Wednesday, August 17, 2022
"Turban’s study is deeply flawed and likely couldn’t have survived a reasonable peer-review process. The swift response from the scientific community made both points clear"
This day in Herstory: Mae West (born Mary Jane West; August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American stage and film actress, playwright, screenwriter, singer, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned over seven decades. She was active in vaudeville and on stage in New York City before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry. West was one of the most controversial movie stars of her day; she encountered problems especially with censorship. She once quipped, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it." In 1999, the American Film Institute posthumously voted West the 15th greatest female screen legend of classic American cinema. (more)
US - The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Dubious Transgender Science
As other countries turn away from hormones and surgery, the AAP won’t even allow a debate.
From Wall Street Journal (USA)
By Julia Mason and Leor Sapir
August 17, 2022
A spate of headlines this month declared that America’s surge in transgender identification wasn’t being caused by a social contagion. These articles were prompted by a new study by Jack Turban and colleagues in Pediatrics, flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The study claimed that social influence isn’t the reason that as many as 9% of America’s youth now call themselves transgender. Thus, Dr. Turban argues, efforts in conservative states to regulate on-demand puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery must be resisted.
Yet Dr. Turban’s study is deeply flawed and likely couldn’t have survived a reasonable peer-review process. The swift response from the scientific community made both points clear—with even those who support hormones and surgery for gender-dysphoric youth noting that Dr. Turban’s shoddy science undermined their cause.
Nevertheless, the media have promoted his work as a refutation of the claim that the wildfire spread of transgender identity is an example of social contagion—a phenomenon in which members of a group (mostly young and female) mutually influence one another’s emotions and behavior. … read full article
Ed. Note: This finding might reassure someone who suffers from gender dysphoria. But to anyone paying attention, it might raise a difficult question for genderism. We’re constantly warned that gender reassignment surgery is needed to reconcile a debilitating disparity between sex and “gender identity,” which threatens to drive trans-identified people to suicide. But trans activists also maintain that identifying as transgender is most definitely not related to any type of disability. It’s hard to see how they can continue to have it both ways.
US - Fourth Circuit first to rule gender dysphoria a protected disability
From The Washington Post (USA)
By Rachel Weiner
August 17, 2022
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has become the first appellate court in the country to find that gender dysphoria is covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act, after a transgender woman sued Fairfax County for housing her with men during her time in jail.
“Being transgender is not a disability,” the court wrote in an opinion issued Tuesday, but “many transgender people experience gender dysphoria,” or distress over the discrepancy between their identity and their assigned sex. “A transgender person’s medical needs are just as deserving of treatment and protection as anyone else’s.”
… read full article
US - How Gender Radicalism Conquered Sacramento Schools
Sacramento City Unified School District instructs teachers to “normalize gender exploration” and promotes such identities as “genderqueer,” “polysexual,” and “two-spirit.”
From City Journal (USA)
By Christopher F. Rufo
August 17, 2022
Sacramento City Unified School District has adopted a queer theory–based pedagogy that encourages teachers to “normalize gender exploration,” confront their “cisgender privilege,” and maintain strict secrecy when facilitating a child’s gender or sexual transition.
I have obtained a collection of publicly accessible documents from Sacramento City Unified that traces the evolution of the district’s sexual politics. The process began a decade ago, when the district invited Elizabeth Meyer, a professor of Women’s, Gender & Queer Studies at California Polytechnic State University, to conduct presentations on how the district could adopt the principles of academic queer theory and translate them into K-12 pedagogy. … read full article
US - True school choice calls for transparency in education for parents
From Washington Examiner (USA)
By MATT SHARP
August 17, 2022
When we hear about “ school choice ,” we usually think about parents selecting among various education options for their children, be it a public school, a religious school, or homeschooling. As such, policy discussions surrounding school choice typically involve proposals such as education vouchers or charter schools that give parents more options when it comes to where they can send their children to school.
While giving families a diverse selection of educational pathways is an excellent policy goal, it is important to highlight the underlying foundation of school choice: the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. Parents have the right to raise and educate their children consistent with their beliefs and values without fear of being unjustly punished by the government. Greater school choice affirms that parents have a right to align educational goals with their child’s religious, intellectual, moral, and emotional development. … read full article
US - Parents’ rights group rallies outside Illinois capitol, criticizes new sex ed standards
From Santa Barbara News-Press (USA)
By The Center Square
August 17, 2022
As schools across Illinois begin this week, a parents’ rights group rallied outside the statehouse Tuesday to call attention to issues they say are hurting their children, including new sex education standards it says is age inappropriate.
Awake Illinois founder Shannon Adcock organized the rally she called the “Common Sense Caravan.” Several dozen people from across the state gathered outside the capitol Tuesday. … read full article
US - Maryland Middle School Assigns Book about Child Gender Transition, Asexuality, Drag Queens
From National Review (USA)
By Diana Glebova
August 17, 2022
A Maryland middle school required students to read a book this summer in which a 12-year-old boy is encouraged to question his sexual orientation, another child undergoes a gender transition, and a third kid dances as a drag queen.
Westland Middle School, part of Montgomery County Public Schools, selected Rick by Alex Gino as its “anchor text,” making it required reading for all incoming sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students. ... read full article
US - NBC News lies to protect Boston Children's Hospital that offered trans surgeries for minors
Boston Children's Hospital allows vaginoplasties on 17-year-old males, phalloplasties on 18-year-old females, and double mastectomies for 15-year-olds, per their own documentation.
From The Post Millennial (USA)
By Libby Emmons
August 17, 2022
Boston Children's Hospital doesn't want the public to know just how young their patients seeking "gender affirming" treatment are. Their application forms for genital surgery state that biological boys seeking "vaginoplasty" must be 17, biological girls seeking hysterectomy and phalloplasty 18, and girls seeking "chest reconstruction," or double mastectomies of healthy breasts, must be 15, though there's wiggle room if the request has parental approval.
Yet when The Post Millennial reported on this, along with many Twitter accounts, Boston Children's balked. The response to Boston Children's Hospital's apparent promotion of medicalized gender transition for minors, along with genital surgeries for young adults, was shocking to many. … read full article
US - Woman-hating in Port Townsend, WA
From Kara Dansky’s Substack (USA)
By Kara Dansky
August 17, 2022
On Monday, August 15, a group of around 35 women held a press conference at City Hall in Port Townsend, Washington, to speak out about the sex-based rights of women and girls. For that offense, they were attacked, yelled at, and assaulted by a mob of around 350 people (mostly men, many wearing antifa garb and shouting with bullhorns). The local mayor publicly supports the mob against the women.
The context was an incident in July, in which an 80-year-old woman was showering in the locker room at the Mountain View pool at the local Y, when she heard a man’s voice. She peered out from behind the shower curtain and saw a man wearing a women’s bathing suit and watching young girls take their suits off. … read full article
US - The Polarization Spiral
How the right's monomania and the left's Great Awokening feed each other
From Persuasion (USA)
By Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff
August 17, 2022
The early chapters of our book, The Coddling of the American Mind,1 are about a set of destructive and illiberal ideas that emerged on American college campuses in the years 2014-2016. Because campuses lean decidedly left, these chapters are critical of ideas and practices associated with the left. But we worked hard to take a holistic and multi-faceted view of the problem, and we devoted a full chapter—chapter 6—to situating campus events within the broader American culture war in which each side drives the other to do ever-more-outrageous and illiberal things. … read full article
US - Detransitioner Perspective: Transition was easy...Detransition was not
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
August 17, 2022
My name is Abel Garcia, I was born in 1997 to a Mexican family who came to the US illegally. Due to my parents’ illegal status, I was raised by my grandparents because my parents were working non-stop so they could support me. Growing up I was a very shy, quiet, and timid boy, I was and still am an over-thinker. With my father working non-stop, I did not have a male role model in my life growing up. As a kid, I did not feel comfortable as a boy because of my overthinking and also because I was not the most masculine boy growing up. My feeling that I was not a typical boy led to my belief that I must be a girl. … read full article
Canada - Canadian specialist urges MDs to 'slow down' in treating transgender patients after U.K. clinic closed
Underpinning debate is a rapid increase in patients presenting as transgender over the last several years, dominated by girls just entering adolescence
From National Post (Canada)
By Tom Blackwell
August 17, 2022
Canadian health care faces similar issues around treating transgender teenagers as a controversial British clinic and needs to “slow down” and not move patients so readily to medical transition, says a leading expert in the field.
As the number of youth presenting with gender dysphoria soars and their demographic make-up changes markedly, the health-care system should examine why those trends are happening while taking a thoughtful, “neutral” approach to each young patient, said Dr. Joey Bonifacio. … read full article
Canada - Ontario Children’s Hospital promotes chemical castration drug for gender transitioning minors
It appears that the slippery slope to gender affirming therapies for our youngest demographics continues as dogmatists partner with children’s hospitals to promote life-altering medical procedures.
From Rebel News (Canada)
By Tamara Ugolini
August 17, 2022
Recently, a letter was shared on Twitter that came from a children’s hospital in London, Ontario that is part of the London Health Sciences Centre. The letterhead included a partnership organization called Gender Pathways Service (GPS) — a service whose byline reads that they’re helping youth navigate their future.
Apparently it’s a future with a high risk of fertility impairment and/or sterility.
The letter includes and outlines information “puberty blockers that can be started prior to their initial appointment.” The information sheet provided is Lupron Depot®. … read full article
UK - Joan of Arc was not ‘nonbinary’
History’s most powerful women are being ‘reimagined’ as trans.
From Spiked (UK)
By Gareth Roberts
August 17, 2022
We have seen some nonsense in our time, but the recent fad for declaring historical figures to be ‘nonbinary’ might very well be the daftest of the lot. The latest instance comes from Shakespeare’s Globe, whose upcoming production of I, Joan, a new play by Charlie Josephine, ‘reimagines’ the great Joan of Arc as an ‘enby’, or a nonbinary person.
In an essay accompanying the play, academic Dr Kit Heyam – who self-describes as a ‘trans awareness trainer and heritage practitioner’ (nice work if you can get it) – writes that the widely accepted story of the Maid of Orléans, of a woman leading an army dressed in men’s clothes, denies the ‘historical existence of trans experience’. Heyam goes on to suggest that Queen Elizabeth I could have been nonbinary, too. Apparently, wearing armour may have had a ‘profound impact on their [sic] sense of self’. To which one is tempted to reply that it may well have chafed like buggery. ... read full article
UK - Authors’ union urges arguing members to think of Rushdie
From The Times (UK)
By Mike Wade
August 18, 2022
The writers’ union accused by JK Rowling of betraying women who oppose “fashionable” gender ideology has urged its members to co-operate in light of the attempted murder of Sir Salman Rushdie.
The Society of Authors issued its plea for unity after its chairwoman, Joanne Harris, faced down claims she had trivialised the attack on Rushdie in a Twitter post and used the incident to take a “side-swipe” at Rowling. … read full article
UK - Father Ted creator Graham Linehan 'relieved' Tavistock gender clinic has closed: 'Trans activists tried to destroy my life'
The NHS recently announced plans to close the Tavistock clinic and replace it with a regional network
From GBN (UK)
By Ben Chapman
August 17, 2022
Graham Linehan has expressed his "relief" at the closure of the Tavistock gender clinic, stating that trans activists have tried to "destroy" his life.
The NHS is closing its gender identity clinic for children and young people and replacing it with a regional network after it was told that only having one provider “is not a safe or viable long-term option”. … read full article
UK - Anti-Gender Conspiracism
Self-fulfilling fears of the far right
From Void if removed (UK)
By Dave Hewitt
August 18, 2022
Many people who believe themselves to be progressive, socially liberal types look at the push for “trans rights”, and think to themselves how can anyone possibly be against that? Trans people are disadvantaged, and more rights are good, so surely the obvious, kind thing to do is to support them.
Ban conversion therapy for all. No LGB without the T. Who could seriously object to such expressions of well-meaning solidarity? It is so obviously the correct - moral - course of action to fight for equality for all in society. … read full article
Scotland - Edinburgh Fringe comic spat on and shunned by colleagues as a 'transphobe' for show about women
Exclusive: Ignored by colleagues and spat at on the street, award-winning comedian Elaine Miller says free speech is under attack in Scotland
From Scottish Daily Express (Scotland)
By Jessica North
August 17, 2022
A female comic and healthcare worker says she has been spat at on the street and shunned by long-time colleagues for daring to put on a performance about biological women.
Award-winning funny woman Elaine Miller's Fringe show Viva Your Vulva: The Hole Story has been the target of abuse from those judging her as a "transphobe". She says that at the end of the Edinburgh show she makes a reference to the importance of language in getting across healthcare messaging.
Her crime she says is not mentioning transwomen because they are "not relevant to the topic" of female biological anatomy. … read full article
Scotland - “Put TERFs in Their Place”: Trans Activist Appointed to Office by Scottish Lawmakers
From Reduxx (Canada)
By Genevieve Gluck
August 17, 2022
A Scottish trans activist who has called for the murder of politicians he disagrees with and was filmed screaming insults at women last fall has been appointed as a Learning Disabilities Officer for the governing Scottish National Party.
Alexandria Adamson, a male who identifies as a transgender woman, was recorded hurling slurs at a women’s rights demonstration in Edinburgh last September. Adamson, who was demonstrating with a crowd of trans activists, went viral after he was caught on film lunging towards a woman and repeatedly screaming “witch!” at her before a police officer intervened. … read full article
Scotland - The SNP is using independence as a Trojan Horse to impose extreme trans ideology on Scotland
The appointment of a man to the role of 'period dignity officer' is the latest 'progressive' change to be foisted on Scots
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Tom Harris
August 16, 2022
Scotland is ahead of the game again in terms of progressive politics. Don’t take my word for it; here’s the breathless introduction to a news story published this week in the Dundee Courier: “Scotland leads the way this week as the first country in the world to pass a law ensuring period products are provided free.” …
The person appointed to ensure “period dignity” across the region is a man. … read full article
Australia - Parents face £10k fine or 10 years in prison if they stop their kids from changing gender, campaigners warn
A campaign group is warning that Australian parents are 'living in terror' of being prosecuted under a controversial new law that could be introduced in Scotland next
From Scottish Daily Express (Scotland)
By Ben Borland
August 17, 2022
Scottish parents have been given a grim warning they face court prosecution if Holyrood passes a new trans law which would prevent them from stopping their children changing gender.
The SNP-Green Government is being urged by MSPs and its own advisory body to follow the extreme conversion therapy ban which operates in the Australian state of Victoria.
But parents there have said they fear being jailed for up to 10 years and fined £100,000 if they engage in "change or suppression practices" involving their own vulnerable youngsters. … read full article
Australia - Queen Elizabeth I was a woman
From Spectator | Australia
By James Macpherson
August 17, 2022
I’m old enough to remember when girls were allowed to reject stereotypes and just be themselves.
If girls wanted to wear frilly dresses and become ballerinas, that was fine. And if they wanted to wear overalls and work on car engines, that was good too.
But thanks to the regressive Left, those carefree days of women’s liberation are long gone. ... read full article
A number of decades ago — while in college and thereafter— I was an activist involved in a number of causes including being an ally to the women's rights movement. For a while, things seemed to be better. Now, again, I find myself arguing for, supporting, and being ally to those having to relitigate those hard-won rights. I find it difficult to believe that the misogyny of the current gender-war is not obvious to all.