“Hey lesbian, have you ever thought you might actually want to be a man?” – that’s what I might as well have read when I checked my email inbox and found an email from the lesbian and bisexual women’s dating app HER.
What was once widely considered a homophobic cliché is now (supposedly) apropos to say to homosexual women: that they are secretly aspiring men.
There is nothing wrong with female body hair, however, women are constantly told our natural follicles are signs of masculinity and these companies are just continuing this myth that hair equals maleness or at least being less female. I feel for women with naturally high testosterone who are still caught between the mannequin smoothness in glossy magazines and the faux acceptance of the “queer community” who also tell them they are a bit, well, manly.
“Health risks: The biggest concerns associated with testosterone are increased risk for heart attacks and strokes. Testosterone might also:
Increase your red blood cell count which can lead to higher risk of clots
Increase the amount of fat and/or cholesterol in the blood
Increase the chance of diabetes
Harm the liver (although there is recent research that disputes this)
There isn’t a lot of research on the risks of testosterone for HRT so there may be other consequences that we don’t know about yet.
The casual advocacy for non-conforming people and homosexuals to risk death just to disappear or be sexually attractive to people in their subculture really rankles. Are gay people this narcissistically nihilistic or do some clever people out there have a PR savvy way of selling anti-gay eugenics to the victims? Either way, the results are the same, the lesbians disappear and become “heterosexual men”, or they potentially die of avoidable illnesses brought on by taking cross-sex hormones for vanity or as self-medicated solutions to complex forms of depression brought on by trauma.
German police have uncovered one of the world’s largest underground websites for child pornography with more than 400,000 users.
German police said on Monday they had shut down “one of the biggest darknet child pornography platforms in the world” and arrested four of its members in a series of raids in mid-April.
The platform, named as “Boystown”, had existed since 2019, counted over 400,000 members and was “set up for the worldwide exchange of child pornography, in particular images of the abuse of boys”, federal police said in a statement.
Mental health professionals say that under new laws they could lose their licence or even face prison terms for exploring the reasons behind a child’s belief that they were born in the wrong body.
A group of therapists are now calling on ministers to exclude professional treatments of gender dysphoria from the ban, which could be announced as early as next week.
“It is our duty as therapists to explore feelings of gender dysphoria, including any underlying causes, especially when medical transitioning may be irreversible,” said Mr Esses, a children’s counsellor and trainee psychotherapist.
He warned that other countries such as Australia and Canada have already introduced draconian legislation and if the Government follows suit “there is a real risk that those with gender dysphoria, in particular children who need the time and space to think things through, will not get the support they need”.
The Karolinska Hospital in Sweden recently issued a new policy statement regarding treatment of gender dysphoric minors at its pediatric gender services division. This policy, which took effect in April 2021, ended the practice of prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors under age 16. Hormonal intervention for youth ages 16-18 is still allowed, but can only occur in research settings approved by Sweden’s ethics review board, following a thorough informed consent that discloses the significant risks and uncertainties of hormonal interventions, and considers the minor’s maturity level and ability to provide true informed consent. This is a watershed moment. Sweden is the first country to explicitly stop following the Dutch protocol, which allows for administration of puberty blockers at age 12 (and increasingly, as young as 8-9, at the early stage of puberty known as Tanner 2), and cross-sex hormones at the age of 16. It also is the first country to officially deviate from WPATH guidance. WPATH has long positioned itself as the world authority in transgender health. However, in recent months, several countries’ health authorities have conducted their own reviews of the evidence and found the evidence insufficient to justify early medical interventions promoted by WPATH’s guidelines. Sweden’s new policy is consistent with Finland’s recently revised guidelines, which were changed to prioritize psychological interventions and support rather than medical interventions, particularly for youth with no childhood history of gender dysphoria (presently the most common presentation). Significant changes are also underway in the UK, following the High Court ruling that deemed hormonal interventions for minors experimental, and cautioned that minors are rarely able to provide truly informed consent for interventions with such profound life-long consequences. The NHS (National Health Service) has recently suspended the initiation of hormonal interventions to minors under 16. The ruling is currently under appeal, with a hearing scheduled for June 2021. In the US, the debate about the treatment for gender dysphoric minors has become politicized, with some states introducing laws banning the use of various hormonal interventions in minors, while other states perusing legislation to ban psychological treatment modalities for gender dysphoria. As international awareness of the low quality of evidence of the benefits and the potential harm of medical interventions in gender-dysphoric minors grows, the focus is expected to shift to the non-invasive options for ameliorating distress, such as the provision of ethical psychological treatments and support.The original announcement of the new policy obtained by SEGM, as well as the unofficial translation, are below:
The end of humankind? It may be coming sooner than we think, thanks to hormone-disrupting chemicals that are decimating fertility at an alarming rate around the globe. A new book called Countdown, by Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, finds that sperm counts have dropped almost 60% since 1973. Following the trajectory we are on, Swan’s research suggests sperm counts could reach zero by 2045. Zero. Let that sink in. That would mean no babies. No reproduction. No more humans. Forgive me for asking: why isn’t the UN calling an emergency meeting on this right now?
The chemicals to blame for this crisis are found in everything from plastic containers and food wrapping, to waterproof clothes and fragrances in cleaning products, to soaps and shampoos, to electronics and carpeting. Some of them, called PFAS, are known as “forever chemicals”, because they don’t breakdown in the environment or the human body. They just accumulate and accumulate – doing more and more damage, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. Now, it seems, humanity is reaching a breaking point.
As if this wasn’t terrifying enough, Swan’s research finds that these chemicals aren’t just dramatically reducing semen quality, they are also shrinking penis size and volume of the testes. This is nothing short of a full-scale emergency for humanity.
Given everything we know about these chemicals, why isn’t more being done? Right now, there is a paltry patchwork of inadequate legislation responding to this threat. Laws and regulations vary from country to country, region to region, and, in the United States, state to state. The European Union, for example, has restricted several phthalates in toys and sets limits on phthalates considered “reprotoxic” – meaning they harm the human reproductive capacities – in food production.
In the United States, a scientific study found phthalate exposure “widespread” in infants, and that the chemicals were found in the urine of babies who came into contact with baby shampoos, lotions and powders. Still, aggressive regulation is lacking, not least because of lobbying by chemical industry giants.
Bell, a distinguished psychiatrist and practising psychoanalyst, is the doctor who in 2018 wrote a controversial report about the activities of the gender identity development service (GIDS), a clinic at the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust in north London, where he worked in adult services from 1995 until his retirement earlier this year.
Writing the report was, he says, a matter of conscience. In 2018, 10 GIDS staff brought their worries to him unsolicited, a figure he estimates to be around a third of those then working there. He had no choice but to act and would do the same again.
Among these concerns were the fact that children attending GIDS often seemed to be rehearsed and sometimes did not share their parents’ sense of urgency; that senior staff spoke of “straightforward cases” in terms of children who were to be put on puberty blockers (no case of gender dysphoria, notes Bell, can be said to be straightforward); that some were recommended for treatment after just two appointments and seen only infrequently thereafter; some felt that GIDS employed too many inexperienced (and inexpensive) psychologists; that clinicians who’d spoken of homophobia in the unit were told they had “personal issues”. One told Bell that a child as young as eight had been referred to an endocrinologist for treatment. “I could not go on like this… I could not live with myself given the poor treatment the children were obtaining,” said another.
In September, Bell sent his report to Jenkins and to Paul Burstow, the chairman of the board. For unspecified legal reasons, he says, they forbade him to send it to the council of governors, which oversees the board. “That was when I got myself a lawyer,” says Bell. His lawyer told him that, on the contrary, a failure to send it out might make him culpable in the event of any future legal case taken against the trust.
Bell wrote to staff at GIDS, reminding them of their right, as NHS workers, to speak confidentially. At this point, he says, the trust “went ballistic… they interfered with my emails so I couldn’t write to them again”. The trust’s review delivered its report in February 2019. Initially, Bell was not allowed to see it. He was then given 30 minutes to read its 70 pages (it was later leaked to him in full). “There was still no data. It mentioned intimidation, but no action was [to be] taken. However, it did acknowledge the inappropriate involvement of trans ideology groups in the work of the service.”
In early 2020, procedures were set up for disciplinary action to be taken against Bell. “All the grounds were in connection with my activities as a whistleblower,” he says.
Last January, he retired as planned, only a month after the Keira Bell judgment. He had long believed a case would be brought against the trust, though he thought the most likely scenario was that a former patient would sue for damages (Keira Bell instigated a judicial review). “It was inevitable,” he says. “I warned the trust of this.” But the Keira Bell judgment has done little to alleviate his concerns. Whatever the outcome of the appeal, he believes more questions must be asked, particularly about the rise in the number of girls presenting at the clinic (three-quarters of patients are now girls; the gender balance used to be closer to 50:50). “We do not know why this is happening.” He worries that too much emphasis is placed on gender and not enough on sexuality – “the children are often gay” – and he continues to be anxious about co-morbidities such as anorexia, autism and history of trauma in its patients. “Some of the children are depressed. It’s said that it’s their gender that is the cause of this, but how do we know? And why don’t we try to treat that first?”
But given his politics – Bell describes himself to me as a “Corbyn-supporting Jew” – he has been most shocked by the reluctance of the left to engage with the issues. “They think this is to do with being liberal, rather than with concerns about the care of children. Mermaids and Stonewall [the charities for trans children and LGBTQ+ rights] have made people afraid even of listening to another view.” It surprises him that the left is unwilling to consider the role played by big pharma.
As Iran takes its seat on the United Nations’ top panel on women’s rights, former political prisoner Shaparak Shajarizadeh slammed the appointment in an interview with The Post, citing her experience in her home country as a warning to the international body.
Women are not permitted by the government to have certain jobs, and must remain covered in public as a result of mandatory headscarf laws.
Daughters are under the supervision of their fathers, and wives are to follow the orders of their husbands. This means not going outdoors without spousal permission.
Aside from being forced to wear hijabs and lacking basic freedoms, women in Iran have no laws protecting them from spousal abuse or forced marriages.
Federal law in Iran permits a 13-year-old to marry, and they require parental consent if the child is to be married any younger than that.
The flurry of regressive and dangerous policies make the country an odd choice to lead on women’s issues for the UN.
Last Tuesday, the UN’s Economic and Social Council elected Iran — along with China, Japan, Lebanon and Pakistan — to the Commission on the Status of Women, the principal team handling “the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
Austria-based Iranian rights activist Sholeh Zamini denounced Iran’s election to the commission as “shameful.” In a VOA Persian interview Thursday, she said Iran will be the only country in the 45-member commission to have not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. “Not only has Iran not done this, but it is acting quite systematically to violate women’s rights,” she said.
There were several fires inside the eight-bedroom, seven-bathroom residence and firefighters were still at the scene early Monday.
The property, worth an estimated $19.5 million, was visited by Montreal police arson investigators Monday morning after the flames spread so quickly overnight that three alarms were sounded summoning 80 Montreal firefighters to the scene.
