Tag: transgender

Queer Sporting Alliance boosting gender diversity in sport

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In March this year, the Queer Sporting Alliance (QSA) took out the Outstanding Contribution to Sport Award at the Victorian Pride Awards.

The QSA is Australia and New Zealand’s largest LGBTIQA+ sporting club, and the award recognises its ongoing efforts to provide queer-friendly sporting environments and events.

They have included Australia’s first and largest queer basketball tournament, which featured more than 180 players from around Australia and took place on Wurundjeri Country in the northern suburbs of Naarm/Melbourne in January 2024.

The QSA’s focus is on participation and creating a space for those who have previously been excluded from sport.

The QSA focuses on creating safe spaces for those who have previously been excluded from sport. (Supplied: Kirsty Marshall)

Some participants had not played basketball in many years before the tournament, and for some it was their first time stepping onto a court.

The tournament, and all QSA programs, welcome queer folk as well as straight allies.

“It was like Mardi Gras but for gays who love sport,” participant Jethro Athlas said.

“It was my dream come true.”

QSA president Stella Lesic said the tournament was significant because it ensured players of any gender identity could participate.

Queer Sporting Alliance President Stella Lesic defends the basketball

Queer Sporting Alliance president Stella Lesic said the tournament did not require players to out themselves.(Supplied: Monique Clarke)

“The tournament didn’t require any player to out themselves [unless they wanted to] or have a referee assume their gender for the purpose of applying mixed/gendered basketball rules,” they said.

“Particularly for players taking steps to gender affirmation or who have experienced transphobia in sport, our tournament and the QLeague are game-changing.

“For the first time in basketball’s history, players could just play.”

Associate professor Ada Cheung is a clinician, scientist and endocrinologist specialising in the treatment of transgender individuals and sees the benefits the QSA brings to the community.

“What QSA does is beneficial, not just for queer people, but for everybody,” she says.

“[At] the grassroots level, there needs to be much more of a focus on participation [for gender diverse people].”

Woman with short hair wearing a red shirt and black jacket, sitting in an office.

Ada Cheung says there should be more focus on the participation of gender diverse people in sport. (ABC News)

Bringing queer people back to basketball

Athlas started basketball at 11 years old and played until they came out as non-binary at 23.

“I felt I couldn’t show up as me with the binary rules of a regular competition and I didn’t have many other queer friends at the time to make a team that felt safe,” they said.

Fellow tournament participant Leigh Seelie had a similar story of dropping out of sport after coming out as trans.

“I played on and off during my adulthood and stopped around four years ago as I started to transition,” she said.

“I did not feel that the captain of my team would accept me as they had made a number of transphobic posts on Facebook.

“I did not find a new team as I was concerned about how people would react to me playing and I did not want to be spotlighted.

“When the [QSA] tournament came up, I was very excited to play … It felt like a great opportunity to play a sport I loved again.”

The referee awards a four point shot in the QSA basketball tournament

Many QSA tournament participants have similar stories of dropping out of mainstream sport. (Supplied: Kirsty Marshall)

While at first Seelie felt “overwhelmed” about playing in the tournament after time away from the game, she said her team made her feel very welcome.

“I felt a huge amount of joy just being able to be me and play a game I loved,” she said.

With more than 1,000 members registered around Australia, the QSA has also seen an influx of straight, cisgender men and women joining the club.

“QLeague is a joy,” QSA regular and ally Greg Craske said.

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#Queer #Sporting #Alliance #boosting #gender #diversity #sport

Trans rights in Europe: Where does your country stand?

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While a number of European nations have been praised by leading trans organisations for their commitment to improving rights for the marginalised group, others – including Slovakia and the UK – have been told they still have a long way to go.

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Rights for transgender people are always a hot topic of discussion – dividing friends, colleagues and ruining the legacies of the rich and famous.

This week in Japan, the Asian nation’s Supreme Court ruled that a law requiring transgender people to have their reproductive organs removed in order to officially change their gender was unconstitutional.

The decision, made by the top court’s 15-judge Grand Bench, was its first on the constitutionality of Japan’s 2003 law requiring the removal of reproductive organs for a state-recognised gender change – a practice long criticised by international rights and medical groups.

Closer to home, the picture is not much clearer – and equally as divisive.

While a recent report from Transgender Europe (TGEU) showed the European approach to transgender rights has made positive progress, there is also a notable increase concerning anti-trans backlash from some governments and a number of media outlets.

While there has been progress in implementing more rights for trans people in Europe during 2022 and 2023, that only builds on 2022’s return to progress which followed years of decreasing levels of rights.

It’s not an entirely positive picture, though.

TGEU say the risk of regression and anti-trans backlash across swathes of the continent remains a pressing issue for the community.

Slovakia is, they say, in particular danger of further regression.

Debates there have been raging over the possibility of banning legal gender recognition.

Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Belarus and Bulgaria are also widely considered to be weak when it comes to the protection of trans people.

At the other end of the scale, countries praised for their development of trans rights were Spain, Moldova, Andorra, Finland and Iceland.

This year, Iceland managed to overtake Malta to be listed at the top of the ranking.

Spain has made huge changes too, with its far-reaching law covering employment, protections for trans migrants and discrimination based on gender expression.

That law means that the southern European nation has adopted legal gender recognition based on self-determination.

While there has been some criticism that nonbinary people were left out of the legal gender recognition change, Spain’s move means that 11 countries across Europe now have a form of ‘Self-ID’ – or, in layman’s terms, a self-determination-based legal gender recognition model.

The UK is very much seen as lagging behind more progressive countries in Europe.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been accused of mocking trans people and his government is set to push ahead with plans to ban gay and trans conversion practices.

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Senior Conservatives have spoken about their concern that the issue might split the party on the issue. Some MPs have expressed worry that an outright ban on trans conversion practices specifically could unintentionally criminalise parents or teachers who give advice to children struggling with their gender identities.

Earlier this year, Westminster blocked a bill supporting Self-ID passed by the devolved Scottish government. There have been cries of discrimination over that decision and it is currently going through the courts.

Interestingly, less secular countries including Spain and Greece have also made strides on banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’ on grounds of gender identity and Moldova has moved to protect trans people from discrimination as well as hate crimes and speech.

On the whole, it seems as if the move toward trans acceptance is going in the right direction, but as Nadya Yurinova from TGEU tells Euronews, there is still more to be done.

“Ideally, all countries should start with legal gender recognition and access to trans-specific healthcare for all, especially for further marginalised groups at the intersections with refugees, BIPOC, asylum seekers and disabled people communities. We also call for trans-informed journalism and public awareness about trans lives; the discrimination and violence trans people face on a daily basis,” Yurinova explains.

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In a report seen by Euronews, TGEU criticises many EU member states as “failing to meet their obligations to trans people”.

They say nine countries – Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Romania – fail to provide asylum protection and that this is in violation of EU law. TGEU believes that by upholding rigid rules for asylum seekers from diverse – particularly trans – backgrounds, the individuals in question are immediately at a disadvantage when it comes to being accepted into a new country.

That seems to be only one issue concerning those who speak out on behalf of the trans community.

Pekka Rantala, who is the chairperson of SETA – Finland’s oldest and most prominent LGBTI rights organisation – tells Euronews the situation is bleak, even in the progressive Nordic nation.

“Based on my experience in Finland and discussing with LGBTIQA+ activists around the world the situation around hate-speech continues to be bad. Based on that, I would say the situation continues as it was in 2022,” he says.

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Rantala explains that conservatism in politics and “aggressive social media approaches taken by anti-trans groups” are to blame, but believes there is hope for the future for the trans community.

“General awareness raising campaigns for the public, training for officials and media, prevention and combating hate speech and making sure proper safeguards are in place to prevent discrimination in the society are key actions to take,” he says.

“These actions would both make society more aware and understanding of the trans community but would also allow an often strained – if not severed – bond between the trans community and wider society to begin healing,” Rantala adds.



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#Trans #rights #Europe #country #stand

Italian general fired for homophobic remarks is sign Italy is changing

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A general at the top of Italy’s armed forces bashed gay people in a recent publication. But LGBTQ+ activists and officers tell Euronews that, despite ongoing challenges, the situation is getting better for queer people in the army and the police.

In a controversial self-published book that has become an object of heated debate, Italy’s General Roberto Vannacci – one of the people at the very top of the country’s armed forces – bashed gay people, saying they were “not normal.”

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Vannacci was the head of the Italian paratroopers’ brigade and the Military Geographical Institute in Florence before being officially removed on Friday as the result of the homophobic, misogynistic, and racist statements contained in ‘The World Upside Down’, published some two weeks ago.

In the self-published book the general bashed environmentalists, feminists, Jewish people, Black Italians, and the LGBTQ+ community as the causes – according to him – of the problems afflicting the Italian society.

“Dear homosexuals, you’re not normal, get over it!,” he wrote. “Normality is heterosexuality. If everything seems normal to you, however, it is the fault of the plots of the international gay lobby which banned terms that until a few years ago were in our dictionaries.”

The fiery statements were immediately condemned by politicians and LGBTQ+ activists across the country, with Italy’s defence minister Guido Crosetto saying that the general discredited the army, the defence ministry, and the constitution.

“It’s disturbing that an army general, and so a person at the highest level of the army, can express a thought that’s so openly homophobic, racist, and mysoginistic,” Gabriele Piazzoni, Secretary General of the national LGBTQ+ nonprofit Arcigay, told Euronews.

“The armed forces must be inspired by the values of the Constitution,” he added. “This a democratic country, not a military dictatorship, and these statements cannot be tolerated.”

Vannacci’s punishment – with his removal from the two top positions he covered in the army – was what Piazzoni and Arcigay were calling for. 

It wasn’t an obvious outcome considering that the government currently ruling the country has been pushing forward policies reducing LGBTQ+ rights in the country, including limiting the parental rights of same-sex parents.

For Alessio Avellino, a trans police officer and the president of Polis Aperta, Italy’s first association for LGBTQ+ members of the armed forces and the police, Vannacci’s removal is a sign that Italy is making steps forward to make its armed forces more inclusive.

“Talking about this issue, we managed to get Vannacci removed from his post, a result that makes us happy,” Avellino told Euronews.

“In Italy, there’s a lot to do, really, really a lot. But we’re doing it.”

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‘There’s a lot of people who don’t think like Vannacci’

Avellino, one of the first trans police officers in Italy, doesn’t like focusing on the negatives when talking about the situation facing LGBTQ+ people in the armed forces and the police in the country.

While initially concerned that Vannacci’s statements might find support within the broader public, the 28-year-old officer said that he’s living proof that the armed forces and the police have gotten more inclusive in recent years.

“I’m a trans person, I’ve declared it, I’ve done my gender affirmation journey within the police and the community and I live a normal life within the department,” he said. “Like me, there’s another colleague within the prison police who’s decided to come out and has started his transition journey,” he continued.

“In the armed forces, there’s a guy who has never declared himself to be trans not to compromise his work, but everyone knows he’s a trans man and has kept his job.”

By law, new police officers in Italy must follow strict regulations when being sworn in, with men wearing trousers and women wearing a skirt. Avellino was allowed to wear trousers when sworn in in 2020, despite the fact that his official documents didn’t reflect his transition journey at the time and would have forced him to wear a skirt.

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“Many officers above me were understanding and let me wear trousers,” he said. “At the top, there are many people who have different opinions than Vannucci,” he added. “As always, people get to making progress before legislation catches up.”

Talking to La Repubblica, a gay officer who’s been serving in the army for 30 years confirmed that coming out at work, at the age of 50, had been hard for him – but added that the army has since then changed, as Avellino said about the police.

‘Still behind’

Piazzoni is less optimistic about the situation in the country.

“In the last decades Italy surely made some steps forward, but we’re still behind compared to other countries in Western Europe in recognising LGBTQ+ rights,” Piazzoni said.

“The fact that last year the country couldn’t approve the law on homotransphobia means that we still don’t have a law that specifically condemns discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” he added. 

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The sweeping legislation – called Ddl Zan – was passed by the lower chamber of Parliament in 2021, but was sunk by the Senate, with lawmakers defending the right to freedom of speech over the need to exacerbate punishments for discriminating against women, gays and lesbians, and trans people.

“This is a clear sign that the Italian institutions struggle to understand how to oppose this phenomenon, which in turn allows parts of the public opinion that discrimination can be legitimate,” Piazzoni added. 

Vannacci defended what he discussed in his book saying that it falls under his constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech. 

On Monday, after being removed from office, he still defended his statements, saying that gay people are “statistically abnormal.”

Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right party League – part of the rightwing coalition government – sided with Vannacci, saying on Monday that he refuses to have a “Big Brother telling people what to think” in Italy.

In a list of 49 European countries ranked by their efforts to protect and recognise LGBTQ+ rights compiled by international organisation ILGA-Europe earlier this year, Italy was 34.



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#Italian #general #fired #homophobic #remarks #sign #Italy #changing

Meet the people making healthcare more accessible for trans kids

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From Ireland to Spain, access to trans healthcare varies dramatically for young people, depending on where in the European Union they live. In some countries, it is virtually impossible.

Just two months shy of turning 18 years old, and over a year after he started questioning his gender, Alex became the youngest person to access trans healthcare at his health clinic in France.

“I was very happy and relieved because it was a crucial moment. I’d just ended high school … and the timing was very important to me,” Alex told Euronews. “Because my voice was starting to change about three months after the first term [of University].”

“And I was very relieved that I could try to live without people noticing that I’m trans.”

The process for Alex — whose name has been changed for this article — to access hormones was a relatively straightforward one.

In France, minors can access gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers or hormone replacement treatment (HRT). But the vast majority of healthcare officials require a psychological assessment to be carried out, a process that could take up to several years.

In Alex’s case, he was able to move through the requirements quickly because of his parent’s support and his age. But others may find it more difficult to gain access to the same route.

“I just talked to my endocrinologist, and she said that they were forced to shut down the system because there weren’t enough people who want to [provide gender-affirming care]. And because the public hospital in France doesn’t consider it a priority.”

“Now, the wait list is very, very long – between eight months and a year for the first appointment, when for me it was just one or two months.”

Deadliest year for LGBTQ+ people in Europe in a decade

For other young people across the European Union, the experience of being transgender varies dramatically depending on where they live.

In February, Spain passed legislation allowing anyone over the age of 16 to self-declare their gender. That same month, Sweden moved to block hormone therapy for people under the age of 18, except in rare cases.

And while Finland removed its requirement that adults be sterilised before changing their gender markers, Croatia was debating if gender-affirming care should be limited to people older than 21.

Last year was also one of the most violent in almost a decade for Europe’s LGBTQ+ community, particularly for trans people, “both through planned, ferocious attacks and through suicides in the wake of rising and widespread hate speech,” according to ILGA-Europe, one of the continent’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organisations.

In 2022, a trans man was killed during a Pride event in Germany. That same year, a trans woman was murdered in Estonia. And a cis woman (a person who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth) was killed in Georgia because she was mistaken for a trans man.

There were also at least two attacks on LGBTQ+ bars: one, which killed two people and injured 20 in Oslo; and another in Bratislava, in which two people were killed.

“This phenomenon is not only in countries where hate speech is rife, but also in countries where it is widely believed that LGBTI people are progressively accepted,” said Evelyne Paradis, the executive director of ILGA-Europe.

The organisation added that Ireland, Spain, Norway, Poland, the UK and Switzerland were just some of the countries that reported a rise in hate speech against trans people last year.

Worst country to access trans healthcare in Europe

Access to transgender care — particularly for minors — varies depending on where in Europe a person lives.

In Ireland, it is nearly impossible for anyone under the age of 17 to access trans healthcare, even though they are legally able to do so. This is despite it being one of only 11 countries in Europe that allow people to self-declare their gender. It also provides a procedure for minors to have their gender legally recognised.

It is also ranked as the worst place to access trans healthcare in the European Union, listed under Hungary and Poland, according to Transgender Europe [TGEU], the largest trans rights group in Europe.

At the heart of this contradiction is the country’s medical backlogs. While young people have the right to access care in theory, in practice those trying to enter the healthcare system are faced with a seven-year waiting list. This means access for many people is practically cut off until adulthood.

“There really isn’t any gender-affirming healthcare for trans kids in Ireland,” Moninne Griffith, the CEO of Irish LGBTQ+ youth organisation BeLonG To, told Euronews.

“I have heard that some young people and their parents, out of sheer desperation, are trying to access healthcare abroad and online.”

She added that they regularly go to either Poland or England for treatment, “but without adequate medical supervision here in Ireland, which is something that’s very dangerous and something that we wouldn’t recommend.”

The reason for the backlog, Griffith said, is a combination of Brexit, transphobia and the country’s healthcare system, among other things.

Before the UK left the EU, Ireland heavily relied on UK-based clinics through its Treatment abroad scheme (TAS), a programme in the European Union that allows patients to seek treatment in another member state and still get covered for it through their national insurance. With Brexit, that pathway has now been cut off.

Griffith added that because the trans community in Ireland is so small, it isn’t a priority in a medical system “that is focused, unfortunately, on the acute side of medical care and intervention.”

Access to gender-affirming care in Spain

For young people in Spain, the situation is very different. In February 2023, the country passed legislation that greatly expanded rights for its LGBTQ+ community, particularly its trans community.

The so-called ‘transgender law’ streamlined the process for anyone older than 16 to change the gender marker on their identification documents: for example, changing their gender from male to female. 

Prior to this, people were required to undergo medical treatment for two years and have a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria before they could change their gender marker.

Spain is also ranked as the second-best place to access trans-healthcare in Europe, after Malta, according to TGEU.

According to Uge Sangil, the president of FELGTBI+, Spain’s largest LGBTQ+ organisation, the protocol for a young person in most parts of the country to access care is relatively straightforward. Their family doctor can refer them to a clinic that will help them gain access to the care they want, be it puberty blockers or hormones.

And if they are very young, they can also easily change their name on their school’s register, even before they are allowed to legally change their identity documents. 

But despite this, some people — particularly young people — can still face challenges to access healthcare, depending on which part of the country they live in.

Healthcare in Spain is a devolved power, meaning rules around trans healthcare vary depending on the region. And in places such as Castilla y León, which is partially controlled by the radical-right Vox party, access is not guaranteed. 

According to Sangil, “Castilla y León is one of the worst places in Spain to access gender-affirming healthcare. And that is because it does not have a protocol in place for people to access care.”

So, in theory, people in Castilla y León have “access to a general practitioner endocrinologist and they can do the treatments, but there is no guarantee that this will actually happen.”

That is because, according to Sangil, access to healthcare for young people in this region depends on if individual doctors want to treat them.

And this is a problem because “we can’t rely on the goodwill of medical professionals.”

‘It’s not about hormones’

Across the European Union — and the United States — transgender minors are becoming a major talking point in the media and the focus of new legislation restricting their access to healthcare.

But according to Alex, while a lot of that conversation is about HRT, people also regularly ignore major parts of the lived experience of trans youth. And, while access to hormones is important, there are also other ways to help young people.

“Most of the time we feel bad because people don’t recognise us as what we are,” he said. “And I think that is the biggest part about being trans. It’s not about hormones.

“I think if people could just say, oh, ‘I’m a man’, [and other people could respond] ‘you’re a man’. I think it would make it […] way easier for us to live.”

“For me, I think when my family started to accept [my gender] and call me by the right pronouns and name, I think that did half or more of the job. It was great.”

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#Meet #people #making #healthcare #accessible #trans #kids

Chris Hayes is furious at the prospect of Florida kids not being physically and chemically mutilated

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We’d suggest that someone at MSNBC do a wellness check on “All In” host Chris Hayes, but we already know what they’ll find when they show up at his house: a broken man in a fetal position, ranting incoherently about Ron DeSantis. And crying into his sweater, of course.

DeSantis has broken poor Chris’ already-fragile little brain by — *checks notes* — officially criminalizing the physical and chemical mutilation of minor children in the name of “gender affirmation.”

This was Chris last night on his show:

If you look closely enough, you can see the spittle forming in the corners of his mouth.

That’s an important point. It’s not as though Ron DeSantis pulled a Joe Biden and did an end-run around the legislature and issued a decree. The state house and senate passed the law, and DeSantis signed it.

And you know what? DeSantis was right to sign it. Because not only does it defend parental rights, but it defends the rights of minor children as well. Minor children who are not old enough to consent to radical surgery and chemical interventions.

Honest answer: Chris Hayes is pro-child-mutilation. Don’t take our word for it; take Chris’. His meltdown spilled over onto Twitter, where he continued to shame the people who are taking action to protect minor children. Action that is sadly necessary in 2023 because there are sickos out there like Chris Hayes who think 12-year-old girls need elective mastectomies and 12-year-old boys need their penises chopped off and the scraps twisted into something resembling a mangled vagina.

If we have kids, and we have to choose between trusting Chris Hayes or Ron DeSantis to have their best interests at heart, we’re picking Ron DeSantis every time. We’re picking the guy who isn’t fighting for the nonexistent “right” to wreak lifelong havoc on children’s developing bodies and brains.

Maybe when Chris was a kid, he needed someone to care about his developing brain, and nobody did. That would certainly explain how he ended up where he is now.

For Chris, it’s very simple: if it’s not woke, he’s against it.

Do you, though, Chris? How can you truly oppose it if you think it’s wrong for Ron DeSantis to give parents the right to know what medical procedures are being performed on their kids?

Ding, ding, ding!

Because he’s a hypocrite who, like Karine Jean-Pierre and Joe Biden et al., thinks all your children are belong to the State.

Spoiler alert: They’re not the good guys.

No! Mutilate them, says Chris. It’s healthy!

“It’s entirely about the ideology and not the medicine.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call shameless projection. The medicine says that puberty blockers are not only not reversible, but that they can cause lifelong health problems, including sexual dysfunction and sterility. It’s the people whose chief concern is pushing the ideology who pose a threat to vulnerable children who may or may not genuinely be struggling with their sexuality. Chris falls into that latter category. Chris is one of those people.

Again, it’ll be a cold day in hell before we allow Chris Hayes to have a say in what is and is not healthy for our kids.

Just admit it, Chris. Or — and we cannot emphasize this enough — you have the right to get bent.

***

Related:

Texas mom’s reaction to Texas bill banning ‘gender-affirmation care’ has us terrified for her kids

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J.K. Rowling scorches trans-activists for making up imaginary children

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We’ve seen the cliché for years: The liberal who claims that an overly precocious child of theirs said something they consider profound or at least guilt-inducing, that always just happens to support the parents’ agenda. Apparently, J.K. Rowling noticed a similar trend in her mentions:

And yes, those images are all real. Three of them were written in response to this tweet:

These tweets were written in reply:

Please note that as of this writing ‘Epikal’ also claims on his profile to be ‘13 and smarter than you.’

So, apparently, he conceived a child when he was one?

We are beginning to doubt his sincerity.

In addition to those responses, we also had this:

He also didn’t appreciate being roasted, so he wrote this in response to Rowling’s tweet calling him out:

A few responses to that. First, Ms. Rowling does have children. Second, we were under the impression that liberals believed all women were inherently oppressed—you know, patriarchy and all that—and Ms. Rowling was very poor before the Harry Potter series made her very rich.

The fourth tweet Rowling screenshotted was in response to this tweet:

That prompted this tweet from Rowling’s screenshots:

Indeed, this same person wrote one responding to the Rowling tweet roasting him:

He then got roasted more individually:

In addition to those, we found this person using the same prototype:

Which prompted some pushback:

Naturally Rowling’s tweet mocking these people with imaginary daughters prompted reactions.

The full text of that tweet reads:

@jk_rowling my mother passed at 11 and your books were the shining light that helped me out of my dark hole. I met you in 2014 at @RoyalAlbertHall in London for a book signing event. You signed a few copies of books we had and when you walked away I said, ‘Mrs ROWLING. I can’t believe you didn’t give me a hug….’ You laughed turned back and gave me a huge hug, one of the most memorable exps I’ve had. [love] all that you do.

Rowling responded directly to her.

We also think this is a joke …  maybe? Ugh, it is so hard to tell:

We have the same uncertainty with this one:

We feel much more confident declaring this one to be a joke:

The full tweet says:

Ms. Rowling, my trans daughter got very hurt because of you. She was visiting London with my wife’s bf when one of your followers said some very upsetting transphobic things to her, which I will not repeat here. This upset her to the point of tears and rage. She started chasing him. He turned a corner and painted a fake tunnel on a wall before hopping over it. She unknowingly ran into that wall, flattening her teeth into piano keys. We still haven’t been able to pay off Mr. Shekelstein, the orthodontist. Please repent of your bigotry.

Well, that is pretty random.

All of this is a useful reminder that a lot of what you find on the Internet is just bull. We remember when Bill Maher informed us that 80% of people on the Internet who claimed to be 13-year-old girls were actually Bill Clinton. And Abraham Lincoln in particular pointed out one continual problem on the Internet:

Man, Lincoln had such amazing foresight.

Jokes aside, always ask if you are certain that the thing you are seeing is real. If a person saying they are a total MAGA-loving Trump supporter says something racist, is he really a MAGA-loving supporter? Or is that person a Moby-style leftist putting on a false persona?

False flags happen. It is a documented fact. Therefore, you should question everything you see and hear.

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Dee Snider responds to being booted from San Francisco Pride Parade

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It started with KISS frontman Paul Stanley sharing some moderate, entirely reasonable thoughts on transitioning children. Soon after, Dee Snider, lead singer for Twisted Sister, wrote a short tweet agreeing with Stanley and, as a result, the San Francisco Pride Parade called off his appearance at their event.

Dee Snider came back swinging in a statement that is, well … reasonable. You can read it for yourself, copied straight from his Facebook page, here:

Or we can just get it via Loudwire, with very little cut out:

They write:

In a post titled, ‘So, I hear I’m transphobic. Really?,’ the Twisted Sister vocalist addresses the move and shares his side of what happened.

‘Why did the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade invite me, Dee Snider to be a Grand Marshal in their parade and sing ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ on the center stage at what could possibly be the most important LGBTQIA+ gathering in the organization’s long history,’ asked the singer, then answering, ‘To quote Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer, ‘…Dee Snider [is] a longtime supporter of LGBTQ rights…’ I have ALWAYS stood with the community and its important causes. I was honored to accept the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade’s invitation and I even gave my blessing for ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ to be used as this year’s battle cry [‘Queer Not Gonna Take It!’).’

‘Is that transphobic,’ he continues. ‘I was not aware the Transgender community expects fealty and total agreement with all their beliefs and any variation or deviation is considered ‘transphobic.’ So, my lifetime of supporting the Transgender community’s right to identify as they want and honoring whatever changes they may make in how they present themselves to the world isn’t enough? Why not?’

Sharing his viewpoint, Snider explains, ‘I’ve recently stated I do not believe young children are ready to decide their gender allocation. I believe their choices should be supported and accepted by their parents, but I do not think kids have the mental capabilities to make rational, logical decisions on things of a magnitude that will affect them for the rest of their lives. I do not believe they are mentally developed enough.’ …

Snider continued with a plea to the Transgender community, ‘I am a proud moderate. I drive a Tesla and a Hummer. I have too many guns but strongly support intelligent gun control. I have four children yet fight for a woman’s right to choose. I am a motorcycle riding environmentalist. I am a heterosexual who proudly supports LBGTQIA+ rights. To me (and I believe to many of you) none of these things are mutually exclusive. The Transgender community needs moderates who support their choices, even if we don’t agree with every one of their edicts. For some Transgender people (not all) to accuse supporters, like me, of transphobia is not a good look for their cause. Don’t reject people who are willing to march, sing and stand with you just because we don’t perfectly see eye-to-eye. We are still your allies.’

‘I. Dee Snider, will continue to support the Transgender community and their right to choose even if they reject me and moving forward, I am open to educating myself so I can be a better ally. Sincerely, Dee Snider Your cisgender, crossdressing ally,’ he signed off.

So, he’s not exactly Ben Shapiro, now. On his twitter he often declares himself ‘purple’—meaning between republicans and democrats:

However, it is interesting to see how much this situation ‘red pills’ him.

Mr. Snider also found some support:

Some simply had their own thoughts to add:

Of course, he also got some pushback:

Weird. At that age many kids ‘know’ they are Superman or Luke Skywalker or just a princess.

Good lord, it is not a myth.

However, in our unscientific opinion, it looks like the feedback was mostly very positive. Even detractors were willing to be reasonable with him, which is ultimately a good sign.

***

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Czech Republic considers ending ‘barbaric’ trans sterilisation law

Post By World , , , ,

Czech lawmakers have launched a proposal to remove the sterilisation requirement for legal gender transition, but progress to lift society-wide prejudices is slow.

The Czech Republic is one of the few European Union countries to continue to require a sterilisation procedure before a trans person can legally change their gender.

This, despite the European Court of Human Rights officially declaring such state-imposed requirements to be a form torture.

Leaders of the country were largely undisturbed by this comment, believing that legalising registered partnerships – as well as an interrupted attempt to legalise same-sex marriage – were more important to the LGBT community.

But with more and more European countries lifting the sterilisation requirement over the years, the Czech Republic remains the westernmost EU member state to still officially demand the procedure. 

A bill has now been proposed by the Ministry of Justice to change this, despite the government’s strong conservative leanings. The draft still needs to be passed by both houses of parliament and be signed by the president before it can be enforced.

“As far as I was told by insiders, there is support for this change in this government,” said Lenka Králová, an activist who also hosts a YouTube program on trans issues.

The sterilisation procedure requires the total surgical removal of sexual glands as a precondition for the legal change of one’s sex in personal documents.

Králová said that lawmakers are unlikely to have proposed this bill if it had not been “discussed first with the government’s coalition partners.”

‘Sexual activity is not our main motivation’

However, for her, the possible legal change will not change the biggest misconception about trans people in the Czech Republic – that they are “spurred by sexual desires,” rather than wanting to transition because they feel inadequacy in the gender they were assigned at birth. 

“In my opinion this goes down to a historical misunderstanding, that gender dysphoria is mainly motivated by sexual desires,” she tells Euronews.

Transgender people are widely misunderstood throughout the world, with even some allies of the lesbian and gay communities opposing more trans rights. The far-right has often portrayed the community as pedophiles or oddities who should be banned from most social activities.

“Traditional Czech views presented trans people as those who desire the surgical modification of their genitalia. Being trans on the other hand is all about life and sex is just one part of it,” says Králová.

While surgery is important for some, others would forego it entirely. “We are such a marginalised minority that up to recently our human rights were not an issue for politicians. Now that there are only a few countries in Europe that still require sterilisation, it gained their interest,” she explains.

In the Czech Republic you have to go to a sexologist if you want to start transitioning.

Kryštof Stupka, an activist and member of the government’s LGBTQ+ committee, says sexologists have existed in the country for decades and are “a combination of a doctor and a psychiatrist, but more generally they are a group of traditionally-minded people who believe sexuality has to be regulated.”

“And they played a key role in the process until now,” he continues, saying that while sterilisation has often been a requirement in the past “it began being reinforced in the new civil code in 2014.”

So when most countries in Europe began dropping the sterilisation rule, the Czech Republic rewrote their legal code to include more limitations on legal gender reassignment.

‘They do not want trans people to reproduce’

Stupka explains that “most people in the Czech Republic assume that transitioning is getting plastic surgery to remove your penis or vagina. When in fact, what the sexologists care about is making sure you can’t reproduce.”

Once they are sure, as the law states, that you are “disabled from reproducing, once your body is destroyed, then you can have your papers,” he tells Euronews.

An average Czech citizen is required to show their ID regularly when they go about their daily lives – from buying alcohol to renting a car, to going skiing or signing a contract.

“You will be revealing your gender identity to people all the time, exposing yourself to their reactions or even harm,” exclaims Stupka.

Continuous hurdles

In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the landmark Garçon v France case that “forced and permanent sterilisation” violated the inalienable right to self-determination, and that the requirement by the state to undergo these procedures is a violation of Article 8 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which protects the sanctity of private life.

Following the Garçon case, The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) and Transgender Europe (TGEU) launched a complaint against the Czech Republic at the European Committee of Social Rights. The body found that the Czech Republic was in violation of the European Social Charter.

A bill was launched at the time to reverse the requirement – much like the one currently being discussed – but got shot down due to a technical issue, namely, the inability of the Czech citizens registry to process or implement this change.

“So the Minister of Internal Affairs at the time blocked it with an idiotic argument that the matrix within which we keep all the records of Czech citizens would not be able to process the legal gender change,” explains Stupka.

The previous Czech government was led until 2021 by the ANO or YES movement led by controversial media owner and populist oligarch Andrej Babiš.

“When Babis was elected he was initially pro-equal marriage, but then he turned into a Czech version of [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán,” Stupka explains.

While many welcomed Babiš being replaced by PM Petr Fiala and the center-right Spolu coalition, Stupka says there is even less support for LGBT+ issues and trans issues in particular in the new legislature, and that there is a lack of consistency from several consecutive governments.

The Czech Republic is widely considered one of the more progressive Central European countries, and its politicians and intellectuals played a leading role in the pro-democracy revolutions that led to the fall of communism.

This is why the sterilisation requirement sticks out like a sore thumb.

It is unclear how the trans bill will fare in parliament, but based on support for marriage equality Stupka believes that only “about 40 of them would support same sex marriage, while around 80 supported in the last parliament” of the 200 deputies of the lower house of parliament.

“But now that people finally see it as a gross human rights violation, maybe it the bill can pass and things will actually change,” he concludes.

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The Black Women’s Caucus Statement Against Gender Ideology is pure fire

Post By Politics , , , , , , , , ,

Via J.K. Rowling, we get this latest pushback against gender ideology:

Who are they? They are a group within, ‘Women’s Declaration International USA,’ which describes itself this way:

WDI USA is the United States chapter of the Women’s Declaration International (WDI). We are a dedicated group of volunteer women from across the country focused on protecting women’s sex-based rights.

We are a feminist group created by women, for women. At WDI USA, women always come first. Our mission is to advance the Declaration in law and policy. …

WDI USA’s actions are guided by the Declaration on Women’s Sex Based Rights, a document created by the founders of Women’s Declaration International to maintain language protecting women and girls on the basis of sex rather than ‘gender’ or ‘gender identity’.

In any case, the statement at the link is pretty amazing. It starts with: ‘We, the members of the Black Women’s Caucus of Women’s Declaration International USA, believe that it is crucial for Black Women to denounce gender identity ideology.’

Some highlights:

Gender ideologues employ the ‘forced-teaming’ tactic against Black women in order to shame us into being work mules for their campaign of male sexual privileges that they call ‘transgender rights.’ While these efforts are masked as progressive and inclusive concepts, gender identity ideology is actually intrusive and harmful to women, and uniquely so to Black women.

Gender identity ideology … is also incompatible with the fight for women’s rights because it allows men access to spaces and activities designated for women such as bathrooms, sports teams, and housing. It has been reported that 1 in 4 Black girls are sexually assaulted before the age of 18 and 35% of Black women report experiencing physical sexual violence. Policies that allow men unfettered access to female-designated facilities put Black women and girls, a demographic disproportionately impacted by male violence, at an even higher risk.

And they brought the receipts:

There have already been deadly consequences where an employer ignored a Black woman’s whistleblowing regarding a male who demanded to be recognized as a woman. Monica Archer, a caseworker in a women’s shelter, warned her employers about a client, Harvey Marcelin living as Marceline Harvey, who’d made threats against her and other shelter employees. Archer was fired for speaking out. Marcelin had already served 50 years for murdering and dismembering two women and after Archer’s whistleblowing was ignored, Marcelin was found to have murdered and dismembered a 68-year-old ‘gal-pal’ he had met while living in the women’s shelter.

It goes on and continues to be great stuff and it is worth considering in its entirety. Naturally, this provoked reactions:

We’re not that optimistic, but it’s definitely an encouraging sign.

Of course, there was pushback:

‘Yakubite’ appears to be a reference to the super-racist and super-crazy theory that white people were actually invented by an evil scientist named Yakub, according to the Nation of Islam. Yes, really. If you read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, he says it is the explicit doctrine of that group (which is outside of any mainstream conception of Islam). It’s as if Scientology and racism had a baby.

What is interesting to us is that Black Women’s Caucus argument against gender ideology is an argument from the left. Except for being against trans ideology, it is basically a leftist argument in its form, focus, and modes of argumentation. It is identity politics, arrayed against people who pretend that your identity is whatever you decide it is.

And it’s not the first time we have seen this. For instance, the Montgomery, Maryland public schools have apparently gone ‘gender neutral’ with respect to their restrooms, allowing boys to go into girls’ restrooms apparently without even pretending they identify as women, and it got pushback from the Council on American–Islamic Relations (‘CAIR’):

From Reason:

One of CAIR’s offices is also handling a case involving the rights of a Muslim student who had removed her hijab to adjust it in the girls’ bathroom at her public school when a student who she perceived to be of the opposite sex entered and saw her with her hair exposed in violation of her sincerely held beliefs, leaving her feeling shocked and humiliated.

Other parents have informed CAIR’s Maryland office that their children no longer feel safe or comfortable using school bathrooms and wait until they return home at the end of the day to use the bathroom, raising concerns about poor health outcomes and the impact on school performance.

This was also a problem at Yale University where they decided to have gender-neutral dorms:

From Legal Insurrection:

The current policy disproportionately affects Muslim students. Often, they succumb to being pushed to off-campus housing, at a rate higher than their non-Muslim peers. Students who remain on campus are forced to change their habits to avoid sacrificing their core beliefs. These potential habit changes are non-negligible. Without single-gender bathrooms, Muslim women are forced to be on guard and wear a hijab, even during times when they normally would not: just taking a shower or going to the bathroom becomes a stressful and inconvenient burden, taking a toll on their mental health. Living quarters become a space of anxiety, not rest.

Muslims also must pray 5 times a day. In order to do so, they perform wudu, a type of ablution or purification using water. This involves wiping the top of the head with their hand, which must be done without any fabric or impediment in the way. If Muslim women are not able to remove their hijab because of the mixed-gender bathrooms, they cannot perform wudu, and, as a result, they cannot fulfill their obligatory daily prayer. Mandatory mixed-gender bathrooms directly interfere with students’ right to their religious practices.

This is not only heartless behavior—essentially blocking a person from utterly reasonable practices of their faith—but it might also violate various civil rights laws.

All of this raises the question of whether identity politics, which conservatives have their own objections to, might end up making a common cause with conservatives to defeat gender ideology—a view that literally identity is malleable.

We shall see.



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Oliver Willis goes corncob in fight with Jesse Singal over NYT’s ‘bigoted coverage’ of trans issues

Post By Politics , , , , ,

As we told you, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzburger told employees yesterday that last month, one employee was allegedly spat on by a passerby angry about the Times’ coverage of trans issues, which, in including perspectives from people critical of things like transitioning children, somehow renders the paper transphobic.

That’s complete BS, of course, but plenty of tolerant lefties out there are either dismissing the alleged incident as no big deal or outright defending it. And it’s only natural that Oliver Willis would be one of them:

Journalist and podcaster Jesse Singal, who is very much a liberal, has nonetheless done a great deal of research on the dangers — physical, emotional, mental, and psychological — of “gender-affirming care” for children. And he took issue with Willis’ insinuation that the New York Times’ skirt was too short. So, like any good and reasonable journalist, he asked Willis to provide some supporting evidence:

And you’ll never guess what happened next! OK, you will. Because this is Oliver Willis we’re dealing with and he literally cannot help himself.

Uh-oh … Oliver’s projecting again.

Challenge accepted, Jesse:

Wait … that’s it? That’s the proof that the New York Times hates trans people?

Not that you needed any further proof that Oliver Willis is not a serious person, but that right there is further proof that Oliver Willis is not a serious person.

Uh-oh, Oliver … looks like that swipe at Jesse Singal didn’t work, either. Singal’s clearly no right-wing radical by any stretch of the imagination. So.

Apparently Oliver is unfamiliar with the old adage “quit while you’re behind.”

Oliver Willis has only one setting, and it’s “GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT.”

Come on, Oliver. If the New York Times is pushing so much anti-trans propaganda, it shouldn’t take you any time to find numerous examples. Just answer the question, Oliver.

Media Matters? Yeah, OK. We’re officially done here.

Wonder why that is.

***

Related:

‘Transphobic grifter’ Jesse Singal outed as a proponent of ‘trans genocide’

Jesse Singal: Libs just can’t imagine anyone objecting to gender-affirming care for kids

***

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