#The Medical University of South Carolina

[gwydionmisha]

It looked pretty hinky at the time.

[genderqueerpositivity]

Just how many people are transgender in the United States is not clear, but in South Carolina it could be nearly 3,000 children, according to a Post and Courier analysis.

In a letter sent amid the budget debate, MUSC said emphatically it does not offer gender reassignment surgery to anyone under 18. Its services for transgender children, offered since 2007, include “access to mental health providers, endocrine medicine providers, social workers and dieticians,” Dr. David Zaas, CEO of MUSC Health’s Charleston Division, wrote in the letter dated March 29.

But the letter didn’t appease Sen. Josh Kimbrell, who authored the ban on MUSC providing gender-transitioning services for minors.

“It doesn’t really say what they do, that’s the problem,” said the Spartanburg Republican, responding to Democrats who accused him of trying to deprive children who may be suicidal of mental health care. “They expressly say what they don’t do, but they don’t clarify what they do.”

Denying that he wanted to withhold lifesaving counseling from any child, he added, “I do, however, think it’s inappropriate for the state to fund a clinic whose whole purpose is to encourage a child to make a decision that may be irreversible.”

Approval of the budget directive that applies only to MUSC came more than a year after a Democrat in the House filed a bill broadly banning gender-transitioning surgery and hormones for anyone under 18. That bill, co-sponsored by one other Democrat and 28 Republicans, drew the ire of his party leaders and got national attention, but it went nowhere in the Statehouse.

″(Opponents of transitioning) tried to pass gender-affirming bans last year and failed at passing a ban,” Condon said. “So instead (they) just used financial pressure with the budget proviso that was included.”

Officially, a state budget directive applies only to taxpayer money approved by the Legislature. But it can be virtually impossible for any public agency to prove a specific program and its employees are wholly funded by other sources. And ignoring legislators’ budget orders can put future public funding at risk.

This fiscal year, MUSC is getting $188.9 million in state funding, but that is 3.5 percent of its $5.4 billion total budget, according to state budget documents and MUSC officials.

After first being assured MUSC could still continue transgender care for minors without touching state funding, Condon said there was an apparent change of heart later last year.

“They felt like the easier way to handle it was to stop providing this care,” she said. So, for the doctors who were prescribing care, “now the doctor’s boss is saying, ‘Don’t do it because it is politically unfavorable,’” Condon said.

MUSC also canceled an LGBT health conference it was slated to host later this month, which is now being picked up by Condon’s group without any participation from MUSC.

It remains unclear when exactly MUSC ended the services. But the result stands Mia among an estimated 150 patients of that pediatric clinic in downtown Charleston scrambling to find treatment elsewhere, even as they have yet to receive official notice from MUSC.

[frances-baby-houseman]

I would have bled out in the parking lot

Amber Nicole Thurman's death is on Trump's hands

Bess Kalb

Sep 17

In 2019, about six weeks after my first child was born, I found myself on the bathroom floor in a small, but nonetheless unsettling puddle of blood.

“Oh no,” I remember thinking. “I just did the laundry.”

I called out my husband’s name, but the sound caught in my throat. The pain I felt inhaling to get enough air out of my lungs to yell the two syllables in “Char-lie” jabbed my guts like a bicycle spoke to the abdomen.

So I was quiet, trying to keep breathing in a way that didn’t move anything inside me, and the pain pulsed a bit, then steadied, then dulled, then evaporated into whatever hell ether it came from.

Because there is no G-d (unless there is, in which case I abbreviated His name so as not to desecrate it, and also thank you, King of the Universe, for subscribing to this newsletter) this was the one time in my life I hadn’t brought my phone with me to the bathroom.

I decided to sort of slither-lumber to the door like a lame harbor seal, because I didn’t want to stand and loosen the spoke that had just stabbed me. I reached for the knob and let the door creak open.

The cat was there, looking at me right at eye level, keenly aware what was happening, and completely unmoved by it.

“You are dying,” he blinked, “Pity. Have a nice time.” He sashayed away.

Fortunately, our house in Los Angeles was small enough that from the bathroom door one could see everything. My husband was sitting on the couch with our infant, and I knocked on the open door to summon him. Within one one thousandth of a second, he set the baby on the (since-recalled) donut pillow and was holding my head.

I sat up. I breathed. No pain. I took a picture of the bloody mess on my husband’s phone, texted it to myself, he found my phone, then I texted the picture to my OBGYN.

Apologies for being graphic, but within the puddle there was something roughly the size and shape and color of a fig.

“Is this ok?” I said to my doctor, the bicycle spoke scraping lightly at my insides again from all the lumbering.

“Come in,” she replied.

Within two hours, I was in the waiting room of her office, accompanied by my terrified but SMILING mother, who was still, as is the Jewish custom, in town for “a few days or so” after the birth.

An ultrasound which felt like the finger of Satan himself revealed there was retained placenta in my uterus. If I hadn’t come in, there would have been more hemorrhaging, then sepsis, then whatever the cat foretold.

The next day, I was in surgery getting a Dilation and Curettage.

I went home, pumped the anesthesia milk, then fell asleep perfectly fine, my sweet newborn cooing merrily in the bassinet next to his alive mother.

Amber Nicole Thurman’s story was the same as mine, but it happened to her in Georgia in 2024, not California in 2019. She was a Black woman in a healthcare system that disproportionately kills Black women, especially postpartum. In 2021, the Black maternal mortality rate was nearly three times the rate it is for white women. Post-Roe, the toll is and will continue to be staggering.

Because post-Roe, the procedure that saved my life, the D&C, is something doctors cannot perform in states where matters of life and death have been left up to non-medical Christian-supremacist superstitions.

I know the pain Amber Thurman felt when that placenta dislodged and carved its tiny, treacherous hole in her uterine wall. I know the terror she felt when she saw the blood, and the rush of dread when she thought of what her child would do without her.

And when I vote in November for Kamala Harris and every progressive down-ballot candidate, I will do it because she can’t. And I will do it so that women in Georgia and Idaho and Texas and North Dakota and South Dakota and Utah, Arizona, Nebraska Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, South Carolina, and West Virginia won’t have to meet the same completely preventable doom.

This election isn’t just about Amber Thurman. Every day of my lucky, breathing life is about Amber Thurman. Because the only thing that separates us, is one of us bled out under the right Supreme Court.

Let’s raise absolute federal hell about it.

-- From Bess Kalb's newsletter The Grudge Report. I pay for this substack -- though it's free-- and think this is a message worth sharing far beyond her newsletter.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Carter Sherman at The Guardian:

In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, permanent contraception in the form of tubal sterilizations and vasectomies surged among young adults living in states likely to ban abortion, new research released on Monday found. Compared to May 2022, when the opinion overturning Roe leaked, August 2022 saw 95% more vasectomies and 70% more tubal sterilizations performed on people between the ages of 19 and 26, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers at the George Washington University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan.

In addition to analyzing data about medical visits for permanent contraception before and after the opinion’s leak, the researchers also examined survey responses from more than 600 people between the ages of 14 and 24 who were asked about the fall of Roe. “It has made me want to be sterilized more,” said one 24-year-old female survey respondent from the US south. “The pill isn’t 100% effective and I’m afraid of losing access to it, and I do not want children in the future and would much rather be sterilized. I’m afraid of getting pregnant and not being able to make decisions for myself.”

Published in the journal Health Affairs, the study also found that, overall, tubal sterilizations – which surgically alter women’s fallopian tubes and are colloquially known as “getting tubes tied” – were more popular than vasectomies. There were about seven more tubal sterilizations performed per state a month in the second half of 2022, compared to roughly three more vasectomies a month per state. That popularity probably reflects the longstanding expectation that women shoulder the burden of contraception. But Julia Strasser, the study’s lead author, suspects that there may be other reasons, too.

A recent study published in Health Affairs reveals that the permanent contraception rate rose in the US in the aftermath of the Dobbs ruling.

[metaborderlines]

THX, fanfic writers [repeating myself, end of year]

Inspired by the post from @saygoodnightlove about fan fic recommendations, I want to know as @juli-81 asked, “Whatfics made you fall in love with Outlander in a new way this year?” My first answer was “Power Jam” by @isthisclever and I’ll stick with it, because of the way this writer uses detail to make things new, especially the love story that never gets old, Jamie meets Claire, this time at a roller rink in Edinburgh. The other nine, in no particular order, sprinkled I see with many WIPs: 

#2, “Wee Herbs” by @jesuisprest. OK, I have a problem with feisty Jenny, always barging in to “protect” Jamie. In “Wee Herbs,” Jenny is none too pleased to find that her brother has married the proprietor of a weed shop [it’s medical marijuana,Jenny] in California, and that California Claire has a child (Fergus, age 6, blooming nicely in West Coast soil). Claire fights fire with fire, beats Jenny at the primal battle of “family first.” WIP. 

 #3 “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” by @sassenachthroughtime. Is there a more romantic scene in fan fic than the one in this story when Claire, unwilling trophy wife to Fronk in oppressively staid South Carolina society, helps new next-door neighbor Jamie with clean-up after his housewarming party and he whispers, Scottish burr on fire, “Dance wi’me?” WIP.

            #4 “Game Changer” by @the2ofusnow. Jamie’s the rookie of the year with the NY Mets; Claire is the team doctor, written with emotional intelligence. WIP. 

            #5 “Atonement” by @smashing-teacups, for its quiet scenes in the hospital when horribly-injured Jamie and compassionate-nurse Claire get to know one another. The writer gets the most out of dialogue, small moments like the one when Claire washes Jamie’s hair.

            #6 “Market Price” by @desperationandgin. Both Jamie and Claire are witty and strong, despite (of course) having weathered some life-challenges, and they’re funny and sweet, unable to keep their hands off one another. 

            #7 “Saorsa” by @scapegrace-74. Jamie escapes Black Jack by touching the stones, lands in the midst of WW II at Lallybroch whose chatelaine is a pregnant widow, Claire, the legatee of the Randall estate. The way the two come together, inevitably, is told with grace and verve—a description that fits “anything by” @scapegrace-74, especially the stories in the “Metric Universe.” Thanks also to @scapegrace-74 for pointing to a perfect novella, “The Stars Will Sing for Us” by @fallofrain. No drama, just strong characterization when Dr. Claire moves to Broch Morda and falls in love with, guess, the sweetest, hottest guy in town; he’s good with horses too. No bland inevitability: the writer allows the reader to discover the characters as they discover one another. 

            #8 “Loving Jamie” by @JillianK, an 18thcentury story in which Jamie has lost inheritance when he’s rendered mute from an axe blow (Dougal?) The MacKenzie brothers arrange a marriage to Claire. The story has a fairytale quality leavened with humor, e.g ch 7 when Jamie wonders if his new wife loves him and Clarence nudges him not to get maudlin. “Christ. Now he was taking life lessons from a mule.”

            #9 “Something to Believe In” by @caitrinwrites.  Claire is a chef in Santa Fe and when a Scottish distiller turns up to purvey his wares at her resto, he very much resembles her daughter Brianna, age 5. WIP. This story of introducing Jamie to his lost child shows signs of rising to meet the top of the class in the genre, “Downhill” by @wickedgoodbooks (who can forget five-year-old Willie on “The Puffin Trip” with his reunited parents, Claire and Jamie?) and “Flood My Mornings” by @bonnie_wee_swordsman (Jamie’s observations about the mores of America in the 1950, all the tut-tutting about working mothers, and his comment about how the Pope can just get out of women’s way when it comes to reproductive choice). And “Written in the Stones” by @lenny9987, one of the best father-and-child reunion stories in which Jamie arrives at Craig na dun and reclaims Claire and ten-year-old Brianna, in part when she teaches him to bake chocolate chip cookies at Mrs. Graham’s house during a thunderstorm. 

More than a top ten, I can’t omit “One Summer” by @missclairebelle, the glorious variant on Jamie and Claire as a bantering couple who would give Hepburn and Tracy a run for their money in their heyday. And “Jimjeran” by @betweensceneswriter, which manages to convey new love in the most heated yet nuanced fashion. Jamie and Claire are Peace Corps volunteers on a Pacific island, which shows among other things that this story is truly universal. And then there’s “In My Daughter’s Eyes” by @preciouslittleingenue, Jamie as a riding therapist to autistic Faith, four-year-old child of Claire and Fronk, who rejected his “imperfect” child. And You’ll Be in Mo Chridhe by @CrossingInStyle. Claire goes to Africa with Uncle Lamb and meets Tarzan, who is, guess ... Another good one by this prolific writer, “First Time Here?” Jamie is a bartender in Inverness who asks the question of Claire on her sequential bad dates. Nice past-present cross-stich. And “Back to You” by @balfeheughlywed. Claire is Leery’s roommate at Edinburgh U…but the writing is good. Jenny is the Worst. And “Queen’s Gambit”by @AbbeDebeaupre. Lord John is private eye, Jamie trains polo ponies… And the “Basia Mille” series by @JRC10…

 This list is threatening to exceed top 20, so many good stories. Thank you, writers!

[archivaltrigger]

“Because the US government was not acting on mass shootings, we directly attacked a trait Americans are most known for: their pride in their country. Change the Ref created the Shamecards, a postcard collection designed to demand gun law reform from Congress. Subverting the traditional greeting cards that depict each city’s landmarks, ours show what cities are becoming known for.”

shamecards.org

There is 54 cards total representing:

Annapolis — Maryland: Capital Gazette Shooting

Atlanta — Georgia: Day Trading Firm Shootings

Benton — Kentucky: Marshall County High School Shooting

Bethel — Alaska: Regional High School Shooting

Binghamton — New York: Binghamton Shooting

Blacksburg — Virginia: Virginia Tech Massacre

Camden – New Jersey: Walk of Death Massacre

Charleston — South Carolina: Charleston Church Shooting

Charlotte — North Carolina: 2019 University Shooting

Cheyenne — Wyoming: Senior Home Shooting

Chicago — Illinois: Medical Center Shooting

Clovis — New Mexico: Clovis Library Shooting

Columbine — Colorado: Columbine

Dayton — Ohio: Dayton Shooting

Edmond — Oklahoma: Post Office Shooting

El Paso — Texas: El Paso Shooting

Ennis — Montana: Madison County Shooting

Essex Junction — Vermont: Essex Elementary School Shooting

Geneva — Alabama: Geneva County Massacre.

Grand Forks — North Dakota: Grand Forks Shooting

Hesston — Kansas: Hesston Shooting

Honolulu — Hawaii: First Hawaiian Mass Shooting

Huntington — West Virginia: New Year's Eve Shooting

Indianapolis — Indiana: Hamilton Avenue Murders

Iowa City — Iowa: University Shooting

Jonesboro — Arkansas: Middle School Massacre

Kalamazoo — Michigan: Kalamazoo Shooting

Lafayette — Louisana: Lafayette Shooting

Las Vegas — Nevada: Las Vegas Strip Shooting

Madison — Maine: Madison Rampage

Meridian — Mississippi: Meridian Company Shooting

Moscow — Idaho: Moscow Rampage

Nashville — Tennessee: Nashville Waffle House shooting

Newtown — Connecticut: Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

Omaha — Nebraska: Westroads Mall shooting

Orlando — Florida: Pulse Nightclub Shooting

Parkland — Florida: Parkland School Shooting

Pelham — New Hampshire: Wedding Shooting

Pittsburgh — Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting

Prices Corner — Delaware: Delaware Shooting

Red Lake — Minnesota: Indian Reservation Shooting

Roseburg — Oregon: Umpqua Community Collage Shooting

Salt Lake City — Utah: Salt Lake City Mall Shooting

San Diego — California: San Ysidro Massacre

Santa Fe — Texas: Santa Fe School Shooting

Schofield — Wisconsin: Marathon County Shooting

Seattle — Washington: Capitol Hill Massacre

Sisseton — South Dakota: Sisseton Massacre

St. Louis — Missouri: Power Plant Shooting

Sutherland Springs — Texas: Sutherland Springs Church Shooting

Tucson — Arizona: Tocson Shooting

Wakefield — Massachusetts: Tech Company Massacre

Washington — D.C.: Navy Yard Shooting

Westerly — Rhode Island: Assisted-Living Complex Rampage

[mikeywayarchive]

OBITUARY

BOB BRYAR, FORMER DRUMMER OF MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, DEAD AT 44

The musician performed with the rock band on The Black Parade and Danger Days after joining in 2004

By EMILY ZEMLER

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

Full article under the cut:

Bob Bryar of My Chemical Romance performs at Big Day Out Festival 2007 at the Sydney Showground. PAUL MCCONNELL/GETTY IMAGES

Bob Bryar, the drummer of My Chemical Romance from 2004 to 2010, has died at the age of 44, Rolling Stone has confirmed. 

“The band asks for your patience and understanding as they process the news of Bob’s passing,” a spokesperson for the band tells Rolling Stone. 

Details surrounding his death were not given, but law enforcement sources told TMZ the musician was found in his Tennessee home, and no foul play is suspected. The medical examiner is investigating the cause of Bryar’s death.

Born in Chicago in 1979, Bryar started playing drums at a young age and got a degree in sound engineering from the University of Florida before becoming a touring sound engineer. He worked for Thrice and the Used and met My Chemical Romance while on tour with the Used in 2004.

Later that year, My Chemical Romance replaced drummer Matt Pelissier shortly after the release of the New Jersey rock band’s second LP, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. He went on to perform on three of the band’s subsequent releases, including their seminal 2006 album, The Black Parade, and their 2010 effort, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.

“This was the biggest record I have ever done and I was nervous,” Bryar recalled of recording The Black Parade in an interview with Alternative Press. “Along with being nervous, we all had to feel out the writing dynamic between all of us. I was very vocal about my drum parts, but let the other dudes do their thing because they were doing so well and didn’t need anyone chiming in every second. That leads me to remember one situation where it was super-late and only G, the engineer and myself were at the studio. There was a vocal harmony that I kept hearing. It was the first time I got the balls to ask someone to try something. That idea made it to the record, which was really nice for me to see happen.”

He added, “As we were recording the record, I was getting more and more excited. It was turning out to be a very complete and a very entertaining audio story… I really feel every part of that record, down to the artwork, is pretty unbeatable. I hope those songs will be around for a long time.”

Bryar departed from My Chemical Romance, who later disbanded in 2013, following the release of Danger Days, although he performed on the band’s singles collection, Conventional Weapons. Band member Frank Iero confirmed in a statement that Bryar’s exit was “a painful decision for all of us to make and was not taken lightly.” He added, “We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors and expect you all to do the same.”

My Chemical Romance replaced Bryar from 2011-2013 with Jarrod Alexander, who also joined the band for their 2022 reunion tour. After leaving the band, Bryar continued to tour behind the scenes with various bands and became involved in dog rescue charities and sanctuaries. In 2014, he quit the music industry to pursue a career in real estate.

In 2021, Bryar auctioned off the drum kit used during the band’s 2005 MTV VMAs performance to raise money for the Williamson County Animal Control and Adoption Center in Tennessee. “It’s my favorite finish of all of the kits I’ve had,” he wrote of the set. “If you look closely, there is still some confetti from tour that snuck into the bass drum hole. I’ll leave that in there for you.” In 2022, Bryar announced he would be selling his original Black Parade uniform to help “abandoned and sheltered animals in areas of Florida and South Carolina that are affected by Hurricane Ian.”

END

[darkmaga-returns]

In an interview with Newsmax last week, U.S. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina said that one of the reasons she supports President-elect Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be the next U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HSS) is her concern about the safety of the COVID-19 shots. She confirmed that she suffered injuries following her second COVID mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) shot in the spring of 2021.1 2 3 4

Rep. Mace received the first dose of Moderna/NIAID’s Spikevax COVID mRNA shot on Apr. 13, 2021, followed by the second dose in May-June of that year.5 She said:

I now developed asthma that has never gone away since I had the second shot. I have tremors in my left hand. And I have the occasional heart pain that no doctor can explain, and I’ve had a battery of tests, Mace said. “I thought I was doing my civic duty to get vaccinated by this vaccine that had not been tested. My health has never been the same.1 2 4

Mace, who is a member of the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee, that the public has not been told the truth about the safety of the COVID shots, and specifically that information about the shots was suppressed during the pandemic by social media platforms such Twitter (now known as X).1 2

Doctors Censored on Social Media for Criticizing Federal COVID Policies

In a House Oversight Committee hearing on Feb. 8, 2023, Mace questioned ex-Twitter official Vijaya Gadde about why renowned medical doctors and epidemiologists like Martin Kulldorff, MD of Harvard Medical School, Jay Bhattacharya, MD of Stanford University, and others were censored on Twitter for views that did not conform to the federal government’s narrative about COVID and the COVID shots.1

“You guys censored Harvard-educated doctors, Stanford-educated doctors, doctors that are educated in the best places in the world, and you silenced those voices. “Apparently, the views of a Stanford doctor are disinformation to you people,” Mace said. “I find it extremely alarming [that] Twitter’s unfettered censorship spread into medical fields and affected many Americans by suppressing expert opinions from doctors and censoring those who disagree with the CDC. ”1 4

“Millions of Americans were lied to and [are] living with the consequences of this decision. Thank God I didn’t vaccinate my children with this thing, but I’m living every day with the consequences of that decision, and I regret it,” Mace said.2

[meret118]

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow sounded the alarm about Vanderbilt University, which willingly turned over the private medical records of families whose children were getting gender-affirming care at the University's medical center. But on Monday, Maddow points out that it isn't about LGBTQ issues anymore.

. . .

"It turns out that once you've convinced yourself that you have the right to go take the private medical records of people you've decided are bad people, once you've decided you have the right the take the private medical records of people because you think they don't actually have the right to make their own decisions for their own lives and their own health care, so they don't have any legitimate expectation of privacy — they don't have any legitimate expectation of protection from you," she slammed.

. . .

A week ago, she covered the Vanderbilt story, but now Tennessee's AG wants the private medical records of women who live in their states, if they travel to another state for an abortion.

. . .

It isn't only Tennessee, 19 other states signed a letter demanding that the private medical records of women who get abortions out of state be sent to their state of residence. The states that want the medical records are: Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

[drsonnet]

The Chilling Testimony of a U.S. Neurosurgeon Who Went to Gaza to Save Lives

Haaretz: Netta Ahituv May 9, 2024

When everyone who was able to flee from Gaza was doing so, Dr. David Hasan made the reverse journey. His story is a must-read for every Israeli

At the end of December 2023, when everyone who was able to flee from the Gaza Strip was doing so, Prof. David Hasan made the reverse journey. Hasan, a senior neurosurgeon and an esteemed researcher at Duke University in North Carolina, decided to fly to Cairo and from there to make his way to Rafah and enter Gaza.

"Until the war broke out, I was focused on advancing my career and taking care of my family," Hasan, who is 50, tells Haaretz in a video interview. "But this situation – which touched me from both sides [of the border] – overwhelmed me emotionally and pulled me in. I felt I had to do something to help."

Hasan was a member of the first medical team – consisting of 18 physicians from the United States, Canada and England – to enter the Strip after the start of the war. They arrived through Rahma Worldwide (an American humanitarian organization) and the organization Medical Aid for Palestine, under the auspices of the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

"The UN and WHO facilitated our entry and assisted with regard to the medications and surgical equipment we brought with us," Hasan says. "But they also informed us in advance that once we entered Gaza, they would have no way of providing us with protection." The doctors were asked to sign a document waiving the UN of any responsibility for their welfare, which, he says, "made the situation all the more threatening."

Their mission was to get to the European Gaza Hospital, near Khan Yunis in the southern Strip, and spend a week there performing surgery on adults and children. Then, less than two months ago, Hasan entered Gaza again on a similar mission, and saw firsthand the transformation that had taken place there since his previous visit.

"The first thing you see in Rafah," he relates, "is miles and miles of hanging fabrics – the tents of the displaced people, which are erected against the background of the ruins of buildings. When you turn onto Saladin Road, which is the main road connecting Gaza's north and south, suddenly you see an ocean of people. These are the displaced people who live there now. As you get closer to the hospital, you see more and more people, and more and more tents."

The hospital itself looked like a refugee camp, Hasan says. "I was confused, because I had never seen so many people living inside a hospital. Every corner there was occupied by a group of people. They made use of every available item – a small curtain, a staircase, a plastic chair – and turned it into their living space. Entire families huddled on squares of two meters by two meters, and ate, drank and slept there. Walking in the hospital, you had to be careful not to step on people."

On the day he entered the Gaza Strip in December, Hasan notes, he didn't see Israeli troops or hear explosions. "I thought the war was in some kind of lull. But as soon as evening fell, heavy shelling started, and I realized that there were many Israeli forces around the hospital – you just don't see them during the day. The noise of a one-ton bomb is deafening. The first time one was dropped nearby, I happened to be standing on a stool, and I fell off, because the building shook so hard. It went on like that every five or 10 minutes. I asked the local doctors what to do, and they told me that you get used to it and that I should just keep working to distract myself from the anxiety."

Where did you sleep? What did you eat?

"I slept in the hospital, ate mostly energy bars that my wife and daughter had packed for me, and drank mineral water. The water situation there worries me the most, and since returning for the first time, I have talked about water sanitation everywhere and with everyone I can. We lost many patients due to water-related infections."

Immediately upon arriving at the hospital, the physicians began operating. "In the process, we discovered that there weren't enough anesthetics, not enough equipment and not even clean water to wash our hands between operations. Sometimes there were no gloves and sometimes we lacked basic medicines. We were compelled to perform limb amputations without anesthetics and C-sections without sedatives. In order to do as much as we could, we would operate on two patients at the same time in the same operating room."

Throughout his first week there, Hasan relates, there was constant, heavy shelling. "During the night, it was not possible to rescue anyone from the ruins, both because there was no electricity and everything was dark, and also because just being outside was dangerous. So people who were wounded during the night remained where they were until morning. Many of them died from loss of blood or reached us in worse condition because they did not receive immediate treatment. Every morning around 8, a wave of wounded people arrived who had been rescued from the ruins of the night. At that point, around nine out of 10 of them could not be saved.

"The hospital has only 250 beds, so at any given moment, you have to make difficult decisions, as there were about 1,200 wounded. He can be saved, she can't, this wound requires resources that we don't have, we may be able to treat this wound. The feeling is that it would have been possible to save many of the wounded if we had more medical equipment, intensive-care beds and the possibility of hospitalizing them for further treatment."

Are there any of the wounded whom you remember in particular?

"From a medical point of view, I remember a boy of maybe 12 or 13 years old, who arrived with bleeding from his eye, from being hit by shrapnel. It was clear that he needed surgery, but there was a two-hour line for the operating room. During the wait, a main artery burst inside his brain and blood began spurting from his eye. I'd never seen anything like that before. He died, of course.

"From a humanitarian point of view, I remember a boy about 2 years old who was seriously hurt by a bomb. He arrived together with many other children who had been in the same house. The moment I saw him I knew we would not be able to save him, so I had to give the only oxygen canister that was available to another wounded child, who had a better chance of surviving. He was alone, with no one by his side as he was dying. I took a picture of him with the phone and went out to see if anyone knew his relatives. I was told that his whole family was buried under the ruins, and that he was the only one who had been pulled out. I decided that this child would not die without someone noticing and crying over him, and I realized that it would have to be me. I held him to me, I cried over him and I named him 'Jacob.' I vowed that if I have a son, I will name him 'Jacob' in his memory.

"Another case I remember is of three siblings – a 10-year-old boy, a 6-year-old girl and a baby boy of one and a half. According to what I was told, they had been in a house that was surrounded by Hamas activity. Israeli soldiers entered the house at night. In the dark, they thought the father was a Hamas operative and they killed him. The mother ran toward the father and she was killed too. The two parents lay there dead, but outside there was bombing taking place. The three children lay down on their parents until the sun came up. Not until morning did people come to take them out of the house. Someone brought them to the hospital.

"I remember that the eldest son held the little one and calmed him because he was crying, and at the same time took care of his sister, who didn't stop shaking like a leaf in a storm. They were covered with their parents' blood. We cleaned them and I brought them some toys and small dolls that my daughter had asked me to give to the children in Gaza. When I gave them the toys, I saw a small smile and they said to me, 'Thank you, Uncle David.' You could see that they were educated and polite children. I was relieved to learn that at some point a relative came and took them. I will never forget them – the thought of the shocking night they went through and the way the 10-year-old, the senior among them, suddenly became a parental figure."

David Hasan was born and raised in Kuwait to a Muslim Palestinian family, who had immigrated there from the West Bank in 1967, following the Six-Day War. It would not be the family's last war-induced emigration. The second time was in the Gulf War, in 1990, when they relocated from Kuwait to Jordan. Hasan, who had always dreamed of becoming a doctor, was accepted to premed studies in the United States and moved there alone at the age of 18.

Where did your unusual combination of names come from – a Jewish first name and an Arab surname?

"When I moved to the United States, I connected mainly with Jews and Israelis, and they helped me acclimate. They accompanied me through various crises, and I decided to change my name from Emad to David. I also had two Jewish girlfriends, one of whom I accompanied on a visit to Israel. By then, I already had an American passport, but in Israel they wouldn't let me enter and wanted to deport me on the next flight to the United States.

"This was a traumatic experience for my girlfriend, so I insisted on talking to the security manager and told him that instead of kicking me out, they should give me a prize. 'A prize? Why should I give you a prize?' he asked. I replied that thanks to me, my girlfriend had come here for the first time in her life. Jewish donors and the State of Israel pay so much money for Jews from all over the world to visit Israel, and here I was, at my expense, inviting a Jewish woman who would never have visited here if I hadn't insisted on it. He went off, muttering, 'It's only in fucking America that Palestinians go out with Jews.' After a while, I was informed that I could enter Israel. Other than that episode, I remember the visit fondly."

Hasan is married to Lauren Hasan, who worked as a trauma surgeon, and they have a 7-year-old daughter. They live near Duke, a private university in Durham, North Carolina. Hasan does clinical work, research and teaching and is considered a leading expert in the field of cerebrovascular disorders and brain-tumor surgery. He has published more than 270 scientific articles in major journals.

Hasan does not hesitate to attest to his love for Israel and Israelis, and talks about close friends in the country. He also has close ties with the Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights and with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, with both of which, together with UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund), he is trying to promote emergency water purification projects in Gaza. They have already received approval from Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and a promise of funding from USAID.

Asked how he reconciles the Israeli-Palestinian dissonance in his life, he replies simply, "I distance myself from groups that label the Israelis as only one thing and the Palestinians as another. I focus only on moral actions and on ways in which I can help practically."

American universities, including Duke, have become an arena of protests over the war. How do you deal with this?

"We launched an initiative at the university that offers all students the opportunity to be active in assisting victims of the war in all kinds of ways, as they wish, on whichever side they choose. We thought this would allow people to channel their anger into action instead of protesting and arguing among themselves. So far, it seems to be working well. I have already brought in Duke students – Palestinians and Jews – to be part of the water project and work together as a team. I tell my medical students that just as doctors are expected to be blind to their patients' origin, skin color, religion or gender, their attitude toward victims of war should be the same – I suggest to them to think about human beings and not about 'sides.'"

Hasan practices in his life what he preaches to his students. He went to help the Gazans, but the Israeli hostages in the hands of Hamas haunt his thoughts, and he brings up the subject frequently during his interview with Haaretz. On his first visit to Gaza, Hasan hoped he would be able to pressure the appropriate people to talk to members of the Hamas leadership to allow him to visit captives in order to assist them medically. He was warned that even raising the subject would endanger him and the entire delegation, but he insisted. In any event, it didn't happen, of course. No one knows if the request even reached any Hamas officials. Again, in his second visit to Gaza, in March, he put out feelers about the possibility of offering the captives medical aid. Once more, to no avail.

"I walked around the hospital and looked, searched and asked everyone I could if they had seen, heard or knew anything about them [the Israeli hostages]. I also looked for people with weapons, who might be guarding some room, but I didn't see anything like that either. As someone who saw what Gaza looks like aboveground, I can only imagine how terrible the conditions are for the hostages. I assume they don't get enough food, access to a shower or medical services. I also read the testimonies about sexual assault. God knows what condition they are in. I feel pain for them and their families and wish for their release as quickly as possible."

On the last day of the first trip to Gaza, Hasan began sweating and developed a fever. Once he left the Strip, he found out that he was infected with COVID-19, although he had of course been vaccinated. On the second trip, too, he returned home with a mysterious virus. "The situation in Gaza is the perfect storm for viruses – a combination of wounds that become infected because they cannot be cleaned properly, hospitals without proper sanitation and an absence of antibiotics. Add to that water unfit for drinking and a generally appalling sanitary situation. Almost every person we operated on died a few days later, due to infection. It suddenly came to me that surgery was like a death sentence for them. At one point I asked myself what I was doing there if I couldn't save people."

And what was your conclusion?

"That I should continue to do my best. Even if I saved one person, it is still worth the effort. From Judaism I learned that whoever saves one soul, it is as though he saved an entire world. I wanted to be a part of the hope in this conflict and make a difference, even if a small one, for the people who were hurt in it and are considered 'collateral damage.'"

What did you feel when you left the first time?

"Leaving is a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, it's a relief, and on the other hand, I was heartbroken and felt guilty for leaving these people, who need me. I have the option to leave, they don't. From being faceless numbers that I read about in the news, they became for me human beings with names, stories, aspirations and dreams. My consolation is that at least they saw that there were people who cared about them, people who had come a long way and were risking themselves for them, and maybe that would give them hope. I told them that although my body was leaving Gaza, my heart was staying there with them."

In mid-March, some two and a half months after the first visit, Hasan arrived in the Gaza Strip again. This time it was through Medtronic, one of the world's largest producers of medical devices, which was shipping equipment into Gaza. "On Friday I performed a complex operation at Duke Hospital, and within hours I was on my way to Cairo, with half a million dollars worth of medical equipment," Hasan relates. "In Egypt, I was able to get another ton of diapers and baby food, and then went on to Rafah."

There was a palpable difference between the two visits, Hasan relates. To begin with, the second time, there were fewer bombs falling, and they were smaller. On the other hand, however, he encountered more hunger and a higher density of displaced people. "I saw people who had clearly lost a great deal of weight and many more cases of infectious diseases. Mothers arrived with no milk to feed their babies, they were so weak. I remember one woman in her late 20s, an engineer by profession, who told me, 'Dr. David, my baby is crying and I can't do anything. You know Israeli women, right? Maybe you can appeal to them, in the name of the solidarity of women and mothers, to get them to request that at least we can have food for our babies sent to us? Tell them that here too there are mothers with feelings and aspirations for their children.'"

On the second visit, there were fewer medical staff evident, Hasan recalls, and those who were there showed signs of extreme burnout. "They don't earn money, their children are dying at home, and in addition, every trip to the hospital and back entails risking their life or getting bad news from home. Two doctors who worked alongside me returned home after a 24-hour shift and found that their families were buried under the ruins of the house they were in. Many of them felt that they had done their part and now had to worry about the survival of their own families. Those who remained were so exhausted that they developed indifference. A wounded person would arrive, and they would say it was preferable for the person to die, because we didn't have the means for taking care of him. I will not forget taking care of a 5-year-old boy with burns all over his body, who himself told me, 'I wish I was dead. ' At some point I also started to think that it would be better like that, because to be born a weak baby in Gaza means suffering a death sentence in agony."

In addition, Hasan relates, "There was a feeling of chaos, that things were much less organized than last time, that there was no authority or hierarchy. Everyone is worried about their own survival, hunger has an effect, and all kinds of groups were taking advantage of this situation in an awful way. Patients now began arriving who had been shot by [other] Palestinians in fights over food. Imagine hungry people who haven't eaten in days and have children to feed. They will do anything to get food."

The chaos Hasan describes almost cost him his life. On the way from Cairo to Rafah, the Egyptian driver asked him to deliver a bag of sweets to a Palestinian family he knew in Gaza for the Ramadan holiday. Hasan agreed and asked the driver to tell the family to look for him at the hospital. But when he arrived to collect the medical equipment at the border crossing, he discovered that it was not one bag but three huge sacks of sweets. It was certainly not a gift for a family.

He went up to one of the guards at the border, explained the situation and asked him for his advice. The guard explained to him that Egyptian and Gazan merchants were trying to take advantage of the situation to sell things at high prices – the goods he had might fetch thousands of dollars on the black market. He suggested that Hasan leave the sweets there and promised that he and his colleagues would distribute them for free to children for the holiday.

"On the way to the hospital, my phone kept ringing," Hasan recalls. "It turns out that these were the people to whom I was supposed to deliver the sweets. That night, at the hospital, about 10 people with guns suddenly appeared and demanded the candy. They said they were members of Hamas, but later it turned out that they weren't, they just wanted to scare me. It was actually a family that had seized control of a share of the black market. They told me that they knew my name was David and that I was actually an Israeli."

Hasan. "I walked around the hospital and looked, searched and asked everyone if they had seen, heard or knew anything about the Israeli hostages." Allison Joyce/AFP

The Chilling Testimony of a U.S. Neurosurgeon Who Went to Gaza to Save Lives Haaretz Netta... | Middle East (similarworlds.com)

Detroit doctor has never seen anything worse than crisis he witnessed in Gaza

Detroit doctor has never seen anything worse than crisis he saw in Gaza (freep.com)

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[rjzimmerman]

Where Seas Are Rising at Alarming Speed. (Washington Post)

One of the most rapid sea level surges on Earth is besieging the American South, forcing a reckoning for coastal communities across eight U.S. states, a Washington Post analysis has found.

At more than a dozen tidegauges spanning from Texas to North Carolina,sea levels are at least 6 inches higher than they were in 2010 — a change similar to what occurred over the previous five decades.

Scientists are documenting a barrage of impacts — ones, they say, that will confront an even larger swath of U.S. coastal communities in the coming decades — even as they try to decipher the precise causes of this recent surge.

The Gulf of Mexicohas experienced twice the global average rate of sea level rise since 2010, a Post analysis of satellite data shows. Few other places on the planet have seen similar rates of increase, such as the North Sea near the United Kingdom.

“Since 2010, it’s very abnormal and unprecedented,” said Jianjun Yin, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who has studied the changes. While it is possible the swift rate of sea level rise could eventually taper, the higher water that has already arrived in recent years is here to stay.

“It’s irreversible,” he said.

As waters rise, Louisiana’s wetlands — the state’s natural barrier against major storms — are in a state of “drowning.” Choked septic systems are failing and threatening to contaminatewaterways. Insurance companies are raising rates, limiting policies or evenbailing in some places,casting uncertainty over future home values in flood-prone areas.

Roads increasingly are falling below the highest tides, leaving drivers stuck in repeated delays, or forcing them to slog through salt water to reach homes, schools, work and places of worship. In some communities, researchers and public officials fear, rising waters could periodically cut off some people from essential services such as medical aid.

While much planning and money have gone toward blunting the impact of catastrophic hurricanes, experts say it is the accumulation of myriad smaller-scale impacts from rising water levels that is the newer, more insidious challenge — and the one that ultimately will become the most difficult to cope with.

“To me, here’s the story: We are preparing for the wrong disaster almost everywhere,” said Rob Young, a Western Carolina University professor and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines.

“These smaller changes will be a greater threat over time than the next hurricane, no question about it,” Young said.

[constelationprize]

The Kayleigh Day Lives AU - Part 3

Also known as Congratulations, Wymack, it's a boy! He is also already 20 years old and horribly traumatised

So I think that after the banquet Kayleigh goes to some ERC after party to schmooze a bit, maybe with the explicit intention of undermining the rumor of Kevin being better than Riko. Like "do you think I'd let anyone hold MY son back? *Nervous laugh*"

Smash cut to the match between Riko and Kevin

Kayleigh is halfway back to the hotel when she gets Kevin's call. He's immediately locked himself in a bathroom while Jean helps distract Riko.

Now she knows this is BAD bad for a couple reasons. For one, hands have very delicate bones, and full recoveries from severe blunt trauma injuries are hard and rare. Second, there's the fact that this confirms her suspicions that Kevin was being mistreated from behind her back. Third, she knows they won't let her take him to a hospital right now. And last, but not least, it's going to be very hard to get away with double homicide once she gets her hands on Tetsuji and Riko.

Kayleigh has to make a snap judgment if she wants to help her son, in a way that won't put either of them in more danger. She can't trust Tetsuji anymore, so she goes over him.

Now, I don't think she would have access directly to Kengo, but during her years as a Moriyama asset she has amassed enough goodwill she has a few contacts in the main branch. People who are worried about Tetsuji overeaching with his little project.

She calls them and very carefully chooses her words. She says that Riko has dealt Kevin a potential carreer-ending injury and that the best way to control that narrative is going to be playing it off as an accident and taking Kevin out of the public eye for a while, transfering him out of Edgar Allan so people focus on that drama instead of questioning the origin of his injury. She doesn't necessarily threaten going public with what she knows if they don't allow her to take him safely out of the Nest, because she isn't stupid, but it IS implied.

Kayleigh gets half an hour to take Kevin out of the hotel before she herself has to report back. Wherever he's going, she can't come with, as insurance.

That... Somewhat hinders her options.

But, well. David Wymack is in town.

Kevin has found the letter in this universe too, because Tetsuji would have it regardless, but he took Kayleigh at her word when she explained it was for the best that Wymack not know.

This is not a can of worms Kayleigh ever intended to open. But there is a saying about desperate times and desperate measures.

Which is how she ends up picking up Kevin, badly bandaging his hand, and going after the Palmetto State Foxes.

She catches up with them right as they are piling onto the bus to leave. She almost his the bus with her car. It's a mess.

It gets worse once she and Kevin get out, though.

Wymack is alarmed and confused and oh my God Kayleigh what the fuck is your badly injured son doing here.

And she says something to the likes of "First of all, that's OUR badly injured son"

There is a lot of screaming. Dan thinks she's having a stroke. Wymack is torn between confusion and rage. Kevin is going into shock, like, the medical condition. Abby is trying to weave her way to him because someone has to give that boy some actual first aid. Kayleigh's time is running out and she doesn't have time to stand here in this parking lot and justify every questionable decision she has made in the last thirty years. Tetsuji just found out about everything and starts blowing up her phone.

Andrew is crashing from his meds cycle and sleeps through the whole thing.

There is literally no time to untangle any of this, so Kayleigh just tells Wymack that Kevin will explain everything after they take him to the hospital. Preferably in South Carolina because the farther they are from Riko, the better.

No one is happy with this turn of events. It's for certain, though, that things will get a lot worse before it gets better.

On another note, Aaron just won himself like 200 dollars, and it might just be enough to ask that cute cheerleader in his class on a nice date.

[genderqueerpositivity]

The implications of this bill for transgender teachers and students in South Carolina are profound. Teachers would be forced to change their titles to those of their assigned sex at birth. Likewise, teachers would be forced to “out” themselves as transgender if they wished to stay in compliance with the law.

Moreover, students would receive instruction portraying transgender identity as “incorrect” or “false,” severely impacting transgender students’ well-being.

When responding to the bill, a local pediatrician, Dr. Michael O’Brien, offered the bill’s sponsor his insight into the bill, stating that it is a “cruel bill designed specifically to harm trans South Carolinians” and offering to discuss the bill with him.

Representative Pace responded by telling him that it is “cruel” to affirm transgender people and that instead, he should “repent” and hope that the “lord shows [him] mercy.”

This is not the first time Representative Pace has weaponized the powers of the state against transgender people. Previously, Representative Pace announced that his caucus successfully shut down the Medical University of South Carolina’s gender clinic for trans youth.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Full List of Democrats Who Voted to Ban Mask Mandates - Published Oct 26, 2023

Republican Senator J.D. Vance received support from 10 Democrats as part of a successful amendment prohibiting the Department of Transportation from using any federal funds to enforce future mask mandates.

The amendment to the Senate minibus appropriations bill passed Wednesday by a 59-38 margin and prevents federal mask mandates on passenger airlines, commuter rail, rapid transit buses, and any other transportation program funded through the 2024 fiscal year.

These are the 10 Democrats who voted for the amendment: Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin); Michael Bennet (Colorado); Sherrod Brown (Ohio); Tim Kaine (Virginia); Mark Kelly (Arizona); Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); Joe Manchin (West Virginia); Jacky Rosen (Nevada); Jean Shaheen (New Hampshire); and Jon Tester (Montana).

Three senators—Democrats John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) and Alex Padilla (California), and Republican Tim Scott (South Carolina—did not vote. Of the three independent senators, Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona) was the only one to vote in favor.

"This is a massive victory for personal freedom in this country," Vance said in a post-vote statement. "We saw countless abuses of authority throughout the COVID pandemic, and the American people were justifiably enraged by unscientific mask mandates.

"Today, the United States Senate took an emphatic step toward common sense and individual liberty. I'm proud of what we've accomplished here and look forward to continuing the fight."

"With the COVID pandemic behind us, the federal government doesn't need to be requiring masks for travel when that could hurt tourism and Nevada's economy," Rosen told Newsweek via email. "Anyone who chooses to wear a mask still has that option, but we've reached a point where a federal mask mandate is no longer necessary for travel."

In September, Vance, who represents Ohio, introduced the Freedom to Breathe Act—a bill intended to prevent the reimposition of federal mask mandates across the entire United States, in response to some businesses and colleges and universities reimposing mask mandates in the summer due to upticks in COVID-19 cases.

In September, the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio announced that all staff will be required to wear masks on the premises beginning September 25.

"This decision was made to promote the safety of our patients, families, visitors, and employees, based on evidence that masks are effective in reducing the spread of respiratory illness," the hospital said in a statement.

Read the rest and get a link to the original at the link above!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Laura Clawson at Uncharted Blue:

There will be a sustained assault on vaccinations over the next four years and people will die as a result. Donald Trump has chosen anti-vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, and even if Trump gets sick of Kennedy and dumps him publicly, as we've seen Trump do so many times, his administration will be stocked with other anti-vaccine officials. 

And as we consider the awful outcomes possible from this set of Trump choices, we have gotten one more piece of evidence to add to not just a mountain but a full mountain range of evidence that vaccines work. A new study conducted by researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and published in JAMA finds a 62% drop in cervical cancer deaths in women under 25 since a vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV) came into widespread use. HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Though the numbers of cervical cancer deaths in women under 25 are typically low, the researchers isolated that age group as the most likely to have been vaccinated, given that the vaccine was originally only available to adolescents.  This is a vaccine that could virtually eliminate a type of cancer – and maybe more than one. HPV causes six types of cancer, and the vaccine prevents 90% of cases of those cancers. But if vaccines in general are contested, the HPV vaccine comes in for especially fierce resistance, because HPV is sexually transmitted. As a result, many on the right, especially religious conservatives, oppose vaccination in the view that it might encourage sexual activity in teens or protect people from what they see as the natural and righteous consequences of having multiple sexual partners. The authors of the JAMA study note that HPV vaccine uptake has declined and is only around 60%. 

The Trump Misadminstration’s 2nd go-around features picks that will surely appease anti-vaxxers, such as picking RFK Jr. to head the HHS.

[justinssportscorner]

Katie Barnes at ESPN.com:

CLEVELAND -- South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley said Saturday that she believes transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women's sports. During a news conference a day after her No. 1 Gamecocks beat NC State in the Final Four to advance to the national championship game against Iowa, the legendary coach was asked for her opinion on the issue. "I'm of the opinion that if you're a woman, you should play," Staley said. "If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa, you should be able to play." Hours later, Iowa coach Lisa Bluder was asked the same question. "I understand it's a topic that people are interested in," Bluder said. "But today my focus is on the game tomorrow, my players. It's an important game we have tomorrow, and that's what I want to be here to talk about. But I know it's an important issue for another time." The debate over whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in accordance with their gender identity has grown heated in statehouses, courthouses, sport governing bodies and the court of public opinion over the past four years.

The NCAA first adopted a policy governing transgender athlete participation in 2010, providing a pathway to participation for transgender women and men in accordance with their gender identities. It amended its policy on Jan. 19, 2022 to be sport-specific as determined by each sport's national governing body, international federation or the 2015 Olympic standard. That policy change came amid controversy surrounding University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who was competing in women's swimming and won a national championship in the 500-yard freestyle. The NCAA currently requires transgender women wanting to compete in women's sports to submit documentation, including testosterone levels, to the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports. The committee's medical review panel determines eligibility.

South Carolina Gamecocks women's college basketball coach Dawn Staley is 100% correct: trans women should be able to play in women's sports competitions (and vice-versa for trans men in men's sports). 🏳️‍⚧️