Up to a third of trans-identified teens put on puberty blockers suffered a significant decline in mental health, according to new analysis of a survey from the United Kingdom.
In August, researchers published an updated review of data from a 2021 study in the U.K. on medRxiv, a preprint service for medical research. The original study conducted by the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) examined 44 children aged 12 to 15 over three years who were prescribed puberty-blocking drugs to treat gender dysphoria. Participants took triptorelin, a prostate cancer medicine used to inhibit the synthesis of estrogen in women and testosterone in men.
According to researchers at the University of Essex, the mental health of between 15 and 34 percent of participants significantly deteriorated while on the puberty-inhibiting drug. Just between 9 and 20 percent reported a reliable improvement. Between 56 and 68 percent witnessed no change in distress.
In other words, less than a fifth of those prescribed puberty-blocking drugs, if that, experienced emotional improvement after taking triptorelin. The findings contradict broad claims that such medical interventions are necessary to save gender-confused children from the perils of suicidal ideation. While the updated analysis from the University of Essex has yet to be peer-reviewed, another long-term study from Sweden found those who underwent transgender surgery were 19 times more likely to die by suicide than the general public.
Meanwhile, in further evidence that Gavin Newsom is running as a Shadow Candidate for the moment when Biden is told that he has to retire...
On Friday, California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed radical legislation mandating that parents "affirm" their child's "gender identity" or potentially lose custody. Parents with kids in California's Chino Valley Unified School District, however, are still fighting state Democrats for the right to care for their own children.
Don't think California has suddenly gone sane, though.
California has gone to great lengths in recent months to punish the people and institutions who want to protect children from the dangers of radical gender ideology.
Chino Valley Unified School District, the school system responsible for nearly 27,000 students in San Bernardino County, is just one of the institutions facing a state-led attack because it chose to prioritize the safety of its students and their families over the political agenda of California Democrats.
The CVUSD board voted on Monday to retain the Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit, public-interest litigation center, to defend the district against California Democrat Attorney General Rob Bonta who recently sued them over a popular parental notification policy.
The policy in question requires school staff to notify parents if their child shows symptoms of gender dysphoria including switching to the pronouns, bathrooms, or sports teams of the opposite sex. The rule reinforces the idea that parents, not the state or school districts, have the final say over their children's well-being until those kids turn 18 years old.
"The state can't intimidate parents who have spoken loud and clear--their parental rights will not be taken away, and we won't be intimated into giving them up," president of the CVUSD Board Sonja Shaw said in a statement. "We have the law on our side and look forward to our day in court as parents will be watching coast to coast across the nation."
LJC says Bonta's latest legal attack on the school district threatens local elected officials' autonomy and parents' rights, which is why its lawyers, including LJC Senior Counsel Emily Rae, "look forward to defending the propriety of this policy in court."
Meanwhile, the LA Times has decided that it's time to blast a shot across the bow of Muslims, and let them know they will be turned into another demonized religious group if they don't stop opposing the Gay Conversion Therapy imposed by government schools.
For months, hundreds of religious parents have regularly rallied outside a Maryland school board building, aghast at curriculum featuring books that portray LGBTQ+ families to elementary school kids.
Waving American flags, they have chanted against "indoctrination" of children. They've sued to pull their kids from lessons and argued their case on Fox News.
In battles against LGBTQ+ acceptance, it is often white evangelicals pushing for book bans or boycotts over beer brands or bathing suits. In this case, Muslims are leading the fight.
The controversy in an overwhelmingly blue Washington, D.C., suburb highlights a shift. For decades, Muslims have been focused on fighting back against accusations of terrorism. But now, in clashes in left-leaning, diverse areas from the coasts to the heartland, they're speaking out about what they see as intolerance of their faith.
"The school system believes it is being inclusive toward LGBTQ parents and students," said Zainab Chaudry, the Maryland director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national civil rights group that put out calls for rallies over the Maryland books controversy. "But in doing that, it is not being inclusive toward another set of parents and students."
Chaudry said the conflict is just the tip of a movement "growing among Muslims in many parts of America."
In the blue city of Hamtramck, Mich., an all-Muslim city council recently sided with Muslim activists and banned the LGBTQ+ Pride flag on city property. Muslim residents are pushing for the same in nearby Dearborn, where close to half of residents are Arab Americans and protesters derailed a school board meeting last fall over an LGBTQ+-related curriculum.
And at dozens of American mosques in other cities, congregational prayer leaders have instructed followers to confront "gender ideology."
Here comes the threat:
It all bewilders some who say they supported Muslims when they were under attack from the far-right and now feel betrayed.
"When they wanted to broadcast their call to prayer from mosques, we defended them. When they were being hit with hate crimes, we stood by them, and we opened our arms when they were refugees," said Russ Gordon, who was kicked off the Hamtramck Human Relations Commission this year after he defied the flag ban. "We live in America, but this feels like a theocracy."
Is it no longer Racist to object to the calls to prayer being broadcast over loudspeakers?
Asking for a friend.
Muslims were once reliable allies in a coalition of racial, religious and sexual minorities courted by the left. The umbrella grew after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and hit a stride during the Trump presidency as policies and pronouncements from the White House targeted each group with regularity.
Now, some of the 3.5-million followers of Islam in the U.S. are speaking out on topics where their conservative take on the faith more closely aligns with Republican politics.
"Muslims have long stayed out of these controversies," said Youssef Chouhoud, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University in Virginia who studies the role of Muslims in politics. "But now, they are jumping in. It's seen as less risky than it was before."
Nationally, U.S. Muslims still have little political sway. Aside from a few areas where they're concentrated, such as California, Michigan, Texas and New York, Muslims also have scant influence on state or local politics.
The community generally voted Republican through the 1990s, until 9/11 and what they saw as the party's false conflation of Islam with extremist ideology spurred a move to the Democratic Party. Muslims are quick to remember that Donald Trump vowed in his first campaign to temporarily block Muslim arrivals to the U.S. and as president targeted Muslim-majority countries with travel bans.
A 2017 Pew Research Center survey found that 66% of Muslims favored the Democratic Party, compared with just 13% who leaned toward Republicans; 78% said they voted for Hillary Clinton for president. But in 2020, Associated Press exit polls found 35% of Muslims chose Trump and 64% President Biden.