Forget following the science. Now it’s about hiding the science—at least when it comes to experimental gender transition medical procedures for children.
“U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because of Politics, Doctor Says,” blares a New York Times headline earlier this week.
This study, which involved putting 95 children struggling with gender dysphoria on puberty blockers, was led by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles who has long been involved in promoting experimental medical treatments for minors.
It would seem that the study, which followed the children for two years, didn’t have the results Olson-Kennedy was looking for.
“The leader of the long-running study said that the drugs did not improve mental health in children with gender distress and that the finding might be weaponized by opponents of the care,” states the article’s subhed.
That’s a major finding—and one that the public deserves to have access to.
After all, the argument for providing these experimental medical treatments for children is that they will help the children’s mental health. That was seen as a pro that for some outweighed the cons of puberty blockers, which pose health risks along with the unknowns about the long-term effects of delaying a young person’s development.
But this data won’t be released because “the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states, one of which will soon be considered by the Supreme Court,” writes New York Times reporter Azeen Ghorayshi, summarizing Olson-Kennedy’s reasoning.
In other words, when it comes to how to medically treat children suffering from gender dysphoria, it’s not about the science. It’s about the ideology—and ensuring that ideology triumphs in American law and all states.
In early December, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case about whether Tennessee’s ban on experimental medical treatments for children suffering from gender dysphoria violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, is the defendant. The Supreme Court decision in the case will likely have ramifications for other state bans.
Olson-Kennedy may want to smear these bans as political. But listen to the stories of detransitioners—who now regret having experimental trans medical treatment as minors that will affect their lives permanently—and it’s clear that this isn’t about politics.
It’s about ensuring that vulnerable minors aren’t making life-altering medical decisions after encouragement from activist doctors.
Take the story of Clementine, who recently spoke to Billboard Chris, a Canadian activist who walks around wearing “billboards” that spur conversations about gender ideology and its effect on children. When talking to Clementine, he wore a billboard stating, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.”
Clementine said she went on puberty blockers when she was 12 and testosterone when she was 13, then had “top surgery”—a double mastectomy— at 14. “Totally messed my life up,” she said.
“I was sexually abused as a child, and that was totally ignored,” Clementine recalled. “I started having a lot of negative feelings about my body around puberty.”
“I was egged on by some guidance counselors that I might be transgender, and I later decided that I was really a boy,” she added, “and my life would be so much easier because of all this abuse that I had experienced because of being a woman and I totally just rejected womanhood because I thought that all that it meant for me was pain.”
Later, Clementine was able to discuss her sexual abuse in therapy and she started to change her mind about her gender transition.
“The loss of my fertility and my body just started to really sink in and I realized like, ‘Oh, my God, I built this entire persona around misogyny,’” Clementine told Billboard Chris.
“Politics” might have saved Clementine from losing her fertility. (She admits that she’s not absolutely sure she can’t have kids, but it doesn’t look likely to her.)
“Politics” also might have saved her from stopping her own natural puberty and suffering the effects of using testosterone, which she said gave her “psychosis” for years.
Don’t today’s Clementines—and their parents or guardians—deserve the latest scientific data as they grapple with this issue?
Nor is this the first time that politics, not science, are driving the gender activism movement.
In an amicus brief supporting Tennessee in U.S. v. Skrmetti, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, details how a prominent Biden-Harris administration official changed a medical group’s recommendations for treatment of transgender kids.
This only became known because Marshall, in the course of a legal fight over Alabama’s ban on children with gender dysphoria receiving experimental medical treatment, gained access to emails from Adm. Richard Levine. A trans person who is a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services, Levine now wants to be known as Rachel.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, in 2022 emailed Levine proposed new guidelines recommending that children be 14 or older to receive cross-sex hormones, 15 to get mastectomies, 16 for facial surgery, and 17 for hysterectomies.
Levine objected to these age minimums.
Marshall writes in the brief: “According to a WPATH participant, Levine ‘was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to health care for trans youth … and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse.’ Levine’s solution was simple: ‘She asked us to remove them.’”
WPATH initially resisted Levine’s request, which came after health professionals had been consulted on the guidelines. Then the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, got involved. Between the pressure from the Biden-Harris administration and the American Academy of Pediatrics, WPATH caved, eliminating almost all age recommendations.
“[B]oth the United States and AAP sought, and WPATH agreed, to make changes in a clinical guideline recommending irreversible sex-change procedures for kids based purely on political considerations,” writes Marshall.
“Dr. [Eli] Coleman was clear in his deposition that WPATH removed the age minimums ‘without being presented any new science of which the committee was previously unaware,’” adds Marshall, referring to the University of Minnesota sexologist who chaired the committee behind WPATH’s guidelines. (Emphasis mine.)
So much for the Left’s “follow the science” mantra.
At a bare minimum, we owe it to kids and their parents to give them the latest scientific data about these medical experimental treatment for gender dysphoria.
It’s a shame that the Left is prioritizing politics over science—and the rights of parents and children to make informed decisions.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/26/johanna-olson-kennedy-talks-delay-of-puberty-blocker-study/
**********************************************************The Myth of Underfunded Public Schools
Do you know how much you spend per student in your local public school? Surveys find that most Americans cannot answer this question. And public education interest groups such as teachers unions benefit from this knowledge gap because then they can ask for more spending and few, if any, taxpayers and voters know what the figures are or how the money is being used.
This election year, lobbyists in states such as California, Missouri, and New Mexico are asking taxpayers directly to increase spending on K-12 schools through ballot initiatives, claiming schools are underfunded.
Yet spending patterns tell a different story. In each of these three states—and nationwide—public education spending is increasing and has been for many years. Since the 1969-1970 school year, inflation-adjusted spending per child in California and Missouri has nearly tripled, while New Mexico school spending has more than doubled.
How educators use resources is crucial. Missouri’s Show Me Institute, a research and policy organization, recently published a guide on education spending in the state and explains that school budgets are devoting less to instruction and more to noninstructional uses today than a decade ago. Notably, while the number of students in Missouri public schools has been on the decline, there has been a sharp uptick in the number of teachers—and administrative staff, in general. In fact, the number of staff has increased by 44%.
The increase in administrative staff is part of a national trend. Our colleague, Lindsey Burke, testified before a U.S. House subcommittee in 2022 and reported that the number of principals and assistant principals has increased 37% since 2000. The number of school district administrative staff has increased 88%.
Kennesaw State University professor Ben Scafidi studies administrative bloat in K-12 schools and finds that the increase in noninstructional staff over the last 30 years is more than double the size of student enrollment increases. Teachers make up only 48% of the K-12 workforce today.
It’s not news that students are struggling in class, but the price tag on this underperformance is staggering. In California, the fiscal year 2023-2024 K-12 budget was the size of the entire state budgets of Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Tennessee—combined ($128 billion). Approximately 3 out of 4 students are performing below grade level in core subjects.
Yet special interest groups have introduced a ballot proposal to authorize $10 billion in general obligation bonds for K-12 and community colleges. The bonds are estimated to cost state taxpayers a whopping $500 million per year for 35 years. The Reason Foundation finds that California school districts already have $220 billion in debt and liabilities, the equivalent of $40,000 per current enrolled student.
These spending figures do not account for the substantial influx of federal funding that school districts nationwide received during the COVID-19 pandemic, amounting to $190 billion in additional spending. This was on top of the annual federal funding public school districts also receive. Prior to the pandemic, federal taxpayers provided K-12 schools about $70 billion each year.
As part of the COVID-19 relief packages, California alone was awarded more than $23 billion, Missouri about $3 billion, and New Mexico around $1.5 billion in new federal funds. As of early August 2024, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Education, each of these states still had roughly 10% of funds left to allocate.
Forthcoming research by this op-ed’s co-author, Madison Marino Doan, and Kennesaw State’s Scafidi will reveal that school districts are more financially secure than ever before. Several factors contribute to this, including higher property tax revenues since 2020, which account for nearly half of most school district budgets; healthy cash reserves built up prior to the pandemic to manage economic downturns; the large influx of COVID-19 relief funds, which allowed districts to bolster their reserves and invest in infrastructure projects that reduce future costs; and record-high state “rainy day” funds put on reserve in 2022.
Few Americans know how much taxpayers spend per student in their hometown, nor do they realize the extent of the increase in school district bureaucracy or the massive federal funding districts received during the pandemic. This surplus in funds has not reliably translated into more instruction or improved student achievement. So, before voters decide on whether to increase spending on public schools, they should know where their money is going and whether it’s truly benefiting students in the ways that matter most.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/25/myth-underfunded-public-schools/
*******************************************************NYC Mayor Eric Adams Undermines Harris’s ‘Fascist’ Accusation Against Trump, Makes Call To ‘Dial Down The Temperature’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams differed Saturday with Vice President Kamala Harris’s Wednesday labeling of former President Donald Trump as a fascist.
Adams — together with Deputy Mayor Chauncey Parker, New York City Police Department (NYPD) interim commissioner Tom Donlon and other NYPD leadership — was speaking at a security briefing ahead of former President Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden.
Adams, when asked by Politico political reporter Emily Ngo if he believed Trump was fascist, said, “My answer is ‘no.’ I know what Hitler has done, and I know what a fascist regime looks like.”
Adams then claimed some political leaders in New York City had “hurled” the terms “fascist” and “Hitler” at him as well.
“I think — as I’ve called over and over again — that the level of conversation — I think we could all dial down the temperature,” he said.
“There’s no agency in the world better prepared to ensure the safety of this event than the NYPD,” Parker added.
In response to critics who demanded Trump not hold the rally, Adams said, “I strongly disagree. This is America. This is New York. And I think it’s important to allow individuals to exercise their right to get their message clear to New Yorkers. And our job as a city and as a police department is to make sure that you do that in a peaceful way.
“I think that we must be extremely cautious of— the heat we turn up today, pre-election, is going to have to be the heat we’ll have to govern in,” Adams added.
During a Wednesday presidential town hall event, Harris, when asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether she thought Trump was a fascist, said, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.”
Harris was referencing Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired General Mark Milley. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Calls Trump ‘Fascist’ In CNN Town Hall)
Kelley called Trump a fascist during recent interviews with The New York Times. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung fired back, saying Kelly had “beclowned” himself. Trump also responded, labeling Milley a “lowlife,” “a total degenerate” and a “bad general,” CBS News reported.
Thirteen former Trump administration officials have openly backed Kelly’s claim, according to Politico.
Milley called Trump “the most dangerous person to this country” and “a fascist to the core,” according to an upcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. Milley also feared being court-martialed should Trump become president again, the Guardian reported.
Trump had confirmed in early October that his campaign rented the iconic Madison Square Garden for the major rally. The arena previously hosted a number of key political events in U.S. history, according to The Associated Press.
Trump and Adams both attended the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City on Oct. 17 to benefit charity. As part of the annual event’s lighthearted proceedings, Trump made several jokes about the absent Harris as well as prominent Democrats seated nearby on the dias, including Adams and indictment over bribery charges.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/10/26/new-york-city-mayor-eric-adams-donald-trump-not-fascist/
***************************************************VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Kamala’s Inane Talking Points
As Vice President Kamala Harris slips in the polls, the Democratic National Committee/Harris campaign/mainstream media fusion talking points become even more absurd.
Claiming that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump were “weird” did not work — especially given the genuinely odd behavior of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and would-be First Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Nor was the next Harris meme convincing that the frenetic and non-stop Trump was somehow “exhausted,” “senile” and “confused.” Voters know the workdays of the younger Harris are usually far shorter — or sometimes not workdays at all.
But Harris also falsely claimed the physically and mentally challenged President Joe Biden was, in her words, “absolutely authoritative” and “very bold and vibrant.”
Now Harris asserts that Trump is a “fascist,” a “dictator” and “unfit” for office. But this new talking point will also not stop the Harris campaign’s hemorrhaging — and for a variety of reasons.
First, voters see the election as a conflict of two absolutely antithetical visions.
On the one hand, is the prior Trump 2017-20 concrete record: border security, no major wars abroad, calm in the Middle East, a deterred Russia, Iran and China, low inflation, low interest rates, lower crime, lower taxes, strong deterrent military — and opposition to mandatory electric vehicle mandates, biological males competing in women’s sports and the woke/DEI agenda.
On the other hand, is the Biden-Harris 2021-2024 record: the unchecked entry of 12-20 million illegal aliens and a destroyed border. People still struggle under Biden-Harris’s earlier hyperinflation and high interest rates. The horrific regional wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue. Biden-Harris embraces the unpopular DEI/Woke agenda.
Harris herself knows that the Biden-Harris years were a failure. That is why she has shed almost all of their hard left-wing agendas — policies she has embraced for much of her adult life.
So suddenly, in the last 90 or so days, Harris has completely flipped and flopped.
Now she is for more of, not defunding, the police. She pivots for a secure border, not 20 million illegal aliens pouring across it. Harris brags about fossil fuel energy, not banning fracking, and for increasing, not cutting, defense.
In fact, several endangered incumbent Democratic senators in swing states are claiming more allegiance to Trump’s issues than identifying with Harris and her unpopular record as vice president.
Voters likely conclude that if Trump doubles down on his record, while even Harris and many senators temporarily piggyback on it, then it must be more effective and popular than Harris’s own.
Second, Harris now claims Trump is a fascist and insurrectionist.
But mouthing ad nausaem “January 6th” no longer persuades voters that Trump is a danger to anyone. They recall that Harris bragged of the far more violent demonstrations of 2020 — at least 25 killed, $2 billion in damage, 1,500 law enforcement officers injured, 14,000 arrested — that the unrest would not and “should not” stop, while drumming up support to bail out jailed violent protestors.
Nor does the slur that Trump is a fascist resonate. The Obama and Biden-Harris administrations weaponized the CIA and FBI to interfere in the 2016 and 2020 elections by peddling the fake Steele dossier and suppressing all the embarrassing news about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop.
Trump certainly did not coordinate, as Biden did, with local, state and federal prosecutors to wage lawfare prosecutions to destroy his political opponents. He did not use the FBI to partner with social media to suppress the news.
Neither Trump nor his supporters tried to remove Biden from state ballots.
The Republican House majority did not impeach Biden twice despite the Biden family’s corruption and Joe Biden’s unlawful, decades-long removal of classified papers to several insecure private residences.
Trump and the Republicans never coercively removed the party’s primary-winning nominee. They did not nullify the will of 14 million primary voters. And in backroom fashion, they did not anoint a candidate who had never entered a single primary in her life.
Nor did Trump support packing the Supreme Court. He does not seek unconstitutional means of destroying the Electoral College. He is not demanding an end to the Senate filibuster or the creation of two new states to obtain four partisan senate seats.
Third, as for Trump being “unfit” and lacking “decorum,” it depends on what were the Biden-Harris standards?
Having a trans activist reveal his breasts on camera at a White House “pride party?”
Biden’s reportedly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “f—ing a—hole” and “son of a b—ch?” Bragging about locking Trump up, while waging lawfare against him?
Unleashing son Hunter Biden with impunity to shake down foreign governments?
The election will not be decided on these empty talking points or fake media-generated narratives.
Instead, only two criteria matter: Which candidate’s past record and current agenda best appeal to voters? And which candidate seems the most authentic and genuine?
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My main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
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