Tuesday, April 5, 2022
This day in Herstory: Judith Arlene Resnik, born April 5, 1949 (died January 28, 1986), was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger during the launch of mission STS-51-L. Resnik was the fourth woman, the second American woman, and the first Jewish woman of any nationality to fly in space, logging 145 hours in orbit. Her first space flight was the STS-41-D mission in August and September 1984, when her duties included operating the Space Shuttle's robotic arm. (more)
NHS equality chief leads mutiny against ‘transphobic’ watchdog ruling
New guidance from the EHRC states transgender women can be lawfully excluded from female-only spaces
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Hayley Dixon and Ewan Somerville
April 5, 2022
An NHS equality chief was on Tuesday leading the mutiny against a ruling from a government watchdog that trans people can be excluded from single-sex wards.
Bosses within the health service publicly criticised guidance from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) which stated that it is lawful to exclude someone who is born a man from women’s spaces if there is a legitimate reason.
Tara Hewitt, the group head of equality, diversity and inclusion at Northern Care Alliance NHS Group, described the guidance as “transphobic” and said that NHS bosses should put it in the “bin”. … read full article (web page archive)
GC News editor’s note: The following article is not current news, but it makes clear and explicit what the previous article does not. Tara Hewitt is a trans-identified male.
What it's like to be Transgender and Catholic
Tara Hewitt, NHS equality and diversity advisor, doesn't believe in abortion or IVF but says it doesn't affect her job
From Liverpool Echo (UK)
By Cristina Criddle
January 30, 2016
A transgender woman who converted to Catholicism speaks out about her beliefs and how it doesn’t affect her role in the NHS.
Tara Hewitt, 30, who works in the Wirral as the boroughs’s equality and diversity advisor said she is pro-life but ‘doesn’t force those views on others.’
She said: “I don’t believe in terminating life... Life starts at conception and then if you terminate life after that then you’re ending a life.
“That’s my view, I can’t have children, I don’t judge people for making their decisions – I have friends who have had abortions.”
After transitioning at the University of Liverpool, at the age of 21, Tara struggled and attempted suicide before turning to the church.
She said her attempted overdose does not affect her Catholicism.
“I do loads of things that would be classed as a sin, I live my life as me, I believe in God, I believe in the teaching.
Tara, who attends the Crypt in the Metropolitan Cathedral, described a low point in her life, turning to the church last Easter. … read full article
'Becoming a man was a huge mistake - so why DID doctors allow me to do it?' Sinéad changed gender at the age of 23 and then changed her mind and 'de-transitioned' four years later and is furious GPs are being paid to give hormone therapy
From Daily Mail (UK)
By TESSA CUNNINGHAM
April 4, 2022
The relationship between sisters is often tricky.
Parents going through the ‘hair-pulling one minute, allies against the world the next’ stage are invariably told that time has a way of smoothing out the bumps.
With Sinead Watson and her big sister Andrea, this is certainly true.
Their ‘bump’, however, is anything but typical. For them, enjoying each other’s sisterly company is a precious privilege, hard won.
Because from the age of 23, Sinead lived as a man — having privately thought of herself as transgender from the age of 21 — only realising four years ago at 27 that she had made a terrible mistake, and detransitioning at 28.
But some damage is irreversible. She had a full mastectomy and, owing to the testosterone she took for years, she has been left with a gruff voice and facial hair she removes every two days.
‘I’m still trying to forgive myself and the medical profession,’ she says quietly.
‘When I told doctors at the gender clinic I hated my body and wanted to be a man, they never questioned why. If they had, they might have discovered that my body dysphoria wasn’t the cause of my problems. It was the symptom. I was about to make the biggest decision of my life but I wasn’t offered in-depth counselling. Instead, I was effectively left to self-diagnose.’ … read full article
Has the transgender bathroom question finally been answered?
From The Spectator (UK)
By Debbie Hayton
April 5, 2022
As Keir Starmer still struggles to tell us what he thinks the word 'woman' means, some much-needed common sense has been injected into the transgender debate. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published guidance for providers of single-sex and separate-sex services: in short, it says bathrooms and domestic abuse refuges can be single sex in certain circumstances. This is welcome news for women – and for transgender folk like me.
For too long, lobby groups have ruled the roost in this area, obfuscating language and denying reality. And the inevitable howls of protest in response to this publication have already started. I can understand the upset and anxiety being expressed by other trans people who had been persuaded that they had the right to use services designated for the opposite-sex just because they wanted to. But the resulting free-for-all has led in part to the increased suspicion of trans people. That helps nobody, least of all trans people. … read full article
The Jamie Wallis story gets darker and weirder
Don't worry, Brian Paddick is not on the case!
From The Glinner Update (UK)
By ripx4nutmeg
April 5, 2022
Last week we looked at Britain’s first ‘transgender’ MP, Jamie Wallis, a man who uses ‘he / him’ pronouns, publicly dresses in men’s clothing, yet has been praised for his ‘bravery’ by clowns like Brian Paddick, Anneliese Dodds and Ash Sarkar. His decision to transition coincided with a number of other exciting events in his life, including infidelity, fleeing the scene of a car crash and a blackmail attempt involving ‘photographs’.
Less than twenty-four hours after he ‘came out’, it also came out that he had a history of running dodgy companies and associating with criminals.
And there’s more. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to The Glinner Update!)
JK Rowling is right. Woke men are ruining beards for the rest of us
Not long ago, facial hair was all but ubiquitous. Now, innocent men risk being mistaken for insufferable Left-wing ‘beardsplainers’
From The Telegraph (UK)
By MICHAEL DEACON
April 5, 2022
Gillette says that sales of its razors have shot up 30 per cent in the past year. You may think the reason is obvious. After letting themselves go during lockdown, men decided to smarten up for their return to the office. But I think the reason is actually very different.
Most men simply daren’t wear a beard any more. Because they fear being mistaken for some insufferable, woman-hating woke activist.
There’s no getting away from it. Of late, beards have become synonymous with a very specific type of man. At the weekend, JK Rowling gave them a name: “beardsplainers”. These are men who, despite purporting to be impeccably progressive, appear to spend their every waking moment on social media belittling women. And, without exception, absolutely all of these men have beards. It’s an integral part of their look. Just as punks have mohicans and monks have shaved crowns, so woke men have beards. … read full article (web page archive)
History of the Trans Flag
a video presentation
From Women’s Voices (USA)
By Genevieve Gluck
April 5, 2022
On Saturday I had the opportunity to give a brief presentation for Women’s Declaration International. I chose to explore the history of the trans flag, with a particular focus on transgender age regression erotica and how I see this as linked to pedophilic tendencies. … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Women’s Voices!)
Becoming flesh
From Writing behavior by Eliza Mondegreen (Canada)
By Eliza Mondegreen
April 4, 2022
As always, Victoria Smith says almost everything I've wanted to say about anorexia and gender identity — except that she said it better:
I decided this wasn’t for me and stopped eating. I didn’t bleed or need a bra again until 1996. In the changing rooms for PE, I’d look down on the other girls, the ones allowing themselves to become woman-shaped. Hips, breasts, blood, surrender; I was better than that. These girls, I’d tell myself, had made a choice. If they weren’t exactly what they looked like — female, normative, inferior — they’d have been like me and said no.
Back then, no one offered you shortcuts to puberty avoidance. You did it old-style, slowly, like a starving saint. It wasn’t like today, when we are far more progressive.
It’s not that we don’t continue to put precociously pubescent girls on a one-way ticket to sexual exploitation. It’s that we offer a select few — those who do not consider themselves tits and ass and are willing to suffer to prove it — a medicalised exit strategy.
There’s a lot I can’t reconjure about those hungry years. What exactly did I see when I looked in the mirror? Where did I think it would all end? What was my plan: to starve myself forever? Then what? … read full article (and SUBSCRIBE to Writing behavior!)
UK: Local Politician Who Campaigned For Gender Neutral Toilets Stands Trial on Child Sex Abuse
From REDUXX (USA)
By Anna Slatz
April 5, 2022
A former councillor who argued for implementing gender neutral spaces in his community is on trial facing a series of child sex abuse charges.
David Smith, 33, represented the Coulby Newham ward on Middlesbrough Council following an election victory in May of 2019. Two months later, he faced a slew of child sex abuse-related charges. He stepped down from the Conservative Party in July of 2019, and ultimately resigned from the council altogether in 2020.
While initially charged with 9 counts of the sexual touching of a child, Smith is now defending against 11 counts stemming from two victims, both of which alleged the abuse took place around a decade ago while they were young boys.
The first victim came forward in 2016 after experiencing great emotional distress related to his past abuse, and finally opening up to his partner and mother about the ordeal before going to police. A second victim was introduced after the first charges had been established.
According to Teesside Live, Smith groomed the first victim by showering him with gifts and trips before progressively subjecting him to increasing sexual abuses. Smith allegedly spent up to £10,000 (approx. $13,000 USD) on the boy in an attempt to “keep him quiet.” … read full article (and SUPPORT REDUXX!)
Feminists to use ‘respect my sex’ slogan in local polls
From The Times (UK)
By Mike Wade
April 5, 2022
An influential feminist group will seek to make trans rights the defining issue in the council elections by urging its supporters to ask candidates: “What is a woman?”
For Women Scotland (FWS) said that any prospective councillors from any party who could not give an answer equivalent to the dictionary definition — “adult human female” — could not be trusted and “anything else they say is irrelevant”.
The question has become a fault line in a furious row between the SNP-Green administration and its allies such as Stonewall, on one side, who believe it should be easier for transgender people to change their legal sex, and their opponents, including FWS, which advocates single-sex spaces in places such as changing rooms, hospital wards and prisons. … read full article (web page archive)