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From Affirmation to Moderation: The U.K.’s new approach to treating gender dysphoric youth
This week on our Substack, FAIR advisor Lisa Selin Davis writes about the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) shift from an affirmative care model to one that is more cautious about rushing children toward medically transitioning.
“Last week, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) delivered long-awaited suggestions for the kind of treatment children with gender dysphoria should receive. They’ve moved from a model in which children’s transgender identities are automatically affirmed to a cautious, multidisciplinary, evaluation-heavy approach to assisting kids navigating gender issues—a model similar to those of countries like Sweden and Finland.
Like several other countries, including the U.S. and Canada, the U.K. has seen a sharp spike in teen girls with no history of gender issues suddenly seeking medical interventions—a cohort never studied, to whom past research doesn’t apply. They’ve also seen the emergence of detransitioners—individuals who went through medical gender transitions but now regret doing so, and returned to living as their natal sex. Meanwhile, Cass chaired a group that commissioned systematic evidence reviews of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, which found the evidence of their safety and efficacy to be of very low quality.
Now, children will be seen not just by experts in gender dysphoria, but also “experts in pediatric medicine, autism, neurodisability and mental health” because “there is a higher prevalence of other complex presentations in children and young people who have gender dysphoria.”
Pelosi & Kavanaugh Murder Plots Show Media Double Standard
For his Substack, FAIR Advisor Michael Shellenberger writes about the discrepancies between media coverage of the alleged plot to kill Pelosi versus the assassination plot against Kavanaugh by an abortion rights fanatic.
“And if mainstream news journalists are so concerned that political extremism is resulting in more violence against public officials, why did they, en masse, downplay the assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in June? Where The New York Times has put the alleged Pelosi assassination attempt on its front page for two days in a row, it buried the story of the Kavanaugh murder plot on page A20. Three days later, none of the Sunday morning political shows, such as NBC’s “Meet the Press,” even mentioned the assassination attempt.
The double standard in news media coverage is brought into sharper relief when one considers that the suspect in the murder plot against Kavanaugh, Nicholas John Roske, 26, has, unlike DePape, shown no sign of psychosis. Rather, he appears to be motivated by the same kind of political fanaticism that has gripped climate activists around the world.”
Gender Peace Talks #1
On her Substack, Broadview, FAIR Advisor Lisa Selin Davis writes about a difficult conversation she had with a gender-affirming clinician a few weeks ago, who agreed to assemble some of his colleagues for what he eventually called a “gender listening session” with detransitioners. Through difficult conversations like these, Lisa is helping to bridge the divide between gender-affirming clinicians and their former and future patients, and hopefully add some much needed nuance and scrutiny into what are life changing decisions for those experiencing gender dysphoria.
“One detransitioner had been tomboyish as a girl; the others had been more traditionally and stereotypically feminine. All three had either been diagnosed as autistic or felt they would be if evaluated. Two had sustained sexual trauma. One had been socially transitioned young and gone on testosterone at 17, the others starting at 18 or 19. They’d all had their breasts removed, and one had undergone a hysterectomy, and all came to regret their decisions. None know if their time on testosterone has permanently affected their fertility, but they of course will never breast feed. Two had no idea they’d lose their singing voices—a side effect never communicated to them. In general, they felt that their evaluations, if they had any, were flimsy and superficial, not investigating the root causes of gender dysphoria or why they’d decided gender transition was the solution to their problems. Exploration, not affirmation, is what, in retrospect, they felt they needed.”
Most Favor Leaving Race Out of College Admissions
A new Washington Post-Schar School poll finds that 63% of Americans support a ban on the consideration of race in college admissions.
Guest opinion: Gypsum electeds explain decision to ask Mountain Rec to remove Pride flag at rec center
“What is our job at the town of Gypsum? Answer: To serve our community. Absolutely everyone in our community. Regardless of race, creed, color, religion, sex, gender, ability, political affiliation, etc. Always and forever. We do it because we love our citizens and have a duty to provide them with the best public facilities, public funds stewardship, and operations that we can.
We must get our beloved community center back to where it belongs: universally welcoming to all regardless of anyone’s politics or their immutable characteristics. The town is unreservedly in full support of the dignity and worth of Gypsum’s LGBTQIA+ citizens, and all citizens. Anything else would be regressive, backward and wrong.
The best thing that can happen in our recreation center is for people from different walks of life, of different races, sexes, genders and political views, etc., to cross paths naturally, without any preconceptions, and to have the opportunity to connect across their differences and see each other’s common humanity.”
Tim Robbins and the Lost Art of Finding Common Ground
On his Substack, TK News, Matt Taibbi explores the two tough years of pandemic politics through a conversation with Tim Robbins. Robbins opens up about his concern that society is purposefully phasing out the common meeting space, making it harder for us to find common ground.
“When you eliminate that conversation, and everyone goes into isolation, and has their own little silos of thought, that’s incredibly dangerous for society. Because now you’re isolated to the point where you’ll no longer have any kind of discussion,” he says. Instead, he worries, “You’ll just have that little room you go into where everyone agrees with you, and we all say, ‘Fuck those other people.’”
“Robbins worries that in this slew of new shibboleths about everything from vaccines to regulation of cake decorators, music arrangers and theater companies, society is revealing troubling changes in its ideas about what art and creativity are for. He sees hostility to the idea of bringing people together both in the physical sense, as in opening the doors to a theater, but also in the figurative sense of making sure art and entertainment are for everyone, not just for people with correct opinions. With bookstores, museums, theaters, and even water coolers disappearing all over the country, America seems to have it in for common spaces, as if keeping people from talking to one another is someone’s intentional political goal.”
The trouble with "woke"
On her Substack, Lean Out, Tara Henley writes about how we use and define the term “woke” and its implications on civil discourse.
“When I say “woke,” I’m referring to a political movement that is driven by a narrow focus on identity, and that promotes an ever-evolving, yet uncompromising — and harshly-enforced — cluster of views, particularly on race and gender.
The ideology behind this movement arises from academic theories like critical race theory and intersectionality. It spreads through social media. And it focuses its revolutionary energy on transforming language and speech norms, interrogating interpersonal conflict, advancing DEI trainings and policies, representing racial and gender diversity in pop culture, pursuing symbolic wins like the toppling of statues — and ostracizing anyone who disagrees with any item on its agenda.
The woke ideology presents itself as leftist, but it is not. It resists class analysis, avoids talking about material conditions, and frequently operates in economically elite spaces. It distrusts the public in general, and working-class people in particular, as it views many of their interests and concerns as problematic. And, while wokeness promotes itself as a natural extension of previous civil rights movements, it is actually antithetical to these movements in that it rejects the tenets that made landmark victories possible — namely free speech and open debate.”
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