Tuesday, April 12, 2022
This day in Herstory: Beverly Atlee Cleary (née Bunn), born April 12, 1916 (died March 25, 2021), was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction. One of America's most successful authors, 91 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide since her first book was published in 1950.[2] Some of her best known characters are Ramona Quimby and Beezus Quimby, Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy, and Ralph S. Mouse. (more)
JK Rowling joins ladies who lunch and laugh off trans fury
The author and other women targeted in the debate over gender have launched a campaign, James Beal writes
From The Times (UK)
By James Beal
April 12, 2022
Over bottles of wine at an Italian restaurant, they put their arms around each other and hugged like old friends.
But the Sunday lunch in west London was in fact the first time JK Rowling had met Maya Forstater, whose legal battle has had a profound effect on them both.
The Harry Potter author has been targeted by trans activists and ostracised by Hollywood stars made famous by her own words since tweeting #IStandWithMaya in 2019.
Forstater had taken her employer to a tribunal after she lost her job for voicing her belief that people cannot change sex.
Rowling organised the lunch, at The River Café, Hammersmith, for campaigners, including the Labour MP Rosie Duffield and the philosopher Kathleen Stock, who have been targeted by the trans lobby. … read full article (share token)
How To Be A Girl
“How are you a girl if you look like that?”
From Analyse This (Australia)
By Tania A. Marshall, M.Sc.
April 12, 2022
How to Be a Girl: School
Essay and Advice, by 15 year old Twice Exceptional Girl & Elite Semi-Professional Athlete, with permission
“How are you a girl if you look like that?” Anna, one of my first middle school friends, confronted me with this question on my second day of seventh grade. Confused, I hesitated for a brief moment and walked away without giving a response. Like every other twelve-year-old in the world, I could not think of any plausible answer.
I couldn’t understand why it bothered her so much, but I must admit that she got me thinking. I had never enjoyed “feminine” things. I dressed the same as my best friend John, had my hair cut short, and preferred playing with my brother’s Hot Wheels than wasting my time dressing unrealistic Barbie dolls. I would rather have looked like a strong man than the skinny girl I was. So really, what made me a girl? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if I just said I was a boy? This was the beginning of my venture into the world of transgenderism. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Analyse This!)
A transgender psychologist has helped hundreds of teens transition. But rising numbers have her concerned
From Los Angeles Times (USA)
BY JENNY JARVIE
APRIL 12, 2022
BERKELEY — Day after day, emails pour into Erica Anderson’s inbox from parents struggling to support their teenagers coming out as transgender.
“He’s been depressed and anxious since the pandemic began, and over the past few days he has shared with me that he’s pretty sure he’s trans,” said one message about a 17-year-old.
“I am very worried that my child is being pressured into wanting to take [puberty] blockers, ‘because that is the next step,’ ” said another. “We are supportive and have helped them to socially transition, but the medical part somehow for her at 13 does not seem right.”
“How do we decide whether an adolescent in the throes of so much turmoil can make such a medically consequential, irreversible decision?” another said about a 15-year-old’s pleas for testosterone injections.
The parents come to Anderson, 71, in part because she herself is transgender. Anderson also stands out because she is one of the few clinical psychologists specializing in transgender youth to publicly question the sharp rise in adolescents coming out as trans or nonbinary. … read full article (web page archive)
Strong drugs, weak evidence
Lack of long-term safety data puts gender clinics in a bind
From Gender Clinic News (Australia)
By Bernard Lane
April 12, 2022
The gist
Gender clinics giving children and teenagers puberty blocker drugs and cross-sex hormones cannot wait for long-term data on the safety of these interventions, according to an editorial in the medical journal BMJ.
“It will take many years to obtain these [undoubtedly needed] long-term data,” says the article, which has Dr Ken Pang, head of research at Australia’s largest children’s hospital gender clinic, as lead author.
The BMJ-commissioned editorial argues there is enough existing evidence and international agreement among gender clinicians to continue these medical treatments aimed at stopping unwanted puberty, then mimicking opposite-sex development. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Gender Clinic News!)
Five rules for fighting transactivism
Stonewall loyalists need rescuing from themselves
From UnHerd (UK)
By KATHLEEN STOCK
April 12, 2022
It will not have escaped the eagle-eyed that something about modern transactivism seems to make otherwise Gillick-competent adults veer towards the infantile. From the EHRC’s recent clarification about the legality of single-sex spaces under the terms of the Equality Act, to the government’s announcement that it would no longer try to criminalise what is tendentiously named “conversion therapy” for people with incongruent gender identities, it seems that whenever an obstacle is thrown in the path of transactivists there is widespread wailing, dramatic pronouncements, and holding of breath until puce.
Given the radical scope of activist ambitions — basically, to restructure the English language so that no one refers accurately to males and females in any context it might matter — you’d think that they would be a bit more sanguine about the likelihood of an uphill struggle. But not so — every new challenge is received like an incomprehensible and crushing blow, and much drama inevitably follows.
What is it that produces such childish regression in the initiates of the new gender religion? At least part of the answer seems to have to do with the example set by Stonewall. For years now, the charity has acted like a demented primary school teacher gone rogue, encouraging all sorts of unsavoury habits in those under its influence. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to UnHerd!)
Planned Parenthood-You've sold out Women and Children
You are letting down women and children to gain new markets
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
April 12, 2022
Dear Planned Parenthood,
You have been an important health care provider to me in the past and I deeply value your care for everyone seeking reproductive health services. It is with great sadness that I cannot continue to support your work. Your new policy of 'gender affirming hormone therapy' strikes me as terribly misguided and potentially incredibly harmful.
You advertise the ability to be prescribed 'gender affirming hormones' "..the same day as your first visit. No letter from a mental health provider is required." I have some specific thoughts on what makes this a very dangerous option:
Physical Impact of Hormones: My mother passed away from complications from post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy that resulted in malignant cancer and stroke. No doctor took the time to review her genetic history to assess whether she was predisposed to cancer or cardiovascular risk from exogenous hormones. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to PITT!)
How Digital Media Helped Shape the “Modern Self”
From Ethics and Public Policy Center (USA)
By CLARE MORELL
April 10, 2022
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok are exacerbating the fixation on sexual identity and sexual liberation that defines modern culture. In his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman aptly describes our current ills, namely expressive individualism, and examines the underlying philosophical causes that have given rise to them. Trueman, a Christian theologian at Grove City College, explains how we arrived at the “triumphs of the erotic, the therapeutic, and the transgender.”
In this article, I want to explore Trueman’s insights further by considering how modern technology, in the form of social media, has exacerbated these trends. By shedding light on technological factors, I hope we can become wiser in thinking about how to counter the disturbing modern “triumphs” that are antithetical to Judeo-Christian understandings of sex, gender, marriage, and the family.
I will highlight four ways in which social media have contributed to this sexualized era of the modern self: 1) creating infinite space and opportunity for expressive individualism; 2) fostering an environment of celebration and affirmation of sex as identity, particularly transgenderism; 3) censoring speech that is “harmful” to today’s privileged sexual identities, and inflating the meaning of victimhood; and 4) promoting the “pornification” of culture through increasingly extreme online pornography. … read full article
Lauren Black writes about Dysphoria
Originally posted on Lesbian and Gay News
From Ceri Black Writes (UK)
By Lauren Black
April 12, 2022
Introduction
Writing about dysphoria is difficult for me. I am not great at talking about my feelings, even to my wife. And dysphoria is an obsessive and dissociative condition. Thinking and writing about it can make it worse. But there are young women out there, just like me, who are being lied to, instead of helped. They need to know the truth.
So I’m going to talk to you about dysphoria, even though it costs me to do so. I’m going to tell you what it is like to live with and how I deal with it. I’m also going to tear an absolute strip off the gingerbread model of sex, sexuality and gendered identity in the process. Gloves off. I’m going to talk about how dysphoria, plus the gingerbread model, plus pornography, leads to the creation of who I call “porn addled robot people.” I’m going to suggest how I think these people come, in good faith, to the conclusion that ‘genital preferences are transphobic’. I’m also going to tell you about my beautiful wife who loves me just as I am. Buckle up.
Gingerbread Model
The Gingerbread model suggests that we all have a sex(ed body), an internal gender identity, an external gender expression, and a sexuality. These are separate things. Your sex is what you are “assigned” at birth, based on observation of your genitals. It is “in your pants.” Your gender identity is whether you feel male, female, non-binary, or something else. It is “in your head.” Your gender expression is whether you are socially male, female, non-binary or something else. It is “in your presentation.” Your sexuality is who you are sexually attracted to. It is not anywhere, it is an orientation towards others. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Ceri Black Writes!)
Transhausen by proxy: a few thoughts
On why this theory doesn’t tell us enough
From Lorelei’s Newsletter
By Lorelei Hatpinwoman
April 12, 2022
Munchausen by proxy is one of the things I have frequently seen suggested as being behind the phenomenon of the rise of the young “trans child”. I’ve even seen it rather pithily called “transhausen by proxy” by the daring people of Twitter.
As it is so often mothers who support these transitions, and as we have seen them being shockingly pro-interventionist about their offspring, in “trans child” support groups (through leaked screenshots) it intuitively feels like this might be a real answer to the question of why this is happening. At least in a notable number of cases.
When people have suggested it, in the past, I have given credence to the idea, too, but in this short essay I intend to try and present the case that this is a blunt analysis that relies on the easy assumption that it is the mothers of these children that are liable to be pathological rather than leading us to focus on a broader social context.
While there will always be cases where a maladaptive parent induces illness in a child, I believe the societal discussions around gender issues, themselves, demonstrate a kind of collective madness. This means that we can’t always, or perhaps often, straightforwardly lay the blame at the door of any or both parents.
At least, not in any diagnosable way. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Lorelei’s Newsletter!)
Don't talk to ME about regret! (Seriously. It's terribly inconvenient.)
From Writing behavior by Eliza Mondegreen (Canada)
By Eliza Mondegreen
April 12, 2022
The Canada Research Chair on Transgender Children and their Families just released a new factsheet on “Talking to youth who discontinue their transition.” Unsurprisingly, the researchers dutifully recycle all the talking points that gender-affirming clinicians fall back on when transition fails:
Citing that favorite stat: “less than 2% of people who have had a gender affirming surgery express regret.” [Never mind the high loss to follow up, demographic overhaul, and near-total collapse of medical gatekeeping…]
Putting “detransition” in air quotes.
Washing hands of bad medical outcomes: Detransitioning shouldn’t necessarily be thought of as a "clinical ‘failure.’… Discontinuing a transition does not always mean that the transition shouldn’t have occurred.” … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Writing behavior!)
Biology as basis for sex is common sense, says Keir Starmer
From The Times (UK)
By Mark McLaughlin
April 12, 2022
Sir Keir Starmer has said it is “plain common sense” that biology determines sex for the majority of women but that those who struggle with their gender identity should be respected.
The UK Labour leader sought to build bridges with Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury, who said she was tempted to defect to the Conservative Party over disagreements about expanding transgender rights.
Duffield said she felt cut adrift by Starmer and by Jeremy Corbyn, his predecessor, in disputes with local activists over her belief that those born male should not be allowed into women’s private spaces such as changing rooms.
She has denied being transphobic and said she felt unable to attend the Labour conference last year after being subjected to death threats because of her views.
Duffield told Woman’s Hour, on BBC Radio 4, this morning she was “really hesitant” to share pictures on social media of a lunch this week with JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author who has become an outspoken advocate for single sex spaces, but thought “sod it”. … read full article (web page archive)
14 Reader Views on Sexuality and Gender in the Class
From The Atlantic (USA)
April 11, 2022
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Soon after, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Amid debate over a new law in Florida that prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity prior to fourth grade, that declares an intention to limit “classroom discussion” of those topics in its preamble, and that bans all instruction that is “age inappropriate” (whatever that means) in any grade, I asked readers, “What, if anything, should minors be taught or told about sexual orientation and gender identity before puberty?”
Today’s roundup concludes with an unusually long reader response that I very much enjoyed––and begins with Stephen, who sympathizes with people on both sides of this polarizing debate:
It is reasonable for parents to want to manage their children’s first introduction to sexual orientation and gender identity. Those on the left who oppose the bill overlook that the legislation’s K-3 “no fly zone” can also be protective of their interests, and even a tool to protect their right to control how their children are exposed to these issues. If a conservative teacher is teaching that the only acceptable form of sexual orientation and gender identity is one based on biological birth, parents who disagree and want their children to understand a fuller range of views can object, and even have legal recourse to enforce their rights. The legislation’s ban on subsequent education that is not “age appropriate,” however, is hopelessly vague and not amenable to neutral application. It wouldn’t be surprising if a court struck down that portion of the legislation for vagueness.
Phil argues that we obscure a critical distinction when we talk about “sexual orientation and gender identity” because the compromise America reached on gay issues won’t work for trans issues:
The existence of same-sex sexual attraction is almost never disputed as a point of fact; our debates about when and how to introduce that phenomenon to children largely center around what moral judgments should accompany those conversations. Transgenderism, on the other hand, is hotly disputed as a pure factual matter, which renders any subsequent moral debates mutually unintelligible because they begin from opposite premises. The immutability of sex (and the inseparability of sex from gender) is a binary choice; it either is or isn’t and all else proceeds from that foundational assumption.
Unfortunately, I believe this mutual antagonism is irreconcilable, which means we won’t be able to reach a cultural entente around transgender issues the way we did around homosexuality. Even if we begin from a place of desiring compassion and grace for the individual, the two sides will immediately disagree about what those words mean in practice. Do they require psychological interventions designed to mitigate gender dysphoria and reconcile body and mind, or do they require a reorientation of society intended to provide space and ensure acceptance of self-defined sex/gender? There is no compromise position between the two in the same way there can be no compromise between a geo-centric and a helio-centric astronomical model; there is no wiggle room on the basic question of reality that is in dispute. … read full article