Gender Dysphoria and Adverse Childhood Experiences – Public Discourse

According to Dr. André Van Mol—the co-chair of the American College of Pediatricians’ Committee on Adolescent Sexuality and a contributor to Public Discourse on transgender issues—in the overwhelming majority of cases, the desire to switch one’s gender identity is closely connected to adverse experiences in childhood. More broadly, studies have reported a high frequency of childhood emotional and physical neglect and abuse among transgender-identifying individuals.

In my case, my longing to identify as female was due to early childhood trauma that fractured my male identity. My grandmother made a purple chiffon evening dress for me and affirmed me as a girl from ages four through six, and my uncle sexually abused me before I was ten. In my desperation to cope with the abuse, my child’s mind invented the belief I should have been a girl.

Thousands of former transgender-identifying individuals have contacted me over the last twelve years, and their stories always include ACEs that were never treated. Hurtful events of childhood—a loss or trauma such as divorce, an alcoholic parent, or sexual abuse—started the desire to become someone else.

I hear from young adults who transitioned and want their lives back. They share with me that they had mental illness, or they were addicted to pornography or anime games, or they were bullied, or perhaps they didn’t feel valued in the family.

For example, a major 2018 study of mental health in transgender-identifying youth found overwhelming evidence that mental illness is present before the onset of transgender belief. This study compared over 1,300 trans-believing youth with age-matched peers using clinical data gathered from three large pediatric practices in California and Georgia. The findings were startling and alarming. Psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, and attention deficit disorders were several times higher than the peer group, suicidal ideation was up to 54 times higher, and self-harm was up to 144 times higher.

No matter how well intended, recommending genital surgery or breast removal to someone with serious mental disorders is torture only a mad scientist would think appropriate.

Furthermore, mental illness doesn’t magically dissipate but often persists after surgery. In a nationwide long-term follow-up study of adult transgender cases in Sweden, psychiatric morbidity, suicide attempts, and suicide deaths were highly elevated after sex reassignment.

Source: Gender Dysphoria and Adverse Childhood Experiences – Public Discourse

The Women Lost Everything: The Hague Convention in Australia – Hague Mothers

Lawyer and academic Gina Masterton became an activist when her sister had a Hague case brought against her. That story has a (rare) happy ending but Gina continues to campaign to get the Convention amended. In this episode she talks about the harshness of the Australian courts and the extent to which the law is failing both mothers and their children.

Source: The Women Lost Everything: The Hague Convention in Australia – Hague Mothers

Did ACON Cook the Books On Sport Inclusion Guidelines? | The Lady Kit Kowalski

The law is misrepresented

When discussing exemptions, the guideline uses narrow language to reduce the scope of

The Sex Discrimination Act s42 allows sports to discriminate between the sexes (called an exemption) when “strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant“.

The guideline uses the word “only” to narrow the scope of this exemption.

“The exemption allows for discrimination on the grounds of sex or gender identity only in ‘any competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant’.” (Guideline p24)

The guideline then goes on to say that these words have no legal meaning in Australia.

“The words ‘strength’, ‘stamina’ and ‘physique’, and the term ‘competitive sporting activity’, are not defined in the Act. Their meanings have not been conclusively settled by the Federal Court of Australia.” (Guideline p24)

All organisations involved in drafting the Guidelines for the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in sport are members of ACON’s Pride in Sport.

The guidelines reflect ACON’s focus on transgender inclusion at all costs.

The guidelines discourage clubs from exercising their right to provide single-sex sports for fairness, safety and enjoyment.

The guidelines make no attempt to balance the needs of others.

The guidelines consistently show the solution to problems around transgender inclusion being to side with the transgender person and grant their wishes

Source: Did ACON Cook the Books On Sport Inclusion Guidelines? | The Lady Kit Kowalski

Porsche driver Richard Pusey to contest charges after another chaotic court appearance | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Notorious Porsche driver Richard Pusey has made another chaotic court appearance, which included holding up a handwritten sign, while flagging plans to fight several charges.

Dressed in prison greens with their hair in pigtails Pusey appeared via video link in the Sunshine Magistrates Court on Tuesday to contest four charges including two counts of using a telecommunications device to cause offence and two counts of committing an indictable offence on bail.

Pusey is facing allegations they posted an image of a dead police officer to the website of a Melbourne Porsche dealership.

Pusey, who claims to be inquiring about gender reassignment surgery and now goes by the pronouns they/them, had a number of charges dropped in the Melbourne Magistrates Court last week.

Source: Porsche driver Richard Pusey to contest charges after another chaotic court appearance | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Barrister was discriminated against for gender-critical views, tribunal hears

Allison Bailey is suing Garden Court chambers and Stonewall after she was asked by her chambers to delete two tweets criticising the LGBTQ+ charity’s position on trans rights and which Stonewall had complained about.

Bailey, a lesbian and founder of the gender-critical group LGB Alliance, refused to delete the tweets and alleges unlawful discrimination and victimisation, claiming she suffered detriment at the hands of the chambers, including a reduction in work offered to her by clerks. People who are gender-critical disagree with the view that gender identity should be prioritised over biological sex.

Garden Court chambers was a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions scheme, under which businesses pay the charity for advice and assessments on creating inclusive workplaces. In one of the two tweets Bailey was later asked to remove, she tweeted thanking the Times for “fairly & accurately reporting on the appalling levels of intimidation, fear & coercion that are driving the @stonewalluk trans self-id agenda”.

The tweets led to complaints to the chambers, including one from Stonewall which, Cooper told the tribunal, had been solicited to submit an objection by Michelle Brewer from the chambers’ trans rights working group.

Source: Barrister was discriminated against for gender-critical views, tribunal hears

Liberal candidate Katherine Deves celebrates Mardi Gras | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Ms Deves, who has previously revealed she has a gay sibling, posted the images of her celebrating the festival in a blue feather boa on social media last month before nuking her social media accounts to run as a Liberal candidate.

But she did so complaining that trans activists had wrecked the movement for gays and lesbians.

“Back in the 90s, when Sydney Mardi Gras was still a grassroots street parade with a killer party at Hordern celebrating the progress of gay and lesbian rights,’’ she wrote.

The tweet was one of her last before she deleted her Twitter account to run as a Liberal candidate and was posted on March 6, 2022, just four days before she lodged her nomination form with the NSW Liberals.

Asked about her controversial comments, Ms Deves who previously said there was a link between transvestism and serial killers, told 2GB host Ben Fordham on Friday she was absolutely not transphobic.

“Of course not, Ben,” she said.

“This isn’t about that. It is about women and girls. Back in the early ‘90s I was going to Mardi Gras, I voted for same-sex marriage. I don’t have an issue with that. But this is about a collision of rights, and as I keep saying we just need to be able to debate it in a respectful way and take into consideration the points of view from all the stakeholders.”

Her now-deleted tweets include claims half of all transgender women in jails are sex offenders – a reference to a figure claimed by an activist group Fair Play for Women that has been disputed by Britain’s Ministry of Justice.

She also previously suggested the gay newspaper Pink News should be known as “the Rainbow Reich”, that Wear It Purple Day in schools was a “grooming tactic” and attacked gay surrogacy as “a human rights violation.”

Asked if she could win the seat, Ms Deves said she was confident and believed she had a fighting chance.

Source: Liberal candidate Katherine Deves celebrates Mardi Gras | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

How To Battle Biden’s Regulatory Leviathan & Win | National Review

Literally one of the first things Biden did after entering office was sign an Executive Order giving every federal agency 100 days to submit a plan to “promulgate new agency actions” to further the LGBT agenda, including with respect to “access to healthcare.”

In keeping with this promise, last October, HHS bragged that it had launched a pilot program requiring transgender insurance coverage in Colorado that included “eye and lid modifications, face tightening, facial bone remodeling for facial feminization, breast/chest construction and reductions, and laser hair removal.” So, if you are in Colorado, there is a good chance your insurance premiums are helping to pay for breast implants and chin tucks for biological men.

As I told the Washington Post at the time that, “This is a liberal administration and governor colluding to mandate coverage for a lifetime of cross-sex hormones and removal of healthy organs, including for minors. . . . Their end game is clear, to push these dangerous experimental treatments on kids and unwilling families as a national insurance mandate.”

We objected to the rule enshrining bad medicine into law, especially concerning children. We objected to the rule’s coercion. We objected to its exorbitant costs. We objected to the breaks with proper procedure. We also substantiated all the above with evidence.

In the face of this coordinated response, and to my genuine surprise, yesterday, HHS caved. It completely abandoned the transgender-insurance portions of the proposed rule, saying that they would deal with the issue in a future rulemaking under antidiscrimination provisions known as Section 1557 of Obamacare.

Will this radical administration try to impose a transgender mandate again in the future? Absolutely. But now, they will have to start the process all over again, and when that time comes we will be ready, and next time, we’re bringing friends.

Source: How To Battle Biden’s Regulatory Leviathan & Win | National Review

Stella Forever Fund has reached $3m target, due to female philanthropists

Stella’s Forever Fund, had reached its endowment target of $3 million – securing prize money for the annual Stella Prize in perpetuity.

Last November, McLean, a Sydney philanthropist and a previous Deputy Chair of the Stella prize, donated $1 million to the Stella Forever Fund in one of the biggest donations of its kind.

Other patrons of the fund include Debra Morgan, Chief Executive of the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust, Karen Wilson. from The Wilson Foundation, Carol Schwartz AO from The Trawalla Foundation and Krystyna Campbell-Pretty, who is also one of the major benefactors the State Library’s Women Writers Fund.

Source: Stella Forever Fund has reached $3m target, due to female philanthropists

Joint Statement on Sexual Harassment Reporting Platform – Go Live 6 April 2022

From: John McKenzie NSW Legal Services Commissioner; Joanne van der Plaat, President, Law Society of NSW Michael McHugh SC, President NSW Bar Association

Source: OLSC-Sexual-Harassment-Reporting-Platform-final.pdf

Julia Banks: Liberals show lack of character with attacks on independents

Even in his early days as prime minister, Morrison had many moments that were characterised as ‘Trumpian’ and ended up in the international press for all the wrong reasons.

One was when he said: “We want to see women rise. But we don’t want to see women rise only on the basis of others (i.e. men) doing worse.”

He actually said that. And worse still, it wasn’t off the cuff or a case of the words coming out wrong. It was in his written, prepared speech for International Women’s Day in 2019. At a time when his government’s women problem was under the glare of public scrutiny.

Over the past three years, Morrison has failed to act on this problem, on climate change (think Glasgow) and on integrity (recall the broken promise for a federal anti-corruption commission) to name a few issues. And this has given rise to independent campaigns across the country in what are regarded as safe Liberal seats.

As certain candidates emerged as real threats, the Liberals responded to them in the same way they did to me. Although the incumbent MPs in these seats face perfectly fair and democratic challenges, their attacks use demeaning language and devolve into senseless and nasty personal hit-jobs through the patriarchal prism of entitlement and sexism.

And they go after those who represent the greatest threat to the party and its power: Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, Allegra Spender in Wentworth, and Monique Ryan in Kooyong. An esteemed former foreign correspondent, a successful businesswoman, and a paediatric neurologist respectively.

Articulate professional women who have worked hard their entire adult lives in substantial careers, where their success would have been impossible without high intellect, good judgement, sound values and strong ethics.

Women who have raised families and lived and cared for their local community and for their country.

And yet the Liberals have shamelessly called these women “puppets” and “fake independents”, and their campaigns everything from “a front for the Labor Party and the Greens” to “a fraud” and “immoral”.

All of this is not only insulting and disgusting – it can be harmful and incite further abuse. Not just of these women and their families but of their staff, volunteers and the tens of thousands of people who are supporting them.

These are women with whom, as a former Liberal, I share the same values and beliefs – in truth, integrity, inclusion, climate change action and a future-focused economy. Values and beliefs that have taken a backseat in Morrison’s party to such an extent that they may as well take the word ‘liberal’ out of their party name completely, just as MPs have taken it off their campaign material.

The Liberals do not ‘own’ these seats and these women are not “anti-liberal”. They are “pro Australia”, and our country is lucky that women of their calibre are running for office.

Source: Julia Banks: Liberals show lack of character with attacks on independents