Sunday, August 14, 2022
"The Michigan Department of Education (MDOE) is training teachers to hide transgender students’ name and pronouns from their parents, according to training materials."
This day in Herstory: Halle Maria Berry (/ˈhæli/; born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. She began her career as a model and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant and coming in sixth in the Miss World 1986. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance of a struggling widow in the romantic drama Monster's Ball (2001)—becoming the only African-American woman to have won the award—and took on high-profile roles such as Storm in four installments of the X-Men film series (2000–2014), the henchwoman of a robber in the thriller Swordfish (2001), Bond girl Jinx in Die Another Day (2002), and the title role in the much-derided Catwoman (2004). (more)
UK - Saturday morning rage thread
From Twitter
By Jo Phoenix | @JoPhoenix1
August 13, 2022
1/ Saturday morning rage thread - pls read to end: I started openly criticizing Stonewall, the idea that TWAW & the campaign for self-ID in 2018 - as part of my job. I signed a letter to The Guardian & The Sunday Times openly critical of Stonewall & its impact on Universities.
2/ My concerns about self-ID in prisons, abt the silencing that was happening in universities, abt the foreclosure of academic freedom got me branded as "anti-trans" and a "transphobe" by colleagues at OU. This had profound and life-changing effects on my career.
3/ I didn't see what was happening as harassment or discrimination. This was (literally) unthinkable to me. I struggled to make sense of the reactions - thinking that if only I could convince ppl that we needed to talk about this stuff all would be okay.
4/ I was so effing naive. But I would not let it rest and, oh my, in retrospect that is what really pissed ppl off. I kept insisting and I would not 'STFU'.
5/ By 2019, I got (unlawfully) canceled, blacklisted & my freedom of speech was infringed because ... I dared to challenge Stonewall and the direction they were taking 'trans rights' esp in prisons.
6/ Throughout 2020, I waited as @Uni_of_Essex undertook their review of the events above. I remained consistent with my criticism of Stonewall, of gender identity theory and of the overall effects of this in universities and prisons.
7/ In 2021, I was exonerated by @Uni_of_Essex's *public* apology for unlawful behaviour. For me this was great news. For my detractors in my place of employment it was not. So, I used the platform I was given to talk abt how dangerous Stonewall was to academic freedom.
8/ And now, 2022, Stonewall has been disgraced. @BluskyeAllison and @MForstater cases shone a light on the cancerous effects of gender identity theory and Stonewall vis-a-vis safeguarding women, lesbians and children specifically. Cass Review damned Tavistock.
9/ Story after story abt some male people who identify as women abusing women in prisons are coming to light. Minister of Justice taking political oversight of transgender prisoner transfers hot off the heels of a story about how one such prisoner got a female prisoner pregnant.
10/ I wish I felt vindicated. I don't. I am angry as hell. I have fought tooth and nail to be able to talk about this. It cost me my health and my job at the OU and might cost me my economic security.
US - Michigan Department Of Education Trains Teachers to Hide Students’ Names, Pronouns From Parents
From Daily Caller (USA)
By Reagan Reese
August 14, 2022
The Michigan Department of Education (MDOE) is training teachers to hide transgender students’ name and pronouns from their parents, according to training materials.
The MDOE’s LGBTQ Students Project includes trainings and resources for LGBTQ students as well as educators on addressing students’ gender identity and sexual orientation in school, according to department training videos. The videos feature MDOE officials who advise the educators to hide students’ name or pronoun changes from parents. (RELATED: Pennsylvania’s Education Department Promotes ‘Ze/Zie’ Pronouns, Gender Theory For Young Kids)
“First of all, students have privacy rights. Schools don’t have a legal obligation to tell parents that a student goes by a different name or pronouns than their legal name,” Kim Phillips-Knope, project lead of the MDOE LGBTQ Students Project, said in one video. … read full article
US - Playing God With Other People’s Children
From Genspect (UK)
By Eliza Mondegreen
August 2022
Last week, I picked up John Colapinto’s 2000 book, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, which runs along three tracks: there’s David Reimer the case, David Reimer and the theories he’s been made to serve, and finally David Reimer the boy upon whose one and only life and body everything else is written.
David Reimer entered medical history after a botched circumcision that left him without a penis. As identical twins, David and his brother were irresistible research subjects for John Money, a New Zealand sexologist who saw a chance to test his powers. Could John Money turn David, who he saw as a deficient little boy, into a girl with a secret that not even little ‘Brenda’ Reimer herself would be able to guess?
The long and painful saga boils down to a simple answer: No. Colapinto tracks the invention and application of the concept of gender identity, first to children with rare disorders of sexual development, then to developmentally normal children like David. Doctors like John Money treated children’s bodies and lives as laboratories, attempting to control for variables like doubts and questions by enlisting parents and other trusted adults to lie to children about who they are. As these experiments unfolded, they deviated painfully from theory. … read full article
US - Pediatrician group slams its own members over transgender teen puberty blocker criticism: 'Disinformation'
The American Academy of Pediatrics says that its critics are spreading 'disinformation'
From Fox News (USA)
By Andrew Mark Miller
August 13, 2022
Messages reportedly leaked from the American Academy of Pediatrics purportedly show physicians expressing outrage over the organization's stance on puberty-blocking drugs being used on transgender teens.
The Daily Mail reported this week on alleged leaked messages of doctors disagreeing with the American Academy of Pediatrics on whether to recommend potentially harmful drugs and surgeries on teens who wish to go through the gender reassignment process.
"Before promulgating gender-affirming care, with all of its ethical implications (irreversible bodily changes, sterility, etc.)... don't we want to be sure this is the best path?" one pediatrician who belonged to the organization wrote. … read full article
US - Florida Bans Medicaid Coverage for Sex Changes; LGBT Lobby Melts Down
From The New American (USA)
By Luis Miguel
August 14, 2022
Florida’s rainbow lobby is incensed that taxpayers won’t be subsidizing their lifestyle.
LGBT groups are blasting a rule by Florida health officials scheduled to go into effect later this month that will prevent Medicaid from being used to cover “gender dysphoria” treatments that transgenders undergo in order to “transition.” …
But is transgender identity as healthy as its proponents claim it is? Or is it the result of trauma that is then exacerbated by repeated propaganda in schools and entertainment? … read full article
US - 'The perfect storm:' The schools superintendent's push against culture and bid for election
From Casper Star Tribune (USA)
By Maya Shimizu Harris
August 14, 2022
Rock Springs Democrat Rep. Chad Banks got an email from the Wyoming Department of Education on July 6. Attached to it was a vision statement titled “Lead the Nation” from State Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder. Banks opened the document and started to read it. Then he closed the document and drafted up a short reply:
“Sadly, I couldn’t stomach reading this entire thing,” he wrote.
He had gotten to the middle of page three in the eight-page, single-spaced document and hit a line that says “it is alarming how many schools in this country have become some of the most toxic places on earth for a kid to have to endure.” (He clarified, after some grumblings from the public when he said this at a charter school meeting in Cheyenne, that he was referring not to Wyoming schools, but to schools around the nation). Further down, on page seven, Schroeder wrote that students can “attain celebrity status by declaring a trans identity.” That, he said, combined with “the intoxicating influence of social media where trans activists push the idea that starting a course of testosterone will cure a girl’s problems — and truly, you have the perfect storm.” … read full article
US - The paradox of moral confusion and political dogma
From LNP | Lancaster Online (USA)
By ROBERT J. BRESLER
August 14, 2022
When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil rights movement, he provided moral leadership, and political leaders followed. Results did not come overnight. The Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott began in 1955, and it was not until 1964 that Congress passed the Civil Rights Act.
Without the moral leadership of King and other religious leaders, such legislation might not have seen the light of day. They brought moral enlightenment and, eventually, political action followed.
Where is such moral leadership today? … read full article
US - Policies that notify Virginia parents of ‘sexually explicit content’ in school materials are on the way
The mandate is the result of legislation passed by the General Assembly earlier this year and signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who made expanding parents’ influence over public education a centerpiece of his campaign.
From Daily Press (USA)
By Kelsey Kendall
August 14, 2022
Virginia school boards have until the end of the year to adopt policies to inform parents if any instructional materials contain sexually explicit content, the latest step in the debate over what and how children should be taught.
The mandate is the result of legislation passed by the General Assembly earlier this year and signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who made expanding parents’ influence over public education a centerpiece of his campaign. The process will be similar to another mandate from the state last year — requiring school boards to pass policies that protect transgender students. … read full article
US - Transgender Students Not Welcome at Sioux Falls Catholic Schools; Diocese Sees Gender Dysphoria as Disorder to Be Fixed
From Dakota Free Press (USA)
By CORY ALLEN HEIDELBERGER
August 14, 2022
If Calvin Hillesland wants to get back into teaching, the Bishop O’Gorman Catholic Schools appear to welcome his attitude toward transgender students. KELO-TV reports that Bishop Donald DeGrood has told the Sioux Falls faithful that boys will be boys and girls will be girls and that anyone saying differently is undermining marriage and God’s will:
Human beings are male or female. In Holy Scripture, we read, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” …
Bishop DeGrood says “all the baptized” have a “duty” to “joyfully announce” the immalleable binarity of gender. To this end, the Diocesan Policy on Human Sexuality in Education Settings, effective July 1, 2022, imposes these restrictions on all students in Sioux Falls Catholic schools:
Students may not advocate, celebrate, or express same-sex attraction in such a way as to cause confusion or distraction in the context of Catholic school classes, activities, or events. …
The policy admonishes pastors and school administrators to avoid “material cooperation and scandal” because “cooperation with individuals experiencing gender dysphoria can be viewed by the parish or school community as an implicit form of endorsement.” … read full article
US - Stephen Scaer, Nashua State Senate Candidate
The Republican explains why he is running for the District 13 seat in 2022.
From Patch (USA)
By Tony Schinella
August 13, 2022
Why are you seeking elective office?
I'm seeking elective office to protect children from gender ideology, to return women's sex-based rights to private spaces and sports, and to preserve our First and Second Amendment rights.
The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.
New Hampshire's laws facilitate the fast-tracking of gender-confused children through chemicals and surgeries that leave them irreversibly disfigured and with life-long regret. I would repeal our child therapy ban, gender identity laws that force us to pretend a man is a woman if he says so, and define a woman as a human female. I would also ban the medicalization of gender-confused children except when they have intersex conditions.
What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?
I might be the most outspoken person in the state about the harm done by gender ideology. … read full article
US - A different kind of genre war
From The Bradford Era (USA)
By KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ
August 14, 2022
Boston Children’s Hospital offers a “full suite of surgical options for transgender teens and young adults,” a video made by hospital explains. A cheerful woman doctor in the video says, “A gender-affirming hysterectomy is very similar to most hysterectomies that occur,” and goes into more detail I won’t belabor here.
The video is devoid of caution and very much in the spirit of the current Department of Health and Human Services, which is encouraging children who think they are born in the wrong body to get puberty blockers and gender-affirming surgery.
Boston Children’s Hospital, of course, didn’t start this movement. TikTok videos evangelize to young people. It’s a terrifying time to be a parent. Children can be cruel, and instead of acknowledging that reality, adults are putting dangerous ideas into kids’ heads. … read full article
US - “Lesbian Sex” Guide Advises That Lesbians May Have a Penis
From Reduxx (USA)
By Reduxx Team
August 14, 2022
Healthline is under fire for publishing an article in which it advises lesbian woman on “penis-in-vagina” sex, and warns about the risks of getting pregnant.
On August 1, medical information and lifestyle site Healthline updated a guidance article titled “How Do Lesbians Have Sex? 28 Things to Know Before Your First Time.” Like all Healthline publications, the article claims it was “medically reviewed” by a qualified doctor prior to posting, and in this case the professional listed is Dr. Janet Brito, whose bio states she is a “nationally certified Latinx sex therapist, supervisor, speaker, trainer, and author.” … read full article
Ed. Note: GC News usually covers everything from the PITT Substack, but I missed this post from Aug. 11 and a subscriber kindly suggested we should include it.
US - Sometimes Hair does Not Grow Back: First Do Harm, Then Do More Harm
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
August 11, 2022
When my daughter cut her beautiful locks, I thought it odd, but her new cut was super cute and, after all, hair does grow back. Right? Then came college and the target of my daughter’s angst became her own body. She began to believe the lie that is sold to young people today, that they were “born in the wrong body.” She began taking testosterone, a drug that happens to be a Class 3 controlled substance, not approved for use in women, and that carries a worrisome risk profile. Her voice became deep and strange. Her natural voice was now gone forever. Her breasts were excised. They too are now gone forever. Her nipples were rearranged. Her insides were ravaged—her blood, her uterus, her liver, her heart, her kidneys. Will these tissues and organs repair themselves to their former function when and if she wakes up? Unlike hair, some things don’t grow back. … read full article
UK - Warner Bros. Discovery condemns threats against J.K. Rowling after she tweeted support for Salman Rushdie
Rowling shared a screenshot Saturday of a Twitter user telling her, "Don't worry you are next," after she tweeted about Rushdie being stabbed in the neck.
From NBC News (USA)
By Diana Dasrath and Doha Madani
August 14, 2022
Warner Bros. Discovery condemned an apparent threat against "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling in a statement Sunday, saying the company supports "freedom of expression."
Rowling shared a screenshot Saturday of a Twitter reply to her tweet wishing fellow author Salman Rushdie well after a man stabbed him in the neck at a New York lecture hall on Friday. She wrote that she felt "sick" over Rushdie being attacked and hope that he would recover.
"Don't worry you are next," a user responded. … read full article
UK - Where are the left wing and feminist voices rushing to defend JK Rowling and free speech today, asks Darren Grimes
Happily, according to his agent, the author Sir Salman Rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and was able to talk on Saturday
From GBN (UK)
By Darren Grimes
August 14, 2022
Happily, according to his agent, the author Sir Salman Rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and was able to talk on Saturday. I hope and pray that he continues to pull through. The man represents values we all ought to hold dear; he symbolises how free speech is in peril. You’ll remember his novel The Satanic Verses was banned in some countries, and fatwa was issued in 1989 on him by Ayatollah Khamenei.
The Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, in tweeting how she felt ‘very sick’ at the news of the attack on Rushdie, was sent a death threat warning that she was next. It’s certainly not the first death threat Rowling has received for daring to be a woman with a view on gender ideology. Where are the left-wing and feminist voices rushing to defend Rowling and free speech today? … read full article
UK - A THIRD of hospitals now use woke terms like ‘pregnant people’ instead of mothers in fear of upsetting transgender campaigners
120 NHS organisation seemed reluctant to say ‘women’ or ‘mothers’, MoS found
Term 'service users' used in a bid to be 'inclusive' and not to upset trans activists
1.3 million women gave birth in two years and fewer than 50 did not id as such
From Daily Mail (UK)
By STEPHEN ADAMS and ANNA MIKHAILOVA
August 13, 2022
A third of NHS hospitals are now using woke phrases like ‘pregnant people’ and ‘service users’ to describe their maternity patients, an investigation by The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Dozens of hospital trusts have adopted such ‘inclusive’ language in fear of upsetting transgender campaigners – and more are likely to follow suit. … read full article
UK - Gender Identity in the UN System - The Human Rights Council
Part VI
From Gender Dissident (UK)
By Alessandra Asteriti
August 14, 2022
The Human Rights Council (HRC) is an inter-governmental body of the United Nation established in 2006 as the successor body to the Human Rights Commission, beset by scandals and criticism. Amongst the most important roles of the Council is to receive and assess the Universal Periodic Reviews by UN Member States on their human rights situation.
It is in the context of its work that we see how gender identity started to be mentioned, always in conjunction with sexual orientation, in resolutions of the Council of the human rights situations for groups sharing these characteristics. This ‘forced teaming’ of gender identity with sexual orientation is part of the strategy to introduce and legitimise a new term by pairing it with another one that is already well known and understood, sexual orientation, with a new and undefined one. … read full article
Scotland - Calls for urgent review of Edinburgh University's 'dangerous and irresponsible' trans equalpolicy
The policy allows biological men to access women's single sex areas such as showers and changing rooms with equality campaigners claiming it was influenced by trans lobby groups
From Scottish Daily Express (Scotland)
By John Glover
August 14, 2022
A campaign group has criticised Edinburgh University's trans equality guidance for being heavily influenced by trans lobby groups that are harming women's rights and safety.
For Women Scotland (FWS) claimed the university - one of the oldest and most prestigious in the UK - is one "to avoid for anyone who values women's rights and safety".
The policy lets trans people have access to women-only and men-only areas such as single sex facilities from showers and changing rooms to toilets. … read full article
Ireland - Stephen Donnelly will meet doctors over HSE referring children to UK trans clinic
Doctors warn on HSE use of controversial about-to-close clinic
From Independent.ie (Ireland)
By Mark Tighe
August 14, 2022
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has agreed to an urgent request to meet doctors from the National Gender Service (NGS) over concerns about the HSE’s ongoing use of the UK’s Tavistock clinic for Irish children with gender-identity issues.
Four senior doctors at the NGS, which deals with patients over 17 years of age, wrote to Donnelly on Thursday — after Siobháin Ní Bhriain, HSE national lead on integrated care, said the HSE would continue to use Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), despite a critical report by Dr Hillary Cass. … read full article
Australia - Distraught parents now face prosecution if they don't accept gender transition of their vulnerable kids - as experts slam radical new law based on 'ideology and falsehood'
From Daily Mail (UK)
By CINDY LEVER
August 13, 2022
A new Victorian law which forces mothers and fathers to accept their children's desire to change gender has left distraught parents fearing prosecution if they do anything to try to prevent potentially harmful and irreversible treatment.
So far-reaching is the new law that even trying to arrange counselling and expert assessment for their kids could lead to parents - and the mental health professionals - being prosecuted if the advice did anything other than affirm the children's newly-discovered gender dysphoria. … read full article
Germany - Germany has succumbed to trans mania
The supposedly sensible nation is ushering in gender self-ID for teenagers.
From Spiked (UK)
By FRANK FUREDI
August 14, 2022
Since the turn of the century, the culture wars have gone global. The American government and cultural establishment have aggressively exported their woke values across the world. As a result, the politics of identity is as rife in the capitals of Europe as it is in California.
Few countries illustrate this trend more clearly than Germany. Especially since the federal elections in 2021, the new German government and many newly elected parliamentarians are itching to promote and institutionalise woke ideals. What this amounts to is an all-out crusade against pre-existing social and cultural conventions.
Although Germany’s woke elites now love to celebrate a host of diverse identities, they make one exception – the German national identity. Sections of the German political elite have self-consciously distanced themselves from their national heritage to the point where they are now no longer prepared to stand up for some of its foundational norms and values. … read full article
Ed. Note: Oh, Canada, we shed a tear for thee … Readers: Gaslight Alert!
Canada - A Christian camp said a transgender child couldn't stay in a boys' cabin. Then came the human rights battle
New Brunswick mother feels Caton’s Island summer camp got off on a technicality
From CBC News (Canada)
By Raechel Huizinga
August 14, 2022
For parents of transgender children, normal kids' activities — like going to summer camp — aren't so simple.
Jan Gootjes, a New Brunswick mother of a transgender boy, knows this all too well. She regularly screens programs and activities to make sure they'll welcome him, will use his correct pronouns and provide the right accommodations. … read full article
Thanks again for a great set of articles - even if it's sort of a "good news, bad news" collection. Particularly impressed by the tweet thread of Jo Phoenix - rather a large number of women have been front and center in turning back the transgender tide.
However, as much as it's been really great to see Tavistock and their "hand-maidens" and "useful idiots" getting cut-off at the knees, that by itself really isn't enough if it doesn't address the rot and flaws in much of feminism which will continue to have its pernicious and problematic consequences.
Apropos of which and ICYMI, you might note a recent essay by Barbara Kay over at Reality's Last Stand who, helpfully and commendably, underlined some of those flaws - some of which may well be "fatal" if not properly addressed:
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/gender-activists-dont-want-reform
Of particular note:
"Only an intellectual could believe that there are no innate, biology-driven differences between men and women."
As I noted it in a comment over there, a "belief" which Kathleen Stock quite justifiably characterized as "barking (mad)":
https://kathleenstock.substack.com/p/lets-abolish-the-dream-of-gender
All of which I've sort of elaborated on in some detail on my own recent post on "Wikipedia's Lysenkoism"; BTW, thanks for the recent "Like" 🙂:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/wikipedias-lysenkoism