Transgender Wars: Sports, Girl Guides & Health Issues
By Jonathon Van Maren/Bridgehead.ca October 03, 2018
Share this article:
A round-up of a few of the latest developments in the culture wars:
***
The Daily Beast is reporting that New York City is set to allow a gender-neutral option on birth certificates, a policy that does not appear to be thought through:
A new bill in New York City will soon allow non-binary people born in the five boroughs to obtain a gender-neutral "X" on their birth certificates.
Cleared by the City Council this Wednesday, Introduction 954-A now heads to Mayor Bill de Blasio--who announced the legislation alongside City Council Speaker Corey Johnson in June--for a formal signature.
The bill makes it easier for all transgender people born in New York City to change the sex listed on their birth certificates, but it also specifically permits an "X" option for those who identify as neither strictly male or strictly female.
Unsurprisingly, this is being hailed as a major victory for "non-binary" people, and adds New York City to a growing list of jurisdiction that are allowing the "neither" option in the gender column.
***
Where this all starts to get really confusing is in hospitals and other medical facilities, where accurately identifying gender can determine treatment and where facts truly don't care about your feelings. But even hospitals are buckling. From the New York Post:
Children's Hospital Colorado has removed gender markers from patients' wristbands as part of an effort to support their "unique gender identity."
The hospital said its staff understands that it's "not easy growing up with an expansive gender identity or expression," and "believe[s] gender-diverse children need a stable support system as they navigate their transition."
...While gender will be omitted from wristbands, Nokoff said patients' medical history will still be recorded.
Well that's a relief, I suppose.
***
A Canadian sports organization has decided to ruin university athletics in order to pander to the transgender crowd--a move that will soon irreparably transform the playing field for reasons so obvious that only trans activists could be offended by them (such as the physical differences between biological males and females.) Canada's media, of course, is dutifully cheerleading this move. From The Province:
A new policy allowing Canadian transgender student-athletes to compete on teams consistent with their gender identity and without hormone therapy is a welcome change, but more can still be done to make athletics inclusive of gender diversity, says a Vancouver trans athlete and consultant.
U Sports, which governs university athletics in Canada, put its new policy into effect Thursday and says it affects student-athletes at all 56 of its member institutions. Athletes can only compete on teams of one gender during a given academic year, and the policy doesn't require them to undertake hormone therapy. They must also comply with the Canadian Anti-Doping Program.
"For me, it's a step in the right direction," said Kai Scott, a principal partner at TransFocus Consulting, which works with organizations addressing gender inclusion issues. "I think these kinds of policies are really important. This one, in particular, is great for certain transgender student-athletes in that they can select the team or division that aligns with their gender identity. These kinds of policies are important declarations of support and assurance of inclusivity."
...Levels of testosterone, linked to muscle mass and increased strength, have been a key issue in debate over allowing trans athletes to compete in events consistent with their gender identity...Scott said he also approves of U Sports' allowance for transgender athletes to play in a category consistent with their sex assigned at birth.
But he is critical of the policy's absence of language to include non-binary athletes, who don't identify as either male or female. This is a common shortcoming of policies aimed at inclusivity, he said.
Despite the fact that the squishy folks who govern university athletics in Canada have already buckled and handed the trans activists precisely what they wanted, you'll notice that it is never enough. What about non-binary people?? comes the next demand.
And of course, there's no way of "including" people who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are neither male nor female, because there is no sports league for people who are confused about their gender--there is only male leagues and female leagues. "Non-binary" people will thus have to pick a team.
***
In the United Kingdom, the transgender ideology is transforming the Girl Guides with updated rules: Boys who identified as girls are permitted to share female facilities, including the bathroom, changing rooms, and showers.
As insane as that might sound, the leaders of the Girl Guides are apparently brooking no dissent concerning their surrender to gender ideology. Helen Watts, a leader in the Girl Guides, is saying that she's been fired after raising concern about some of the transgender rules, noting that a social worker she had spoken to worried that these new guidelines opened up the possibility of predatory men being able to see girls showering as well as potentially sharing tents with them.
Boys identifying as girls can join the Girl Guides, but this means that men identifying as women can become Girl Guide leaders, too.
In a move to suppress criticism, the Girl Guides decided that leaders like Watts would not be permitted to tell parents or the girls themselves if one of the "girls" or leaders was actually a biological male.
Girls joining an all-girls organization, in other words, could not be sure that those they were sharing a tent with were actually anatomically female, and parents would not be informed if the nice lady running the Girl Guides group was actually a biological male.
When Watts spoke out about the issue in a private Facebook group she was fired.
The Girl Guides has been unapologetic about firing Watts, and informed her that as long as she refused to follow the Girlguiding's equality and diversity policy, she was unwelcome in the organization.
***
Last month, I noted the utter self-absorption of trans activists who were actually complaining that mastectomies for women suffering from life-threatening breast cancer were taking precedent over their own "top surgeries," in which healthy breasts would be removed in order to make them look more male.
Some trans activists, however, are willing to take it further--while many are intentionally destroying their own ability to produce children, they have decided that it is the responsibility of the state to help them in this regard. From The Guardian:
NHS England is to be taken to court by the UK's equality watchdog for failing to offer fertility services to transgender patients. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will launch a high-profile judicial review action, a legal manoeuvre that is likely to prove controversial at a time when the NHS is struggling to balance budgets and provide core services.
In other words, while "core services"--life-saving, necessary treatment--is underfunded, trans activists are demanding that the fertility that in many cases they intentionally destroyed with hormone treatments and voluntary castration be restored or preserved by the already overstretched National Health Service. More:
Last month the Observer reported that the commission had written to NHS England putting it on notice that it needed to offer fertility services to transgender patients before they underwent treatment for gender dysphoria, a process that normally results in a loss of fertility.
By extracting and storing eggs and sperm before they undergo gender reassignment, transgender people can choose to have their biological children delivered via surrogates later in life. However, many are keen to proceed with treatment when they are teenagers, and may not have the resources to pay for such fertility services. This, the commission argues, discriminates against transgender people, whom it says should be offered the services as a standard procedure.
NHS England maintains that it is not its responsibility to ensure that fertility treatment is available to all patients, including transgender people. Currently it falls to individual clinical commissioning groups - the bodies that buy services for patients - to decide whether to provide them on the NHS, but many choose not to do so for transgender patients, according to the commission.
After receiving NHS England's response, the commission has said it will now start legal proceedings. It is understood that NHS England continues to argue that it is under no obligation to offer the service at a national level.
This is an extraordinary and bizarre marriage of the nanny state and the Sexual Revolution: The government and the taxpayers are expected to provide transgender people with children once they have attempted a sex change.
Those suffering from gender dysphoria must be given what they want, regardless of material reality or the fact that in most cases, they have chosen to eliminate their fertility--and if they do not get what they want, they're planning (as always) to sue.
Originally published at The Bridgehead - reposted with permission.
