Friday, October 14, 2022
"Gonville & Caius College are under fire over a discussion involving controversial journalist and Cambridge grad Helen Joyce, set to be held at the College later this month"
Hannah Arendt born, October 14, 1906 (died December 4, 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. (more)
UK - Charity watchdog ‘ignored alert from mother over trans service’
From The Times (UK)
By Helen Puttick
October 14, 2022
The charity regulator ignored concerns about a youth trans service accused of providing breast-binding kits to girls as young as 13 for more than two years, it has been claimed.
A mother from the east of Scotland warned in July 2020 that Mermaids was hosting a service which offered to assist children seeking to flatten their chests.
She told the Charity Commission that participants in the youth chat forum would “frequently offer to send young girls a free binder”. … read full article
UK - NHS drafts stricter oversight of trans youth care
From Reuters (USA)
By Jennifer Rigby
October 14, 2022
LONDON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - England's National Health Service has drafted new guidelines for treating transgender youth that would call for local authorities to be alerted in some cases where young people have obtained puberty blockers and hormone therapies on the private market, according to a copy of the guidelines reviewed by Reuters.
The guidelines are part of a wide-ranging review of treatment for young transgender people seeking NHS care. The current approach, which can include medical interventions, has been criticised by some practitioners who said it rushed people onto medication, and by families who complained the service could not manage fast-growing demand. … read full article
UK - Police force facing calls to investigate Mermaids received trans training from the charity
West Yorkshire Police got guidance on ‘trans awareness’ despite pleas for it to look into safeguarding concerns involving children
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Hayley Dixon
October 13, 2022
The police force facing calls to investigate Mermaids has received training from the trans charity.
Officers in West Yorkshire, where the charity is based, refused to comment on whether they will look into safeguarding concerns following calls from MPs.
It came after a Telegraph investigation found that Mermaids had been sending out free breast-binding devices to children against their parents’ wishes and told teenagers how puberty-blocking drugs are safe and “totally reversible”. … read full article
US - Trans Activist To Stand Trial For the Brutal Murder of a Lesbian Couple and Son
From Reduxx (USA)
By Genevieve Gluck
October 14, 2022
A prominent trans activist is set to stand trial for the 2016 triple homicide of a lesbian couple and their son. The horrific murder came after campaigns against a female-only music festival that refused admission to trans-identified males.
Dana Rivers, 67, born David Chester Warfield, is currently detained in California’s Santa Rita jail awaiting trial on a triple homicide. Officials have delayed Rivers’ court date for years pending the results of a mental health assessment.
Rivers is charged with the murders of Charlotte Reed, 56, her wife Patricia Wright, 57, and their son Benny Diambu-Wright, 19. On the night of November 11, 2016, police received reports of gunshots being fired outside the home of Wright and Reed in Oakland, California. … read full article
UK - Eddie Izzard has no place on an all-women shortlist
Will the Labour Party ever take women seriously?
From spiked (UK)
By Candice Holdsworth
October 14, 2022
Comedian Eddie Izzard has this week formally announced his intention to stand as a Labour MP for Sheffield Central at the next General Election.
Labour has not announced any selection process for the seat yet, but Izzard’s potential candidature is already proving controversial. There is talk that Izzard, who identifies as a woman, could be included on an all-women shortlist – that is, when only women are allowed to compete to be the party’s local candidate. … read full article
UK - How can a charity send breast binders to children behind their parents’ backs? They can cause ulcers, breathing problems, cracked ribs and permanent disfigurement. Yet Mermaids defends handing them out
Children are able to order breast binders to squash their developing figures
Binding is meant to help address the feeling of gender dysphoria experienced
Transgender charity Mermaids accused of offering them for free since 2019
Now other organisations appear to be selling them or even giving them away
Mail was able to purchase a binder with no checks and no instructions for use
From Daily Mail (UK)
By SUE REID
October 14, 2022
A teenage girl walks slowly up the stairs at a family home in a prosperous, middle-class area of northern England, each step watched by her worried parents.
The child has a short haircut, is wearing khaki shorts and has an unusually flat chest for her age and sex. She stops twice on her way to her bedroom to take deep breaths, wincing in pain each time she does so.
Why is she not rushing up the stairs like any other teenager might? The reason is that she is wearing a constricting breast binder to squash her developing figure. …read full article
UK - Students condemn decision to host gender critical feminist
Helen Joyce, known for her controversial views on trans issues, will be speaking at Gonville & Caius College later this month
From Varsity (UK)
By Bella Shorrock, Meg Byrom & Hugh Jones
October 14, 2022
Gonville & Caius College are under fire over a discussion involving controversial journalist and Cambridge grad Helen Joyce, set to be held at the College later this month (25/10).
The event, titled “Criticising gender-identity ideology: what happens when speech is silenced”, is being hosted by Arif Ahmed, a Caius fellow, but is not an official college event. It was announced yesterday (13/10) in emails sent to students across different faculties. … read full article
Policing Adult Human Females:
Let Women Speak!
From Savage Minds (UK)
By Heather Brunskell-Evans
October 14, 2022
In the febrile context of gender identity politics, high-profile left-wing feminists have charged Kellie-Jay Keen (aka Posie Parker), a women’s rights activist, with making dangerous far-right alliances and giving a voice to white nationalists. A heated dispute has taken place in the Twitter-sphere which as yet shows no sign of abating. Why should an outsider view the conflict as anything other than an internecine spat? Quite frankly, why should anyone who is not a feminist care? … read full article
US - Tulsi Gabbard attacks Democratic hypocrisy for not supporting women
From Washington Examiner (USA)
By Misty Severi
October 14, 2022
Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard chastised her former party Thursday night, claiming that powerful people in the Democratic Party are denying "objective truth" and bullying those who did not agree.
Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party on Tuesday, blasted members of the Left for allegedly erasing the existence of women by not addressing the biological differences between the two sexes.
"We have an administration in the White House, and woke politicians in Washington, a Supreme Court justice, who are unable and unwilling to define what a woman is," Gabbard said during an address to the Independent Women's Forum. "Those who don't believe that there is such a thing as a woman are also denying that there is such a thing as truth." … read full article
US - Dems under fire after ties to lawmaker who wants to criminalize parents who don’t affirm LGBT kids exposed
'I am proud to have Delegate Guzman’s support for my campaign,' Spanberger recently tweeted.
From Fox News (USA)
By Aubrie Spady
October 14, 2022
Democratic representatives seeking re-election this fall in Virginia remain silent after cozying up with a delegate in the state legislature whose new bill would make it a punishable crime for parents not to affirm their LGBT children.
On Thursday, Delegate Elizabeth Guzman told WJLA that at the start of the new legislative session, she will introduce a bill that would penalize, with a misdemeanor or felony charge, parents who do not affirm their LGBT children. The bill would expand the state's definition of child abuse and neglect to include parents who do not affirm their LGBT children's gender identity or sexual orientation.
"Well, we first have to complete an investigation," Guzman told WJLA about the new bill. "It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know that [Child Protective Services] charge could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays, many people do a CPS database search before offering employment." … read full article
US - Women Don’t Produce Eggs
...did I get that right?
From Everything Is Biology... (USA)
By FR Prete
October 14, 2022
Biology is really, really hard. Even though I’ve been teaching it for a couple decades, there’s so much more to learn, and so much to remember. New things are discovered all the time, so it’s hard to keep up. But, I’m the type of guy — I mean, person — who believes in lifelong learning. I’m always willing to change my opinion when I come across new information.
So, I was really surprised yesterday morning when I read the headline, “It’s Not Women That Produce Eggs” in The Washington Free Beacon. That’s a new one on me… I remember learning that they do. But, things change all the time, right? So, I started reading the article. … read full article
US - 'Utterly horrifying': Virginia Democrat ripped for plan to criminalize parents opposed to gender transitions
From Washington Examiner (USA)
By Jeremiah Poff
October 14, 2022
A parent activist group blasted a Virginia state legislator who is seeking legislation to bring child abuse criminal charges against parents who oppose their children's gender transitions.
Virginia Delegate Elizabeth Guzman (D) told WJLA Thursday that she would introduce a bill in the next legislative session that would expand the state's definition of child abuse and neglect to include parents who do not "affirm" their child's preferred gender identity or sexual orientation. Parents charged under the proposed statute could face felony charges and would lose custody of their children. … read full article
US - Generation Indoctrination: Inside the transgender battle and gender chaos in America
From The Christian Post (USA)
By Brandon Showalter
October 14, 2022
For the past few months, a team of journalists have been working here at The Christian Post to produce a 5-part investigative podcast series on transgenderism and its devastating impact on society.
This new hard-hitting series, called “Generation Indoctrination: Inside the Transgender Battle,” features a diverse cast of 20 contributors from a variety of backgrounds. Over the next several weeks, we will chronicle the history and philosophy of gender ideology and how this new-fangled dogma is influencing schools, the medical system, families, and especially children.
The inaugural episode, which is released today, explores how gender dogma has become entrenched in the education system nationwide and how many school officials are driving wedges between kids and their parents via “gender identity” policies and course content. … read full article
UK - Queer Theory
Breaking the binary?
From Ceri Black Writes (UK)
By Ceri Black
October 14, 2022
This is a queer theory explainer, in which I steel man queer theory, then outline a couple of thoughts about the best way to argue with its advocates. It is not meant to be a comprehensive account, and I have simplified for the sake of clarity. I hope it’s helpful for those struggling with the absolutely self indulgent and pseudo intellectual way queer theorists choose to write.
In essence, queer theory holds that Western thought is based around binaries – black and white, night and day, men and women, straight and gay. One side of the binary is privileged, the other devalued. These apparently fundamental, essential binary categories are created through performance. You don’t identify somebody as a man because you have performed a genital inspection. You identify them as a man because they are downing a keg of beer at a party whilst their friends shout “chug.” Even the act of holding up a baby and saying “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl” is performative. Butler thinks that this utterance speaks a gendered subject into being, in the same way that “I hereby pronounce you man and wife” speaks a marriage into being. … read full article
UK - Why won’t Graham Norton speak up for JK Rowling?
From The Spectator (UK)
By Brendan O’Neill
October 14, 2022
Is silence still violence? I’m just wondering because this week Graham Norton was asked about the deluge of hateful slurs and threats that are frequently fired at JK Rowling and he dodged the issue. Instead he rambled on about how celebs should not comment on difficult topics like transgenderism. So was his silence on the misogynistic monstering of JK Rowling an act of violence?
‘Silence is Violence’ is the radical slogan du jour. It was popularised by Black Lives Matter. There were moments over the past couple of years when you couldn’t browse the internet for five minutes without encountering a post saying that anyone who keeps schtum on hatred and violence is helping to compound that hatred and violence. But it seems this judgment is not equally applied. Silence on hatred against racial minorities? That’s violence. Silence on the rape threats, death threats and sexist hate that are aimed at Rowling and other women who are critical of the trans ideology? That’s fine. … read full article
US - Self-Doubt and the Easy Way Out
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
October 14, 2022
Parents of kids who think they’re trans or non-binary spend a lot of time on an emotional hamster wheel, cycling through all the feelings: Confusion. Sadness. Guilt. Anger. Regret. Despair. Loneliness. Doubt.
I get super caught up in that last one.
Was I too stereotypically feminine, and that turned my daughter against herself? Or was I not feminine enough? … read full article
Thanks for the great list, and thanks for noting my essay "Women Don't Produce Eggs." It's is a strange and wacky world out there… It defies rational explanation! Thanks for all your hard work on this… Frederick