#Meyers Associates investigation

[dustedmagazine]

African Head Charge — A Trip To Bolatanga (On U Sound)

A Trip To Bolgatanga by African Head Charge

The name of African Head Charge’s first album, My Life in a Hole in the Ground, was both a poke at David Byrne and Brian Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, and an acknowledgement of their relative circumstances. The two endeavors actually had this much in common; both were investigating combinations of spiritually charged, sampled sounds and newly recorded grooves nourished by the African diaspora. However, 42 years later, only one is a going concern. A Trip to Bolatanga is the first new work in 12 years by chanter and hand drummer Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah, producer Adrian Sherwood and a host of newer and older associates.

The album’s title references a town in Ghana, which has been the Jamaican-born Noah’s base country since the mid-1990s, which gotten some attention for another musical phenomenon. In 2016, Sahel Sounds and Makkum Records collaborated on the release of an album called This Is Kologo Power! Kologo is a variant of West African music named after the two-stringed lute that is used to play it, and one of that compilation’s standout artists, King Ayisoba, guests on A Trip To Bolatanga. In fact, his insistently plucked strings and gravely cackle kick the record off with a bit of English-language advice: “A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t go anywhere until you change it.” Near the record’s end, he dispenses more advice. “Never regret a day in your life. Good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience, worst days give you a lesson, and best days give you memories.” It’s fair to say that African Head Charge has cornered the market on African-informed, polyrhythmic self-help jams.

Sherwood and Noah have always been a bit of a juggling act, tossing ancient and contemporary beats into the air and making them spin in time with each other. Some prior attempts have not aged that well, but if you evaluate music in terms of its moment, A Trip to Bolatanga is on strong ground. The combination of nyabinghi hand drumming, booming kick drum, funky guitar, house-ready piano accents and bobbing clarinet on “Accra Electronica” sounding simultaneously of this time and timeless, and there’s no denying the beats’ substantial bang, which both demands and rewards volume deals.

Bill Meyer

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 12, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

In Marion, Kansas, yesterday morning, four local police officers and three sheriff’s deputies raided the office of the Marion County Record newspaper; the home of its co-owners, Eric Meyer and his 98 year old mother, Joan Meyer; and the home of Marion vice mayor Ruth Herbel, 80. They seized computers, cell phones, and other equipment. Joan Meyer was unable to eat or sleep after the raid; she collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home.

The search warrant alleged there was probable cause to believe the newspaper, its owners, or the vice mayor had committed identity theft and unlawful computer acts against restaurant owner Kari Newell, but Magistrate Laura Viar appears to have issued that warrant without any affidavit of wrongdoing on which to base it. Sherman Smith, Sam Bailey, Rachel Mipro, and Tim Carpenter of the nonprofit news service Kansas Reflector reported that federal law protects journalists from search and seizure and requires law enforcement instead to subpoena materials they want.

On August 2, Newell had thrown Meyer and a Marion County Record reporter out of a meeting with U.S. Representative Jake LaTurner (R-KS), and the paper had run a story on the incident. Newell had complained on her personal Facebook page, 

On August 7, Newell publicly accused the newspaper of illegally getting information about a drunk-driving charge against her and giving it to Herbel. Eric Meyer says the information—which was accurate—was sent to him and Herbel over social media and that he decided not to publish it out of concerns it was leaked to help Newell’s estranged husband in divorce proceedings. Those same concerns made him take the story to local police. Newell accused the newspaper of violating her rights and called Meyer to accuse him of identity theft.

Meyer told journalist Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket that the paper was also investigating the new police chief for sexual misconduct, and he noted that the identities of people making those allegations are on the computers that got seized. “I may be paranoid that this has anything to do with it,” Meyer told Kabas, “but when people come and seize your computer, you tend to be a little paranoid.”  

On Friday, Newell wrote on her Facebook page: “Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths…. We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.” 

Meyer worked at the Milwaukee Journal for 20 years and then taught journalism at the University of Illinois, retiring from there. He doesn’t take a salary from the Marion County Record. He told Kabas, “I’m doing this because I believe that newspapers still have a place in the world and that the worst thing that a newspaper could do was shrink its reporting staff, stop reporting, fill itself with non-news when there’s still news out there. And if you do a good job of providing news, you will get readers…. [W]e’re doing this because we care about the community.” 

He said he worries that people are afraid to participate in politics because “there’s gonna be consequences and they’re going to be negative.” 

The Marion County Record will sue the city and the individuals involved in the raid, which, the paper wrote in its coverage, “legal experts contacted were unanimous in saying violated multiple state and federal laws, including the U.S. Constitution, and multiple court rulings.” “Our first priority is to be able to publish next week,” Meyer said, “but we also want to make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed today. We will be seeking the maximum sanctions possible under law.” 

Executive director of the Kansas Press Association Emily Bradbury noted “An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know. This cannot be allowed to stand.”

Americans have taken up this cause before. In 1836 the House of Representatives passed a resolution preventing Congress from taking up any petition, memorial, resolution, proposition, or paper relating “in any way, or to any extent whatsoever, to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery.” This “gag rule” outraged antislavery northerners. Rather than quieting their objections to enslavement, they increased their discussion of slavery and stood firm on their right to those discussions. 

In that same year, newspaperman Elijah P. Lovejoy, who had been publishing antislavery articles in the St. Louis Observer, decided to move from the slave state of Missouri across the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois. He suggested to his concerned neighbors that his residence in a free state would enable him to write more about religion than about slavery. But, he added in a statement to them, “As long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write and to publish whatever I please, being amenable to the laws of my country for the same.”

Lovejoy became a symbol of the freedom of the press.

When “a committee of five citizens” in Alton, appointed by “a public meeting,” asked Lovejoy if he intended to print sentiments to which they objected, he refused to “admit that the liberty of the press and freedom of speech, were rightfully subject to other supervision and control, than [the laws of] the land.” He reminded them that “‘the liberty of our forefathers has given us the liberty of speech,’ and that it is ‘our duty and high privilege, to act and speak on all questions touching this great commonwealth.’” “[E]very thing having a tendency to bring this right into jeopardy, is eminently dangerous as a precedent,” he said. 

Popular pressure had proved unable to make Lovejoy stop writing, and on August 21, 1837, a mob drove off the office staff of the Alton Observer by throwing rocks through the windows. Then, as soon as the staff had fled, the mob broke into the newspaper’s office and destroyed the press and all the type. 

On August 24, Lovejoy asked his supporters to help him buy another press. They did. But no sooner had it arrived than a gang of ten or twelve “ruffians” broke into the warehouse where it had been stored for the night and threw it into the river. 

When yet another press arrived in early November, Lovejoy had it placed in a warehouse on the riverbank. That night, about thirty men attacked the building, demanding the press be handed over to them. The men inside refused and fired into the crowd, wounding some of the attackers. The mob pulled back but then returned with ladders that enabled them to set fire to the building’s roof. When Lovejoy stepped out of the building to see where the attackers were hiding, a man shot him dead. As the rest of the men in the warehouse ran to safety, the mob rushed into the building and threw the press out of the window. It broke to pieces when it hit the shore, and the men threw the pieces into the Mississippi River.

But the story did not end there. Elijah Lovejoy’s younger brother, Owen, saw Elijah shot. "I shall never forsake the cause that has been sprinkled with my brother's blood," he declared. He and another brother wrote the Memoir of Elijah P. Lovejoy, impressing on readers the importance of what they called “liberty of the press” in the discussion of public issues. 

Owen then turned to politics, and in 1854 he was elected to the Illinois state legislature to stand against those southerners who had silenced his brother. The following year, voters elected him to Congress. His increasing prominence brought him political friends, including an up-and-coming lawyer who had arrived in Illinois from Kentucky by way of Indiana, Abraham Lincoln. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER SCOTT RICHARDSON

[dankusner]

An ex-Kansas police chief who led a raid on a newspaper is charged with obstruction of justice

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former Kansas police chief who led a raid last year on a weekly newspaper has been charged with felony obstruction of justice and is accused of persuading a potential witness to withhold information from authorities when they later investigated his conduct.

The single charge against former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody alleges that he knowingly or intentionally influenced the witness to withhold information on the day of the raid of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher or sometime within the following six days.

The charge was filed Monday in state district court in Marion County and is not more specific about Cody’s alleged conduct.

The raid sparked a national debate about press freedom focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri.

Also, newspaper Publisher Eric Meyer’s mother, who co-owned the newspaper and lived with him, died the next day of a heart attack, and he blames the stress of the raid.

Meyer said last week that authorities appear to be making Cody the “fall guy” for the raid when numerous officials were involved.

He said Tuesday that he suspects the criminal case ultimately will be resolved through a plea bargain so that Cody will not have a trial that would more fully disclose details about the raid.

“We’re just being basic journalists here,” he said. “We want the whole story. We don’t want part of it.”

A report from two special prosecutors last week referenced text messages between Cody and a local business owner after the raid.

The business owner has said that Cody asked her to delete text messages between them, fearing people could get the wrong idea about their relationship, which she said was professional and platonic.

The Associated Press left a message seeking comment at a possible cellphone number for Cody, and it was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Attorneys representing Cody in a federal lawsuit over the raid are not representing him in the criminal case and did not immediately know who was representing him.

Cody justified the Aug. 11, 2023, raid by saying he had evidence that Meyer, the newspaper and one of its reporters, Phyllis Zorn, had committed identity theft or other computer crimes in verifying the authenticity of a copy of the business owner’s state driving record provided to the newspaper by an acquaintance.

The business owner was seeking Marion City Council approval for a liquor license and the record showed that she potentially had driven without a valid license for years.

However, she later had her license reinstated.

The prosecutors’ report concluded that no crime was committed by Meyer, Zorn, or the newspaper and that Cody reached an erroneous conclusion about their conduct because of a poor investigation.

Zorn used the information she had to legally search an online state database using her own name.

The prosecutors also said police search warrants signed by a judge contained inaccurate information because of the “inadequate investigation” and were not legally justified.

But the prosecutors said they couldn’t show that Cody had intentionally misled the judge.

The obstruction of justice charge against Cody was filed by one of the special prosecutors, Barry Wilkerson, the top prosecutor in Riley County in northeastern Kansas.

The other special prosecutor is Marc Bennett, the district attorney in Sedgwick County, the home to the state’s largest city of Wichita.

A conviction for a first-time offender can be punished by up to nine months in prison, though under the state’s sentencing guidelines, the typical penalty is 18 months or less of probation.

The Record’s publishing company and current and former staffers have filed four federal lawsuits against Cody and other former and current local officials.

The publishing company’s lawsuit includes a wrongful death claim and suggests total damages exceed $10 million.

The city’s current annual budget is about $9.5 million.

The publishing company also filed an open records lawsuit last month in state district court, seeking to force the city to turn over texts between police and other local officials.

Police body-camera footage of the 2023 raid on the publisher’s home shows the publisher’s 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, visibly upset and telling officers, “Get out of my house!”

The prosecutors said they could not charge Cody or other officers involved in the raid over her death because there was no evidence they believed the raid posed a risk to her life.

The prosecutors also said there was no “gross deviation” from how officers served other search warrants in the past.

However, Eric Meyer said seven officers came to the house for the search.

“A couple of weeks earlier, they conducted a raid on the home of a suspected child rapist who was known to have guns in his house, and they only sent two cops for that,” he said.

[ledenews]

Science in Action – Student Research Symposium Showcases Findings on Important Topics

Combating diseases, studying dangerous pathogens, identifying diversity in wildlife, and measuring the effects of invasive species were all topics explored by students and showcased at West Liberty University’s 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Symposium. The annual symposium took place Friday, July 12 at the Academic, Sports and Recreation Complex (ASRC) and marked the culmination of nine-week research projects conducted by undergraduate students in the College of Sciences. This year, twelve students presented their research and findings to an audience of family, faculty, staff and fellow students.  “The SURE Symposium is science in action,” remarks Dr. Deanna Schmitt, Associate Professor of Biology, student advisor and event organizer. “These projects provide students the opportunity to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to develop questions, and to answer them through scientific research,” she adds.  Perhaps most importantly, students see how their findings can have a broader impact on the world around them, leading to further study, potential new treatments and vaccines, species survival, better environmental practices, and more. Zoo Science major Hannah Hobbs studied the bacteria Francisella tularensis, a pathogen, which if inhaled, can cause fatal pneumonia. “I’m very proud to have been a part of this research,” exclaims Hobbs. “It’s my hope that what we’ve learned about the VBNC (viable but non-culturable) cells in Francisella tularensis bacteria opens doors for scientists to study more parts of the VBNC state of this cell,” she adds. Faculty advisors guided students through their research and included Dr. Diana Barber, Dr. Stuart Cantlay, Mr. Jeremiah Dann, Dr. Zackary Graham, Dr. Deanna Schmitt, and Dr. Holly Racine. The full list of 2024 SURE Symposium student projects, titles, and authors includes:  Influence of Environmental Factors on Population Density and Growth of an Invasive Earthworm, Authors: Madeline P. Cecil, Alison K. Wyer, Jason E. Ake II, and Mr. Jeremiah Dann Bat Diversity in Developed and Underdeveloped Areas in the West Virginia Northern Panhandle, Authors: Kendra Clark, Brooke Shaffer, and Dr. Diana Barber Foreign leaf litter from invasive exotic plants and its effect on different macroinvertebrate communities in an urbanized, impaired low-order Appalachian creek, Authors: Noah Meyer, Reagan Bally, and James Wood Investigating endolysosomal trafficking of Viable but Non Culturable Francisella tularensis in murine macrophages, Authors: Lakin Plott, Nicole Garrison, and Dr. Stuart Cantlay Role of LpnA and KatG in Francisella tularensis LVS resistance to resazurin, Authors: Haeley Shaffer, Emily Young, Emma Beatty, Mackenzie Hall , Blaze Oxier, Rori Schreiber, Jordan Gibson, Siena McGovern, Claire Kelly, Kendall Souder, Justin Rice, Nicole Garrison, Ryan J. Percifield, Donald A. Primerano, and Dr. Deanna M. Schmitt Spatial Structure and Population Dynamics of Invasive Earthworms in West Liberty University’s Campus Woods, Authors: Alison K. Wyer, Madeline P. Cecil, Jason E. Ake II, and Mr. Jeremiah Dann Building a Better Ambassador: Impact of Experience on the Handleability of Hognose Snakes (Heterodon nasicus), Authors: Brooke Shaffer, Kendra Clark, and Dr. Diana Barber Exaggerated caudal anatomy of Long-tailed Salamanders (Eurycea longicauda), Authors: Tyler Schwisow, Zachary J. Loughman, and Dr. Zackary A. Graham Immunolocalization of peptidoglycan synthesis determinants, FtsZ and MreB in Francisella tularensis, Authors: Hannah Hobbs, Hayden Hess, Joseph Horzempa, and Dr. Stuart Cantlay Assessing Color Vision in Crayfish with Conditioning, Authors: Lydia A. DiBiagio, Katherine Torrance, and Dr. Zackary A. Graham Antimicrobial Activity of Novel Resorufin Analog Against Neisseria gonorrhoeae Clinical Isolates, Authors: Jasper Brown, Mackenzie Hall, Kh. Tanvir Ahmed, Jada Berg, Emily Young, Jordan Gibson, Gregory B. Dudley, and Dr. Deanna M. Schmitt Observed Unicornal Craniosynostosis in an Avian Model of Induced-Thyrotoxicosis, Authors: Lauren P. Baylor, Tyler P. Hill, and Dr. Holly L. Racine  TOPPER-SURE (Training Opportunity for Pre-Professionals, Educators, and Researchers Summer Undergraduate Research Experience), the program’s full name, is funded by a grant from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission’s Division of Science and Research under the direction of Dr. Juliana Serafin. This grant also rewards students with stipends of $3,500 each for their work and to cover housing. West Liberty University blends a small-town environment with a comprehensive college experience, fostering students’ aspirations through hands-on learning, personalized support, and unique academic programs at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Learn more at westliberty.edu. Read the full article

[jdsbunker]

Harry Benjamin Standards of Care

Harry Benjamin Standards of Care

***CONTENT WARNING: this document is from 2001 and much of it is from the 1980's and 1990's. it is from a time when being transgender was heavily pathologized and may be distressing to read for a number of reasons.***

Published in the International Journal of Transgenderism; ISSN 1434-4599; Volume 5, Number 1,2001

HARRY BENJAMIN INTERNATIONAL GENDER DYSPHORIA ASSOCIATION'S

THE STANDARDS OF CARE FOR GENDER IDENTITY DISORDERS -- SIXTH VERSION

Committee Members: Walter Meyer III M.D. (Chairperson), Walter O. Bockting Ph.D., Peggy Cohen-Kettenis Ph.D., Eli Coleman Ph.D., Domenico DiCeglie M.D., Holly Devor  Ph.D., Louis Gooren M.D.,  Ph.D., J. Joris Hage M.D., Sheila Kirk M.D., Bram Kuiper Ph.D., Donald Laub M.D., Anne Lawrence M.D., Yvon Menard M.D., Jude Patton PA-C, Leah Schaefer Ed.D., Alice Webb D.H.S., Connie Christine Wheeler Ph.D.

Citation: W. Meyer III (Chairperson), W. Bockting, P. Cohen-Kettenis, E. Coleman, D. DiCeglie, H. Devor, L. Gooren, J. Joris Hage, S. Kirk, B. Kuiper, D. Laub, A. Lawrence, Y. Menard, J. Patton, L. Schaefer, A. Webb, C. Wheeler. (February 2001) THE STANDARDS OF CARE FOR GENDER IDENTITY DISORDERS -- Sixth Version. IJT 5,1, http://www.symposion.com/ijt/soc_2001/index.htm

I. Introductory Concepts

The Purpose of the Standards of Care. The major purpose of the Standards of Care (SOC) is to articulate this international organization's professional consensus about the psychiatric, psychological, medical, and surgical management of gender identity disorders. Professionals may use this document to understand the parameters within which they may offer assistance to those with these conditions. Persons with gender identity disorders, their families, and social institutions may use the SOC to understand the current thinking of professionals. All readers should be aware of the limitations of knowledge in this area and of the hope that some of the clinical uncertainties will be resolved in the future through scientific investigation.

The Overarching Treatment Goal. The general goal of psychotherapeutic, endocrine, or surgical therapy for persons with gender identity disorders is lasting personal comfort with the gendered self in order to maximize overall psychological well-being and self-fulfillment.

The Standards of Care Are Clinical Guidelines. The SOC are intended to provide flexible directions for the treatment of persons with gender identity disorders. When eligibility requirements are stated they are meant to be minimum requirements. Individual professionals and organized programs may modify them. Clinical departures from these guidelines may come about because of a patient's unique anatomic, social, or psychological situation, an experienced professional’s evolving method of handling a common situation, or a research protocol. These departures should be recognized as such, explained to the patient, and documented both for legal protection and so that the short and long term results can be retrieved to help the field to evolve.

The Clinical Threshold. A clinical threshold is passed when concerns, uncertainties, and questions about gender identity persist during a person’s development, become so intense as to seem to be the most important aspect of a person's life, or prevent the establishment of a relatively unconflicted gender identity. The person's struggles are then variously informally referred to as a gender identity problem, gender dysphoria, a gender problem, a gender concern, gender distress, gender conflict, or transsexualism. Such struggles are known to occur from the preschool years to old age and have many alternate forms. These reflect various degrees of personal dissatisfaction with sexual identity, sex and gender demarcating body characteristics, gender roles, gender identity, and the perceptions of others. When dissatisfied individuals meet specified criteria in one of two official nomenclatures--the International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10) or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders--Fourth Edition (DSM-IV)--they are formally designated as suffering from a gender identity disorder (GID). Some persons with GID exceed another threshold--they persistently possess a wish for surgical transformation of their bodies.

Two Primary Populations with GID Exist -- Biological Males and Biological Females. The sex of a patient always is a significant factor in the management of GID. Clinicians need to separately consider the biologic, social, psychological, and economic dilemmas of each sex. All patients, however, should follow the SOC.

II. Epidemiological Considerations

Prevalence. When the gender identity disorders first came to professional attention, clinical perspectives were largely focused on how to identify candidates for sex reassignment surgery. As the field matured, professionals recognized that some persons with bona fide gender identity disorders neither desired nor were candidates for sex reassignment surgery. The earliest estimates of prevalence for transsexualism in adults were 1 in 37,000 males and 1 in 107,000 females. The most recent prevalence information from the Netherlands for the transsexual end of the gender identity disorder spectrum is 1 in 11,900 males and 1 in 30,400 females. Four observations, not yet firmly supported by systematic study, increase the likelihood of an even higher prevalence: 1) unrecognized gender problems are occasionally diagnosed when patients are seen with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, conduct disorder, substance abuse, dissociative identity disorders, borderline personality disorder, other sexual disorders and intersexed conditions; 2) some nonpatient male transvestites, female impersonators, transgender people, and male and female homosexuals may have a form of gender identity disorder; 3) the intensity of some persons' gender identity disorders fluctuates below and above a clinical threshold; 4) gender variance among female-bodied individuals tends to be relatively invisible to the culture, particularly to mental health professionals and scientists.

Natural History of Gender Identity Disorders. Ideally, prospective data about the natural history of gender identity struggles would inform all treatment decisions. These are lacking, except for the demonstration that, without therapy, most boys and girls with gender identity disorders outgrow their wish to change sex and gender. After the diagnosis of GID is made the therapeutic approach usually includes three elements or phases (sometimes labeled triadic therapy): a real life experience in the desired role, hormones of the desired gender, and surgery to change the genitalia and other sex characteristics. Five less firmly scientifically established observations prevent clinicians from prescribing the triadic therapy based on diagnosis alone: 1) some carefully diagnosed persons spontaneously change their aspirations; 2) others make more comfortable accommodations to their gender identities without medical interventions; 3) others give up their wish to follow the triadic sequence during psychotherapy; 4) some gender identity clinics have an unexplained high drop out rate; and 5) the percentage of persons who are not benefited from the triadic therapy varies significantly from study to study. Many persons with GID will desire all three elements of triadic therapy. Typically, triadic therapy takes place in the order of hormones = = > real life experience = = > surgery, or sometimes: real life experience = = > hormones = = > surgery. For some biologic females, the preferred sequence may be hormones = = > breast surgery = = > real life experience. However, the diagnosis of GID invites the consideration of a variety of therapeutic options, only one of which is the complete therapeutic triad. Clinicians have increasingly become aware that not all persons with gender identity disorders need or want all three elements of triadic therapy.

Cultural Differences in Gender Identity Variance throughout the World. Even if epidemiological studies established that a similar base rate of gender identity disorders existed all over the world, it is likely that cultural differences from one country to another would alter the behavioral expressions of these conditions. Moreover, access to treatment, cost of treatment, the therapies offered and the social attitudes towards gender variant people and the professionals who deliver care differ broadly from place to place. While in most countries, crossing gender boundaries usually generates moral censure rather than compassion, there are striking examples in certain cultures of cross-gendered behaviors (e.g., in spiritual leaders) that are not stigmatized.

III. Diagnostic Nomenclature

The Five Elements of Clinical Work. Professional involvement with patients with gender identity disorders involves any of the following: diagnostic assessment, psychotherapy, real life experience, hormone therapy, and surgical therapy. This section provides a background on diagnostic assessment.

The Development of a Nomenclature. The term transsexual emerged into professional and public usage in the 1950s as a means of designating a person who aspired to or actually lived in the anatomically contrary gender role, whether or not hormones had been administered or surgery had been performed. During the 1960s and 1970s, clinicians used the term true transsexual. The true transsexual was thought to be a person with a characteristic path of atypical gender identity development that predicted an improved life from a treatment sequence that culminated in genital surgery. True transsexuals were thought to have: 1) cross-gender identifications that were consistently expressed behaviorally in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; 2) minimal or no sexual arousal to cross-dressing; and 3) no heterosexual interest, relative to their anatomic sex. True transsexuals could be of either sex. True transsexual males were distinguished from males who arrived at the desire to change sex and gender via a reasonably masculine behavioral developmental pathway. Belief in the true transsexual concept for males dissipated when it was realized that such patients were rarely encountered, and that some of the original true transsexuals had falsified their histories to make their stories match the earliest theories about the disorder. The concept of true transsexual females never created diagnostic uncertainties, largely because patient histories were relatively consistent and gender variant behaviors such as female cross-dressing remained unseen by clinicians. The term "gender dysphoria syndrome" was later adopted to designate the presence of a gender problem in either sex until psychiatry developed an official nomenclature.

The diagnosis of Transsexualism was introduced in the DSM-III in 1980 for gender dysphoric individuals who demonstrated at least two years of continuous interest in transforming the sex of their bodies and their social gender status. Others with gender dysphoria could be diagnosed as Gender Identity Disorder of Adolescence or Adulthood, Nontranssexual Type; or Gender Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (GIDNOS). These diagnostic terms were usually ignored by the media, which used the term transsexual for any person who wanted to change his/her sex and gender.

The DSM-IV. In 1994, the DSM-IV committee replaced the diagnosis of Transsexualism with Gender Identity Disorder. Depending on their age, those with a strong and persistent cross-gender identification and a persistent discomfort with their sex or a sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex, were to be diagnosed as Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood (302.6), Adolescence, or Adulthood (302.85). For persons who did not meet these criteria, Gender Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (GIDNOS)(302.6) was to be used. This category included a variety of individuals, including those who desired only castration or penectomy without a desire to develop breasts, those who wished hormone therapy and mastectomy without genital reconstruction, those with a congenital intersex condition, those with transient stress-related cross-dressing, and those with considerable ambivalence about giving up their gender status. Patients diagnosed with GID and GIDNOS were to be subclassified according to the sexual orientation: attracted to males; attracted to females; attracted to both; or attracted to neither. This subclassification was intended to assist in determining, over time, whether individuals of one sexual orientation or another experienced better outcomes using particular therapeutic approaches; it was not intended to guide treatment decisions.

Between the publication of DSM-III and DSM-IV, the term "transgender" began to be used in various ways. Some employed it to refer to those with unusual gender identities in a value-free manner – that is, without a connotation of psychopathology. Some people informally used the term to refer to any person with any type of gender identity issues. Transgender is not a formal diagnosis, but many professionals and members of the public found it easier to use informally than GIDNOS, which is a formal diagnosis.

The ICD-10. The ICD-10 now provides five diagnoses for the gender identity disorders (F64):

Transsexualism (F64.0) has three criteria:

1. The desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by the wish to make his or her body as congruent as possible with the preferred sex through surgery and hormone treatment;

2. The transsexual identity has been present persistently for at least two years;

3. The disorder is not a symptom of another mental disorder or a chromosomal abnormality.

Dual-role Transvestism (F64.1) has three criteria:

1. The individual wears clothes of the opposite sex in order to experience temporary membership in the opposite sex;

2. There is no sexual motivation for the cross-dressing;

3. The individual has no desire for a permanent change to the opposite sex.

Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood (64.2) has separate criteria for girls and for boys.

For girls:

1. The individual shows persistent and intense distress about being a girl, and has a stated desire to be a boy (not merely a desire for any perceived cultural advantages to being a boy) or insists that she is a boy;

2. Either of the following must be present:

Persistent marked aversion to normative feminine clothing and insistence on wearing stereotypical masculine clothing;

Persistent repudiation of female anatomical structures, as evidenced by at least one of the following:

An assertion that she has, or will grow, a penis;

Rejection of urination in a sitting position;

Assertion that she does not want to grow breasts or menstruate.

3. The girl has not yet reached puberty;

4. The disorder must have been present for at least 6 months.

For boys:

1. The individual shows persistent and intense distress about being a boy, and has a desire to be a girl, or, more rarely, insists that he is a girl.

2. Either of the following must be present:

Preoccupation with stereotypic female activities, as shown by a preference for either cross-dressing or simulating female attire, or by an intense desire to participate in the games and pastimes of girls and rejection of stereotypical male toys, games, and activities;

Persistent repudiation of male anatomical structures, as evidenced by at least one of the following repeated assertions:

That he will grow up to become a woman (not merely in the role);

That his penis or testes are disgusting or will disappear;

That it would be better not to have a penis or testes.

3. The boy has not yet reached puberty;

4. The disorder must have been present for at least 6 months.

Other Gender Identity Disorders (F64.8) has no specific criteria.

Gender Identity Disorder, Unspecified has no specific criteria.

Either of the previous two diagnoses could be used for those with an intersexed condition.

The purpose of the DSM-IV and ICD-10 is to guide treatment and research. Different professional groups created these nomenclatures through consensus processes at different times. There is an expectation that the differences between the systems will be eliminated in the future. At this point, the specific diagnoses are based more on clinical reasoning than on scientific investigation.

Are Gender Identity Disorders Mental Disorders?To qualify as a mental disorder, a behavioral pattern must result in a significant adaptive disadvantage to the person and cause personal mental suffering. The DSM-IV and ICD-10 have defined hundreds of mental disorders which vary in onset, duration, pathogenesis, functional disability, and treatability. The designation of gender identity disorders as mental disorders is not a license for stigmatization, or for the deprivation of gender patients' civil rights. The use of a formal diagnosis is often important in offering relief, providing health insurance coverage, and guiding research to provide more effective future treatments. 

IV. The Mental Health Professional

The Ten Tasks of the Mental Health Professional. Mental health professionals (MHPs) who work with individuals with gender identity disorders may be regularly called upon to carry out many of these responsibilities:

To accurately diagnose the individual's gender disorder;

To accurately diagnose any co-morbid psychiatric conditions and see to their appropriate treatment;

To counsel the individual about the range of treatment options and their implications;

To engage in psychotherapy;

To ascertain eligibility and readiness for hormone and surgical therapy;

To make formal recommendations to medical and surgical colleagues;

To document their patient's relevant history in a letter of recommendation;

To be a colleague on a team of professionals with an interest in the gender identity disorders;

To educate family members, employers, and institutions about gender identity disorders;

To be available for follow-up of previously seen gender patients.

The Adult-Specialist. The education of the mental health professional who specializes in adult gender identity disorders rests upon basic general clinical competence in diagnosis and treatment of mental or emotional disorders. Clinical training may occur within any formally credentialing discipline -- for example, psychology, psychiatry, social work, counseling, or nursing. The following are the recommended minimal credentials for special competence with the gender identity disorders:

A master's degree or its equivalent in a clinical behavioral science field. This or a more advanced degree should be granted by an institution accredited by a recognized national or regional accrediting board. The mental health professional should have documented credentials from a proper training facility and a licensing board.

Specialized training and competence in the assessment of the DSM-IV/ICD-10 Sexual Disorders (not simply gender identity disorders).

Documented supervised training and competence in psychotherapy.

Continuing education in the treatment of gender identity disorders, which may include attendance at professional meetings, workshops, or seminars or participating in research related to gender identity issues.

The Child-Specialist. The professional who evaluates and offers therapy for a child or early adolescent with GID should have been trained in childhood and adolescent developmental psychopathology. The professional should be competent in diagnosing and treating the ordinary problems of children and adolescents. These requirements are in addition to the adult-specialist requirement.

The Differences between Eligibility and Readiness. The SOC provide recommendations for eligibility requirements for hormones and surgery. Without first meeting these recommended eligibility requirements, the patient and the therapist should not request hormones or surgery. An example of an eligibility requirement is: a person must live full time in the preferred gender for twelve months prior to genital surgery. To meet this criterion, the professional needs to document that the real life experience has occurred for this duration. Meeting readiness criteria -- further consolidation of the evolving gender identity or improving mental health in the new or confirmed gender role -- is more complicated, because it rests upon the clinician's and the patient’s judgment.

The Mental Health Professional's Relationship to the Prescribing Physician and Surgeon. Mental health professionals who recommend hormonal and surgical therapy share the legal and ethical responsibility for that decision with the physician who undertakes the treatment. Hormonal treatment can often alleviate anxiety and depression in people without the use of additional psychotropic medications. Some individuals, however, need psychotropic medication prior to, or concurrent with, taking hormones or having surgery. The mental health professional is expected to make this assessment, and see that the appropriate psychotropic medications are offered to the patient. The presence of psychiatric co-morbidities does not necessarily preclude hormonal or surgical treatment, but some diagnoses pose difficult treatment dilemmas and may delay or preclude the use of either treatment.

The Mental Health Professional’s Documentation Letters for Hormone Therapy or Surgery Should Succinctly Specify:

The patient's general identifying characteristics;

The initial and evolving gender, sexual, and other psychiatric diagnoses;

The duration of their professional relationship including the type of psychotherapy or evaluation that the patient underwent;

The eligibility criteria that have been met and the mental health professional’s rationale for hormone therapy or surgery;

The degree to which the patient has followed the Standards of Care to date and the likelihood of future compliance;

Whether the author of the report is part of a gender team;

That the sender welcomes a phone call to verify the fact that the mental health professional actually wrote the letter as described in this document.

The organization and completeness of these letters provide the hormone-prescribing physician and the surgeon an important degree of assurance that mental health professional is knowledgeable and competent concerning gender identity disorders.

One Letter if Required for Instituting Hormone Therapy, or for Breast Surgery.

One letter from a mental health professional, including the above seven points, written to the physician who will be responsible for the patient’s medical treatment, is sufficient for instituting hormone therapy or for a referral for breast surgery (e.g., mastectomy, chest reconstruction, or augmentation mammoplasty).

Two Letters are Generally Required for Genital Surgery. Genital surgery for biologic males may include orchiectomy, penectomy, clitoroplasty, labiaplasty or creation of a neovagina; for biologic females it may include hysterectomy, salpingo-oophorectomy, vaginectomy, metoidioplasty, scrotoplasty, urethroplasty, placement of testicular prostheses, or creation of a neophallus.

It is ideal if mental health professionals conduct their tasks and periodically report on these processes as part of a team of other mental health professionals and nonpsychiatric physicians. One letter to the physician performing genital surgery will generally suffice as long as two mental health professionals sign it.

More commonly, however, letters of recommendation are from mental health professionals who work alone without colleagues experienced with gender identity disorders. Because professionals working independently may not have the benefit of ongoing professional consultation on gender cases, two letters of recommendation are required prior to initiating genital surgery. If the first letter is from a person with a master's degree, the second letter should be from a psychiatrist or a Ph.D. clinical psychologist, who can be expected to adequately evaluate co-morbid psychiatric conditions. If the first letter is from the patient's psychotherapist, the second letter should be from a person who has only played an evaluative role for the patient. Each letter, however, is expected to cover the same topics. At least one of the letters should be an extensive report. The second letter writer, having read the first letter, may choose to offer a briefer summary and an agreement with the recommendation. 

V. Assessment and Treatment of Children and Adolescents

Phenomenology. Gender identity disorders in children and adolescents are different from those seen in adults, in that a rapid and dramatic developmental process (physical, psychological and sexual) is involved. Gender identity disorders in children and adolescents are complex conditions. The young person may experience his or her phenotype sex as inconsistent with his or her own sense of gender identity. Intense distress is often experienced, particularly in adolescence, and there are frequently associated emotional and behavioral difficulties. There is greater fluidity and variability in outcomes, especially in pre-pubertal children. Only a few gender variant youths become transsexual, although many eventually develop a homosexual orientation.

Commonly seen features of gender identity conflicts in children and adolescents include a stated desire to be the other sex; cross dressing; play with games and toys usually associated with the gender with which the child identifies; avoidance of the clothing, demeanor and play normally associated with the child’s sex and gender of assignment; preference for playmates or friends of the sex and gender with which the child identifies; and dislike of bodily sex characteristics and functions. Gender identity disorders are more often diagnosed in boys.

Phenomenologically, there is a qualitative difference between the way children and adolescents present their sex and gender predicaments, and the presentation of delusions or other psychotic symptoms. Delusional beliefs about their body or gender can occur in psychotic conditions but they can be distinguished from the phenomenon of a gender identity disorder. Gender identity disorders in childhood are not equivalent to those in adulthood and the former do not inevitably lead to the latter. The younger the child the less certain and perhaps more malleable the outcome.

Psychological and Social Interventions. The task of the child-specialist mental health professional is to provide assessment and treatment that broadly conforms to the following guidelines:

The professional should recognize and accept the gender identity problem. Acceptance and removal of secrecy can bring considerable relief.

The assessment should explore the nature and characteristics of the child’s or adolescent’s gender identity. A complete psychodiagnostic and psychiatric assessment should be performed. A complete assessment should include a family evaluation, because other emotional and behavioral problems are very common, and unresolved issues in the child’s environment are often present.

Therapy should focus on ameliorating any comorbid problems in the child’s life, and on reducing distress the child experiences from his or her gender identity problem and other difficulties. The child and family should be supported in making difficult decisions regarding the extent to which to allow the child to assume a gender role consistent with his or her gender identity. This includes issues of whether to inform others of the child’s situation, and how others in the child’s life should respond; for example, whether the child should attend school using a name and clothing opposite to his or her sex of assignment. They should also be supported in tolerating uncertainty and anxiety in relation to the child’s gender expression and how best to manage it. Professional network meetings can be very useful in finding appropriate solutions to these problems.

Physical Interventions. Before any physical intervention is considered, extensive exploration of psychological, family and social issues should be undertaken. Physical interventions should be addressed in the context of adolescent development. Adolescents’ gender identity development can rapidly and unexpectedly evolve. An adolescent shift toward gender conformity can occur primarily to please the family, and may not persist or reflect a permanent change in gender identity. Identity beliefs in adolescents may become firmly held and strongly expressed, giving a false impression of irreversibility; more fluidity may return at a later stage. For these reasons, irreversible physical interventions should be delayed as long as is clinically appropriate. Pressure for physical interventions because of an adolescent’s level of distress can be great and in such circumstances a referral to a child and adolescent multi-disciplinary specialty service should be considered, in locations where these exist.

Physical interventions fall into three categories or stages:

Fully reversible interventions. These involve the use of LHRH agonists or medroxyprogesterone to suppress estrogen or testosterone production, and consequently to delay the physical changes of puberty.

Partially reversible interventions. These include hormonal interventions that masculinize or feminize the body, such as administration of testosterone to biologic females and estrogen to biologic males. Reversal may involve surgical intervention.

Irreversible interventions. These are surgical procedures.

A staged process is recommended to keep options open through the first two stages. Moving from one state to another should not occur until there has been adequate time for the young person and his/her family to assimilate fully the effects of earlier interventions.

Fully Reversible Interventions. Adolescents may be eligible for puberty-delaying hormones as soon as pubertal changes have begun. In order for the adolescent and his or her parents to make an informed decision about pubertal delay, it is recommended that the adolescent experience the onset of puberty in his or her biologic sex, at least to Tanner Stage Two. If for clinical reasons it is thought to be in the patient’s interest to intervene earlier, this must be managed with pediatric endocrinological advice and more than one psychiatric opinion.

Two goals justify this intervention: a) to gain time to further explore the gender identity and other developmental issues in psychotherapy; and b) to make passing easier if the adolescent continues to pursue sex and gender change. In order to provide puberty delaying hormones to an adolescent, the following criteria must be met:

throughout childhood the adolescent has demonstrated an intense pattern of cross-sex and cross-gender identity and aversion to expected gender role behaviors;

sex and gender discomfort has significantly increased with the onset of puberty;

the family consents and participates in the therapy.

Biologic males should be treated with LHRH agonists (which stop LH secretion and therefore testosterone secretion), or with progestins or antiandrogens (which block testosterone secretion or neutralize testosterone action). Biologic females should be treated with LHRH agonists or with sufficient progestins (which stop the production of estrogens and progesterone) to stop menstruation.

Partially Reversible Interventions. Adolescents may be eligible to begin masculinizing or feminizing hormone therapy as early as age 16, preferably with parental consent. In many countries 16-year olds are legal adults for medical decision making, and do not require parental consent.

Mental health professional involvement is an eligibility requirement for triadic therapy during adolescence. For the implementation of the real life experience or hormone therapy, the mental health professional should be involved with the patient and family for a minimum of six months. While the number of sessions during this six-month period rests upon the clinician’s judgement, the intent is that hormones and the real life experience be thoughtfully and recurrently considered over time. In those patients who have already begun the real life experience prior to being seen, the professional should work closely with them and their families with the thoughtful recurrent consideration of what is happening over time.

Irreversible Interventions. Any surgical intervention should not be carried out prior to adulthood, or prior to a real life experience of at least two years in the gender role of the sex with which the adolescent identifies. The threshold of 18 should be seen as an eligibility criterion and not an indication in itself for active intervention. 

VI. Psychotherapy with Adults

A Basic Observation. Many adults with gender identity disorder find comfortable, effective ways of living that do not involve all the components of the triadic treatment sequence. While some individuals manage to do this on their own, psychotherapy can be very helpful in bringing about the discovery and maturational processes that enable self-comfort.

Psychotherapy is Not an Absolute Requirement for Triadic Therapy. Not every adult gender patient requires psychotherapy in order to proceed with hormone therapy, the real life experience, hormones, or surgery. Individual programs vary to the extent that they perceive a need for psychotherapy. When the mental health professional's initial assessment leads to a recommendation for psychotherapy, the clinician should specify the goals of treatment, and estimate its frequency and duration. There is no required minimum number of psychotherapy sessions prior to hormone therapy, the real life experience, or surgery, for three reasons: 1) patients differ widely in their abilities to attain similar goals in a specified time; 2) a minimum number of sessions tends to be construed as a hurdle, which discourages the genuine opportunity for personal growth; 3) the mental health professional can be an important support to the patient throughout all phases of gender transition. Individual programs may set eligibility criteria to some minimum number of sessions or months of psychotherapy.

The mental health professional who conducts the initial evaluation need not be the psychotherapist. If members of a gender team do not do psychotherapy, the psychotherapist should be informed that a letter describing the patient's therapy might be requested so the patient can proceed with the next phase of treatment.

Goals of Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy often provides education about a range of options not previously seriously considered by the patient. It emphasizes the need to set realistic life goals for work and relationships, and it seeks to define and alleviate the patient's conflicts that may have undermined a stable lifestyle.

The Therapeutic Relationship. The establishment of a reliable trusting relationship with the patient is the first step toward successful work as a mental health professional. This is usually accomplished by competent nonjudgmental exploration of the gender issues with the patient during the initial diagnostic evaluation. Other issues may be better dealt with later, after the person feels that the clinician is interested in and understands their gender identity concerns. Ideally, the clinician's work is with the whole of the person's complexity. The goals of therapy are to help the person to live more comfortably within a gender identity and to deal effectively with non-gender issues. The clinician often attempts to facilitate the capacity to work and to establish or maintain supportive relationships. Even when these initial goals are attained, mental health professionals should discuss the likelihood that no educational, psychotherapeutic, medical, or surgical therapy can permanently eradicate all vestiges of the person's original sex assignment and previous gendered experience.

Processes of Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is a series of interactive communications between a therapist who is knowledgeable about how people suffer emotionally and how this may be alleviated, and a patient who is experiencing distress. Typically, psychotherapy consists of regularly held 50-minutes sessions. The psychotherapy sessions initiate a developmental process. They enable the patient’s history to be appreciated, current dilemmas to be understood, and unrealistic ideas and maladaptive behaviors to be identified. Psychotherapy is not intended to cure the gender identity disorder. Its usual goal is a long-term stable life style with realistic chances for success in relationships, education, work, and gender identity expression. Gender distress often intensifies relationship, work, and educational dilemmas.

The therapist should make clear that it is the patient's right to choose among many options. The patient can experiment over time with alternative approaches. 

Ideally, psychotherapy is a collaborative effort. The therapist must be certain that the patient understands the concepts of eligibility and readiness, because the therapist and patient must cooperate in defining the patient's problems, and in assessing progress in dealing with them. Collaboration can prevent a stalemate between a therapist who seems needlessly withholding of a recommendation, and a patient who seems too profoundly distrusting to freely share thoughts, feelings, events, and relationships.

Patients may benefit from psychotherapy at every stage of gender evolution. This includes the post-surgical period, when the anatomic obstacles to gender comfort have been removed, but the person may continue to feel a lack of genuine comfort and skill in living in the new gender role.

Options for Gender Adaptation. The activities and processes that are listed below have, in various combinations, helped people to find more personal comfort. These adaptations may evolve spontaneously and during psychotherapy. Finding new gender adaptations does not mean that the person may not in the future elect to pursue hormone therapy, the real life experience, or genital surgery.

Activities

Biological Males

Cross-dressing: unobtrusively with undergarments; unisexually; or in a feminine fashion;

Changing the body through: hair removal through electrolysis or body waxing; minor plastic cosmetic surgical procedures;

Increasing grooming, wardrobe, and vocal expression skills.

Biological Females

Cross-dressing: unobtrusively with undergarments, unisexually, or in a masculine fashion;

Changing the body through breast binding, weight lifting, applying theatrical facial hair;

Padding underpants or wearing a penile prosthesis.

Both Genders

Learning about transgender phenomena from: support groups and gender networks, communication with peers via the Internet, studying these Standards of Care, relevant lay and professional literatures about legal rights pertaining to work, relationships, and public cross-dressing;

Involvement in recreational activities of the desired gender;

Episodic cross-gender living.

Processes

Acceptance of personal homosexual or bisexual fantasies and behaviors (orientation) as distinct from gender identity and gender role aspirations;

Acceptance of the need to maintain a job, provide for the emotional needs of children, honor a spousal commitment, or not to distress a family member as currently having a higher priority than the personal wish for constant cross-gender expression;

Integration of male and female gender awareness into daily living;

Identification of the triggers for increased cross-gender yearnings and effectively attending to them; for instance, developing better self-protective, self-assertive, and vocational skills to advance at work and resolve interpersonal struggles to strengthen key relationships.

VII. Requirements for Hormone Therapy for Adults

Reasons for Hormone Therapy. Cross-sex hormonal treatments play an important role in the anatomical and psychological gender transition process for properly selected adults with gender identity disorders. Hormones are often medically necessary for successful living in the new gender. They improve the quality of life and limit psychiatric co-morbidity, which often accompanies lack of treatment. When physicians administer androgens to biologic females and estrogens, progesterone, and testosterone-blocking agents to biologic males, patients feel and appear more like members of their preferred gender.

Eligibility Criteria. The administration of hormones is not to be lightly undertaken because of their medical and social risks. Three criteria exist.

Age 18 years;

Demonstrable knowledge of what hormones medically can and cannot do and their social benefits and risks;

Either:

a. A documented real life experience of at least three months prior to the administration of hormones; or

b. A period of psychotherapy of a duration specified by the mental health professional after the initial evaluation (usually a minimum of three months).

In selected circumstances, it can be acceptable to provide hormones to patients who have not fulfilled criterion 3 – for example, to facilitate the provision of monitored therapy using hormones of known quality, as an alternative to black-market or unsupervised hormone use.

Readiness Criteria. Three criteria exist:

The patient has had further consolidation of gender identity during the real-life experience or psychotherapy;

The patient has made some progress in mastering other identified problems leading to improving or continuing stable mental health (this implies satisfactory control of problems such as sociopathy, substance abuse, psychosis and suicidality;

The patient is likely to take hormones in a responsible manner.

Can Hormones Be Given To Those Who Do Not Want Surgery or a Real-life Experience? Yes, but after diagnosis and psychotherapy with a qualified mental health professional following minimal standards listed above. Hormone therapy can provide significant comfort to gender patients who do not wish to cross live or undergo surgery, or who are unable to do so. In some patients, hormone therapy alone may provide sufficient symptomatic relief to obviate the need for cross living or surgery.

Hormone Therapy and Medical Care for Incarcerated Persons. Persons who are receiving treatment for gender identity disorders should continue to receive appropriate treatment following these Standards of Care after incarceration. For example, those who are receiving psychotherapy and/or cross-sex hormonal treatments should be allowed to continue this medically necessary treatment to prevent or limit emotional lability, undesired regression of hormonally-induced physical effects and the sense of desperation that may lead to depression, anxiety and suicidality. Prisoners who are subject to rapid withdrawal of cross-sex hormones are particularly at risk for psychiatric symptoms and self-injurious behaviors. Medical monitoring of hormonal treatment as described in these Standards should also be provided. Housing for transgendered prisoners should take into account their transition status and their personal safety. 

VIII. Effects of Hormone Therapy in Adults

The maximum physical effects of hormones may not be evident until two years of continuous treatment. Heredity limits the tissue response to hormones and this cannot be overcome by increasing dosage. The degree of effects actually attained varies from patient to patient.

Desired Effects of Hormones. Biologic males treated with estrogens can realistically expect treatment to result in: breast growth, some redistribution of body fat to approximate a female body habitus, decreased upper body strength, softening of skin, decrease in body hair, slowing or stopping the loss of scalp hair, decreased fertility and testicular size, and less frequent, less firm erections. Most of these changes are reversible, although breast enlargement will not completely reverse after discontinuation of treatment.

Biologic females treated with testosterone can expect the following permanent changes: a deepening of the voice, clitoral enlargement, mild breast atrophy, increased facial and body hair and male pattern baldness. Reversible changes include increased upper body strength, weight gain, increased social and sexual interest and arousability, and decreased hip fat.

Potential Negative Medical Side Effects. Patients with medical problems or otherwise at risk for cardiovascular disease may be more likely to experience serious or fatal consequences of cross-sex hormonal treatments. For example, cigarette smoking, obesity, advanced age, heart disease, hypertension, clotting abnormalities, malignancy, and some endocrine abnormalities may increase side effects and risks for hormonal treatment. Therefore, some patients may not be able to tolerate cross-sex hormones. However, hormones can provide health benefits as well as risks. Risk-benefit ratios should be considered collaboratively by the patient and prescribing physician.

Side effects in biologic males treated with estrogens and progestins may include increased propensity to blood clotting (venous thrombosis with a risk of fatal pulmonary embolism), development of benign pituitary prolactinomas, infertility, weight gain, emotional lability, liver disease, gallston formation, somnolence, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. 

Side effects in biologic females treated with testosterone may include infertility, acne, emotional lability, increases in sexual desire, shift of lipid profiles to male patterns which increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, and the potential to develop benign and malignant liver tumors and hepatic dysfunction.

The Prescribing Physician's Responsibilities. Hormones are to be prescribed by a physician, and should not be administered without adequate psychological and medical assessment before and during treatment. Patients who do not understand the eligibility and readiness requirements and who are unaware of the SOC should be informed of them. This may be a good indication for a referral to a mental health professional experienced with gender identity disorders.

The physician providing hormonal treatment and medical monitoring need not be a specialist in endocrinology, but should become well-versed in the relevant medical and psychological aspects of treating persons with gender identity disorders.

After a thorough medical history, physical examination, and laboratory examination, the physician should again review the likely effects and side effects of hormone treatment, including the potential for serious, life-threatening consequences. The patient must have the capacity to appreciate the risks and benefits of treatment, have his/her questions answered, and agree to medical monitoring of treatment. The medical record must contain a written informed consent document reflecting a discussion of the risks and benefits of hormone therapy.

Physicians have a wide latitude in what hormone preparations they may prescribe and what routes of administration they may select for individual patients. Viable options include oral, injectable, and transdermal delivery systems. The use of transdermal estrogen patches should be considered for males over 40 years of age or those with clotting abnormalities or a history of venous thrombosis. Transdermal testosterone is useful in females who do not want to take injections. In the absence of any other medical, surgical, or psychiatric conditions, basic medical monitoring should include: serial physical examinations relevant to treatment effects and side effects, vital sign measurements before and during treatment, weight measurements, and laboratory assessment. Gender patients, whether on hormones or not, should be screened for pelvic malignancies as are other persons.

For those receiving estrogens, the minimum laboratory assessment should consist of a pretreatment free testosterone level, fasting glucose, liver function tests, and complete blood count with reassessment at 6 and 12 months and annually thereafter. A pretreatment prolactin level should be obtained and repeated at 1, 2, and 3 years. If hyperprolactemia does not occur during this time, no further measurements are necessary. Biologic males undergoing estrogen treatment should be monitored for breast cancer and encouraged to engage in routine self-examination. As they age, they should be monitored for prostatic cancer.

For those receiving androgens, the minimum laboratory assessment should consist of pretreatment liver function tests and complete blood count with reassessment at 6 months, 12 months, and yearly thereafter. Yearly palpation of the liver should be considered. Females who have undergone mastectomies and who have a family history of breast cancer should be monitored for this disease.

Physicians may provide their patients with a brief written statement indicating that the person is under medical supervision, which includes cross-sex hormone therapy. During the early phases of hormone treatment, the patient may be encouraged to carry this statement at all times to help prevent difficulties with the police and other authorities.

Reductions in Hormone Doses After Gonadectomy. Estrogen doses in post-orchiectomy patients can often be reduced by 1/3 to * and still maintain feminization. Reductions in testosterone doses post-oophorectomy should be considered, taking into account the risks of osteoporosis. Lifelong maintenance treatment is usually required in all gender patients.

The Misuse of Hormones. Some individuals obtain hormones without prescription from friends, family members, and pharmacies in other countries. Medically unmonitored hormone use can expose the person to greater medical risk. Persons taking medically monitored hormones have been known to take additional doses of illicitly obtained hormones without their physician's knowledge. Mental health professionals and prescribing physicians should make an effort to encourage compliance with recommended dosages, in order to limit morbidity. It is ethical for physicians to discontinue treatment of patients who do not comply with prescribed treatment regimens.

Other Potential Benefits of Hormones. Hormonal treatment, when medically tolerated, should precede any genital surgical interventions. Satisfaction with the hormone's effects consolidates the person's identity as a member of the preferred sex and gender and further adds to the conviction to proceed. Dissatisfaction with hormonal effects may signal ambivalence about proceeding to surgical interventions. In biologic males, hormones alone often generate adequate breast development, precluding the need for augmentation mammaplasty. Some patients who receive hormonal treatment will not desire genital or other surgical interventions.

The Use of Antiandrogens and Sequential Therapy. Antiandrogens can be used as adjunctive treatments in biologic males receiving estrogens, though they are not always necessary to achieve feminization. In some patients, antiandrogens may more profoundly suppress the production of testosterone, enabling a lower dose of estrogen to be used when adverse estrogen side effects are anticipated.

Feminization does not require sequential therapy. Attempts to mimic the menstrual cycle by prescribing interrupted estrogen therapy or substituting progesterone for estrogen during part of the month are not necessary to achieve feminization.

Informed Consent. Hormonal treatment should be provided only to those who are legally able to provide informed consent. This includes persons who have been declared by a court to be emancipated minors and incarcerated persons who are considered competent to participate in their medical decisions. For adolescents, informed consent needs to include the minor patient's assent and the written informed consent of a parent or legal guardian.

Reproductive Options. Informed consent implies that the patient understands that hormone administration limits fertility and that the removal of sexual organs prevents the capacity to reproduce. Cases are known of persons who have received hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery who later regretted their inability to parent genetically related children. The mental health professional recommending hormone therapy, and the physician prescribing such therapy, should discuss reproductive options with the patient prior to starting hormone therapy. Biologic males, especially those who have not already reproduced, should be informed about sperm preservation options, and encouraged to consider banking sperm prior to hormone therapy. Biologic females do not presently have readily available options for gamete preservation, other than cryopreservation of fertilized embryos. However, they should be informed about reproductive issues, including this option. As other options become available, these should be presented. 

IX. The Real-life Experience

The act of fully adopting a new or evolving gender role or gender presentation in everyday life is known as the real-life experience. The real-life experience is essential to the transition to the gender role that is congruent with the patient’s gender identity. Since changing one's gender presentation has immediate profound personal and social consequences, the decision to do so should be preceded by an awareness of what the familial, vocational, interpersonal, educational, economic, and legal consequences are likely to be. Professionals have a responsibility to discuss these predictable consequences with their patients. Change of gender role and presentation can be a factor in employment discrimination, divorce, marital problems, and the restriction or loss of visitation rights with children. These represent external reality issues that must be confronted for success in the new gender presentation. These consequences may be quite different from what the patient imagined prior to undertaking the real-life experiences. However, not all changes are negative.

Parameters of the Real-life Experience. When clinicians assess the quality of a person's real-life experience in the desired gender, the following abilities are reviewed:

To maintain full or part-time employment;

To function as a student;

To function in community-based volunteer activity;

To undertake some combination of items 1-3;

To acquire a (legal) gender-identity-appropriate first name;

To provide documentation that persons other than the therapist know that the patient functions in the desired gender role.

Real-life Experience versus Real-life Test. Although professionals may recommend living in the desired gender, the decision as to when and how to begin the real-life experience remains the person's responsibility. Some begin the real-life experience and decide that this often imagined life direction is not in their best interest. Professionals sometimes construe the real-life experience as the real-life test of the ultimate diagnosis. If patients prosper in the preferred gender, they are confirmed as "transsexual," but if they decided against continuing, they "must not have been." This reasoning is a confusion of the forces that enable successful adaptation with the presence of a gender identity disorder. The real-life experience tests the person's resolve, the capacity to function in the preferred gender, and the adequacy of social, economic, and psychological supports. It assists both the patient and the mental health professional in their judgments about how to proceed. Diagnosis, although always open for reconsideration, precedes a recommendation for patients to embark on the real-life experience. When the patient is successful in the real-life experience, both the mental health professional and the patient gain confidence about undertaking further steps.

Removal of Beard and other Unwanted Hair for the Male to Female Patient. Beard density is not significantly slowed by cross-sex hormone administration. Facial hair removal via electrolysis is a generally safe, time-consuming process that often facilitates the real-life experience for biologic males. Side effects include discomfort during and immediately after the procedure and less frequently hypo- or hyper-pigmentation, scarring, and folliculitis. Formal medical approval for hair removal is not necessary; electrolysis may be begun whenever the patient deems it prudent. It is usually recommended prior to commencing the real-life experience, because the beard must grow out to visible lengths to be removed. Many patients will require two years of regular treatments to effectively eradicate their facial hair. Hair removal by laser is a new alternative approach, but experience with it is limited. 

X. Surgery

Sex Reassignment is Effective and Medically Indicated in Severe GID. In persons diagnosed with transsexualism or profound GID, sex reassignment surgery, along with hormone therapy and real life experience, is a treatment that has proven to be effective. Such a therapeutic regimen, when prescribed or recommended by qualified practitioners, is medically indicated and medically necessary. Sex reassignment is not "experimental," "investigational," "elective," "cosmetic," or optional in any meaningful sense. It constitutes very effective and appropriate treatment for transsexualism or profound GID.

How to Deal with Ethical Questions Concerning Sex Reassignment Surgery. Many persons, including some medical professionals, object on ethical grounds to surgery for GID. In ordinary surgical practice, pathological tissues are removed in order to restore disturbed functions, or alterations are made to body features to improve the patient’s self image. Among those who object to sex reassignment surgery, these conditions are not thought to present when surgery is performed for persons with gender identity disorders. It is important that professionals dealing with patients with gender identity disorders feel comfortable about altering anatomically normal structures. In order to understand how surgery can alleviate the psychological discomfort of patients diagnosed with gender identity disorders, professionals need to listen to these patients, discuss their life histories and dilemmas. The resistance against performing surgery on the ethical basis of "above all do no harm" should be respected, discussed, and met with the opportunity to learn from patients themselves about the psychological distress of having profound gender identity disorder.

It is unethical to deny availability or eligibility for sex reassignment surgeries or hormone therapy solely on the basis of blood seropositivity for blood-borne infections such as HIV, or hepatitis B or C, etc.

The Surgeon’s Relationship with the Physician Prescribing Hormones and the Mental Health Professional. The surgeon is not merely a technician hired to perform a procedure. The surgeon is part of the team of clinicians participating in a long-term treatment process. The patient often feels an immense positive regard for the surgeon, which ideally will enable long-term follow-up care. Because of his or her responsibility to the patient, the surgeon must understand the diagnosis that has led to the recommendation for genital surgery. Surgeons should have a chance to speak at length with their patients to satisfy themselves that the patient is likely to benefit from the procedures. Ideally, the surgeon should have a close working relationship with the other professionals who have been actively involved in the patient’s psychological and medical care. This is best accomplished by belonging to an interdisciplinary team of professionals who specialize in gender identity disorders. Such gender teams do not exist everywhere, however. At the very least, the surgeon needs to be assured that the mental health professional and physician prescribing hormones are reputable professionals with specialized experience with gender identity disorders. This is often reflected in the quality of the documentation letters. Since fictitious and falsified letters have occasionally been presented, surgeons should personally communicate with at least one of the mental health professionals to verify the authenticity of their letters.

Prior to performing any surgical procedures, the surgeon should have all medical conditions appropriately monitored and the effects of the hormonal treatment upon the liver and other organ systems investigated. This can be done alone or in conjunction with medical colleagues. Since pre-existing conditions may complicate genital reconstructive surgeries, surgeons must also be competent in urological diagnosis. The medical record should contain written informed consent for the particular surgery to be performed. 

XI. Breast Surgery

Breast augmentation and removal are common operations, easily obtainable by the general public for a variety of indications. Reasons for these operations range from cosmetic indications to cancer. Although breast appearance is definitely important as a secondary sex characteristic, breast size or presence are not involved in the legal definitions of sex and gender and are not important for reproduction. The performance of breast operations should be considered with the same reservations as beginning hormonal therapy. Both produce relatively irreversible changes to the body.

The approach to male-to-female patients is different than for female-to-male patients. For female-to-male patients, a mastectomy procedure is usually the first surgery performed for success in gender presentation as a man; and for some patients it is the only surgery undertaken. When the amount of breast tissue removed requires skin removal, a scar will result and the patient should be so informed. Female-to-male patients may have surgery at the same time they begin hormones. For male-to-female patients, augmentation mammoplasty may be performed if the physician prescribing hormones and the surgeon have documented that breast enlargement after undergoing hormone treatment for 18 months is not sufficient for comfort in the social gender role.

XII. Genital Surgery

Eligibility Criteria. These minimum eligibility criteria for various genital surgeries equally apply to biologic males and females seeking genital surgery. They are:

Legal age of majority in the patient's nation;

Usually 12 months of continuous hormonal therapy for those without a medical contraindication (see below "Can Surgery Be Provided Without Hormones and the Real-life Experience");

12 months of successful continuous full time real-life experience. Periods of returning to the original gender may indicate ambivalence about proceeding and generally should not be used to fulfill this criterion;

If required by the mental health professional, regular responsible participation in psychotherapy throughout the real life experience at a frequency determined jointly by the patient and the mental health professional. Psychotherapy per se is not an absolute eligibility criterion for surgery;

Demonstrable knowledge of the cost, required lengths of hospitalizations, likely complications, and post-surgical rehabilitation requirements of various surgical approaches;

Awareness of different competent surgeons.

Readiness Criteria. The readiness criteria include:

Demonstrable progress in consolidating one’s gender identity;

Demonstrable progress in dealing with work, family, and interpersonal issues resulting in a significantly better state of mental health; this implies satisfactory control of problems such as sociopathy, substance abuse, psychosis, suicidality, for instance).

Can Surgery Be Provided Without Hormones and the Real-life Experience? Individuals cannot receive genital surgery without meeting the eligibility criteria. Genital surgery is a treatment for a diagnosed gender identity disorder, and should undertaken only after careful evaluation. Genital surgery is not a right that must be granted upon request. The SOC provide for an individual approach for every patient; but this does not mean that the general guidelines, which specify treatment consisting of diagnostic evaluation, possible psychotherapy, hormones, and real life experience, can be ignored. However, if a person has lived convincingly as a member of the preferred gender for a long period of time and is assessed to be a psychologically healthy after a requisite period of psychotherapy, there is no inherent reason that he or she must take hormones prior to genital surgery.

Conditions under which Surgery May Occur. Genital surgical treatments for persons with a diagnosis of gender identity disorder are not merely another set of elective procedures. Typical elective procedures only involve a private mutually consenting contract between a patient and a surgeon. Genital surgeries for individuals diagnosed as having GID are to be undertaken only after a comprehensive evaluation by a qualified mental health professional. Genital surgery may be performed once written documentation that a comprehensive evaluation has occurred and that the person has met the eligibility and readiness criteria. By following this procedure, the mental health professional, the surgeon and the patient share responsibility of the decision to make irreversible changes to the body.

Requirements for the Surgeon Performing Genital Reconstruction. The surgeon should be a urologist, gynecologist, plastic surgeon or general surgeon, and Board-Certified as such by a nationally known and reputable association. The surgeon should have specialized competence in genital reconstructive techniques as indicated by documented supervised training with a more experienced surgeon. Even experienced surgeons in this field must be willing to have their therapeutic skills reviewed by their peers. Surgeons should attend professional meetings where new techniques are presented.

Ideally, the surgeon should be knowledgeable about more than one of the surgical techniques for genital reconstruction so that he or she, in consultation with the patient, will be able to choose the ideal technique for the individual patient. When surgeons are skilled in a single technique, they should so inform their patients and refer those who do not want or are unsuitable for this procedure to another surgeon.

Genital Surgery for the Male-to-Female Patient. Genital surgical procedures may include orchiectomy, penectomy, vaginoplasty, clitoroplasty, and labiaplasty. These procedures require skilled surgery and postoperative care. Techniques include penile skin inversion, pedicled rectosigmoid transplant, or free skin graft to line the neovagina. Sexual sensation is an important objective in vaginoplasty, along with creation of a functional vagina and acceptable cosmesis.

Other Surgery for the Male-to-Female Patient. Other surgeries that may be performed to assist feminization include reduction thyroid chondroplasty, suction-assisted lipoplasty of the waist, rhinoplasty, facial bone reduction, face-lift, and blepharoplasty. These do not require letters of recommendation from mental health professionals.

There are concerns about the safety and effectiveness of voice modification surgery and more follow-up research should be done prior to widespread use of this procedure. In order to protect their vocal cords, patients who elect this procedure should do so after all other surgeries requiring general anesthesia with intubation are completed.

Genital Surgery for the Female-to-Male Patient. Genital surgical procedures may include hysterectomy, salpingo-oophorectomy, vaginectomy, metoidioplasty, scrotoplasty, urethroplasty, placement of testicular prostheses, and phalloplasty. Current operative techniques for phalloplasty are varied. The choice of techniques may be restricted by anatomical or surgical considerations. If the objectives of phalloplasty are a neophallus of good appearance, standing micturition, sexual sensation, and/or coital ability, the patient should be clearly informed that there are several separate stages of surgery and frequent technical difficulties which may require additional operations. Even metoidioplasty, which in theory is a one-stage procedure for construction of a microphallus, often requires more than one surgery. The plethora of techniques for penis construction indicates that further technical development is necessary.

Other Surgery for the Female-to-Male Patient. Other surgeries that may be performed to assist masculinization include liposuction to reduce fat in hips, thighs and buttocks. 

XIII. Post-Transition Follow-up

Long-term postoperative follow-up is encouraged in that it is one of the factors associated with a good psychosocial outcome. Follow-up is important to the patient's subsequent anatomic and medical health and to the surgeon's knowledge about the benefits and limitations of surgery.

Long-term follow-up with the surgeon is recommended in all patients to ensure an optimal surgical outcome. Surgeons who operate on patients who are coming from long distances should include personal follow-up in their care plan and attempt to ensure affordable, local, long-term aftercare in the patient's geographic region. Postoperative patients may also sometimes exclude themselves from follow-up with the physician prescribing hormones, not recognizing that these physicians are best able to prevent, diagnose and treat possible long term medical conditions that are unique to hormonally and surgically treated patients. Postoperative patients should undergo regular medical screening according to recommended guidelines for their age. The need for follow-up extends to the mental health professional, who having spent a longer period of time with the patient than any other professional, is in an excellent position to assist in any post-operative adjustment difficulties.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Trump and 18 allies charged in Georgia election meddling (AP) Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, with prosecutors using a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power. The nearly 100-page indictment details dozens of acts by Trump or his allies to undo his defeat, including beseeching Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to find enough votes for him to win the battleground state; harassing a state election worker who faced false claims of fraud; and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump. The indictment bookends a remarkable crush of criminal cases—four in five months, each in a different city.

Horrifying numbers of Americans will not make it to old age (Economist) Walk into the Rebound recovery centre, on the Main Street of Hazard, Kentucky, a small Appalachian coalmining town, and you will get an instantly friendly welcome. Yet the stories you hear are bleak. On a white board at the end of the room, the names of former clients who have died of overdoses in the past few years are listed. Though the town has a population of just 5,000, there are at least 20 names. James Colwell, a 33-year-old former heroin addict, who has been clean for eight years, and who now works at the centre, says that the toll keeps growing. Heroin addiction is actually less common than it used to be, he says, thanks in part to the proliferation of treatment. The problem is that “everyone is on meth. And they’re putting fentanyl in the pills.” In the past 20 years, on economic measures, America has outperformed other rich countries. Over that period, median wages grew by 25%, compared with just 17% in Germany. Managers at Buc-ee’s, a Texas-based chain of stores, can make more than experienced doctors earn in Britain. But on a more fundamental measure of wellness—how long people live—America is falling behind. In the past few years, according to some estimates, life expectancy in China overtook that in America. According to a study by Jessica Ho of the University of Southern California, published last year, which looked at 18 high-income countries, from a fairly average position in 1980, by 2018 America had fallen to dead last on life expectancy. What is killing Americans so much more? Ask almost any public-health expert, and they will point to the huge burden of poor health.

Kansas police raid small-town local newspaper, setting off a press freedoms clash (The Week) Police in Marion, Kansas, raided the weekly local newspaper, The Marion County Record, on August 11, seizing computers, files, and personal cellphones in connection with a dispute with a local restaurateur. The Marion police also raided the homes of City Council member Ruth Herbel and the Record's co-owners, editor and publisher Eric Meyer and his 98-year-old mother, Joan. Joan Meyer died Saturday, and her son said the police raid the previous day was partially responsible for her death. The raids set off a national uproar over press freedoms and roiled Marion, a town of 1,900 about 60 miles north of Wichita. Meyer said the Record was actively investigating the town’s police chief, Gideon Cody, over allegations from his long career with the Kansas City Police Department, but had not pinned down enough details to publish anything. Meyer said Cody did not know the Record's sources for the serious allegations against him before the raid—but he does now.

Ecuador was calm and peaceful. Now hitmen, kidnappers and robbers walk the streets (AP) Belen Diaz was walking home from college one evening when a motorcycle carrying two men made a menacing U-turn. Terrified that she was about to be robbed for the eighth time in three years, the teaching student banged on a cab window until the driver drove her home. Diaz got away safe, but there was an unrelated fatal shooting the next day outside her gated community of two-story homes on the edge of the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil. Ecuador was one of the calmest countries in Latin America until about three years ago. Today, criminals prowl relatively wealthy and working-class neighborhoods alike: professional hitmen, kidnappers, extortionists and thousands of thieves and robbers. Mexican and Colombian cartels have settled into coastal cities like Guayaquil and grabbed chunks of the trade shipping hundreds of millions of dollars of cocaine from neighboring Colombia and Peru to countries overseas.

Argentine outsider Javier Milei posts shock win in primary election (Reuters) Argentine voters punished the country’s two main political forces in a primary election on Sunday, pushing a rock-singing libertarian outsider candidate into first place in a huge shake-up in the race towards presidential elections in October. With some 90% of ballots counted, libertarian economist Javier Milei had 30.5% of the vote, far higher than predicted, with the main conservative opposition bloc behind on 28% and the ruling Peronist coalition in third place on 27%. The result is a stinging rebuke to the center-left Peronist coalition and the main Together for Change conservative opposition bloc with inflation at 116% and a cost-of-living crisis leaving four in 10 people in poverty.

Mudslide in the Italian Alps coats city streets in muck (AP) Rescue crews in an Italian Alpine city were searching Monday for missing people and clearing mud-caked roads after a mountain mudslide sent water and debris pouring into town, bursting riverbanks. Authorities said all residents were accounted for. The streets of Bardonecchia, a city near Turin in the Val di Susa mountain valley, were coated in thick gray mud following the violent mudslides late Sunday. Witness video showed a huge wave of dirt and debris toppling a gate and residents running away as the muck rushed down a city street; other videos showed thick mud coursing through the river banks that pass through town. Located at 1,300 meters (4,265 feet), Bardonecchia is a popular destination in the Italian Alps for both winter mountain sports and summer hiking, and several rivers, streams, creeks and tributaries feed into it.

Russia’s currency crisis (Foreign Policy) Russia’s Central Bank announced on Monday that it will convene an emergency meeting on Tuesday after the ruble fell to a 16-month low against the U.S. dollar—indicating that Western sanctions and international isolation over Russia’s war in Ukraine are taking a bite out of the country’s economy. According to new central bank data, the ruble is trading at a rate just above 101 to the U.S. dollar—a value loss of around 30 percent since the year began. This marks the Kremlin’s weakest currency level since Russia invaded Ukraine more than 18 months ago.

Russian warship fires warning shots at cargo ship in Black Sea (Reuters) A Russian warship on Sunday fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the southwestern Black Sea as it made its way northwards, the first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark UN-brokered grain deal last month. Firing on a merchant vessel will ratchet up already acute concerns among shipowners, insurers and commodity traders about the potential dangers of getting ensnared in the Black Sea—the main route that both Ukraine and Russia use to get their agricultural produce to market. Russia and Ukraine are two of the world’s top agricultural producers, and major players in the wheat, barley, maize, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed and sunflower oil markets. Russia is also dominant in the fertiliser market. Since Russia left the Black Sea grain deal, both Moscow and Kyiv have issued warnings and carried out attacks that have sent jitters through global commodity, oil and shipping markets. Russia has said it will treat any ships approaching Ukrainian ports as potential military vessels, and their flag countries as combatants on the Ukrainian side.

To bury its dead, Ukraine is having to dig up victims of past wars (Economist) So many people have been killed in the war that in Lviv, in western Ukraine, the latest victims are displacing the dead from wars past. On August 4th, Vitaly Chekovsky’s family looked on sadly as he was buried with two comrades, in a military section of the city’s historic Lychakiv cemetery. The sandy earth where they buried him was soft and loose. Until only weeks ago his grave had been the resting place of someone else. At the Lychakiv cemetery, Mr Chekovksy was the 507th to be buried since the invasion began on February 24th, 2022. At first the dead were buried in another part of the cemetery, but space quickly ran out, so the cemetery turned instead to a grassy slope where a war memorial had been built in the 1970s, while Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. As the rows of graves marched up the hill, the gravediggers unexpectedly found skeletons from past wars. In 1915 the Russians, who were then in brief occupation of Lviv during the first world war, opened a cemetery nearby for Austro-Hungarian troops. Eventually more than 4,700 were buried there. In the interwar years, the Poles, now in control of the city, began exhuming them. In 1946 the Soviets, who had subsequently seized Lviv from the Poles, began razing the old Austro-Hungarian cemetery, and since then civilians have been buried there. On the other side of the Lychakiv cemetery lie Poles who died fighting the Ukrainians for control of Lviv in 1919-20, and after that the Red Army. A monument now looks down on the tombs of Ukrainians who fought the Russians after 2014, as well as those who died fighting the Soviets during and after the second world war.

Power cuts, heatwave disrupt lives of sick Gazans (Reuters) A heatwave and worsening power cuts in Gaza have left some of those living in the overcrowded Palestinian enclave struggling to breathe. Ismail Nashwan, who suffers from pulmonary fibrosis, has had to shuttle between his home and hospital since temperatures rose over 38 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), because he could not run his ventilator, or even just a fan, at home. “I go to the hospital, and when I come back home the electricity goes off again so I go back into the hospital,” Nashwan, 65, said through an oxygen mask, with dozens of bags of medicines on a table next to breathing equipment in his room. More than 2.3 million people live in a narrow strip of land squeezed between Egypt and Israel. Power cuts, which are unpredictable at the best of times, now last for around 12 hours a day instead of 10 as demand for air conditioning soars. The Islamist group Hamas, which has run the territory since 2007, blames a 16-year-long Israeli blockade—backed up by neighbouring Egypt—for devastating Gaza’s economy. Israel says its blockade is necessary to stop arms reaching Hamas.

High treason charge for former president of Niger (Foreign Policy) Niger’s military junta charged ousted President Mohamed Bazoum with high treason on Sunday for trying to derail peace negotiation efforts through his exchanges with foreign leaders and international organizations. He was also charged with threatening the country’s internal and external security. If found guilty, Bazoum could face the death penalty. Since the West African nation’s coup on July 26, Bazoum and his family have been held captive in the presidential palace, where reports indicate he is running out of food and living without electricity, water, or medical attention.

South Africa’s unemployment (AP) Lebohang Mphuthi works amid the chaos of boisterous children during a lunch break at the Omar H.S. Ebrahim elementary school in South Africa. Four years after graduating with a degree in analytical chemistry, the only work the 26-year-old has found is as a student assistant at a public school in Pretoria. Her responsibilities include handing out meals to the children and limiting the chaos as best she can. Mphuthi’s story mirrors those of so many young South African graduates sitting at home jobless or trying to make ends meet doing fairly menial jobs in a country with a 33% official unemployment rate. It’s a figure badly at odds with the status of a nation meant to embody the aspirations of Africa and the developing world. In a South African context, Mphuthi might be considered lucky with the $215 she earns a month. South Africa has the highest unemployment rate in the world, according to the World Bank, outstripping Gaza and the West Bank, Djibouti and Kosovo. When it comes to youth unemployment, the rate is 61% of 15- to 24-year-olds, according to official statistics, and a staggering 71% if you again count those who are no longer trying.

[mikeo56]

In Marion, Kansas, yesterday morning, four local police officers and three sheriff’s deputies raided the office of the Marion County Record newspaper; the home of its co-owners, Eric Meyer and his 98 year old mother, Joan Meyer; and the home of Marion vice mayor Ruth Herbel, 80. They seized computers, cell phones, and other equipment. Joan Meyer was unable to eat or sleep after the raid; she collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home.

The search warrant alleged there was probable cause to believe the newspaper, its owners, or the vice mayor had committed identity theft and unlawful computer acts against restaurant owner Kari Newell, but Magistrate Laura Viar appears to have issued that warrant without any affidavit of wrongdoing on which to base it. Sherman Smith, Sam Bailey, Rachel Mipro, and Tim Carpenter of the nonprofit news service Kansas Reflector reported that federal law protects journalists from search and seizure and requires law enforcement instead to subpoena materials they want.

On August 2, Newell had thrown Meyer and a Marion County Record reporter out of a meeting with U.S. Representative Jake LaTurner (R-KS), and the paper had run a story on the incident. Newell had complained on her personal Facebook page, 

On August 7, Newell publicly accused the newspaper of illegally getting information about a drunk-driving charge against her and giving it to Herbel. Eric Meyer says the information—which was accurate—was sent to him and Herbel over social media and that he decided not to publish it out of concerns it was leaked to help Newell’s estranged husband in divorce proceedings. Those same concerns made him take the story to local police. Newell accused the newspaper of violating her rights and called Meyer to accuse him of identity theft.

Meyer told journalist Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket that the paper was also investigating the new police chief for sexual misconduct, and he noted that the identities of people making those allegations are on the computers that got seized. “I may be paranoid that this has anything to do with it,” Meyer told Kabas, “but when people come and seize your computer, you tend to be a little paranoid.”  

On Friday, Newell wrote on her Facebook page: “Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths…. We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.” 

Meyer worked at the Milwaukee Journal for 20 years and then taught journalism at the University of Illinois, retiring from there. He doesn’t take a salary from the Marion County Record. He told Kabas, “I’m doing this because I believe that newspapers still have a place in the world and that the worst thing that a newspaper could do was shrink its reporting staff, stop reporting, fill itself with non-news when there’s still news out there. And if you do a good job of providing news, you will get readers…. [W]e’re doing this because we care about the community.” 

He said he worries that people are afraid to participate in politics because “there’s gonna be consequences and they’re going to be negative.” 

The Marion County Record will sue the city and the individuals involved in the raid, which, the paper wrote in its coverage, “legal experts contacted were unanimous in saying violated multiple state and federal laws, including the U.S. Constitution, and multiple court rulings.” “Our first priority is to be able to publish next week,” Meyer said, “but we also want to make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed today. We will be seeking the maximum sanctions possible under law.” 

Executive director of the Kansas Press Association Emily Bradbury noted “An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know. This cannot be allowed to stand.”

Americans have taken up this cause before. In 1836 the House of Representatives passed a resolution preventing Congress from taking up any petition, memorial, resolution, proposition, or paper relating “in any way, or to any extent whatsoever, to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery.” This “gag rule” outraged antislavery northerners. Rather than quieting their objections to enslavement, they increased their discussion of slavery and stood firm on their right to those discussions. 

In that same year, newspaperman Elijah P. Lovejoy, who had been publishing antislavery articles in the St. Louis Observer, decided to move from the slave state of Missouri across the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois. He suggested to his concerned neighbors that his residence in a free state would enable him to write more about religion than about slavery. But, he added in a statement to them, “As long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write and to publish whatever I please, being amenable to the laws of my country for the same.”

Lovejoy became a symbol of the freedom of the press.

When “a committee of five citizens” in Alton, appointed by “a public meeting,” asked Lovejoy if he intended to print sentiments to which they objected, he refused to “admit that the liberty of the press and freedom of speech, were rightfully subject to other supervision and control, than [the laws of] the land.” He reminded them that “‘the liberty of our forefathers has given us the liberty of speech,’ and that it is ‘our duty and high privilege, to act and speak on all questions touching this great commonwealth.’” “[E]very thing having a tendency to bring this right into jeopardy, is eminently dangerous as a precedent,” he said. 

Popular pressure had proved unable to make Lovejoy stop writing, and on August 21, 1837, a mob drove off the office staff of the Alton Observer by throwing rocks through the windows. Then, as soon as the staff had fled, the mob broke into the newspaper’s office and destroyed the press and all the type. 

On August 24, Lovejoy asked his supporters to help him buy another press. They did. But no sooner had it arrived than a gang of ten or twelve “ruffians” broke into the warehouse where it had been stored for the night and threw it into the river. 

When yet another press arrived in early November, Lovejoy had it placed in a warehouse on the riverbank. That night, about thirty men attacked the building, demanding the press be handed over to them. The men inside refused and fired into the crowd, wounding some of the attackers. The mob pulled back but then returned with ladders that enabled them to set fire to the building’s roof. When Lovejoy stepped out of the building to see where the attackers were hiding, a man shot him dead. As the rest of the men in the warehouse ran to safety, the mob rushed into the building and threw the press out of the window. It broke to pieces when it hit the shore, and the men threw the pieces into the Mississippi River.

But the story did not end there. Elijah Lovejoy’s younger brother, Owen, saw Elijah shot. "I shall never forsake the cause that has been sprinkled with my brother's blood," he declared. He and another brother wrote the Memoir of Elijah P. Lovejoy, impressing on readers the importance of what they called “liberty of the press” in the discussion of public issues. 

Owen then turned to politics, and in 1854 he was elected to the Illinois state legislature to stand against those southerners who had silenced his brother. The following year, voters elected him to Congress. His increasing prominence brought him political friends, including an up-and-coming lawyer who had arrived in Illinois from Kentucky by way of Indiana, Abraham Lincoln. 

[moonieshinesims]

Generation One - Chapter Eighteen

At Sayaka's funeral, River met with one of her Komorebigo Vampire associates. An agreement was made between the two of them in order for her to obtain more information about the Komorebigo crime circuit. Hopefully, with his help, she'll find herself closer to Ichiban. Until then, she and her friends have to contend with finals!

"Wow! I have to work really hard to get B's!" Fig smiled, "That's my little sister though! So smart!"

River smiled, thinking that Fig often acted more like her little sister instead.

Studying was going well, but in a few days Spooky Fest was happening, so studying would have to go on pause!

In some cultures, Spooky Day was more about remembrance than being scared. So, she thought she'd do something for Cassandra, since she still seemed down about Sayaka.

On the night of Spooky Day, River wanted to carve a pumpkin to go along with all of her friend's.

It didn't go as smoothly as she figured it would.

River, while still not completely over her party-PTSD, willingly went to the Spooky Day party with her friends, but ended up leaving early.

That was okay with her, after all, while Ako was out investigating for her, she was going to do her own research. She remembered that after Joe was killed, Rohan, his right hand man, had slowly faded out of existence in town.

Rowan then suddenly became more friendly towards River, almost like she felt bad. Probably because her brother had been involved in Joe's psycho plot. Whatever that was.

She wondered if Rowan knew anything about Rohan's whereabouts and figured they should meet up for a chat.

Rowan answered almost immediately with a "For sure! :)"

Things were now in motion...

River went in for her finals about two weeks later.

Then the following week the girls had their last breakfast together before the holiday break.

"I'm so excited!" Fig waved her arms in the air.

"I am too actually!" River said.

"I'm... not exactly looking forward to the full house that awaits me, but I'm still looking forward to spending time with my dad and brother." Havarti sighed.

"Well, why do you look so glum Cassandra?"

"I just found out the other day that my dad has a new girlfriend..."

River and Havarti exchanged shocked looks. Mortimer Goth was dating someone? He was notorious for being deathly in love with his late wife Bella! How was that possible?

"Who is it?" Havarti asked.

"Amber Berry... Opal and Meyer's mom."

"WHAT?!" River nearly spilled coffee everywhere. "First, Havarti becomes step siblings with Malibu Waterson, and now you're gonna be related to the Berrys!"

"We gotta find someone for your mom to marry next." Havarti said jokingly, "Who do you want as your new step-sibling?"

"It's not funny!" Cassandra said, clearly very upset. "This is gonna be so weird!"

While River was excited to go home, she couldn't help but feel sorry for Cassandra. First Sayaka's death, and now her dad's new girlfriend... Hopefully the next year would be a better one for her!

[honeyleesblog]

July 4 ZODIAC

An agreeable climate is the first and most significant state of bliss for that individual. Since they are incredibly touchy, with extraordinary strength and diligence, albeit very aloof. However long they conquer that lack of involvement, they can accomplish extraordinary action, show significant capacities, and achieve significant power. Fit for carrying on with work, they appreciate logical investigations and show strict inclinations. They likewise show critical expertise in manual work. They stay consistent with their life standards and objectives: they can be extremely cautious, far-located, and parsimonious. They are much of the time considered ravenous for that. Steady and persevering: they could in fact be savage. They have serious areas of strength for an of their own distinction, yet they frequently have next to no solidarity to show it throughout everyday life. His incredible aversion to mind-sets is joined with exceptional ambiguity. They likewise tend to dejection and experience influxes of despairing, with frequently damaging inclinations. It ought to be added that they are by and large intense, pleased and merciless individuals, with little respect for other people. What would it be advisable for them to desire? To assume command over their negative impulses that push them towards mercilessness. In the event that they can't do that, they could be in danger for life perils. What compromises them? Allow their foes to sort out against them, which will make them bomb in the last piece of their lives.

July 4 ZODIAC 

 Assuming your birthday is July 4, your zodiac sign is Disease

fourth of July - character and character character: astute, genuine, enthusiastic, touchy, proud, fastidious calling: dramatist, author, spy tones: cream, brown, beige stone: lapis lazuli creature: slug plant: Spiderwort plant fortunate numbers: 2,21,33,46,53,57 very fortunate number: 15 Occasions and Observances - July 4 Argentina: Public Day of Conjunction and Majority of Political Articulations, honoring the notable goodbye message to the late Leader of the Country General Juan Domingo Perდ³n conveyed by Dr. Ricardo Balbდ­n. Colombia: Illustrator's Day. Mexico: Acდ¡mbaro, Guanajuato. Supporter Holy person Celebrations out of appreciation for the Virgin of the Asylum of Miscreants. Venezuela: Planner's Day. Argentina: Rustic Specialist's Day, honoring the introduction of Dr. Esteban Maradona. US: Autonomy Day. fourth of July VIP Birthday. Who was conceived that very day as you? 1902: Meyer Lansky, Jewish-American mobster (d. 1983). 1907: Gordon Griffith, associate chief, film maker and American entertainer (d. 1958). 1910: Gloria Stuart, American entertainer, who played the elderly person in the film Titanic) (d. 2010). 1911: Mitch Mill operator, American artist (d. 2010). 1914: Roberto Escalada, Argentine entertainer (d. 1986). 1917: Manolete, Spanish matador (d. 1947). 1918: Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, Tongan ruler (d. 2006). 1921: Gდ©rard Debreu, French market analyst (d. 2004). 1922: Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo, Dutch painter and printmaker (d. 2010). 1923: Bernard Loomis, American toy engineer (d. 2006). 1924: Eva Marie Holy person, American entertainer. 1925: Cathy Berberian, American artist lyricist (d. 1983). 1926: Alfredo Di Stდ©fano, Hispanic-Argentine soccer player and mentor (f. 2014). 1927: Gina Lollobrigida, Italian entertainer. 1927: Watts Humphrey, American PC researcher (d. 2010). 1927: Neil Simon, American essayist, maker and screenwriter. 1928: Giampiero Boniperti, Italian soccer player and chief. 1929: Darდ­o Castrillდ³n Hoyos, Colombian Ecclesiastical overseer (d. 2018). 1930: Mohamed Demagh, Algerian stone worker. 1931: Stephen Boyd, English entertainer (d. 1977). 1931: Sდ©bastien Japrisot, French producer (d. 2003). 1933: La Prieta Linda, Mexican artist and entertainer. 1934: Carmen Santonja, Spanish artist and arranger, of the couple Vainica Doble (f. 2000). 1935: Narciso Ibდ¡nez Serrador, Spanish theater chief. 1935: Dunav Kuzmanich, Chilean producer, scriptwriter and librettist situated in Colombia (f. 2008). 1937: Sonja Haraldsen, Norwegian blue-blood. 1938: Bill Wilts, American vocalist. 1939: Manuel Summers, Spanish producer (f. 1993). 1940: Miguel დ?ngel Estrella, Argentine musician. 1941: Hugo Henrდ­quez, Ecuadorian artist (d. 2012). 1941: Sergio Oliva, Cuban weight lifter (d. 2012). 1943: Alan Christie Wilson, American artist, of the band Canned Head (d. 1970). 1948: Renდ© Arnoux, French Equation 1 driver. 1949: Pedro Antonio Martდ­n Marდ­n, Spanish government official and financial specialist. 1949: Horst Seehofer, German lawmaker, serve leader of Bavaria. 1952: დ?lvaro Uribe, Colombian president somewhere in the range of 2002 and 2010. 1959: Victoria Abril, Spanish entertainer. 1960: Roland Ratzenberger, Austrian Recipe 1 driver (d. 1994). 1961: Ana Acosta, Argentine entertainer and humorist. 1963: Ute Lemper, German vocalist. 1965: Horace Award, American b-ball player. 1967: Vinicio Castilla, Mexican baseball player. 1969: Martin Schmidt, German judoka. 1969: Elena Arzak, Spanish cook. 1970: Alberto Ardines, Spanish drums, of the groups Avalanch and Sauze. 1970: Tony Vidmar, Australian footballer. 1971: Koko, a gorilla prepared to speak with signs. 1972: Nina Badriე‡, Croatian pop vocalist, agent of Croatia in Eurovision 2012. 1972: Marcel Curuchet, Uruguayan performer, from the band No te Va a Gustar (f. 2012). 1972: Alexდ©i Shდ­rov, Latvian chess player. 1973: Camui Gackt, Japanese artist, of the band Noxiousness Mizer. 1973: Jan Magnussen, Danish motorsport driver. 1973: Ana Marდ­a Orozco, Colombian entertainer. 1975: Tania Davis, Australian violist, of the Bond band. 1976: Daijiro Kato, Japanese bike racer (d. 2003). 1978: Emile Mpenza, Belgian footballer. 1978: Becki Newton, American entertainer. 1979: Renny Vega, Venezuelan soccer player. 1980: Marc Lieb, German motorsport driver. 1982: Vladimir Gusev, Russian cyclist. 1982: Hannah Harper, English pornography entertainer. 1983: Miguel დ?ngel Munoz, Spanish entertainer. 1983: Miguel Pinto, Chilean soccer player. 1984: Jazmდ­n De Grazia, Argentine model (f. 2012). 1985: Wason Renteria, Colombian footballer. 1988: Angelique Boyer, French-Mexican entertainer. 1990: Fredo Santana, American rapper (f. 2018). 1992: დ"scar Romero Villamayor and დ?ngel Romero Villamayor, Paraguayan footballers. 1995: Bautista Merlini, Argentine soccer player. 1999: Moa Kikuchi, model, entertainer, vocalist and Japanese artist.

[dustedmagazine]

Michiko Ogawa & Lucy Railton — Fragments of Reincarnation (Another Timbre)

fragments of reincarnation by Michiko Ogawa & Lucy Railton

The Berlin-based Harmonic Space Orchestra takes its name from a concept devised by the late James Tenney. He posited that harmony could be understood not as the limited, mathematically irrational system derived from equal temperament (your standard western tuning system), but a potentially infinite thing comprising mathematically rationale intervals. Its members meet weekly, and collaborate with each other on the development and realization of work made using just intonation and associated tuning systems. Fragments of Reincarnation, which was made by HSO colleagues Michiko Ogawa and Lucy Railton, investigates when different tuning systems coincide.

Both musicians are immigrants, who have found in Berlin a place where community and opportunity conspire to make it possible to get experimental work done. In Ogawa’s case, she has found the freedom to shift evolve from being a classical clarinetist into a more self-directed and less fixed musical identity. On this album she plays sho, a mouth organ traditionally used in Gagaku music, and a beat-up Hammond organ that was rescued gravestone-maker’s workshop and currently resides in her apartment. The long tones she plays on each throughout this peace require patience, precision, and responsiveness to outside influences, but not the virtuosity that a person who plays clarinet in a conventional orchestra must maintain if they want to keep their job. The sho, which was recorded first in performance with Railton, is tuned for Gagaku (a long-standing form of art music), and the Hammond, which was subsequently overdubbed, is in equal temperament modified by its mechanical decrepitude. Railton plays cello, which of course can be retuned as it is played.

The progress of the music is dictated by the duo’s intent to explore what happens when tunings are juxtaposed. Elaborate melodies are out of the question, since they’d just get in the way of the consonances and dissonances that result when sounds from different tunings manifest in the same space.  The vibrations of sho and organ create a psychoactive sonic space that corresponds to Tenney’s conception of harmony. Said space is simultaneously evident and insubstantial, like air currents flowing over the listener’s head. Railton’s contributions arc through that space, refracting Ogawa’s long-held chords so that one’s attention will be drawn to the roiling eddies left in her wake. It’s a zone eminently suitable for zoning out.

Bill Meyer

[libertyprivateinvestigations01]

All About Advanced Private Investigations in Florida

Private investigators in Florida must hold a license from the state for advanced private investigations. They can be employed by corporations or private citizens and they perform surveillance to find out facts about people or to investigate suspicious activity. In addition to obtaining a license, they are required to complete a background check and undergo training. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DECAS) oversees private investigator licensing in the state.

To become a licensed PI, an applicant must first apply for a Class C Private Investigator License. This requires that the applicant have at least two years of experience in full-time private investigative activities. A license is issued by the Division of Licensing, which is a division of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Applicants must also pass the Florida Private Investigator exam, which is administered by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. If the applicant is armed, they must have a separate firearms license.

An individual wishing to obtain a Class "CC" Private Investigator Intern license must also complete forty hours of professional training. These hours must be completed by a school that is approved by the Department of Education. Applicants will also need to obtain a contract with a Licensed Class C Private Investigator, who will act as their mentor and sponsor.

Those interested in learning more about private investigations can visit the website of the Florida Association of Licensed Investigators, which is a membership group that works to promote private investigators in the state. It also offers networking for PIs in Florida.

PIs in Florida can earn an average salary of $43,980. Some of the highest paid PIs are in the Cape Coral-Fort Meyers area. There are currently 2,160 private investigators in the state, with 330 job openings expected in 2019.

Florida private investigators are trained to conduct surveillance operations in order to find out facts about someone or to investigate suspicious activities. As a business, you may need to monitor your employees, or you could have concerns about the activities of a loved one. Both scenarios require knowledge, but the knowledge can help you make the best decisions possible.

Florida PIs can find out if a business is being fraudulent, if a company is stealing proprietary information, or if a person is embezzling money. They can also conduct additional records, including names, addresses, and parcel numbers. Having an investigation done by a Florida licensed PI can provide you with the peace of mind you need.

With a Florida license, you will be able to work with a variety of clients, from professional athletes to everyday citizens. Your information will be kept confidential and you will be able to enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you are helping your community. By completing the necessary education and training, you can be an effective and valuable member of the private investigative industry. You can learn more about private investigation and get started on your path to becoming a Licensed PI today.

[ledenews]

Science in Action – Student Research Symposium Showcases Findings on Important Topics

Combating diseases, studying dangerous pathogens, identifying diversity in wildlife, and measuring the effects of invasive species were all topics explored by students and showcased at West Liberty University’s 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Symposium. The annual symposium took place Friday, July 12 at the Academic, Sports and Recreation Complex (ASRC) and marked the culmination of nine-week research projects conducted by undergraduate students in the College of Sciences. This year, twelve students presented their research and findings to an audience of family, faculty, staff and fellow students.  “The SURE Symposium is science in action,” remarks Dr. Deanna Schmitt, Associate Professor of Biology, student advisor and event organizer. “These projects provide students the opportunity to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to develop questions, and to answer them through scientific research,” she adds.  Perhaps most importantly, students see how their findings can have a broader impact on the world around them, leading to further study, potential new treatments and vaccines, species survival, better environmental practices, and more. Zoo Science major Hannah Hobbs studied the bacteria Francisella tularensis, a pathogen, which if inhaled, can cause fatal pneumonia. “I’m very proud to have been a part of this research,” exclaims Hobbs. “It’s my hope that what we’ve learned about the VBNC (viable but non-culturable) cells in Francisella tularensis bacteria opens doors for scientists to study more parts of the VBNC state of this cell,” she adds. Faculty advisors guided students through their research and included Dr. Diana Barber, Dr. Stuart Cantlay, Mr. Jeremiah Dann, Dr. Zackary Graham, Dr. Deanna Schmitt, and Dr. Holly Racine. The full list of 2024 SURE Symposium student projects, titles, and authors includes:  Influence of Environmental Factors on Population Density and Growth of an Invasive Earthworm, Authors: Madeline P. Cecil, Alison K. Wyer, Jason E. Ake II, and Mr. Jeremiah Dann Bat Diversity in Developed and Underdeveloped Areas in the West Virginia Northern Panhandle, Authors: Kendra Clark, Brooke Shaffer, and Dr. Diana Barber Foreign leaf litter from invasive exotic plants and its effect on different macroinvertebrate communities in an urbanized, impaired low-order Appalachian creek, Authors: Noah Meyer, Reagan Bally, and James Wood Investigating endolysosomal trafficking of Viable but Non Culturable Francisella tularensis in murine macrophages, Authors: Lakin Plott, Nicole Garrison, and Dr. Stuart Cantlay Role of LpnA and KatG in Francisella tularensis LVS resistance to resazurin, Authors: Haeley Shaffer, Emily Young, Emma Beatty, Mackenzie Hall , Blaze Oxier, Rori Schreiber, Jordan Gibson, Siena McGovern, Claire Kelly, Kendall Souder, Justin Rice, Nicole Garrison, Ryan J. Percifield, Donald A. Primerano, and Dr. Deanna M. Schmitt Spatial Structure and Population Dynamics of Invasive Earthworms in West Liberty University’s Campus Woods, Authors: Alison K. Wyer, Madeline P. Cecil, Jason E. Ake II, and Mr. Jeremiah Dann Building a Better Ambassador: Impact of Experience on the Handleability of Hognose Snakes (Heterodon nasicus), Authors: Brooke Shaffer, Kendra Clark, and Dr. Diana Barber Exaggerated caudal anatomy of Long-tailed Salamanders (Eurycea longicauda), Authors: Tyler Schwisow, Zachary J. Loughman, and Dr. Zackary A. Graham Immunolocalization of peptidoglycan synthesis determinants, FtsZ and MreB in Francisella tularensis, Authors: Hannah Hobbs, Hayden Hess, Joseph Horzempa, and Dr. Stuart Cantlay Assessing Color Vision in Crayfish with Conditioning, Authors: Lydia A. DiBiagio, Katherine Torrance, and Dr. Zackary A. Graham Antimicrobial Activity of Novel Resorufin Analog Against Neisseria gonorrhoeae Clinical Isolates, Authors: Jasper Brown, Mackenzie Hall, Kh. Tanvir Ahmed, Jada Berg, Emily Young, Jordan Gibson, Gregory B. Dudley, and Dr. Deanna M. Schmitt Observed Unicornal Craniosynostosis in an Avian Model of Induced-Thyrotoxicosis, Authors: Lauren P. Baylor, Tyler P. Hill, and Dr. Holly L. Racine  TOPPER-SURE (Training Opportunity for Pre-Professionals, Educators, and Researchers Summer Undergraduate Research Experience), the program’s full name, is funded by a grant from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission’s Division of Science and Research under the direction of Dr. Juliana Serafin. This grant also rewards students with stipends of $3,500 each for their work and to cover housing. West Liberty University blends a small-town environment with a comprehensive college experience, fostering students’ aspirations through hands-on learning, personalized support, and unique academic programs at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Learn more at westliberty.edu. Read the full article

[rexsecuritieslaw]

Matthew A. Siliato- Former Spartan Capital Broker-Barred from Securities Industry-NYC

Matthew A. Siliato- Former Spartan Capital Broker-Barred from Securities Industry-NYC

Matthew A. Siliato Investigation March 2022 -New York The FINRA records of  Matthew Angelo Siliato,  a  former stock broker who was last employed by Spartan Capital Securities disclose 3 regulatory events,  a currently pending customer dispute, 6 prior final customer disputes,  and 2 currently outstanding judgement/liens. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is the agency that…

[thinkingimages]

Gherasim Luca (1913–1994) | Cubomania entitled “Madone du Bourgmestre Meyer (d’après Holbein)”, 1983 Collage of photos on board, mounted on a wood panel, 34.5 x 26 cm ©Beaux-Arts, Paris

Originally from Romania, from the early 1930s Gherasim Luca (1913–1994) formed close links within the French art world, notably among the Surrealists; he settled permanently in France in 1953. Described by Gilles Deleuze as the “greatest poet in the French language,” Luca cultivated “hero-limit” work, to use the title of one of his pieces (“héros-limite,” 1953), where the deconstruction of language is based on the rejection of political, identity, and ethical categories, and reliance—twenty-five years before Deleuze and Félix Guattari—on anti-Oedipal notions. His atypical path, with the creative process is inseparable from his personal life, naturally led him to transcribe his poetic experiments into the visual arts. In addition, particularly from 1945, Luca embarked on a series of collages made from various photos of illustrations, and more significantly, reproductions of paintings, cut into squares of equal dimensions. He glued these squares side by side to form new, original, and surprising images, following a process very much inspired by the Surrealists. He called these works “cubomania,” to invoke the square’s foundational role, but possibly also as a way to mock the heirs of Cubism.

Beyond the Surrealists’ influence and that of the scandalous L.H.O.O.Q by Marcel Duchamp (1919, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris), Luca’s “cubomanias” of Luca staged a personal dialogue with celebrated works of art history, from Leonardo da Vinci to the Van Eyck brothers, Caravaggio to Ingres. In this work, Gherasim Luca’s point of departure is one of the best-known paintings by Hans Holbein, the Darmstadt Madonna (1527), also known as Madonna of the Lord Mayor Jacob Meyer zum Hasen, now held privately and shown in Schwäbisch Hall, but which at the time was on display in the Schlossmuseum Darmstadt. In this work Luca made particularly masterful use of the reproduction and the cropping techniques that make his cubomanias so original, using the leg of the patron’s son twice with different cut-outs, as well as the Virgin’s red belt three times. Recomposed in this way, right-side up or upside down, these figurative details take on a profoundly abstract character, reinforced by the opposition between black and red, in addition to the new continuities that Luca proposes through the association of elements that are identical in size and color. Additionally, the forms extend into the black of the support, suggesting the unfinished nature of the work, to be continued in the viewer’s imagination. Investigations into Luca’s “cubomanias” has particular resonance with the work of Holbein, who is famous for harnessing the dreamlike power of deformation by placing an anamorphosis in the center of is most famous work, The Ambassadors (1533, National Gallery, London).

[eddonegan]

Georg H.W. Bush provider of hitmen to Nixon helped hit JFK RFK. Marcello was hated by RFK, groomed as assasin by Nixon Wild Bill Donovan

The Chicago Outfit

The Pioneer Column was a force raised by Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company in 1890 used for Secret Society rule of world. The #Secretteam of #NWO uses #Mafia for #CIA conquest as though #Mafia #IrregularWarfare #WETDIVISION was marching uniformed military.

The Nixon Tramps 3

Nixon-Rubenstein 1946 Nixon-Sturges 1948 Charles Harrleson with them. Watergate Breakin covers up, G. Gordon Liddy FBI part of assassination.

Frank Anthony Sturgis (December 9, 1924 – December 4, 1993), born Frank Angelo Fiorini, was one of the five Watergate burglars whose capture led to the end of the presidency of Richard Nixon. He served in several branches of the United States military and in the Cuban Revolution of 1958, and worked as an undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. Charles Harrelson was a Mafia contract killer. Jack Rubenstien killed pasty Lee Harvey Oswald who Earle Cabell had setup as alleged JFK hitman.

This is where Robert F. Kennedy was headed, where CD Douglas made his CIA based operations, and has continued to be the Chicago Overthrow source of CIA mafia.

The Chicago Outfit To RFK the Mob as a problem. To Richard Nixon they were secret assets to the CIA.

Ruby had talked with Sam and Joe Campisi and Marcello who had talked in advance of killing JFK and also Candy Barr stripper at Ruby Free Mason Donald Barr CIA Goerge H.W. Bush Free Mason Knight's of Malta and Free Mason J. Edgar Hoover James Angleton, John ulled Alan Dulles Cabell CIA https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?t=5950 Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? (full documentary) | FRONTLINE Oswald an hour late coming down stairs like to get Ruby in position.

A long tradition of organized crime, Lo Cosa Nostra (Sicilian House of Ours) the Kosher Nostra Yiddish Maria of Jack Rubinstein, and mafia available as CIA and FBI assets including Mexican Mafia from Texas and elsewhere.

Nixon had not only Rubinstein and Sam Giacanco and others he had Jimmy Hoffa, coming to Mafia power 1952 Chicago (when Nixon was elected VP) tied to illegal acts and Mafia also Hoffa was tied to gambling Mafia.

But it was in the Soldier Field parking lot in 1961 that Jimmy Hoffa, Teamsters president since 1957, learned how to drive a truck.

There is a possibility Clay Shaw and Marcello were connected in New Orleans through the CIA Mafia

Carlos Joseph Marcello[1] (Italian: [marˈtʃɛllo]; born Calogero Minacore [kaˈlɔːdʒero minaˈkɔːre]; February 6, 1910 – March 3, 1993) was an Italian-American crime boss of the New Orleans crime family from 1947 until the late 1980s.

Aside from his role in the American Mafia, he is also notorious for the reason that G. Robert Blakey and others have alleged that Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante Jr., and Sam Giancana conspired in the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in retaliation for federal investigations and prosecutions that threatened both the power and the multibillion-dollar profits of organized crime.

By the end of 1947, Marcello had taken control of Louisiana's illegal gambling network. He had also joined forces with Genovese crime family associate Meyer Lansky in order to skim money from some of the most important casinos in the New Orleans area shortly after becoming associated with the Todaro family through marriage. According to former members of the Chicago Outfit, Marcello was also assigned a cut of the money skimmed from Las Vegas casinos, in exchange for providing "muscle" in Florida real estate deals. By this time, Marcello had been selected as "The Godfather" of the New Orleans Mafia, by the family's capos and with the approval of The Commission after the deportation of his predecessor, Sylvestro Carolla, to Sicily. He held this position for the next thirty years. In a 1975 extortion trial, two witnesses described Marcello as "The Godfather" of the New Orleans crime syndicate.

Marcello appeared before the U.S. Senate's Kefauver Committee on organized crime on January 25, 1951. He pleaded the Fifth Amendment 152 times. The Committee called Marcello "one of the worst criminals in the country".

Marcello continued the family's long-standing tradition of fierce independence from interference by mafiosi in other areas. He enacted a policy that forbade mafiosi from other families from visiting Louisiana without first asking permission.

On March 24, 1959, Marcello appeared before the United States Senate's McClellan Committee investigating organized crime. Serving as Chief Counsel to the committee was Robert F. Kennedy; his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy, was a member of the committee. In response to committee questioning, Marcello invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer any questions relating to his background, activities, and associates. From then on, Marcello became an avowed enemy of the Kennedys.

General Wild Bill Donovan recruits Frank Sturgis even before OSS

"On April 14, 1942, William Donovan, as Coordinator of Information (forerunner of the Office of Strategic Services), activated units charged with gathering intelligence, harassing the Japanese through guerrilla actions, identifying targets for the Army Air Force to bomb, and rescuing downed Allied airmen."[4] This was what led to Stilwell's Chinese forces, Wingate's Raiders, Merrill's Marauders, in the war, and Frank got trained in Guerrilla tactics and gathering intelligence which became useful in his later events.

Honorably discharged as a corporal in 1945, he enrolled at Virginia Polytechnic Institute but left college and joined the Norfolk Police Department on June 5, 1946.[6] He soon discovered a corrupt payoff system and brought it to the attention of his superiors, who told him to overlook the illegal activities. On October 5, 1946, he had a confrontation with his sergeant and resigned the same day. For the next 18 months, he managed the Havana-Madrid tavern in Norfolk that catered to foreigners, mostly Cuban merchant seamen.

On November 9, 1947, Fiorini joined the United States Naval Reserve at the Norfolk Naval Air Station and learned to fly while still working at the tavern. He was honorably discharged on August 30, 1948, and joined the United States Army the next day. He was sent immediately to West Berlin, where the USSR had closed the land routes during the Berlin Blockade, and he became a member of General Lucius Clay's honor guard. Two weeks after the USSR reopened the land routes on May 11, 1949, Fiorini was honorably discharged. As a Marine Raider, Fiorini had worked behind enemy lines gathering intelligence, and during his Army tenure in Berlin and Heidelberg, he had a top secret clearance and worked in an intelligence unit whose primary target was the Soviet Union. Fiorini started to believe Russia was a threat, and he became a lifelong militant. Returning to Norfolk in 1952, he took a job managing the Cafe Society tavern, then partnered with its owner, Milton Bass, to co-purchase and manage The Top Hat Nightclub in Virginia Beach.

On September 23, 1952, Frank Fiorini filed a petition in the Circuit Court of the City of Norfolk, Virginia, to change his name to Frank Anthony Sturgis, adopting the surname of his stepfather Ralph Sturgis, whom his mother had married in 1937. His new name resembled that of Hank Sturgis, the fictional hero of E. Howard Hunt's 1949 novel, Bimini Run, whose life parallels Frank Sturgis' life from 1942 to 1949 in certain salient respects.

Driver`s ed ''I`d drive (the truck) to Soldier Field,'' said Williams, who was convicted at the 1982 trial and has since died.

''It was the largest place and nobody was parked there at night. We did it two, three times a week. Hoffa picked it up quickly. There were no cops. Just five, six of us guys.''

The guys included Donald Peters, the now-retired longtime president of Chicago Local 743, the union`s largest, and perhaps Hoffa`s closest Chicago friend. While visiting grandchildren in the Pacific Northwest last week, Peters recalled evenings outside the stadium`s south end, including testing anti-jackknife and anti-sleep devices.

''Hoffa was always concerned with truckers` safety, with their livers and kidneys,'' Peters said. ''So it was not just teaching him how to drive, but (teaching him) all the new safety features too.''

To hear Hoffa watchers tell it, Chicago was Hoffa`s most frequent stopover after Detroit (home) and Washington (union headquarters). https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-05-20-9202150150-story.html

Nixon Watergate and Hoffa Deal to silence the matter. Richard Nixon & The Mafia Murdered Jimmy Hoffa (USA Labor Union Leader) | Conspiracy: | Channel 5. Nixon reduced Hoffa's sentence. https://youtu.be/1SsYjlcrXN8

Cubans in the USA can be highly patriotic reject the Communistst that overthrew Cuba. Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany or those fleeing communists in Latin America may have inclinations towards political mafi roles and possible be in mafia ridden towns already.

Big Jim Colosimo retrieved from Wikipedia and copied or modified to here

Vincenzo Colosimo (Italian: February 16, 1878 – May 11, 1920), known as James "Big Jim" Colosimo or as "Diamond Jim", was an Italian-American Mafia crime boss who emigrated from Calabria, Italy, in 1895 and built a criminal empire in Chicago based on prostitution, gambling and racketeering. He gained power through petty crime and by heading a chain of brothels. From about 1902 until his death in 1920, he led a gang that became known after his death as the Chicago Outfit.

Colosimo acquired another nickname, "Diamond Jim," because he frequently dressed in a white suit and wore diamond pins, rings and other jewelry.[4] This, combined with his personal charm and money, helped him establish relationships with women. He had a love of both women and money, which fueled his enthusiasm for prostitution. In 1902, Colosimo married Victoria Moresco, an established Chicago madame[6] and together they opened a second brothel. Torrio was the nephew of Moresco. According to Laurence Bergreen, "Torrio is [also] described as Colosimo’s nephew, but in the absence of any evidence to confirm the relationship, it is more likely their kinship was spiritual rather than familial." There are also references to Colosimo's wife being somehow related to John Torrio.[7] Within a few years, Colosimo had expanded this to nearly 200 brothels and had also made inroads into gambling and racketeering.

Among his first brothels were The Victoria, at Archer and Armor avenue, and The Saratoga, at Dearborn and 22nd street.

He was reputedly making $50,000 ($ 720 000 in 2022) per month from his various legal and illegal operations.

Help from New York By 1909, Black Hand extortion was a serious threat to Colosimo in Chicago. He brought in gangster John "The Fox" Torrio from Brooklyn and made him his second in command. The following year, he opened Colosimo's Cafe, a restaurant and nightclub at 2126 South Wabash. It quickly became a popular destination for prominent Chicagoans and visitors to Chicago.[4] In 1919, Torrio and Colosimo opened a brothel at 2222 South Wabash called the Four Deuces, a reference to the address. Torrio hired his old Brooklyn colleague Al Capone to work as a bartender and bouncer, which gave Capone his entry into Chicago crime.

Black Hand was a method of extortion practiced by gangsters of the Camorra and the Mafia.

The roots of the Black Hand can be traced to the Kingdom of Naples as early as the 1750s. The English language term specifically refers to the organization established by Italian immigrants in the United States during the 1880s. Some of the immigrants formed criminal syndicates, living alongside each other and largely victimizing fellow immigrants.

By 1900, Black Hand operations were firmly established in the Italian communities of major cities, including Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, Scranton, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Detroit. In 1907, a Black Hand headquarters was discovered in Hillsville, Pennsylvania, a village located a few miles west of New Castle, Pennsylvania. The Black Hand in Hillsville established a school to train members in the use of the stiletto.[4] Another Black Hand headquarters was later discovered in Boston, Massachusetts.

Pillory epub

[tragica1lyunhip]

The North Atlantic right whale is among the most endangered marine mammals on our planet. Only 350 individuals are left in our oceans, with less than 100 being mature females. You might be asking yourself: why is this number so low?  In short, as is the case for many species of whales, the whaling industry was a major kick-starter for the initial decline in population. As time passes though, science has found more reasons for why we aren’t seeing recovery of the species. 

Today, my goal is to discuss why the foraging behaviour of the North Atlantic right whale is problematic for the future of the species.

Let’s dive in…

The first study I’d like to talk about surrounds one of the North Atlantic right whale’s main energy sources: the copepod species Calanus finmarchicus. In a 2015 study Erin Meyer-Gutbrod and her associates examined the relationship between the birthing rates of the right whales and the availability of C. finmarchicus. To do this, survey estimates of the copepod abundances between Boston and Nova Scotia were provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Data on the right whales themselves were also collected through the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, which has catalogued photos dating back to the 1980s. Photographed whales included in the study consisted of females, where the most effort of the survey was from Florida to Georgia – which is a well-known calving location of the right whales. 

After analysis of the surveys through a reproduction model, which also included various environmental factors like temperature changes, it was found that there was a link between prey availability and North Atlantic right whale calving rates. In years where prey availability was low, calving rates decreased. In the following years, recruitment of viable females was also lower which reflected the low prey availability from years before. This makes sense since viable offspring will need to be nursed. Producing milk while staying in good health is energetically expensive so the mothers need a steady stream of copepods to fuel their activities. Meyer-Gutbrod et al. then made a prediction for the future of the right whales based on a paper that was published shortly before their own findings. In the 2011 Reygondeau & Beaugrand paper it is mentioned that we should expect a northern shift of C. finmarchicus, which could ultimately lead right whales into unprotected waters.

What might happen to the nursing mothers in this case?

Imagine you’re feasting on a meal of copepods - mmm delicious! Soon after you are struck by a boat, and there is really nothing you can do but swim away – ouch, hurts the ego and the body! This is the reality for North Atlantic right whales in Cape Cod Bay (CCB). With global warming, many whales are expected to make their move into waters farther north, and this could include the breeding females if they were to follow the food supply. So, what would this look like? Luckily for us we don’t need to imagine that because Susan Parks and her team completed a study in 2012 that investigated the risk of vessel collision within the CCB right whale population. The initial objective of the study was to determine if the foraging behaviour of the whales in CCB had potentially led to increased deaths over the last 30 years. This was done by tagging whales during springtime in the CCB area with suction cup archival recording devices. The devices allowed Parks et al. to document the behavior of the whales, where the information regarding the distance to the water’s surface was the main interest. Parks and her team also had two methods for tracking the distribution of prey within the area which included a direct survey using a net/pump mechanism (to count and estimate densities of copepod species), and an indirect acoustic backscatter study (which identified scatter as copepods).

As daytime foragers, North Atlantic right whales spend most of their time looking for food; it comes as no surprise that Parks et al. found that the tagged whales spent an astonishing 84% of time near the surface of the water. Through the direct survey of prey diversity, it was found that the most abundant species was, again, C. finmarchicus. High densities of copepods were only found within the 5m of water closest to the surface (through both direct and indirect methods). This correlated to the diving behaviour of the right whales, where they were most often observed to be within 0.5-2.5m of the surface water. Since the waters in CCB don’t merit deep diving, the North Atlantic right whale is especially vulnerable to vessel strikes. The whales stay below the surface so it can be difficult to spot them, but they are close enough to the surface that collisions are common, especially when foraging (visualized in fig. 1).

Figure 1. Diagram depicting a potential right whale/vessel collision based on foraging behaviour outlined in Parks et al. 2012

So, what happens now?

As I have discussed through my blog this semester, foraging is an important part of any lifeform and is especially important for pregnant or nursing marine mammals since they need to provide milk for their young. This happens under strenuous conditions when we’re talking about large mammals at risk of extinction. The North Atlantic right whale is facing many adversities on the quest to repopulate. Climate change and risk of vessel collisions rank as the two leading causes for right whale deaths, but we can only do so much to help them. Right now, the NOAA suggests limiting boat traffic within breeding areas. In my opinion, we should also be increasing protected areas since climate change is pushing a common food source north. We might be too far along to reverse the major effects of climate change, but I believe that we should preserve as much diversity within the populations we still have.

What do you guys think?

For more details check out the papers linked below.

Cheers,

Aly

Meyer-Gutbrod et al. 2015

Reygondeau & Beaugrand 2011

Parks et al. 2012