Tuesday, November 1, 2022
"Children as young as nine were prescribed puberty blockers at a Scottish gender identity clinic branded "Sturgeon's Tavistock," a report has revealed."
Happy Birthday, Sharron Davies! You are a true champion for women!
This day in Herstory: Sharron Elizabeth Davies, MBE (born 1 November 1962) is an English former competitive swimmer who represented Great Britain in the Olympics and European championships and competed for England in the Commonwealth Games. Davies has attended 12 consecutive Olympic Games, competing in three games and then working in the media for the BBC Sport. (more)
Ed. Note: As the midterm elections, now one week away, dominate the news in the U.S., it’s becoming even more evident that the many issues surrounding gender identity ideology cannot be extricated from the screaming hate-fest that is today’s version of politics. Fox News, unapologetically Republican, is almost gleeful in showing how stupid the Democrats have been in their wholesale embrace of the trans cult. At the same time, they stutter and stumble in a pathetic dither when confronted with the simple fact that the majority of Americans support the right of women to access safe and legal abortions. I shudder at the very real possibility that this coming national election will be the last in this country that approaches anything free and fair, as political rhetoric from the right continues to vilify and besmirch the process that allows citizens to elect a government of the people. Ironically, it is Fox News that has staked out the moral high ground by denouncing the vile practice of allowing surgeries to be performed on minors, when the medical science that supposedly supports it is, at best, inadequate. Politics has always been a swamp, but now it’s worse than ever. We’re adrift and drowning in the quagmire, all sense of direction skewed and distorted. We can barely distinguish up from down.
US - Biden, Harris, Dem leaders refuse to say if they support transgender youth surgeries
White House asserts gender-affirming care is 'life-saving,' won't say if this includes sex-reassignment surgeries
From Fox News (USA)
By Patrick Hauf
November 1, 2022
Democratic leaders refuse to comment on if they support access to transgender surgeries for minors.
The White House has emphasized the need to protect gender-affirming care for transgender youth, which it claims is "life-saving," but declined to comment on if this includes sex-reassignment surgeries. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also did not respond to request for comment.
On Friday, Florida’s Board of Medicine and state Board of Osteopathic Medicine approved a proposed ban on puberty blockers and sex-reassignment surgery for transgender minors. States such as Alabama, Arkansas and Texas have attempted to ban hormone treatment and surgeries for transgender minors through legislative and executive action but have faced challenges in court. … read full article
Scotland - Children as young as nine prescribed puberty blockers at Sturgeon-backed gender clinic
Sandyford accused of setting young patients off on 'a medical pathway', after NHS report into referrals for drug treatment
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Max Stephens
October 31, 2022
Children as young as nine were prescribed puberty blockers at a Scottish gender identity clinic branded "Sturgeon's Tavistock," a report has revealed.
A report into Scotland's national gender identity service by NHS clinicians found 79 children aged between nine and 18 were referred for puberty-suppressing drugs while being treated at the Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow.
The report also showed a “disproportionately” high number of children undergoing gender treatment who were referred to endocrinologists at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow from 2011 to 2019 had autism. … read full article
UK - Campaigners seek review of schools’ gender policies
From The Times (UK)
By James Beal
November 1, 2022
Women’s rights campaigners are pushing for a “Tavistock-style” review of gender identity policies in schools.
Several groups have written to the new education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to ask for a “Cass review for schools”, claiming that some promote the idea that children are born in the wrong body. The Cass review identified failings at Tavistock’s gender identity development service in London, which is now going to close.
Campaign groups, including Sex Matters and Transgender Trend, wrote to Keegan at the end of last week expressing concern at transgender self-identification in schools.
They said: “Please commission an independent expert review of the promotion of gender ideology in schools, and its impact on gender distress and on child safeguarding. … read full article
US - CHOP's gender clinic founder says 'age is just a number' when advocating for double mastectomies for healthy 14-year-old-girls
Video footage has emerged on social media of the founder of the gender clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) saying age is just a number while testifying before a health committee that her clinic refers girls as young as 14 for medically unnecessary bilateral mastectomies.
From The Post Millennial (Canada)
By Mia Ashton
October 31, 2022
Video footage has emerged on social media of the founder of the gender clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) saying age is just a number while testifying before a health committee that her clinic refers girls as young as 14 for medically unnecessary bilateral mastectomies.
The footage of Nadia Dowshen appearing before the Pennsylvania Health Committee hearing on Appropriate Care Models for Transgender Adolescents in Sept 2020 was uncovered by parental rights advocate, Megan Brock, and shared on her Twitter account. Brock has previously uncovered CHOP training videos instructing gender clinic staff on how to coerce parents into transitioning their children, and another of Dowshen saying the gender clinic receives referrals from homeless shelters and foster care. … read full article
Analysis - Don't mindlessly affirm children's identities based on TikTok videos
From Washington Examiner (USA)
By Zachary Faria
November 01, 2022
A growing number of teenagers and children are diagnosing themselves with mental illnesses based on what they see on TikTok. It is a serious problem, and some people are making it worse by just accepting these non-doctors' self-diagnoses at face value.
Surely, such a thing could never happen with transgenderism and gender dysphoria.
According to the New York Times, “a number of mental health providers say that they are seeing an uptick in teenagers and young adults who are diagnosing themselves with mental illnesses — including rare disorders — after learning more about the conditions online.” Many children are then embracing ineffective and inappropriate treatments for their imagined issues, and some “will choose to believe TikTok over a therapist.” … read full article
Canada - TDSB survey asks elementary kids if they’re trans and know about breast binding
From True North (Canada)
By Sue-Ann Levy
October 31, 2022
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) will spend the month of November administering a highly intrusive survey which reaches far beyond simple demographics of its student population to ask students questions about their sexuality, their knowledge of transgender issues and more.
The confidential census for Grades 4-6 and 7-8 – copies of which were obtained by True North – has a heavy focus on feelings, mental issues, racial and ethnic identities and sexuality.
The composition of the questions demonstrate all the more that the TDSB has descended into this kind of woke social science experiment that is focused on victimhood, critical race theory and gender ideology. … read full article
US - Wisconsin School Districts Sued for Hiding Information About ‘Gender Transitions’ From Parents
From Daily Citizen (USA)
By Jeff Johnston
November 1, 2022
A group of Wisconsin parents have sued the Eau Claire Area School District (ECASD) for adopting “transgender” policies where teachers, counselors and administrators work with students to change their “gender identity” – without parental involvement.
These parents formed an association, Parents Protecting Our Children (PPOC) and filed a federal lawsuit that “seeks to vindicate parents’ fundamental rights to care for and raise their children, and to religious freedom.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of parents by America First Legal (AFL) and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), allege that the district’s “Administrative Guidance for Gender Identity Support” mandates that “schools and teachers hide information regarding a child’s health and mental well-being from parents.” … read full article
US - Prominent Trans Activist Arrested Following Predator Sting in New York City
From Reduxx (Canada)
By Anna Slatz
November 1, 2022
A prominent trans rights and HIV activist was arrested in New York City this month after allegedly attempting to meet a 14-year-old for sexual abuse.
Lailani Muniz, 39, was caught in a predator sting conducted conducted by Fred Medina of NY Creeps Spotlight, a non-profit child safeguarding organization seeking to expose adults who wish to abuse children.
Muniz is a well-known trans rights and HIV activist in the city, and has been regularly featured in LGBT and news media. In December of 2021, Muniz was profiled by EDGE Network, an online gay news outlet, which promoted his work with the HIV Planning Board for the State of New York. Last year, Muniz was interviewed in a VICE documentary on HIV/AIDS. … read full article
US - Maine Jails Are Buying Push-up Bras, Chest Binders, and “Gender Affirming” Clothing for Juvenile Inmates
From The Maine Wire (USA)
By The Maine Wire
November 1, 2022
The Maine Department of Corrections is providing padded bras to juvenile inmates without breasts and chest binders to juvenile inmates with breasts following a March 2020 policy directive from MDOC Commissioner Randall Liberty, an MDOC spokeswoman has confirmed.
“We purchase the chest binders through Amazon as needed when requested,” Jane Tower said in an email.
Tower said MDOC purchases the padded bras through Bob Barker, a contractor that works primarily with prisons. … read full article
UK - What if it is just a phase?
Our conception of ourselves is never wholly fixed
From The Critic (UK)
By Victoria Smith
November 1, 2022
Nobody likes to be told they’re “just going through a phase”. It’s a phrase that seems, at best, patronising and dismissive — whatever you’re feeling, it’s too transient to matter — or, at worst, aggressive and controlling — you don’t know yourself as well as I know you.
Many of us associate it with being told we’re immature, deluded, too foolish to distinguish between passing fancies and the things that really matter. For us to be taken seriously, we tell ourselves, others must trust we are not unreliable, fickle narrators of our own lives. … read full article
US - Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis
While social media can help people feel less alone, using it to evaluate symptoms has several downsides.
From The New York Times (USA)
By Christina Caron
October 29, 2022
About a year into the pandemic, Kianna, a high school student in Baltimore, was feeling increasingly isolated. While sitting alone in her bedroom there was too much time to think, she said, so sometimes she would fixate on her seclusion or start critiquing her appearance.
“I remember just being on TikTok for hours during my day,” added Kianna, 17, who asked to be referred to by only her first name when speaking about her mental health. “That’s when my self-esteem started declining.” … read full article
Analysis - What the Atlantic got wrong about trans sports
From Spectator World (UK)
By Jesse Singal
October 29, 2022
In September, the Atlantic published an article headlined “Separating Sports by Sex Doesn’t Make Sense.” In it, author Maggie Mertens bemoans the fact that “many people still view sports as a perfectly reasonable venue in which to enforce exclusion on the basis of sex” and seeks to explain why this is a misguided position.
Here we go again. The headline told me where things were headed. A strange trend had emerged on the left: many progressives were feverishly insisting that biological sex “isn’t real,” or is so complicated that it’s silly to say someone has a sex in a stable sense. These bizarre claims were being disseminated for one reason: to undercut arguments that trans women aren’t “real” women, or that trans men aren’t “real” men. The thinking goes that once people realize these claims are bigoted and empirically false, it will greatly accelerate society’s path toward trans acceptance. … read full article
Norway - Norwegian Man Now Identifies as a Disabled Woman, Uses Wheelchair “Almost All The Time”
From Reduxx (Canada)
By Genevieve Gluck
November 1, 2022
A man in Norway is sparking outrage on social media after he was sympathetically interviewed about his decision to begin identifying as a disabled woman.
On October 28, Good Morning Norway (God Morgen Norge, GMN) aired an interview with Jørund Viktoria Alme, 53, an able-bodied male who now identifies as a disabled woman. In the interview, Alme stated that he had always wished he had been born a woman who was paralyzed from the waist down.
Alme, a senior credit analyst for Handelsbanken in Oslo, has received positive coverage in Norwegian media since he first announced his trans-disability publicly on Facebook in 2020. He has given several interviews, often alongside his wife, Agnes Mjålseth. … read full article
SNP trans policy turning youth into 'Chairman Mao's Young Army' as teacher makes 'indoctrination' claim
Exclusive: Mum who is a teacher with a background in child safeguarding raised concerns over the safety of children and the damage the current policy will have on the youth of the nation
From Scottish Daily Express (Scotland)
By John Glover
November 1, 2022
The SNP Government's trans policy is turning Scotland's young people into "Chairman Mao's Young Army" as a teacher claims that children are being "indoctrinated".
The furious parent – who wishes to remain anonymous over fears of losing her job – spoke to the Scottish Daily Express over her fears surrounding trans ideology in schools.
The expert in child safeguarding claims that current guidance seeks to take advantage of children when they are "impressionable", despite education leaders saying otherwise. … read full article
Analysis - My GC Journey
Or how TRAs radicalised me.
From The Thing That Should Not Be Said (UK)
By Eowyn
November 1, 2022
I am probably your least radical person. I am a middle of the road straightforward kind of gal who has always eschewed marches and civil actions. Not necessarily because I don’t care, but because I’m a bit cynical as to the way causes can get hijacked for other people’s agendas. So while I’m happy to sign petitions, you’re unlikely to find me on a march. And until a couple of years ago you’d find me in the main ducking out of contentious online arguments. Trying to have reasonable discussions with people during Brexit rather finished me off for online debate. However, that has all changed and today I find myself somewhat surprisingly, in the middle of one of the nastiest battlefields of the culture wars: the debates about gender and sexuality. As someone who is mainly non political it’s an odd place to find myself, but here’s how I got here.
It shouldn’t need to be said, but for the hard of hearing at the back, I am not transphobic. On the contrary, since I started thinking about such things, despite being gender conforming and straight I have always been fascinated with gender nonconformity and playing around with social role models. Perhaps because I grew up in the 80s when androgyny was playful and fun. … read full article
Analysis - Bioethicist Proposes ‘Right’ to Gender-Affirming Care
From National Review (USA)
By Wesley J. Smith
November 1, 2022
It is important to keep an eye on mainstream bioethics journals, because seemingly ludicrous ideas that begin in the ivory tower often become public policy.
That has certainly been true in the transgender moral panic. A few years ago, bioethicists were pushing puberty blocking in their journals. And so it came to pass, to the point that the Biden administration pushes such “gender-affirmation” as official U.S. policy, pretending that the “science” is settled. (Thankfully, some countries are now hitting the brakes.)
An article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics shows that an idea is brewing that would conjure an absolute right to access medical-transitioning interventions. On what basis? A supposed right to “live with integrity.” … read full article
Analysis - Inside the ROGD Home
the Zen koan of fake family harmony
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
November 1, 2022
In my current life, at home with both my daughter and my husband, in order to live without daily conflict and turmoil, I censor myself. I never speak my daughter’s name or pronouns—biological, chosen or otherwise. When I need to say something, I must go to her. I don’t shout across the house to her. I don’t talk about her in front of her, as we tend to do in family homes. And I certainly do not bring up gender ideology, queer theory or any of the horrific harms done to gays, lesbians, women and children in the name of Trans that I read about daily.
With my husband, who agrees that our daughter is not a gay man, things are slightly different. I can talk about my fears regarding Carly* but if I go on for too long, he grows brittle and distant. He doesn’t want to travel to the dark places, and he is sure she’ll grow out of it. If I tell him about an article I read, if it comes from someone on the right side of the aisle, he’s not interested. He abhors “right wing talking points” like CRT and groomer, and dismisses them out of hand. So Marcus* agrees with my general take, but not with my “influencers” or my obsession, and he doesn’t share my level of panic. … read full article
Thanks for putting so much work into these daily compilations - I really value them. Loved todays “intro”. 🤡on the left & 🃏on the right.