Category: Transgenderism

Elon Musk to move SpaceX and X HQ over gender-identity law

Billionaire Elon Musk has said he will move the headquarters of two of his most high-profile companies, rocket firm SpaceX and social media platform X, out of California to Texas.

He cited his opposition to a new Californian state law which bans schools from requiring staff to disclose information about a child’s gender identity – including to parents.

“This is the last straw,” he wrote on social media.

Mr Musk, who has a transgender daughter, has previously said he “supports trans” while expressing impatience with pronouns, which he has described as an “aesthetic nightmare”.

Last year, he said he would lobby to criminalise transgender medical treatment that would lead to what he described as “severe, irreversible changes to children below the age of consent”.

Source: Elon Musk to move SpaceX and X HQ over gender-identity law

Court upholds Tennessee ban on changing sex in birth certificates | Reuters

July 12 (Reuters) – A divided federal appeals court on Friday rejected a constitutional challenge to Tennessee’s decades-old policy of not allowing people born in the state to amend their birth certificates to reflect their gender identity.
A 2-1 panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held opens new tab that the U.S. Constitution did not require the Republican-led state to change the biological sex listed on the birth certificates of four transgender women born in Tennessee.
The state is among only a handful nationally that categorically bars individuals from amending the sex on their birth certificates.
Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, writing for the majority, concluded that a lower-court judge rightly rejected the lawsuit, saying there was no fundamental right to a birth certificate recording gender identity instead of biological sex.

on changing sex in birth certificates | Reuters

Country Women’s Association of WA makes history in vote to allow men as members – ABC News

In short:

The Country Women’s Association of WA has voted to change its 100-year-old constitution and allow men to become associate members.

NSW, Tasmania, Victoria and the NT don’t allow men to be CWA members.

What’s next?

Men in WA will be able to apply for associate membership, which doesn’t allow for voting or individual branch membership.

—–

Following the vote, some members at the annual general meeting raised the issue of transgender women joining the association.

Ms Langdon said that while there was no specific provision in the constitution to recognise transgender women, they were welcome in the association, with some already members.

The vote means Western Australia is now the third state along with South Australia and Queensland to allow men into their ranks as non-voting members.

Queensland CWA president Sheila Campbell said the organisation had led the way by welcoming men and transgender women into the association since 2015 under a Friends of QCWA banner.

“Our association is open to all women, including transgender women, and men as non-voting Friends of QCWA,” she said.

A spokesperson for the CWA of Victoria said its branch did not have male members.

“We accept anyone who identifies as a woman to be a member,” they said.

[Ed: so very disappointing.]

Source: Country Women’s Association of WA makes history in vote to allow men as members – ABC News

Opinion | Why Is the U.S. Pretending to Know Gender-Affirming Care Works? – The New York Times

It’s been three months since the release of the Cass Review, an independent assessment of gender treatment for youths commissioned by England’s National Health Service.

After the release of Cass’s findings, the British government issued an emergency ban on puberty blockers for people under 18. Medical societies, government officials and legislative panels in Germany, France, Switzerland, Scotland, the Netherlands and Belgium have proposed moving away from a medical approach to gender issues, in some cases directly acknowledging the Cass Review. Scandinavian countries have been moving away from the gender-affirming model for the past few years. Reem Alsalem, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, called the review’s recommendations “seminal” and said that policies on gender treatments have “breached fundamental principles” of children’s human rights, with “devastating consequences.”

But in the United States, federal agencies and professional associations that have staunchly supported the gender-affirming care model greeted the Cass Review with silence or utter disregard.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an advocacy organization based in the United States whose standards of gender care are closely followed domestically, said Cass was not qualified to judge because she had not practiced gender medicine herself. (To ensure independence, the National Health Service chose Cass for precisely this reason.)
WPATH also said its own standards are “based on far more systematic reviews” than the Cass report. But four years ago, WPATH apparently blocked publication of a Johns Hopkins systematic review it had commissioned that also found scant evidence in favor of the gender-affirming approach. Recently released emails show that WPATH leaders told researchers that their work should “not negatively affect the provision of transgender health care in the broadest sense.”
In other words, the United States continues to put ideology ahead of science.
The Biden administration has essentially ceded the issue to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, incorporating gender-affirming protocols into Department of Health and Human Services policy. Moreover, recently revealed emails indicate that President Biden’s assistant secretary of health, Dr. Rachel Levine, a pediatrician and transgender woman, successfully pushed WPATH to remove age requirements from its guidelines for gender medicine before their publication, because — mixing political and public health concerns — she thought supporters of gender treatment bans might cite them to show that the procedures are harmful. (WPATH’s draft guidelines had originally recommended age minimums of 14 for cross-sex hormones, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation or facial surgery and 17 for genital surgeries or hysterectomies.)
Republicans have in turn seized on transgender rights and medicine as a potent culture war issue. This makes it challenging for progressives, liberals and moderates to take any stand on gender issues that might be in line with a party that has become so associated with extreme positions.
Already the gender-affirmation model is taught in leading medical schools, and all the major professional medical organizations in the United States have officially embraced it in their guidelines, a fact often cited by advocates as evidence of their validity.
Given how entrenched the gender-affirmating model has become, reversing course won’t be easy. If the medical profession turns away from the notion that transitioning young people is necessary and lifesaving, it could open itself up to malpractice suits.
Despite the personal or professional costs to admitting its errors, it is time for people in the American medical and political establishments to open their minds and listen to those doctors who have fully examined the evidence.

Source: Opinion | Why Is the U.S. Pretending to Know Gender-Affirming Care Works? – The New York Times

Australia’s ‘What Is a Woman?’ Case: Tickle v Giggle | Reality’s Last Stand| Rachael Wong

A judge of the Federal Court of Australia is currently deliberating on Australia’s “what is a woman?” case: Tickle v Giggle. This is a pivotal moment for women’s rights in Australia as it will determine whether gender identity trumps biological sex under Australian sex discrimination law.

The case centers on a complaint made by a trans-identified male (i.e. a man who identifies as a woman, also known as a “transwoman”), Roxanne Tickle, against the women-only social networking app, Giggle for Girls. Tickle alleges that his exclusion from the app, which was created exclusively for women by its founder and CEO, Sall Grover, constitutes gender identity discrimination under Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) (SDA).

The case was heard in Sydney, Australia, from April 9 to 11, 2024, and the parties are currently awaiting the judge’s decision as of the publication date of this article.

On the first day of the three-day hearing, the presiding judicial officer, Bromwich J, stated that he would be interpreting and applying the law as it exists instead of what it should be.

This may ultimately require having to accept the arguments put forward by Tickle and the Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner that gender identity trumps biological sex. This would mean that biological males identifying as women could not be denied access to female-only spaces. While absurd and irrational on its face, this decision would nevertheless align with the current version of the SDA.

It is likely that any judgment in favor of Tickle will be appealed to Australia’s High Court. This appeal would likely be based on a Constitutional argument that the Australian government overstepped its authority with the 2013 amendments to the SDA by exceeding the scope of CEDAW.

However, the simplest solution for the Australian government to address the current legislative uncertainty would be to repeal the 2013 amendments to the SDA and restore sex-based rights for women in Australia. Removing gender identity as a basis for discrimination in the SDA is not an act of “transphobia,” nor is it intended to harm or erase transgender individuals, as many activists assert. Rather, it is about about reinstating vital sex-based protections for women, acknowledging the immutable biological differences between males and females, and the inequalities stemming from those differences.

Source: Australia’s ‘What Is a Woman?’ Case: Tickle v Giggle

Think hard – by Bernard Lane – Gender Clinic News

British paediatrician Hilary Cass has a warning for distressed girls considering testosterone: taking this powerful hormone will make it hard—in some ways harder than mastectomy—to pass as a woman if they end up regretting medicalised gender change.

Although gender clinics claim there is little treatment regret, the Cass report says: “The percentage of [young] people treated with hormones who subsequently detransition remains unknown due to the lack of long-term follow-up studies, although there is suggestion that numbers are increasing.”

Given the risks and unknowns, the report urges “an extremely cautious clinical approach” to any cross-sex hormone provision at age 16, when this intervention becomes available under some treatment guidelines. In Australia, younger girls are put on testosterone, which is meant to be taken lifelong.

The recording of the July 2 Cass webinar, hosted by Australia’s National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, is here.

At the Australian webinar, picking up a key theme of her report, Dr Cass stressed how important it was for transgender identifying youth—girls dominate the mostly teenage caseload of gender clinics—to keep their options open as long as possible during a period of development and change.

“I was speaking to a gay friend who said, ‘We’re not hung up on this. We present however we want to present in a more masculine, androgynous or feminine way. And we feel that we have more flexibility than some of the binary trans community where there’s real pressure to conform to an idealised male or female appearance’.”

Source: Think hard – by Bernard Lane – Gender Clinic News

In a first, US Senate panel rejects Biden judicial nominee in New York | Reuters

A U.S. Senate panel on Thursday narrowly rejected one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees in New York after Republicans strenuously objected to a decision she issued as a magistrate judge recommending that a transgender inmate convicted of child sex abuse be transferred to a women’s prison.

Netburn recommended her transfer after the U.S. Bureau of Prisons rejected her(sic) requests to be moved out of the all-male prison in Otisville, New York, prompting her(sic) to sue.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said Netburn’s decision put women in the prison in danger. The inmate had nearly three decades earlier pleaded guilty to raping a 17-year-old girl and molesting a 9-year-old and served an 18-year prison sentence in Indiana.
“I have to say this is an issue everyone on this committee knows this isn’t right,” Cruz said. “Every one of us, every one of us would be horrified if a loved one found out she was the cellmate of a six-foot-two man who was a serial rapist.”

Source: In a first, US Senate panel rejects Biden judicial nominee in New York | Reuters

EXCLUSIVE DETAILS: German Trans-Identified Male Sues McDonald’s After Being Denied Access to Women’s Changing Room

A trans-identified male and former drag queen residing in Berlin is currently involved in litigation against McDonald’s after alleging he was denied access to the changing room intended for female employees. Kylie Divon, 27, also known as Keil Li, is seeking financial compensation for “discrimination” after a Muslim woman and colleague told him to leave the women’s changing room, citing his male genitalia as a cause for her concern.

Source: EXCLUSIVE DETAILS: German Trans-Identified Male Sues McDonald’s After Being Denied Access to Women’s Changing Room

Gender affirmative guidelines just an echo chamber: expert |The Australian

Dr Cass, a former president of the UK’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, participated in a panel live from the UK on Tuesday night, which was hosted by Australian psychiatrist Phillip Morris, the president of the ­National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, one of the first bodies to call for caution on experimental medical treatments and greater wholistic psychotherapy for young people with gender distress.
Dr Cass criticised the activist World Professional Association for Transgender Healthcare for essentially suppressing evidence that the standards of care it ­devised were not evidence-based and showed no proof of alleviating the distress of children.
These standards are followed by most of Australia’s major children’s hospitals that all frequently prescribe puberty blockers and hormone treatments to children and teenagers. Dr Cass noted in her independent report handed down in April that has been “highly influential in directing international practice, although its guidelines were found by the University of York’s appraisal to lack developmental rigour and transparency”. The Cass report included an appraisal by the University of York that analysed international gender affirmative care guidelines, including those of the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne. The review found its guidelines similarly lacked rigour and independence.
“The evidence base is weak … international guidelines have for the most part not followed standard evidence-based approaches,” Dr Cass told the Australian seminar. “And it has influenced most other international guidelines. There is a sort of echo chamber of sort of copying and pasting off each other. The only guidelines that have taken an independent and evidence based ­approach are the Swedish and the Finnish guidelines.”
All of Australia’s children’s hospitals including most of the country’s state health ministers have rejected the relevance of Dr Cass’s report to Australia for reasons that appear spurious given the fact that Dr Cass’s report examined gender affirming care models internationally, and that the deep research carried out by the independent review into puberty blockers is clearly relevant beyond the UK.

Source: Gender affirmative guidelines just an echo chamber: expert