Sunday, October 16, 2022
"Gender-affirming care inverts this paradigm. Doctors must not probe or ask. Questions could be construed as unsupportive, even subversive. Gender is identity, not diagnosis."
This day in Herstory: On October 16, 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the first family planning and birth control clinic in the United States. Nine days after the clinic opened, Sanger was arrested. Sanger's bail was set at $500 and she went back home. Sanger continued seeing some women in the clinic until the police came a second time. This time, Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, were arrested for breaking a New York state law that prohibited distribution of contraceptives. (more)
Canada - Doctors have gone silent on gender dysphoria. That's not good for patients
From National Post (Canada)
By Shawn Whatley
October 16, 2022
Every day, patients tell their doctors what they think is wrong. Well-informed people self-diagnose heart attacks, broken ankles and dozens of other things. And patients are often right. A second heart attack can feel like the first one. Even so, doctors ask and probe. Physicians must challenge themselves and their patients.
No diagnosis is beyond dispute or review. Blood clots and panic attacks can mimic MIs (myocardial infarctions). Missing a clot can cause death. Missing a panic attack risks unnecessary treatment. Doctors never simply affirm a patient’s self-diagnosis for a new condition, except for gender dysphoria.
For every other condition, a patient’s self-diagnosis presents a place for physicians to start collecting a medical history. Tests and treatment follow. Multiple specialists might need to review a challenging case. …
Gender-affirming care inverts this paradigm. Doctors must not probe or ask. Questions could be construed as unsupportive, even subversive. Gender is identity, not diagnosis. Asking about gender could be a sneaky way to inject “conversion therapy” on the sly. … read full article
UK - Trainee doctors told not to quiz patients on transgender status and 'respect and affirm their gender identity’ instead
Trainee doctors will be taught to affirm patients who say they are transgender
Three quarters of UK medical schools signed the charter promoting the teaching
A review warned puberty blockers and hormones were the go-to treatment
From Daily Mail (UK)
By MICHAEL POWELL
October 15, 2022
Trainee doctors are being taught to unquestioningly accept patients are transgender if they self-identify as such, potentially leading to body changes they may regret.
Three-quarters of UK medical schools have signed up to a charter issued by The Association of LGBTQ+ Doctors & Dentists (Gladd) which promotes that trainee medics should be taught to ‘respect and affirm’ patients who say they are transgender, rather than explore other issues they may have.
An NHS review this year warned youngsters who say they are transgender get puberty blocking drugs or sex-swap hormones when they may benefit from other treatments. Some experts believe that among children who believe they have gender dysphoria are those who may have mental health conditions such as autism. … read full article
US - Threads That Weave Together Our Cultural Understanding of "Being Trans"
From The 21st Century Salon (USA)
By The 21st Century Salonnière
October 16, 2022
Nothing happens in a cultural vacuum.
Here in the US, if we have a serious illness, we typically go to a doctor for help, and not, say, a faith-healer. Why? Because we’ve been taught our whole lives that that is what you do. By the time we grow up and have to make a decision about what to do when we’re sick, we’ve experienced a whole lifetime of having been brought to doctors and not faith-healers. We follow the rules.
Likewise, if we want food, we might go to the grocery store or farmer’s market, or we might supplement our food supplies by gardening or hunting in season, but we won’t roam the streets of Cleveland looking for edible roots to dig up or acorns to harvest, nor will we shoot people’s pets for meat. Why? Because we’ve all been taught ways to get food in our culture. … read full article
US - In New York, kids can’t get a tattoo…but they can have puberty blockers, “gender affirming” surgeries
From Law Enforcement Today (USA)
By Joseph Patrick
October 15, 2022
LLOYD, NY- In New York, the east coast version of California’s “land of fruits and nuts,” it is apparently illegal for a mother to permit her 10-year-old to get a tattoo.
Do you know what is not illegal in New York? Allowing children to get “gender affirming medical interventions” and “puberty blockers.” Color us “shocked.” Now, an upstate New York mother has been arrested for doing just that.
According to The Blaze referring to a piece in the Mid-Hudson News, the mother, Crystal Thomas, 33, “is accused of allowing her 10-year-old son to get a large permanent ink tattoo on his body.” … read full article
US - David Sedaris on coming out, all over again
Humorist David Sedaris has some thoughts on what's in a name
From CBS News (USA)
By David Sedaris
October 16, 2022
I never liked the term "coming out." Still, I did it. This was back in the 1970s. Now I'm having to do it all over again.
I'm 65 years old. I've been with the same guy for 31 years, and on this day I am announcing to the world that I am straight.
I haven't met anyone else, haven't fallen in love with a woman. I've simply done fighting the term "queer."
What bothers me is not that it used to be a slur. I just don't see why I have to be rebranded for the fourth time in my life. … read full article
UK - What Detransitioners Actually Need
Detrans Mans opinion on what the detransitioned population really need
From TullipR - Detrans Man (UK)
By @TullipR Detrans Male
October 16, 2022
When the world fully awakens to the horrors that have been carried out in the name of ‘gender affirmation care’, there will be no pause for celebration, no parades to mark the hard-won victories, only the gaping shock at the sheer number of botched surgeries and unforeseen consequences of cross-sex hormones.
‘Gender-affirming surgeries’ are high-risk, dangerous, and experimental medical procedures, in which their efficacy is often drastically oversold, and has led many people down a path of permanent physical pain and unending suffering.
There is no true reversal, you will never get back what you had to begin with, whether it was a mastectomy, facial feminisation, penile inversion, hysterotomies, or the long-term use of cross-sex hormones. … read full article
UK - Police Force Encourages People to Report “Deadnaming” as a Hate Crime
From Reduxx (UK)
By Anna Slatz
October 15, 2022
Leicestershire Police are under fire for a Twitter post in which they appear to suggest that using an incorrect name for a trans-identified individual could be reported as a “hate crime.”
On October 8, Leicestershire Police’s Stay Safe Twitter account launched a social media campaign advertising Stamp It Out, an anti-hate resource website which provides information on the laws surrounding hate crimes in the area.
Stay Safe, a combined account for the force’s Crime Reduction Officers and Hate Crime Officer, was encouraging social media users to utilize Stamp It Out’s online reporting system in the event they experienced a hate crime. … read full article
UK - JK Rowling: Sturgeon is deaf to women’s concerns over gender ID
As a new poll suggests the first minister is out of step with voters, Rowling argues that if any woman suffers under new gender ID rules, the blame will rest with Holyrood
From The Times (UK)
By JK Rowling
October 15, 2022
Just over a week ago, I posted a picture of myself wearing a T-shirt printed with the words “Nicola Sturgeon: Destroyer of Women’s Rights” on Twitter. I did this to show my solidarity with women who were protesting outside the Scottish parliament against the proposed Gender Recognition Act reform bill.
Some of the women, like Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce, have public profiles, but most of the women protesting do not. They also knew they might be taking a risk in demonstrating. It takes guts for Scottish women to stand up for their rights these days — not, I should emphasise, anywhere near the same guts as Iranian women are currently displaying, but guts nonetheless. They risk being targeted by activists, police complaints being made against them and even the threat of a spell in jail for posting what are seen as “transphobic” comments or images by their complainants.
… read full article
UK - As long as we avert our gaze from sexual abuse, we will continue to fail children
Ahead of the findings of a major inquiry, it’s clear we’re not even getting the basics right
From The Guardian (UK)
By Sonia Sodha
October 16, 2022
The more time you spend looking at government policy, the more you realise how much of its intervention is recklessly short term, ignores the evidence and attempts to fix the problem when it’s staring us in the face, rather than prevent it escalating. Many years of it has left me a pretty hardened cynic: it takes a lot to surprise me when it comes to things the state should be doing, but doesn’t.
But I was left shocked after I recently attended a briefing from the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse in my capacity as a trustee of the Indigo Trust (which gives it some funding). Slide after slide highlighted how we are failing children who are being subjected to sexual abuse at the most basic level and, if anything, these failures are getting worse. … read full article
UK - Predator jailed for sexually assaulting 11-year-old girl as she slept in her own bed
From Evening Standard (UK)
By Tristan Kirk
October 15, 2022
Asexual predator who crept into a family’s home at night to sexually assault an 11-year-old girl as she slept has been jailed for more than five years.
Restaurant worker Colin Fowler, 36, pulled down the girl’s pyjama trousers and tried to remove her underwear before groping her in the middle of the night.
He had been caught on camera entering the east London home after finding the door unlocked, and police later discovered he was a prolific “upskirter” of women on the London Underground. … read full article
UK - UN rejects Stonewall’s bid to downgrade Britain’s equality watchdog
The LGBTQ+ charity wanted the EHRC stripped of its top-tier ranking after claiming it fails to sufficiently protect trans rights
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Edward Malnick
October 15, 2022
The United Nations has rejected a bid led by Stonewall to downgrade Britain’s equality watchdog to the status of equivalent bodies in Azerbaijan and Bahrain.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will retain its A-status despite allegations that it is failing to sufficiently protect trans rights.
Campaign groups led by Stonewall, the equalities charity, and the Good Law Project, headed by the barrister Jolyon Maugham, had lobbied the UN-affiliated Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (Ganhri) to strip the EHRC of its top-tier ranking amid a review of all Ganhri-affiliated bodies, which is carried out every five years. The lower, B-status is held by the human rights watchdogs in countries including Azerbaijan, Bahrain and Venezuela. … read full article
UK - Harassed, silenced & compared to a racist for my gender critical views
From Crowd Justice (UK)
By Prof. Jo Phoenix
October 16, 2022
Dear Friends, Supporters and Contributors
It's a year ago today I launched this crowdjustice fund to support my case against The Open University. What a year! You helped me obtain the funds to go forward in record time. My story at The Open University ended in December 2021 when I was forced to resign because they made my job untenable after failing to deal with my complaint about bullying and harassment for 6 months and failing to provide me with any sense of when I might be expected to hear the result.
Then, I secured a job at Reading University and yesterday I attended the open day to recruit students to Reading's first B.Sc. (hons) Criminology. … read full article
UK - Primary teacher to fight legal case after refusal to call female pupil by boy’s name
Sacked after opposing her school’s ‘transgender affirming’ policy, a former staff member is launching a landmark judicial review
A primary teacher who was sacked after refusing to call an eight-year-old schoolgirl by a boy’s name or use male pronouns is to fight a legal test case.
The teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, is beginning a judicial review against the governors, arguing that the school’s “transgender affirming” policies could harm children.
The case, which is also against the local council, will be heard next week in the High Court in Birmingham. It is thought to be the first time a teacher has taken such action.
… read full article
US - Big Pharma's New Mascot
He used to be such a mensch.
From Redford Greene (USA)
By Redford Greene
October 15, 2022
I heard murmurings about Jon Stewart and his “brutal takedown” of those despicable “anti-trans talking points,” but I didn’t have the stomach to seek out the interview. After all, I used to watch Elmo-palooza with my daughter over and over when she was two, in 2008. I loved Jon Stewart. He was like a cuddly muppet in flesh form. A true sweetie. A mensch.
Now, over a decade later my little girl, who never once expressed any gender dysphoria, thinks she's a gay man. … read full article
UK - Doctors are using TikTok to promote trans ‘top surgery’ to young people
Campaigners warn the ‘inescapable’ videos of trans men celebrating double mastectomies, show an ‘urgent’ need to ‘reconnect with reality’
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Hayley Dixon
October 15, 2022
Doctors are promoting trans “top surgery” on social media, it has emerged amid concerns about the impact on young people.
Clinics have been posting videos on TikTok showing young trans men celebrating that they are having double mastectomies or reacting to their “amazing” surgery “reveals”.
Campaigners warned on Saturday night that the messages on social media are “compelling and addictive” for and show the “urgent” need to “help young people reconnect with reality”. … read full article
US - Nevada nondiscrimination ballot measure alarms religious liberty lawyers
From Washington Examiner (USA)
By Jeremiah Poff
October 16, 2022
Voters in Nevada will consider a ballot referendum next month that would amend the state constitution to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and conservative legal groups say it could have implications for religious freedom.
The Equality of Rights Amendment would amend the Nevada Constitution to add a "specific guarantee" that rights could not be denied by the state on the basis of "race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or national origin." … read full article
US - The Other Woman Was Himself
An excerpt from "18 Months"
From BROADVIEW with Lisa Selin Davis (USA)
From Shannon Thrace
October 16, 2022
Rejecting Gender
“I intend to crossdress,” you announce. You say it without smiling, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows. Then you lean against the couch and look at me, as if waiting for an objection.
“OK...?” I peer over the unwieldy book on front-end development I’ve lugged home from the office—my bonus depends on my acquisition of a new certification every quarter. The night I gave you the makeover, you slept in my blouse. So I searched upscale thrift shops and surprised you with a free-size kimono. You were touched. You’ve slept in it ever since. … read full article
US - Baby Seen Breastfeeding from Male Model in Disturbing “Binary Shifting” Art
From Reduxx (Canada)
By Reduxx Team
October 16, 2022
A disturbing picture featuring a seemingly nude man “breastfeeding” a baby is going viral on social media, with many raising child safeguarding concerns and calling it “depraved.”
The photo originates from post on an “intersectional” Instagram community. Feminist, which has over 6.5 million followers on the platform, describes itself as “amplifying a diverse network of change-makers.” ... read full article
Spain - Spain 'wakes up' to gender contagion
Renowned Spanish psychiatrist calls on lawmakers not to make things worse
From Gender Clinic News (Australia)
By Bernard Lane
October 16, 2022
One of Spain’s most renowned psychiatrists, Dr Celso Arango, has warned that an alarming surge in young people mistakenly declaring themselves transgender may result in a great deal of harm.
"This is madness, it's going to hurt a lot of people, a lot of young people who have disorders think they're going to fix them by becoming trans — when they're not [trans],” he told the mass market newspaper El Mundo on Saturday October 8.
Dr Arango, head of child and adolescent psychiatry at one of the country’s leading public university hospitals, argued that the national government’s draft Trans Law allowing self-declared sex change in official records from the age of 12 would add fuel to the fire. … read full article
US - Twitter Is Actively Contributing to the Spread of Serious Self-Injury
And suppressing those calling attention to it
From Year Zero (USA)
By Pamela Paresky, PhD
October 16, 2022
Nearly a quarter of girls between 12 and 16 are intentionally injuring themselves, mostly with knives and razor blades. The rate is even higher among teens from upper-middle class, highly educated families. Those who self-harm are six times more likely to be hospitalized for mental illness than those who don’t and more than four times as likely to attempt suicide. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, suicide is now the second leading cause of death among children 10-14 and the third leading cause of death among those 15-24.
Self-harm is a social contagion — one of many — that is fed by social media. My colleagues and I at the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) published a paper on August 29 exposing the increase in the number of accounts posting graphic self-harm images and videos (specifically “cutting”). Posting graphic depictions of self-harm in order to celebrate it is a direct violation of Twitter’s content policy, as are comments that encourage self-harm. Yet these images and comments are easy to find. Twitter’s algorithm even suggests them to those whose history on the platform involves looking at such posts. … read full article