Tuesday, August 23, 2022
At the rate this is going, I won’t be surprised when so-called experts start claiming more children than not are transgender.
This day in Herstory: Malvina Reynolds, born August 23, 1900 (died March 17, 1978) was an American folk/blues singer-songwriter and political activist, best known for her songwriting, particularly the songs "Little Boxes", "What Have They Done to the Rain" and "Morningtown Ride". (more)
US - At the American Academy of Pediatrics, ‘Affirmation’-Based Gender Dogma Is Finally Being Challenged
Many families are seeking a process that doesn’t push transition on children who struggle with their biological sex.
From Quillette (Australia)
By Stella O’Malley
August 23, 2022
The 92-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has 67,000 members, comprising primary-care pediatricians and physician specialists. Its policy positions, spanning topics from digital advertising that targets children to gun violence, carry considerable weight. In recent years, however, at least one of these positions has proven internally controversial, with some AAP members questioning the group’s strident advocacy of treating trans-identified children with a “gender-affirmative care model” (GACM).
According to the AAP, this means a model of care “oriented toward understanding and appreciating the youth’s gender experience.” But as a growing number of concerned clinicians, parents, trans “desisters,” and litigants have pointed out, what GACM usually signals is a reflexive, rubber-stamp approach to claims of gender distress from troubled children. As a result, a growing number of AAP members are asking difficult questions of the group’s leadership. … read full article
US - AAP Stands By Policy on Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth
Small group of pediatricians who called for evidence review charge they're being sidelined
From Medpage Today (USA)
By Amanda D'Ambrosio
August 23, 2022
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is standing firm in its guidance on gender-affirming care after a small group of pediatricians called for a review of the evidence behind the policy.
Five AAP members originally proposed Resolution 27 at the Academy's leadership meeting earlier this year, calling for an update to the AAP's 2018 policy statement outlining medical recommendations for transgender and gender-diverse youth. The guidance supports the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone therapy following an evaluation for gender dysphoria. … read full article
US - A Rare Reversal on Gender Transition Policy
The ‘vast majority of children’ receiving care shouldn’t be treated with hormones or surgery, says the American Academy of Pediatrics.
From Wall Street Journal (USA)
By Julia Mason, M.D., and Leor Sapir, Ph.D.
August 23, 2022
We are thrilled that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) agrees that the “vast majority of children” who get “gender-affirming care” shouldn’t be treated with hormones and surgery, and in fact, need “the opposite” (Letters, Aug. 22). Today, however, when pediatricians refer gender dysphoric minors to gender clinics for assessment, they are effectively sending them to be medically transitioned.
A recent study from Seattle Children’s Hospital shows that within 12 months of the initial consult, 66% of adolescents had already been put on “gender-affirming” hormonal interventions. … read full article
Ed. Note: In her response to the questions finally being asked of the AAP, its President says that august body is “committed to following the evidence and basing our recommendations on the best science.” Then she proceeds to lament that the (too few, too late) attempts to dial back the excesses in pediatric gender medicine are hurting “the young people who are trying only to live their lives as their true selves.” In decades of reading neuroscience research, I’ve yet to encounter any reputable scientific procedure by which we can observe, or even define people’s “true selves” — much less measure how closely they can come to living in such an exalted spiritual state. This is a religious creed; it has no basis in sound research. It’s long past time for the AAP and the other major medical associations to stop lying to their members. The “affirmative model” is founded on faith, not science.
US - Academy of Pediatrics Responds on Trans Treatment for Kids
To ‘affirm’ a child or teen means destigmatizing gender variance and promoting the child’s self-worth.
From Wall Street Journal (USA)
By Moira Szilagyi, M.D.
August 21, 2022
Regarding Julia Mason and Leor Sapir’s op-ed “The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Dubious Transgender Science” (Aug. 18): In its recommendations for caring for transgender and gender-diverse young people, the AAP advises pediatricians to offer developmentally appropriate care that is oriented toward understanding and appreciating the youth’s gender experience. …
The AAP is committed to following the evidence and basing our recommendations on the best science. …
Meanwhile, the anti-trans bills in state legislatures, the social-media attacks and the rise in misinformation has an impact. The ones who suffer are the young people who are trying only to live their lives as their true selves. … read full article
US - Toddlers aren't transgender
From Washington Examiner (USA)
By Debra Soh
August 23, 2022
The subject of “gender-affirming care” for children has hit a fever pitch in recent weeks. A firestorm of video clips went viral on social media, depicting medical professionals cheerfully describing various surgical procedures available at their gender clinics. One clip showed a professor at Yale University talking about how she helps children as young as 3 years old who identify as transgender or “nonbinary.”
At the rate this is going, I won’t be surprised when so-called experts start claiming more children than not are transgender.
The public outrage has been palpable following the revelation that Boston Children’s Hospital provides hysterectomies, vaginoplasties, and associated treatments such as puberty blockers for its gender-dysphoric patients. … read full article
US - A Victory for Child Welfare?
Did the American Academy of Pediatrics tacitly reverse its stance on pediatric gender medicine?
From City Journal (USA)
By Leor Sapir
August 22, 2022
In response to a Wall Street Journal op-ed that I co-authored criticizing the American Academy of Pediatrics’ approach to pediatric gender medicine, Moira Szilagyi, president of the AAP, has written that “gender-affirming care . . . doesn’t push medical treatments or surgery; for the vast majority of children, it recommends the opposite.”
This is a welcome development, and marks a reversal of the AAP’s previous policy. That policy was announced in a 2018 Pediatrics article, whose lead author was Jason Rafferty; it argued that “watchful waiting” is akin to “conversion therapy” and should be avoided. “Watchful waiting” refers to an approach that emphasizes psychotherapy as a measure of first (and hopefully last) resort to help minors in distress feel comfortable in their bodies. … read full article
US - Twitter Thread: The more I gave toward my ex becoming his “true self”, the more he wanted, the more he demanded, the more he took.
From Twitter
By Jennifer K
August 21, 2022
As the former partner of a trans ID’d AGP, I was sympathetic to my ex’s point of view. I was interested in everything about him as my partner and as another human being. I learned over the 15+yrs we were together that it mattered little to him if I understood his mental processes and struggles, but that I allowed his inner struggles to be the main focus of our lives.
The more I gave toward my ex becoming his “true self”, the more he wanted, the more he demanded, the more he took. My ex talked about himself A LOT. The more I listened, the more he talked. Eventually, I had no voice at all, he talked on and on and over me not caring if I heard, only that I stayed silent. When I pulled away from his incessant edicts, he made sure by whatever means, primarily suicide threats, that I came back to centring his narrative. His mental processes were to be the focus of our lives - his AND mine and I don’t fail to see that he harmed himself as well. This dynamic continued to disastrous ends.
When people hear my story many say “but the signs were there, why did you stay?” Those same people are now listening to AGPs and dismissing women. It was finally realising my ex felt entitled to arouse himself by breaking me down to pieces, trying on my various parts in front of the vanity mirror and kicking the rest of me aside that I came to see the futility of “trying to understand” his autogynephilia.
AGP is not all that different or more complicated than any other form of misogyny we’ve seen since forever. It’s just another variation of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine” which, with enabling, often escalates to “and woe betide anyone or anything that stands in the way.”
Men have written miles high pages about why they feel so entitled, their supposedly reasonable and often tragic excuses for feeling so, their sad stories about why it’s women who make them behave this way. Haven't we heard quite enough? Isn’t it high time we said no? Said a really resounding NO, blather on amongst yourselves if you must, but women have progress to make and we must be safe to do so?
When I even mildly propose this approach to men and their mental meanderings sucking up most of the air in this debate, I get the same old misogyny used as a tool to silence and dismiss me by a startling proportion of the “GC” community. I see echoes of the chilling disdain for women from some "GCs" that I heard from my ex when I attempted to remove myself from his Continuing Saga of Himself.
When I cross one of the GC community’s pet AGPs or celebrity therapists, it does not take much effort to draw this misogyny out. It is there at the ready. I question and check myself daily to ensure my experience does not cloud my judgement and I do not become unfeeling or driven by bitterness or vindictiveness in this fight. I believe this to be a basic moral requirement.
With all due respect, I think it is time for many of the people in the fight against gender ideology to check themselves and their tendency toward misogyny no matter how useful you decide it may be.
Republished with the kind permission of the author - Ed.
US - Gender Dysphoria and Reasonable Accommodations
Yes, it's a disability. Yes, they are entitled to reasonable accommodations. No, it is not reasonable to require females to disrobe in front of disabled males.
From Exulansic (USA)
By Exulansic
August 23, 2022
With the recent court decision making explicit something that should be obvious, which I’ve said since TERFtok - gender dysphoria is by definition a disability and therefore gender dysphoric people are entitled by law to a good faith attempt by employers etc. at reasonable accommodations - it is incredibly important to remember that the key word with disability accommodations is REASONABLE.
A reasonable accommodation does not infringe upon the rights of people without disabilities. If you are a treatment-resistant epileptic, there is no way to accommodate your disability in certain jobs (e.g., pilot) without endangering my life as a passenger and therefore without infringing upon my rights to have a qualified and competent pilot. Therefore, it is not a reasonable accommodation to allow a person with a condition incompatible with safe operation of an aircraft to operate the aircraft anyway because "it's a disability and we have to accommodate disability." … read full article
US - Good Morning, Ms. Killer
the gut-wrenching loneliness of the family TERF
From felice j. killer (USA)
By felice
August 23, 2022
Around the same time I sent The Letter, I also filled out an official name change form. You know, to revert my daughter’s name back to… her name.
Regarding The Letter, I’ve still only received that one bullshit response from the school board ghoul. But regarding the form, I got an email from the principal yesterday morning, followed by one from Jamie’s new counselor, Phillip Frond. Her old counselor, Mr. Calvin, got moved to the middle school. He is now the principal there. Congratulations! (I pray I rattled him enough to reconsider the school’s indoctrination approach, but I’m not holding my breath.) … read full article
US - If Aneuploidies = Sexes, Then Two-Headed Turtles Aren’t Turtles
It should've been an easy question.
From Everything Is Biology…
August 23, 2022
Some biological questions are pretty straightforward, although people can make them unbelievably complicated. One example is the question of how many human sexes there are (not genders, that’s a different question).
There are two ways that a simple question gets complicated.
The first is when someone researches a topic and learns a lot of facts, but doesn’t have the intellectual background necessary to understand the information or appreciate the nuances. We all know people like that. They’re like Cliff Clavin in the TV show, “Cheers.” … read full article
US - Please Don’t
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
August 23, 2022
I am a teacher and my daughter goes to school in my district. Two and a half years ago, right before the pandemic, my daughter, then 13 years old, told me she thought she was trans. She said she had studied me for a long time before deciding she could trust me with this information and then swore me to secrecy. I didn’t overreact, and worked to radiate my unconditional love but, meanwhile, part of me sank into dread.
Instinctively, I knew I was in for the long haul, that conversations would be guarded and I was now playing a game of chess. … read full article
UK - You can’t sit out the culture wars
From The Spectator (UK)
By Stephen Daisley
August 22, 2022
As if Judy Murray wasn’t already a national treasure. When the tennis coach, mother of Jamie and Sir Andy, heard about a biological male poised to be awarded tour status by the Ladies’ Professional Golf Association, she tweeted:
Scotland - Safeguards promised for Scottish children seeking to change gender
From The Times (UK)
By Helen Puttick
August 23, 2022
Safeguards for children seeking to change gender will be introduced in Scotland after a London clinic was closed for failing vulnerable under-18s.
SNP ministers have ordered NHS officials to draw up guidelines for the care of people experiencing gender dysphoria. NHS England announced last month that the Tavistock gender clinic in London, which was accused of rushing children into life-altering treatment such as puberty blockers, was to be shut. … read full article
Australia - ‘Absolutely devastating’: woman sues psychiatrist over gender transition
From The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
By Julie Szego
August 24, 2022
The first time Sydney woman Jay Langadinos saw psychiatrist Dr Patrick Toohey she was 19, living at home and identifying as male. It was May 2010. Langadinos wanted to start on masculinising hormones and her endocrinologist had referred her to Toohey to assess if she was suitable for the treatment.
According to a statement of claim filed in the NSW Supreme Court in May, the referral letter from Professor Ann Conway said it “seemed likely” Langadinos had “true gender dysphoria”, but she was “very young” and “clearly” needed “thorough psychiatric work-up before embarking on hormone treatment”. … read full article
Australia - Women’s Advocates Launch Petition To Remove Male Sex Offender From Women’s Prison In Victoria
From Women’s Forum Australia
August 23, 2022
In August 2022, it was revealed by the Herald Sun that a man convicted of serious sexual offences against women and children, who now identifies as transgender, is being housed in the Dame Phyllis Frost Correctional Centre for women.
Female prisoners are petitioning multiple Victorian government departments for the immediate removal of the man in question. The petition says that many of the prisoners carry significant trauma associated with having been victims of sexual assault or supporting victims, and that on hearing the news, "the mental wellbeing of many of the women was severely compromised." … read full article
Thank you very much for this group of interesting reads!