Friday, September 2, 2022
"A Michigan public school district denies that it hides the transgender identity of students from their parents, though documents obtained by a concerned parent organization show otherwise."
This day in Herstory: Salma Hayek Pinault, born Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American actress and producer. She began her career in Mexico with starring roles in the telenovela Teresa (1989–1991) as well as the romantic drama El Callejón de los Milagros (1995), for which she received an Ariel Award nomination. She soon established herself in Hollywood with appearances in films such as Desperado (1995), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Wild Wild West (1999), and Dogma (1999). (more)
US - Omaha, Sioux Falls bishops adopt policies affirming students' biological sex
From The Pilot (USA)
By Joe Bukuras
September 2, 2022
Catholic bishops from two U.S. dioceses have issued policies that would prohibit Catholic schools from promoting a view of sexual identity that contradicts Church teaching.
Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha, Nebraska, and Bishop Donald DeGrood of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, join several other dioceses that have implemented such policies as discussions over the use of pronouns have taken up debate in the public square.
The Archdiocese of Omaha's policy requires all students, parents, guardians, employees, and volunteers to "act toward a person in accordance with his or her biological sex at birth." … read full article
US - Children's Hospital urged schools to promote 'trans-friendly' sex shops selling 'kink & BDSM': report
From The Christian Post (USA)
By Ryan Foley
September 2, 2022
A children's hospital in Chicago provided training documents to local school districts recommending that students and teachers promote an "LGBTQ friendly sex shop for teens," a new report suggests.
Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute and contributing editor for City Journal, authored the report published Wednesday detailing how Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago provided Chicago-area school districts with training documents advising teachers to promote a "kid friendly website for gender affirming gear" and an "LGBTQ friendly sex shop for teens."
Rufo, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the implementation of critical race theory and LGBT ideology into public school curricula, provided screenshots of the training documents in a lengthy Twitter thread Wednesday. ... read full article
Michigan Public School Appears To Hide ‘Gender Support Plans’ From Students’ Parents
From Daily Caller (USA)
By CHRISSY CLARK
September 02, 2022
A Michigan public school district denies that it hides the transgender identity of students from their parents, though documents obtained by a concerned parent organization show otherwise.
Davison Community Schools, just west of Flint, appears to instruct adult educators and administrators to hide gender-related issues from the parents of students, according to a document titled “Confidential Gender Support Plan.” A local parent sent the plan to the group Parents Defending Education. … read full article
US - Kansas Gubernatorial Candidate Derek Schmidt: Teachers Should Not Keep Secrets from Parents
From Breitbart (USA)
By Katherine Hamilton
September 2, 2022
Kansas school officials agreed this week to pay a teacher $95,000 for violating her First Amendment rights, after they suspended her for refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns and forced her to conceal the student’s transgenderism from parents.
Kansas Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Derek Schmidt celebrated the teacher’s victory on Friday, and his office slammed incumbent Gov. Laura Kelly (D) for allowing far-left gender ideology to infiltrate Kansas schools on her watch. … read full article
US - Pennsylvania Education Dept push towards ‘gender-inclusive’ schools
From The Christian Institute (USA)
September 2, 2022
Parents in Pennsylvania are in uproar after it was revealed that teachers are being told to promote radical gender ideology in school.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDOE) has been criticised for resources which advise educators on how to create “gender-inclusive schools and classrooms”.
Among other recommendations, teachers are told to ask students which pronouns they prefer to use in the classroom including “ne, ve, ze/zie and xe”. … read full article
US - How the GOP’s battle over public education could affect the Maine race for governor
In this week’s Pulse: The national GOP effort to ban books could come to Maine's gubernatorial race, new life for CMP corridor (or just life support?), and a posthumous endorsement?
From Maine Public Radio (USA)
By Steve Mistler, Kevin Miller
September 2, 2022
A national effort to channel conservative angst over public education curricula could soon become a more prominent and contentious feature in the Maine race for governor.
Next week Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin will attend a fundraiser in Lewiston on behalf of former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who is seeking a third, nonconsecutive term. While Youngkin is sometimes discussed as a potential presidential candidate, he’s better known for leveraging disenchantment among some parents over the teaching of race and LGBTQ issues in public schools while securing Republicans’ first statewide victory in Virginia in more than a decade last year. His win, considered a potential bellwether for the 36 gubernatorial races this year, was also seen as a blueprint for other GOP candidates. … read full article
US - Sex Ed Emerges as Core Issue for N.J. Republicans as Midterms Approach
New education standards that touch on gender identity have caused a stir in New Jersey. Some Republicans are trying to keep the conversation alive.
From The New York Times (USA)
By Tracey Tully
September 2, 2022
A 30-second ad from New Jersey’s largest teachers’ union has reignited a debate over the state’s new sex-education standards, putting the issue front and center weeks before pivotal congressional midterm races.
New Jersey has more Democratic incumbents running for re-election in “frontline” congressional swing districts than any other state in the country. And conflicts over cultural issues that are likely to energize Republican voters, including what is taught in schools, are considered potent as Democrats struggle to retain control of Washington. … read full article
US - Virginia teacher sues district over pronoun policy: They think they know better than parents
Harrisonburg City Public Schools requires teachers use students' preferred pronouns, keep it 'confidential' from families
From Fox News (USA)
By Elizabeth Heckman
September 2, 2022
A group of parents and teachers in Virginia are suing Harrisonburg City Public Schools to temporarily block a pronoun policy that prevents teachers from "misgendering" a student or disclosing to a parent if a child picks pronouns that adhere to a different sex than the one they were born with.
Deb Figliola, one of the teachers involved in the lawsuit, joined "Fox & Friends First" Friday to elaborate on her fight for parental rights in the classroom.
"I fought back because I basically don't want to lie to kids," Figliola said. "I don't want to lie to the parents. I want to make sure that the people who are most important in their lives are involved in their lives." … read full article
US - Va. Supreme Court affirms probe of Loudoun sexual assaults can continue
From The Washington Post (USA)
By Justin Jouvenal and Hannah Natanson
September 2, 2022
The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed Friday that a special grand jury investigating how Loudoun County school officials handled two high-profile sexual assaults can continue its work, despite a challenge from the local school board.
Virginia’s highest court concurred with a July ruling by a Loudoun County judge, who found Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and Attorney General Jason Miyares had not overstepped their authority in convening the panel as the school board argued. The school board asked the State Supreme Court to review that ruling. … read full article
US - Junk science alert: Scientific American claims that male/female is a myth invented by Enlightenment bigots
Is binary sexuality really a way of subjugating women?
From Mercatornet (Australia)
By Kurt Mahlburg
September 2, 2022
Sexual dimorphism—one of the most fundamental concepts in human biology—is a myth invented by 18th century bigots.
That is the wild claim made by Scientific American last week in a tweet thread promoting its new documentary series, “A Question of Sex”.
“Before the late 18th century, Western science recognized only one sex—the male—and considered the female body an inferior version of it,” read the sixth tweet in the thread. “The shift historians call the ‘two-sex model’ served mainly to reinforce gender and racial divisions by tying social status to the body.” … read full article
US - MSNBC guest claims giving 'gender affirming care' to minors is ‘suicide prevention’
Transgender 'healthcare' for minors can include puberty blockers, hormones and even surgery
From Fox News (USA)
By Joe Silverstein
September 1, 2022
Transgender activist Kathie Moehlig argued that medically transitioning minors constitutes "suicide prevention" during a segment on "MSNBC Reports" Thursday.
Moehlig, who has a transgender son and leads TransFamily Support Services, spoke in support of a California bill to protect families who travel to the state to get medical intervention for their trans children. … read full article
US - Be Prepared: The Boy Scouts Motto
A warning for parents
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
September 2, 2022
My son was a rough and tumble kid. He loved the outdoors and hiking and backpacking. He only had friends who were boys. When he left elementary school he still did not know any of the girls in his class, even though he’d been in school with them for six years. In middle school, he wondered how he would date girls because he couldn’t imagine having anything in common with a girl. I told him he it would work itself out one day and not to worry. He thanked me for this advice.
In 6th grade, my son wanted to join the Boy Scouts. I did not want him to join because I had gotten a bad feeling about it. Call it mother’s intuition. But my son begged. My gut warned me against it but my husband and son wanted it badly, so I gave in. In Boy Scouts the troop is run by the older boys and my son stepped up like I never had seen before. I was relieved and thought my instincts were wrong. … read full article
UK - Trans activist charities receive taxpayers’ money through ‘loophole’
Controversial groups including Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence are handed grants by other charities funded by the Government
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Gordon Rayner and Robert Mendick
September 2, 2022
Trans activist charities that promote “dangerous” agendas are receiving taxpayers’ money because of a loophole that ministers have now vowed to close.
Controversial groups including Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence are being given grants by other charities that receive government funding, because of a lack of oversight by Whitehall. …read full article
UK - It remains the law… that sex is binary and immutable
From Camden New Journal (UK)
Letters
September 1, 2022
GREEN Party councillor Siân Berry of Highgate ward described a women’s action to keep the Ladies’ Pond at Hampstead “female only”, in line with the single sex provisions in the Equality Act, as “transphobic”, not deserving of her “attention or amplification”, and not reflective of the “loving and inclusive values of the people in Camden”.
I am happy transgender people are protected against discrimination and harassment on the basis of the gender reassignment protected characteristic under UK law, and I think it’s great Cllr Berry is such a strong advocate for trans people; but women have rights as well (to privacy, dignity and safety) and this is recognised in the single sex exemptions, under schedule 3 of the 2010 Equality Act (which Cllr Berry would do well to read). … read full letter
UK - Gender-critical beliefs in the workplace: What Employers Need to know
From Lexology (UK)
By Stevens & Bolton LLP
September 1, 2022
Three recent cases have brought to the fore the issues that arise in the workplace when workers express provoking and controversial beliefs. The law protects certain beliefs and makes it unlawful to subject employees to unfavourable treatment because of those beliefs. However, just because a belief is protected, this does not mean that every expression of that belief is also protected. …
General principles
These recent cases, although arising from different facts, establish the following principles to guide employers in managing workplace tension arising from differing beliefs:
There is a low threshold to meet in order for a belief to be protected under anti-discrimination legislation. … read full article
UK - Why has the West caved in to the progressive witch-finders?
From The Spectator (UK) - a podcast
By Damian Thompson interviewing Andrew Doyle
September 2, 2022
Is western society in the grips of a progressive hysterical epidemic comparable to the Salem Witch Trials?
My guest on Holy Smoke this week, Andrew Doyle, argues precisely that in his book The New Puritans. He suggests that gender ideology, and particularly the dogmas of trans activists, together with the fantasies of Critical Race Theory, are dragging society into an alternative reality that resembles a fanatical religion. But it's one that doesn't have to employ its own ideological police – because actual police forces, along with other powerful institutions including the churches, have signed up to the New Puritanism (usually without understanding it). … listen to interview
UK - What If Joan of Arc Wasn’t a Woman?
A new play depicts the medieval warrior as nonbinary.
From The Atlantic (USA)
By Helen Lewis
September 2, 2022
Does it matter if Joan of Arc was not a woman? “Our new play I, Joan shows Joan as a legendary leader who uses the pronouns ‘they/them,’” announced Shakespeare’s Globe theater in London on August 11. “We are not the first to present Joan in this way, and we will not be the last.”
That strange tone—half punk, half defensive—is more explicable in light of the backlash that followed. Many British feminists immediately objected that, yet again, well-meaning revisionists had deemed a historical figure too compelling to be a woman. … read full article
UK - Children’s Commissioner fails British children
Government reports ought to identify the kind of family which is most successful
From Mercatornet (Australia)
By Ann Farmer
September 2, 2022
It was refreshing to hear the UK Children’s Commissioner calling for strong families this week. Dame Rachel de Souza says that they “represent Britain’s best chance of a bright future”. In her Independent Family Review, she says that “a strong, positive family … [is] the most powerful foundation of all”.
She urged the government to give families wholehearted support. To all worried British parents she sent a pat on the back and to all politicians positive advice:
“Investing in family is the single greatest investment you can make. If we do it right, it is a self-sustaining unit and there to catch us when we fall, and if you are part of a strong family, you cast your net wider to catch others. I am calling on everyone to put family centre-stage of their agenda. If we get this right at a critical moment for families across the country, we will benefit generations to come and change children’s lives.” … read full article
UK - Parents lose bid to stop new Welsh curriculum teaching about gender identity and sex
From ITV (UK)
September 2, 2022
Parents opposed to teaching young children about gender identity and sex in primary schools across Wales have lost a legal challenge to stop a new curriculum.
Campaigners against the Welsh Government’s new Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) curriculum, which comes into effect next week, sought a High Court injunction to prevent the policy being taught to children from the age of seven. … read full article
Scotland - 'I stayed silent to protect myself': former Aberdeen pupil speaks out against gender ideology in Scottish schools
EXCLUSIVE: Murray Allan compromised his future to publish a video of a teacher pushing gender beliefs, now three years later he says people need to know the reality of cancel culture and no debate in schools
From Scottish Daily Express (Scotland)
By Jessica North
September 2, 2022
In 2019, a video shot in a Scottish classroom took the gender debate by storm as it showed a pupil being told by his teacher that he was not allowed to express his view that there are only two genders.
Now aged 20, Murray Allan has decided emerged from the shadows to take credit for the video and reveal the impact it has had on his life. He says it's now time to highlight the nature of the debate on gender in Scottish schools.
In an exclusive interview with the Scottish Daily Express, he reveals that his school in Aberdeenshire effectively kicked him out before he could finish the year. His offence was filming the teacher without his knowledge and posting it online. … read full article
Ireland - Judge orders arrest of teacher Enoch Burke for breaking injunction in row over using ‘they’ pronoun to address transgender student
The court made the order after being told that in breach of both the terms of his paid suspension and the temporary injunction, Mr Burke was currently ‘sitting in an empty classroom’ in the Co Westmeath-based school
School says suspended teacher interrupted a school service last June to voice his objections
Judge says it’s now up to gardaí to bring teacher before the High Court later today or early next week
From Independent.ie (Ireland)
By Aodhan O'Faolain
September 2, 2022
A judge has ordered that teacher Enoch Burke, who objects to addressing a transgender student with the pronoun "they", be arrested for alleged contempt of court.
Judge Miriam O’Regan ordered he be brought before the High Court to answer his alleged failure to comply with a temporary injunction preventing him from attending or teaching at the secondary school where he is employed. … read full article
Canada - Kiwis vs. Predator
From Reduxx (Canada)
By Shay Woulahan
September 2, 2022
Transgender Twitch streamer Keffals has launched an all-out war against a controversial internet forum. While the streamer claims it is in response to a ‘swatting’ incident, others say the move is an attempt to suppress incriminating information about himself that was being shared on the site, including that he facilitated the illegal access of minors to cross-sex hormones.
“Clara” Sorrenti, born Lucas Roberts and better known by the username Keffals, has declared an online campaign against Kiwi Farms, a forum largely dedicated to sharing information about online personalities. … read full article
Australia - Revisionists are stopping us from looking our future in the face
From The Australian (Australia)
By Frank Furedi
September 3, 2022
In recent years, the past has become the key site on which the culture war is fought out. It is not surprising that advocates of woke ideology have turned their attention to the past to gain control over the way that people understand their history. As George Orwell stated in his insightful novel, 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future.”
Gaining mastery over the narrative through which society understands itself has become the single most important issue at stake in the culture war. That is why the dogmatic fervour with which censorious social justice crusaders shut down debate in the contemporary world has now made its appearance in discussions about the history of Western society. Cancel culture has moved from focusing its attention on present day matters towards imposing its narrative on how we view the past. … read full article
Australia - Why is everyone so angry about everything all of the time?
From The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
By Waleed Aly and Scott Stephen
September 3, 2022
Something’s amiss, isn’t it? “We may live in the first period of human history where every demographic feels that they are somehow being violated and victimised,” writes Mark Manson, capturing something at once familiar and bewildering about our moment.
This is not simply one of those revolutionary moments when the long-downtrodden rise up against their oppressors – as witnessed, for example, at the height of the civil rights struggle in the 1960s, or a century earlier with the women’s suffrage movement.
… read full article
Australia - Pride and shame
From Spectator | Australia
By Edie Wyatt
September 3, 2022
I first read Pride and Prejudice in a feminist theory course. I wanted to be cynical about it and notice the patriarchy, the structural inequity, the horrors of a class system managing the lives of women like commodities and business deals…
But despite myself, I was caught in the dream of a woman who had long since left the earth. A dream that a woman with no financial security could reject a handsome, rich, and powerful man just because she didn’t really fancy him. … read full article