real.
So if it is true that the majority of people believe things that are true, and the majority of people believe in angels, then it stands to reason that you could make the logical conclusion that angels are real. “Angels are real” is as valid of a conclusion based on this argument as “trans women aren’t women.” We’re using the same assumption that most people believe things that are true, and taking a statement most people believe, and deciding whether or not a thing is true based solely on that merit.
So this is why I titled my piece, “if the gender critical position on gender is correct, then angels are real” because both conclusions come from the same argument - an assumption that people believe things that are true, and something which most people, supposedly, believe.
There is a flaw in the argument that I am making. It’s not necessarily the case that most people believe things that are only true. After all, if we assume that most people believe things that are true only most of the time instead of all of the time, then it allows for the possibility that sometimes, some people believe things that are untrue.
I haven’t been arguing from that position because based on the way it was presented originally, it is an unstated assumption that most people believe only things that are true. It is being presented as reasonable to assume that most people believe that trans women aren’t women solely on the basis that the statement “trans women aren’t women” is (assumed to be) true. If there is no flexibility for “trans women are women” to be a part of a valid argument, then the other part of the argument must be “most people believe only things that are true.”
For example:
Part A
Most people believe things that are true most of the time
Therefore, sometimes the things most people believe are not true
Part B
Most people believe that angels are real
Angels are not real is a conclusion one could make even if all of these premises are true
And again our original, but broken down like this:
Part A
Most people believe things that are true most of the time
Therefore, sometimes the things most people believe are not true
Part B
Most people believe trans women aren’t women
Trans women are women is a conclusion one could make even if all of these premises are true.
Because “trans women are women” is not a conclusion the gender critical stance is allowing for, and these items without any external proof is what’s being offered up, then it must be the case that people only believe things that are true.
And at the end of the day, it’s simply not the case that most people believe things that are true. If I wanted to, I could trot out a lot of data and statistics and studies that make it extremely obvious that people’s beliefs align far more to how they were raised and what their political alignment is than whether or not a thing is true.
If a core belief is created by political alignment and environment, and not inherent trueness, that changes what it means when “the vast majority” believes something. Essentially, a belief can be true, but that isn’t why people hold the belief.
Conclusion:
After four hours, there were only two people who provided sources of any kind. The first was someone providing a list of resources proving that trans people are the gender they say they are. There were over 25 links in this list, and I didn’t check all of them, because it wasn’t relevant to what I was trying to learn. The other person said, “I polled 20 of my closest friends and they all agreed with me” which was supposed to prove that the vast majority of the 6 billion people on the planet believed that way, then provided a link to a study of 600 registered voters in Idaho, asking specifically about a ballot measure having to do with whether or not trans women should use the women’s changing room. 60% of the people surveyed said that they would vote against a measure to allow trans women to use women’s changing rooms, which does not answer the question I was asking either.
For starters, 60% is not “the vast majority.” It is a majority but I wouldn’t call it vast. Secondly, a poll on a vote in Iowa cannot possibly apply to everyone. And even assuming it could, there are reasons other than the belief that trans women aren’t women that someone could vote against this bill. Perhaps they hadn’t made up their mind, or felt that because trans women are at risk of assault in gender-exclusive bathrooms/changing rooms, they should have a separate changing room anyway. Perhaps they’re aware of current language in a bill, and although they agree with the premise that trans women should be allowed to use women’s changing rooms, there’s a rider in the bill that undermines something else they care about more. Perhaps they watched a propaganda video that incorrectly stated that men would be allowed in women’s changing rooms as a result. It is simply the case that the person providing that link believed that it was true that most people believed trans women aren’t women, and ascribed everything else, including the conclusion “trans women aren’t women” to that belief.
My point is, throughout the whole discussion, not a single person was really addressing the question I was asking. I don’t know if this was because they assumed I was asking in bad faith, but I would guess it’s because of the disclaimer I mentioned at the top. It is incredibly easy for this conversation to devolve into the skeptic argument of how to prove that someone is the gender they say they are. And once we devolve into that argument, we reach an impasse that neither side is willing to compromise on.
In her video Transphobia, Abigail Thorn explains that so long as the skeptic argument continues, we can’t have any more meaningful discussions about trans rights. If you can’t prove that trans women are women, you can’t prove that they deserve protections as women (hence why Thorn’s stance is that this is a transphobic position. From the gender theorist’s point of view, this unyielding skepticism actively prevents human rights from being extended to trans people). The mistake I made is trying to take a pyrrhic stance on the question of whether or not trans people are the gender they say they are. By suspending judgment, I was able to supersede the “trans women aren’t really women” portion and go directly to “what is the percentage of people who take a gender critical stance?”
I don’t need to know which position is true to answer how many people believe which position. The truth in this case does not matter. I don’t need to know whether or not abortion counts as murder to find out how many people are pro-choice versus pro-life.
But no one else is on board. My questioning the idea that most people believe trans women aren’t women was treated as questioning the conclusion that trans women aren’t women. And at the end of the day what bothers me about it isn’t the conclusion. It’s the blatant misapplication of logic. I have never understood the stance that trans women aren’t women, not because I don’t understand the argument the gender critical position takes, but because I seem to understand it even better than they understand it themselves, and recognize that, at the end of the day, it makes about as much sense as believing in angels.
And for the record, studies have repeatedly demonstrated that more people believe trans people are the gender they say they are, even if they hold the belief that their access to gendered spaces should be restricted.
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How To Get Rid Of Your Self-Limiting Beliefs
“It’s not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the most power!”
- Robert T Kiyosaki
Our beliefs are so powerful that they dictate the direction of our lives. We only see what we believe to be true. We only attract what we believe we deserve to receive. Our beliefs are the lens through which we see the world. Unless we change our beliefs, it is unlikely that our situations will change. Our beliefs have been formed since the day we were born. Our environment, upbringing, education, and experiences have all come together to create who we are today. And just like positive experiences add to who we are, negative experiences tend to create walls within us for protection.
I remember when I was in primary school, I participated in several school competitions from art to math to science. My dad told me that the secret to becoming a winner is to think like a winner. And the winner does not let doubt, particularly self-doubt, enter their mind. I grew up with a great life coach, whom I’m blessed to call ‘dad.’ But even then, I still had a lot of self-limiting beliefs creep in. I had doubts, insecurities, and fears. As I got older, I started pinpointing what those limiting beliefs were and tried to get rid of them one by one.
Telling yourself that one of your beliefs is invalid can feel like you are lying to and robbing yourself. But the fundamental truth is that beliefs are at the core of who we are.
Here are the steps I had to go through each time I worked on removing a self-limiting belief.
1. Identify what your limiting beliefs are.
Identify the beliefs that you want to work on and overcome.
Examples of such beliefs are:
I am not good enough.
I won't ever find love and be in a happy, committed relationship.
I don’t believe I can start my own business and make it succeed.
I want to ask for what I want, but I believe I will be rejected again.
I can never make money from my passion.
I don’t trust the opposite sex.
Life is unfair.
It can be extremely hard and we may feel that it would be very difficult to try to challenge these beliefs. But if you’re reading this now, it means that you realize some of your beliefs are holding you back in life and you want to work through them.
Congratulations! It’s time to make some more progress.
2. Identify the root causes of those beliefs
Now that you know what your limiting beliefs are, it’s time to uncover how these were formed in the first place. Who or what planted the seed within you?
If you often find yourself feeling that you’re not good enough even though no one is saying that to you now, can you identify who in your childhood said that to you? Did your parents or caretakers make you feel like you’re not good enough? Did someone at school say so? What about now? Do you still find that you subconsciously surround yourself with people who think that you’re not good enough?
If you don’t believe that you will ever find love and be in a healthy, loving relationship, is it because you grew up with divorced parents? How did your last relationship end? Are you still hung up on your last relationship? Have you worked through your intimacy and abandonment issues?
If you don’t believe you can start your own business and that you will likely fail, root causes may be that (1) you don’t believe in your own capability. You don’t have enough self-confidence and self-belief. (2) you’ve seen many businesses close to you fail (3) people around you, family and close friends, believe that starting a business and becoming successful is something that one in a million can do.
If you are too scared to ask for what you want because you have been rejected too many times in the past, identify why you got rejected. A lot of times, this has nothing to do with you but to do with them and their criteria. And if it’s in regards to love, remember, people cannot give what they do not have within themselves. A lot of the time, it’s about them and their circumstances in life, not about you.
If you don’t believe that you can make money from your passion, it could be because (1) you don’t believe in yourself (2) you have been told to believe that passions are not to be pursued professionally. This belief could also be passed onto you from your parents because parents oftentimes pass on their beliefs to their children.
If you don’t trust the opposite sex, it could be because you’ve been cheated on before, you grew up with a parent who cheats and witnessed the pain, or you have friends who sleep around so you learn the tricks of the game.
If you believe life is unfair, this could be because you focus on what you don’t have and what you lack rather than being grateful for what you do have. This could be because you compare other people’s front-row highlights to your behind-the-scene lows. This could be because you always focus on the negatives. This pattern likely was formed while growing up. You may have grown up with a caretaker or a parent whose view of the world was negative. Therefore, you started adopting those beliefs and focused on the negatives as well.
3. Challenge your beliefs.
Now you’ve identified your beliefs and the cause of them, it’s time to challenge those beliefs by finding the other side of the argument. Most of the time, we surround ourselves with people with the same beliefs. So our limiting beliefs get reassured and reaffirmed, making us feel that our beliefs are right and that it is the only way to see the world. But this is not true. As you’re reading this, you’ve probably already realized that you have limiting beliefs that are holding you back and you want to get rid of them for good. In order to change your beliefs, you must change your environment. Remember, we are a product of our environment and our brain subconsciously mirrors the people and things we are in closest relation to.
For example:
If you don’t believe that you can start your own business, then start looking at businesses that succeed. Make friends with and talk to entrepreneurs who have started businesses and are successful. Surround yourself with people whose beliefs challenge your own limiting belief as much as you can so that you eventually erase your old belief from your mind and adopt the new belief.
If you don’t trust the opposite sex, then this unconsciously makes you attract the opposite sex who are not to be trusted. Your limiting belief in this area also sets a low standard for what you should and should not accept which does not go with what your heart truly desires. Sometimes we start tricking ourselves as a self-defense mechanism so that we do not get hurt. Trust issues are hard to overcome and I still combat them myself. Fully giving trust to the opposite sex right away can be hard when you’ve been hurt in the past. Challenge this belief by becoming friends with men and women who do not play around and only date one person at a time. By doing this, you will start to see the other side of the coin. Your existing belief will get challenged and slowly you will start changing your belief.
If you don’t believe you can make money from your passion, then start making friends with people who successfully turn their passion into a profitable business. Learn from them. Absorb the good energy from them. See how they do things. Surround yourself with people whose beliefs challenge your old beliefs. This will slowly change your beliefs.
If you believe life is unfair and realize that it’s because you have a pattern of focusing on the negatives, then start by removing yourself from negative people. A lot of the time, we continue to hang out with people with the same beliefs as us because it’s comfortable. But comfort is exactly what’s stopping us from growing and making changes in life. Most of our learnings are unconscious. Hence, we need to be mindful of the environment we put ourselves in. Realize that some old attachments can be let go of if they continue to bring us down. Make room for new connections in your life - those who embody the thought, emotional, and behavioral patterns you want to adopt. If you want to be more positive, surround yourself with positive people. This might feel strange and not comfortable in the beginning. But slowly, you will get to see a new perspective, and you will be able to see the glass half full, rather than half empty. Or even better, you will start being thankful that you even have a glass!
4. Keep a journal for your thoughts & beliefs.
Changing habits is hard. Changing our beliefs is harder. But once we can change a belief, our habit will automatically change. This is because our beliefs lay as a baseline for our thoughts which drive our emotions and actions.
In the beginning, it will feel like you’re forcing yourself to believe in something that you do not believe in at all. Try to forget the old belief. Remind yourself of the good reasons why the new belief is more believable. Surround yourself with people who embody the new belief. Read content that reinforces the new belief.
Journal. Observe and record your thoughts. Pay attention to your inner voice. Observe the little things in life that could help you reinforce the new belief. When voices of self-doubts come up, try shutting them down and canceling those thoughts out. Make your new inner voice louder than your old inner voice through positive affirmations and repetitive visualization.
Slowly, one day, when you successfully adopt the new belief, you will feel like a brand new person. You will even forget that you used to have that old belief and what it felt like to have a belief that held you back for so long.
Our Happiness Planner app now has a voice note feature that is designed to help you practice empowering your own inner voice. All voice files can be downloaded directly to your computer from our web app.
Our Growth Mindset, Self-love, and Confidence Journal are also designed to help you tackle your self-limiting beliefs. Pick the one that is most suitable for your situation.
Remember, it all starts in the mind - and you have the power over that. You just have to keep stretching its limit.
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr
#happiness planner#the happiness planner#happiness planner blog#mo seetubtim#brandmentalist#self-limiting beliefs#limiting beliefs#how to change your beliefs#how to get rid of your self limiting beliefs#self-improvement
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tw: rant, mention of anxiety, dead naming, invalidating, and homophobia.
Yeah. My sister just told me she'd never call me by a different name because it's "hard to get used to" and "not your name".
Told me I can marry whoever I want, and she doesn't care if im anything but straight, but said I probably shouldn't tell her about dates, milestones, or even introduce her to my significant other if they are anything other than a cis man.
I told her about my issues with my personal anxiety, and that I’d love to go get diagnosed or something but it’s just too much to even think about talking to mom about it. Mind you, she already goes to therapy every week, and is diagnosed with anxiety.
She told me what I was going through was mild compared to what she and others go through. That I was normal, and there was no need to want therapy. That I should never want to identify as anything other than female and use she/her because she could never think of me as anything other than a sister.
Basically said my opinion doesn’t matter.
That I’m not allowed to have my own thoughts and feelings.
That the “sometimes it’s hard to explain” doesn’t apply to my anxiety.
That I should just be normal.
That what I go through and ignore, is nothing.
But hers is.
Her experience is difficult. Her opinions are what matters. Her anxiety is the baseline for anxiety diagnoses. That her opinion of normal is right.
That she is right. About every.single.feeling. I have about myself. That she can see right through me.
Yeah. And then she proceeded to talk about me to her friend using the wrong name and pronouns. In front of my face.
Obviously, I’m in the wrong here.
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some (very long) Hiro metas and a Kisa-n-Tohru tangent
seeing the "Hiro is a brat!" "Hiro just has trauma!" debate has made me ponder…
Like, not to compare trauma and argue who had what worse and invalidate suffering, but my immediate reaction was kind of, "Wait, what? I mean, okay, I guess Hiro did just have some trauma re: Kisa, but like, overall…???"
So it's time for some scrutiny!
I’mma talk myself through this in a post.
Here we have Hiro. He's a Souma, which is pretty damn traumatic in its own right, and possessed by a Zodiac spirit, which is even worse. He's part of an elite inner circle, privileged with status and wealth; but on the flip side, there's still people in the family who look down on the Zodiac, and Hiro's looking at a future of isolation (afraid of looking like a monster, afraid to betray the family secret, not properly free to pick his own job, may or may not be able to live outside the estate, love life is gonna be a disaster when puberty hits). And Akito, whom the possessed part of him loves deeply and desperately, tends to weaponize his own love and withhold it when someone displeases him, or turn hurtful when someone needs punishment.
Okay, so that's bad. But Hiro shares that with all of the Zodiac members, that's just the baseline trauma, and there's some compounding issues at play that Hiro lacks:
- Hiro, as the Sheep, isn't especially hated. Kyou, for instance, has a bad attitude that's partly due to the entire clan ragging on him for being a horrible abomination of a monster, comparing him unfavorably to Idealized Yuki, and telling him he's gonna be locked up in a one-room house on the estate to suffer out his life--and that's not even counting how being the Cat affected how his immediate family treated him. Haru, as the Ox, got ~harmlessly teased~ about being a big dumb slow stupid ox by the family so much that he started flipping over to a Black personality to violently vent his feelings.
- Hiro's family life is, as far as I can tell, actually ideal. His parents didn't reject him (Momiji, Kyou re: his sperm donor, Rin), split up over him (I suspect this is what happened for Kagura, because her parents argued a lot when she was young, and I wonder about the fact that Ritsu's dad isn't at the onsen? And there's no mention of Kisa's dad? But then again, we're told repeatedly that Yuki and Ayame have a father and he lives in the same house as their mother and I've never seen proof of this man's existence), be coolly indifferent to him (Ayame after Yuki was born and he got off the hook but honestly I think that was a blessing to him, Yuki, Hatori), or get extremely overprotective (Kyou re: his mom, I'd argue this is partly why Ritsu's mom is so stressed out, and also I'd argue this may be why Kisa's mom hits her limit). In fact, Hiro's the only one who we can definitely say has two parents, who live together, and have a good relationship, and actively enjoy nurturing their child. Also Satsuki's completely adorkable. (This puts strain on Hiro in other ways, lol, but at least he shares that feeling with his dad.)
- Hiro, as the Sheep, probably doesn't particularly stand out. I'm guessing his hair color isn't particularly notable? So he probably hasn't been singled out for teasing from people who don't even know about the curse, like Kyou and Haru and Kisa. (No one's not-thirsty enough to have teased Ayame or Yuki for their looks, I'm pretty sure, and Momiji can pull the biracial card, even if that wouldn't stop people, and went to international school, where people probably found other ways to pick on you.)
So where, for Hiro, does his particular extremely combative, condescending, scathing, sarcastic attitude come from?
That's not to say none of those things above could be factors. It's extremely possible that the family found dumb things to say to him because, y'know, clearly it's impossible to hurt a kid's feelings if you're arrogant enough about it. And like Kyouko says, you can't really judge someone's family situation based on their behavior, and vice versa. I'd expect Hiro to be super well-adjusted, coming from a loving nuclear family, but kids are people and they will turn out how they turn out both because of and in spite of how they're raised. And maybe Hiro's experienced some bullying about whatever, and his instant sharp-tongued retorts became the default in response to that. Hiro didn't tell us any of this, but who knows!
Or maybe Hiro's difficult phase is just a phase. Maybe that's how all his classmates talk to each other?? I can easily see that being a thing, especially with boys, both friendly with friends or aggressive with people you want to treat badly, and maybe Hiro's so much in the habit of it that he doesn't think first (and doesn't care enough about Tohru and her feelings to exercise a little self-control). Like this post that points out how it's a Definite Thing that part of Hiro's lording-little-brat arrogance is because he's in his final year of elementary school and he's everyone's senpai and that sort of thing is indulged because adults know he'll get cruelly humbled next year when he's a baby kouhai.
But I think maybe, what's most relevant with Hiro, is that because of his lack of obvious outside factors to fight against for personal growth, his growing pains as a character are internal. He's fighting against himself. AKA, it's only logical that he's a tiny little shit and his character arc is about growing into someone who isn't a jerkface. Which can be just as difficult and traumatic as standing up to your parents, or Akito, or society, or your classmates. Hiro has to assert himself against himself, and himself won't punch him in the face or lock him in his room but it's so easy to just put the blame elsewhere and let himself get away with it and give him a pass and stop trying to improve.
Now I wanna analyze the timeline!
Aside from a few select Zodiac members, Akito hasn't really done anything super terrible that we've heard about until Hiro's in 3rd grade. That's when Hatori and Kana ask to get married, and Hatori gets injured. Akito has been a jerk before, and Akito is very clearly in favor of a hierarchy that puts God at the top getting all the love. But Shigure and Ayame have talked about their sexcapades with no issue, and Kagura's always going on about her undying love for and future marriage with Kyou, and this is the first incident that says those things aren't allowed.
Sometime not terribly long after that, Shigure gets kicked out of the Main House. This ramps up Akito's hatred of women, though Hiro wouldn't know the betrayal behind it and might not have a clue about Akito's vendetta.
Right about the time Hiro starts 6th grade, he feels compelled to tell Akito that he has feelings for Kisa. (I'm pulling this from the Collector's Edition timeline. In the actual story I keep seeing the English being like "I always thought Hiro hated me / I thought Hiro hated me for a long time" with Kisa then immediately turning around and saying "We were bffs all through my elementary school years / Hiro always played with me until this year", so I heavily suspect the translators keep getting a modifier in the wrong place or something because wtf.) Akito kicks Kisa's ass and Kisa takes two weeks to heal. (This isn't Akito's fault. It's also not Kisa's fault, obviously, because Hiro didn't even tell her yet that he liked her. So that means it's all Hiro's fault.) Hiro's horrified, because he could have had an idea this would be bad but he probably didn't expect it to all be taken out on Kisa. After all, Hatori got hurt, not Kana, and Rin hasn't been pushed out a window yet.
Hiro abruptly cuts off his interaction with Kisa, to protect her from getting punished by Akito again. Kisa goes back to 7th grade, where she's just transitioned from Top Of The Heap Senpai and Just A Child So We Can Let Things Slide to Lowly Kouhai Who Needs To Learn Proper Social Behaviors, and she's being bullied, and her bff won't talk to her, and her Talking Things Out skills are having zero effect, so she just stops talking, and now her mom is upset, and then she starts skipping school, and now her mom is really upset. And Hiro was probably unaware of a lot of this, until it got really bad several months in, since he stopped seeing his bff.
And Hiro's agonizing and worrying about it, when suddenly Tohru swoops in and magically saves the day, bringing hope where there was none and erasing suffering, right when Hiro was probably nerving himself up to try to help somehow without bringing Akito's wrath back down on Kisa.
Oh I wanna have a tangent about Kisa!
Timeline again, but from Kisa's point of view:
Kisa and Hiro are only a year apart, so they've always been super close. Hiro is her bff.
Now Kisa is starting 7th grade.
Kisa does something Bad. It's not clear what, but it's Bad Enough to make Akito hate her and also seriously beat her up, so that's Pretty Bad.
Actually it's Really Very Bad, because after that Hiro hates her too.
Anyway Kisa's starting 7th grade! Yay! New school, new girls, new pressures. In my personal experience, middle school is when girls are at their nastiest (after they hit high school, they start to chill out. Obviously you still get jerks, because people, but there was a little more "live and let live" attitude), so I always assume this is part of the problem. Kisa's classmates start to bully her. Kisa tries out her conflict resolution skills, like the adult she's expected to be becoming, and it only causes the situation to escalate. Her self-esteem has already had the crap kicked out of it, and hasn't healed in 2+ weeks. Her bff hates her and won't talk to her.
And then Kisa just gives up without telling anyone why.
Tohru's got a very valid point, that it's hard to talk about the things that actually bother you. It's hard to ask for help. I can complain all day long about little things, but I can't put big issues into words without spontaneously bawling? Which is really fricken embarrassing???
But I think the reason Tohru strikes such a chord with Kisa, and is able to instantly win her over, is because she talks with such quiet feeling about being scared her mom wouldn't love her anymore. Because that feeling was very, very real for Tohru--grounded in the fact that Kyouko actually did abandon her once.
And Kisa recognized that, and realized that Tohru--unlike everyone else--actually got it, because that's exactly what Kisa's feeling. Because Kisa's gotten along with her mother very well all her life, if what we see of her with Hiro is any indication. Except that suddenly Akito hates her. Suddenly Hiro hates her. It's a very real fear, once Kisa's mom starts getting stressed about the not-talking, that Kisa's mom is going to stop loving her just like everyone else is suddenly doing. Because that's literally what's happening to Kisa.
Tohru's not just a warm, loving, accepting, motherly presence. Tohru's someone who can very viscerally relate to Kisa's terror. Of course Kisa clings to her.
Back to Hiro though!
I think we could also stand to apply to Hiro the tried-and-true, "The things you hate most in other people are the things you hate most about yourself," because it is both true in general and a definite thing Fruits Basket does (for a quick example, see Yuki saying he hates dependent people [while Kyou's like "that's you tho"] and Rin hating Yuki [because he's dependent on Haru the way she is guiltly dependent on Haru]).
I went to rewatch the episode to look at all the specific things Hiro says about Tohru and other people, only to realize the obvious flaw that like everything he says is an insult and there's too much there for me to unpack here, so I chose just a few statements that were really specifically phrased (I can't stand people who X).
I can't stand people who let themselves be pushed around so easily
Hiro also talks a couple times about Tohru having no sense of identity or agency, or not having thoughts of her own. So this reveals Hiro's inner struggle with his own complacency. He's got that bond with Akito, he's got a life that's at least partly set in stone already for him, and he's not doing anything to fight it. He didn't hide his feelings for Kisa from Akito, and then when Kisa got hurt Hiro never told her why ("It's my fault because I told Akito I like you and that made him mad, it's nothing you did") and never called Akito out on it (he can't blame Akito but when he talks about it you can tell he also knows he should blame Akito because Hiro can figure out that that was wrong. Maybe because, unlike so many others of the Zodiac, he was raised in a sensible and loving family and he knows that Akito's behavior isn't normal, isn't right, isn't acceptable).
This is probably why, even while using "I'm just a kid" to get away with his behavior, he's so frustrated with not being an adult. Because, to him, an adult wouldn't just let these things happen. He's wrong, on one hand, but on the other hand the maturity that will come with his personal growth will let him be the kind of adult he envisions.
I can't stand inconsiderate people
Hiro knows he's a jerk. He knows his snappy retorts piss people off--he enjoys that. He's super jealous about Tohru and doesn't care about her feelings, and him taking his anger out on Tohru has been hurting Kisa's feelings and that hasn't caused Hiro to check himself yet either.
He knows this, he hates this, he's not ready to deal with it yet and exercise self-control, so he's the niceness police about other people being rude.
(I think it's interesting that, when Hiro starts maturing, even though he still has that tendency to rudeness, there's also a hint that it will one day turn into a frankness that isn't just "a blunt insult is the same as honesty right?" That time when Hiro realizes that Kyou and Tohru have Feelings and he's like "Um, wait, is that okay? Are we just not going to talk about the fact that Kyou is going to be locked up alone in a room for the rest of his life???" He asks the tough questions lol. I won't give him credit for bringing up Tohru's dad issues because he was just doing that to be a dick, there was zero maturity there. In another world, though, he would've been the only other person besides Kyou [who already knew the details] to think to question Tohru about it.)
People who whine about their situation while accepting no responsibility are so irritating
Again...Hiro hates the whole situation that happened with Kisa, and hates his part in it, and didn't do anything to fix it before Tohru came along. And even then, he still hasn't fessed up to Kisa about the real circumstances. He knows he owes Kisa that, and he hasn't taken responsibility yet.
This ties into the complacency issue, but with the added fact that Hiro's said it's shitty and unfair but still is going along with it without trying to stop it. So he's an extra jerk, but he still hasn't stepped up yet.
I think maybe this is why Tohru's speech touches him, even after he just called her out on magical Mary Sue emotional healing powers. He's been nothing but his worst self around Tohru--bad enough that it's not only just Tohru but Kisa he's been upsetting as well--he's been bratty and insulting and pushed Tohru around and stolen her property and treated her like shit and--
And instead of rolling her eyes, or getting fed up and firing back, or any other response that show her low expectations for Hiro…
Tohru just stands there and says it's brave, to admit you have flaws, and that she has faith that he can and will make good on his responsibilities. Even though nothing at all that Hiro's done--and he's very well aware of this--gives any indication that he would even try. Let alone succeed.
The way that Hiro, when people call him a brat, tends to then embrace it and get even brattier--this makes me think he's the kind of kid who lives down to people's expectations, rather than trying to prove them wrong. So when Tohru without hesitation sets the bar high like that, and it pisses Hiro off--
He's gonna show you, stupid woman. You think he's a prince? You're gonna be floored at the kind of prince he'll be.
(Eventually. Much later.)
#sobdasha fic adjacent#fruits basket#me getting ready to hit post: is it too late to go back in a put a sheeple joke in the last section#it's probably to late to squeeze in a sheeple joke#well anyway#Hiro wants to be a stubborn and independent ram#but he's pissed that he acts like a mindless sheep instead
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SPFPP 210: Delayed Rejection - It’s Fine Til it isn’t
First thing’s first, I did end up not getting ghosted ha! Kelsy started her herpes journey on Herpbler and was inspired by Ella Dawson’s anonymous profile there.
Kelsy became loud in her personal life and on social media about her herpes status. She shares a story about having flown out to meet with a guy she had been talking to. He introduced her to 25ish of his friends. They were intimate and the sex was average. Not getting oral is NOW a boundary for her, but she made an exception because he checked the boxes. He said he just needed time to be comfy with it. He got real quiet on her after the visit was over and she wondered why. He eventually shared he wasn’t comfortable with her having herpes and he’s a nurse too so he had the information.
We discuss how to navigate people saying they’re okay with us having herpes and then later not being okay with it. Managing the emotional labor with boundaries is key. They might already have herpes, but they just don’t know because of how tricky testing is as well as all the misinformation that’s out there making it challenging. So how do we REALLY know who’s okay with us having herpes? We don’t, man. It’s unfortunate but we are always taking a chance with someone. So all we can do is measure people’s actions and the consistency of that alongside their words. People are willing to unlearn stigma for themselves. We have to trust that.
What having herpes REALLY means is the same thing for any other condition. We learn to give our body the best opportunity to operate at its natural capacity. A health condition creates a baseline for us to work with. As herpes is a highlight to an underlying trigger, we speak to Kelsy’s suicide ideation after her diagnosis. We also speak to her fear of abandonment and the narrative “What’s wrong with me?” as the topic when not being chosen given one’s weight of your value as it relates to your herpes diagnosis. Having herpes added to her security in herself only because she was willing to explore this within herself.
Accepting my status doesn’t mean you’re a good person, and rejecting my status doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Don’t put all that weight onto someone accepting your diagnosis to the point where you overlook the red flags and other incompatibilities. Not wanting herpes is perfectly fine. Hell, I didn’t want herpes and here I am. It’s ok to not want herpes, what’s not ok is invalidating the wholeness of a person. I think this is an excellent follow up from episode 208 where I talk about '“lowering my voice” when it comes to having herpes and sharing what I do to keep those around me comfortable. It isn’t brave to be loud about our status, it’s confronting internalized stigma that is. I know I personally have some work to do around that for sure. Talking about sex is challenging and not “normal”. Filtering in people receptive to sexual health communication through sex positivity and people’s relationship to mental health leads to a higher likelihood of a positive disclosure and much more pleasant interaction. We get to a point where we have to stop caring so much about what other people think in the short term for the sake of our own bigger picture of wholeness.
We discuss how we can benefit from communicating about past challenges in relationships. Having the sexual health talk should be just as normal as speaking about past relationships. Another thing to consider is how we look at compatibilities outside just herpes status?
She also shared an experience she had disclosing her status to a health care worker who hadn’t known their herpes information. They were unaware that HSV1 can be genital story. WE ARE THE EXPERTS OF OUR EXPERIENCES! Take the opportunities to share experiences where it’s safe to do so for ya! Look at who has herpes that we’re NOT hearing from! Most people are okay with their status, don’t know or it just isn’t an issue for them. The younger folks navigating stigma correctly! They’re communicating, utilizing resources, becoming empowered far earlier than those before us. Now we have Safe Slut, Positively Positive, Shana Singleton, etc. TikTok… the list goes on.
The end of stigma isn’t a universal ending of stigma. It comes at an individual level to be shared as needed and within the communities of those who’ve ended it within themselves. For Kelsy, it took 6-7 years to hit up a therapist in regards to the trauma that came from the relationship/person who gave her herpes. Empowerment and taking care of yourself is asking people about their status despite being someone positive in their status. Value yourself! Having a support system, their friend, and resources helped her not end her life. @herp3tic Goddess
#herpetic goddess#herp3tic goddess#spfpp herpetic goddess#spfpp 210 delayed rejection its fine til it isn't#spfpp rejection#spfpp herpes disclosure
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Inadequate federal privacy regulations leave US startups lagging behind Europe
Cillian Kieran Contributor
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Cillian Kieran is CEO and co-founder of Ethyca, a New York-based privacy company.
“A new law to follow” seems unlikely to have featured on many business wishlists this holiday season, particularly if that law concerned data privacy. Digital privacy management is an area that takes considerable resources to whip into shape, and most SMBs just aren’t equipped for it.
But for 2021, I believe startups in the United States should be demanding that legislators deliver a federal privacy law. Yes, they should demand to be regulated.
For every day that goes by without agreed-upon federal standards for data, these companies lose competitive edge to the rest of the world. Soon there may be no coming back.
For every day that goes by without agreed-upon federal standards for data, these companies lose competitive edge to the rest of the world.
Businesses should not view privacy and trust infrastructure requirements as burdensome. They should view them as keys that can unlock the full power of the data they possess. They should stop thinking about privacy as compliance and begin thinking of it as a harmonization of the customer relationship. The rewards flowing to each party from such harmonization are bountiful. The U.S. federal government is in a unique position to help realize those rewards.
To understand what I mean, cast your eyes to Europe, where it’s become clear that the GDPR was nowhere near the final destination of EU data policy. Indeed it was just the launchpad. Europe’s data regime can frustrate (endless cookie banners anyone?), but it has set an agreed-upon standard of protection for citizens and elevated their trust in internet infrastructure.
For example, a Deloitte survey found that 44% of consumers felt that organizations cared more about their privacy after GDPR came into force. With a baseline standard established — seatbelts in every car — Europe is now squarely focused on raising the speed limit.
EU lawmakers recently unveiled plans for “A Europe fit for the Digital Age.” in the words of Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, it’s a plan to make Europe “the most data-empowered continent in the world.”
Europe’s data strategy aims to tip the scales away from big tech
Here are some pillars of the plan. While reading, imagine that you are a U.S.-based health tech startup. Imagine the disadvantage you would face against a similar, European-based company, if these initiatives came to fruition:
A regulatory framework covering data governance, access and reuse between businesses, between businesses and government, and within administrations to create incentives for data sharing.
A push to make public-sector data more widely available by opening up “high-value datasets” to enable their reuse to foster innovation.
Support for cloud infrastructure, platforms and systems to support the data reuse goals, with investments in European high-impact projects on European data spaces and trustworthy, energy-efficient cloud infrastructures.
Sector-specific actions to build European data spaces that focus on specific areas such as industrial manufacturing, the Green New Deal, mobility or health.
There are so many ways governments can help businesses maximize their data leverage in ways that improve society. But the American public currently has no appetite for that. They don’t trust the internet.
They want to see Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos sweating it out under Senate Committee questioning. Until we trust our leaders to protect basic online rights, widespread data empowerment initiatives will not be politically viable.
In Europe, the equation is totally different. GDPR was the foundation of a European data strategy, not the capstone.
While the EU powers forward, America’s ability to enact federal privacy reform is stymied by two quintessentially American privacy sticking points:
Can I personally sue a business that violates my privacy rights?
Can individual states build additional privacy protections on top of a federal law, or will it act as a nationwide “ceiling”?
These are important questions that must be answered as a function of our country’s unique cultural and political history. But currently they’re the roadblocks that stall American industry while the EU, seatbelts secure, begins speeding down the data autobahn.
If you want a visceral example of how this gap is already impacting American businesses, look no further than the fallout of the ECJ’s Schrems II decision in the middle of last summer. Europe’s highest court invalidated a key agreement used to transfer EU data back to the U.S., essentially because there’s no federal law to ensure EU citizens’ data would be protected once it lands in America.
The legal wrangling continues, but the impact of this decision was so considerable that Facebook legitimately threatened to quit operating Europe if the Schrems II ruling was enforced.
While issues generated for smaller businesses don’t grab as many headlines, rest assured that on the front lines of this issue, I’ve seen many SMB’s data operations thrown into total chaos. In other words, the geopolitical battle for a data-driven business edge is already well underway. We are losing.
To sum it up, the United States increasingly finds itself in a position that’s unprecedented since the dawn of the internet era: laggard. American tech companies still innovate at a fantastic rate, but America’s inability to marshal private sector practices to reflect evolving public sentiment threatens to become a yoke around the economy’s neck.
The catastrophic response to the COVID-19 pandemic fell far short of other nations’ efforts. Our handling of data privacy protection costs far less in human terms, but it grows astronomically more expensive in dollar terms with every passing day.
The technology exists to treat users respectfully in a cost-effective manner. The public will is there.
The business will is there. The legislative capability is there.
That’s why I believe America’s startup community should demand federal lawmakers follow the recent example of Europe, India, New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa and Canada. They need to introduce federally guaranteed modern data privacy protections as soon as possible.
Privacy is the new competitive battleground
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As much as I love PGSM and think it had the best ideas for the DK arc there's one thing I would personally change and that's the whole "Princess Sailor Moon" thing. Now its not that I don't like the idea, on the contrary I love it but where I think PGSM misstepped was giving that sort of ghost to USAGI. I feel a "Prince Tuxedo Mask" for Mamoru would've worked out much better and made more sense considering Mams disconnect of self, Usagi on the other hand never really had identity issues.
I think PSM is one of several weird but interesting ideas PGSM did that worked for me precisely because there was already this heavily-established baseline ‘canon’ to work with, so it felt like a deliberate subversion/twist rather than something that on its own might not have had such an impact.
It’s a bit similar to some of the comments i remember that people were worried about the Crystal portrayed as a deliberately dangerous object in PGSM, because out of context it unintentionally calls back to a lot of ‘women with power are inherently dangerous and need to control themselves’ tropes. BUT it works for me precisely because we’ve seen multiple times in other adaptations that’s not really the intent of the thing; basically, we trust the writer to a point that doing something bold doesn’t feel cheap or invalidating of the other ideas.
I’d argue giving all the characters ‘ghosts’ was something played with as early as the manga but the shows up till PGSM either didn’t really engage in that much or didn’t get up to the arcs in Dream and similar where we learn about the girls’ specific pasts. It might be because the exact relationship between the past life self and the modern ones doesn’t come up as much in the other stories.
I just assume Usagi got one, along with the big change, so she’d have some kind of clear call back to struggling with the past like the other girls, since she didn’t have one before and it’s the Thing To Do with the main character.
#disclaimer PGSM Serenity is still by far the most interesting one#even though its a big deviation#with mamoru its more a filter of#not really being as Important a charactr to get the same treatment#tho i still raise the question id love to see it for the other four regardless#id be lying if i said i hadnt thought about aa similar idea#my fiddling with Dream with mams getting a voice in their headslashdreams#only lightly clowning on That Breakup Arc#but like you said#the sense of that if anyone was talking in someone's head it'd be theirs#Anonymous
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The Force, Lightsabers, the Light Side, and Yoda (also DBT) A Discussion in 2 Parts
I’m watching the 3rd part of Mr. Plinkett’s review of Attack of the Clones, and he made a point that I think sums up everything I think went horribly wrong with the Star Wars cosmology, starting in 1999.
Quote:
‘Yoda was so magical and interesting because you didn’t expect this little tiny creature to be a Jedi Master. We all had a preconception that a ‘great warrior’ would be someone physically strong and intimidating. By making Yoda a little guy, they were illustrating that the Force is something beyond the physical. But by showing Yoda fight with a lightsaber, it ruins all that because it takes that concept and those rules and throws it in the dumpster.’
Further...’Making Yoda fight contradicts the entire mythology of the movie.’
Luke: I’m looking for a great warrior.
Yoda: Wars do not make one great.
I think that this almost perfectly encapsulates why I think that the prequels fucked up both the Jedi and the Light Side.
I’ve mentioned this in passing before, but the way that the Jedi and the Light Side were portrayed in the Original Trilogy differs greatly from the way they are in the Prequel Trilogy and almost ALL resulting spin-off work. It’s so dramatic that it nearly killed off all of my Light Side Feels.
Say it with me:
Tranquility is NOT a lack of emotion. You CANNOT be at peace by denying your emotions and feelings, even the ‘bad’ ones. That is not true peace. It is DISASSOCIATION and it’s an extreme way to deal with trauma.
There is NO SUCH THING as a ‘bad’ emotion. People get angry, they get irritated, they get snarky and bitchy and sad. Even YODA gets snarky. And sad. Hoooooo boy is he sad. Rewatch that scene while he’s waiting for Luke to come out of the Dark Side cave. That is the definition of SAD.
Furthermore, in the Empire Strikes Back, there is NOTHING to suggest that being a Jedi involves divorcing yourself from all emotion. The Light Side flowed from peace and acceptance of the will of the Force. Jedi walked with the Force. The Light Side was most definitely not blank, sterile, utilitarian, or passionless. Because FOR FUCK’S SAKE JOY is an emotion. Happiness is an emotion. Calm is an emotion. Peace, in a certain sense of the word, is ALSO an emotion. ‘I feel...at peace.’ Like, HELLO THERE.
Also, note the symbolism of having Yoda hide out in a swamp teeming with life (and green soup) versus Vader on the Executor, the pinnacle of slick Imperial engineering. The Light Side was about being a part of something larger than yourself, part of the fabric of the universe. Part of LIFE. Vader literally needs technology to keep breathing. SYMBOLISM.
But I digress. I say that totally divorcing yourself from ALL emotion is how truly horrible things happen. This explain a couple things I saw in TCW...Like Anakin and Obi-Wan mind-torturing Cad Bane.
Not cool, guys.
And for the love of GOD teaching someone not to act on their anger is not the same as teaching them to slice off their emotional side. It just tells them to manage their emotions in a healthy way. The Light Side was about Connection With the Universe and the wonders of the natural world. Cosmic Joy. That means acceptance. And it is only through that acceptance, and Luke acknowledging but not acting on his anger that his father is saved and the Light Side wins. By Luke not fighting. He won by doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the Jedi did in Episodes 1 - 3. Also: The Power of Love...which isn’t exactly an emotion. But that’s another story.
...
...Ok, I’m going to get a little...real here and talk about mental health.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, specifically. There’s more behind the read more, and me linking some stuff together.
...To quote the linked site:
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) treatment is a cognitive-behavioral approach that emphasizes the psychosocial aspects of treatment. The theory behind the approach is that some people are prone to react in a more intense and out-of-the-ordinary manner toward certain emotional situations, primarily those found in romantic, family and friend relationships. DBT theory suggests that some people’s arousal levels in such situations can increase far more quickly than the average person’s, attain a higher level of emotional stimulation, and take a significant amount of time to return to baseline arousal levels.
People who are sometimes diagnosed with borderline personality disorder experience extreme swings in their emotions, see the world in black-and-white shades, and seem to always be jumping from one crisis to another. Because few people understand such reactions — most of all their own family and a childhood that emphasized invalidation — they don’t have any methods for coping with these sudden, intense surges of emotion. DBT is a method for teaching skills that will help in this task.
More:
Characteristics of DBT:
Support-oriented: It helps a person identify their strengths and builds on them so that the person can feel better about him/herself and their life.
Cognitive-based: DBT helps identify thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions that make life harder: “I have to be perfect at everything.” “If I get angry, I’m a terrible person” & helps people to learn different ways of thinking that will make life more bearable: “I don’t need to be perfect at things for people to care about me”, “Everyone gets angry, it’s a normal emotion.
Collaborative: It requires constant attention to relationships between clients and staff. In DBT people are encouraged to work out problems in their relationships with their therapist and the therapists to do the same with them. DBT asks people to complete homework assignments, to role-play new ways of interacting with others, and to practice skills such as soothing yourself when upset.
I have it on very good authority that this is very, very difficult. Someone I am very close to was in it for almost 2 years. It involved weekly sessions, a giant binder of notes and thought exercises, regular practice, and a fuckton of both discipline and patience for both her and the therapists.
And it helped her. It didn’t magically erase the emotional issues, because it can’t, and it’s not supposed to. The driving concept is ‘mindfulness,’ which (to grossly over-simplify) involves centering yourself in the moment, acknowledging that emotions happen and that you are allowed to feel them, and to let them go. Upset? Angry? Being upset and angry is natural. But how does it affect you, and what do you do with it?
Yeah...Sorry, but I have feelings about feelings. Being told that it’s OK to feel is pretty much the best thing.
...
...So Yoda and Obi-Wan telling Luke not to give in to hate and anger and fear is not the same as telling him not to feel those things at all.
Furthermore, according to Yoda himself, Jedi use the Force for protection and defense, never for attack. They had lightsabers because they were sentinels. Some of them. After seeing Yoda, I thought that a Jedi actually fighting was pretty rare.
Mr. Plinkett brings this up to. To paraphrase:
Yoda doesn’t teach Luke how to use a lightsaber. Apparently other things were more important.
Things like meditation, connecting with the Force, and learning to move in the Force (Force-assisted tree-climbing, jumping). Becoming one with it, in a way.
Also...Yoda and Obi-Wan told him to FACE Vader again. To CONFRONT him.
THEY DID NOT SAY KILL. Luke said that.
Luke: I can’t kill my own father.
Obi-Wan: ...then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.
...
I don’t exactly consider that an endorsement of Killing Vader. At least I really, really hope it wasn’t. I think it’s Obi-Wan being mystical and evasive again. It’s setting Luke up to make his own decision, to go all-in. Telling Luke that he needed to do that wouldn’t have worked. It would have been too much like a checklist, or a spell.
‘Insert self-sacrifice here’. Nope. Wouldn’t have worked.
Then again, if they WERE...It would also mean JUST HOW FUCKED UP THE PT JEDI WERE.
Luke...wasn’t.
And Anakin saw that. He saw Luke refuse to kill him through unconditional love, not because Luke thought it would win him back to the Light Side. Though Luke knew that it might mean the total destruction of the Jedi Order, and possibly the Rebel Alliance. Everything he ever cared about.
We know what happens next.
OK, end of Part 1 of this beast of a sort-of essay. This is getting too long and I need to address this and the Dark Side.
TBC (soon)
#jedi#the force#real talk#mental health#disassociation#dbt#dialectical behavioral therapy#the light side#the dark side#the empire strikes back#star wars#the jedi did it wrong in the prequel trilogy#tw mental health#tw mental illness#attack of the clones#luke needs to fix the jedi order#Light Side Feels#might be fridge brilliance#return of the jedi#yoda#episode 2#prequel trilogy#dark side discourse
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Guest Post: Silicon Valley’s APA Challenge to PTAB Discretion
Guest post by Saurabh Vishnubhakat, Professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law and College of Engineering. Professor Vishnubhakat was formerly an advisor at the USPTO, but his arguments here should not be imputed to the USPTO or to any other organization.
This week, four iconic Silicon Valley technology companies—Apple, Cisco, Google, and Intel—sued the USPTO under the Administrative Procedure Act. The lawsuit challenges the USPTO’s so-called NHK-Fintiv rule, named after a pair of inter partes review decisions in the PTAB that the agency previously designated as precedential.
The 23-page complaint, docketed as Case No. 5:20-cv-06128 in the Northern District of California, is worth reading in full. Yet what is especially striking about the lawsuit, and worth considering more deeply, is a particular pair of arguments at the heart of the challenge. One is that the NHK-Fintiv rule is contrary to the policy and text of the AIA and therefore exceeds the Director’s authority. The other is that the NHK-Fintiv rule is procedurally infirm because it was not promulgated through APA notice-and-comment rulemaking.
The NHK-Fintiv Rule
The disputed USPTO policy allows the PTAB to deny institution of an inter partes review petition based on how far a parallel U.S. district court proceeding on the same patent has already gone.
NHK Spring v. Intri-Plex
The policy was first articulated in NHK Spring Co. v. Intri-Plex Techs., No. IPR2018-00752, Paper 8 (Sept. 12, 2018). There, a panel of the PTAB declined to institute NHK Spring’s petition against an Intri-Plex patent where a parallel infringement suit was already pending between the same parties in the Northern District of California.
In denying institution, the panel cited its discretion under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d) as well as under § 314(a). First came § 325(d), which empowers the Director to “determine the manner in which the post-grant review or other proceeding or matter may proceed, including providing for the stay, transfer, consolidation, or termination of any such matter or proceeding.” Here, the panel applied the nonexclusive factors of the PTAB’s prior informative opinion in Becton, Dickinson and concluded that the art and arguments now asserted in the PTAB were already considered (and overcome) during examination.
Though it found this analysis sufficient on its own, the panel then also went on to exercise its discretion under § 314(a), which makes a “reasonable likelihood” of invalidating at least 1 of the challenged claims a necessary—but not sufficient—condition for instituting review. Where review is permissible, the Director may still decide in his discretion to deny review, and the NHK panel found it compelling that the parallel proceeding in U.S. district court was “nearing its final stages”—with a five-day jury trial already set for six months before the PTAB’s own proceeding would conclude.
The principle of NHK—that the “the advanced state of the district court proceeding is an additional factor that weighs in favor of denying the Petition under § 314(a)”—forms the first part of the policy now being challenged.
Apple v. Fintiv
That policy was further elaborated in Apple Inc. v. Fintiv, Inc., No. IPR2020-00019, Paper 11 (Mar. 20, 2020). There, a panel of the PTAB ordered supplemental briefing at the institution stage of Apple’s petition against a Fintiv patent where a parallel infringement suit was pending between the same parties in the Western District of Texas. Fintiv had already argued in its preliminary response that the “advanced state” of the parallel proceeding warranted discretionary denial under NHK, as the same issues were before the district court and trial there had already been set. (The setting of a trial date had come after Apple’s petition but before Fintiv’s response, making additional briefing appropriate.)
The panel then set out a number of factors to consider when evaluating whether the state of a parallel proceeding warrants discretionary denial under NHK:
whether the court granted a stay or evidence exists that one may be granted if a proceeding is instituted;
proximity of the court’s trial date to the Board’s projected statutory deadline for a final written decision;
investment in the parallel proceeding by the court and the parties;
overlap between issues raised in the petition and in the parallel proceeding;
whether the petitioner and the defendant in the parallel proceeding are the same party; and
other circumstances that impact the Board’s exercise of discretion, including the merits.
NHK was designated as precedential in May 2019 and Fintiv in May 2020. Taken together, the NHK-Fintiv rule represents a policy of denying institution where a parallel district court proceeding is so far along and so substantially similar in art and argumentation that it would be best to conserve USPTO resources rather than undertake a largely or entirely duplicative review.
The Policy and Text of the AIA
That policy choice is firmly rejected in the opening argument of the APA challenge. The plaintiffs identify the inter partes review system as a “centerpiece of Congress’s efforts to strengthen the U.S. patent system” through post-grant error correction. By their account, the system of PTAB adjudcation responded to an environment where “questionable patents were too easily obtained and too difficult to challenge through existing procedures”—and, indeed, this language aptly cites the AIA House Judiciary Committee Report. Thus, to deny institution under the NHK-Fintiv framework weakens the very purpose of PTAB review through artificial limits that are “found nowhere in the AIA.” However, though there is much to agree with in the line of argument that follows, it suffers from at least two important weaknesses.
PTAB Review as an Alternative to the Courts
One weakness is that while the PTAB is desirable over the baseline of Article III courts, there are important and under-appreciated limits to this desirability. It is certainly true that the PTAB was intended as “an improved alternative to litigation” on questions of patent validity. Indeed, my coauthors and I have similarly argued that the PTAB offers a number of important advantages over the Article III courts, including lower barriers to standing, lower cost, lower delay, and lower rates of error.
However, it does not follow that PTAB review remains preferable regardless of what happens in the Article III courts. By the time court litigation has reached a stage advanced enough that the NHK-Fintiv doctrine would apply, much of the cost of litigation has already been sunk, especially by the close of discovery and the scheduling of trial, as in NHK itself. Meanwhile, the problem of delay is turned on its head, as it is the court that will now likely finish before the PTAB would. The problem of Article III standing is largely irrelevant, as the defendant can point not merely to the threat of suit but the actual suit itself. Much, though not all, of the marginal benefit from PTAB review relative to the federal courts is already dissipated.
Moreover, while it is true that decision making in the PTAB is done by administrative judges who have relevant technical as well as legal expertise, this benefit is also dissipated to some degree by a late-stage federal court proceeding. By that time, considerable effort and investment has already been sunk into educating the judge or jury. This, after all, is where much of the cost of litigation goes, and what makes expert administrative judges an attractive value proposition is that they do not require nearly so much education in each case. The more that such investments have been made anyway, the less that PTAB review is a clear cost-saving.
Finally, there is the problem inherent to error correction, a problem starkly highlighted by the legislative design of PTAB review. It is true, as the plaintiffs point out, that “while bad patents can be held unpatentable in IPR by a preponderance of the evidence . . . those same patents will survive litigation unless the challenger proves invalidity by clear and convincing evidence.” But as I have pointed out in testimony before the FTC, the same is also true of good patents—and there is no way to distinguish the good from the bad up front. If there were, error correction itself would be unnecessary.
Agency Discretion to Deny Review
The second weakness is that agency discretion carries not only significant structural benefits when protecting agreeable outcomes but also substantial obstacles when the outcomes go the other way. The crux of the case against discretionary denials under the NHK-Fintiv rule is that “no provision in the AIA expressly requires or even permits the Director (or the Board as his delegee) to deny IPR petitions based on pending litigation involving the same patent claims.”
It is repeated throughout the argument, too, that the principle of NHK and the additional factors enumerated in Fintiv are to be found “nowhere in the AIA” and are, for that reason, outside the Director’s authority. In this telling, what discretion the Director does have is limited to § 325(d), which is concerned more with managing multiple proceedings inside the agency itself than with doing so across an interbranch court-agency divide. This matters because the NHK-Fintiv framework is an elaboration of institution authority specifically under § 314(a), not of case management authority under § 325(d).
However, the principle that § 314(a) gives the Director discretion—broad discretion—to deny otherwise meritorious petitions is, by now, fairly well established in Federal Circuit and Supreme Court case law. For example, the two most significant cases involving the judicial unreviewability of the Director’s institution power—Cuozzo v. Lee in 2016 and Thryv v. Click-to-Call earlier this year—take just this view. The Court in Cuozzo held explicitly that “the agency’s decision to deny a petition is a matter committed to the Patent Office’s discretion” and cited § 314(a) with an explanatory parenthetical that there is “no mandate to institute review.” Likewise, the Court in Thryv expanded the scope of that unreviewable discretion to include conditions on institution as well—there, the condition in dispute was the one-year time bar of 35 U.S.C. § 315(b).
Indeed, some of the plaintiffs who now seek to cabin the Director’s institution-related discretion previously endorsed those very same positions before the Court. In Cuozzo, Apple submitted a brief as amicus curiae supporting the USPTO Director’s assertion of unreviewable discretion in matters of institution. Intel did the same in Thryv, arguing that a “decision not to institute review is committed to agency discretion.”
These complications in the case against the NHK-Fintiv rule cast serious doubt on the view that the policy choices embodied in that rule contradict the AIA.
The Choice of Rulemaking vs. Adjudication
Beyond the substance of the USPTO’s policy of sometimes denying inter partes review based on the status of parallel court litigation, there also lies an alternative argument that the policy is procedurally defective. Here, the challenge springs from the familiar APA values of public input and transparency, which are traditionally accomplished by notice-and-comment rulemaking. By contrast, the disputed USPTO policy was adopted “by designating the NHK and Fintiv decisions as precedential through a unilateral, internal process that involved no opportunity for public comment and no consideration by the Director of any public input.”
In this regard, the challenge to NHK-Fintiv certainly has merit as a matter of desirable administrative practice, but it is not at all clear that this makes the USPTO’s approach legally deficient. For over 70 years, the Supreme Court has left the form of policymaking up to agencies themselves. The Court’s 1947 opinion in SEC v. Chenery Corp. (Chenery II) explained that “the choice made between proceeding by general rule or by individual, ad hoc litigation is one that lies primarily in the informed discretion of the administrative agency.”
In Chenery II, the Court recognized that “problems may arise in a case which the administrative agency could not reasonably foresee, problems which must be solved despite the absence of a relevant general rule.” The Court also pointed to a touchstone of agency practice that is especially important to the PTAB—expertise—and noted that “the agency may not have had sufficient experience with a particular problem to warrant rigidifying its tentative judgment into a hard and fast rule.” Both of these considerations point to adjudication as an acceptable mechanism for making policy.
To be sure, rulemaking offers significant benefits, and not only the public participation and transparency that the present APA challenge cites. Rulemaking also fosters greater predictability, both by specifying rules more fully in advance and by raising the agency’s own political costs from visibly changing course. For these reasons, I have argued in my own recent work about Patent Office policymaking that setting PTAB policy through rulemaking, such as the USPTO’s 2018 change to the PTAB’s claim construction standard, will often be preferable to shifting and incrementalist adjudications.
Still, a well advised preference is not the same thing as a legal requirement. Moreover, though notice-and-comment rulemaking is a direct and well established way of securing public input, it’s not as if PTAB adjudication does not allow for meaningful public input. The plaintiffs themselves note that members of the public are entitled to nominate PTAB opinions for designation as precedential.
Beyond this, the PTAB has accepted and, at times, even invited amicus curiae briefs in cases of public importance, such as whether tribal sovereign immunity defeats inter partes review. Similarly, under the current USPTO Standard Operating Procedure No. 2 (Rev. 10), cases before the agency’s Precedential Opinion Panel may also be opened for amicus curiae briefing. In short, where the USPTO exercises its prerogative to make policy through adjudication, it need not ignore public input to do so.
Conclusion
The APA challenge to the NHK-Fintiv rule, like much of the USPTO’s own recent policymaking, balances a range of important considerations and reaches a position that is coherent and reasonable. The weakness—if it can be called that—of the challenge is that it represents merely one reasonable position among several, especially given the Supreme Court’s views on agency discretion in general and USPTO discretion in particular. If the challenge eventually fails to dislodge the disputed policy, then the reason will likely be that, like most agencies, the USPTO enjoys wide latitude that is difficult to paint as unreasonable.
Guest Post: Silicon Valley’s APA Challenge to PTAB Discretion published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/
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honestly...i don’t know what to say about that. i feel bad for you and him but at the same time i don’t feel like i can empathize with him. i’m sorry. i don’t know. maybe because i would think about putting myself in his place and maybe it was with you or maybe it was with some other girl. here’s the way i see it. okay...he’s insecure now, blah di blah blah whatever, but i think if we measured our baselines, me and him, i feel like i am way more insecure than him. i’m just saying this on a general baseline sense. you see the way i operate. i’m quiet, i’m shy, i’m laid back, i’m not too outgoing, i hardly talk, i get nervous around people, i get intimidated by pretty girls (on a side note...you were extremely intimidating to me. i got lucky that you caught me under circumstances where i have to force myself to talk when it’s one-on-one), i don’t readily put myself out there, the only “confidence” people may see in me is because i may be naive, i’m too competitive, or i just don’t know any better.
off topic...insecurity...i’m sorry that his insecurities are coming out this way but what i was trying to say was he wasn’t like that before or as bad as he is now. why does it take something bad happening in order to bring this out in people? in the two years that i’ve been, heck yeah i’ve been insecure with you. i’ve always told you how beautiful and amazing you are and that i feel you could have any guy you wanted. there are times i am scared that you could get a guy without even knowing because you say that you are so naive to things like that. does that make me insecure...hecks yeah. but the thing was, you helped to keep my insecurities at bay because we talked and communicated about things. a part of me was insecure and scared that you could possibly be seducing someone without even knowing or being seduced but it was also because i cared for you and i didn’t want you to get hurt or be put in a situation where you would be in danger. my insecurities and fears were always there and visible to you because we talked about it. but at the same time, you eased my insecurities by talking to/with me and explaining how you wouldn’t put yourself in those situations. how you would be safe if you were to go anywhere. how you would take my advice into consideration when making choices and decisions. we both did what we felt necessary in order to reassure each other that there was no reason to be scared or afraid. we probably still were just because we worry and care, but in the end we learned how to trust each other.
i told you, there was no reason why you and him couldn’t have what we have. it took us two years to get to where we were and we had more obstacles between us. i worked on you/us/the relationship because at some point, i wanted us to work and succeed. like i said, my insecurities are worse than his but his is amplified at this point because somewhere along the line, he stopped checking in on you, he started “dismissing, taking for granted, seen everything as a given, invalidating feelings, not paying attention to little things, thinking avoiding argument is the same as resolving argument”...i don’t know. this all sucks because all these “insecurity issues” that are being brought up now is traced back to even before i cam along. if he paid more attention to you/details, if he talked more with you, if he wasn’t so dismissive of you, if he didn’t invalidate your feelings, if he didn’t take you for granted, if he made it feel so impossible to the point of approaching him that you just stopped going to him...if all that didn’t happen...you would never have been in the position you were before i came along. you would never have been in the position you were when i did come along. you would never have given me a second glance. you’ve told me that numerous times and i believe it.
so to say all his insecurities are coming out now because of what happened between us to the point he thinks i’m stalking you and using my words against you, he’s going mad to a point, not believing you, it could have all been avoided if he just did what i felt he should have done from the start and should always have done. i can’t say i’m the perfect person to make a relationship work, but i feel a situation like this, i don’t think it would come about the way i function. i mean, my insecurities probably work to my advantage. you know how much i tell you you can have your pick of most any guy, which is why i try to make sure that you are loved and made the right choice in choosing me. are there girls that i end up staring at and what not, yes. you know i do. i admit that to you. but that’s just weird me and if you ever wanted me to stop, all you have to do is tell me and i will. but you know that every time i even steal a glance at a girl, my eyes go back to you and i remind you that they may steal a fleeting moment but you are the one who’s stolen my heart. ever since i’ve met you, i’ve tried to do better, be better, because you inspire me to do so. i don’t want to feel complacent with who/where/what we are. you are so dynamic and full of life so how/why would i want to squelch that or let it go to waste? i don’t know. at some point, he just “lost sight of things” and things started to turn to shyt but he didn’t even know. i mean, come on, how do you not know?
and now that everything has come to this, now it’s “woe is me. pity me. i’m so sad. i’m so insecure.” i feel we all have that problem. i know you have that problem just as bad as i do. but we never let those insecurities stop us or get the better of us. if there was something bothering us, we talked about it. if something made us feel unwanted, unworthy, unloved, we helped reassure each other that things were all right. i mean, heck, when i was in florida and you called me, i felt/knew something was wrong based on your voice and your thought process. i passed up watching the office with Arianne and chose to be with you during that time because i felt something was wrong but even if i was a united states away, i did what i could do to be there for you. across the united states and you and i were doing that for each other to help ease the other person’s mind and insecurities. you guys lived together and were seeing each other 24/7, and he couldn’t see that something was wrong? i know you tried many times to reach out to him but he just shut you down time and time again so i understood why you stopped trying. and i may think a lot of anger and negative thoughts in my head but i’d never say anything that would attack someone’s character because i said that is the one thing i will not tolerate from other people. so to say what he said about questioning your ability to raise a child...shyt...even a blind person could see that that was too far.
i’m sorry. like i said, i’m sorry that he is this way and i’m sorry he’s lashing out at you the way he is. i’m sorry he’s broken, defeated, and paranoid, but a part of me can’t help that he brought this on himself. everything got to this point long before i arrived on the scene so it’s not fair to use me or what you and i have done together to justify his anger, his insecurities, to attack you, and what not. it’s all misdirection, some deflection, some self-inflicted to look like the victim, some a sense of “woe is/pity me”, some is anger and frustration. i don’t know. i get that you two have to deal with this and probably in the end see that it’s better to part ways because you can’t just live in this endless cycle of one good day, one bad day, one so-so day, but all days just blend in because at this point it’s not even about living any more, it’s just surviving to get to the next second, the next moment, the next break, the next day...that’s just not a good way to live.
i guess where i was originally going with this was that we all have insecurities. you, him, me, everyone. it’s just unfortunate that it had to get to this point where those insecurities are just amplified. like i said, i’m probably more insecure than him, but we talked things through and you helped to ease mine just as i’ve done what i can to ease yours by letting you know that no matter what flaws you see in yourself, there’s nothing that you can point out that would make me love, appreciate you any less, or take you for granted. i told you, i’d do my best to make you see yourself the way i see you, and i’d do that till the day you are able to do so. and if it takes forever, so be it, because you deserve to see and believe just how amazingly, wonderfully, beautiful you are. this probably isn’t helping you two and what you are going through. i’m sorry that he is sad and you are sad, but we both knew this would happen. that’s kind of why i wished you had figured things out and you could have approached and dealt with things on your own terms. now it’s pretty much what it is and you are dealing with it as best as you can but you know that with no resolve or decision on your part, it’s just going to drag on for who knows how long and like i said, i don’t want it to get to the point where you just give up, settle, or try to find a “bad” way out. you’ve already gotten to that point a couple of times already and i’m just scared that you won’t know when to get out of this situation because i can’t tell when is the next time or what will be the next fight or what topic of convo will trigger you where he mentally and emotionally beats you up to the point where you can’t take it and do something impulsive and he gets to be the “hero” because he stops/saves you? that’s BS because i feel it shouldn’t have even got to that point...period.
i don’t know. i’m just angry and frustrated because of the way this is playing out and you are the one who is suffering...
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Standard & itemized tax deductions for the 2020 tax year
Welcome to Part 2 of the ol' blog's 2020 series on tax inflation adjustments.
We started on Nov. 6 with a look at next year's income tax brackets and rates.
Today we look at standard and itemized deductions,
certain limitations on some Schedule A claims
and the sort-of still around personal exemption amount.
Note: The 2020 figures in this post apply to 2020 returns to be filed in 2021.
For comparison purposes, you'll also find 2019 amounts to be used
in filing 2019 returns due April 15, 2020.
Historically, around 70 percent of filers have claimed the standard deduction on their tax returns instead of itemizing.
The main reason for the standard deduction's popularity is that it's easier to claim. There's no need to keep receipts and statements. All you do is just look at your tax form and use the standard deduction amount for your filing status shown there.
The Internal Revenue Service is still tallying the 2019 tax season data, but some estimates expect the final results to show even more standard deduction claims, possibly as high as 90 percent.
That's because of a key change created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which took full effect with 2018 returns filed this year. The tax reform law almost doubled the standard amounts.
It also kept the existing law that mandates annual inflation adjustments of the amounts.
Inflation deduction increase: The IRS released those standard deduction adjustments this week.
For 2020 tax returns due in 2021, the standard deduction amounts for most taxpayers younger than 65 are:
$12,400 for single taxpayers and married taxpayers filing separate returns, $200 more than in 2019;
$18,650 for heads of household, $300 more than this year; and
$24,800 for married filing jointly couples and surviving spouses, $400 more than in 2019.
I know it's easy math, but so you don't have to bother, the table below show the differences in this and next tax year's standard deduction amounts are:
Filing Status
2019
Standard Deductions
Use these amounts
to file 2019 taxes in 2020
2020
Standard Deductions
Use these amounts
to file 2020 taxes in 2021
Single
$12,200
$12,400
Head of Household
$18,350
$18,650
Married
Filing Jointly
$24,400
$24,800
Qualifying Widow
or Widower
(Surviving Spouse)
$24,400
$24,800
Married
Filing Separately
$12,200
$12,400
Age adds to deductions: I've been doing this long enough now to know that readers of the ol' blog caught my earlier reference to "most taxpayers younger than 65" when it comes to standard deduction amounts.
The age distinction is important because tax code allows older filers and those who are visually impaired to claim additional standard deduction amounts. You do so by ticking a checkbox on your tax return.
Each added standard deduction amount option is separate for each filer, meaning that an older married couple could check up to four boxes on their joint return. The total number of boxes checked then is used to determine the filer(s) standard deduction amount.
For the 2020 tax year, aged or blind filers get an additional standard deduction amount of $1,300. That's the same as it is for 2019 taxes.
This added standard deduction amount increases to $1,650 if the individual also is unmarried and not a surviving spouse. Again, that's no change from this year's amount.
And if you're a tax filer who also can be claimed as a dependent of another taxpayer, in 2020 your standard deduction amount cannot be more than the greater of either $1,100 or $350 plus your earned income. This is the same standard deduction requirement as for 2019 tax returns.
Itemized deduction issues: Part of your annual tax planning is determining whether you'd be better off claiming the standard deduction or itemizing the expenses you can claim on Schedule A.
While the TCJA changes mean most filers will take the easier standard deduction route, don't assume. You know that old tax saying: Assuming can get your a$$ kicked by the IRS in the form of a higher tax bill. Or something like that.
You always want to use the deduction method that gives you the larger amount to offset your income. You're not locked into any one way. It's a decision you make each tax year. One year, itemizing might be better. The next year, it's wise to take the standard deduction.
Knowing what's available on the standard side gives you a baseline to use in measuring your potential itemized expenses.
For some folks, even under the new tax law, their total itemized deduction amount will still be more than their standard deduction amount. In these cases, by all means itemize.
Limits on itemized expenses: During the 2019 filing season, taxpayers who itemized got a little good news and a lot of bad news.
The one bit of good news is that there is no longer any limit on total Schedule A claims based on a filer's income. This so-called Pease limitation, one of several laws named after their advocates, in this case the late Rep. Don Pease (D-Ohio) who championed the deduction limits on higher-income taxpayers, was repealed by the TCJA for tax years 2018 through 2025.
But the TCJA brought more bad Schedule A news.
You no longer can claim miscellaneous expenses. This is the section that was limited to 2 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI). That threshold meant that it wasn't a widely claimed itemized expense. It was popular, however, among employees who paid for some business expenses and weren't reimbursed by their bosses. Now, at least through 2025, they no longer have a tax way to recoup these costs.
Then there's the widely debated, in tax policy circles as well as courtrooms, the $10,000 cap on state and local taxes (SALT) that can be claimed as itemized expenses. The limit is $5,000 for married taxpayers filing separately. This cap is per tax return, not taxpayers, meaning a married couple filing jointly has the same limit as a single taxpayer.
If you're a homeowner with a big local real estate tax bill, you're already painfully aware of this change. Some states are tried working around the limit with charitable tax credit programs since charitable donation claims remain unlimited. But the IRS said no way and a federal judge recently upheld Uncle Sam's position.
Note that the $10,000 cap also covers deductible state income and sales tax amounts. So if you're not a taxable property owner but live in a state with a high income tax, you could be hit here, too.
Medical and dental expenses remain, but for the 2020 tax year they must exceed 10 percent of your AGI. It's possible that Congress could keep the 7.5 percent threshold that was in effect for the 2018 tax year as part of tax extenders legislation. Keep an eye on this possibility and the ol' tax blog, which will let you know if or when these expired tax breaks are renewed.
As noted in the SALT workaround discussion, the itemized deduction for donations to charity remains under the TCJA and even is enhanced a bit. Now if you can afford to be super generous, you can donate up to 60 percent of your income instead of the prior 50 percent limit.
Finally, claims for casualty losses also are still allowed, but now only in cases of major disasters.
The end, sorta, of exemptions: In addition to the TCJA changes to itemized deductions, the new tax law also eliminated, at least through 2025, the personal exemption.
Exemptions were a specific dollar amount, adjusted annually for inflation, that taxpayers could claim for themselves, their spouses if filing jointly and dependents. The exemptions total helped reduce the amount of filers' income subject to tax.
TCJA supporters say the exemption elimination isn't a big deal, although some filers with larger families disagree. The exemption loss is offset, they argue, by the new larger standard deduction amounts and expansion of the child tax credit and the new credit for other dependents.
However, an exemption amount still is used in other parts of the tax code. It comes into play in some tax situations where determining eligibility for or how much of a tax break you get depends on the old, now-gone exemption amount.
Since the tax law changes didn't mean to invalidate these cases, the IRS says that to deal with the now zero exemption amount it will use pre-TCJA exemption data. Specifically for tax years through 2025, the IRS will continue to calculate annual inflation amount for technically non-existent exemptions which must be used in these other tax cases.
For the 2020 tax year, the deemed exemption amount is $4,300. That's $100 more than the 2019 amount of $4,200.
More inflation info on the way: OK, that's is for the second part of the ol' blog's 2020 tax inflation adjustments series.
Yes, it does contain a lot a numbers. Again, that's why I'm breaking all the inflation amounts into a series of smaller, more focused posts. Even my eyes, those of a dedicated tax geek, glaze over after a certain point.
But I do hope that this series of inflation text, tables, explanations and elaborations help as you look toward your 2019 return filing and making tax savvy moves in the coming weeks and months to lower your 2020 tax bill.
And stayed tuned! More inflation figures are on the way.
Up next is an area near and dear to my heart, inflation's effects on tax-favored retirement and pension plan contributions.
As noted in the intro to this post, you can read the first part of the 2020 tax inflation series with details on next year's tax rates and income brackets.
You'll also find at the end of that post an index of what's coming up, along with links to inflation pieces already published.
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Why Trump’s Census Play Is Blatantly Unconstitutional
New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/why-trumps-census-play-is-blatantly-unconstitutional/
Why Trump’s Census Play Is Blatantly Unconstitutional
President Donald Trump already suffered one stinging defeat when the Supreme Court invalidated his effort to add a “citizenship question” to the 2020 census. Now he’s decided to try again, threatening to issue an executive order commanding the Census Bureau to add the question to its survey, and ordering the Justice Department to defend his action in ongoing legal proceedings.
If Trump moves ahead, he will be threatening a centuries-old consensus that puts Congress in charge of the census. This legal foundation has been tested and reaffirmed repeatedly throughout American history—the last time when another Republican Party threatened by immigration considered modifying the census process to fit its political ends.
Story Continued Below
Article One of the Constitution explicitly put the census in the hands of Congress, not the president. It provides that the first census “shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as [the House and Senate] shall by law direct.” The Constitution also explicitly granted Congress the final say when it came to reapportioning each state’s delegation to the House and Electoral College based on the census count.
Congressional authority was reinvigorated after the Civil War. The 14th Amendment, enacted in 1868, abolished the 1787 compromise counting slaves as 3/5 of a person and gave Congress new marching orders. It declared that “representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State.”
This insistence on persons, not citizens, was deliberate. While the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, it did not grant them the right to vote—and the Republican leadership in Congress did not yet have the votes to give them that right. Moreover, central players like Speaker Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner were strong allies of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the rising feminist movement of the 19th century. They insisted on the inclusion of women in the head count as a first step toward their ultimate goal of female suffrage.
During this time, the president played no role in the reapportionment process. In the first decades of the 19th century, Congress relied on judicial marshals in the federal courts to collect census data from the states. But in 1840, it created a central office to assist it in the decade’s reapportionment. This Census Office, as it was then known, took its orders from Congress, and depended for its continuing existence on a series of legislative mandates during the next 60 years.
Only in 1902 did Congress establish a Bureau of the Census on a permanent basis, as part of its larger decision to create a new Department of Commerce. This created a complication, as the Department of Commerce was part of the executive branch and the statute did not specify the new Commerce secretary’s relationship to Congress in governing the Census Bureau’s operation.
The resulting statutory fog enabled Congress to put politics above duty to the constitutional text and 150 years of constitutional practice. In 1920, the bureau’s new census figures served as a day of reckoning for Republicans who had just scored a sweeping congressional victory over Democratic President Woodrow Wilson in 1918. The bureau’s report revealed that World War I had generated a tidal wave of European refugees seeking a new life in America, increasing the country’s population by 15 percent to 106 million. These immigrants overwhelmingly settled in the Northeast and Midwest, where the Democratic Party was ascendant, giving it an overwhelming advantage if Congress reapportioned seats in the House and Electoral College in the coming rounds of national elections.
Confronting the prospect of political defeat, the Republicans refused to commit electoral suicide. For the first and only time in American history, Congress violated the Constitution and continued to use the 1910 census figures rather than the 1920 ones, as the basis for the distribution of seats in the House and Electoral College for the next decade.
This brute subordination of constitutional responsibility to politics set the stage for an even greater crisis as the decennial head count approached in 1929, eventually leading to a high-visibility decision reaffirming Congress’ decisive control over the census operation. This time around, Republican President Herbert Hoover was in the White House and Republicans were in command of both houses of Congress. Would party leaders once again stack the deck against their opponents by continuing to use the 1910 numbers as a baseline for national competition for yet another decade?
To their great credit, the answer was no.
On June 9, the Republican Congress passed the Reapportionment Act of 1929, which imposed a statutory obligation on its successors to fulfill their constitutional obligations. The significance of this act of statesmanship has never been adequately appreciated. Only four months later, on October 24, the stock market crashed. If the Republicans had not tied their hands in June, the political temptation to continue the 1910 head count could well have proved irresistible—since continuing to apportion seats on the basis of the prewar population of 92 million residents provided their only hope of countering the effort by Democrats to gain a popular mandate for their New Deal from the 123 million people living in the United States of 1930.
If the Republicans had succeeded in hanging on to power, this would have generated a far more profound legitimacy crisis than the struggle precipitated by the court-packing episode of 1937, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt threatened to add justices to the Supreme Court to validate his New Deal reforms. But instead, the 1929 Act provided that “the director of the Census” was in charge of “the enforcement of this Act,” and was explicitly given the responsibility of assuring that all the relevant census forms were prepared by April 1 of the preceding year to ensure the orderly administration of the head count.
The Act also commanded that “the presidentshalltransmit to the Congress a statement showing the whole number of persons in each State” at the opening session of the House and Senate, “or within one week thereafter,” to enable Congress to proceed expeditiously with its constitutionally mandate reapportionment responsibilities.
Over the past century, many of the specific requirements and procedures handed down in 1929 have been revised, but the basic framework remains intact. In particular, the deadline for the final preparation of census forms has shifted from April 1 to July 1, and this date has served as a legal turning point in the ongoing legal battle. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered his majority opinion on June 27, four days before the deadline. Although he found that the bureau’s rationale for including the citizenship question was implausible and merely served as a “pretext” for an illegitimate political decision, he gave the bureau a chance to supply a more compelling justification before July 1.
But once the Justice Department team failed to fill this gap in this brief period, Trump found himself in a radically different situation.The president could have tried to provide the courts with a more persuasive rationale in the days remaining before July 1, but after that date, any attempt to do so would directly thwart Congress’ constitutional authority to insist that the count proceed in an effective and expeditious fashion.He could no longer pretend that the Census was following the law if it changed the form it had created for public distribution. He could only assert, in a series of combative tweets, that he retained the unilateral power to impose the citizenship question by an executive order.
Trump can tweet what he likes, but his lawyers are obliged to confront the constitutional texts, and statutory commands, that represent two centuries of historical experience with the problem of reapportionment. Little wonder, then, that Trump tried to fire his entire legal team Monday morning when they confessed to the district judge, Jesse M. Furman, that they were unable to provide him with a rationale for unilateral presidential action that seemed remotely plausible, and that Furman has now rejected Trump’s effort to replace them with a new legal team as “patently deficient.”
Given his track record of compliance with White House commands, Attorney General William Barr will undoubtedly ask the Supreme Court to reverse Furman’s decision, and give his new highly politicized team of lawyers a chance to rationalize Trump’s latest precedent-shattering assertion of unilateral authority.
I would rate his chances of success at zero. Since the chief justice has already rejected the bureau’s conduct as an “abuse of discretion,” it is impossible to believe that he will uphold the president’s direct intervention into a regulatory system that has profound roots in our constitutional tradition.
Roberts is rightfully concerned, however, with maintaining his court’s legitimacy in these polarized times. Since there were dissenters to his previous opinion, he may well try to avoid another show of disarray by persuading his colleagues to join him in a summary judgment, affirming Furman without the need for any elaborate opinion.
Regardless of his success on this front, Furman’s vindication will force Trump to ask himself a very big question. If he follows up on his threatened executive order, he will not only be defying the constitutional text, and two centuries of statutory practice. He will be in open defiance of the Supreme Court of the United States.
This represents the paradigmatic “high crime or misdemeanor” that served as the principal ground for the impeachment and near-conviction of Andrew Johnson during Reconstruction, and which has lurked in the background since Richard Nixon’s resignation during the Watergate scandal.
Is Trump willing to escalate his ongoing unilateralist campaign to provoke such a wrenching constitutional crisis?
Read More
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Standard & itemized tax deductions for the 2019 tax year
Welcome to Part 2 of the ol' blog's 2019 series on tax inflation adjustments.
We started on Nov. 15 with a look at next year's income tax brackets and rates.
Today we look at standard and itemized deductions, personal exemptions
and limitations on these tax situations that apply to some taxpayers.
Note: The 2019 figures apply to 2019 returns to be filed in 2020.
For comparison purposes, you'll also find 2018 amounts to be used
in filing 2018 returns due April 15, 2019.
Internal Revenue Service data show that year after year, around 70 percent of filers claim the standard deduction on their tax returns instead of itemizing.
Look for that percentage to increase in 2019 when 2018 returns are submitted.
The main reason is that claiming the standard deduction easier. There aren't any receipts and statements to keep. All you do is just look at your tax form and use the standard deduction amount for your filing status shown there.
And beginning with 2018 returns, the standard amounts now are substantially larger. They were almost doubled by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), aka Republican tax reform that took effect in 2018.
Adding to the standard deduction appeals is the IRS' annual inflation adjustments. The deduction amounts are bumped up a bit more for the 2019 tax year.
Inflation deduction increase: For 2019 returns that are due in 2020, the standard deduction amounts for most taxpayers younger than 65 are:
$12,200 for single taxpayers
$18,350 for heads of household
$24,400 for married filing jointly couples and surviving spouses
$12,200 for married filing separately taxpayers
The table below shows the 2109 standard deduction amounts and, for comparison, the amounts you can claim on your 2018 return you file next year.
Filing Status
2019
Standard Deductions
Use these amounts
to file 2019 taxes in 2020
2018
Standard Deductions
Use these amounts
to file 2018 taxes in 2019
Single
$12,200
$12,000
Head of Household
$18,350
$18,000
Married
Filing Jointly
$24,400
$24,000
Qualifying Widow
or Widower
(Surviving Spouse)
$24,400
$24,000
Married
Filing Separately
$12,200
$12,000
Age adds to deductions: I've been doing this long enough now to know that readers of the ol' blog caught my earlier reference to "most taxpayers younger than 65" when it comes to standard deduction amounts.
The age distinction is important because tax code allows older filers and those who are visually impaired to claim additional standard deduction amounts. You do so by ticking a checkbox on your tax return.
Quick note about new tax returns: It looks like there will be just one Form 1040 thanks to the TCJA. The other versions will be around, sort of, in the form of added schedules.
Each added standard deduction amount option is separate for each filer, meaning that an older married couple could check up to four boxes on their joint return. The total number of boxes checked then is used to determine the filer(s) standard deduction amount.
For the 2019 tax year, aged or blind filers get an additional standard deduction amount of $1,300. That's the same as it was for 2018 taxes.
This added standard deduction amount increases to $1,650 if the individual also is unmarried and not a surviving spouse. That's a $50 tick upward from the 2018 amount.
And if you're a tax filer who also can be claimed as a dependent of another taxpayer, in 2019 your standard deduction amount cannot be more than the greater of either $1,100 or $350 plus your earned income. Again, inflation bumps this up a bit from 2018's dependent standard deduction amount of $1,050 or $350 plus your earned income.
Since you don't have to worry about 2019 standard deduction amounts, why even take note so early of these inflation changes? Because knowing the amounts can help in your tax planning.
Itemized deduction issues: Part of your annual tax planning is determining whether you'd be better off claiming the standard deduction or itemizing the expenses you can claim on Schedule A.
While the TCJA changes mean most filers will take the easier standard deduction route, don't assume. You know that old tax saying: Assuming can get your a$$ kicked by the IRS in the form of a higher tax bill. Or something like that.
You always want to use the deduction method that gives you the larger amount to offset your income. You're not locked into any one way. It's a decision you make each tax year. One year, itemizing might be better. The next year, it's wise to take the standard deduction.
So knowing what's available on the standard side gives you a baseline to use in measuring your potential itemized expenses.
For some folks, even under the new tax law, their total itemized deduction amount will still be more than their standard deduction amount. In these cases, by all means itemize.
Limits on itemized expenses: One good thing about itemized deductions under the TCJA is that there no longer is any limit on your total Schedule A claims based on your income.
This so-called Pease limitation, one of several laws named after their advocates, in this case the late Rep. Don Pease (D-Ohio) who championed the deduction limits on higher-income taxpayers, was repealed for tax years 2018 through 2025.
But there are a couple of bad things about itemized deductions under the new tax law.
You no longer can claim miscellaneous expenses. This means employees who paid for some business expenses and weren't reimbursed by their bosses now don't have a tax way to recoup these costs.
Also, there's a cap on how much state and local taxes (SALT) you can claim on Schedule A. It's $10,000.
If you're a homeowner with a big local real estate tax bill, you're already painfully aware of this change. Some states are trying to work around the limit with charitable tax credit programs since the charitable donations remain unlimited. But this effort is tied up in IRS proposed SALT regulations and a pending court case. To be safe in your tax planning, count on that hard 10 grand cap.
That $10,000 cap also covers deductible state income and sales tax amounts. So if you live in a state with a high income tax, you could be hit here, too.
The end of exemptions, sort of: In addition to the major changes to itemized deductions, taxpayers also lost a major way to reduce their income to a lower taxable amount. We no longer, at least not from 2018 through 2025, can claim personal exemptions.
Exemptions were a specific dollar amount, adjusted annually for inflation, that taxpayers could claim for themselves, their spouses if filing jointly and dependents. The exemptions total helped reduce the amount of filers' income subject to tax.
TCJA supporters say the exemption elimination isn't a big deal. It's offset, they argue, by the new larger standard deduction amounts and expansion of the child tax credit. Some filers with larger families disagree, but that's an issue for future tax policy debates on Capitol Hill.
As for exemptions and inflation, this special personal amount still comes into play. This is true in those tax situations where determining eligibility for or how much of a tax break you get depends on the old, now-gone exemption amount.
Since the tax law changes didn't mean to invalidate these cases, the IRS says that to deal with the now zero exemption amount it will use pre-TCJA exemption data. Specifically for tax years 2018 through 2025 (or longer pending possible Tax Reform 2.0), the IRS will continue to calculate annual inflation amount for technically non-existent exemptions which must be used in these other tax cases.
For the 2018 tax year, the deemed exemption amount is $4,150. Inflation adjustments push that up to $4,200 for tax year 2019.
More inflation info on the way: Yes, this second on the 2019 tax inflation adjustments series does contain a lot a numbers. Again, that's why I'm breaking it up into separate series posts. Even my eyes, those of a dedicated tax geek, glaze over after a certain point.
But I do hope that these tables and explanations of how both the 2018 and 2019 tax years and we filers are affected by inflation help when you file your 2018 return next year and also make moves to lower your 2019 tax bill.
And stayed tuned! More inflation figures are on the way.
As noted in the intro to this post, you can read the first part of the 2019 tax inflation series with details on next year's tax rates and income brackets.
You'll also find at the end of that post an index of what's coming up, along with links to inflation pieces already published.
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from Tax News By Christopher https://www.dontmesswithtaxes.com/2018/11/standard-and-itemized-tax-deductions-2019-inflation-adjustments.html
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