Lisa Selin Davis, the author of Tomboy, writes about her daughter, a girl mistaken for a boy, and the confusion that follows. It’s a story about gender, about how we see it, and how we teach it. It’s about bathrooms and playgrounds, about short hair and long hair, about boys and girls and those who don’t fit neatly into either box.
She worries that we’re teaching kids to fix themselves, to change who they are to fit into a world that doesn’t understand them. She worries about the ‘snowplow’ parents who try to clear the path for their kids, who try to shield them from every hurt and every pain.
Davis worries about a generation of kids who are identifying out of their sex. She worries about the kids who are so desperate to escape their pain that they’ll do anything to be free.
Kids are being taught that feelings are facts, that words can be violence, that to be misgendered is to be harmed. They’re being taught that discomfort is something to be avoided, not something to be endured.
But she also sees hope. She talks about the girls who grew up nonconforming, who grew up different, who grew up strong. She talks about the resilience they developed, the self-confidence they found, the way they learned to navigate a world that didn’t understand them.
In the end, Davis wants to teach kids to accept suffering, to understand that pain is a part of life. She wants to teach them to be resilient, to be strong, to be themselves. She wants to change the world, but she also wants to teach her kids to navigate the world as it is. Because the world is tough, and it’s confusing, and it’s full of pain. But it’s also full of beauty, and joy, and the possibility of change.
Women’s sport federation adopts a familiar attitude: Sit down, honey. Be quiet already. Haven’t we made it clear that we don’t want to hear from you? This is not your place.
This is precisely her place. Our place. Take the blinders off. Rise up. https://t.co/CHhZcc8TPV
The article, “Is There a Doctor in the House?” informs us about progressive political ideologies that they argue are infiltrating the medical profession and radically altering the doctor patient relationship. They express concern about the emphasis on social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), racial bias, and health equity, which they believe are being prioritized over biological sex.
It is an extensive article covering several important concerns. Here are just a few.
In the realm of medical ethics, a revolution is underway. The banners of social justice are being raised, and under their shadow, the landscape of medicine is being redrawn. The architects of this new world order are the proponents of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and their CRT & queer theory tainted blueprints are marked by a distinct departure from the traditional foundations of medical ethics.
Lahl and Fell cast a critical eye on this unfolding revolution. They warn of the dangers of erasing the lines of biological sex in favour of the nebulous concept of self-identified gender. They lament the loss of language specific to women’s health, replaced by neutral terms that blur the significance of biological sex in medical research and patient care.
Terms traditionally used in clinical settings, such as “mothers,” are being replaced with neutral ‘inoffensive’ alternatives like “birthing parents.” Similarly, the term “woman” is frequently substituted with “individuals with a cervix.”
In essence, Lahl and Fell argue that this paradigm shift is “queering” the natural world by denying biological realities and replacing them with self-identified identities, which could potentially lead to harm and confusion in medical contexts.
They draw attention to a recent paper that seeks to redefine the boundaries of medical ethics, a paper advocating for the disregard of the health and safety of the developing fetus in the name oftransgender inclusion. This, they argue, is a perilous path that veers away from evidence-based medicine and towards healthcare dictated by activists.
For example, Lahl & Fell warn of the dangers of ignoring the known effects of testosterone on the developing fetus of a ‘transman’. They argue that a conservative, precautionary approach is warranted, and that the principles of medical ethics should guide the treatment of both the mother (pregnant ‘transman’) and the unborn child.
The activists who wrote the paper they critique do not share that concern.
Here’s a eye-opening quote from Lahl & Fell’s critique of those activists, whom they describe as “a group of transgender sociologists and enthusiasts, and healthcare activists, with not one medical degree among them.”
[The activists] argue that “gendered” pregnancy care is too focused on helping women have healthy babies, and that it might be okay for transmen to continue taking testosterone during pregnancy despite the known health risks to the fetus and effects on its normal development. The desire for “normal fetal outcomes,” according to the [activists], is rooted in a problematic desire “to protect their offspring from becoming anything other than ‘normal’” and “reflect historical and ongoing social practices for creating ‘ideal’ and normative bodies.”
This is, quite frankly, insane.
Yes. It. Is.
As this blog has repeatedly done, Lahl & Fell call for a return to the principles of evidence-based medicine. AND…a return to normal.
“Stop ‘queering’ the natural world,” we say.
The pursuit of social justice should not come at the expense of the health and safety of patients, particularly mother and child.
Nor, I’m compelled to say, at the expense of Truth. It won’t end well.
