Lessons from Juror B37

There are all sorts of lessons we can learn from the interview B37 had with Anderson Cooper. I’ll mention two. Add in others if you want.

1. Implicit biases can operate as described in most papers on it.. E.g., you can firmly believe no one in your group is a bigot while demonstrating your own bigotry. Thus your group may decide that Zimmerman is a fundamentally good person, while Trayon contributed a lot to his own death.

2. One can activate implicit biases in others in much the same way that one can activate stereotype threat. That is, one just needs to get people using concepts closely associated with, e.g., a frightening situation with Africam American men in order to activate the belief that black men are dangerous. Just having someone testify about a house-breaking by Black Men to get a jury ready to see a black kid as dangerous. Points to the clever defense.

See part of the interview here:

What do you need to disclose for meaningful consent?

In the UK, you can legally conceal your marital status, wealth, HIV status, and age, but apparently not the gender you were assigned at birth.

The young relationship started as so many do these days — online. Thirteen-year-old “Scott” and 12-year-old “M” developed a friendship that over the course of three years and many instant message conversations, bloomed into romance. M began calling Scott her boyfriend — they even talked about getting married and having kids. After M’s 16th birthday, Scott, then 17, traveled from his home in Scotland to visit her in England. They watched a movie, kissed and, before long, things went further.

It may sound like a sweet story of teenage love — but Scott was sentenced by a court in England to three years in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for life as a result of the relationship. That’s because Scott was born Justine McNally and assigned at birth as female. In an appeal of McNally’s sentence, which was made public late last week, a U.K. court reduced McNally’s sentence but affirmed that the 18-year-old had violated M’s sexual consent by presenting as male. It was deemed a “deception” and “abuse of trust.”

I have no idea how this kind of affront to the rights of trans* people is legal. Read the rest of the story here.