Thursday, September 29, 2022
"Mermaids [the UK TRA nonprofit] is being investigated by the Charity Commission after The Telegraph revealed “red flags” in its dealings with children."
This day in Herstory: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (née Stevenson), born September 29, 1810 (died November 12, 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of Victorian society, including the very poor. Her work is of interest to social historians as well as readers of literature. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848. Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë, published in 1857, was the first biography of Charlotte Brontë. In this biography, she wrote only of the moral, sophisticated things in Brontë's life; the rest she omitted, deciding certain, more salacious aspects were better kept hidden. Among Gaskell's best-known novels are Cranford (1851–53), North and South (1854–55), and Wives and Daughters (1865), each having been adapted for television by the BBC. (more)
UK - Trans charity Mermaids to be investigated by Charity Commission
‘Regulatory compliance case’ opened after concerns raised about organisation’s ‘approach to safeguarding young people’
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Hayley Dixon
September 29, 2022
Mermaids is being investigated by the Charity Commission after The Telegraph revealed “red flags” in its dealings with children.
The regulator said it had opened a “regulatory compliance case” after concerns were raised about the trans charity’s “approach to safeguarding young people”.
The charity has been sending potentially dangerous breast binding devices to children behind their parents’ backs and discussing with them how puberty blocking drugs are “totally reversible”. … read full article
US - Shaky foundations
New guidelines for transgender medicine are undermined by a weak evidence base
From Gender Clinic News (Australia)
By Bernard Lane
September 29, 2022
GCN asked various people for their thoughts on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s new standards of care, SOC 8, focusing on children and adolescents. The resulting commentary, in alphabetical order by surname, has been divided into two parts. This is the second part. (The first part is here.)
Part 2
Riitakerttu Kaltiala, professor of adolescent psychiatry, clinician and researcher in Finland (which in 2020 broke with the WPATH approach and shifted to psychotherapy as the first-line treatment for gender-dysphoric youth):
I have to admit that the [new WPATH] standard is better than I expected, because there is an emphasis that any interventions with adolescents have to be based on a thorough assessment. And this guideline even admits that it may not always be the right course to proceed quickly to hormonal — not to mention surgical — interventions in adolescents. It is embedded in this guideline that some adolescents may thrive without any medical intervention. … read full article
US - There’s Good Reason for Sports to Be Separated by Sex
If the practice stopped, top-level women’s sport as we know it might cease to exist.
From The Atlantic (USA)
By Steve Magness
September 29, 2022
My wife and I are lifelong runners. It’s the sport we fell in love with, and ended up excelling at—during our wedding, every speaker from the preacher to the best man mentioned some variation of “Can you imagine how fast their future kids are going to be?” My wife, Hillary, is by far the more accomplished athlete. I made the NCAA championship; she was an All-American. I had dreams of qualifying for the Olympic trials; she actually did it. By many measures, she’s simply better. But not by all of them.
We both got our start in middle school. When Hillary was in seventh grade, she ran a 5:42 mile. At the same age, my best was virtually identical at 5:40. If we had lined up for a race, there would have been a close dash to the finish line. Fast-forward to ninth grade, and we were both ranked among the top freshman runners in Texas. But a clear difference had emerged: Her time had steadily decreased to 5:13, while mine had shot all the way down to 4:22. At the end of our collegiate running careers, the massive gulf remained: She ran 4:43 and I ran 4:01. I didn’t train more, care more, or possess more grit. She surpasses me on all of those things. I just had an inherent advantage: my biology. … read full article
US - A battle over Title IX: Can it be used to exclude trans athletes?
An appeals court heard arguments Thursday on whether allowing trans athletes to participate in youth sports discriminates against their cisgender classmates
From The Washington Post (USA)
By Anne Branigin
September 29, 2022
On Thursday, a federal appellate court heard arguments concerning the rights of transgender student-athletes.
But unlike most other legal challenges of this kind, the plaintiffs aren’t trans people suing to have their rights recognized.
Instead, a group of young cisgender women, represented by the Christian conservative legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, is arguing that allowing trans athletes to compete on sports teams that align with their gender identity violates the rights of cis women. … read full article
US - Female athletes 'optimistic' that court will move case forward addressing athletic transgender policies
From Washington Examiner (USA)
By Rachel Schilke
September 29, 2022
Female track athletes are "optimistic" that a judge will move their court case forward that challenges a policy in Connecticut allowing transgender female athletes to compete in women's sports.
Hearings began today for the court case Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools, involving female athletes Selina Soule, Alanna Smith, Chelsea Mitchell, and Ashley Nicoletti, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, and Connecticut school districts.
Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller, two transgender student-athletes who have since graduated from Connecticut high schools, are also listed as defendants, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. … read full article
Canada - Gender dysphoria in children: Risking harm from well-intentioned parents and doctors
This commentary by David Zitner explores the risks of surgical interventions for those children who express reservations about their biological sex.
From Macdonald-Laurier Institute (Canada)
By David Zitner
September 29, 2022
Despite the absence of supportive evidence, the American Pediatric Association recently suggested that aggressive and clearly harmful medical and surgical interventions might be appropriate for many children who express reservations about their biological sex (Szilagyi 2022; Rafferty et al. 2018).
At the same time, other experts on transgender medicine, including some who are themselves transgender, are raising serious doubts about the quality and value, for young people, of “gender affirming care” (Ault 2021). They are clear that, for youth, the unavoidable short-term harms outweigh the theoretical long-term benefits. … read full article
US - Pronouns Unbound
San Francisco Unified School District facilitates secret child sexual transitions and allows students to identify as “it.”
From City Journal (USA)
By Christopher F. Rufo
September 29, 2022
San Francisco Unified School District has released a guidebook for teachers to facilitate secret child sexual transitions and to let students use the pronoun “it” at school.
According to documents obtained from a whistleblower, in 2021 the district celebrated “International Pronouns Day,” teaching students that they can adopt a wide range of genders and sexual identities. In elementary school, the district tells students that they may not “feel like a boy OR a girl” and can identify as “non-binary” and use “they” pronouns. For secondary students, the district teaches that they can be part of the “bisexual umbrella” and identify as “fluid,” “pansexual,” “omnisexual,” “hetero-, homo-, lesbi-curious,” “hetero-, homo-, lesbi-flexible,” and “queer.” … read full article
France - Women Marching for Abortion Assaulted by Trans Activists
Women in Paris told that abortion rights were not “their struggle”
From 4W (USA)
By Andreia Nobre
September 29, 2022
On September 28, International Safe Abortion Day, several French women marching for abortion rights in Paris were physically assaulted by transactivists, according to feminist organization L’Amazone.
During the march, women who belonged to feminist groups L’Amazone and Osez Le Féminisme encountered trans allies shouting "TERFs out of our struggle" (TERF hors de nos luttes) and started tearing up their signs. Trans activists physically assaulted several women at the protest. One video shared by L’Amazone on Twitter shows several individuals arguing, when a female protester, who was filming them, said to a trans activist “Excuse me, please.” The video shows the individual punching the woman who was filming. … read full article
US - CBS News ripped for promoting study saying gender surgery for 14-year-olds 'improves' their lives
Conservative Twitter users accused CBS News of promoting propaganda
From Fox News (USA)
By Gabriel Hays
September 29, 2022
Conservative Twitter users were outraged by a recent CBS News article touting a study which claimed that transgender people between the ages of 14 and 24 have better lives after undergoing "top surgery."
The article reported Tuesday, "The quality of life of young transmasculine people dramatically improves after receiving top surgery — a mastectomy procedure that removes breast tissue — according to a study by Northwestern Medicine."
The study, which CBS News noted was published in peer-reviewed journal JAMA Pediatrics this week, "is the first to show that top surgery is ‘associated with significant improvement in chest dysphoria, gender congruence, and body image in transmasculine and nonbinary teens and young adults.’" … read full article
US - HHS proposal replaces medical ethics with transgender ideology, critics say
From Catholic Star Herald
By Catholic News Service
September 29, 2022
Proposed federal regulatory changes to the Affordable Care Act will mean political correctness will trump medical and ethical considerations, likely exacerbating a nursing and physician shortage in the United States.
That’s one assessment on the proposed revisions released over the summer by the civil rights office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that could force health care workers to perform gender transition procedures; require health insurance plans to cover those costs; and likely remove federal conscience protection for those in health care who object to performing abortions. … read full article
US - House Republicans ask Vanderbilt to stop sex change surgeries for transgender children
From Main Street Nashville (USA)
By Vivian Jones
September 28, 2022
Sixty-two Republican lawmakers are asking Vanderbilt University Medical Center to suspend irreversible sex reassignment surgeries for children, calling the practice “nothing less than abuse,” and foreshadowing a law to outlaw such procedures.
In a letter to VUMC Board Chairman Dr. Jeffrey Balser sent Wednesday, lawmakers asked that the Vanderbilt Pediatric Transgender Clinic halt such surgeries for those under 18, calling the surgeries “surgical mutilations of minor children.” … read full article
US - After Conservatives Threaten Funding, Oklahoma Hospital Puts the Brakes on Transgender Treatment for Kids
From The Daily Signal (USA)
By Suzanne Bowdey
September 29, 2022
When Oklahoma leaders descended on the state Capitol Wednesday morning, there were plenty of things on their special session to-do list. But none got more attention than the bullseye Republicans are painting on the University of Oklahoma health system.
Like a lot of states, the Sooners were horrified to learn that the OU Children’s Hospital is actively promoting transgender surgery and hormones to children. But thanks to the Legislature’s conservatives, that’s all about to end. … read full article
UK - How far-Right are you?
Progressive contagion is coming for us all
From UnHerd (UK)
By Mary Harrington
September 30, 2022
A common form of classroom cruelty when I was at school involved a game we called “Contagion”. The instigator would touch the person next to them, having chosen a low-status scapegoat — usually “Holly”, who wore thick glasses and was universally shunned — and tell them they had “Holly disease”. The only way to be cured was to touch someone else and say “Holly disease”, then cross yourself to ward off re-infection.
Surely moral progress has stamped out such vicious, childish status games? Alas, no. “Contagion” provides the best explanation for why Italy’s new Prime Minister, a figure generally described by her own country’s press as “centre-Right”, has been widely described as “far-Right”. Never mind reporting accuracy, the aim is disciplinary: entire moral territories can be designated as low-status or unclean. If you touch them, you will incur Contagion. … read full article
UK - Council comes under fire for replacing story-telling library bear with gender-neutral dungaree-clad rainbow alien using they and them pronouns
Hertfordshire Council has introduced Tala, a colourful alien from outer-space
The council hopes Tala will encourage more families to visit its libraries
But some have slammed the council saying the children are too young for them
The council says any suggestion Tala is being used to push any 'ideology' is false
From Daily Mail (UK)
By ELIZABETH HAIGH
September 29, 2022
A council has come under fire after it replaced its library story-time telling bear with a gender-neutral rainbow alien that is neither female nor male, after campaigners incorrectly claimed the alien was trans and the policy was an effort to push 'gender ideology'.
Hertfordshire Council says Tala the Storyteller is a 'bright, vibrant creature' that will capture the imagination of toddlers and babies, and confirmed they will be referred to using they/them pronouns. … read full article
US - ‘Your Son Is Going to Be a Girl’?
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
September 29, 2022
I was sitting in the school councillor's office, but I felt like I was on a completely different planet. It was March 2016 and a few days earlier my husband and I had found a well written letter on our 13-year-old son's phone stating that he had gender dysphoria and that he was transgender.
I turned to the school for support and when they offered the assistance of a school councillor, I was relieved because I thought would get some sensible answers and advice from a professional. Naturally, I believed, she would question his feelings, ask me about his background, and reassure me that this was maybe a phase.
None of that happened. With no questions asked, she congratulated and affirmed my son right in front of me. Then she gave me the Mermaid’s website address to go to for support and advised me to get a referral to the Tavistock clinic so that we could casually pause my son’s puberty. I was numb. My son went back into class and I stumbled to my car and collapsed into the driver's seat in tears. … read full article
UK - A Personal Story Goes Public
From Gender Dissident (UK)
By Alessandra Asteriti
September 29, 2022
If you subscribe to this Substack, you will know that some time ago I published a piece, titled A Personal Story, about my experience of writing about my ideas on gender theory and the effect this had on my academic career.
About a month ago, a journalist from the Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung (FAZ), Thomas Thiel, contacted me about the story, saying that he intended to write a piece on ‘cancel culture’ in German academia and if he could mention my story. I had naively thought only my followers were reading what I write here, but I was happy for him to do so. The article was first released on 21 September and then on the online, paywalled site, on the 28. I asked the FAZ whether I could publish a translation here and Mr Thiel was most gracious and supported my request for obtaining the rights, which I did for six months. My incredibly clever, nice and funny friend Eva Poen edited my clunky translation from the German, so here it is. … read full article
Pakistan - Pakistan’s Progressive Transgender Law Faces Opposition 4 Years Later
From Voice of America (USA)
By Sarah Zaman
September 28, 2022
Pakistan is considering amending a landmark transgender rights bill passed in 2018 that some legislators and clerics argue contradicts Islamic teachings on gender identity.
Rights activists, however, say the law is being misunderstood and the “misinformed” debate against it is further endangering the transgender community.
Hailed as among the more progressive laws on transgender rights globally by the International Commission of Jurists, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act gave transgender people in Pakistan the right to choose their gender identity as they perceived it themselves and to change it on previously issued government documents. … read full article
US - REVEALED: Johns Hopkin doctor told her trans Army officer wife to stop being a 'coward' and to 'work through' her 'ethical issues' to hand over medical information on senior military officers to Russians, indictment shows
Major Jamie Lee Henry, the Army's first trans officer, and Dr. Anna Gabrielian were indicted for trying to give secret records to the Russian government
The files included medical records of senior military officers at North Carolina's Fort Bragg and of their families
The base is home to 52,000 active duty soldiers, as well as the US Army's Delta Force and Special Operations Forces
Gabrielian was allegedly fueled by her patriotism for Russia, and told Henry not be a 'coward' when she expressed concerns about violating HIPPA
Henry allegedly tried to volunteer to fight for Russia against Ukraine, but was rejected because the doctor had not combat experience
From Daily Mail (UK)
By RONNY REYES
September 29, 2022
The wife of the US Army's first trans officer told her to stop being a 'coward' and to overlook 'ethical issues' when the couple tried to hand over medical records of senior military officers and their families to the Russian government.
Major Jamie Lee Henry, 39, and Johns Hopkins Dr. Anna Gabrielian, 36, were accused of using their secret security clearance at North Carolina's Fort Bragg to steal the records from the base's hospital, according to the Department of Justice.
Fort Bragg is among one of the most populated military installations in the world, housing about 52,000 active duty soldiers. The base is home to the US Army's Delta Force and Special Operations Forces. … read full article
Thanks for another great bunch of articles.
Of maybe some interest, a letter I've just sent off to Rachel Schilke of the Washington Examiner about one of those articles which I hope you won't mind if I post it here as well:
****
Dear Ms. Schilke,
My name is Jim Wiggins and I’m writing in regard to your Washington Examiner article of September 29th on “Female athletes 'optimistic' that court will move case forward addressing athletic transgender policies”.
While I can’t say that I’m fully cognizant of all of the details of the case – although I certainly hope that Smith, Soule, Mitchell, and Nicoletti succeed with it – the focus of my letter to you is what appears to be some highly “problematic” language in your article, i.e., “allowing transgender female athletes to compete in women's sports.”
The problem with that phrase is that Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller are most certainly NOT females, they’re adult human males (sex), i.e., men. The problem with transactivism in general is that transactivists have more or less succeeded in redefining the words “male” and “female” to be genders whereas the standard biological definitions are as sexes, but sex and gender are two entirely different kettles of fish.
And it therefore ill behooves any newspaper to basically paper over that difference – though many newspapers are equally “guilty” of that “crime” – since it basically endorses the transactivist case while explicitly denying or repudiating that of Smith, Soule, Mitchell, and Nicolletti. Not sure that their attorney, Christiana Holcomb, would be terribly impressed by such explicit, if inadvertent bias on the part of a supposedly unbiased newspaper.
Though to be fair to you and to the Washington Examiner, there is a great deal of terminological confusion over the definitions for “male” and “female”. But the standard definitions for “male” and “female” are quite clear that Yearwood and Miller would most certainly not qualify as females. See the archived definitions from Oxford Dictionaries – more or less the gold standard – and the ones that Google uses if you were to do a Google search for “male definition” and “female definition”:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190608135422/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/male
https://web.archive.org/web/20181020204521/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/female
But they say:
“male (noun): of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.
female (noun): of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.”
I rather doubt Yearwood and Miller have any ability to produce any ova - bring them from home?, much less have any ovaries of their own at all.
The problem is, more generally, that “male” and “female” are more or less meaningless as genders – there are no objective correlates at all to “male” and “female” as genders. Not at all the case with their definitions as sexes (see the above). The most that one might get out of “male” and “female” as genders is that they refer to personalities, behaviours and clothing typical of human males (sex) and human females (sex). Which is why I’ve argued that we really should be qualifying each and every use of those terms with that type of qualification, e.g., “male (gender)” or “female (sex)”.
Which is also why the late Justice Scalia drew attention to that profound dichotomy with this rather brilliant analogy of his:
“The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep511/usrep511127/usrep511127.pdf
Why I would urge you and the Washington Examiner to reconsider the terminology you use. Maybe change “transgender female athletes” into “female (gender) athletes” or into “feminine male athletes”? Not quite sure how a guy putting on a dress entitles him to compete in women’s sports.
But for further details, you may wish to read my Substack essay on Wikipedia’s Lysenkoism which describes my “defenestration” there for objecting to their article on transwoman and Olympian Laurel Hubbard which claimed that “she” had “transitioned to female”:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/wikipedias-lysenkoism
An egregious case of bait and switch; outright fraud; part and parcel of the medical scandal “unfolding in plain sight” which "succeeds" only in the butchering of dysphoric and autistic children.
Sincerely,
Jim Wiggins, AKA Steersman
CC: GC News; https://gcnews.substack.com/p/thursday-september-29-2022