British Authorities Pushing Back Against “Affirmation” as Appropriate Care in Transgender Claims

Meanwhile, in England, experts and authorities are pushing back at the prevailing gender ideology, arguing that children should receive real medical care, not "affirmation." When a child thinks she has an appendectomy (because many of her friends think she should get an appendectomy), doctors don't automatically operate. They do (and should) ask questions and conduct test to determine whether an appendectomy is really needed. Excerpt from the article, "Sajid Javid inquiry into gender treatment for children":

"Vulnerable children are wrongly being given gender hormone treatment by the NHS, Sajid Javid believes, as he prepares to launch an urgent inquiry. The health secretary thinks the system is “failing children” and is planning an overhaul of how health service staff deal with under-18s who question their gender identity . . .

Hilary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, has been leading a review into NHS gender identity services for children. In interim findings last month, she said children were being affected by a lack of expert agreement about the nature of gender identity problems, a “lottery” of care and long waiting lists.

Javid is said to be particularly alarmed by her finding that some non-specialist staff felt “under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach” to transitioning and that other mental health issues were “overshadowed” when gender was raised.

“This has been a growing issue for years and it’s clear we’re not taking this seriously enough,” an ally of the health secretary said. “If you look at Hilary Cass’s interim report, the findings are deeply concerning and it’s clear from that report that we’re failing children.”

The ally said services should have a holistic view of what might be causing problems for that child: a mental health issue, bullying or sexual abuse.

“That overly affirmative approach where people just accept what a child says, almost automatically, and then start talking about things like puberty blockers — that’s not in the interest of the child at all,” the ally said."

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Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM) Helps to Level the Playing Field for People who Cannot Afford Attorneys

How does Legal Services of Eastern Missouri help to level the playing field for people who cannot afford attorneys? Tim Cronin and I had the opportunity to discuss LSEM's ambitious and daunting mission with Karen Warren, Associate Director for Outreach and Administration and Dan Glazier, Executive Director & General Counsel. Episode I of the Simon Law podcast, "The Jury is Out" has already been released. Episode II will be released shortly.

Here is the most shocking thing I learned during these discussions. The entire annual national budget for ALL of the Legal Services offices nationwide is less than $500M. As Dan revealed in Episode I, that is the same amount of money that Americans spent last year on halloween costumes . . . for their pets. Please consider supporting LSEM financially. If you are an attorney in the STL area, they would also welcome your assistance as a volunteer.

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How to Be a Human Animal, Chapter 15: The Danger of Empathy: Exhibit A: The Coddling of Children

Chapter 15: The Danger of Empathy: Exhibit A: The Coddling of Children.

I’m back again to preach to you ad nauseum today, hypothetical newborn baby! I'm here once again to teach you some of the many Life Lessons I was forced to learn at the School of Hard Knocks. My intentions are honorable. I’m here to spare you some suffering, but based on today’s topic I am concerned that you might be better off leaning these lessons on your own, much as I did. BTW, you can find all fifteen lessons in one easy link.

You were born into a complex adaptive system. Yes, you do have exquisite powers of perception and memory but they are often no match for the complexity of your environment. Hence, the law of unintended consequences: You will often find that your well-intended actions will result in outcomes that are not the ones you intended or foresaw. The result will often be disappointing. We have a saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Sometimes, though, you do something and it turns out wildly better than you could ever have hoped. When that happens, you might be tempted to claim that you knew it all along, but that would often be an illustration of the “hindsight bias.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

To illustrate how things can go unexpectedly awry, I will start by referring to the work of Paul Bloom, who wrote a 2016 book titled: Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. He defines “empathy” as follows: “Empathy is the act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does." He further describes empathy as "a spotlight directing attention and aid to where it's needed."  According to Bloom, empathy is an emotion, not a good tool for moral decision-making. “Compassion,” on the other hand, is feeling concern or compassion for someone. Bloom contrasts empathy with "rational compassion," which can productively be used to “make decisions based on considerations of cost and benefits." Empathy, by contrast, has no such protective limitations, meaning that empathy often leads to ill-considered policies. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingHow to Be a Human Animal, Chapter 15: The Danger of Empathy: Exhibit A: The Coddling of Children

Restricting the COVID Restrictors

I agree with Dr. Vinay Prasad:

Let’s reflect on this for a moment. NYC school district has been requiring children wear masks OUTSIDE all this time. Years after we knew the virus almost never spreads outside. During recess when kids play, forced to wear a mask while exerting themselves. Wow!

Whoever made the policy is an idiot. No way around it. They are not fit for policymaking. They abused the power of government to coerce children (at incredibly low risk of bad outcomes) to wear a mask in a setting where the virus simply does not spread. In other words, they participated in something done in the name of public health, which actually made human beings worse off. Worse, they used coercive force to do it.

Post-COVID we need to seriously talk about setting restrictions. But not on people. We need to place restrictions on public health and things done in the name of public health. We cannot allow individuals who are poor at weighing risk and benefit and uncertainty to coerce human beings, disproportionately the young and powerless (waiters/ servers) to participate in interventions that have no data supporting them, for years on end.

Here are the first two of Prasad's eight take-home suggestions:

  1. In an emergency situation, if governments mandate or advise individual level behavioral interventions (e.g. masking), those entities should have generate robust data in 3 months (cluster RCTs) to demonstrate efficacy, or the intervention is automatically revoked. Some may argue 3 months is too short, but if it is truly a crisis warranting emergency proclamations, then you should see a signal in 3 months, and governments can expand sample size to ensure prompt results

  2. If a trial is positive that does not mean the policy continues forever, but must be debated (net benefit/ net harms/ tradeoffs) by the body politic.

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Illustration of the COVID insanity all-too-prevalent in Australia.

From Russell Brand's Video Description: "As Australian police arrest middle aged women for allegedly nor showing their vaccine passports, its politicians are considering charging the unvaccinated for healthcare. So, are we witnessing the creation of a two-tier society?"

Continue ReadingIllustration of the COVID insanity all-too-prevalent in Australia.