Some guys just don’t get it. They don’t want to — the system has been working just fine for them, thank you very much, and any attempt to recognize systemic inequality is seen as a direct affront to them personally. It isn’t, but some snowflakes just can’t help themselves.
Take, for example, Adam Feldman’s great analysis of women giving oral arguments at the Supreme Court. The numbers are stunning, and show that despite the better-than-average winning percentage women have in front of the Court, they account for less than 18 percent of attorneys in oral arguments.
Seeing this obvious, statistical inequity, Neal Katyal, a former acting Solicitor General now in private practice (and logging a hefty number of his own arguments before the Court), took to Twitter to call out the numbers as unacceptable. So far, so good. But then appellate litigator Alan Gura, of Gura PLLC, had to chime in and get all sexist and transphobic about it.
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Um, the fuck? First of all transgender is an adjective, not a noun. And telling a cis man to identify as a woman to “solve” gender inequities, even jokingly, is mind-blowingly offensive. Stop using your language to mock and demean marginalized groups. I would have a lot more to say but Jason Steed of Kilpatrick Townsend handled the takedown quite nicely.
If you don't think it's a problem that men get all the arguments, you can just say that, without mocking trans folks in the process. 2/2
— Jason P. Steed (@profsteed) October 24, 2017
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You should really check out the full thread, but Gura gets all mock offended that his comment could be compared to blackface, but it still uses the trappings of a marginalized identity to garner some sort of an advantage. It’s super offensive actually. But if he doesn’t mock people for whom he has an artificial sense of superiority, how will the world know how clever he is? (Spoiler alert: he isn’t.)
And, of course Gura doesn’t think it is a problem that women account for a pittance of Supreme Court arguments. Did you expect anything different?
Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).