Monday, April 11, 2022
This day in Herstory: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (née Labille), born April 11, 1749 (died April 24, 1803), also known as Adélaïde Labille-Guiard des Vertus, was a French miniaturist and portrait painter. She was an advocate for women to receive the same opportunities as men to become great painters. Labille-Guiard was one of the first women to become a member of the Royal Academy and was the first female artist to receive permission to set up a studio for her students at the Louvre.
The push for childhood gender transitions takes root in ideology, not science
From Washington Examiner (USA)
By Debra Soh
April 11, 2022
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has offered support for childhood gender transitions, stating last Thursday that "every major medical association agrees that gender-affirming healthcare … is a best practice and potentially lifesaving." She suggested that implementing bills preventing access to care may violate federal law.
The narrative that affirmation is the best approach for young people questioning their gender is echoed in two recent documents from the Department of Health and Human Services. Support for gender-affirming treatments, including hormonal therapy and "top" and "bottom" surgery, are presented as ways to reduce suicidal ideation and mental health problems associated with gender distress.
Several states are in the process of considering or implementing laws that criminalize transitioning procedures on minors. Alabama approved legislation last week outlawing hormonal and surgical interventions for gender dysphoric youth, and Texas will investigate cases of children transitioning as "abuse." … read full article
Opinion: What I wish I’d known when I was 19 and had sex reassignment surgery
From The Washington Post (USA)
By Corinna Cohn
April 11, 2022
Corinna Cohn, a software developer in Indianapolis, is an officer in the Gender Care Consumer Advocacy Network.
When I was 19, I had surgery for sex reassignment, or what is now called gender affirmation surgery. The callow young man who was obsessed with transitioning to womanhood could not have imagined reaching middle age. But now I’m closer to 50, keeping a watchful eye on my 401(k), and dieting and exercising in the hope that I’ll have a healthy retirement.
In terms of my priorities and interests today, that younger incarnation of myself might as well have been a different person — yet that was the person who committed me to a lifetime set apart from my peers.
There is much debate today about transgender treatment, especially for young people. Others might feel differently about their choices, but I know now that I wasn’t old enough to make that decision. Given the strong cultural forces today casting a benign light on these matters, I thought it might be helpful for young people, and their parents, to hear what I wish I had known. … read full article
Gender reform critics like racists, says Lorna Slater
From The Times (UK)
By David McCann
April 11, 2022
A minister in Nicola Sturgeon’s government has compared feminists who oppose the reform of Scotland’s transgender laws to racists and antisemites.
Lorna Slater, the Scottish Green MSP who joined the government in 2021 as part of the co-operation deal with the SNP, said the legal overhaul intended to make it easier for people to change their gender would pass, but added that the backlash had been“absolutely heartbreaking” and “hideous”.
She said that her party had put up some trans candidates in the local elections but that she was “genuinely afraid for their safety”. … read full article (web page archive)
Slater criticised for likening trans law opponents to antisemites and racists
From The Times (UK)
By Mark McLaughlin
April 11, 2022
A Scottish minister who compared feminists who oppose plans to allow trans people to declare their own gender to racists and antisemites has been urged to “apologise and withdraw these remarks”.
Lorna Slater, the Scottish Green MSP who joined the government in 2021 as part of the co-operation deal with the SNP, compared the backlash to the Gender Recognition Act to the “false balance” created in the debate over climate change, where respected scientists representing the mainstream consensus that global temperatures are rising are given equal billing in public discourse to fringe groups who say it is a hoax.
Slater said the BBC “only recently stopped putting on climate deniers because they required balance”. … read full article (web page archive)
WATCH: Trans, non-binary elementary school teacher says 3-year-olds are old enough to learn about gender identity, sexual orientation
"To say that pre-K through third grade are not ready for such topics is actually internalized homophobia and transphobia," the teacher said.
From The Post Millennial (Canada)
By James Anthony
April 10, 2022
A transgender non-binary elementary school teacher said in a viral video that three-year-olds are old enough to learn about gender identity, sexual orientation, and pronouns. According to the teacher's website, Los Angeles-based "social justice educator" Skye Tooley, who uses "they/them" pronouns, has worked to recreate elementary curriculum with "a social justice focus" and create lessons around the progressive topics of "identity, diversity, equity, action, and justice."
"Hi! I'm a queer teacher and I 1000 percent do not support this bill," Tooley said of Florida's anti-grooming legislation designed to protect young school-aged children from activist educators. "And yes, I do know what's in it," the teacher added.
"The bill, in itself, is just another way to stigmatize the LGBTQ+ community," the teacher continued in the TikTok video uploaded mid-March and later posted Saturday to social media by Twitter account Libs of TikTok. "Kids as young as three and four are actually aware of their gender identity, even if they don't have the language for it. Also, very aware of who they like and who they don't like." … read full article
If you want our vote, talk about sex
Door-knocking election candidates had better watch out, writes Damian Whitworth
From The Times (UK)
By Damian Whitworth
April 11, 2022
The women behind a new “Respect My Sex” campaign say that they are creating the most significant women’s movement since the suffragettes. There is, however, one small difference between the activism at the start of the past century and what they are doing now. “The suffragettes were fighting for the vote,” says Caroline Ffiske, one of the leaders of the campaign. “Nobody was actually debating, at that point, what it meant to be a woman.”
“What is a woman?” Politicians, wary of upsetting transgender rights activists, have been tangling themselves up in spectacular knots trying to answer this simple question. Anneliese Dodds, the shadow women and equalities secretary, said it depended on the context. Rishi Sunak, with panic in his voice, desperately tried to refer to an answer the prime minister had given to this question, but clearly couldn’t remember what it was. … read full article (web page archive)
Hartford schools in cover-up on gender dysphoria issue
From Journal Inquirer (USA)
By Chris Powell
April 11, 2022
Does Hartford's school system inform a student's parents when it learns that the student may be dealing with gender dysphoria? That's the important question raised by the system's suspension of a school nurse who recently wrote on social media that school staffers keep such issues secret from parents.
The school system is working hard to avoid answering, instead obscuring the issue by accusing the nurse of misconduct. The nurse, Kathleen Cataford, who worked at the Kinsella Magnet School in Hartford, wrote on her Facebook page last month:
“As a public school nurse, I have an 11-year-old female student on puberty blockers and a dozen identifying as non-binary, all but two keeping this as a secret from their parents with the help of teachers, social workers, and school administration. ... Children are introduced to this confusion in kindergarten by the school social worker who ‘teaches' social and emotional regulation and school expectations.”
In response, Hartford Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez accused the nurse of revealing "private and personal details about a specific student" and making students "feel unwelcome." But the nurse had identified no student by name, nor even her school, and her school has about 800 students, presumably many of them 11. If questioning school policy on gender dysphoria is to be construed as making students "feel unwelcome," then of course the policy cannot be questioned at all, which may be the superintendent's idea. … read full article
Schools and gender: the unfinished history of an open seminar
From University of Edinburgh Academics for Academic Freedom (Scotland)
By sbenjami
April 11, 2022
Chances are most people reading this will be aware that one of the current flashpoints for academic freedom is the debate on sex, gender and gender identity. You’ve probably heard of Professor Kathleen Stock who was hounded out of her job at the University of Sussex, Professor Selina Todd who needed security guards to accompany her to her lectures in Oxford where she teaches and researches working-class women’s history, and Professor Jo Phoenix, currently raising funds to take her former employer, the Open University, to the Employment Tribunal for its failure to protect her from harassment because of her gender-critical beliefs. These three academics share the view that biological sex is dimorphic, fixed and consequential: their research, teaching and public engagement reflects that understanding.
These and a handful of other high-profile cases, mostly involving senior and well-established academics, have been covered in the press, which is why you’ve heard of them. But shocking as they are, they’re only the tip of the iceberg. Such cases don’t tell the story of the established but less senior academics quietly side-lined from teaching on courses where any critique of gender-identity theory, or simply an acknowledgement that critique is possible, is likely to provoke complaints from a tiny number of censorious students. They don’t tell the story of junior academics, often on precarious contracts, who are obliged either to go along with the currently fashionable view on sex and gender, or to research and teach something else, because to openly critique gender-identity theory would end their careers before they’ve properly begun. And they don’t tell the story of the public engagement events not organised because to do so is to commit vast reserves of time and energy to dealing with the practicalities and the emotional consequences of being targeted by activists who are determined that critique of gender-identity theory should not be allowed on campus. … read full article
Mads Mikkelsen Calls Reaction to J.K. Rowling's Trans Comments 'Crazy'
From Newsweek (USA)
By EMMA NOLAN
April 11, 2022
ads Mikkelsen has shared his thoughts on the debate surrounding J.K. Rowling and her views and remarks about gender and the transgender community.
The Danish actor is currently starring in the Harry Potter author's newest movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, as Johnny Depp's replacement, Gellert Grindelwald.
The movie's release comes as Depp is set to face another ugly court battle involving his ex-wife Amber Heard over domestic abuse claims, while Rowling has continued to be embroiled in controversies over her views about trans people.
Mikkelsen appears unfazed with Rowling and her current reputation, however, urging for "adult conversation" and mutual respect from all parties. … read full article
8 in 10 teachers say their secondary school has trans pupils
From The Times (UK)
By James Beal
April 11, 2022
A big majority of teachers in secondary education say their school has students who identify as transgender or non-binary, according to recent research.
A YouGov poll commissioned by the human rights organisation Sex Matters found that 79 per cent of teachers had pupils at their school who were trans or non-binary.
The same poll also found that 85 per cent of teachers reported having more students in that category now than three years ago.
Campaigners said yesterday that educators needed more help in working with trans and non-binary pupils.
Sixty-one per cent of teachers who responded to the survey said they would be interested in classroom resources on gender identity matters that had been approved by the Department for Education. … read full article (web page archive)
DOMINIC LAWSON: Why are women attacked by the trans lobby while we men get far less abuse?
From Daily Mail (UK)
By DOMINIC LAWSON
April 10, 2022
Three years ago, on this page, I took the plunge. To be specific, I wrote a column on how women's access to exclusive private spaces was being eroded in the name of 'trans rights', and argued this was a threat to women's safety and dignity.
I say took the plunge, because I had been warned that I would be attacked mercilessly by those who regard as evil any distinction drawn between biological women and those who have changed their gender from male to female.
I also recall a conversation I had with Dr Kathleen Stock, who has been hounded out of her tenure as a distinguished philosopher at Sussex University because of her 'gender-critical' views (set out with remarkable clarity and force in her book Material Girls). … read full article
The truth about my raucous lunch with JK Rowling
What really happened at the ‘gender wars’ lunch thrown by the author at the River Café? I was there and it was glorious
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Suzanne Moore
April 11, 2022
We had all been waiting for this lunch for a very long time. JK Rowling had asked a number of women who have supported her and each other during the great ‘gender wars’ for a slap-up Christmas lunch.
In the run-up, we all chatted excitedly about it. I knew some of the women involved, some not and I’d never met Jo herself. Obviously there had been messages of support from her during what I call the great “unpleasantness” at my former paper. Which meant a lot. Like everyone else, I have watched day in, day out the abuse she gets on social media for standing up for women and girls. Anyone in the public eye who speaks out gets abuse, but the extent to which Rowling has stood firm in spite of being vilified is testament to her extraordinary strength. What I didn’t know until we started messaging is quite how hilarious and sweary she is. These are all qualities I like in a woman.
Alas, that lunch never happened as Covid rates shot up. Rowling’s husband is a doctor and had advised her not to get us all together at that point in December. We reluctantly agreed that even though he is a man, he may know what he is talking about. Instead, she sent us all goody bags. Totally lovely.
Yet us would-be ladies who lunch, including of course the alleged “international network of powerful lesbians” seem to have formed a little support group as each of us have been under attack at various times. Maya Forstater, Rosie Duffield, Kathleen Stock, Julie Bindel, Joanna Cherry, Alison Bailey and Bev Jackson: all of us know what it’s like to open Twitter and see nothing but abuse and “Die Terf” threats. This undiluted misogyny in the name of trans rights is mostly not perpetrated by trans people at all but by their so-called allies, often very alienated men.
But the lunch with this bunch of women finally did happen and I have now read several accounts as to why it took place. … read full article (web page archive)
To clarify or obscure?
Generally speaking, if you have a cause that matters to you, if you have something to say, you want to speak as clearly as possible and to be understood. Why isn't trans activism like that?
From Writing behavior with Eliza Mondegreen (Canada)
April 11, 2022
Every civil-rights movement I can think of has needed clear language and free speech because every civil-rights movement has needed to make injustice visible and to be understood.
So, it's always curious that the trans movement doesn't share these needs. The opposite, in fact.
When it comes to gender identity, no one must speak freely. Everyone must speak in a language that constricts thought and expression alike. The truth of situations must be obscured, not clarified, wrapped in shadows, not brought into the light.
There's no desire to make the public understand, only to make people comply. In fact, the less the public knows and understands the better. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Writing behavior!)
Trans: A Dangerous Youth Subculture
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
April 11, 2022
My teenage daughter has decided that she is “trans”. So have all her friends. Not some of them. Not most of them. Every. Single. One.
She had never heard of trans, and had no signs of gender dysphoria, until she was moved to a new, cool trans-friendly school by her unsuspecting, politically liberal parents. There she met a group of geeky (or dare I say nerdy?), smart, slightly (but not very) gender nonconforming, artsy kids. As I understand it, they all discovered “trans” together. The old “cis” friends were swiftly discarded in favour of this exciting new peer group.
Exploring “trans stuff” online with friends is a source of great interest and excitement—a real social event. What’s not to love about 245 gender identities, complete with their own unique flags? Then there are those cool neo-pronouns. Forcing your out-of-touch old parents to refer to you as “ze” or “ey” (how do you pronounce that again??) in the name of “inclusivity” is just too delicious to resist. The manga, the cute avatars in computer games, the blue or pink hair—all part of the fun as well. Mocking the outgroup (in this case so-called “cis” people in general and the dreaded TERFs in particular) is also good for a laugh—especially if they happen to be your parents as well. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to PITT!)
NJ gender identity lessons for first-graders prove parents were right to worry
From New York Post (USA)
By Karol Markowicz
April 11, 2022
What children should be taught about sex and gender, and when, has become a hot topic across the country. But parents didn’t choose this — it was forced upon them.
Starting in September, New Jersey first-graders will learn about gender identity under new sex education guidelines. Parents received sample lesson plans at a Westfield Board of Education meeting in February; one read, “You might feel like you’re a boy even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘girl’ parts. You might feel like you’re a girl even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘boy’ parts. And you might not feel like you’re a boy or a girl, but you’re a little bit of both. No matter how you feel, you’re perfectly normal!”
Setting aside the appropriateness of teaching 7-year-olds that their gender is malleable, the New Jersey news comes on the heels of massive leftist outrage over the Parental Rights in Education bill signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — a law that many on the left called “unnecessary.” … read full article