BROADview in Brief

Censorship rising

Photo by Freddy Kearney on Unsplash

This week, a writer going by Lizzy Rose is giving the news summaries a spin. Please welcome her! And please share what you’ve been reading, listening to, or watching, in the comments.

There’s an old saying that every virtue when taken to extremes becomes a vice. In reality, virtue should be the middle state in between, but I’m not sure we always live in a world like that, do we? Has any time had a reasonable middle? I’ve been thinking a lot about that, as this week I’m back to being a university professor and notice just how much impinging there is on my speech. 

Yet this week’s Taliban publication, “What is Virtue and What is Vice?” lists thirty-five laws pertaining to women in public and private life, and I’ve been wondering: Will they have a “translation” for their American audiences certain to be on campus this fall? So many things in American society have taken on a religiosity with purity tests and shunning. There are so many rules to follow, I can’t always keep up with what’s allowed in our current polite/impolite society of Be Kind (™).

Congressional Republicans are investigating allegations that the Biden/Harris administration and US Health and Human Services (HHS), under Admiral Rachel Levine, “inappropriately pressured” medical professionals and urged WPATH to remove age limits on transgender surgery for minors and change pediatric recommendations for physicians. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Michigan) asserts that emails from the Biden/Harris administration make clear the move was to satisfy the “extremist elements of its base and make it easier for American children to obtain sex change surgery.” In addition, McClain’s committee is investigating Levine’s involvement in pressuring WPATH to change official recommendations for transgender care for children and adults. 

This week in Florida, in a 2-to-1 decision, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state can enforce bans on gender transitions for minors and limits for adults. Alabama will also now be allowed to implement it’s ban.

Speaking of gender transitions, this week twenty-three states filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court, stating their argument against treatment for children due to lack of conclusive evidence of safety. Adds Lisa: The lack of conclusive evidence has been noted over and over again in other countries. Just because you have a study concluding that “gender-affirming care” works, doesn’t mean it’s true. If the methodology is of very low quality, then the outcomes for the population outside the study could be very different, even the opposite. And yet only the Republicans admit this very basic tenet of reality.

I’ve raised two girls, two boys. The girls gravitated toward a big-headed plastic baby doll, two-feet long with spooky open-shut eyes, named Big Baby. The boys played matchbox cars and hit or bounced balls or took apart clocks so we were always late. Believe me when I say, each child had the same trucks and things with wheels and dolls and dress up. I wasn’t surprised by a study published inSweden’s Karlstad University. The author of the study, Marlene Stratman wrote: “The results showed that children who played more with toys traditionally considered for the opposite gender had more autistic traits and behavioral problems.” 

Adds Lisa: as the parent of a a child who played with “opposite-gender” toys (whatever that means), I’m skeptical. That said, they looked at seven-year-olds, who are squarely in the middle of the cognitive shift from “gender identity” (a toddler’s cognitive phase, when they think their sex category is based on stereotypes) to “gender constancy,” when they realize it’s based on sex. It could be that kids who don’t give into conformity at that time have something else going on. However, I have not looked at the methodology of the study. If you have, fill us in in the comments, please!

Other news this week:

Chicago schools' sex ed curriculum teaches elementary school kids about gender identity, puberty blockers (Fox)

Katy ISD board votes to ban books about gender identity from many school libraries (Houston Public Media)

Missouri District Approves Book Banning Measure, Restricts Conversations About Gender Identity (School Library Journal)

“Live and Let Live” Won’t Solve the Gender Wars (City Journal)

These comedies tried to wrestle with gender identity in the 80s-90s (PBS)

Conversations about improving prenatal care must include transgender and gender diverse birthing people (STAT News)

New Title IX regulations leave Wisconsin school districts in limbo, at risk of losing millions in federal funds (WPR)

Report Highlights Changes in Orientation, Gender Policies for Systems-involved Youth (The Imprint)

Texas school district under fire for 'unsafe' gender pronoun policy (KATV)

Anti-trans violence is coming for cisgender women of color, advocates say (19th)