BROADview in Brief: Battle of the Balls

Survey says: Nuts!

From the USTS

The big news this week: 90,000 trans people responded to the National Center for Transgender Equality’s survey and they are doing just great—except for facing discrimination. The media reported the survey findings, including low detransition rates and high satisfaction, without talking much about who might be taking a survey by a center for transgender equality. How many detransitioners or disaffected transsexuals (to borrow from Corinna Cohn) were flocking to take the survey? And, once you get there, what if the questions and potential answers are written in a way to promote a particular picture?

Why aren’t you living as your assumed gender all the time? The vast majority of answers available include some terrible external reason. Sure, you could write in “the drugs have done awful things to my clitoris,” or “I detransitioned,” but they certainly aren’t offering such options.

Someone out there, however, has figured out that some people who transitioned are less than satisfied—medically traumatized, even. Hence, one Ohio surgeon advertising detransition surgeries. What billing codes do they use, we’re wondering.

The Free Press published yet another whistleblower clinician’s harrowing tale: I Was Told to Approve All Teen Gender Transitions. I Refused.—”For six years I worked at a hospital that said all teenagers with gender dysphoria must be affirmed. I quit my job to blow the whistle.”

Meanwhile, there was a “Battle of the Balls.” Per Detroit News: “A district court judge Wednesday denied a pair of dueling $6,500 small claims petitions that centered around a transgender woman's attempt to get her surgically removed testicles back after they were kept for months in her ex-boyfriend's refrigerator. During a contentious small claims hearing in Pontiac's 50th District Court, Judge Jeremy Bowie ruled ‘it's a wash’ after hearing testimony from Brianna Kingsley, 40, and her 37-year-old ex, William Wojciechowski.”

We wanted to draw some attention to this editorial by doctors Kristopher Kaliebe and David Atkinson, MD, published in American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry News.

We are concerned that gender-affirming care is based on principles that are currently only speculative but are often misrepresented as proven facts. We question whether the rapid increase in adolescent-onset gender dysphoria may arise from youth grasping onto a culturally suggested explanation for various discomforts experienced at puberty’s emergence. We note that supporting patients’ desire to change their bodies is dissimilar to the clinical approach in Body Dysmorphic Disorder or Anorexia Nervosa. We are concerned that some proponents of gender-affirming care assert, without citing supporting research, which attempts to help adolescents with gender dysphoria accept their physical bodies is somehow harmful.

Curious to hear what the response will be!

Alejandra Q drew up a huge list this week, though this one stuck out to me: “Florida Democratic Party chair unsure if a transgender woman can give birth: ‘I am not a doctor.’”

Here’s more of her summaries:

National:

— Dennis Hannon, a father from New York State, was denied medical authority over his eight-year-old son whose mother, Hannon claims, pushed their child's transition. Hannon learned about his son's transition via a school letter which referred to the minor as “Ruby”. The social transition happened despite his son not expressing any apparent distress about living as a boy. After the court ruling denied Hannon a say on his son’s medical decisions, the child eventually went back to identifying as boy. Hannon, wants to regain full custody of his son but lacks the funds to appeal the court’s decision.

— The state of South Dakota issued an apology letter and paid $300,000 to The Transformation Project, a transgender advocacy group, following the cancellation of a 2022 contract from the state’s Department of Health.

— Ohio backs off proposed restrictions on gender-affirming medical care for adults

— National Medical Association Concludes ‘Gender Affirming Care’ has ‘No demonstrable, long-term benefit’ to Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria—The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds—a conservative offshoot from APA) released a statement Wednesday following a review of 60 studies that concluded “social transition, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones have no demonstrable, long-term benefit on psychosocial well-being of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”

— Steube, Tuberville file bill to ban transgender women from US Olympic teams

— Old Bridge Board of Education will keep the 5756 transgender policy in place, NJ (The Old Bridge school board voted 4-3 in support of the policy with one abstention and another absent, according to an NJ Insider news piece. While the vote was close, the elected leaders of Old Bridge chose to focus on administrators’ and teachers’ willingness to “accept a student’s asserted gender identity; parental consent is not required,” this being one detail “parents’ rights” activists don’t take too kindly to in the policy. However, school officials disagree.)

— Arizona-based tour reinstates female-at-birth policy in wake of transgender controversy.

— Caitlyn Jenner Claims 'Narcissist' Lia Thomas Is Only Fighting for Transgender Athlete's Rights for 'Publicity'

— House panel considers bills making it easier for transgender Michiganders to change their names

— CCWF marks Transgender Prisoner Day of Action The Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) recently celebrated the Transgender Prisoner Day of Action.—This day recognizes the experiences of transgender and all gender-minority incarcerated people. It focuses on working together and breaking through the feelings of isolation brought on by incarceration. The day also helps establish new relationships.

— According to Fox News, the NIH is developing a “transgender voice training” app and has allocated $200,000 to fund its development. Spearheaded by scientists from the University of Cincinnati, the app aims to help trans-identified men sound more feminine. 

— Georgia Republicans introduced bill HB 1128, called the “Georgia Women’s Bill of Rights.” The bill will ensure that individuals use the sex-segregated spaces that align with their sex rather than with their gender identity. 

— Iowa Republican lawmakers voted to remove language from Gov. Kim Reynolds’ House Study Bill 649 that would have required driver’s licenses to list trans individuals’ sex next to their gender. The same panel, however, approved the provision of the bill that will define sex and will preclude individuals from accessing sex-segregated spaces based on their gender identity. According to the bill, birth certificates will list an individual’s sex along with information on gender reassignments. 

— The California Department of Education determined that a parental notification policy approved by the Rocklin Unified School District last September violates the state’s education code. The gender notification policy requires teachers and staff to let parents know if a student requests to go by a different pronoun and/or name or use school facilities based on gender identity. 

— Controversy followed a decision by Blue Hill Public Library to stock a copy of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage. Maine library director, Rich Boulet, made the decision to include the book claiming that he wanted the library “to be there for everybody, not just people who share my voting record” and the decision was supported by library staff. However, based on this decision some locals complained of “hate speech” and others went as far as to accuse Boulet of future transgender suicides.

— Republicans Are Trying To Pass Laws That Define What It Means To Be ‘Male’ Or ‘Female’—Advocates say the conservative push to define “sex” is not only politically motivated but goes against basic biology. (Republicans across the country are ramping up efforts to pass laws that refuse to recognize transgender people, including by attempting to codify definitions of sex that legal advocates and biology experts say are unscientific and politically motivated. At least 10 states have introduced or passed legislation to narrowly define what it means to be “male” or “female.” Such laws have myriad impacts for transgender people — from making it impossible to update birth certificates, driver’s licenses and state IDs with one’s correct gender marker, to barring people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.)

International:

— WHO Admits There Is No Scientific Evidence to Supporting 'Gender Affirming Care' On Children.

— South Australian government will not support proposed inquiry into gender dysphoria—A push for a national-first parliamentary inquiry into gender dysphoria and medical care appears to be dead in the water after just hours. 

— Rishi Sunak says Keir Starmer sad and wrong to link trans jibe to Brianna Ghey case.

— Kemi Badenoch, the British Secretary of State for Business and Trade, writes for Gender Clinic News regarding the link between childhood gender non-conformity and the likelihood that the person will later come out as gay.

— Dutch House of Representatives passed a motion calling for an independent Health Council to review  the medical and legal implications associated with the “gender-affirming” approach and childhood gender transition.

— Several international headlines followed upon the proposed policy changes by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Backlash included a large protest in the Calgary city hall which happened on Saturday and Wednesday’s school walkouts across Alberta. The Alberta Medical Association released a statement claiming that “we are fortunate to live in an era where there is clear scientific evidence supporting safe and effective treatments for youth that alleviate their suffering and save lives” and urged Smith to reconsider the proposal. Justine Trudeau also lambasted the proposals calling them the “most anti-LGBT in the country.” In contrast, for The New Westminster Times Amy Aileen Hamm wrote that “there’s no denying that Smith’s new legislation is reflective of majority Canadian sentiment. So naturally, Canada’s activists and hard left, plus their sycophant Liberal and NDP bootlickers—fringe minority that they are—had a Chernobyl-level nuclear meltdown, with a fallout zone well beyond Alberta’s borders.” While on trip to Ottawa, Smith defended the proposed policies claiming that “kids should not be going down a path where they're going to be making irreversible decisions about their reproductive health”. Canadian Conservative Leader, Pierre Poilievre, also criticized Justin Trudeau for his blanket condemnations of the Alberta's proposed policies, claiming that it was a means to avoid debating.

·       City Hall Protest.

·       School walkouts.

·       Alberta Medical Association.

·       On Trudeau.

·       Amy Aileen Hamm.

·       On Poilievre.

— A new study published in the Lancet by researchers from Manchester University found that transgender people are significantly more likely to have long-term mental health conditions. Based on a GP patient survey data on 1.5 million people over the age of 16, the study found that approximately one in six transgender men and women in England are at risk of long-term mental health conditions including depression and anxiety, compared to 8% of men and 12% of women in the general population. The Lancet Public Health journal.

What else caught your eye this week? How are you feeling about how this issue is progressing—or not?