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IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
THE LITTLE CASE STUDY THAT AUTOGYNEPHILIA FORGOT The Little Case Study that Autogynephilia Forgot. March 1, 2010 dentedbluemercedes 5 Comments. (a discussion specific to Dr. Ray Blanchard’s model of autogynephilia, and not so much to people who identify as autogynephile because they feel it’s a close representation to their identity. This is a draft response to the proposed DSM5 changesGOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
REPARATIVE THERAPY
The long, twisty and sordid legal saga of Aubrey Levin has finally come to an end. Originally found guilty on three counts of sexual assault in January 2013, Levin’s five year prison sentence was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal, Wednesday.. The case has garnered international attention, due to the Calgary psychiatrist’s past as a military psychiatrist in apartheid-era South Africa. DETENTION | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES The way that trans people are housed in detention and correctional settings has come to attention recently, after British comedian Avery Edison was detained by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) for having previously overstayed her visa — and then she was initially sent to a mens’ prison while the issue was sorted out. After an NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. PITTING “IDENTITY POLITICS” AGAINST CLASS STRUGGLE IS I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the first things America’s political left would do during the 2016 election post-mortem is to attack minority groups like trans* people, and “identity politics.” That narrative says Americans decided a potential fascist (when you consider his policy proposals, unilateral rhetoric, media manipulation and stoking of hatred) RIGHT-WING GROUP CLAIMS TRANS HUMAN RIGHTS ARE A PLOT TO It has long been a practice of American far-right spokespeople and organizations that when sensationalistic rhetoric starts to fail, rather than try to polish it up and make it look more convincing, they often switch to something more sensationalistic and absurd, as a way of getting attention and scaring folks. The thinking seems to be DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
THE LITTLE CASE STUDY THAT AUTOGYNEPHILIA FORGOT The Little Case Study that Autogynephilia Forgot. March 1, 2010 dentedbluemercedes 5 Comments. (a discussion specific to Dr. Ray Blanchard’s model of autogynephilia, and not so much to people who identify as autogynephile because they feel it’s a close representation to their identity. This is a draft response to the proposed DSM5 changesGOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
REPARATIVE THERAPY
The long, twisty and sordid legal saga of Aubrey Levin has finally come to an end. Originally found guilty on three counts of sexual assault in January 2013, Levin’s five year prison sentence was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal, Wednesday.. The case has garnered international attention, due to the Calgary psychiatrist’s past as a military psychiatrist in apartheid-era South Africa. DETENTION | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES The way that trans people are housed in detention and correctional settings has come to attention recently, after British comedian Avery Edison was detained by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) for having previously overstayed her visa — and then she was initially sent to a mens’ prison while the issue was sorted out. After an NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. PITTING “IDENTITY POLITICS” AGAINST CLASS STRUGGLE IS I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the first things America’s political left would do during the 2016 election post-mortem is to attack minority groups like trans* people, and “identity politics.” That narrative says Americans decided a potential fascist (when you consider his policy proposals, unilateral rhetoric, media manipulation and stoking of hatred) RIGHT-WING GROUP CLAIMS TRANS HUMAN RIGHTS ARE A PLOT TO It has long been a practice of American far-right spokespeople and organizations that when sensationalistic rhetoric starts to fail, rather than try to polish it up and make it look more convincing, they often switch to something more sensationalistic and absurd, as a way of getting attention and scaring folks. The thinking seems to be ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
THE BAD FAITH “DEBATE” ABOUT TRANS HUMAN RIGHTS The bad faith “debate” about trans human rights. Recently, the National Post published a discussion that I engaged in with Jonathan Kay. I participated in that because it was an opportunity to provide a counterpoint for readers who don’t often see one. It was a chance to challenge some of the distortions and misinformation that have beenREPARATIVE THERAPY
The long, twisty and sordid legal saga of Aubrey Levin has finally come to an end. Originally found guilty on three counts of sexual assault in January 2013, Levin’s five year prison sentence was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal, Wednesday.. The case has garnered international attention, due to the Calgary psychiatrist’s past as a military psychiatrist in apartheid-era South Africa.“UNTHINKABLE”
American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a POLYGAMY AS PROHIBITED BY THE CRIMINAL CODE OF CANADA Besides, Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada states: “Everyone who practices or enters into or in any manner agrees or consents to practise or enter into any form of polygamy, or any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time, whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage, orcelebrates
NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. KEEPING SAFE AT THE CORNER OF TRANS* AND BDSM Update: There is more information emerging that indicates that this specific case may not be what is claimed. The following advice applies regardless, but keep this in mind so as to not make any judgments about any of the people involved until more clear information is available. Somewhere at the intersection of trans* and WHEN “UNNECESSARY” MEANS “WE DON’T WANNA” In many ways, of course, it's not fair to compare civil rights struggles. There are many different unique aspects to each that get lost in comparison. And yet, there is some value in doing so, as patterns emerge, and they inform our understanding of civil rightsmovements as a
CANADA RULES ON POLYGAMY, POLYAMORY AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Canada rules on polygamy, polyamory and religious freedom. November 29, 2011 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman ruled Wednesday that Canadian laws which limit religious freedom can be upheld if it is felt by the court that the harms in question outweigh that freedom. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS RESPONDS TO “FACTS ABOUT Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, Pam's House Blend and Box Turtle Bulletin recently looked at the Facts About Youth website and brochure. The bogus American College of Pediatricians announced both in a letter sent to 14,800 school superintendants in the US. The document and website repeat distorted claims that sexual orientation and gender identity are changeable by reparative therapy DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
TRANS HUMAN RIGHTS
Posts about trans human rights written by dentedbluemercedes. Mercedes on Twitter. RT @cblackst: The long history of discrimination against First Nations children Learn more about how Canada repeatedly chose to not act on 19 hours ago; RT @cblackst: Dr. Bryce spoke out to try to save the children's lives.It would have cost 15,000 out of a national budget of over 100 milli FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION Posts about Campaign Life Coalition written by dentedbluemercedes. (This post previously appeared at The Bilerico Project). Recently, leaders of Commonwealth nations met to discuss pressing international issues, and leaders from the U.K., Canada and others pressed for human rights reforms for LGBT people.. British Prime Minister David Cameron went so far as to threaten to cut off aid to memberREPARATIVE THERAPY
The long, twisty and sordid legal saga of Aubrey Levin has finally come to an end. Originally found guilty on three counts of sexual assault in January 2013, Levin’s five year prison sentence was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal, Wednesday.. The case has garnered international attention, due to the Calgary psychiatrist’s past as a military psychiatrist in apartheid-era South Africa.GOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE Scott Lively wants to take away LGBT Russians’ rainbow. Lively, the self-described “human rights consultant” who gladly takes credit for lobbying Russia, Uganda and others to ramp up their anti-LGBT laws, recently wrote an open letter to Vladimir Putin, in which he urged Putin to stand firm against international pressure to undo the law. And now, he’s in Moscow with Brian Brown (of the DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
TRANS HUMAN RIGHTS
Posts about trans human rights written by dentedbluemercedes. Mercedes on Twitter. RT @cblackst: The long history of discrimination against First Nations children Learn more about how Canada repeatedly chose to not act on 19 hours ago; RT @cblackst: Dr. Bryce spoke out to try to save the children's lives.It would have cost 15,000 out of a national budget of over 100 milli FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION Posts about Campaign Life Coalition written by dentedbluemercedes. (This post previously appeared at The Bilerico Project). Recently, leaders of Commonwealth nations met to discuss pressing international issues, and leaders from the U.K., Canada and others pressed for human rights reforms for LGBT people.. British Prime Minister David Cameron went so far as to threaten to cut off aid to memberREPARATIVE THERAPY
The long, twisty and sordid legal saga of Aubrey Levin has finally come to an end. Originally found guilty on three counts of sexual assault in January 2013, Levin’s five year prison sentence was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal, Wednesday.. The case has garnered international attention, due to the Calgary psychiatrist’s past as a military psychiatrist in apartheid-era South Africa.GOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE Scott Lively wants to take away LGBT Russians’ rainbow. Lively, the self-described “human rights consultant” who gladly takes credit for lobbying Russia, Uganda and others to ramp up their anti-LGBT laws, recently wrote an open letter to Vladimir Putin, in which he urged Putin to stand firm against international pressure to undo the law. And now, he’s in Moscow with Brian Brown (of the FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of TTRANS HUMAN RIGHTS
Posts about trans human rights written by dentedbluemercedes. Mercedes on Twitter. RT @cblackst: The long history of discrimination against First Nations children Learn more about how Canada repeatedly chose to not act on 19 hours ago; RT @cblackst: Dr. Bryce spoke out to try to save the children's lives.It would have cost 15,000 out of a national budget of over 100 milli NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. DETENTION | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES The way that trans people are housed in detention and correctional settings has come to attention recently, after British comedian Avery Edison was detained by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) for having previously overstayed her visa — and then she was initially sent to a mens’ prison while the issue was sorted out. After an RADFEM | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES dentedbluemercedes. 6 Comments. The interplay of rage and persecution complexes works to shape trans, LGB — and in fact all — struggles against oppression. It can become an eternal feedback loop that can stymie any attempt to move progressive causes forward, if itARMAGEDDON FACTOR
Conservative leader Stephen Harper keeps trying to assure voters that he won’t reopen social debates like abortion and same-sex marriage, since he knows that won’t earn him mainstream votes. Instead, he tries to run on a platform of crime punishment and McJob creation. And yet if one looks further, one overturns a rock which reveals a C-16 | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Although I’ll be remarking on the passing of Bill C-16 elsewhere, I wanted to post Bill Siksay’s closing speech from February 7, 2011, back when the bill was in its third incarnation (of five), Bill C-389. To me, it’s a profound moment to look back on, and realize just howfar we’ve come.
“UNTHINKABLE”
American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a PITTING “IDENTITY POLITICS” AGAINST CLASS STRUGGLE IS I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the first things America’s political left would do during the 2016 election post-mortem is to attack minority groups like trans* people, and “identity politics.” That narrative says Americans decided a potential fascist (when you consider his policy proposals, unilateral rhetoric, media manipulation and stoking of hatred)ROADKILL RADIO
This is part of a 3-part series on LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying education, centering around the Day of Silence, which encourages students to take a vow of silence for the day, to bring attention to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment. It occurs on April 20th. Part 1: When even silence offends: on the 2012 push from the North American far-right to subvert and antagonize Day of Silence participants. DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
TRANS HUMAN RIGHTS
Posts about trans human rights written by dentedbluemercedes. Mercedes on Twitter. RT @cblackst: The long history of discrimination against First Nations children Learn more about how Canada repeatedly chose to not act on 19 hours ago; RT @cblackst: Dr. Bryce spoke out to try to save the children's lives.It would have cost 15,000 out of a national budget of over 100 milli FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION Posts about Campaign Life Coalition written by dentedbluemercedes. (This post previously appeared at The Bilerico Project). Recently, leaders of Commonwealth nations met to discuss pressing international issues, and leaders from the U.K., Canada and others pressed for human rights reforms for LGBT people.. British Prime Minister David Cameron went so far as to threaten to cut off aid to memberREPARATIVE THERAPY
The long, twisty and sordid legal saga of Aubrey Levin has finally come to an end. Originally found guilty on three counts of sexual assault in January 2013, Levin’s five year prison sentence was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal, Wednesday.. The case has garnered international attention, due to the Calgary psychiatrist’s past as a military psychiatrist in apartheid-era South Africa.GOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE Scott Lively wants to take away LGBT Russians’ rainbow. Lively, the self-described “human rights consultant” who gladly takes credit for lobbying Russia, Uganda and others to ramp up their anti-LGBT laws, recently wrote an open letter to Vladimir Putin, in which he urged Putin to stand firm against international pressure to undo the law. And now, he’s in Moscow with Brian Brown (of the DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
TRANS HUMAN RIGHTS
Posts about trans human rights written by dentedbluemercedes. Mercedes on Twitter. RT @cblackst: The long history of discrimination against First Nations children Learn more about how Canada repeatedly chose to not act on 19 hours ago; RT @cblackst: Dr. Bryce spoke out to try to save the children's lives.It would have cost 15,000 out of a national budget of over 100 milli FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION Posts about Campaign Life Coalition written by dentedbluemercedes. (This post previously appeared at The Bilerico Project). Recently, leaders of Commonwealth nations met to discuss pressing international issues, and leaders from the U.K., Canada and others pressed for human rights reforms for LGBT people.. British Prime Minister David Cameron went so far as to threaten to cut off aid to memberREPARATIVE THERAPY
The long, twisty and sordid legal saga of Aubrey Levin has finally come to an end. Originally found guilty on three counts of sexual assault in January 2013, Levin’s five year prison sentence was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal, Wednesday.. The case has garnered international attention, due to the Calgary psychiatrist’s past as a military psychiatrist in apartheid-era South Africa.GOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE Scott Lively wants to take away LGBT Russians’ rainbow. Lively, the self-described “human rights consultant” who gladly takes credit for lobbying Russia, Uganda and others to ramp up their anti-LGBT laws, recently wrote an open letter to Vladimir Putin, in which he urged Putin to stand firm against international pressure to undo the law. And now, he’s in Moscow with Brian Brown (of the FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of TTRANS HUMAN RIGHTS
Posts about trans human rights written by dentedbluemercedes. Mercedes on Twitter. RT @cblackst: The long history of discrimination against First Nations children Learn more about how Canada repeatedly chose to not act on 19 hours ago; RT @cblackst: Dr. Bryce spoke out to try to save the children's lives.It would have cost 15,000 out of a national budget of over 100 milli NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. DETENTION | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES The way that trans people are housed in detention and correctional settings has come to attention recently, after British comedian Avery Edison was detained by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) for having previously overstayed her visa — and then she was initially sent to a mens’ prison while the issue was sorted out. After an RADFEM | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES dentedbluemercedes. 6 Comments. The interplay of rage and persecution complexes works to shape trans, LGB — and in fact all — struggles against oppression. It can become an eternal feedback loop that can stymie any attempt to move progressive causes forward, if itARMAGEDDON FACTOR
Conservative leader Stephen Harper keeps trying to assure voters that he won’t reopen social debates like abortion and same-sex marriage, since he knows that won’t earn him mainstream votes. Instead, he tries to run on a platform of crime punishment and McJob creation. And yet if one looks further, one overturns a rock which reveals a C-16 | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Although I’ll be remarking on the passing of Bill C-16 elsewhere, I wanted to post Bill Siksay’s closing speech from February 7, 2011, back when the bill was in its third incarnation (of five), Bill C-389. To me, it’s a profound moment to look back on, and realize just howfar we’ve come.
“UNTHINKABLE”
American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a PITTING “IDENTITY POLITICS” AGAINST CLASS STRUGGLE IS I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the first things America’s political left would do during the 2016 election post-mortem is to attack minority groups like trans* people, and “identity politics.” That narrative says Americans decided a potential fascist (when you consider his policy proposals, unilateral rhetoric, media manipulation and stoking of hatred)ROADKILL RADIO
This is part of a 3-part series on LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying education, centering around the Day of Silence, which encourages students to take a vow of silence for the day, to bring attention to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment. It occurs on April 20th. Part 1: When even silence offends: on the 2012 push from the North American far-right to subvert and antagonize Day of Silence participants. DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
IDENTITY | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES (Part of a three-part series: Part 1: The Death of the Transgender Umbrella Part 2: Why The Umbrella Failed Part 3: Decolonizing Trans as Allies) If you’ve traveled anywhere among trans or LGBT blogs in the past year or three, you’ve inevitably come across an ongoing battle over labels, and particularly “transgender” as an umbrella term.. It seems to be a conflict without end, without NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association.RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or MARRIAGE | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Posts about marriage written by dentedbluemercedes. I was originally going to title this “stay angry.” Sometimes, it seems like that’s what’s needed to keep people motivated and engaged in activism, networking, and a sense of community, after a big win that makes people think that the struggle is over. CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION Posts about Campaign Life Coalition written by dentedbluemercedes. (This post previously appeared at The Bilerico Project). Recently, leaders of Commonwealth nations met to discuss pressing international issues, and leaders from the U.K., Canada and others pressed for human rights reforms for LGBT people.. British Prime Minister David Cameron went so far as to threaten to cut off aid to memberGOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
“UNTHINKABLE”
American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
IDENTITY | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES (Part of a three-part series: Part 1: The Death of the Transgender Umbrella Part 2: Why The Umbrella Failed Part 3: Decolonizing Trans as Allies) If you’ve traveled anywhere among trans or LGBT blogs in the past year or three, you’ve inevitably come across an ongoing battle over labels, and particularly “transgender” as an umbrella term.. It seems to be a conflict without end, without NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association.RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or MARRIAGE | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Posts about marriage written by dentedbluemercedes. I was originally going to title this “stay angry.” Sometimes, it seems like that’s what’s needed to keep people motivated and engaged in activism, networking, and a sense of community, after a big win that makes people think that the struggle is over. CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION Posts about Campaign Life Coalition written by dentedbluemercedes. (This post previously appeared at The Bilerico Project). Recently, leaders of Commonwealth nations met to discuss pressing international issues, and leaders from the U.K., Canada and others pressed for human rights reforms for LGBT people.. British Prime Minister David Cameron went so far as to threaten to cut off aid to memberGOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
“UNTHINKABLE”
American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious orCONSERVATIVES
On this point, James V. Schall suggests that religious conservatives need to target the entirety of the sexual revolution: “The path, when spelled out, is a direct line from divorce, contraception, and abortion to single-sex ‘marriage,’ in-vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and designer babies and now to a refusal tocontinue to
FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T THE LITTLE CASE STUDY THAT AUTOGYNEPHILIA FORGOT The Little Case Study that Autogynephilia Forgot. March 1, 2010 dentedbluemercedes 5 Comments. (a discussion specific to Dr. Ray Blanchard’s model of autogynephilia, and not so much to people who identify as autogynephile because they feel it’s a close representation to their identity. This is a draft response to the proposed DSM5 changes“UNTHINKABLE”
American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a C-16 | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Although I’ll be remarking on the passing of Bill C-16 elsewhere, I wanted to post Bill Siksay’s closing speech from February 7, 2011, back when the bill was in its third incarnation (of five), Bill C-389. To me, it’s a profound moment to look back on, and realize just howfar we’ve come.
TRANS PEOPLE, “MSM” AND HIV STUDY AND OUTREACH July 15, 2010 dentedbluemercedes 13 Comments. There is a serious problem in HIV study and outreach when it comes to trans people — and especially transsexuals — in studies of high-risk populations. Many of late have been doing so by trying to include them under the term “MSM,” or, “men who have sex with men.”. PITTING “IDENTITY POLITICS” AGAINST CLASS STRUGGLE IS I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the first things America’s political left would do during the 2016 election post-mortem is to attack minority groups like trans* people, and “identity politics.” That narrative says Americans decided a potential fascist (when you consider his policy proposals, unilateral rhetoric, media manipulation and stoking of hatred) CANADA’S TRANS* RIGHTS BILL NOW ENDORSES BANS IN WASHROOM Canada's trans* human rights bill C-279 was amended by a Senate committee, in a way that makes it legal to ban trans* people from washrooms and gendered spaces appropriate to their gender identity. Sen. Donald Plett, Conservative member of the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, added a legal exemption for "anyservice, facility,
INDIANA PUT THE LIE TO “RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.” BUT CANADIAN Everyone's familiar with the old adage, "be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." Which is why the Evangelical leaders who held a press conference on Parliament Hill calling for greater religious freedom laws and schmoozing with Conservative politicians last month might do well to remember Indiana. "Unfortunately,Christians in this
DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or THE ALBERTA ADVANTAGE WAS DEPENDENCE In the end, the "Alberta Advantage" was dependence. And in retrospect, undoing that dependence on the oil industry -- a mixture of real and perceived -- needed to be the number one priority of the Notley NDP government. When Albertans (even to their own surprise) overthrew the 40-year Progressive Conservative dynasty in 2015, they were FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION Posts about Campaign Life Coalition written by dentedbluemercedes. (This post previously appeared at The Bilerico Project). Recently, leaders of Commonwealth nations met to discuss pressing international issues, and leaders from the U.K., Canada and others pressed for human rights reforms for LGBT people.. British Prime Minister David Cameron went so far as to threaten to cut off aid to memberGOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
“UNTHINKABLE”
American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
IN THE BEDROOMS OF THE NATION I: A BRIEF CANADIAN HISTORY Social consciousness was in a state of flux. Oral contraceptives had been available in the U.S. for several years but were banned in Canada. Sodomy had been decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Medical professionals and activists called for the legalization of abortion in circumstances where the pregnancy caused immediate danger to themother.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or THE ALBERTA ADVANTAGE WAS DEPENDENCE In the end, the "Alberta Advantage" was dependence. And in retrospect, undoing that dependence on the oil industry -- a mixture of real and perceived -- needed to be the number one priority of the Notley NDP government. When Albertans (even to their own surprise) overthrew the 40-year Progressive Conservative dynasty in 2015, they were FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION Posts about Campaign Life Coalition written by dentedbluemercedes. (This post previously appeared at The Bilerico Project). Recently, leaders of Commonwealth nations met to discuss pressing international issues, and leaders from the U.K., Canada and others pressed for human rights reforms for LGBT people.. British Prime Minister David Cameron went so far as to threaten to cut off aid to memberGOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
If gaslighting is "a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity," then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary)is a
“UNTHINKABLE”
American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a NARTH | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Joseph Berger is a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association, and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association. ABOUT | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Mercedes Allen is a professional graphic designer, writer and bisexual transsexual in a lesbian relationship. She has done advocacy related to Trans, LGB, Aboriginal issues, HIV, BDSM and sex work. Located in Southern Alberta, Canada, she started AlbertaTrans.org as a network to help foster and support trans communities within Alberta, as well asto provide
FREE SPEECH, AND THE CRUEL SHACKLES OF EMPATHY AND MUTUAL Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect. October 20, 2016 dentedbluemercedes Leave a comment. In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T IDENTITY | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES (Part of a three-part series: Part 1: The Death of the Transgender Umbrella Part 2: Why The Umbrella Failed Part 3: Decolonizing Trans as Allies) If you’ve traveled anywhere among trans or LGBT blogs in the past year or three, you’ve inevitably come across an ongoing battle over labels, and particularly “transgender” as an umbrella term.. It seems to be a conflict without end, withoutCONSERVATIVES
On this point, James V. Schall suggests that religious conservatives need to target the entirety of the sexual revolution: “The path, when spelled out, is a direct line from divorce, contraception, and abortion to single-sex ‘marriage,’ in-vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and designer babies and now to a refusal tocontinue to
SODOM: REVIEW OF A RUSSIAN ANTI-GAY DOCUMENTARY On Tuesday, October 28th, Peter LaBarbera re-entered Canada for an immigration hearing, then to speak at an anti-LGBT conference, and finally on Thursday to face charges for mischief (which stem from an arrest while distributing anti-LGBT leaflets at the University of Regina). LaBarbera (nicknamed "Porno Pete" by bloggers because of his penchant for filming pride RADFEM | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES dentedbluemercedes. 6 Comments. The interplay of rage and persecution complexes works to shape trans, LGB — and in fact all — struggles against oppression. It can become an eternal feedback loop that can stymie any attempt to move progressive causes forward, if it C-16 | DENTED BLUE MERCEDES Although I’ll be remarking on the passing of Bill C-16 elsewhere, I wanted to post Bill Siksay’s closing speech from February 7, 2011, back when the bill was in its third incarnation (of five), Bill C-389. To me, it’s a profound moment to look back on, and realize just howfar we’ve come.
MARCI MCDONALD
Posts about Marci McDonald written by dentedbluemercedes. Mercedes on Twitter. RT @ProgressAlberta: Just to reiterate Jason Kenney just called paid sick leave a "job killing policy." #ableg 23 minutes ago; RT @ddlovato: Today is a day I'm so happy to share more of my life with you all- I am proud to let you know that I identify as non-binary& 1 hour ago
PITTING “IDENTITY POLITICS” AGAINST CLASS STRUGGLE IS I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the first things America’s political left would do during the 2016 election post-mortem is to attack minority groups like trans* people, and “identity politics.” That narrative says Americans decided a potential fascist (when you consider his policy proposals, unilateral rhetoric, media manipulation and stoking of hatred) ABOUT THAT “GID IS REMOVED FROM THE DSM” THING… Oh god, please make it stop. Yesterday morning, I woke up to a rash of headlines proclaiming that transexuality was no longer considered "disordered" by the American Psychiatric Association. This morning, it grew worse, with a rash of panicked emails from people who were wondering if their medical access would be jeopardized, after someLGBT and
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ON “UNALIENABLE” HUMAN RIGHTSJuly 17, 2019
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Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to rethink and reshape how human rights laws are applied around the world. This Commission was deemed necessary to ensure that “human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or malignant purposes,” though in that founding statement,
the Department failed to explain how this was supposedly happening, or who was said to be hijacking said discourse.Reporting
about this development immediatelyraised concerns
that the Commission’s mandate could negatively impact and specifically target LGBTQ+ human rights protections,
but there could be dire ramifications for reproductive rights,
sex-based rights, and the rights of migrants, as well. Although the wording of the announcement is vague to a degree, religious conservatives clearly expect the project “to address concerns about religious freedom and abortion,” at the least.In announcing
the Commission, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rationalized that by delineating protected classes in human rights laws, “politicians and bureaucrats… blur the distinction between unalienable rights and ad hoc rights granted by governments. Unalienable rights are by nature universal. Not everything good, or everything granted by a government, can be a universal right….” This is a common talking point among religious conservatives, who argue that human rights cannot be granted by “politicians and bureaucrats” (i.e. courts and human rights commissions), but by God alone. The given rationale for that thinking is that human rights should be subsumed under “natural law and nature’s god.” Certainly, when this Commission on Unalienable Rights was firstannounced
at the end of May, the State Department lamented that human rights “discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights” – although this phrasing proved tobe so transparent
to media outlets that the word “natural” was absent from theMonday’s launch.
Of course, fixating on nature is a fallacious way of limiting rights to exclude the obvious intended targets. Same-sex coupling occursin
nature. Changing sexes occursin nature.
Reproductive limiting and parental choice occurs in nature (though the means can seem shocking and visceral). Polyamory occurs in nature. What _doesn’t_ occur in nature is “one-man-and-one-woman marriage,” and life-long monogamous exclusivity is only practiced by 3 to 5 percent of mammals (including humans) – and even less so in other species. But make no mistake: excluding classes of people from human rights law is clearly the intention. Any attempt to more narrowly define whose rights are “unalienable” and therefore legitimate is, by reflection, also an exercise in determining whose rights are illegitimate, and therefore… alienable (perhaps even in the truestmeaning of that
word). While the State Department denied that the Commission would address “policy questions” like abortion rights, they asserted that it would instead “attempt to ground human rights in the founding principles of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'” That said, the Commission’s mandate never appeared designed to address specific issues or classes, but rather to create a rationalized hierarchy or criteria through which the exclusion or trumping of disfavoured rights becomes logically inevitable – which is a bit of semantic sleight-of-hand. When the Commission on Unalienable Rights was first announced, it was originally to be under the auspices of Princeton professor and co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage, Robert George
,
who reportedly drafted the original concept note and is described by peersas
“revitalizing a strain of Catholic natural-law thinking that goes back to St. Thomas Aquinas.” Like the word “natural,” George is also absent from the launch, but the Commission’s roster is so overwhelmingly linked to him that its membership was almost certainlyhand-picked by him.
The Commission is chaired by Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon, the former ambassador to the Vatican and an anti-abortion activist, who served on the US Commission on Religious Freedom (from 2012-2016, with George). She is a board member of the anti-LGBTQ+ funding group,Becket Fund
, and is
perhaps best known for fighting on behalf of the Holy See to prevent the inclusion of abortion rights at the 1995 U.N. World Conference onWomen
in Beijing. She has made many troubling statements, such as: publiclycondemning
the _Boston Globe’s_ expose on abuse within the Catholic Church, in 1992; referring to marriage equality as a “radical social experiment” and “not a
civil rights issue
,
but a movement for special preference;” complaining that religious freedom is “subordinated to a whole range of other rights, claims and interests;” and calling for a “flexible universalism”
in which human rights are not standardized, but contextualized according to (she quotes from the 1993 Vienna Declaration) “national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds.” In her book,
Abortion and Divorce in Western Law, she clearly sees abortion as an infringement on the rights of the foetus, and no-fault divorce as an infringement on the rights of children. Glendon is also not known for compromise, going as far as rejecting a medal from the University of Notre Dame because that institution also conferred then-President Barack Obama with an honorary degree, despite the fact that he supported abortion access. For what it’s worth, she also a hired Pompeo as a research assistant, when Pompeo studied law at Harvard. Joining Glendon is a smorgasbord of Robert George -linked and similarly-minded academics: * PETER BERKOWITZ, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute whoresponded to
the
overturning of sodomy laws by condemning Justice Kennedy for allegedly failing “to subject the Texas statute prohibiting homosexual sodomy to ‘rational scrutiny.'” Berkowitz calls for religious conscience to be “unhampered by government coercion,” and has written several other treatises opposed to LGBTQ+ humanrights.
* PAOLO CAROZZA, a Notre Dame law professor and long-time critic of human rights laws who, among other things, advocated for a Vatican-tinged flavour of “human dignity” as a determinate for legitimacy of human rights. * SHAYKH HAMZA YUSUF HANSON, an influential American-born convert to Islam and co-founder of Zaytuna College. Yusuf told religion writer Scott Korb that “I don’t want to see gay people bashed… But I also don’t want it normalized as a healthy thing for a society… I don’t want someone to say this is a normal, healthy lifestyle. It’s not. It’s pathogenic…'” * JACQUELINE RIVERS, a Harvard sociology professor, and co-founder and former executive director of the Witherspoon-sponsored Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies. Rivers is an anti-abortion speaker,
and GLAAD also noted that she once “insisted that marriage equality activists are undermining the Black Civil Rights movement , but comforted the applauding attendees by telling them ‘God will not bemocked…'”
* RABBI MEIR YAAKOV SOLOVEICHIK, a spiritual leader of Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in the US. Soloveichik argued that the legalization of same-sex marriage would lead to the normalization of bestiality. * KATRINA LANTOS SWETT, president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice. She has been pointed to as a Democrat involved with the Commission (as though she makes the project bipartisan) – but Swett is still a “religious freedom” advocate with a Mormon-leaning multifaith background, who was also on the the US Commission on Religious Freedom, along with Mary Ann Glendon and Robert George – the latter of whom reassuredreligious
conservatives that “She was the very opposite of a partisan or an ideologue… I did not have a different vision from Katrina, and she didn’t have a different vision from me. We were the same.” * CHRISTOPHER TOLLEFSEN, a University of South Carolina professor, senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, prolific religious conservative writer, and co-author of the anti-abortion and anti- stem cell research book _Embryo_ (with Robert George). Tollefsen is a devotee of Paul McHugh when it comes to trans issues, and has argued that it is not only not possibleto change sex, but
also “a mark of a heartless culture” to make
surgeries and affirming, non-psychological treatments available totrans individuals.
* DAVID TSE-CHIEN PAN (a professor at the University of California at Irvine) and RUSSELL BERMAN (a Stanford University professor and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute) are less clear, but Pan is a critic of “liberalism” (libertarianism), and Berman (not to be confused with a writer at The Atlantic by the same name) appears to be a critic of Islam, “left-fascism” and “campus anti-Semitism,” which may refer to protests in support of Palestinians. * Named in only some of the announcements are KIRON SKINNER (State Department director of policy planning, who “ignited controversy in May for framing the contentious US-China relationship as ‘the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian’”), and attorney F. CARTWRIGHT WEILAND (Rapporteur), who was a Council for Lifepanelist, helped
write
amicus briefs supporting laws restricting abortion, and is a critic (in an article expounding on board chair Mary Ann Glendon’s 1991 writing about _Rights Talk_) of “identity politics” and LGBTQ+ inclusion in human rights. It’s important to contextualize all of this within the current developments in the United States under the Trump administration. Catholic and Evangelical fundamentalists (who I feel are important to differentiate from other Christians, despite their sadly often successful habit of passing off their political causes as the “Christian” position) are already seeing legal successes in restricting abortion access, and expect an overturn of _Roe v Wade_ (and perhaps even _Obergefell v Hodges_, which legalized same-sex marriage) by a newly-stacked conservative Supreme Court, very soon – and have been looking for directions to refocus, in order to maintain their momentum, power and following. One of these directions has been to make abortion “unthinkable,”
while another has been to formalize a means for religious freedom and religious conscience to override LGBTQ+ (and other) human rights protections. A deeply biblical rewriting of human rights law could not only create a license for anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, but also completely undermine reproductive rights and entrench vastly outdated ideas about gender roles, including theological notions like “complementarianism.” For example,
ThinkProgress recently noted that if a case of the so-called “Billy Graham Rule” (of religious fundamentalist men refusing to meet with women without a chaperone) were to proceed to the rightward-shifting U.S. Supreme Court while using a “religious conscience” argument, it could very well provide the basis for a legalization of sex-based discrimination, at least under specific circumstances. This Commission is also taking place during a severe, self-inflicted crisis of anti-immigrant policy in the U.S., which has seen detention camps with atrocious conditions rightly criticized and noted for their historical parallels (even if not necessarily identical matches to past atrocities). Religious conservatives have not simply turned a blind eye to these developments, but have actually often collaboratively helped to create rationalizationsfor these
brutal policies
(especially when it comes to Muslim migrants). In this context, and under the auspices of a government that has very clearly shown the will to dehumanize migrants and refugees and trample their rights, it is not inconceivable that this Commission is designed to provide a structure by which a lesser human status for migrants is potentially justifiable. This Commission is also contemporary to Trump’s stated intent to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide. This inevitably brought somepushback from his
religious base – but only a little, while other figures took the opportunity to try to appear diplomatic, seeking to
realign the center of the LGBTQ+ rights versus religious freedom (false) dichotomy by “calling for an end to all forms of physical violence against homosexuals — but refrain from imposing the values of the sexual revolution on the rest of the world.” Although the administration’s decriminalization project appears to have been driven more by U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell than by Trump himself, it is also not irreconcilable with a mandate like the Commission’s: ending overt criminal prosecution is a far cry from supporting actual human rights protections, which are a far greater level of enfranchised citizenship, and facilitate the ability to participate in society as a whole. The Commission on Unalienable Rights doesn’t have to obliterate what it determines are “illegitimate” human rights classes entirely, in order to legalize discrimination against them – it only needs to create a hierarchy which elevates those rights that it determines are “unalienable.” And finally, this comes at a time when religious fundamentalists have successfully engineered the illusion of several false dichotomies to create the impression that human rights create irreconcilable conflicts: of LGBTQ+ rights versus religious freedom; of personhood rights versus reproductive rights; of trans rights versus sex-based rights; of parents’ rights versus childrens’ rights (though this is often treated as though the latter are non-existent); of all human rights classes versus freedom of speech; and more. Of those, personhood rights are based on a faulty premise that an undeveloped foetus that cannot exist on its own is somehow a person, and (for the most part) the remaining dichotomies are only irreconcilable if the party that wishes to do harm to the other inflexibly insists that it cannot compromise under any circumstance whatsoever – and will do whatever is necessary to frame any particular pressure to do so aspersecution.
What all of this points to is a project that appears designed to rethink human rights as a structure in which some humans can be lesser. And this is concerning, if it becomes the template by which the U.S. proceeds to push human rights discussion on the world stage, in the coming years. If the launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights is any indication, terms like “natural law” may be stealthily replaced by language that is far more opaque, and carefully designed to appear as though it does not target any specific groups. But in all likelihood, it will nevertheless still prioritize things like religious conscience, “dignity” (redefined as a god-granted status that is infringed upon if we make certain life choices about sexuality, a popular theme in Catholic-based discourse on “natural law”), personhood (a dog whistle that frames the foetus as a person), and (though I have not touched on it here, but it can be seen in the battles over sex education) parents’ rights, among other characteristic themes that merit further exploration. I am sure that we will find out soon enough. (Crossposted to rabble.ca ) Commission onUnalienable Rights
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“UNTHINKABLE”
May 17, 2019
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American religious conservatives have a problem. Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a seeming inevitability (as well as putting the overturn of marriage equality within sight), they are now looking for what to do in a “post-Roe” world to retain their energy, power, and dizzying levels of funding. And in the discussions they have about that dilemma, their solution, often, is to work toward a world in which they have made abortion “unthinkable.” > _“I’m not suggesting that the proposed laws are unimportant—on > the contrary, pass more of them! I only wish to remind us that our > goal is to make abortion unthinkable as well as illegal. And that > means our work has only just begun…”_ – John Stonestreet and> Roberto Rivera
> ,
> Breakpoint
When I speak about American conservatives, of course, I don’t mean to suggest that there is some central plan or hive mind. It doesn’t work that way. Even getting U.S. Evangelicals and Catholic fundamentalists onto the same page can be a challenge sometimes, and the religious nationalist industrial complex is made up of an infinite number of organizations all vying for dollars in the same fundraising pool. But there does seem to be a fairly cohesive and organic process in which talking points filter out and take shape – and “unthinkable” appears to be one such trend in linguistic spin. The origin of this particular incarnation of the talking point (it has been mused about many times before, but not with this degree of viral spread and consistency) appears to have been January’s Evangelicals for Life conference, in which the senior vice president of Alliance Defending Freedom’s (ADF) U.S. legal division Kristen Waggoner encouraged attendees,
using the phrase. Waggoner’s encouragement came about a week after Robin Marty’s _Handbook for a Post-Roe America _ was published, and progressive news outlets were discussing how to respond to the possibility of a patchwork or even nationwide ban on abortion. The possibility that the left might evolve to cope with a changing legal landscape – as far as EFL attendees were concerned – needed to be thought out and prepared for. So when Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Sam Oosterhoff tells an anti-abortion rally in Toronto that he pledges to make abortion “unthinkable in our lifetime,” it’s helpful to look at religious conservative media for clues as to what he might mean by that, and where his influences are coming from. > _“New Hampshire Right to Life’s position is clear, she said. > ‘We would want to put restrictions on abortions and make it > unthinkable and illegal…’”_ – Concord Monitor>
I could go at some length about how promoters of the sensationalistic and Planned Parenthood -defaming movie _Unplanned_ seized on the phrase during their publicity tour, or how it’s turning up on Fox News,
or how it came up during anti-abortion rhetoric pertaining to legislation in New York andGeorgia as well as
a legal ruling in Louisiana,
or how it spread widely enough that even a perceived-left website likeVox gave it oxygen
– but that only establishes that there is definitely a narrative. I’d much rather look at what religious conservatives are getting at, when they use the phrase. > _“Every answer to why abortion is viewed as still ‘needed’ > stems from a deeper-seeded issue which we could be fighting > against… we need to combat the issues which give abortion > supporters reasons to think it is the better ‘option.’ Abortion > needs to stop being an excuse for not addressing the larger issues > at hand…” – Paul Collier> _
If anti-abortion groups wanted to turn their attention toward addressing poverty, it would probably be a welcome development. Sadly, you won’t find a whisper of that, and doing so would probably frighten the megadonors with whom they collaborate to form the Republican / Conservative political base. But getting religious conservatives to speak candidly about specific objectives isn’t always easy. Afraid that too much transparency might allow opponents to organize effectively against them, they often restrict their public musings to dog whistle terms (of which “unthinkable” is arguably one), and stay effectively mum about which political candidates they’ve managed to get nominated as candidates in an election. But in venues seen as relatively safe and exclusive, or from pundits who are seen as less prominent, sometimes you’ll find some elaboration. One such pundit is The Federalist’s Georgi Boorman, who actually proposed a 6-point plan.
Chief among these is to “Improve Reproductive Education” – but you won’t find her making any mention of contraception (elsewhere, Boorman reveals herself to be not a fan of The Pill), condoms or family planning. There’s no direct mention of sex education in schools, either, even though it would clearly be the necessary vehicle for what she has in mind. The “reproductive education” that she speaks of is predominantly “to educate women on the dangers of” abortion (by which she means the usual far right claims about health dangers of the practice), a fetishization of the stages of fetal development, and more fearmongering about the current medical process (i.e. she cites “the horrid conditions of abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s facility” as a typical example…it’s far from it
).
The remainder of Georgi Boorman’s suggestions include more criminalization (elsewhere, she openly supports the death sentence for women who abort) and the vague “celebrate life” mantra, as well as increasing support for adoption (“especially cross-racial,” she adds, stealthily riffing on anti-abortion groups’ efforts to portray the procedure as a kind of racistgenocide
perpetrated by leftists) and – of course – ramping up funding for anti-abortion fake pregnancy centres.
On these points, her proposals are within the purview of those of Abby Johnson, whose own proposals are steeped in proselytizingand expanding
anti-abortion pregnancy counseling centers into additional areas that beatify motherhood, but do not provide any hints of information about contraception or family planning (other than, perhaps, the “rhythm method”). But Boorman also adds a notable comment about “support fatherhood”: > _“… what if fathers were asked to step up as parents and > providers, instead of being written off as unqualified sperm donors? > What if our culture demanded it? __… Millions of fathers have been > robbed of this opportunity since Roe, and our welfare system has > enabled this by disincentivizing marriage and fatherhood > obligations. __… Instead of affirming mothers’ unilateral > decisions by default, we should encourage fathers’ involvement > (including marriage)…”_ When religious conservatives frame opposition to gay and trans human rights as “protecting marriage,” LGBTQ+ organizations and spokespeople often quip about the hypocrisy in their seeming lack of worry about divorce and cohabitation. But the fact of the matter is that anti- groups have never stopped tiltingat
those particular
windmills
,
either. An outright ban on divorce is only touted by the most extreme among them, but “disincentivizing” and creating an institutional system that heavily favours marriage come up often, and the idea ofrestricting
divorce or making it difficult retains some level of popularity. Other religious conservatives are more ambitious. Around the same time that Kristen Waggoner was proposing that abortion be made unthinkable, the Heritage Foundation hosted Sue Ellen Browder, who claims that “the sexual revolution hijacked the women’s movement” to make abortion and contraception priorities. This, too, is not a new argument, but it is gaining new popularity with organizations seeking to keep the money rolling in after an overturn of Roe. And with anti-trans,
anti-sex work
and anti-porn
feminists partnering with religious conservatives like never before, there appears to be a sense that they have an opportunity to co-opt womens’ rights, which can then be used as a shield against accusations of homophobia, Islamophobia and puritanism, while at the same time purging it of reproductive rights advocacy and sex positivity, maintaining a subordinated role for women in administrative areas, and asserting the doctrine of complementarianism(a teaching used
both to mandate motherhood as a woman’s integral life goal, and to invalidate LGBTQ+ peoples’ rights to live their lives as they needto).
> _“The battle against feminism is better fought by women because > the public has been convinced that men are not qualified to speak > about issues that affect the fairer sex…”_ – John Horvat II>
On this point, James V. Schall suggests that religious conservatives need to target the entirety of the sexual revolution: “The path, when spelled out, is a direct line from divorce, contraception, and abortion to single-sex ‘marriage,’ in-vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and designer babies and now to a refusal to continue to increase and multiply with transgenderism, population decline, and, ultimately euthanasia… If we were to eliminate abortion, we must freely stop committing the sins that initiate disordered conceptions… Without this conversion, we will continue on the same path on which we now are traveling…”The Federalist’s Cullen Herout (which, admit it, _must_ be a pseudonym)agrees
at least on the point about contraception, saying “… if the goal really is to make abortion unthinkable, that cannot and will not happen without a large-scale shift in our cultural attitude toward human sexuality and contraception…” So the next time your local political representative muses about making abortion “unthinkable,” it’s only reasonable to press them to elaborate. Because there clearly is more to that statement – and while religious conservatives obviously don’t think in total homogeneity, there’s enough like-mindedness to view this sort of dogwhistle with alarm.
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THE ALBERTA ADVANTAGE WAS DEPENDENCEMarch 24, 2019
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In the end, the “Alberta Advantage” was dependence. And in retrospect, undoing that dependence on the oil industry — a mixture of real and perceived — needed to be the number one priority of the Notley NDP government. When Albertans (even to their own surprise) overthrew the 40-year Progressive Conservative dynasty in 2015, they were hungry for change, and they knew that change was both inevitable and urgent, given the realities of global climate change — something they had been increasingly experiencing (most notably when the third “one-in-a-hundred-year flood” in ten years ate High River and parts of downtown Calgary). Instead, industry managed to keep the focus on oil development and pipelines, and sucked all of the rest of the political and economic air out of the room. Of course, Alberta’s energy sector is well-versed in fostering and using the dependence on its jobs and products — whether manipulating gas prices, making punitive and excessive layoffs whenever an administration or policy it doesn’t like is in place, or dangling illusionary carrots, like job creation estimates that factor in a hundredfold of jobs that they _imagine_ might be generated by their project (and which nobody ever follows up on to debunk). In reality, building a pipeline creates merely a small number of regionally-shifting jobs aimed at transporting the longer-term refining jobs out-of-country, but nobody really ever remarks on that, because of how overwhelmed with industry propaganda Albertans are, and their eagerness for what little crumbs industry is willing to tosstheir way.
Now, the rest of Canada might not be overly sympathetic to Alberta’s plight, right now, because the province has had a pretty good run, riding waves of oil prices over the past few decades to sustained prosperity, while labour markets elsewhere have dwindled, automated, and relocated to other countries. Consequently, Alberta may feel the coming change more acutely than the rest of Canada — but feel iteveryone will.
Change is hard. It’s disruptive. And with the level of budgetary dependence on energy royalties and the perceived dependence (thanks to the hard work of neoliberal institutions like the Fraser, CAPP and corporate media) of everyone’s jobs on oil development, Alberta has had four years of reckoning that haven’t really done anything to assuage any of the associated fears that come with that change. To be fair, that transition was never something that was going to be able to take place in a scant four years. Additionally, the Notley NDP have tried to break some of that sense of dependence through diversification. It’s something that hasn’t been well-publicized, but it also needed to be more aggressively pursued. And diversification is only one step — job retraining and the economic support and optimism needed to get through it are more critical. Albertans looked to Rachel Notley to lead them into and through a transition, and somewhere along the way, industry convinced the government and the public alike that the transition was yetanother pipeline.
Consequently, we find ourselves at a crossroads in which Albertans seem receptive to old, failed conservative policies of austerity and corporate giveaways, regardless of the ethical concerns with a guy who may have broken electoral laws in order to become party leader, and regardless of whether he has surrounded himself with lake-of-fire social conservatives and semi-open white nationalists. It’s why we’ve seen people who’ve never protested before come out to agitate for pipelines, and naively allowed themselves to get hijacked by and aligned with racist wingnuts who’d previously floundered on the fringe for decades. Despite the stereotype of the Albertan redneck, Albertans have always tended toward worrying about the money, and not caring about the social positions that have aligned themselves with it (which is, in a way, even worse). But here’s the clincher: a pipeline isn’t going to slow or stop the one-in-a-hundred-year floods, or the summer seasons that might soon be renamed “Smoke,” or the fracking-triggered earthquakes. And electing a traditional oil crony is more likely to undo the first steps that Alberta has taken than to make those hard choices. Because the longer Alberta tries to forestall its transition, the more abrupt, disruptive, and devastating that eventual change is going to be. (crossposted to rabble.ca ) AlbertaCanada
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SUPPORT TRANS YOUTH, SAY PEDIATRICIANSSeptember 19, 2018
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On
Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a policy statement declaring that “The Academy stands against stigmatization and marginalization of youths and emphasizes the need for their acceptance as members of our families, communities, and workforce. A new policy statement, _Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents, _uses
strengths-based concepts to outline the role of pediatricians in addressing the needs, challenges and resilience of TGD youths andtheir families.”
The AAP is the largest professional organization of pediatricians in North America, representing over 64,000 members in both primary care and related specialties.The AAP’s recommendations are:
> _“1. that youth who identify as TGD have access to comprehensive, > gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care that > is provided in a safe and inclusive clinical space;_>
> “2. that family-based therapy and support be available to > recognize and respond to the emotional and mental health needs of > parents, caregivers, and siblings of youth who identify as TGD;>
> “3. that electronic health records, billing systems, > patient-centered notification systems, and clinical research be > designed to respect the asserted gender identity of each patient > while maintaining confidentiality and avoiding duplicate charts;>
> “4. that insurance plans offer coverage for health care that is > specific to the needs of youth who identify as TGD, including > coverage for medical, psychological, and, when indicated, surgical > gender-affirming interventions;>
> “5. that provider education, including medical school, residency, > and continuing education, integrate core competencies on the > emotional and physical health needs and best practices for the care > of youth who identify as TGD and their families;>
> “6. that pediatricians have a role in advocating for, educating, > and developing liaison relationships with school districts and other > community organizations to promote acceptance and inclusion of all > children without fear of harassment, exclusion, or bullying because > of gender expression;>
> “7. that pediatricians have a role in advocating for policies and > laws that protect youth who identify as TGD from discrimination and> violence;
>
> “8. that the health care workforce protects diversity by offering > equal employment opportunities and workplace protections, regardless > of gender identity or expression; and>
> “9. that the medical field and federal government prioritize > research that is dedicated to improving the quality of > evidence-based care for youth who identify as TGD…” This important statement comes at a time when fearmongering about the acceptance and accommodation of trans youth has reached a fever pitch in the Western world. In the US, fears raised about trans kids in public washrooms continue to constitute an unwarranted panic used to justify attacks on the public school system and teachers unions as much as the kids themselves. In the UK, tabloids have targeted a children’s charity with false claims and called medical access into question, while predominantly anti-trans websites have attempted to portray an increase in trans youth coming out of the closet as a “social contagion.”
In Canada, acceptance of trans kids is typically rephrased as “transgender ideology”
(it makes it easier to generate alarm when the kids are erased entirely), and used as one of the main objections to age-appropriate sex education (the phrase “gender ideology” has been used by the Vatican for longer, and is also sometimes a dog whistle encompassing any combination of feminism, reproductive freedoms, sex education, and / or LGBTQAI2 rights). Much of this fearmongering has been made possible by flawed or distorted data, such as the often-cited statistic that 84% (or 90, because rounding up sounds better) of transkids desist
(that is, grow out of it, in much the same way people used to view being gay as “just a phase”) — a claim made possible by looking at studies that failed to distinguish kids who actually had a _strong and persistent identification_ with the gender that does not match their birth assignment, from kids who simply experimented with gender (or were even just arbitrarily thought of as gender non-conforming by their parents or doctors). The AAP statement also comes at a time when Canadian media are starting to jump on a study purporting to show a social contagion-style phenomenon that proponents call Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). If anything clearly demonstrates why the AAP’s statement this week was necessary, it is the panic over ROGD. Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is not recognized by any medical body, but is rather a theory generated by a group of trans-exclusionary feminists and parents who refuse to accept their kids’ admissions of experiencing gender dysphoria, and instead blame trans awareness and activism for making being trans seem trendy. It is essentially a retooling of the “gays recruit” myth, but it has proven so effective in UK tabloids that British Conservative politician and Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt is launching an investigation into why the number of kids accessing the medical system has risen from 97 to 2,519 over the past eight years. > _“Parents have described clusters of gender dysphoria > outbreaks…”– the Littman study_ But ROGD was given a veneer of legitimacy by a recent “study” that media outlets everywhere eagerly jumped on. I put study in quotation marks, because its methodology was a total mess. It was published in a journal that speeds papers to publication, and then lets you
“peer review” them. The study itself acknowledged that its methodology was to take a voluntary survey of visitors to three websites (4thwavenow, Transgender Trend and youthtranscriticalprofessionals, which I will not link to directly), a cursory glance at which would be more than enough to ascertain exist only to discredit trans youth anecdotally and demonize their supporters. The survey didn’t talk to trans kids at all, but rather asked parents if their child’s coming out was sudden (i.e. it can seem to be “rapid onset” when one doesn’t live with it and is unaware of it for years), without prior signs (any trans person can tell you that before coming out, they sometimes go to great lengths to hide it), and were received with any sort of peer or educational support (from which they are assumed to have contracted transgenderism, I guess). The methodology was so flawed that PLOS ONE decided to conduct a “post-publication re-review,” and the researcher’s university withdrew its support almost as quickly asit was published:
> _“As a research institution, we feel we must ensure that work that > is featured on the University website conforms to the highest > academic standards. Given the concerns raised about research design > and methods, the most responsible course of action was to stop > publicizing the work published in this particular instance. We > would have done this regardless of the topic of the article…”_ In the end, the only thing that was “rapid onset” was the process from fearmongering to theory (the few months in which the aforementioned three websites grew) and from published “study” to media event (which can be measured in days). _National Post_
and _The Globe and Mail_
should be embarrassed. In fact, attempts to pass off transphobia and homophobia as science are not new: a discredited 2012 study attempting to prove that parenting by same-sex couples harmed their kids touched off a new wave of anti-LGBTQAI2 junk research, and an astroturf organization calling itself the American College of Pediatricians (identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) has repeatedly tried to pose as an authoritative pediatrics organization in order to fight LGBTQIA2 equality and reproductive rights. But the speed with which ROGD was heralded shows that there is a real appetite for misinformation abouttrans youth.
So this week’s policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics is vital. After years of ongoing research and evidence, the AAP has put its support behind the Gender-Affirmative Care Model(GACM):
> _“The GACM is best facilitated through the integration of medical, > mental health, and social services, including specific resources and > supports for parents and families.24>
> Providers work together to destigmatize gender variance, promote the > child’s self-worth, facilitate access to care, educate families, > and advocate for safer community spaces where children are free to > develop and explore their gender.5>
> A specialized gender-affirmative therapist, when available, may be > an asset in helping children and their families build skills for > dealing with gender-based stigma, address symptoms of anxiety or > depression, and reinforce the child’s overall resiliency.34> ,35
>
> There is a limited but growing body of evidence that suggests that > using an integrated affirmative model results in young people having > fewer mental health concerns whether they ultimately identify as> transgender.24
> ,36
> ,37
> _
I have written before about medical accommodations for trans youth, and what is involved: > _“It’s important to recognize that the process for trans youth > that I’m speaking of is not “sex change” and surgery. This > is often the conclusion that people jump to, but the reality is that > newer treatments merely delay puberty until it is certain whether > further changes like hormone therapy must be undertaken… typically > after age 14…_>
> _“Youth transition does not start simply because a child wants to > crossdress on occasion or because they like dolls or trucks. It > happens when there is a strong and persistent identification that > clearly indicates that there is something deeper than the usual > experimentation phase which most kids go through…”_ Dr. Norman Spack, who pioneered affirmative treatments, has a TED Talk on how they are scaled to be age-appropriate, and why he came to develop his course of care. (It should be acknowledged that the policy statement does not specifically embrace Dr. Spack’s treatment, but does stand behind gender-affirmative care, of which his medical process is an example.) The AAP statement also condemns reparative (or conversion) therapy: > _“In contrast, “conversion” or “reparative” treatment > models are used to prevent children and adolescents from identifying > as transgender or to dissuade them from exhibiting gender-diverse > expressions. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services > Administration has concluded that any therapeutic intervention with > the goal of changing a youth’s gender expression or identity is> inappropriate.33
>
> Reparative approaches have been proven to be not only unsuccessful38>
> but also deleterious and are considered outside the mainstream of > traditional medical practice.29> ,39
> –42
>
> The AAP described reparative approaches as “unfair and> deceptive.”43
>
> At the time of this writing,*>
> conversion therapy was banned by executive regulation in New York > and by legislative statutes in 9 other states as well as the > District of Columbia.44> “_
Ontario banned
reparative therapy for youth in 2015, noting that kids are often coerced or forced into the treatment by unaccepting parents and churches. This year, reparative therapy for all ages has been coming into question, with legislation being proposed in Nova Scotia,
considered in Alberta,
passed in the City of Vancouver,
and being lobbied
for nationwide
.
The AAP’s statement mirrors guidelinesissued
earlier this year by The Canadian Paediatric Society, and are informed by a growing body of evidence that accepting, affirming and supporting trans children and youth leads to betterlong-term outcomes
:
> _“Many kids who are transgender have chosen a name that is > different than the one that they were given at birth,” said author > Stephen T. Russell, professor and chair of human development and > family science. “We showed that the more contexts or settings > where they were able to use their preferred name, the stronger their > mental health was…. I’ve been doing research on LGBT youth for > almost 20 years now, and even I was surprised by how clear that link> was…”_
Whether or not the rhetoric subsides, the science is clear. _(C_rossposted to Rabble.ca )Canadian Politics
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FREE SPEECH, WHEN THE “DEBATE” IS YOU (AND YOU’RE NOT INVITED)December 7, 2017
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There’s a duplicitous game of sleight-of-hand that is taking place in discussions about freedom of speech in academia and the publicsquare.
Here’s how it works: at first, a person fishes for controversy by saying several things that they know will offend people. If this garners enough attention, then the process recurs organically — say, whenever a politician wants to reference the controversy as a coded dog whistle to their base, or when a teaching assistant replays a recording inclass
because
she thinks the discussion is interesting and challenging. And the moment the people targeted by that discussion get angry and protest, they’re described not as being upset about the content of what is being said, but rather their protest is reframed as opposingfreedom of speech
itself. Whether you see that as accidental or deliberate probably depends on how cynical you are about the whole issue. Continue reading Free Speech, When The “Debate” is You (and You’re Not Invited)→
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GOSPEL BY GASLIGHT
June 29, 2017
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If gaslighting is “a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity,” then religious fundamentalism (of several sorts, although my experience is specifically with Christian fundamentalism, and other forms may vary) is a particularly insidious form of mass gaslighting. Although I no longer hold to any particular faith, I continue to believe that the problem is fundamentalism,
rather than any particular flavour of religion in its moderate form. I do recognize that faith can have a positive effect in peoples’ lives, and has the potential to teach a certain amount of goodness and morality that people can otherwise be too self-absorbed or indifferent to learn of their own accord. But fundamentalism, often a hardline, literalist interpretation of scripture(s) in a way that is intended to override a person’s own thoughts, experiences and inner sense of reality, easily fits the bill of spiritual gaslighting. Fundamentalism, in its authoritarian insistence on flatly denying anything contrary to its specific interpretation of faith, its reliance on often contradictory (or at least vague and unclear) scripture, and in its refusal to adapt when quantifiably true information becomes known, can then only possibly destabilize a person’s sense of self and delegitimize their whole sense of what istrue.
My own experience gave me endless examples of this, each of which had to be dismantled in a process that took years and left me bitter and angry when all was said and done. I had been raised Catholic at first, but then from the age of 7 until I was 17, I, my mother and sister began attending a Protestant church that was so radical it was kicked out of the Pentecostal Assembly. That church was seen as one of the more modern of its day, but that didn’t make it progressive as a result: the sell was loving, but there was no shortage of absolutes and militant edicts to be confronted with, requiring entire changes of life, and threats of rejection or divine consequences forfailure.
The example that stands out most memorably stems from having been a child / teen who struggled (because that was what I was taught to do) with attraction to both sexes, and a gender identity that I was unable to articulate (because we didn’t have the language for it in the 1970s and 1980s) as being out of sync with my birth sex. All of these things were a part of my core person, things that I couldn’t switch off like a light, things that I prayed for years for Jesus to take away, things that I threw myself into 24/7 efforts like bible study and evangelism in hopes that they’d help me overcome. All of these things were in direct conflict with what my religion told me was true and morally acceptable. My faith told me that Christ could “heal” me if I just believed (I did, ardently; he didn’t). My faith told me that Christ could cast my demons out, which was a particularly horrible kind of mind game, suggesting that intrinsic parts of my being were actually manifestations of Satan incarnate. Continue reading Gospel By Gaslight →lgbt purity
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TRANS* HUMAN RIGHTS BILL C-16: A LOOK BACKJune 19, 2017
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Although I’ll be remarking on the passing of Bill C-16 elsewhere, I wanted to post Bill Siksay’s closing speech from February 7, 2011, back when the bill was in its third incarnation (of five), Bill C-389. To me, it’s a profound moment to look back on, and realize just how far we’ve come. It took 12 years to pass this bill. For the first six, it was completely ignored, as was the trans* rights movement. Shortly after this speech, the bill _did_ pass at Third Reading, and the effort finally _was_ taken seriously… but was then very hard fought. This speech was the moment (if there was any single one) that thingschanged.
I hope that Mr. Siksay’s efforts are remembered now. Trans* people have usually been told to wait their turn, that legislation is incremental, that we should work for gay rights, and then the LGBTQ movement would come back for us. This was a rare exception in which someone actually _did_ come back. Continue reading Trans* Human Rights Bill C-16: A Look Back →Bill Siksay
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