Friday, August 5, 2022
"Whenever anyone expresses concern about pressing gender ideology on American youth, the typical retort is to cite suicide statistics."
This day in Herstory: Mary Ritter Beard, born August 5, 1876 (died August 14, 1958), was an American historian, author, women's suffrage activist, and women's history archivist who was also a lifelong advocate of social justice. As a Progressive Era reformer, Beard was active in both the labor and women's rights movements. She also authored several books on women's role in history including On Understanding Women (1931), America Through Women's Eyes (editor, 1933), and Woman as Force in History: A Study in Traditions and Realities (1946), her major work. (more)
US - A New Low
Advocates of pediatric gender transition publish a fatally flawed study purporting to debunk the social-transition hypothesis.
From City Journal (USA)
By Leor Sapir
August 5, 2022
A new study in the journal Pediatrics sets out to refute a central claim made by critics of pediatric gender transition: that social pressure rather than organic processes is the major cause of transgender self-identification among youth. Among the study’s authors is Jack Turban, an oft-quoted proponent of “gender affirming care” (GAC) and propagator of the affirm-or-suicide myth.
Pediatrics, recall, is the journal that published Jason Rafferty’s thoroughly debunked 2018 article purporting to find conclusive evidence that alternatives to GAC are futile and harmful. That article has become Exhibit A in efforts by policymakers to promote GAC and is widely cited by activist groups working with schools to make (iatrogenic) “social transition” easier for students. ... read full article
US - The New Study on Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria Published In “Pediatrics” Is Genuinely Worthless
There’s a growing credibility crisis in youth gender research
From Singal-Minded (USA)
By Jesse Singal
August 6, 2022
Did you hear? The theory of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) has been seriously challenged by research published in a top-flight medical journal. Just happened, thanks to a new study in Pediatrics. As NBC News summed it up, “‘Social contagion’ isn’t causing more youths to be transgender, study finds.” Isn’t causing, full stop.
Did the study really find convincing evidence calling this idea into question? No, it did not. The study is a disaster — such a disaster it’s been torn apart by researchers who are very sympathetic to its overall argument. ... read full article
US - Turban: Even Worse Than We Thought
From Malcolm’s Newsletter (UK)
By Malcolm Richard Clark
August 5, 2022
Michael Biggs has written a zinger of a letter to Paediatrics, the journal that published Jack Turban’s most recent paper. Unfortunately, Paediatrics has refused to publish it. I’m honoured Michael let me publish it here and I’ll put up a thread on twitter too.
Michael is a living reproach to some of our most important scientific institutions, who have been captured by deluded activism. Associate Professor of Sociology at Oxford University, he is one of a small but determined band of academics who have been prepared, despite threats, and defamatory claims by opponents, to keep inexorably digging up the truth, about so-called “gender affirming care”. ... read full article
Ed. Note: Full text of Michael Biggs’ letter responding to Turban et al. (pdf download)
Twitter - A quick thread on this new paper which it has been claimed refutes the notion of social contagion in trans adolescents. Even by the poor methodological standards of this topic it's remarkable how weak the evidence is compared to the claims being made.
From Twitter
By Nathan Williams
August 4, 2022
A quick thread on this new paper which it has been claimed refutes the notion of social contagion in trans adolescents. Even by the poor methodological standards of this topic it's remarkable how weak the evidence is compared to the claims being made. ... read full thread
US - Telling Kids To Hate Their Biology Might Be What’s Actually Killing Them
Might the increase in ‘gender dysphoria’ among American youth be related to broader societal dysphoria felt by an entire generation of kids?
From The Federalist (USA)
By CASEY CHALK
August 5, 2022
Whenever anyone expresses concern about pressing gender ideology on American youth, the typical retort is to cite suicide statistics. “Transgender and nonbinary youth have considered suicide at higher rates than other LGBTQ youth,” warns an NPR article from May. “Children and teens who do not identify with their assigned gender can face higher rates of depression, suicide and self harm than other kids,” The New York Times reported in March. …
Yet what if the opposite is true, that promotion of alternative sexual identities among America’s children is aggravating our national mental health crisis, and increasing the likelihood of self-harm among vulnerable young populations?... read full article
US - Florida’s Board of Medicine considers restricting gender-affirming health care for transgender youth, adults
The state Board of Medicine is meeting Friday to discuss the adoption of new standards of care for transgender people that are based on evidence widely criticized by the mainstream medical community as “unscientific.”
From The Hill (USA)
By Brooke Migdon
August 5, 2022
Story at a glance
Florida’s Board of Medicine, made up of doctors appointed by the governor, will meet Friday to consider establishing new standards of care for the state’s transgender youth.
The proposed standards from the state Department of Health are mostly based on false or misleading claims about the effectiveness and safety of gender-affirming interventions, according to medical experts.
Under the proposed standards of care, doctors will be prohibited from providing gender-affirming treatments to transgender youth under the age of 18.
The Florida Board of Medicine on Friday will consider establishing a new standard of care for transgender youth that is in conflict with recommendations from major medical associations and inconsistent with mainstream science in what critics have called a political ploy led by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) administration. ... read full article
US - An Earthquake in Trans Medicine: Are We Paying Attention?
Britain’s National Health Service closed a controversial clinic that provided gender-affirming care and puberty blockers to thousands of children, but it's not yet clear whether the news could upend similar practices in the U.S.
From National Catholic Register (USA)
By Joan Frawley Desmond
August 5, 2022
Britain’s National Health System announced the closure of the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service last week. The shakeup could have seismic consequences for similar practices in the U.S., where activists have promoted “gender-affirming” care for children who suffer from gender dysphoria — a condition in which the patient feels psychological distress from an incongruence between their bodily sex and their inner feelings of being male or female. Gender-affirming protocols encourage patients to align their pronouns, names and outward physical traits with their inner feelings. Puberty blockers are said to “pause” normal physical changes as a first step toward the ultimate goal of presenting as the opposite sex. ... read full article
US - Battling the Woke Education Establishment in the Trenches
From National Review (USA)
By GEORGE LEEF
August 5, 2022
In state after state, the education establishment has been thoroughly infiltrated by aggressive leftists who intend to use the schools to spread their ideology rather than teaching students what they need to know to become successful. That is certainly the case in Maine, as Lawrence Lockman documents in this article. ... read full article
US - School district trains teachers to 'dismantle' systems of 'heteronormativity'
The San Diego teaching materials define the "gender binary" as a social construct that oppresses and excludes "trans, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people."
From The Post Millennial (USA)
By Christina Buttons
August 5, 2022
Christopher Rufo, perhaps best known for exposing the excesses of critical race theory and gender ideology in public school curricula, tweeted on Wednesday that he uncovered a teacher training program from the San Diego Unified School District that infuses radical gender theory and other social justice belief systems into their curriculum.
"The district has gone all-in on radical gender theory," tweeted Rufo, along with a screenshot from the teaching materials that define the "gender binary" as a social construct that oppresses and excludes "trans, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people." ... read full article
US - Woke Maine School Board Gets Busted for First Amendment Violation
Conservatives learn to fight fire with fire.
From Frontpage Mag (USA)
By Lawrence Lockman
August 4, 2022
The slumbering giant is stirring.
I’m referring to the no-longer-silent majority of Mainers who are beginning to understand that our state is in trouble.
Serious trouble. And it begins in our schools. Government-run K-12 schools.
We’re in trouble because we’ve allowed politicians and bureaucrats to transform these public institutions into indoctrination camps, churning out graduates who are unprepared either for the workplace or for further education. ... read full article
US - Pennsylvania moms react to education dept suggesting kids may use 'ne, ve, ze/zie and xe' pronouns
'This is grooming of our children,' a Pennsylvania mom said about the department of education webpage
From Fox News (USA)
By Hannah Grossman
August 5, 2022
Pennsylvanians blasted their state's department of education's new gender identity page which suggested teachers should not make assumptions about students' pronouns, and listed "ne, ve, ze/zie and xe" as some examples.
Fox News Digital spoke with people from Pennsylvania, including mothers, about the education department's webpage.
"In addition to the traditional pronouns (he/him, she/her, they), some people prefer to use gender-neutral pronouns, such as ne, ve, ze/zie and xe. If you don't know a student's preferred personal pronoun, it's always best to ask," the Pennsylvania DOE said. ... read full article
US - Where's Our Life Raft?
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
August 5, 2022
This is my rant. My attempt at a cathartic retelling of a story so many know.
Our daughter was—is—a wonderful little girl. Funny, outgoing and pleasant. Loving and caring, empathetic to a fault. Wildly smart in math and science, she’s always excelled academically. And, like every other damn story I read, COVID happened, and so began what I sometimes call The Oppression Olympics. ... read full article
US - Should Men Be Allowed to Watch Women Shower, Girls Pee at the YMCA? Some Say Yes
The full video of an epic city council meeting
By Matt Osborne
Yesterday we brought you the story of Julie Jaman, an 80 year-old woman banned from the Port Townsend, Washington public pool after she objected to a male in the shower area watching little girls pee as she rinsed off after a swim. Thousands of people have now watched her public statement to the city council.
Which has us wondering: how many people really think it is a good idea to let men watch women shower and little girls pee? Please answer our reader poll so we can have a totally scientific sample of public opinion. ... read full article
Canada - Can’t Ask; Don’t Tell
Schools hiding gender transition from parents.
From justdad7’s Newsletter (Canada)
By justdad7
August 5, 2022
One of the most frightening things that can happen to the parents of a gender-questioning child is learning that the school has agreed to change a child’s name and pronouns without telling them. In fact, other students in the school may be explicitly instructed not to share this information with the child’s parents. ... read full article
UK - The decline of madness
The colourful history of the Tavistock Clinic
From The Critic (UK)
By Jacob Phillips
August 5, 2022
The only public medical clinic in the UK authorised to prescribe puberty blockers to people under 18 was ordered to close this week, further cementing the UK’s reputation as a centre of “gender critical” convictions, or “TERF island”.
The soon-to-close Gender Identity Development Unit is run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust’s announcement has of course been met with wildly different reports. Mainstream outlets like the BBC and The Times seem clear enough that the problem was not merely spiralling demand and long waiting times. Rather, it is about the de-transitioned Kiera Bell’s High Court win against the clinic’s use of puberty blockers, and the damning findings of Dr Hilary Cass’s independent review that followed it. ... read full article
UK - Good riddance to the Tavistock
From The Spectator (UK)
By Lionel Shriver
August 6, 2022
Most push notifications that pop up on my tablet concern impending catastrophe. But last week, one newsflash made my day. Glory hallelujah, the NHS is closing the Tavistock.
A clatter of tattletales have warned since 2005 that the UK’s only clinic for minors confused about which sex they are – having been encouraged to be confused by British media and their own teachers – was fast-tracking children into often irreversible treatments in the service of ideologically driven ‘gender affirmation’. At last the Cass report has determined that the clinic’s practices are unsafe. The Tavistock will close by the spring, which by my calculation is seven months too late – if not ten years. ... read full article
UK - Shuttering the Tavistock
The closure of Britain’s scandal-plagued youth gender clinic could help protect distressed children from unnecessary medicalisation.
From Quillette (Australia)
By Bernard Lane
August 5, 2022
Before long, the closure of Britain’s Tavistock youth gender clinic, the world’s largest, will appear to have been inevitable, and it will be difficult to find any big names who’ll admit to once being its champion. But there was nothing inevitable about the exposure of the Tavistock’s failings. Nor is there any guarantee of success for the more mainstream approach to gender distress urged by paediatrician and service reviewer Dr. Hilary Cass, whose recommendations have been adopted in toto by England’s National Health Service (NHS). So much depends on individuals of character who seek to remedy wrongs and uphold principle, no matter how inconvenient this is for self-regarding institutions. ... read full article
UK - Post Cass, it’s time to challenge the MOU
From Transgender Trend (UK)
By Shelley Charlesworth
August 5, 2022
The landscape for the treatment of children and young people with gender distress has changed utterly over the last six months. The Cass Interim Report began the process in March, followed by news in July that the Tavistock’s gender clinic for children, GIDS, is to close early in 2023. These profound changes come as the Conservative Party is electing a new leader, which means a new government with a new legislative timetable. Whether the proposed bill to ban conversion therapy survives a change in leadership is in doubt. And while the bill at present would ban such therapy for sexual orientation alone, there’s still a strong lobby pressing to include gender identity in the ban. ... read full article
Ireland - Irish “LGBTQ+ Inclusive” Football Team With Transgender Player Wins Women’s Junior Final
From Reduxx (USA)
By Reduxx Team
August 5, 2022
An Irish “LGBTQ+ Inclusive” football team beat out the female competition in the 2022 Junior J Shield Final, claiming a significant margin of victory in every placing that many attribute to the fact a biological male was on the team.
Na Gaeil Aeracha, which bills itself as Ireland’s “first explicitly LGBTQ+ inclusive” football club was forced to lock down its social media accounts following backlash as sport fans noticed one of the players appeared to be an older man. ... read full article
Australia - Self-Hatred, Gender Dysphoria & Autism
Psychological issues that cannot be fixed by gender transition
From Analyse This! (Australia)
By Tania A. Marshall, M.Sc.
August 5, 2022
According to the CDC, 1 in 44 children are now born with Autism. This increase in Autism has been consistent for years. The ratio for males to females is now 2:1 steadily heading towards 1:1. A core theme in many autistic, aspergers, adhd or neurodiverse/neurodivergent individuals is self hatred or self-loathing, in both the diagnosed & undiagnosed and across the lifespan. ... read full article
I love Mary Ritter Beard's face. There is a calm fierceness in her eyes that reminds me of all the women right now who are standing up against the toxic madness. This is a worthy fight.