Society's ChildS


2 + 2 = 4

Transgender identification in children and the social construction of diagnosis

Lisa Marchiano
Quillette
Sat, 03 Mar 2018 12:27 UTC
transgender sign

Last week saw another attempt to silence debate and research whose findings diverge from an accepted orthodoxy. In the Advocate, transgender activist Brynn Tannehill decried a 2017 abstract that appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Health, stating that the research into rapid onset gender dysphoria or ROGD was "biased junk science." The research that Tannehill so strongly objected to was undertaken by Lisa Littman, MD, MPH. Littman surveyed parents about their teen and young adult children who became gender dysphoric and transgender-identified in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all the friends in a pre-existing peer group became transgender-identified in a similar time frame, an increase in social media use, or both. The findings of the research support the plausibility of social influences contributing to the development of gender dysphoria. The full research paper has not yet been published.

Tannehill subsequently posted the article to the Facebook page of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). A discussion ensued in which some commentators asked WPATH leadership to request that the journal retract the abstract. "So is something being done?" wrote one commentator. "As in are [sic] the Journal being asked to make a statement to retract or apologize for including it?" Psychiatrist and WPATH board member Dan Karasic, MD responded simply. "Yes." (These comments were deleted from the original thread, but screen caps and a fuller description of what took place can be found here.)
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Megaphone

US will turn Ghouta into a full-fledged terrorist stronghold - Syrian General


Sputnik News
Fri, 02 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Ghouta, Syria
© AFP 2018/Ammar Suleiman
The US is going to take advantage of the tensions over Eastern Ghouta to twist the hand of Moscow and Damascus, Syrian Brigadier General Hetham Hassun told Sputnik. He noted that while raising the alarm over the situation in the region, Western mainstream media remain mute about people suffering under the rebel siege in al-Fuah and Kafriya.

"This is not the first time that the US and Western countries have signaled their support to armed terrorist groups," Brig. Gen. Hetham Hassun, a Syrian military analyst, told Sputnik Arabic. "We witnessed similar information and diplomatic campaigns to support jihadists before the liberation of Aleppo and Homs. Now exactly the same is taking place in Ghouta. Western countries train and provide militants with weapons and essential goods; they also provide information support [to jihadists]."

Comment: During the last 2 days, Syrian Arab Army made some progress in eliminating the terrorists from Easter Ghouta. The MSM propaganda has no effect on SAA progress.



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Heart

Denver elementary school pilot program replaces detention with Yoga

Joel Hillan
CBS Denver
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Denver Kids yoga
© Unknown
A special grant from Denver Public Schools has allowed Doull Elementary to pilot a program where they trade out detention for Yoga.

"I teach children the practice of yoga and meditation," said Trinidad Heffron.

For Miss Triny, as the kids call her, and for the school, this is about reevaluating the way they discipline, not taking it easy on the kids.

"Yoga and meditation, they're not necessarily an easy practice. I would say it's challenging, but useful," said Heffron.

Comment: See also:

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Health

NHS refusing surgery because of 'lifestyle choices' is "discriminatory and cruel" say Royal College of Surgeons

Laura Donnelly
The Times
Fri, 02 Mar 2018 09:30 UTC
sugery
One in eight trusts will not fund these operations for smokers, instead offering them nicotine gum, patches and advice on how to quit, according to the Royal College of Surgeons (file photo).
Refusing surgery to obese people and smokers is "discriminatory and cruel", surgeons have said as they issued a landmark statement calling for the NHS policies to be halted.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges accused health authorities of taking decisions which are counter to the fundamental principles of the NHS.

The organisation - a coalition of 24 medical colleges and health faculties - said patients were increasingly being subjected to blanket bans on treatment, with lifestyle being used as an excuse to cut costs.


Comment: What surer way to coerce a populace into 'behaving'? And even better, you can keep moving the goal posts as your corrupt findings see fit.


Comment: For a long time healthcare has been politicised by lobby groups and government, and while the NHS is being crippled by underfunding the ruling class are much more able to meddle with its policies. Because it isn't frontline staff pushing for these changes.

Will they start refusing help to people suffering from the flu but who refused the much discredited and dangerous flu jab? Or liver treatments to those who drink alcohol? Obviously for the elite who can afford private healthcare this will not be a problem.

And in the end that's what it's about, the callous UK establishment wants to privatise the NHS and control the population and, in pushing this agenda, they can achieve both.

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Shopping Bag

How does Los Angeles, with a population of 58,000 homeless, continue to function?

The Times Editorial Board
The Los Angeles Times
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 04:16 UTC
LA staggering homeless problem
© Los Angeles TimesEven as it continues to gentrify, downtown L.A. remains the epicenter of a staggering homeless problem.
Homelessness affects the lives of all Angelenos, not just those forced to live on the streets. And it does so almost daily, in ways large and small.

Consider the pairs of thick gloves that George Abou-Daoud has stashed inside the nine restaurants he owns on the east side of Hollywood. When a homeless person accosts his customers, Abou-Daoud says, he can no longer count on the police for help; unless there's an imminent threat to safety, he contends, they don't respond quickly and can't just haul the person away. So he's had to take matters into his own hands, literally, by physically ejecting problematic homeless people himself. That's why he has the gloves - to keep his hands clean.

Abou-Daoud's gloves are a particularly bleak symbol of the relationship between the homeless and the non-homeless. But everyone's got a story of one sort or another. Day in and day out, Metro riders step into trains with homeless people on them - often visibly disturbed or threatening, prompting nervous passengers to edge away or change cars. In downtown L.A., shop owners worry that customers will opt for suburban malls to avoid the panhandlers and glassy-eyed wanderers. In Venice, besieged businesses have banded together to share the cost of security guards and cleanup crews to clear garbage, bedding or worse from the sidewalks.
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Propaganda

Why does the media care more about the Parkland shooting than it ever did about Las Vegas?

Matt Walsh
The Daily Wire
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
Mandalay Bay , Las Vegas
© Denise Truscello/Getty Images
It has now been 12 days since the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The story is still headline news across every major news outlet. Public interest in the tragedy is still quite high. Media interest has not waned very much.

Meanwhile, every major question about the crime has already been answered. Indeed, most of them were answered within a couple of days of the shooting. We know about the shooter's "troubled" past, the death of his mother, his expulsion from school, and his history of violence. We know that he was reported to the local police dozens of times. We know that someone called the FBI about him. We know how he carried out the attack. We know that he was able to shoot so many people because at least one sheriff's deputy was cowering outside the whole time. We know pretty much everything there is to know about the hows and whats and whys of this case. But still it is a lead story. Still the media has not left Parkland and moved to other things.

Comment: If one looks at the sophistication, precision and resourcefulness in gathering military grade hardware by these "so called" mental deranged "lone gun man", one has to challenge validity of Media narration, even that meant of being branded as conspiracy theorist. Media is lapdog of the powerful Military,Financial and Political elite. They need fearful citizens to sustain their insatiable greed.



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No Entry

TERF wars: Bristol University student union wants to 'no-platform' radical feminists over trans-exclusion


RT
Fri, 02 Mar 2018 13:19 UTC
Trans-exclusion Bristol University
© Reuters/ Susana VeraBristol’s student union has proposed a blanket ban of those accused of trans-exclusion.
Feminists who refuse to recognize transgender women as women could be banned from speaking at a UK university. Bristol students' union wants to 'no-platform' so-called Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs).

The 'TERF' speakers denounce trans women as not "real," and claim they have no authority to speak on women's issues because they were born a different gender. Some TERFs refer to themselves "gender-critical feminists."

The animosity between trans people and TERFs has often resulted in violent and abusive scenes. Late last year, the rival groups brawled in a central London park, resulting in injuries and a police investigation.

Comment: The Resurgence of TERFs, Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists

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Info

Trump thinks veterans are the perfect armed teachers, but they're divided

Kimberly Hefling and Tucker Doherty
Politico
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 17:54 UTC
US army soldirers
© Massoud Hossaini/AP PhotoWhile some veterans among the nation’s teaching corps back Trump’s idea and see it as a calling to use their skills, others interviewed by POLITICO said they are adamantly opposed.

Few educators have served in the military, and those who did may reject the idea of carrying a gun to class.

President Donald Trump has held up veterans as the ideal armed teachers who could ward off school shooters. But the reality is very few of today's educators served in the military, and those who did may reject the idea of carrying a gun to class.

Even with the influx of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans entering the workforce, just 2.1 percent of U.S. teachers in 2016 were veterans, according to federal data. In 1960, during the post-World War II era when Trump was a teen, 59 percent of male teachers had military service.

While some veterans among the nation's teaching corps back Trump's idea and see it as a calling to use their skills, others interviewed by POLITICO said they are adamantly opposed - even if they have the weapons familiarity that comes with military service. They said they worry about accidental discharges and that their skills are no longer fresh.

Comment: See also:

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Pistol

More kids died in school shootings in the 1990's than today

Ryan McMaken
Mises Wire
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 21:44 UTC
school shooting
Now that I have several children, I'm often in the company of other parents who talk about the way things "used to be." When the issue of child safety comes up, I hear parents sadly shake their heads and say things like "it's not like it was when we were kids ... the world is so much more dangerous now."

Usually, the sentiment behind this idea is that there are more murders now than there used to be.

Now, I'm not exactly known for being a Pollyanna, but I am willing to admit when things are not, in fact, getting worse.

And when it comes to things like homicides, there is no evidence that things are getting worse. It is indeed true that things aren't like they were "when we were kids," but that's a good thing. There were far more homicides in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s than there are today. Things were even worse than that during the 1970s. In fact, the homicide rate in the US was cut in half between 1991 and 2014. And while the homicide rate has inched up over the past two years, it is nowhere near where it was "when we were kids."
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Arrow Down

Saudi promise to open Yemen's port of Hodeidah is nothing but a 'cynical PR exercise'

Daniel Larison
The American Conservative
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 16:30 UTC
saudi blockade yemen starvation
Aid groups once again denounce the Saudi "aid" efforts in Yemen as nothing more than a "cynical P.R. exercise":
At the centre of accusations levelled against the British and US-backed strategy is the claim that, despite Saudi Arabia's promise to open the key port of Hodeidah - a city of 400,000 largely controlled by Houthi rebels and closest to the areas of direst need - the plan actually perpetuates the Saudi choke on imports there.
The Saudi-led coalition has been using its blockade to try to starve Yemen into submission for almost three years now. They keep commercial imports out of Hodeidah because they want to strangle the areas of the country that continue to resist them, and they don't care if that leads to mass starvation. It should not come as a shock to anyone that their plan to "help" Yemenis is an attempt to distract attention from what they continue to do to the civilian population. The Saudis and their allies are not the least bit interested in alleviating the terrible conditions in Yemen, but they want to appear as if they are so that their Western patrons don't face as much political pressure to end support for the war. No one should be fooled into believing that the Saudi-led coalition's "humanitarian" plan is anything more than a fig leaf to cover the horrifying reality of what they have done and what they continue to do to the people of Yemen.

Comment: Promises, promises. The Saudi's pledged to open the port last December, yet the port remained empty:
Two weeks after the announcement, the port remains empty. No merchant or relief vessels are seen anchored at its harbor and no much-needed aid is flowing into the country suffering from a humanitarian catastrophe. The port manager confirmed to RT Arabic that the sea-hub had processed only two vessels that had old permits. The blockade, he said, is still very much in effect.
[..]

Over 75 percent of Yemen's 27 million population, including 11.3 million children, are in dire need of humanitarian aid, the UN said ten days after Saudis had supposedly lifted the blockade. At least 16 million people do not have access to clean water and proper sanitation, while over 60 percent of Yemenis are on the brink of starvation. The three-year-old conflict has so far claimed the lives of at least 10,000 people.
See also: Starving the country into submission: Saudi-led coalition is deliberately targeting Yemeni food supplies

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