Jefferson Healthcare’s Trans Mission —
Suicide Risk as Emotional Blackmail

by | May 21, 2023 | General | 14 comments

“The transgender rights movement has gone well beyond seeking equal rights. It seeks to liberate women without their consent from the legal protections associated with birth sex and even from the recording of birth sex… I have changed my mind with regard to certain transgender demands, including access to women-only spaces, after listening to women. Men are rarely, if ever, affected by transgender demands, so it is easy to say ‘yes.’ We must always try to imagine ourselves in the changing rooms, hospital wards, and prisons of lesbian, bisexual and heterosexual women.”
Professor Robert Wintemute, original Yogyakarta Principles signatory

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In 1964 or so, my pal Leah and I hatched a scheme to outwit the dress code enforcers in our small elementary school in a rural farming community of southern New Jersey. As was demanded by sex stereotypes at the time, girls were required to wear dresses/skirts, all logic against that tradition be damned, not the least of which was cold autumns and freezing winters. The school featured a playground with a basketball court, baseball diamonds, swings, a big slide and old-fashioned monkey bars… everything an active kid could possibly want. What young girls didn’t want was other kids (or adults) seeing up our dresses.

Leah and I were rough-and-tumble girls with lots of brothers. We were as fast and strong as any of the boys at that prepubescent age, but modesty prohibited our participation in a sport we both loved — baseball. One day we appeared at school with shorts under our dresses, and proceeded to head out to the diamond with the boys. It wasn’t long before our ruse was discovered. That afternoon, we each carried a note home from the teacher to our parents. Our scheme fizzled out before the sun set that night.

A few years later, as a young teenager, again I was sidelined as spectator, enviously watching my brothers and their mates enjoy Little League baseball to their hearts’ content. To assuage my longing, my brothers allowed me to catch practice pitches behind the backstop. It would be some years before the 1972 Title IX civil rights law paved the way for females’ access to sports spaces that males had previously dominated. We didn’t want entry into boys and mens locker rooms and showers. We wanted to enjoy the commons, which our parents’ tax dollars incidentally helped fund to provide for healthy lifestyles.

I could not have imagined that I would live to see the day when males would be not only welcomed, but lauded, for insinuating themselves into women’s sports and private spaces. The banner supporting males identifying as females is being carried by many of the very same women who were themselves forbidden by institutional policies and patriarchal norms from participating in a full range of sports not so long ago. Now they’re facilitating turning Title IX inside out to accommodate what are fundamentally misogynist urges — the emotions of males are more important than the intrinsic value of women’s sports and the physical safety of females.

In 1967, the first woman to enter the Boston Marathon was attacked from behind by a race official as she was running with a group of men. Fifty-five years later, I and numerous other women were attacked from behind by a body builder who identifies as a woman, who was trying to prevent real women from speaking in public. Cowardice appears to be characteristic of these fellows, and even that is welcomed and celebrated by the woke contingent that has possessed our society in general — for the moment.

Pennylvania Quakers’ swimmer Lia Thomas (Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)

Lia (William) Thomas, the now infamous biological male swimmer who imagines he is female, was a mediocre competitor among his own sex. His fortune changed last year. The news was so shocking, it made headlines around the world. “Thomas ruffled feathers last season as the swimmer set pool, school, and Ivy League records. Thomas competed for three years on the men’s team and was ranked 462 as a male swimmer, but shot up to number one after being allowed to join the women’s team last season.”

What does it say about this man’s character that he never stood a chance placing tops among males, but would relish purloining valuable awards in competition against women?

This chicanery is occurring in many women’s sports these days — cycling, skateboarding, volleyball, weightlifting, track, rugby and martial arts — I’m sure I’ve missed some.

Sports are an important part of our culture — teaching confidence and team-building, providing physical exercise and valuable win/lose life lessons, and opportunities for modest to spectacularly lucrative career opportunities, to name a few examples. But sports shouldn’t dominate the discussion around the so-called ’transgender’ issue because of their popularity.  This article will consider other crucial aspects of the debate, including institutional collusion and identity-politics activists’ manipulation.

HEI Leader Award slide from Transgender Navigator Jackie Levin’s 2/28/23 Jefferson Healthcare Board of Commissioners’ meeting

Celebrating a decade of “gender-affirming medical care”

At the February 28th Jefferson Healthcare hospital (JH) board meeting, Patient Advocate/Transgender Navigator Jackie Levin presented a slideshow (pps. 71-80) that spoke in glowing terms of the hospital’s progress in the last decade promoting and supporting the ‘LGBTQIA community.’ JH first applied in 2013 for the Healthcare Equality Index (HEI) Leaders award, sponsored by the American LGBT-interest activist group Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and has “achieved that every year since.”

Levin reported increasing numbers of people from the “transgender community” seeking medication and medical services providers:

We’ve done a lot with sponsoring events in the community and attending events in the community as well as bringing in physicians and other trainers for our staff, for our providers and we now have ten providers who are trained to help our transgender patients with their hormone replacement therapy. And we’ve got some real advocates in our OBGYN department. So it really feels like it’s really grown, we’ve made some strong connections with people in the community and I think that’s one of the things that’s really important.

An internal audit of patient charts was conducted last year, which Levin said “noted that legal sex is there… but somebody’s sex assigned at birth is [only] at 40% gender identity… pronouns are barely put in our Epic medical record, and so we’re going to be doing that for this year.”

Increasing complaints to the hospital about misgendering are particularly worrying:

Right pronouns are part of our access [to hospital services] — folks don’t feel seen if we don’t use their proper pronouns… It’s how we identify ourselves and if I mis-pronoun you, you’ll correct me and if I mis-pronoun you again, you may begin to wonder if I see you. And if I continue to mis-pronoun you, you’re gonna be wondering if you can trust me.

She paused to reinforce the importance of this convention:

Oh, I did want to add that there is a risk of, great, much greater, I mean like uh, 40% higher risk of suicide in youth if we’re not using the transgender persons appropriate pronouns.

That’s quite a distortion of the oft-cited, though poorly supported, claim that “transgender” people are at least 40% more likely to have attempted suicide in their lifetime than the non-trans population. For some time I have been curious about where that figure came from, and exactly which suicide statistics it referenced, so I set about to find out. More on that later… for now we continue our dive into JH’s keen interest in the HEI.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and party politics

HRC was founded in 1980. You may be familiar with the logo — a yellow equal sign (=) on a blue background.

Influence Watch, a project of The Capital Research Center, describes the organization this way:

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the nation’s largest LGBT-interest activist organization and a prominent force in left-of-center politics. Together with the affiliated Human Rights Campaign Foundation charitable arm and super PAC, HRC has built relationships with powerful mostly Democratic Party politicians and major corporations, and has taken a leading role in Democratic Party politics and left-leaning activism. The group has faced criticism from the left over the years for insufficient zeal in securing its social-liberal agenda. …

HRC has leveraged its position as the largest advocate for LGBT interests to pressure major corporations, law firms, hospitals, and local governments into implementing and expanding socially liberal policies, supporting HRC financially, and withdrawing support from conservative and religious organizations through implicit threats of low scores on its Corporate Equality Index, Healthcare Equality Index and Municipal Equality Index “scorecards.”

Writing for the Free Beacon on May 15th, 2023, Aaron Sibarium penned an edifying analysis of the insidious tactics employed by HRC to coerce compliance within U.S. hospital systems —

Meet the Healthcare Equality Index, the Human Rights Campaign’s scorecard for hospitals that purports to measure the “equity and inclusion of their LGBTQ+ patients.” The index, which uses a 100 point scale, is [in part] funded by Pfizer and PhRMA, the trade association that lobbies on behalf of large pharmaceutical companies…

To earn a perfect score, hospitals must display LGBT symbols, solicit and use patients’ preferred pronouns, and conduct trainings on LGBT issues approved by the [HRC], according to the scoring criteria. They must also provide the same treatments for gender dysphoria that they provide for other medical conditions—meaning a hospital that uses puberty blockers to treat precocious puberty cannot withhold the drugs from children who say they’re transgender. And though the index does not mention medical conscience exemptions explicitly, it does penalize hospitals for allowing “discriminatory treatment that is in conflict with their non-discrimination policy.”

Once again, here we find direct involvement by pharma shills in the development of policies that require use of their products, in a manner that closely resembles blackmail. Don’t want to play ball? No “points” for you, and we’ve got the budget to make sure your reputation suffers for it. HRC also receives funding from major labor unions, Planned Parenthood and the Soros Fund Charitable Foundation. HRC and its Foundation reported revenue in excess of $65.56 million in 2020. A lot of societal pressure can be brought to bear with those considerable sums. Author Sibarium continues, describing the extent of the arm-twisting:

The most coercive part of the index is its “Responsible Citizenship” deduction. Hospitals can lose as many as 25 points for any behavior the [HRC] deems “discriminatory,” an expansive category that includes statements made by hospital doctors and policies that restrict access to gender medicine, including puberty blockers.

Last year, for example, the [HRC] deducted points from two Texas hospitals… because they stopped using puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria but continued to use them to treat precocious puberty—the blockers’ original purpose.

That “amounts to discrimination against transgender youth,” the [HRC] argued in a press release.

What it really amounts to is a private organization’s social credit scoring system having potential legal impact, should activists get fired up and sue for not performing what HRC insists is “medically necessary affirmative care” such as hysterectomies and double mastectomies. “To cover mastectomies for breast cancer but not gender dysphoria … discriminates on the basis of diagnosis.” Wisconsin now requires their Medicaid agency to fund these procedures, the outcome of a 2019 court ruling.

Sibarium adds

Beyond the veiled legal threat, critics say the scorecard creates reputational incentives to defer to activists instead of medical science, which on transgender issues is increasingly in flux. Hospitals that do well on the index typically incorporate it into their marketing materials, issuing press releases about the quality of their LGBT care.

Our little hospital here in Port Townsend has been swallowed whole by this ideology.

The 40% myth

The most recent survey of gender self-identified persons was conducted in 2022 by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) — aka TransEquality — however its contents have not yet been distilled. Their latest published survey is now eight years old —

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) is the largest survey examining the experiences of transgender people in the United States, with 27,715 respondents from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. military bases overseas. Conducted in the summer of 2015 by the National Center for Transgender Equality, the USTS was an anonymous, online survey for transgender adults (18 and older) in the United States, available in English and Spanish. The USTS serves as a follow up to the groundbreaking 2008–09 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), which helped to shift how the public and policymakers view the lives of transgender people and the challenges they face.

The 2008-09 survey (results published in 2011) pegged the lifetime attempted suicide rate at 41%; this latest 2015 survey, with more than four times the respondents, pegs it at 40%.

The 2015 summary also notes significant progress compared to the earlier survey in terms of community and family approval:

Respondents’ experiences also suggest growing acceptance by family members, colleagues, classmates, and other people in their lives. More than half (60%) of respondents who were out to their immediate family reported that their family was supportive of them as a transgender person. More than two-thirds (68%) of those who were out to their coworkers reported that their coworkers were supportive. Of students who were out to their classmates, more than half (56%) reported that their classmates supported them as a transgender person.

We are told that lack of affirmation of this group is causing a genocide. If that is the case, why has the significantly accelerating support for these people only yielded a one per cent improvement in that suicide stat? Could that figure be little more than hot air?

As with the ’08-’09 outreach, the 2015 survey utilized convenience sampling, a study design of the lowest quality with high bias probability. Respondents were self-identified. The survey was conducted by a highly-motivated activist group rather than an independent pollster, and hosted online by a consultant that “specializes in assisting education institutions in maximizing equity and inclusion…” (Survey questions can be found beginning on page 247 of the 2015 full report.)

A March 2023 peer-reviewed article titled “Suicide-Related Outcomes Following Gender-Affirming Treatment” speaks to the quality of the USTS, and other surveys like it. This is the most thorough review of the literature on the subject so far, revealing that shoddy research practices continually plague the field.  The author says “the literature to date suffers from a lack of methodological rigor that increases the risk of type I [false positive conclusion] error.”

This June 2022 study found:

a 14% increase in suicide rates among young people by 2020 in states that have a provision allowing minors to access care without parental consent relative to states that do not. Easier access to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones by minors actually exacerbated suicide rates.

Not to be deterred, Governor Inslee signed a new bill on May 9th that will allow minors to shelter within “host” homes while they seek “gender-affirming care,” without knowledge or consent of their concerned parents (who are termed “estranged” in this legislation).

When Transgender Navigator Levin invoked the trans lobby’s questionable approximation of 40%, she neglected to add the critical qualifier of “lifetime attempted” to the word “suicide.” Then she really upped the ante by crediting the simple factor of misgendering with causal relationship. This is no trifling error on the part of a hospital employee who was essentially educating administrators and board members about these matters. It’s reasonable to assume that participants of that board meeting went away believing that using wrong pronouns increases “trans” suicide risk by 40%. Levin’s interest in advancing the goals of “gender-affirming care” is undoubtedly well-intentioned, but clearly misguided by propaganda that gets further distorted with each retelling.

The age-old chicken and egg dilemma

According to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP):

The majority of children and adolescents who attempt suicide have a significant mental health disorder, usually depression.  Among younger children, suicide attempts are often impulsive. They may be associated with feelings of sadness, confusion, anger, or problems with attention and hyperactivity.

Among teenagers, suicide attempts may be associated with feelings of stress, self-doubt, pressure to succeed, financial uncertainty, disappointment, and loss. For some teens, suicide may appear to be a solution to their problems.

A Gallup poll published this week reveals record-breaking depression rates across America. Twenty-nine per cent of adult respondents reported depression throughout their lifetime. That’s nearly one third of the country, and it doesn’t include the youth — America has a mental health problem.

I doubt I’m the only one who views the populations described above as ripe for influence by a well-funded lobby that tells them they can be happy if they become someone else. Social contagion is real, and peer pressure is tremendously powerful.

So which came first — the mental health disorder or the gender dysphoria?

TransEquality would have us believe that their “community” is uniquely persecuted — that discrimination, mis-gendering, bigotry, threats of violence and other forms of rejection of individuals’ perceived identities are to blame for their elevated suicide risk. But is that really the case? Their 2015 survey design does not enable a view from outside the lens of gender-identity victimhood.

We have no idea how many of the 40% who claimed to have attempted suicide in their lifetime

  • did so completely unrelated to gender issues
  • had pre-existing mental health issues that they were or were not being treated for
  • were on psyche drugs that increase suicidal ideation
  • were plagued by chronic health issues as a result of “gender-affirming” medications
  • did so because their “transition” did not ultimately make their lives better
  • did so because their “transition” required surgery after surgery — not at all uncommon
  • did so because their “transition” left them with ongoing post-surgical pain, wounds that didn’t heal properly, or non-functioning new body parts — also not uncommon
  • did so because of regret for what they’d done to their bodies

Encouraging children, teenagers and young adults to hyper-focus on sexuality, themselves, their subjective “identity,” their looks and how they’re perceived by others, promises cultivation of entitled narcissists who are the center of their own universe. We’re raising generations of perpetual adolescents.  Coddling in this manner is not the path to a healthier community.

Interestingly, the survey reports a 29% poverty rate among respondents, despite an 84.2% “some college” through M.D./J.D. level education. The fact is, not everybody is willing to work for a living. Association of gender identity with mistreatment in the workplace can be misplaced.

Employees who are hair-triggered for the next micro-aggression are less-than-ideal contributors, often too busy self-obsessing and keeping score to apply themselves fully to the task at hand. I’ve met some of them.

This is a huge problem in the employment sector right now. I’ve spoken to numerous employers who are deeply frustrated, and quite hamstrung, by the dearth of skilled, mature candidates to select from to sustain their businesses.

What will this scenario look like in twenty years?

All is not well in the land of the Gender Unicorn

Has “gender-affirming care” (GAC) made life better for the “transitioners?”

The Tavistock Centre gender clinic in the UK has been shuttered and is now facing class-action lawsuits from more than a thousand former patients, many of whom say they were pressured by the medical community.  Alarmingly, their female referrals had grown 5,000% in 7 years between 2010 – 2017.  (“Trans” proponents insist social contagion is not a thing.)  Lawsuits against GAC medical practitioners in the US are looming as well.

Lack of fully informed consent is one reason the ranks of “detransitioners” is growing by the day. The Detransition SubReddit page currently has 47.3k members.  This is a big problem for the ideologues pushing the “trans” agenda, similar to that presented by defectors from religious cults.

I will leave you with the memorable discussion below that took place at the Genspect “Bigger Picture” conference in Ireland just last month.  I’ll be back soon with a report on the local impacts of this movement’s oppressive institutional elements that have infiltrated healthcare, education and every other system that orders American society today.

“A panel of detransitioned young people spoke about their lives, the context in which they came to identify as transgender, about the process of falling for what Stella O’Malley called “perhaps the most bewitching line in the world: that you can be a different person.” They talked about their interactions with a medical system that ultimately harmed them when they needed help instead, and how the stories they told themselves about transition fell apart. They talked about what real help might have looked like. “I realized that I didn’t have to live up to those expectations [of womanhood],” one young woman said, “and someone should have told me that when I was 14.”

Annette Huenke

Annette Huenke studied International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to heading west, she was a manager for an Auckland-based international publisher of peer-reviewed drug information journals. In 1992 she moved to Port Townsend, opening Ancestral Spirits Gallery in 1993. She is past vice president of the Jeff Co EDC and board member of The Boiler Room. She researches, writes and wanders the forests around PT.

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14 Comments

  1. Ana Wolpin

    From Big Picture Watch:

    “We located the most hard-hitting professional journalist digging into who is imposing this bizarre agenda on us. Jennifer Bilek is an investigative journalist, a feminist and a leading voice really looking behind the curtain at who is pushing this TRANS AGENDA!”

    The Free Press has quoted Bilek’s work in previous articles on this issue. This 39-minute interview, shot as a part of a documentary What Happened At School?, powerfully synthesizes her years of research into the genesis of this agenda that has now infiltrated not only our medical system, but all other institutions, most egregiously public education.

    Washington state is one of the worst offenders, helping to create a socially-driven epidemic of medicalizing children with drugs and surgeries that often create significant mental and physical damage. Not only are schools collaborating to push this agenda, policies are designed to hide from parents what is being promoted to students. This state is among those contributing to the 14% INCREASE in suicide rates among young people with its provision allowing minors to access “care” without parental consent (relative to states that do not).

    This 7-minute video is a first-hand account from one mother in Washington state whose confused and anxiety-ridden daughter was being socially pressured by the school, behind her parents’ back, to jump on the trans conveyor belt.

    Spoiler alert: This mother took her daughter out of public school and all her “gender” confusion, anxiety, depression and purported suicidal ideation resolved.

    Reply
  2. julie jaman

    In WA State the appointed Human Rights Commission provides definitions that can be used to prove discrimination. If an incident of discrimination is confirmed it may mean a big dollar pay off and public embarrasment and tarnished reputation of the establishment or organization such as the YMCA. This is to be avoided by any means necessary, in my case, public shaming and expulsion from the pool (I objected to men being in the women’s dressing/shower room).

    10 doctors at Jefferson Health care trained for trans health care. What is the ratio of doctors to trans people in Jefferson Cnty and the ratio of doctors to non-trans patients in Jeff Cnty? Olympia sent $4M to Jeff Health Care for women’s services, does that include “transwomen” who are men no matter what pronouns they use?

    Further I believe that LGB (who resist T, Q, etc being included) people do not need the same health services as trans people who seek very specialized drugs and surgeries and then require life-long care. So in reality, Jefferson Health Care is expending an inordinate amount of time in presentations, training for scores, and other services for a very small minority of people (possibly 1%) while women had to fight for years before the Jefferson Hospital District Commissioners to have basic womens health and pregnancy services.

    But trans is yet another dollar sign i.e. $50 billion projected for big pharma over the next few years. Lots of points for Glenn and the hospital.

    Reply
  3. MJ Heins

    The Healthcare Equality Index is an excellent tool for identifying healthcare providers to avoid. Where is the closest “low score” facility?

    Reply
  4. Ben

    If there is an intent to change the individual and society to one that allows a greater amount of central control over the individual, how might that be done? To change society fundamentally, one must change how our children see their world. The only way to do this is to usurp parental structure and responsibility and replace it with government authority. In other words, the authority of government knows better than parents as to what is best for our children.

    How then do they break down the family structure and parental authority? In two ways…they must change both the children and the parents. When children are given power over the authority of their parents, such as, by allowing children to change their gender affiliation and take puberty blockers, allowing children to self prescribe a gene changing vaccine, wear masks against an invisible life threat, or allowing the authority of school, government and health care to color their social world view, all without parental consent, this begins to crumble the social fabric of the family.

    The parents are changed by instilling fear and doubt as to how best to navigate a world of invisible pathogens, a looming world war, environmental disaster, and economic insecurity. When parents are confused and frightened and want to do the best for their children, they will often relinquish their parental responsibility to an authority like, science, government, medicine, or religion.

    For our society to rectify the loss of family cohesion, it is up to parents not the children. Parents must take back their responsibility based on their research, ability to think coherently, and the questioning of authority. The fear du jour media must lose its hold on parents which undermines their ability to critically think and act on what is best for their children. When parents see that long held traditional family values are being changed into authoritarian control, they then might have the courage to do what is right in the face of doubt and fear. If not, then our future, our children, will usher in a new era of loss of freedom and a social structure which forgets the value and responsibility of family and community.

    Reply
  5. Jim Scarantino

    We need a trans awareness day. The Hospital Board should be shown large, explicit photos of what is done to children in order to perform “gender affirming” surgeries and they need to hear from adults who were butchered and poisoned as children by the trans medical complex. Gays Against Groomers shares those photos on their Twitter feed. Dr. Mengele stuff. This is the same Hospital Board, btw, that has endorsed and funded the death cult in PT that glorifies death, bodily decomposition and suicide.

    Reply
    • Jim Scarantino

      I received a private inquiry to provide more information. Some time back, a group promoting themselves as “death doulas” held an event at the Cotton Building. It was partially sponsored by Jefferson Healthcare. Their logo was displayed on the literature and posters. It was one of the darkest, most macabre things I’ve ever experienced. It was dark. They distributed what can only be described as “trading cards” of beautiful, sexy girls in various states of decomposition following death. Think gorgeous cheeks and lips peeling away, insects feeding on a gorgeous, pale girl. They promoted rotting in one’s backyard above ground and encouraged embracing the odor. They ran a continuous loop of a woman on video praising “the prophet Mohammed, praise be his name,” and spouting religious stuff centered on death worship. Then you could sign up to actually experience death…some sort of sensory deprivation room with candles and antlers and woven sticks. You would be encouraged to imagine, embrace your future state of decomposition. Last, as I remember, was a class where people were guided through dying and decomposing, curling up, rotting, their organs liquefying. But the trading cards pushing death as sexy were what I remember the most. The guy I was with asked one of the organizers about the implications for all this on the suicide crisis in our community. Did they see suicide as an acceptable route, an alternative path to be tolerated since, afterall, they were saying death is to be embraced, cherished, looked forward to? Wouldn’t this signal troubled kids, “Hey, you know there’s another way and it’s good?” The organizer shrugged. She seemed open to the possibility that would be a consequence of what they were pushing. This group has held “death conversations” or such things (I attended one just to see what was going on. I met some very, very troubled people who were contemplating early deaths). This is indeed a death cult being subsidized and endorsed by Jefferson Healthcare.

      Reply
  6. Sonny-Raye Hayes

    Thank you Annette & PTFP! You get the reality checker award for lifting the curtain on this aspect of a universal swiz. “The money trails do not lie.” JB

    Reply
  7. Kathleen Stock Jo Phoenix Maya Forstater

    This is a great article.

    Forgive me for using the names of women who resigned or were fired under pressure for making a statement against the concept of transgenderism but I need my job. Yes I am born and raised in the USA and am very liberal and never felt that I couldn’t speak freely except now. That feeling is because people with views in support of women, in support of freedom of speech, in support of law and order are now being financially and socially punished for saying anything that is construed to be out of line with “progressive” values on those topics.

    It may be one thing that was left out of the article by the way. The pro trans people target women on multiple levels: first of all by declaring that gender is chosen (and for women in particular this is hurtful as described in the article), second of all by then taking away from women the ability to compete fairly in many arenas — arenas whose rules favor men from the start (e.g. the most aggressive, most strong in the moment, who is skinniest, etc.) and lastly by violence against any women who speak against the concept that gender is all in the mind.

    This is all by way of explanation of why I have not listed my name. Another group, based on DC (whose name I can’t find) has documented similar cases.

    In my inbox, I have an email from Amnesty International dated May 3 which says “Trans and nonbinary people in the United States are being punished for their identity. They’re being attacked. They’re being dehumanized. And their lives are in danger. We must defend their lives by calling on Congress to take urgent action to pass the Transgender Bill of Rights resolution to protect and codify the rights of trans and nonbinary people.

    This wave of cruel and unjust legislation is threatening every aspect of life for LGBTQI+ people. Proposed bills would prohibit health care for transgender youth and young adults, restrict single sex facilities, exclude trans youth for athletics, ban LGBTQI+ curriculum, and otherwise endanger and harm trans and nonbinary people.

    These bills are getting more extreme with every iteration, and they are inspiring violent threats and attacks against transgender people. The attacks are heartbreaking, and we must act before more trans rights are threatened and lives are taken.

    Urge your Senators and Representative to cosponsor the Transgender Bill of Rights resolution, which clearly recognizes trans rights and builds a framework to protect trans rights »”

    I’m including this to document the same alarming and false information that has become (to use a term that has become popular) normalized. In particular, as a woman, I know that the ERA never passed (and attempt to make it so are still there) but transgender advocates want to advance the rights of men to be women (and yes vice versa) over the rights of actual women.

    There is also a group called WOLF speaking to Women’s rights. If you were to look for this topic “Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne moved #Amendment184ZBA to the #HealthCareBill, in the House of Lords on Wednesday 16/03/2022” you can see more amazingly awful things happening.

    Just truly writing to thank you for putting this into some form of print. The propaganda is so strong and violent from the trans movement. Any discussion that maybe they are wrong is made fun of (Jon Stewart) or violently attacked or both. While it is true that conservative communities in the past have frowned on criticism, I can’t recall anything like the current environment where freedom of speech is supposedly protected and a key element of our country’s heritage yet in fact it no longer exists.

    Reply
    • Annette Huenke

      Thank you for your comment, Kathleen Stock et al. (great namesakes, btw!)

      There were a number of important things (slightly outside my focus) I was forced to leave out of the article, as it was already getting quite long. I intend to address those other critical discussions in my follow-up piece.

      You correctly point out the multi-pronged attacks on biological women and girls by this ideological crusade. The speed at which we’re going backwards is breathtaking. And you are right to be concerned to lose your job for wrong-speak. Mandated speech is the hallmark of a weak position. As we know, honest debate will never be allowed to occur because, as Helen Joyce wisely observes, at its heart, their position is a lie. Of course a man cannot “become” a woman, as a woman cannot “become” a man. They know it, we know it, and they know we know it. That is why they resort to censorship and violence to silence us.

      Reply
  8. Dylan Mulvaney

    This is serious stuff. Thank you for this hard-hitting and brilliant article. To calm my irritation I think I need a beer after reading it.

    Reply
  9. oz

    Sending supreme gratitudes to Annette H and the PT Free Press for this great article. While the information is horrible it is very important for this dark agenda to be exposed and then stopped. Again, MUCH THANKS! Look forward to the next article.

    Reply
  10. Harvey Windle

    Here is a link to a youtube video of David Icke’s international view on this subject. Also links to dozens of articles regarding the subject on a worldwide scale in a scroll down format. At the bottom of each page is the option to choose OLDER POSTS. So many things to read up on.

    https://davidicke.com/?s=trans

    Quite a lot of information from the “wrong” perspective.

    Reply
  11. Audrey Jean

    Thank you Annette for yet another great piece. I feel angry all the time thinking about the poor children being told they can change their sex. Angry at the profiteering adults at the ready with their horror show of drugs and mutilation. Angry at all the ordinary people who have swallowed this sinister and idiotic ideology without, it seems, a second thought.
    I wish I could switch health care services, but being on medicare, I don’t think I can go independent. I cringe every time my doctor, who I once loved, comes in wearing her stupid pronoun badge.

    Reply
  12. Audrey Jean

    Jim, I actually think that’s a great idea. I’m not on twitter, so I don’t have access to the photos, but I would help organize.

    Reply

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