Wednesday, June 22, 2022
This day in Herstory: Ada E. Yonath, born June 22,1939), is an Israeli crystallographer best known for her pioneering work on the structure of ribosomes. She is the current director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In 2009, Yonath received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome, becoming the first Israeli woman to win the Nobel Prize out of ten Israeli Nobel laureates, the first woman from the Middle East to win a Nobel prize in the sciences, and the first woman in 45 years to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. (more)
From Hospitals to Schools, Gender Identity is Erasing Sex in Public Institutions
American public policy is wholly saturated with gender identity. Vulnerable populations like students and patients suffer the consequences.
From 4W (USA)
By Phyllis Chesler
June 22, 2022
In early 2021, I sat in the waiting room of a New York City hospital awaiting my first vaccine shot for COVID-19 – a virus known, even then, to differentially impact men and women. The attendant handed me a form to fill out, which asked if I was a “trans-woman,” a “trans-man,” “non-binary,” “bisexual,” “don’t know,” or whether I was a “man” or a “woman.” Some of the older people in line with me, people from Asia, Africa, and South America, whose English was slightly compromised, asked me, worriedly, “What’s the right answer?”
I laughed and said, “There is no right answer.”
But I was stunned, mystified. Why and when did all these gender identity descriptors become official government policy? How long had this been going on? Who or what was behind it? Had this all happened, in part, via “stealth” as Sheila Jeffreys, in her upcoming and powerful book: Penile Imperialism: The Male Sex Right and Women’s Subordination suggests? Or had I just been so isolated by the pandemic that I didn’t get the memo? ... read full article
Amnesty Norway Collaborates With Trans-Identified Male Who Reported Feminist To Police
From REDUXX (USA)
By Shay Woulahan
June 22, 2022
Amnesty Norge, the Norwegian chapter of Amnesty international, has released a collaboration video promoting trans rights with an activist who launched a police investigation against a feminist for expressing her opinion on gender ideology.
“Christine Marie” Jentoft reported women’s rights advocate Christina Ellingsen to the police over comments she made on Twitter stating that men cannot be lesbians.
... read full article
The Assault on Children’s Psyches
California’s ethnic-studies curriculum is fueling a mental-health crisis among teenagers.
From City Journal (USA)
By Leor Sapir
June 20, 2022
Patricia (a pseudonym) is the mother of a teenage girl who in recent years has come to identify as transgender. She lives in California, considers herself progressive, votes Democrat, and leads a group for parents of children with rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)—that is, youth who suddenly experience distress with their bodies and believe that undergoing medical “transition” will make them whole again. When I spoke to her recently, she recounted how her daughter’s at-first-lesbian and then trans identity emerged in response to feelings of shame about being white.
I have since spoken to more than a dozen ROGD parents and parent-group leaders who tell a similar story. Their schools compulsively tell their children how awful it is to be white, how white people enjoy unearned “privilege,” how they benefit from “systems” put in place by and for white people for the sole purpose of oppressing “people of color.” ... read full article
Tom Cotton, Jim Banks Unveil Bill to Make Medical Providers Liable for Minor Gender-Transition Damages
From National Review (USA)
By ISAAC SCHORR
June 22, 2022
Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and the Republican Study Committee, a House caucus led by Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.), announced on Wednesday that they would be introducing the Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act in both chambers of Congress this session.
The bill responds to growing concerns over the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures to alter minors’ physiology and outward appearance. Once signed into law, the bill would allow victims and legal guardians to sue surgeons who perform gender-transition surgeries on minors — or doctors who prescribe them hormone treatments — up to 30 years after the subjects reach the age of majority. ... read full article
Trans students: the legal risks for schools
Official guidance clarifying the legal position for schools on how they support trans-identified children is urgently needed, argues this discrimination lawyer
From tes magazine (UK)
By Rebecca Bull
June 22, 2022
As the number of school students identifying as trans continues to rise, many school leaders will probably have paid keen attention to an interview with Suella Braverman in The Times at the end of last month.
In it, the attorney-general said schools were under no legal obligation to acquiesce to children’s requests to be referred to as members of the opposite sex, and that girls’ toilets and changing rooms had special legal protections as safe spaces. ... read full article
Canada voted to ban transgender swimmers from women’s events
From The Globe and Mail (Canada)
By DONNA SPENCER
June 21, 2022
Canada voted in favour of a controversial gender policy announced this week by the world governing body of swimming.
In a policy that went into effect Monday, FINA allows only transgender swimmers who transition from male to female before age 12 to compete in women’s events.
FINA is contemplating the establishment of an open-competition category. … read full article
Gender identity discussion would be forbidden under Rapides schools policy revision
Students would be free to talk to counselors about the issue
From Town Talk (USA)
By Melissa Gregory
June 22, 2022
An item that would prohibit Rapides Parish School Board employees from discussing gender identity issues with students — modeled after a Florida initiative dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" law — has passed out of committee to the full board.
Board member Wilton Barrios proposed the idea, which was sent to staff for development. But when Superintendent Jeff Powell presented it to the personnel committee on Tuesday, he explained they elected to add it to the district's existing employee conduct policy. ... read full article
Indiana attorney general blasts transgender bathrooms
Todd Rokita said, 'Hoosiers are rightly perplexed that we would even need to defend such basic common sense'
From Fox News (USA)
By Hannah Grossman
June 21, 2022
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita blasted a preliminary injunction against a Morgan County school district Tuesday that compelled it on the basis of nondiscrimination to allow a transgender student to use the bathroom that fits their gender identity.
The attorney general filed an amicus brief Tuesday, which is a legal document that offers additional information by someone who is not a party to a lawsuit; it argued in favor of the Martinsville School District's "right" to restrict the bathrooms to the basis of biological sex. The amicus added that Title IX "expressly permits sex-segregated restrooms" and that it requires equal opportunities only based on sex, and not gender identity. ... read full article
Policy-making in Wales: Evidence-free, anti-democratic, and misogynist
From Merched Cymru (Wales)
BY MERCHED CYMRU
June 22, 2022
Today Hannah Blythyn, the Deputy Minister for Social Partnership, gave an update on the Welsh Government’s LGBTQ+ Action Plan.
The responses to the consultation have not yet been published – possibly because many were critical of the way in which the Plan undermined the sex-based rights of women and girls – but Welsh Government are pushing ahead regardless.
The Deputy Minister reaffirms her commitment to extending rights for trans people but without being specific about what rights trans people currently lack. Given Welsh Government’s determination to prioritise ‘inclusion’ above all else – above the safety and dignity of women and girls, above fairness and opportunity – we suspect that the rights they are claiming will be be at the expense of women. ... read full article
The rise of the Black Pampers
Those black-clad Bristol activists reveal the misogyny and authoritarianism of the trans movement.
From Spiked (UK)
By JO BARTOSCH
June 22, 2022
By now, the balaclavas worn by activists derisively dubbed the ‘Black Pampers’ will probably have been put in the wash by their mums. The Black Pampers are largely comprised of infantile young men who don paramilitary gear in an attempt to style themselves as defenders of ‘transgender rights’. To that end, on Sunday they attempted to disrupt a public meeting in Bristol.
Placards held by Black Pampers invited their opponents to ‘suck their dicks’ and some daubed chalk slogans on to the pavement with heart-warming messages such as ‘trans girls fuck your mum all the time’. … read full article
BBC admits error on trans guest Fallon Fox
Justin Webb said the MMA fighter had not been properly vetted
From The Post by UnHerd (UK)
By Julie Bindel
June 21, 2022
When FINA announced that natal males would not be able to compete alongside women in swimming, it was rewritten by much of the press as well as trans activists as ‘trans women banned from competing’. But no one was ‘banned’, the rules have simply been clarified.
The rules are now clear; a person of the male sex that has gone through any stage of puberty is not allowed to compete against females, which puts a stop to the unfairness that Olympic medallist Sharron Davies has spoken out about. FINA has also established an ‘open’ category, as Davies has advocated for, where transwomen can compete. … read full article
Zelensky’s homophobia row reveals a divided Ukraine
The country is hesitant on values western Europe holds dear
From The Spectator (UK)
By Svitlana Morenets
June 22, 2022
A peculiar row has broken out in Kyiv over the role of one of Zelensky’s best-known advisers. Oleksiy Arestovych is a familiar figure in Ukraine and has developed a profile abroad, described as a ‘sex symbol’ by no less a source than the Economist. But when it comes to sex, he has some clear views. ‘LGBT people are deviant,’ he said on 19 June. ‘I sympathise with them, but I am against propaganda’. ... read full article
Richard Kyte: We need to do better at talking about gender identity
From The Daily Nonpareil (USA)
By Richard Kyte
June 22, 2022
Last week the World Professional Association for Transgender Health released an advance copy of its revised guidelines for transgender health care. The guidelines are to be published in a medical journal soon.
Among the guidelines is the recommendation that medical gender transition treatment could be done at a younger age: 14 years old for some hormone treatments; 15 or 17 for certain surgeries. … read full article
Indian Org to Provide ‘Surgery Grants’ for ‘Sex Reassignment Surgeries’
The use of women's bodies will soon become a mere performance to put on, a skin to wear, and a womb to gestate
From Vaishnavi Sundar (India)
June 22, 2022
In yet another attempt to propagate ‘gender identity’ ideology, a new organisation has sprouted in India. According to their website, TALMS or Trans:Alms is a “charity foundation to help transgender people with monetary grants for transitional surgeries across the globe through personal and corporate funding.” Founded by a trans-identifying female and her mother (who serves as the Director) the work of TALMS was lauded as part of the Pride Month celebrations. …
While the upwards trajectory in acquistion of protections for the transgender community has been staggeringly swift, advances in rights and and protections for homosexuals, by contrast, are shamefully stagnant. ... read full article
The wrong kind of victim
Today’s victimhood narratives don’t make space for the most vulnerable
From The Critic (UK)
By Victoria Smith
June 22, 2022
When I was twelve years old, I knew two girls who were being sexually abused. We were in an adolescent care unit at the time. I said nothing — unsure, as you are at that age, whether there was something about what I had witnessed that I had misunderstood.
One of the girls told me she liked it; I felt gauche and confused, and not a little worried that expressing doubt would make me look “posh”. It was only as an adult, decades too late, that I reported what happened to yet another inquiry bent on establishing that the past was another country. ... read full article
The experts are lying to you
Their laundering of the truth is deliberate and tactical
From UnHerd (UK)
By Andrew Doyle
June 22, 2022
With most of the world’s information only a click away, one would have assumed that ours would be the most enlightened generation in human history. We may have lost the rote-learning skills and depth of knowledge of our grandparents, but we know where to find the facts and can do so in an instant.
For all that, many of us have developed the habit of reading multiple accounts of any given news item, because so often reports are filtered through an ideological lens. There was, for instance, Omar Jimenez’s coverage of protests in Kenosha for CNN, described as “mostly peaceful” in the chyron running under the report in spite of the clearly visible backdrop of burning cars and buildings. ... read full article
OK, Megan Rapinoe, we all know sports is not the most important thing in life... but can't we still talk about it?
From Writing behavior by Eliza Mondegreen (Canada)
By Eliza Mondegreen
June 22, 2022
Megan Rapinoe talked to TIME Magazine about the conflict over including trans-identifying males in female sports:
You mentioned the issue of transgender inclusion in sports, which is such a hot subject right now, as many states have passed bills that ban or limit transgender sports participation. Where do you stand on this issue?
I’m 100% supportive of trans inclusion. People do not know very much about it. We’re missing almost everything. Frankly, I think what a lot of people know is versions of the right’s talking points because they’re very loud. They’re very consistent, and they’re relentless… ... read full article
Detransitioner Perspective: Transition wasn't appropriate for me-is it for anyone?
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) (USA)
June 22, 2022
For the last couple of days (and nights), I’ve been thinking about sex, gender and transitioning, from a personal point of view and a more global one.
For a long time, in my head, I separated the trans rights movement from actual trans people because I, a transitioned female myself, didn’t feel represented by it. I thought it had gone too far, and I had come to believe that there was no such thing as reasonable amount of transitions or a reasonable amount of bending the law for trans people. But, the truth is, that people like me caused the trans movement. ... read full article