Author: Mick Hartley

ttps://mickhartley.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451ebab69e2026bdea552bc200c-pi” style=”display: inline”>

e avalanche of gender dysphoria cases being referred, he says:

Unlike the epidemic of self-harm behavior, (gender dysphoria) care providers are not exploring to find the right treatment. Instead, on a broad front, drastic treatment with high doses of sex hormones and breast and genital surgery is introduced. This despite the lack of any scientific evidence for these treatments for children, and probably not for young adults either.

In the fall of 2019, there was a 65% decline in the number of referrals to gender clinics in Sweden. This corresponded with experts calling on the government to review clinical protocols and more balanced media coverage of the phenomenon of regret among gender transitioners, including the airing of a documentary entitled “Trans Train”.

The 3-part documentary includes several interviews with detransitioners and revealed that medical transition of minors is not evidence-based. A high profile transwoman in Sweden – Aleksa Lundberg – also came out in the media saying that if she were to go back and make the decision again “I might not have had the surgery”. She said she had believed that “there was a more scientific basis” for this healthcare – but has since realized that that is not the case. She says people deserve “a more complex narrative” than the simple public narrative that the media has been promoting on the topic of gender transition.

Referrals have remained steadily lower, indicating that the medical necessity of gender transition was questionable for many of the youth being referred for treatment. We are told that the treatment of minors now (unofficially) includes referring many to psychiatric evaluation. Previously, we are told that almost 100% of trans-identified youth who were referred to the gender clinics were prescribed puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.

In other words, once the faddish social-media-driven nature of the "gender dysphoria" claims began to be exposed, a more reasonable and less damaging approach could start to emerge.

A preliminary report on “The development of the diagnosis of gender dysphoria”, from Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare, confirms that people with gender dysphoria, especially young people, have "a high incidence of concomitant psychiatric diagnoses, self-harming behavior or suicide attempts compared with the rest of the population.” Further, “the diagnoses that stand out are depression, anxiety disorders, ADHD and autism.” So rushing in with irreversible and life-changing medical procedures may not, perhaps, be the most responsible way to go.

Take note the Tavistock, our very own gender identity clinic – already the subject of legal action over its gung-ho approach to early medical intervention on troubled young people, who've been pressured by social media and trans activists to believe that all their problems would be solved if only they transitioned.

rigger Warning : Transphobia

"Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. We have removed this book from our assortment", was the immediate response from the brave folks at Target. 

Well, it's now been restored:

On Friday, Target confirmed to PJ Media that it had restored Abigail Shrier’s important book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze That’s Seducing Our Daughters, following backlash after Target.com removed the book from its inventory. The company appears to have removed the book after one solitary Twitter user complained. PJ Media had sent a press inquiry on Friday morning asking Target to account for its actions. Instead, the company reversed course.

“Yesterday, we removed a book from Target.com based on feedback we received. We want to offer a broad assortment for our guests and are adding this book back to Target.com,” Konnor Schmaltz, a Target spokesman, told PJ Media. “We apologize for any confusion.”

Konnor Schmaltz??

Conservative commentator Bethany Mandel asked [on] Twitter, “Do you think it’s maybe a problem that you’re allowing a random twitter user to act as your manager?”

PJ Media pressed Target to explain the nature of Blue Iris’s complaint and explain the company’s actions.

“What did Blue Iris say in the complaint and why did Target respond by removing the book? What process does Target follow when it comes to banning books from its assortment? How would Target respond to complaints that the company is silencing views with which it does not agree?” PJ Media asked.

Rather than responding to these pointed questions, Target appears to have backed off.

A rare victory, then.

August 1941. "Conservation. Scrap iron and steel. An automobile graveyard outside Baltimore. Scrapped cars are collected in such yards in every state. Usable parts are stripped from the chassis and the remainder of the car is sent to scrap iron dealers for processing and shipment to steel mills."

[Photo: Shorpy/"Danish," Office for Emergency Management]

ourg, at which Assadi paid Saadouni varying amounts of money — sometimes €3,500 (£3,140), and at other times €4,000, “depending on the type of information” he supplied. At Assadi’s behest, Saadouni also travelled in 2013 to the Iranian city of Ahvaz.

Often Naami would come on the trips, too. The couple appeared to have lived comfortably off the money. A pop music fan, Saadouni reportedly spent €400 on a ticket to see Roger Waters of Pink Floyd perform in Antwerp.

Yes, another clear indication of the kind of twisted, sad, confused people that get caught up in these terrorist plots. I mean….spending €400 on a ticket to see Roger Waters?

s]

Taken from this FT piece by Helen Barrett. who defends Maggi Hambling's statue in tediously familiar terms:

You may or may not like it. But what is it about Ms Hambling’s work that provokes open attack? Perhaps her critics feel threatened by the artist herself: her iconoclasm and lack of regard for popular opinion. She does not conform, and that is unsettling. There is something of the Wollstonecraft about her.

Ooh I don't know. Perhaps it's because the Martin Jennings statue is about Mary Wollstonecraft, whereas Maggi Hambling's is about Maggi Hambling.

kindly asked him whether or not he was comfortable in his bed. She informed him that his breakfast was ready at a dining-room of the hotel and guided him there.

He followed her there. He was astonished that the manager of the hotel named Kim In Suk and its employees wished him a happy birthday and took him to a dining table quite unexpectedly.

Marveling at this he did not readily take breakfast. A man who ate his meal at the table opposite him told him that the case was similar to him a few days ago on his birthday and that the hotel kept a diary of special service for lodgers and honored them with a good spread on their birthdays from the bottom of their hearts while they observed them at the hotel on official business. The man concerned remembered that the receptionist carefully looked at his citizenship card.

He felt a lump in his throat.

OK, maybe I misled a little. Not so much a joke, more the first item of a pair under the title, Stories about Tender-hearted Persons in Our Socialist Country. Which is a joke in itself.

Here number two:

Some time ago Ryom Jong Suk received a letter from the shock workers who restore the flood-wrecked areas of the country. She is a vice-director of an external agency for developing the technology of medicines. It belongs to the People’s Hospital of North Phyongan Province.

The letter began with the phrase "the beloved mother of Sinuiju".

The word "mother" is explained below.

On each occasion she was hugely delighted to hear that innovations were made at the flood-hit areas under reconstruction. Although she did not know the flood victims by name and by face they all belong to the one and the same large socialist family.

She thought time and again of helping even a little toward building dwellings at the areas as soon as possible. She hit upon a good idea with joy.

She was determined to prepare medicinal spray with garlic good for one’s health and started to do that. Some time afterwards she made thousands of bottles of medicinal spray and travelled quite a distance to the areas with them.

This greatly played upon the heartstrings of the shock workers.

Simple as it is the medicinal spray reflects the beautiful social traits of our people who love and benefit each other sharing bitters and sweets with each other.

No, I know, that's not very funny either.

In North Korea a sense of humour is surplus to requirements.

The view from Alexandra Palace this morning – the City, then, pulling back, the City and Docklands:

quot; Apologise and repent of your Islamophobia, or else some Muslim will separate your head from your body – "according to our faith the punishment for a slanderer of the Prophet". And, yes, whoever cuts off the head of the accursed French President will receive a reward of 50 million rupees "from us in Gujranwala".

In a reasonable country he'd be prosecuted for incitement to murder – but then Pakistan, alas, isn't a reasonable country.

Great John Vachon portrait – August 1941. "Farm worker in beer parlor on a Sunday afternoon. Bruce Crossing, Michigan."

[Photo: Shorpy/John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration]