#Trans Youth Manifesto

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

At least they're admitting it's a form of medically assisted self-harm.

[crossdreamers]

There is a pro-transgender Labour revolt against health secretary Wes Streeting. You can sign the letter.

Labour health secretary Wes Streeting has continued the transphobic policies of the previous Conservative government. Now Labour members have published and open letter anyone can sign.

Wes Streeting has said:

“This ban [on puberty blockers] brings the private sector in line with the NHS. We are committed to providing young people with the evidence-led care that they deserve”.

Evidence shows that blockers are of great help to young trans people, as it gives them some breathing space before puberty changes their bodies in traumatic ways.

Streeting is either lying about what medical research on trans people says or he has not done his homework. As a gay man he should know how oppression and erasure work.

The letter states:

International evidence shows that puberty suppressing hormones are a safe and effective way to temporarily pause a young person’s puberty, giving them time to consider their options for transition. Much of the concern around their use stems from the idea that those who take puberty blockers go on to use cross sex hormones as part of their transition. We do not think that trans young people growing up to be happy and healthy trans adults is a bad outcome while rates of de/retransition are exceptionally low. Rather than honouring Labour’s manifesto commitment to “remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition & acceptance,” you have decided to strip trans young people of their bodily autonomy, undermining important medical principles, such as Gillick Competence, in favour of upholding the Conservative approach of politicising the lives of trans people. Even the widely discredited Cass Review does not go so far as to recommend the criminalisation of puberty blockers for trans young people.

You can read and sign the letter here.

See also:

Wes Streetings Tweet: An Analysis #BWOT Wes Streeting sparks fury after defending ban on puberty blockers for trans kids The World Professional Association for Transgender Health with severe critique of the UK Cass review on transgender youth

By Jack Molay.

[allthegeopolitics]

A growing number of Labour MPs have spoken out against health secretary Wes Streeting’s “very concerning” decision to make the ban on privately prescribed puberty blockers permanent.  In the wake of criticism from LGBTQ+ organisations and activists, Streeting defended his decision, writing a long thread on X/Twitter on Sunday (14 July). The ban on private prescriptions for puberty blockers was implemented by the since ousted Conservative government in May, a move that followed the publication of the Cass Report in April, which advised scrutiny of the medication. Now, an internal row has erupted, with Labour MPs also voicing their concerns. Liverpool Riverside MP Kim Johnson took to X to label the ban “very concerning”, saying it goes against Labour’s manifesto, which, she pointed out, “promised to remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition and acceptance. This entails ending the ban on puberty blockers”. Johnson added: “I will always stand with trans youth.” 

Continue Reading.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rachel Leingang at The Guardian:

Donald Trump wants to shut down the US Department of Education, saying at recent rallies that it should be disbanded to “move everything back to the states where it belongs”. The idea of dismantling the education department has become increasingly mainstream, though it’s nearly as old as the department itself, which was created by Congress as a cabinet-level agency in 1979. Trump made similar promises on the 2016 campaign trail to either cut or hobble the department.

Eliminating it would require Congress to act, which could be an impossible feat, though several of Trump and his allies’ policy goals on education could be accomplished through presidential actions. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s rightwing manifesto for a potential incoming Trump administration, lays out how dismantling the federal education department would work, leaving behind, if anything, a husk focused solely as a “statistics-gathering agency that disseminates information to the states”, writes Lindsey Burke, the author of the education chapter and leader of Heritage’s education policy center. The department’s elimination is one of many goals contained in the extensive conservative playbook that will inform a second Trump term. Project 2025 calls for privatizing education and driving out any programs related to LGBTQ+ youth or diversity.

[...]

Trump tells voters on his campaign site a few ways he would manage education:

Cut federal funding for schools that are “pushing critical race theory or gender ideology on our children” and open civil rights investigations into them for race-based discrimination.

End access for trans youth to sports.

Create a body that will certify teachers who “embrace patriotic values”.

Reward districts that get rid of teacher tenure.

Adopt a parents’ bill of rights.

Implement direct elections of school principals by parents.

[...]

The project proposes phasing out one major program, Title I, over a 10-year period. The $18bn funding source supports low-income students. Instead, the project says states “should assume decision-making control over how to provide a quality education to children from low-income families”.

“Phasing that out is going to be very detrimental to that population of students who are already vulnerable for many reasons,” James said. The Heritage Foundation also wants to eliminate Head Start, a program that funds early childhood education for low-income families, because it is “fraught with scandal and abuse”, according to a chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services. The Center for American Progress says in a new report that eliminating Head Start would reduce access and increase costs for childcare, hurting economic stability. Beyond these major funding changes, the project – and Trump – both want to see expansions of school choice, like voucher programs that allow students to use money that would otherwise fund their seats at public schools to attend a private ones. Trump has said that he supports universal school choice, or the ability of any student to use taxpayer funds to attend whatever school they want. Trump also has a video on his campaign site dedicated to how he would help home-schooling families. [...]

LGBTQ+ and diversity issues attacked

Anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-diversity policies are sprinkled throughout the education recommendations in Project 2025 and in Trump’s platform. The project also supports passing a parents’ bill of rights to give parents more access to classroom materials.

The project proposes ridding education programs of any “gender ideology and critical race theory”, like a “non-binary” category in data collection or the ability of trans youth to participate in sports aligned with their gender. It also calls for parental approval for the use of names or pronouns other than those on birth certificates. And it wants to gut protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Project 2025 suggests the federal government put anti-LGBTQ+ policies in place in the schools it oversees as a way to set an example to state and local leaders. As examples of what the project considers “critical race theory” that should be abolished, it mentions “mandatory affinity groups”, training programs for teachers that require them to “confess their privilege” or assignments in which “students must defend the false idea that America is systemically racist”. These activities are “actively disrupting the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness”.

Attacks on the Department of Education are a key part of the radical right-wing Project 2025 playbook, and also Donald Trump’s.

They both want to radically reshape public schooling, such as dramatic cuts to special education and Head Start, institute a certification body for certifying teachers who “embrace patriotic values” (aka MAGA values), and eliminating LGBTQ+ protections.

[ceilidhtransing]

If you're eligible to vote in the upcoming UK general election, please for the love of god vote against the Tories

The 2024 Conservative manifesto is a total disaster for LGBTQ rights, particularly those of trans, nonbinary and intersex people.

A smattering of fun things they plan to do if elected:

Change the Equality Act such that the “sex” category only means “biological sex”, thus removing discrimination protections for trans and nonbinary people

Codify that an individual “can only have one sex in the eyes of the law”, denying nonbinary people the right to have their gender legally recognised

Force teachers to follow recent government guidance that bans discussion of gender identity in schools and outs gender-questioning kids to their parents

Ban gender-neutral healthcare terminology like “chest-feeding” or “birthing parent”

Legislate to permanently prevent the private prescription of puberty blockers for trans, nonbinary and questioning youth

That last one is a biggie. You read it right - they have already banned any new prescriptions for puberty blockers on the NHS; now they want to make it illegal to even access them privately, through services like GenderGP or YourGP or GenderCare or any other non-NHS provider. I'm sure I don't need to detail at length how devastating this would be to so many young people and their families.

And aside from these specific promises, this section of their manifesto is full of transphobic dogwhistles like “biological sex is a reality” and that a ban on conversion therapy is a “complex issue”.

So please, if you're eligible to vote on 4 July, go and vote against the Tories. No, I'm not saying you therefore “have to vote Labour”; there are plenty of valid reasons you might not want to vote for that party either, and you may well live in a constituency where Labour is not the primary competitor to the Conservatives anyway. But if you don't want to vote Labour - totally fair - at least go vote Liberal Democrat. Or Green. Or SNP. Or Plaid Cymru. Or something else that isn't this flaming binbag of rabid transphobes. I have a whole election masterpost pinned to the top of my blog that directs you to registering to vote, making sure you have the right ID, and finding out about anti-Tory tactical voting if that's something that you're interested in. If you're not already registered to vote, you have until midnight on 18 June to do so.

And I know that everyone is already saying with certainty that the Conservatives will face electoral wipeout this year. But it's a genuine risk that too many people will just take this for granted and not bother to vote because “the Tories aren't going to win anyway”, so they end up sneaking through with far more seats than expected because of crashingly low voter turnout. We can't just rest on our laurels here. Please do your small part to deny any more power to this hateful nightmare of a political party.

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett

goodreads

Eleven unique short stories that stretch from a rural Canadian Mennonite town to a hipster gay bar in Brooklyn, featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love. These stories, shiny with whiskey and prairie sunsets, rattling subways and neglected cats, show growing up as a trans girl can be charming, funny, frustrating, or sad, but never will it be predictable. Other women Twenty hot tips to shopping success How old are you anyway? How to stay friends Lizzy & Annie Real equality (a manifesto) Portland, Oregon Not bleak A carried ocean breeze Winning Youth

Mod opinion: I've read this short story collection and I really enjoyed it <3

[lets-steal-an-archive]

Ben Collins: It’s time for journalists to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard

“Triumphs of the truth are not accidents. They are times the American media — including and especially those outside of the disinformation beat — did not equivocate and did not give an inch to lies and the liars who tell them.”

By BEN COLLINS June 13, 2023, 12:16 p.m.

Editor’s note: NBC News reporter Ben Collins was one of the winners of the 2023 Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Television Political Journalism, given by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. This year’s awards focused on “best practices of TV journalism aimed at combating disinformation and defending democracy.” Collins included this memo to the judges, along with a compilation of TV news reports.

An update on the information war, for the 2023 Walter Cronkite Awards

We’re losing.

I’m hesitant to start off this memo on such a grim note, but it’s true: The people putting out the truth are under siege in the information war, and we’re not doing so great. That’s, in part, because a lot of those people aren’t even aware they’re in an information war to begin with.

There is good news: We can still win. It will take a change in tack, and a little bit of courage.

But first, since I’m doubling down on bad ideas right out of the gate, I’m going to do something else that’s probably ill advised. I’m about to quote Edward R. Murrow, who, I’ve been told by a bunch of books, was not a pal of Mr. Cronkite. They both wound up at the same place — the facts — and they took two separate ways to get there. They were in the trenches and were too deep in it to see they were on the same side. I get it. We’ve all been there. A lot of us are there right now.

Murrow, famously, said this:

This instrument can teach. It can illuminate. Yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who is generally believed to have known something about weapons, is reported to have said, “When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.” The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

We’re back in that very same battle right now, and it’s against the same enemy: ignorance, intolerance, indifference. The box is smaller now. It’s in your pocket. It’s brighter and faster and it vibrates and dings and brings you horror and joy and knows what makes you feel better and sure as hell knows what makes you feel worse. Then it assigns those bad feelings to a political enemy, and the good feelings to anybody trying to get rid of those people.

That’s what you’ll see in the stories I’ve covered in the last year. Fear and panic and paranoia and lies and deceit that led to terror, death and the attempted disenfranchisement of American voters.

You’ll see that first with my coverage of the Buffalo shooting, a terror attack perpetrated by a white supremacist obsessed with the “Great Replacement Theory” lie that has pervaded extremist spaces online. The shooter posted his own tranche of racist lies on the internet in his manifesto for 4chan and 8chan users, which I had to convey to our viewers without further spreading his hate.

You’ll see midterm election night coverage of the attempts to shoo away voters from early voting ballot drop boxes by “mule watchers,” the conspiracy theorists obsessed with the lie that “2,000 ballot mules” had stolen the election from Donald Trump.

You’ll see the hate campaign targeted at America’s trans youth that continues to make some of the most persecuted Americans fear for their lives to this day.

But you’ll also see interspersed moments of justice and relief. You’ll see my reporting on a day I thought would never come: October 12th, the afternoon Alex Jones was forced to reckon with his decades of lies and pay almost $1 billion to the families of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. You’ll see how Russia’s global information war fell apart as its military began to invade Ukraine, and how Vladimir Putin’s propaganda arm scrambled to adopt lies first spread by American anti-vaccine groups.

I hope you notice something specific while reviewing my coverage of the last year of hate, and how hate loses. Triumphs of the truth are not accidents. They are times the American media — including and especially those outside of the disinformation beat — did not equivocate and did not give an inch to lies and the liars who tell them. No one attempted to falsely humanize the inhumane — like the horrors of Vladimir Putin. No one tried to bend over backwards to provide positive framing to intentional cruelty — like the lies of Alex Jones — even, or especially, if it was politically inconvenient at the moment.

When media manipulators were met with a unified opposition armed with clear facts — when that unified opposition stood firmly alongside those who were constantly attacked by men with powerful and profitable propaganda machines — that opposition won. We won. The news won.

But it takes unity, and not capitulation, in these moments. There is no meeting liars halfway, because the truth then becomes one-half lie. We must simply be louder, and clearer, with the truth.

The wires and lights in the box aren’t quite so simple now that they’re in our pockets. Some of them are keeping your kid up at night, telling your teenager fantastical tales about the Illuminati on TikTok. (And some of them are keeping your parents up at night, too, telling equally fantastical tales about the nightly gunfight that is actually just fireworks on NextDoor.) The people spreading those Illuminati lies are not playing by the rules, nor are they particularly interested in the truth. They are interested in money and power, and they have been gaming our algorithms to gin up fear and sell a balm for it.

I have been covering this stuff for too long now, and I can assure you that they are not going to stop. So we have no choice: We simply have to tell better stories than them. We have to be better at extolling truth — based in empathy, democracy, and human rights — than fearmongers have become at selling profitable lies.

We can win, but we have to be more unified, and we have to be more human. We’ve faced this before and we’re facing it again. “There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference.”

Look down at your phone. The lights and wires in that box are smaller, but they contain exponentially more ways to do harm. If you want your vote to count, or if you were born in any way different, I’m certain you’d agree.

“When the war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.” I’m confident I threw away my scabbard.

—

Ben Collins covers disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News.

[kharmii]

Thoughts on books such as Gender Queer being in school libraries? I've gotten into major arguments over how it's literally porn and was accused of abusing trans kids by not wanting to let them explore their gender identity.

The person had no response for "there's literally images of simulated sex acts" but I got dogpiled anyway.

The one I heard about was called All Boys Aren't Blue which was basically an activist manifesto depicting anal rape of a minor and incest. It was so graphic the pundits and parents at school board meetings couldn't read the offending passages out loud. Left wing pundits like, "Why are you trying to censor us? Maybe a fourteen year old anal rape incest survivor needs to read this for solidarity!"

Right wing pundits argued that there is only so much shelf space in a middle school library, so excluding obscene alphabet sexual propaganda material isn't 'censoring' per se. It's deciding that there are countless other books more deserving of shelf space. Sheez, when I was a kid in middle school reading Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley Twins, I wasn't allowed to read the Sweet Valley High books until I was in 7th grade because some of the topics might have been too grown up for a child up to eleven years of age.

It would have never occurred to anybody back then that someday books about rape of a minor or genital mutilation would be sneaked into middle school libraries. They're obviously evangelizing, and I would even go so far as to consider this a real time science experiment on our youth. Get enough of them to experience gender confusion at a young enough age, make it a profound enough social contagion, and BOOM! That many more young people to carve up and pump full of drugs their bodies don't need and aren't used to cure an actual bodily dysfuntion.

Side Note: People are posting the usual 'blame white supremacists' dog whistles in that last post blathering about whypipo are to blame for TERFs.... Examples:

Get it! Classic suffragettes (who actually did meaningful work fighting for women's rights, as opposed to modern feminists who post this sort of shit) were racist too! White women, white men, white everything are nothing but racists, and therefore none of their good works past or present are worth a damn. White people are EVIL, so we might as well hate ourselves and mutilate our genitals, so we become Darwinism fails.

Hey anon, have you noticed that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF TERFS ARE WHITE WOMEN AND WHITE PASSING? (What does white passing even mean, you retarded troglodyte bits of human smegma projecting your undesirability as a breeding partner onto the white race. That's what I suspect is behind a lot of this deep down).

Anyway, if a lot of whypipo are represented as they claim, then one can also make the argument that whypipo are over-represented in the gay/trans movement as well. Seriously, are a lot of non-white countries mutilating their children? Are libraries in China, India, Iran, Brazil, etc, etc, full of books brainwashing little girls into questioning their gender and mutilating their reproductive organs? -Or is this bullshit only being pushed in first world countries, possibly with the side effect of causing civilizational collapse?

Side Note 2: I'd be curious to see the racial makeup broken down of people who get fully sterilized after gender transition surgery. Is it like 99% white? How many weirdo parents are giving their children puberty blockers in Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, etc. etc.....

[indie-brokenarm]

You will not be able to gender reconcile, sister. You will not be able to pack it, tuck it or medically block it. You will not be able to find yourself on pills or skin patches and skip out of country for a budget procedure, because the revolution will not be injected.

The revolution will not be injected. The revolution will not be brought to you by academia in four years without off-campus interruptions. The revolution will not be describable with words approved by PC professors and their impressionable youth followers who PrideTM-fully brand themselves 'Queer' with no sense of irony or risk, yet censor terms like She-Male, Tranny, Transvestite and Transgendered. The revolution will not be injected.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the Guggenheim, Whitney, MOMA or Tate, and will not star Jack Halberstam reading Gaga Manifesto then preaching mob mentality by quipping a million people liking Lady Gaga must mean there's something to it. The revolution will not thank wealthy patrons of the arts. The revolution will not make you five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be injected, brother.

There will be no Iranian government subsidized gender reassignments pushed on men who love men or women who love women just to avoid prosecution as homosexuals under Islamic law. CNN will not predict four Ladyboys satisfying a Thai airline's sexist beauty standards for female flight attendants means equality is at hand. The revolution will not be injected.

There will be no Facebook fan pages about kids shooting hormone inhibitors that stunt their brains. There will be no Facebook fan pages about kids shooting hormone inhibitors that stunt their brains. There will be no pictures of Whitney Houston impersonators being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Del LaGrace Volcano pushing a baby stroller through Heathrow in a pink, blue and purple liberation birdsuit that he had been saving for just the proper occasion.

Dancing With the Stars, Ru Paul's Drag Race, Big Brother and Botched will no longer be so damned relevant, and no one will care if Caitlyn Jenner gets a Reebok endorsement to remove her dick on live television while sex workers are in the street looking for a day's pay. The revolution will not be injected.

There will be no Transgender prison inmates raped and attacked by armed guards and convicts after being jailed for defending themselves against bashers about to blow their brains out. The theme song will not be written by Elton John, Stephen Sondheim, nor sung by George Michael, Ricky Martin, Madonna, Melissa Etheridge, or The Village People. The revolution will not be injected.

The revolution will not stereotype all Trans experiences as Trans-Female, Trans-Male, or Transsexual. You will not have to worry about a spouse in your bedroom, Logan Ireland in a tank, or your gender when choosing a toilet bowl. The revolution will not go better with 'T.' The revolution will not fight the prenatal developments that may cause dysphoria. The revolution won't put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be injected, will not be injected, will not be injected, will not be injected. The revolution will be no hormone, children. The revolution will be hard to swallow.

[transbookoftheday]

The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice by Shon Faye

Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice.

In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond.

The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalized people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us.

[justletmeon12]

Books Read in 2023 - If you're curious about any of them, please ask! I love talking about books

Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)

Introduction to American Deaf Culture (Holcomb)

The Colour of Magic (Pratchett)

The Autistic Trans Guide to Life

Luda (Morrison)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Genderqueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary

The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community

Between Two Worlds (Sinclair)

Under the Skin (Faber)

When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Portnoy’s Complaint 

Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of An Disability Rights Activist (Judith Heumann)

Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

This is Moscow Speaking (Arzhak/Yuli Markovich Daniel; tr by Stuart Hood, Harold Shukman, John Richardson)

The Call-Girls (Koestler)

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

Homintern

A Scanner Darkly

The Trauma of Caste (Soundararajan)

Shards of Honor (Bujold)

The Origin of Virtue

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers

Dreadnought

Children of the Arbat (Rybakov; tr by Harold Shukman)

The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America

Janissaries (Jerry Pournelle)

The Disability Studies Reader (Davis)

Fat Off, Fat On: A Big Bitch Manifesto

The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth

Inseparable (de Beauvoir)

World’s End (T. Coraghessan Boyle)

American Melancholy (Joyce Carol Oates)

Transgender Children and Youth (Nealy)

Disgrace (Coetzee)

The Light Around the Body (Bly)

The Hangman’s Daughter (Pötzsch)

Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction (Goffman)

The Trouble with Tink (Thorpe)

Gender Advertisements (Goffman)

And the Band Played On

Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg

The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life

Old Norse Poems: The Most Important Non-Skaldic Verse Not Included in the Poetic Edda (tr. by Hollander)

Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations (Rich)

Ladies Almanack (Barnes)

Over the Hill (Copper)

Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand

The Poetic Edda (tr. by Bellows)

Paris Peasant (Aragon, tr. by Taylor)

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration

Stigma (Goffman)

Rubyfruit Jungle

Fairies and the Quest for Never Land

Sight Unseen (Kleege)

The Homosexuality of Men and Women (Hirschfeld, tr. by Lombardi-Nash)

Bea Wolf

New Selected Stories (Thomas Mann, tr. by Searls)

Gay Bar (Jeremy Atherton Lin)

Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat

Treatise on Style (Aragon, tr. by Waters)

Diana (Frederics)

The World I Live In (Keller)

Christopher and His Kind (Isherwood)

Put Out More Flags (Waugh)

Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (Mann; tr. and introduced by Morris, Lilla, Rainey)

On Our Own (Judi Chamberlin)

All Boys Aren’t Blue

Artemis (Weir)

Goethe und die Demokratie

Dress Codes (Howey)

Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing

Forms of Talk (Goffman)

Sister Gin

The Decameron (Boccaccio; tr. by Musa and Bondanella)

Elric of Melniboné (Moorcock)

Paradiso (tr. by Hollander and Hollander)

My Mistress’ Eyes are Raven Black

Mademoiselle de Maupin (Gautier)

The Magic Mountain (Mann, tr. by Lowe-Porter)

Home to Harlem (McKay)

The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (Moorcock)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Christina Buttons

Published: Feb 10, 2024

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) released its Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care (GAPC) textbook and it’s crazier than I thought. In a recent op-ed, @Miriam_Grossman and @LHSchwartzMD call it a “political manifesto posing as a scientific guide for mental health care.”🧵 

The authors of the GAPC claim the sex binary is “mythical,” created by “European colonial influences," and that scientific neutrality is a “fallacy.”

It says trans-identified youth are oppressed from “living in a cis heteronormative society” created by “cisgender people in power.”

Grossman and Schwartz argue, “If a brain surgeon told you that scientific neutrality is a fallacy and brain anatomy is a result of European colonial influence, you would probably look for another surgeon.”

Unsurprisingly, nearly 90% of the guide’s 56 authors identify as “transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-expansive.”

“Only those committed to the radical ideas and practices announced in the book are considered experts,” say Grossman and Schwartz.

The GAPC demands that medical and surgical interventions be readily available to all patients, regardless of age or psychiatric conditions, including psychosis, stating, “Psychosis alone is not a contraindication to gender-affirming services.” (!)

--

Op-ed:

By: Miriam Grossman and Lauren Schwartz

Published: Feb 3, 2024

In a world of confusing and contradictory messages about the meaning of male and female, where can families, health professionals and the public turn for guidance?

We are psychiatrists who care for transgender-identified youths, and we believe the answer should be simple: the American Psychiatric Association. The association calls for the “highest ethical standards of professional conduct.” Its publishing house claims to offer clinicians “authoritative, up to date ... information.” But with the publication late last year of Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care, the American Psychiatric Association has abandoned its professed mission of promoting ethical, evidence-based care.

Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care is a political manifesto posing as a scientific guide for mental health care. According to the authors, the man-woman binary is “mythical,” and more sex categories would flourish if not for “European colonial influences.” Scientific neutrality is “a fallacy,” they assert, unaware or unconcerned that if the public took that assertion seriously, it wouldn’t seek help from clinicians who listen to the American Psychiatric Association.

Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care further asserts that psychiatry and psychology have perpetuated the oppression of transgender youths whose depression, anxiety, eating disorders and suicidality are due to the stress of “living in a cis heteronormative society.” These individuals lack access to quality care, we are told, because of “cisgender people in power.”

This faddish ideological language would not be acceptable in any other field of medicine. If a brain surgeon told you that scientific neutrality is a fallacy and brain anatomy is a result of European colonial influence, you would probably look for another surgeon.

Nearly 90% of Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care’s 56 authors, we learn in the forward, are “transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-expansive.” This is not “representation” but a litmus test: Only those committed to the radical ideas and practices announced in the book are considered experts.

The authors demand that we clinicians rubber-stamp even the youngest child’s self-diagnosis, placing them on a path toward permanent disfigurement and possible sterility. Rest assured, we shall not.

Omitted from the 26 chapters is any mention of recent systematic reviews — these constitute the most reliable method of evidence analysis in evidence-based medicine. All such reviews to date have consistently demonstrated that the touted benefits of “gender-affirming care” are highly uncertain. Relying on these evidence reviews, health authorities in countries as progressive as Sweden have said that the health risks of gender-affirming care in minors “currently outweigh the possible benefits.” Along with other European countries, Sweden now recommends psychotherapy as the preferred treatment for youth gender dysphoria. It confines puberty suppression to research settings, recognizing it as “an experimental practice.”

Among innumerable examples of medical misinformation, the Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care textbook claims that puberty blockers are a “fully reversible intervention that allows young patients time to mature.” This is false. Research has consistently shown that nearly every child placed on blockers continues to cross sex hormones. Only a minuscule number step off the assembly line toward life-long dependance on pharmaceuticals. Estrogen and testosterone have a laundry list of serious side effects, and when puberty has been prevented at an early stage, they cause sterility. We were astonished to see blockers described as benign and fully reversible. We have never given them to physically healthy children, and we lack long-term data on their impact on bone health, fertility, sexual functioning and IQ.

“Affirming care” calls for the increase of a girl’s or woman’s normal testosterone level by up to 1,900%. Such high levels in females are typically caused by tumors. Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care makes the astonishing claim that this “treatment” is safe and effective in most cases, referencing a 2017 systematic review. But the authors of that review admit the evidence they used was “low quality” and warned “caution is necessary” when prescribing testosterone to transgender-identifying females. In fact, the ovaries of women given testosterone are similar to those seen in a disorder called polycystic ovaries, which itself is associated with increased cancer risk and metabolic abnormalities.

Long-term use of testosterone by females causes vaginal atrophy and possible infertility and is associated with cardiovascular events. Remember, we are speaking of doctors prescribing a controlled substance to physically healthy young women whose trans identity may be temporary.

Even the World Health Organization, a group known for endorsing progressive viewpoints, recently conceded that the evidence base for the medical interventions endorsed with confidence in the APA textbook is “limited and variable.”

We are also deeply troubled by the authors’ insistence that medical and surgical interventions be available on demand to every patient, regardless of age and other psychiatric conditions. Anorexic? Autistic? Suicidal? No problem. The Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care authors will place even patients with psychosis — meaning they are detached from reality — on medical interventions.

“Psychosis alone is not a contraindication to gender-affirming services,” the authors write.

The American Psychiatric Association asserts its publishing house uses peer-review at the time of selection and again at final approval of any project. But no credible peer-review process could possibly overlook the many errors and omissions that fill this publication. Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care is neither an ethical nor a trustworthy source of clinical guidance. In fact, it increases the risk of iatrogenic harm and puts clinicians at risk for lawsuits and loss of license.

With several other physicians, we composed an open letter to the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association calling for the withdrawal of Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care until our concerns are addressed and the errors and omissions corrected. The letter was sent at the end of the year and, to date, it has more than 6,500 signatories, with a preponderance of medical professionals, including association members, national and international gender experts, psychologists, and researchers. Others who signed are school counselors, patients, parents and concerned citizens.

We call on the American Psychiatric Association to be accountable for its actions, and remind its members of their responsibility to patients, families, medical and mental health professionals, and the public. We deserve the truth. The association has discredited itself by caving to dangerous groupthink.

Dr. Miriam Grossman is a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist and a senior fellow at Do No Harm. Her most recent book is “Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness.” Dr. Lauren Schwartz is a practicing board-certified psychiatrist, a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a fellow of FAIR in Medicine and a member of Do No Harm.

--

Open letter:

An Open Letter to the American Psychiatric Association Regarding the Publication of Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care

January 2024

On November 8, 2023, Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care was released by the American Psychiatric Association’s official publishing house.

We the undersigned strongly support the following Open Letter to the APA. Our letter calls on the APA to explain why it glaringly ignored many scientific developments in gender-related care and to consider its responsibility to promote and protect patients’ safety, mental and physical health.  

On Dec 28, 2023, this Open Letter was sent to the leadership of the APA, asking for a substantive response. We invite you to sign below to support our continued efforts to demand medical and mental health excellence from the APA.

-

We are a group of clinicians, educators, and researchers committed to treating every patient with respect and compassion while upholding excellence in medical and mental health care. We seek an unbiased scientific investigation and discussion of the harms and benefits of all types of care offered to those with gender related distress. We have grave concerns about the American Psychiatric Association’s GAPC textbook. Until those concerns are addressed and the textbook’s errors corrected, we call on the APA for its withdrawal. 

GAPC, released on November 8, 2023 by the American Psychiatric Association’s official publishing house, is touted as “the first textbook dedicated to providing affirming, intersectional, and evidence-informed psychiatric care for transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-expansive (TNG) people.” APA Publishing claims to use a system that “is unique in the extent to which it uses peer review in both the selection and final approval of publishing projects.”  Considering the serious concerns about “affirming care” of minors raised by multiple international systematic reviews, we do not understand how such a review process could grant the imprimatur of the APA. We ask that APA Publishing disclose details of the peer review process for this book and explain why it glaringly ignored scientific developments in gender-related care. 

The book’s claims of being evidence-informed are untenable. GAPC omits any in-depth analysis of the evidence to date, dismisses “scientific neutrality” as “a fallacy” (p. xix), and chooses authors with the correct “lived experiences” and “community impact of prior work over academic titles” (p. xx).   

At the time of publishing, the gender affirmation model promoted in GAPC is under scrutiny from clinicians and scientists worldwide. After conducting careful systematic reviews of the evidence, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom are drastically retrenching from their earlier affirmation model for treating gender dysphoria in minors. In Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Australia and New Zealand we see either critical reviews by public health agencies, or pushback by professional societies and in mainstream medical journals. Having omitted these international developments and heated debates, GAPC was out of date before its publication.  

Not only do the authors ignore the most current systematic reviews, which count as the most reliable source of scientific information in evidence-based medicine, they also repeatedly undermine well-established standards of care in multiple mental and medical practices. We highlight just two examples of many.  

First, GAPC neglects to address the many known risks of puberty blockers (see Cass Review 2020, Jorgensen et al. 2022, FDA 2022), and cross-sex hormones while presenting fundamentally flawed research to support their gender-affirmative approach. The authors falsely state that “Use of GnRHas in pubertal suppression is a fully reversible intervention that allows young patients time to mature, explore their gender identity, and understand better the risks and benefits of GAHT” (p. 52). It is astonishing to see such an outdated fallacy appear in this book, especially referring to a case presentation of a 10-year-old child. According to Jorgensen et al. 2022, “Over 95% of youth treated with GnRH-analogs go on to receive cross-sex hormones. By contrast, 61-98% of those managed with psychological support alone reconcile their gender identity with their biological sex during puberty.” This contradicts both the reversibility and exploratory nature of puberty suppression claimed by GAPC.  

The authors continue, “This often leads to improvement in psychiatric symptoms, behavioral problems (de Vries et al. 2011), and suicidal ideation (Turban et al. 2020)” (p. 52). The studies cited by the authors have been extensively critiqued by the aforementioned reviews and other investigators (see Biggs 2022, SEGM 2023, Abbruzzese et al. 2023). The European systematic reviews found the de Vries study to be at high risk of bias. The Turban et al. study is cross-sectional, and by the authors’ own admission “does not allow for determination of causation. Longitudinal clinical trials are needed to better understand the efficacy of pubertal suppression.” Additional, equally profound critiques include a) downplaying serious known side effects b) profound methodological flaws that exaggerate and misrepresent reported efficacy and benefits c) inclusion of only the most successful cases in outcome-reporting d) lack of applicability to the currently predominant cohort of minors experiencing gender dysphoria (adolescent-onset natal female patients with severe psychiatric comorbidities) and e) absence of randomized, controlled trials and long-term studies (Ludvigsson 2023).

Second, the authors are disturbingly nonchalant about the high rate of co-occurring mental and behavioral health challenges seen in the context of gender dysphoria. Autism, ADHD, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, suicidality, substance use disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder are all dramatically over-represented in gender dysphoric youth. The Minority Stress Model is used to dismiss such phenomena, unscientifically, as the result of “the psychosocial stressors associated with having to exist within a cisheteronormative society” (p. 50). Minority stress is not sufficient to explain away all psychological distress in the gender nonconforming population, as research has shown no significant change in suicide rates over time in this cohort despite increasing societal acceptance. Rather than comprehensively exploring and addressing these co-occurring conditions, GAPC charges ahead with medicalized gender transition in children and young adults with autism and ADHD (chapter 8), substance use disorders (chapters 1, 13 & 16), eating disorders (chapter 15), and severe mental illness (chapter 18).  

GAPC overlooks the risk that rapid affirmation concretizes patients’ dysphoria or contributes to patients’ regret post-treatment, with some even attempting to return to their natal sex. Such detransitioned individuals are now suing surgeons, endocrinologists, and psychiatrists for damages, claiming their doctors encouraged them to follow measures that are not backed by rigorous science and did not address their co-morbid conditions. They are suing health systems employing such doctors and the professional organizations (the American Academy of Pediatrics in the Isabelle Ayala lawsuit) that uncritically endorse unproven and irreversible treatments. It appears that the APA is either unaware of or has chosen to ignore such risks and outcomes for patients and for those that promote, teach and provide these treatments. 

GAPC condemns any attempt to prevent such iatrogenic harm through careful evaluation, wrongly dismissing widely-accepted, less invasive psychotherapeutic treatments as “conversion therapy” (p. 291). Instead, GAPC proposes that patients struggling with gender-related distress be taken at their word that “gender” is the source of the problems and rushed to treatments that may lead to irreversible sterility, anorgasmia, surgical complications, and life-long dependence on exogenous hormones and medical interventions. This aggressive approach discounts the possibility that many of these children, if not initiated on blockers and hormones, would eventually conclude that their early gender dysphoria was the developmental prelude to a healthy, non-heterosexual adult orientation.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has similarly advocated for gender-affirming care by publishing a policy statement in 2018, a stance it recently reaffirmed. The AAP now finds itself named in the Ayala case, cited above, on claims that it improperly endorsed harmful care that is not backed by evidence. Its publishing house was accepting pre-orders for a book promoting gender-affirming care until December 6, 2023 when the book was removed, with refunds offered, pending further review. We hope the APA heeds the AAP’s example and retracts GAPC. 

Encouraging any physician, trainee, program or provider to view this book as “cutting-edge” “best practices” is unacceptable, unethical and unsafe. We urge APA Publishing to consider its responsibility to promote and protect patients’ safety and their mental and physical health, and to uphold its own claim to be “the world’s premier publisher of books, journals, and multimedia on psychiatry, mental health, and behavioral science”. To avoid discrediting itself as a professional organization and a reliable source of gender related psychiatric care, and to minimize the risk of legal liability to itself, we call on the APA to withdraw this book. 

==

“Psychosis alone is not a contraindication to gender-affirming services,” the authors write.

Jesus fucking Christ. Being delusional and divorced from all reality doesn't disqualify you from having your breasts or testicles cut off.

These people are complete fucking lunatics.

[worldspotlightnews]

Nashville school shooting: Tennessee Rep. Burchett calls for release of trans shooter's manifesto

FIRST ON FOX: Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett called for the manifesto by the transgender shooter at the private Presbyterian school in Nashville to be made public. “Our trans youth are troubled,” Burchett told Fox News Digital in a late Monday statement. “If they don’t get the help they need they can grow up to have some serious issues, but I obviously don’t believe they’ll all grow up to…

[eagletek]

Nashville school shooting: Tennessee Rep. Burchett calls for release of trans shooter's manifesto

FIRST ON FOX: Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett called for the manifesto by the transgender shooter at the private Presbyterian school in Nashville to be made public. “Our trans youth are troubled,” Burchett told Fox News Digital in a late Monday statement. “If they don’t get the help they need they can grow up to have some serious issues, but I obviously don’t believe they’ll all grow up to…

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice by Shon Faye

goodreads

Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than 1% of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarised 'debate', which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice. In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system, and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond. The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalised people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us.

Mod opinion: I've read this book and it's really good and interesting.

[maxbernini]

I do honestly believe Yara was meant to be a LI for somebody before jünglinge was out of the show. It just makes sense to me. In my opinion, watching the clues the show gave us, I think jünglinge's plan was either a) give a season to each girl of the cash queens and Isi was a character that would become important for Ava's bullying plot or b) Nora/Fatou/Ava and then Isi (after a proper redemption arc. So to me Yara was the LI for either Ava, Mailin or Isi but got thrown out by the new team.

i agree with all of this!!! i’ve always thought it’d be 3/4 cashqueens + isi too; i feel like the new gen mains were going to address things the original gen had been criticised for not handling well or even at all (matteo’s mental illness with nora; mia’s bisexuality & the lack of wlwoc with kieutou; trans narratives explored through a cis main’s LI > a trans character as the main) and that ava wasn’t intended as a sam/chris copy (and she def isn’t anyways) but like…sam was who the fandom wanted s5’s main to be, she was the girl squad member with the least amount of narrative focus etc, so ava as a main would put a black girl at the centre again. i feel like mailin would’ve had an ace coming out arc (that fan survey that mentioned asexuality), but not as a main; i can see it happening maybe in the bg of isi’s season? mailin going to that queer youth group with her? both of them learning to be better people & friends?? idk idk but huge agree on everything, especially yara!!

like…keeping her insta locked but still active is so suspicious?? she posts stories from parties and things and the other characters repost them to their own stories to remind us that yara’s active on insta. but why, if it’s locked?? it feels like a deliberate “keeping smth from the audience and a character” thing. in jen’s isra manifesto she talks about possibly both of them being muslim (and isra thus responding to s4 criticism), so maybe yara’s ig would’ve revealed that?? and/or something indicating she isn’t straight??

i would kill to know what jünglinge’s whole plan was 😑 ava and _huelk, yara, mailin, the instas (her & everyone breaking into the school + posting about it online a season after a plot about privilege involving breaking rules + posting it online lmao), zoefinn’s polyam plot…ugh