Thanks to you both, as always, for this update and Lisa’s opening commentary. I do have a couple questions:
>it looks like the first and last items refer to the same case. Is that correct? I would be interested to know if anyone has seen GC commentary on this, and whether it is seen to be a good test case to put before the Supreme Court. (I worry it may not be.)
The news report entitled, “One-third of trans people taking testosterone may still ovulate, raising chance of pregnancy” is a good demonstration of failure to communicate arising from use of obfuscating language, isn’t it? Just think if the headline read “one-third of women taking testosterone may still ovulate”.
Last, as many here may know, Andrew Doyle is now on Substack. In a recent post, he put up his keynote speech from the 2023 LGBAlliance Conference (the whole speech is excellent, BTW). In it, he offered this interesting observation, relating to Lisa’s opening point: “This really isn’t an issue of left and right. . . . You cannot vote this out. Whichever major party you vote for, these ideas are embedded into the country. They are in every major institution. They’re in academia, the media, the arts, corporate institutions, the civil service, the police, higher education, absolutely everywhere, you can’t get rid of it. It did not come about by means of a democratic process, and therefore it cannot be eliminated by means of a democratic process.”
I think there’s a lot of truth in that, which is why law suits, parent actions with school boards, concerted public pressure on corporations peddling this stuff (note the fracas over the John Lewis company idiocy in England) and pushing for legislative changes (as Erin Friday and others are doing in CA) are so important.
Hi Lisa. Re the Maryland Law. There is also some potentially good news coming from my state. Wednesday I testified with others at the committee hearing in favor of HB722 introduced by Delegate Arikan. Any red state type ban on gender medicine is DOA in this deep blue state so the scope of HB722 is very narrow. Under current law youth can get meds including HRT at age 16 and 17 without parental consent in some circumstances. This bill requires parental consent for meds in all cases until age 18. Thanks to Jamie Reed for coming all the way from St. Louis to be on the panel! If this gets out of committee it will be a huge first step here.
I sure do hope and pray we are able to turn this around. It should never had been a political argument to begin with! Parents are responsible for their children. If you’d just let us do our job, we would not even have to be here. Watching our children’s bodies being permanently disfigured is heartbreaking beyond belief! I feel like we’re in a bad movie!
"One third still ovulate" - Exulansic has found examples of women taking T who thought they could not get pregnant, and did. Informed consent is a joke.
Doctors, therapists and psychologists should have been skeptical about the "Dutch Protocols" as soon as DeVries, Cohen-Kettenis and Steensma published the now famous (should read 'infamous') Ferring pharma funded "Dutch Study" with final results from only 33 subjects and no cohort group, down over the course of the experiment from the original 70 mostly males to 55, then 2 died, so 53 and no explanation as to why only 33 completed the exit survey. More:
Just a minor note: the Coxes are not “from” Hoosier, IN, as Hoosier is not a town but a term for folks from Indiana. Their son was indeed a minor when he was taken from their home but he is now over 18. I truly hope the Supreme Court hears this case.
Another bit of news. A cab driver in Portland, OR, an acquaintance of mine and a great guy, died after being stabbed in the neck last year by a passenger, a trans woman. She was just sentenced to 22 years in prison. Most articles don’t even mention that she is a trans woman, simply calling her a “woman.” Wonder if she is being sent to men’s or women’s prison?
This is exactly why the TRAs drove to meld their goals with other civil rights and racial justice movements. Because on their own, their policies don’t fly with most Americans. I think this alignment is in part what has sabotaged efforts to address racial inequality. Lumping everything together has not been good for civil rights goals of other groups. I would love to see some data from the Black community. The TRAs also lump themselves with women’s rights and abortion rights which I think most definitely is harming those movements. It’s like white men (and white women who identify as white men) are riding on the hard won coattails of true civil rights movements.
Re: the new bill in IL - I live in Illinois and represent parents targeted by the DCFS for allegations of abuse and neglect. The DCFS already has unbelievable power to dictate to parents their behavior and how to parent their children under threat of removal of children from their custody. The new bill is not about protecting children. It is the further erosion of parental rights in and by a State that is hell-bent on becoming the most progressive in the country.
A friend of mine who works in public health medicine with indigent/homeless trans adults told me when my daughter first came out as a lesbian, that she needs to be careful about pregnancy because a lot of young lesbians think that trans women can't get them pregnant and unexpected pregnancy rates among lesbians was growing. This was a few years ago. My daughter, who is now 19 and says they are actually a man, does not recognize that her future fertility is at stake by being on T long term. She wanted children when she was younger. "Informed Consent"--ha!
I have to wonder about the tragic death of the Oklahoma non binary student ... if we weren't in a time where these kids are being taught and influenced by peers, activists, adults who should know better, etc then this "girl" would never have been confused about her gender, and something so horrible would never have happened to her/them. My heart breaks for their family. So many girls going down this path, so many lives in turmoil, with girls being led to believe that being different means they are not a girl.
Thanks to you both, as always, for this update and Lisa’s opening commentary. I do have a couple questions:
>it looks like the first and last items refer to the same case. Is that correct? I would be interested to know if anyone has seen GC commentary on this, and whether it is seen to be a good test case to put before the Supreme Court. (I worry it may not be.)
The news report entitled, “One-third of trans people taking testosterone may still ovulate, raising chance of pregnancy” is a good demonstration of failure to communicate arising from use of obfuscating language, isn’t it? Just think if the headline read “one-third of women taking testosterone may still ovulate”.
Last, as many here may know, Andrew Doyle is now on Substack. In a recent post, he put up his keynote speech from the 2023 LGBAlliance Conference (the whole speech is excellent, BTW). In it, he offered this interesting observation, relating to Lisa’s opening point: “This really isn’t an issue of left and right. . . . You cannot vote this out. Whichever major party you vote for, these ideas are embedded into the country. They are in every major institution. They’re in academia, the media, the arts, corporate institutions, the civil service, the police, higher education, absolutely everywhere, you can’t get rid of it. It did not come about by means of a democratic process, and therefore it cannot be eliminated by means of a democratic process.”
I think there’s a lot of truth in that, which is why law suits, parent actions with school boards, concerted public pressure on corporations peddling this stuff (note the fracas over the John Lewis company idiocy in England) and pushing for legislative changes (as Erin Friday and others are doing in CA) are so important.
Hi Lisa. Re the Maryland Law. There is also some potentially good news coming from my state. Wednesday I testified with others at the committee hearing in favor of HB722 introduced by Delegate Arikan. Any red state type ban on gender medicine is DOA in this deep blue state so the scope of HB722 is very narrow. Under current law youth can get meds including HRT at age 16 and 17 without parental consent in some circumstances. This bill requires parental consent for meds in all cases until age 18. Thanks to Jamie Reed for coming all the way from St. Louis to be on the panel! If this gets out of committee it will be a huge first step here.
I sure do hope and pray we are able to turn this around. It should never had been a political argument to begin with! Parents are responsible for their children. If you’d just let us do our job, we would not even have to be here. Watching our children’s bodies being permanently disfigured is heartbreaking beyond belief! I feel like we’re in a bad movie!
"One third still ovulate" - Exulansic has found examples of women taking T who thought they could not get pregnant, and did. Informed consent is a joke.
Doctors, therapists and psychologists should have been skeptical about the "Dutch Protocols" as soon as DeVries, Cohen-Kettenis and Steensma published the now famous (should read 'infamous') Ferring pharma funded "Dutch Study" with final results from only 33 subjects and no cohort group, down over the course of the experiment from the original 70 mostly males to 55, then 2 died, so 53 and no explanation as to why only 33 completed the exit survey. More:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHiPfDbaC1k&t=18s
Just a minor note: the Coxes are not “from” Hoosier, IN, as Hoosier is not a town but a term for folks from Indiana. Their son was indeed a minor when he was taken from their home but he is now over 18. I truly hope the Supreme Court hears this case.
Another bit of news. A cab driver in Portland, OR, an acquaintance of mine and a great guy, died after being stabbed in the neck last year by a passenger, a trans woman. She was just sentenced to 22 years in prison. Most articles don’t even mention that she is a trans woman, simply calling her a “woman.” Wonder if she is being sent to men’s or women’s prison?
This is exactly why the TRAs drove to meld their goals with other civil rights and racial justice movements. Because on their own, their policies don’t fly with most Americans. I think this alignment is in part what has sabotaged efforts to address racial inequality. Lumping everything together has not been good for civil rights goals of other groups. I would love to see some data from the Black community. The TRAs also lump themselves with women’s rights and abortion rights which I think most definitely is harming those movements. It’s like white men (and white women who identify as white men) are riding on the hard won coattails of true civil rights movements.
Re: the new bill in IL - I live in Illinois and represent parents targeted by the DCFS for allegations of abuse and neglect. The DCFS already has unbelievable power to dictate to parents their behavior and how to parent their children under threat of removal of children from their custody. The new bill is not about protecting children. It is the further erosion of parental rights in and by a State that is hell-bent on becoming the most progressive in the country.
A friend of mine who works in public health medicine with indigent/homeless trans adults told me when my daughter first came out as a lesbian, that she needs to be careful about pregnancy because a lot of young lesbians think that trans women can't get them pregnant and unexpected pregnancy rates among lesbians was growing. This was a few years ago. My daughter, who is now 19 and says they are actually a man, does not recognize that her future fertility is at stake by being on T long term. She wanted children when she was younger. "Informed Consent"--ha!
I have to wonder about the tragic death of the Oklahoma non binary student ... if we weren't in a time where these kids are being taught and influenced by peers, activists, adults who should know better, etc then this "girl" would never have been confused about her gender, and something so horrible would never have happened to her/them. My heart breaks for their family. So many girls going down this path, so many lives in turmoil, with girls being led to believe that being different means they are not a girl.