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The UK Rightly Pushes Back on Gender Transitioning for Minors

On both sides of the Atlantic, advocates for transgender rights are increasingly substituting ideology for biological reality.

But while here in the U.S. the Supreme Court last month was writing into Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act legal protections for people who identify as transgender that the authors of the law never intended, the United Kingdom appeared to be moving in the other direction, standing up for common sense.

On the other side of the pond, just five days before the Supreme Court handed down its decision, bestselling “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling published an intensely personal essay in response to criticism of her position on the issue of gender identity.

In the essay, Rowling, who is British, revealed her past experiences with sexual assault and domestic abuse, and expressed concern about transgender activists’ attacks on single-sex spaces for women.

As a former teacher and a supporter of children’s charities, Rowling also stated her discomfort with the rush to medically transition children with gender dysphoria and especially the massive increase in young girls suddenly identifying as transgender.

Despite the vitriol she received in response from the left, Rowling refused to back down from her stance.

The comments by Rowling, along with other recent developments in the United Kingdom, show promising signs that the relentless advance of transgender ideology in medicine and public policy finally might be encountering some resistance across the Atlantic.

This spring, Minister for Women and Equalities Liz Truss in Britain announced plans to ban sex-change procedures for anyone under the age of 18. She told a parliamentary committee on April 20, “I believe strongly that adults should have the freedom to lead their lives as they see fit, but I think it’s very important that while people are still developing their decision-making capabilities that we protect them from making those irreversible decisions.”

Transgender activists frequently recommend those medical interventions—which include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery—for children who suffer from gender dysphoria.

Parents of children questioning their biological sex are advised to unquestioningly affirm the child’s new, self-identified gender and help them to transition socially with the help of a new name, pronouns, and wardrobe.

Little attention is paid to the adverse effects of that treatment, however. As Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George have written, such interventions “should be prohibited.”

Prudent legislation is needed to prevent adults from interfering with a child’s normal, natural bodily development.

‘Gender affirmation’ procedures violate sound medical ethics. It is profoundly unethical to intervene in the normal physical development of a child as part of ‘affirming’ a ‘gender identity’ at odds with bodily sex.

Activists have frequently brushed off concerns about possible regret following gender transitions, ignoring evidence that shows that they carry a number of physical and psychological risks.

The use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones can lead to increased cancer risk, decreased bone density, and adverse effects on brain development. In addition, hormones and surgeries can sterilize children who would normally be considered far too young to make such a serious—and permanent—medical decision.

In contrast, a “watchful waiting” approach allows children time to accept their biological sex instead of rushing to alter it and can help address any underlying issues causing the distress.

Studies show that 80% to 95% of children experiencing gender dysphoria who do not transition eventually come to accept their bodies, while nearly all children who are placed on the path of social transition go on to pursue medical interventions.

The U.K.’s decision to prevent those under 18 from being subjected to those unproven procedures demonstrates the importance of considering the best medical and scientific evidence, even if it contradicts the activists’ narrative.

Britain’s National Health Service recently made another change related to its treatment of gender dysphoria in minors.

The Health Service’s website, which provides information about medical conditions and treatment, includes a section on gender dysphoria in children. A section on the use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues to prevent puberty in children who identify as transgender previously stated, “The effects of treatment with GnRH analogues are considered to be fully reversible, so treatment can usually be stopped at any time.”

That’s a common talking point for transgender activists, often employed to support early transitions while avoiding discussion of detrimental side effects or the lack of medical evidence supporting the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria.

Surprisingly, that section on the National Health Service website was recently updated to read:

Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria. …

It’s also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or children’s bones. Side effects may also include hot flushes, fatigue, and mood alterations.

Rowling noted those concerns in a tweet, writing, “Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests.”

The National Health Service site also notes that the use of cross-sex hormones can lead to irreversible physical changes, such as deepening of the voice in females and breast development in males, as well as permanent infertility.

The changes to its site were made without fanfare, suggesting that the Health Service still fears activists’ outrage against even reasonable medical cautions.

Despite its own update, the Health Service continues to recommend and administer these medical treatments to minors. The Minister for Women and Equalities’ report on banning some of those treatments is not expected until later this summer, and its exact recommendations remain to be seen.

The changes to the Health Service’s website and the minister’s comments provide reason to hope that they will move toward a more cautious approach to treating children with gender dysphoria, protecting vulnerable youth from rushed, ideologically motivated—and often irreversible—interventions.

Policymakers in the United States would be well advised to do the same. (For more from the author of “The UK Rightly Pushes Back on Gender Transitioning for Minors” please click HERE)

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17 Corrections Officers to Be Disciplined in Transgender Man’s Death

More than a dozen New York City Department of Correction officers will be disciplined for their conduct surrounding the death of Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, 27, a transgender [man] who died last year while in solitary confinement at Rikers Island jail.

Three officers and one captain will be suspended without pay immediately, the department said in a statement Friday. It was not immediately clear what disciplinary actions the remaining 13 officers would face.

The announcement comes several weeks after Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark declined to file charges following a six-month investigation into the circumstances of Cubilette-Polanco’s death. . .

Several weeks before [he] died, Cubilette-Polanco had been hospitalized at the Elmhurst Hospital Prison Ward for psychiatric care after “showing radical changes in behavior” including shouting, crying, rolling around on the floor, talking to herself, expressing suicidal thoughts and charging at a jail guard, according to a Board of Correction report.

After returning to Rikers Island, jail staff tried to get [him] sent to restrictive housing, or solitary confinement, as a punishment for charging at the guard, according to the report. However, a psychiatrist “verbally stated that due to [his] medical history as it pertains to seizure disorder, that he would not be able to authorized [sic] a cell housing placement” in a restrictive housing unit. (Read more from “17 Corrections Officers to Be Disciplined in Transgender Man’s Death” HERE)

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Justice Department Rejects SCOTUS Transgender Rule

President Donald Trump’s justice department is defending women’s sports from an Idaho lawsuit by transgender activists — and from the Supreme Court’s new pro-transgender rule.

“Allowing biological males to compete in all-female sports is fundamentally unfair to female athletes,” said a statement from Attorney General William P. Barr.

The Idaho lawsuit was filed by transgender activists and progressive groups after the Idaho legislature passed a law barring biological males from female sports, titled the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.

That June 19 announcement comes four days after the five judges on the Supreme Court — including GOP nominee Neil Gorsuch — suddenly added the transgender claim to the 1964 law barring discrimination against women or men. The court insisted that a person’s rights are violated whenever they would be welcomed “but for” their sex, and is allowing lower courts to apply that open-ended rule in many areas of culture, such as schools, changing rooms, and sports. . .

The transgender fight is one part of the campaign by progressives to rewrite American culture. (Read more from “Justice Department Rejects SCOTUS Transgender Rule” HERE)

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SCOTUS Decision Redefining Sexuality Will Wreak Havoc on Society

When Anthony Kennedy discovered a right to force states to redefine marriage in the 2015 Obergefell case, he promised that religious liberty would remain untouched. “The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered,” wrote the former justice for the majority at the time.

Yeah, right.

Thanks to Justice Gorsuch’s contorted reading of the word “sex” in anti-discrimination law, you now have a right to sue for protection for biological traits you do not possess. This means that legitimate rights of others will now have to yield. Anyone who can’t see the devastating real-world effects of this decision – well beyond firing someone simply because you hate their private behavior – is clearly not paying attention.

Codifying into anti-discrimination law the concept that a man who says he is a woman must be treated according to his mental illness is not something we can live with as a society. Gorsuch might want to dismiss the earth-shattering ramifications of his opinion, but he knows well that there are already pending lawsuits to demand that men be treated as women, in very dangerous or disruptive ways that go well beyond trying to use the boot of government to stamp out mean or discriminatory behavior.

Here is an outline of some of the most immediate threats from this decision. These are not hypothetical societal and legal problems; these issues are in contention as we speak and have now been decided by this court.

Forcing states and doctors to perform castrations

Forcing employers to retain gay employees and not fire them simply because of their private behavior sounds very innocuous and even laudatory. But what about forcing doctors to perform “sex change” operations and forcing states to fund them? Codifying the desires of someone afflicted with gender dysphoria into sex-based anti-discrimination law will force states and hospitals to treat anyone who believes they are really the opposite gender as that preferred gender.

In fact, the Supreme Court has already tacitly mandated this. In May, justices declined to take Idaho’s appeal from the Ninth Circuit, where the lower court ordered the state to pay for a castration surgery for a male serving time in Idaho prison for sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy.

Similarly, a federal judge in Wisconsin mandated that the Badger State use its Medicaid funding to pay for “gender confirmation” mutilations, which can include castration, mastectomies, hysterectomies, genital reconstruction, and breast augmentation.

Those radical decisions will now be backed up in all circuits. There are already numerous lawsuits suing employers to provide castration and hormone procedures under the employer health insurance mandate of Obamacare. Obamacare uses civil rights laws to bar discrimination in offering health care coverage. It would be easy for the courts to now apply Gorsuch’s interpretation of Title VII to other areas of discrimination in the ACA statute.

Will Gorsuch be there for us to overturn those decisions?

Women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and all-female sports

Barring a male who says he is a female from an all-girls sports team, bathroom, or locker room now constitutes sex-based discrimination. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 reads as follows:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

It’s not even a jump to apply this ruling to that law; it’s a logical outgrowth. All separate gender school activities and private dressing rooms are out the window because the 1972 law, which liberals already felt included transgenderism, will now be so interpreted.

College dorms

As Justice Alito warns, similar lawsuits may be brought under the Fair Housing Act against colleges that have separate dorms for males and females. Also, female prisoners will be subjected to males living with them. Again, once sex is redefined, it is no longer limited to employment or animus-based discrimination. As Alito warned, “The Court … argues, not merely that the terms of Title VII can be interpreted that way but that they cannot reasonably be interpreted any other way. According to the Court, the text is unambiguous.” This wasn’t even a close call for the majority, and it will therefore reverberate across all areas of law, politics, and society.

Religious schools must become pagan

We were told not to worry about Obergefell creating a right to gay marriage because it was merely an issue of a marriage certificate and would never affect private religious institutions. Well, what happens now if a cross-dresser or a prominent homosexual activist wants to teach in a Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, or Muslim school? The majority opinion blithely denied these concerns and noted how title VII protects religious liberty by offering some long-standing exceptions. However, those exceptions have been interpreted more and more narrowly as time goes on. The same way Gorsuch has evolved on the definition of a sex, the courts are evolving on religious protections, and the former will now accelerate the latter.

What about pedophilia, nudity, and the next frontier in our “evolving” society?

Justice Gorsuch dismissed (p. 30-32) the dissent’s charge that he was backfilling into the statute ideas that its crafters would regard as absurd and immoral as “naked policy appeals” and as complaints about “undesirable policy consequences.”

What happens when the next letters of the alphabet get codified into the sacrilege of the sexual behavior legal protections, such as “N” for nudity and “P” for pedophilia?

“My sexual orientation is to be with children.”

“My sexual orientation is to express myself freely and be proud of my body, not to hide it.”

You might laugh, but at the speed with which transgenderism became in vogue, there is nothing stopping more sexual fetishes from joining the quasi “legal” distinction with a fancy acronym. The mainstreaming of pedophilia is already under way. Could employers still not fire those individuals for being disruptive to the decorum of the office the same way they can’t fire a man who walks in one day dressed like a woman, even if he has to deal with clients? Those ideals can be read into the word “sex” of a 1964 statute just as much as transgenderism can. After all, gay expanded to LGB and T, and then an undefined “Q” got added in. Others add on IAPK to include “intersex, asexual, pansexual, and kink.” It has broadly become known in those circles as “LGBTQ+.”

So, Justice Gorsuch, now that man and woman no longer mean what they mean, can you tell us what is and is not included in “sex” and why there should be protection for some fetishes or mental disorders over others? Can we lay down that marker now so that it doesn’t grow?

Freedom of speech

As Justice Alito warned in his dissent, the New York City government has already made it a criminal offense not to address someone by his or her preferred pronoun.

“After today’s decision, plaintiffs may claim that the failure to use their preferred pronoun violates one of the federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination,” wrote Alito.

Supporters of this decision claim that because the court did not create a constitutional right, merely a retroactive reinterpretation of statue, Congress is still free to legislate. But who are we kidding here? The Civil Rights Act is as politically untouchable as the Fourteenth Amendment, and there is no way Congress will have the guts to deal with this fallout. State legislatures will be cut out from the process entirely.

Also, as Alito warns, the jump from codifying transgenderism into statute to into the Constitution is nothing more than a hiccup for its supporters to overcome, and the court has consistently done that in the past. There are already numerous cases percolating in the lower courts to do just that. Once the lower courts codify a new right, we have seen the Supreme Court first ignore the lower court radicalization and then downright legitimize it.

Yesterday, Mitch McConnell didn’t even mention this travesty in his press briefing. Trump bizarrely commented, “they ruled and we live with their decision” and called it a “very powerful decision.”

Very powerful, indeed. Now who will stand up for the forgotten Americans and use separation of powers to push back against this travesty? (For more from the author of “SCOTUS Decision Redefining Sexuality Will Wreak Havoc on Society” please click HERE)

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Facebook Reportedly Shutters Moms Group for Transphobia After Group Speaks out Against Drag Queen Story Hour

Facebook shut down 500 Mom Strong after its members reportedly engaged in “transphobic” behavior for speaking out against Drag Queen Story Hour. . .

According to The Christian Post, the group violated Facebook’s community standards with anti-Drag Queen Story Hour postings.

The group’s founder, Anna Hall Bohach, told the outlet that the shuttering of the group took place on Monday. Bohach also said that representatives for the social media giant have refused to answer her requests for clarification on the closure.

The ban took effect, she said, “to protect against recidivist behavior.” The move also does not permit “people to set up new Pages that represent Pages that have already been removed from our platform.”

“When I asked them about the half dozen other fake 500 Mom Strong pages that were put up by drag queens used to parody 500 Mom Strong, I received no answer and the pages are still active,” she told the outlet. “There is also a fake profile, created by drag queens, using my name and information that has been reported multiple times by my friends and me that Facebook refuses to remove. I asked the Facebook representative about it and I still have yet to receive an answer.” (Read more from “Facebook Reportedly Shutters Moms Group for Transphobia After Group Speaks out Against Drag Queen Story Hour” HERE)

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Judge: Biological Males in Women’s Sports Cannot Be Called ‘Males’ in Court, Must Be Called ‘Transgender Females’

Three female high school track athletes are suing the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) over unfair rules that allow biological males who identify as female to compete in women’s sports. Last month, a district court judge barred the girls’ lawyers from referring to the biological males as “males,” insisting that the lawyers call them “transgender females.” He threatened to retaliate if they refuse to do so. This effective gag order may undermine their case, and it certainly shows bias against their underlying argument. Therefore, the lawyers moved for the judge to recuse himself.

“The Court has now reprimanded Plaintiffs’ counsel and prohibited Plaintiffs from referring to those individuals as ‘male athletes’ because—in the Court’s view— alluding to an individual of the male sex as male is contrary to science, ‘bullying,’ and violates ‘human decency’ if that individual claims a female gender identity,” attorneys Roger Brooks, Kristen Waggoner, and Howard M. Wood III wrote in a motion filed Friday and provided to PJ Media. “A disinterested observer would reasonably believe that the Court’s order and comments have destroyed the appearance of impartiality in this proceeding. That requires recusal.”

They asked District Court Judge Robert Chatigny to recuse himself from the case, arguing that his order “and comments during the hearing would leave an impartial observer gravely concerned that the Court has prejudged the matter, rejected core aspects of Plaintiffs’ case before hearing the evidence and legal arguments, and assumed the role of advocate for the defendants, all to the detriment of Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti.” (Read more from “Judge: Biological Males in Women’s Sports Cannot Be Called ‘Males’ in Court, Must Be Called ‘Transgender Females'” HERE)

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Woman Fights to Be Listed as ‘Father’ on Baby’s Birth Certificate

A transgender [woman] who gave birth to a child has lost [her] latest legal bid to be registered on the birth certificate as the father rather than the mother.

Freddy McConnell appealed against a decision made by a High Court judge that a person who carries and gives birth to a baby is legally a mother.

Mr McConnell, from Kent, wanted to be named father or parent on the document.

[She] said [she] was disappointed by the Court of Appeal ruling, adding that [her] fight was “just not over”. . .

Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett said the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) required Mr McConnell to be registered as the mother, and the requirement did not violate [her] rights to private and family life, as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. (Read more from “Woman Fights to Be Listed as ‘Father’ on Baby’s Birth Certificate” HERE)

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Government Proposes Ban on Transgender Procedures for Children

The British government is proposing a complete ban on transgender medical procedures for children, and American lawmakers would be “wise” to follow that example, contends a leading family advocate.

Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies for the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., wrote that British officials don’t want to put young people “on a torturous and unnecessary path that is permanent and life-changing.”

“When state legislators in the U.S. are able to convene again,” he wrote, “they would be wise to follow the British example and prohibit ‘torturous and unnecessary’ gender transition medical procedures for minors.”

Liz Truss, the U.K.’s minister for women and equalities, recently told a parliamentary committee that the Conservative party government would propose amendments to the nation’s Gender Recognition Act.

Truss said a priority would be to make certain “the under 18s are protected from decisions that they could make, that are irreversible in the future.” (Read more from “Government Proposes Ban on Transgender Procedures for Children” HERE)

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Report: Female Prison Guards Are Being Raped by Transgender ‘Women’

Female prison officers have been raped by male-bodied inmates who self-identify as trans women, a former Minister has revealed.

The disclosure was made by Rory Stewart, the ex-Tory Cabinet Minister who oversaw prisons in 2018 and 2019 and who is now running as an independent candidate for Mayor of London.

It will fuel questions about policies that have allowed criminals with male bodies to describe themselves as female and demand to be housed in women’s prisons.

Mr Stewart told GQ magazine: ‘When I was Prisons Minister, we had situations of male prisoners selfidentifying as females then raping staff in prison.’

The claim is the first public reference to trans women assaulting prison staff in women’s jails, but it follows warnings that allowing malebodied criminals into female jails puts women in danger. (Read more from “Report: Female Prison Guards Are Being Raped by Transgender ‘Women'” HERE)

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Federal Judge Rules Alaska Must Fund Librarian’s Sex-Change Surgery and Attorney General Kevin Clarkson Has No Comment on any Appeal

A federal judge has sided with an Alaska librarian who is demanding the state subsidize his gender reassignment surgery as a public employee, ruling Friday that federal civil-rights law should be interpreted as mandating the coverage.

Jennifer Fletcher, a man who identifies as a woman, is a state legislative librarian in Juneau. He says he has had to spend thousands of dollars on sex-reassignment treatments because they aren’t covered by the state’s health insurance plan, Alaska Public Media reported.

Represented by the pro-LGBT group Lambda Legal, Fletcher sued the state on the grounds that the exclusion supposedly violates the federal ban on “sex discrimination” in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The state responded that the procedures in question would not have been covered for men or women, but U.S. District Court Judge H. Russel Holland ultimately agreed with Lambda’s argument.

Holland’s decision could be appealed, but the dispute is more likely to be resolved by a case already before the U.S. Supreme Court that consolidates several similar controversies from around the country and hinges on the meaning of the 1964 law. (Read more from “Judge Rules Alaska Must Fund Librarian’s Sex-Change Surgery” HERE)

(Editor’s note: Attorney General Kevin Clarkson has not stated whether the State will appeal this unbelievable decision. He has less than two weeks to do so. If the State does not appeal and begins to provide funding under its healthcare plan for “sex change” operations, even if the Supreme Court eventually rules that Title VII does not mandate such funding, the reversal in State policy may not be undone. And importantly, if the State fails to appeal and request a stay of the judge’s decision, payment will be made to the librarian for the operation. If the governor believes the decision is wrong, he must have his attorney general appeal, notwithstanding any pending Supreme Court cases. Finally, the fact that yet another state is weighing in on the matter may have influence on SCOTUS’s ultimate decision. Sitting on your hands reflects consent.)

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