The transgender movement has conquered America life. In a new short film, I explain how the movement gained power and connect the dots between its key intellectuals, billionaire benefactor, and large-scale medical experiments in a Detroit ghetto.
This is why the news media never shows you the books being “banned”.
If you saw the books, you’d disagree with them and side with decency and agree these are inappropriate for young kids.
So now I will show you.
CONTENT WARNING!!!!!
When they accuse us of “banning books” they’re referring to graphic books containing pornographic content offered to kids in schools across the country.
For some reason, they never show examples from the books 🤔
Even Obama has rushed out to defend the pervs pushing this on kids, of course. But like the media, he doesn’t show you what they’re trying to show the kids.
I would love to see Obama be forced to defend the specific content of "Gender Queer" and why it has to be in school libraries. In any event, it's love to see a guy who spied on journalists opportunistically caring about the First Amendment. https://t.co/OFwX4UIDbn
The media of course sides with the pervs and groomers. If decency wins the day, it’s all the fault of right wingers pointing out the pesky truth.
I seriously believe the authors should re-read this article and come to grips with their apparent rage they have that Calif Republicans made trafficking children for sex a serious felony.
— Maret Jaks – NOT YOUR DONKEY 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇪🇪🇬🇧🇧🇪 (@MaretJaks) July 17, 2023
Wait…..bipartisan effort to strengthen laws to protect children and you decide it’s a good idea to come down on the side that doesn’t think protecting kids from human trafficking is a good thing? Odd way of admitting you’re pro pedo, even by California standards.
Disney continues to push the perv agenda with their newest remake, Snow White and the 7 Gender Fluid Misfits…
Gee, why are they losing billions?
The Daily Mail on Friday published photos from the set of Disney’s upcoming live-action 'Snow White,' sparking a storm of conservative backlash. Disney initially claimed the pictures from the live-action set were “fake” but later backtracked. https://t.co/IfHM8I83WH
Welcome to some of the first images from Disney’s live action remake of Snow White and her DEI Dwarfs. Snow White is played by a Hispanic actress and there’s only one dwarf and 6 full gown adults. Disney says it’s taking the casting of the film in a “new direction” to “avoid… pic.twitter.com/sqiRHkyf97
This is pretty hilarious. Photos from Disney’s woke Snow White remake leaked. They were mocked so heavily that Disney panicked and claimed the pictures were fake. A day later they had to admit that the photos are real just “not official.” pic.twitter.com/zS8XzZCR97
KJP gives John Kirby's arm a little thank you squeeze after he spends minutes attempting to explain why abortion is essential to military readiness. pic.twitter.com/tShP9sK4jU
Dare to side with decency and you will be attacked by the Democrats, their media stooges, and the left.
MSNBC’s @jrpsaki on @Moms4Liberty: “They are an unapologetically extreme organization that has built a long record of harassment & controversy in a pretty short period of time.” pic.twitter.com/9Nub7G0sEz
Cont’d: “That behavior is not isolated, it’s part of a bigger pattern. Chapters & members across the country have led campaigns targeting community advocates, school board members, and opposing groups. They have repeatedly sent intimidating messages, openly threatened officials,…
She mentions The Kite Runner and The Bluest Eye, but why doesn't she mention the books most parents want banned: Gender Queer and Lawn Boy and the other "books" that are hardcore child pornography and x-rated queer fetish smut? Scared to talk about those "books," Jen? https://t.co/5kU3RZSsnu
Reminder: they’re coming after Moms for Liberty because they’re effective. Don’t get skittish, conservatives, I know winning feels weird. https://t.co/DzTGPpOApP
Are we sure we have enough minority train engineers? I’m beginning to think this must be the problem with all these derailments. We need to know if the conductor was white.
If it’s good for pilots it’s got to be good for trains. Diversity is our strength.
People need to start paying attention to what Dems are up to. Europe is already turning away from many of the things they’re pushing, having learned the hard way. But Dems are full speed ahead….
“When Ideology Corrupts Medicine—and How One Reporter Exposed it
A conversation with Hannah Barnes about the medical scandal at Tavistock, the UK’s flagship youth gender clinic.”
“Last month, Britain’s National Health Service made major news when they announced that they were banning the use of puberty blockers for children, except for those enrolled in a tightly regulated clinical trial. The decision was made after an independent review found there were “significant uncertainties” surrounding the long-term effects of these drugs, which had previously been touted as totally reversible.
The announcement followed another major decision the NHS made last year on the same subject, which was to close Britain and Wales’ only treatment center for children with gender dysphoria: the Gender and Identity Development Service (GIDS) at Tavistock. The NHS found that the care provided at GIDS, which has operated for nearly 35 years, was “not safe or viable as a long-term option for the care of young people with gender related distress.”
These decisions bring the UK in sync with countries like Sweden and Norway, which have made similar policy decisions about gender care for children. But all of those countries are light-years away from how the United States approaches these issues.
My guest today, Hannah Barnes, has reported on this topic for years. Indeed, her reporting was the catalyst for many of these new changes. She’s here to explain what happened in the UK, and why the U.S. is so out of step with one of our strongest allies.
Hannah is an award-winning investigations producer at Newsnight, one of the BBC’s flagship news programs. Her important new book, Time To Think, follows the story from Tavistock’s inception to its imminent closure. It investigates how a clinic can open its doors to thousands of young patients at their most vulnerable, how it can operate for more than three decades without oversight or regulation, and how—in the words of some of the clinic’s own staff—this “medical scandal” unfolded.
On investigating the Gender Identity Development Service at Tavistock:
Bari Weiss: Hannah, you’ve had a really long career at the BBC. You’re an award-winning producer for their flagship news and current affairs program, Newsnight, which is a bit like 60 Minutes in terms of prestige. For the past decade and a half, you’ve been reporting and editing some of the BBC’s most respected documentaries and shows. But for whatever reason, you decided to step into the most controversial topic in the world. Why did you decide to do that?
Hannah Barnes: Well, I didn’t realize at the time it was the most controversial topic in the world. I think I stepped into it because I thought there was something going on there, and it’s the job of a journalist to shine a light on something that’s important but that we’re not hearing much about. This is about children receiving off-label drugs and doing something potentially major to their bodies. For some children that will obviously be the right path, but when we started looking into it, we found that there were ten clinicians—a quarter of the staff—at the Gender Identity Development Service (or GIDS) that had expressed quite serious concerns at this point. Yet, the British media weren’t giving it the attention it deserved. I went into it thinking I don’t know if what they’re saying is true, but it’s really worth looking at because that’s the kind of thing we should be doing as journalists.
BW: And as you’re looking through the documents, the internal emails, these unpublished reports, what was your light bulb moment, if there was one? When did you realize that this wasn’t just a few examples of treatment gone awry but a system-wide problem?
HB: So, this is a healthcare story. No one is questioning someone’s identity or that trans people should have anything other than happy lives free of harassment. It wasn’t about identity for us ever. It’s about “Are vulnerable young people being given the best and safest care possible in each and every case?” But I think I realized that there was something quite serious here when I saw the transcripts of some of the interviews that took place as part of an official review of the clinic that was published early in 2019. The review said they had investigated, and none of the concerns that had been raised and leaked to the media were of immediate safeguarding concerns. And then you read what a sizable number of clinicians told the medical director on record, and it’s awful. Some of them had serious child protection concerns. There were clinicians saying these are some of the most vulnerable children they’d ever worked with and they are in really desperate situations. In some cases they’re being referred for a medical intervention after an hour. It’s quite clear from those documents just how worried they are, and it’s just impossible to see those concerns as coming from a place of transphobia. It’s just not credible. These are professional people who’ve dedicated their working lives to helping young people, and what they were saying boils down to: this is not good clinical practice. This isn’t how we’ve ever practiced in other places we’ve worked. Somehow, because this is a gender clinic, the same questions that we would ask normally were not welcome.
On whistleblowers, ignored research, and bad clinical practice:
BW: In your book, you report that in 2000 there was an internal audit done of about 150 patients at the Tavistock gender clinic. That audit found the vast majority of the clinic’s patients were dealing with lots of other issues on top of gender dysphoria, whether that was anxiety or depression, abuse in the home, or an eating disorder. There was this additional internal report done in 2005 by the medical director of Tavistock, and what it found was pretty alarming. It found that no one was collecting data on the patients and that there was a lot of internal confusion and conflict within the clinic about the very treatments they were providing. In short, providers at Tavistock could not agree on whether they were treating children distressed because they were trans or children who identified as trans because they were distressed? Or was it a combination of both? The medical director also said this of puberty blockers in 2005: “They are relatively untested and unresearched.” Tell me about both of these findings of the audit and the report, and what changes were made at the gender clinic following these things coming to light.
HB: The audit was meant to be the start of a more rigorous, scientific approach to helping this group of vulnerable young people. The better you know your patients and what’s going on with them, the more you can cater their care. So David Freedman, a social sciences researcher, undertook this audit with a couple of other people, and the idea was that they would use the findings to improve, and then continue. But they didn’t do that. Even in 2005, Sue Evans, who was the first whistleblower, felt that young people were being referred too quickly for physical interventions for puberty blockers, and there really wasn’t adequate exploration in some of these cases. So, the report, which was very thorough, went unseen until 2020 when I filed a Freedom of Information Act and received it from Tavistock (they had resisted quite vigorously). And it’s really striking because the recommendations are really sensible. What Dr. David Taylor, who was the medical director, said was: if we’re going to do this, we need to do it properly. We need to conduct proper research. How are these young people using the blocker? Are they using it as time to think, or what else is going on? Who are the people that we’re seeing? And he said, look, I’m not saying we shouldn’t use blockers. But they should be a last resort. Therapy should come first. Most importantly, he said, we have to support our staff in being able to say no when a patient requests puberty blockers and intervention. And he said, if our staff doesn’t think it’s appropriate, they must be able to say no and be supported in doing that. Dr. Taylor also suggested that they do regular and retrospective audits of both those who went on the blockers and those who didn’t, because you can learn from everyone. But none of that happened. So, as for the second part of your question, how were the findings used? Well, they were ignored.
On the NHS’s decision to close Tavistock:
BW: Your reporting helped precipitate this very extensive review by the UK’s National Health Service in February 2022, which found that the type of care that was being provided at the Tavistock gender clinic wasn’t safe. Dr. Hilary Cass wrote in one part of the report that, “Primary and secondary care staff have told us that they feel under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach and that this is at odds with the standard process of clinical assessment and diagnosis that they have been trained to undertake in all other clinical encounters.” Tell us about the details of the report and why the NHS ultimately decided that they’re going to close the clinic in 2024.
HB: In January 2021, the CQC, our healthcare inspectorate, published a report that rated the clinic and its leadership inadequate. While it acknowledged that the staff were compassionate and cared about the young people, the report said that in lots of cases there was no evidence informed consent had been obtained. They said that risk wasn’t being adequately managed, both for those on the very long waiting list for care, but also those who were already being treated at the service. They said they couldn’t understand why clinical decisions had been taken because it wasn’t well documented. There wasn’t the expertise to deal with young people with autistic traits who, according to Tavistock’s own figures at one point at least, made up 35 percent of referrals. They said that staff felt unable to speak up for fear of retribution. The report was very, very damning. When we got the interim report from Dr. Cass, it was quite sad because she made exactly the same points that these members of staff had been raising for seven years, but nothing had changed. It explained that there needed to be different pathways—that, just as there were different ways into gender dysphoria, there had to be different ways out of it as well. It said there was no agreement on what the purpose of the blocker was. All these things were—although they wouldn’t put it in these words—vindicated, really. As a consequence of that, the NHS made the decision that it has to be a fundamentally different model that was more holistic. There had to be greater emphasis on mental health, and you needed experts in really working with young people. You didn’t have to be a gender expert; you needed to understand adolescents and mental health, and maybe autism and neurodiversity and trauma. Dr. Cass called for a fundamentally different model, and the NHS is now closing GIDS, the Tavistock gender clinic. It was meant to be shut by now, but it’s going to be another year, they say. March 2024 is the latest they’ve given. In the meantime, it’s a complete mess. You’ve got 8,000-plus struggling young people on a waiting list with absolutely no care or support whatsoever. “
“A new FBI whistleblower has confirmed that FBI headquarters and the Secret Service colluded to keep Hunter Biden from having to do an interview with the agents investigating his illegal activities.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
🚨BREAKING🚨
Today, our committee staff conducted a transcribed interview with a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation.
The agent CONFIRMED key portions of the IRS whistleblowers’ testimony, including…
“I am sure this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, leading the MSM to hop on the bandwagon and start demanding answers from the FBI and begin digging into the clear politicization of the nation’s law enforcement apparatus, right?
After all, the media could be forgiven for covering for the FBI after the FISA court rebuked the agency for lying to them. And after the Inspector General report detailed massive incompetence and political bias. And after the Durham Report blew the lid off the Crossfire Hurricane fiasco. And after multiple whistleblowers revealed the political machinations that kept Hunter Biden nearly free and clear after his uncountable felonies, most were caught on tape and many were put down in his own words.
That’s understandable, because the FBI had some credibility to burn, after all.
But now that all the credibility was used up, I expect the MSM will feel a bit embarrassed about being so credulous and finally dig in as yet another FBI agent picks up yet another rock, revealing the creepy crawlies underneath.
Uh-huh.”
—
“House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer issued the following statement after committee staff today conducted a transcribed interview with a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation:
“Today, a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation confirmed key portions of the IRS whistleblower’s testimony. The night before the interview of Hunter Biden, both Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were tipped off about the planned interview. On the day of the Hunter Biden interview, federal agents were told to stand by and could not approach Hunter Biden—they had to wait for his call. As a result of the change in plans, IRS and FBI criminal investigators never got to interview Hunter Biden as part of the investigation.
“The Justice Department’s efforts to cover up for the Bidens reveals a two-tiered system of justice that sickens the American people. The Oversight Committee, along with the Judiciary Committee and Ways and Means Committee, will continue to seek the answers, transparency, and accountability that the American people demand and deserve.””
“While it took the Biden administration the better part of six months to drain the US oil supply down to a precarious 20-days of emergency reserves (a 40-year low), it will take decades to refill – if that happens at all, Bloomberg reports.
Thanks to the Biden administration, these reserve sites are sitting half empty.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) now sits at 346.8 million barrels – a level unseen since 1983 – out of a total authorized storage capacity of 714 million.
Perhaps even more noteworthy, the emergency reserves are equal to approximately just 20 days worth of supply – an all-time record low…”
Why Are So Many of Our Youth Identifying as LGBTQ+?
Many in the Gen Z and alpha generation who currently find their value, meaning, and identity in an LGBTQ+ label will, in God’s good timing, find Christ alone to be their all-in-all.
~ … Regardless of what you think about COVID lockdowns, we can’t deny the social impact of forced isolation. Kids were taken out of school and put in front of screens. Not only were many of these children receiving consistent LGBTQ+ indoctrination in their virtual classrooms, but they were also getting heavy doses of it on social media. By April 2020, just as the lockdowns began, TikTok surpassed 2 billion downloads worldwide.
Consider what happens when our youth are cut off from the real world and plugged into an attractive, addictive virtual world algorithmically curated to show only one perspective?
Social media platforms specialize in creating echo chambers, with sophisticated algorithms designed to keep our attention as long as possible. The more we click on one type of video or post, the more we’ll see that type of content. Even if we click on just one pro-LGBTQ+ post, we’ll start seeing more of them. The more we click, the more dominated our feed becomes. Consider what happens when our youth are cut off from the real world and plugged into an attractive, addictive virtual world algorithmically curated to show only one perspective? …
… Adolescence is a scary, confusing time for everyone. Our bodies and minds are going through countless changes which we struggle to know how to interpret. But now doctors, teachers, therapists, scientists, and politicians are giving new answers for these age-old questions. Consider that 66% of Gen Zers identifying at LGBTQ+ identify as bisexual. Why has bisexuality become so prevalent? Boys and especially girls will often go through seasons during adolescence when they might develop new feelings for a friend of the same sex. Historically, those feelings wouldn’t have materialized into anything more than a fleeting quasi-crush, leading to little (if any) questioning of their sexuality. But today, their radars have been trained and conditioned to see even the slightest attraction toward the same sex as incontrovertible evidence that they are indeed bisexual.
The questions used to be, “How do I live as a man? How do I live as a woman?” But now the question every child is being forced to consider is, “Am I a boy or a girl?” …
… I recently spoke at a retreat for a few hundred Christian college students from a variety of secular campuses. I was sobered by the extent to which worldly categories have infiltrated this generation. The deck has been stacked against them. They’ve been fed language, narratives, and parameters that prohibit any biblical categorization for who we are and how we are to live. Truly, Gen Z needs an entire deconstruction of their sexual worldview for a biblical framework to make any sense. …
… But this is where Christians have every reason for unshakable hope and confidence: we have a better story to tell. The gospel is the only narrative that accounts for everything we experience in this life and promises transcendent, everlasting hope and purpose. And we have the best Story-Teller in the universe! If you’re a Christian, it’s because you were told the story of the gospel by the Holy Spirit. Yes, you audibly heard it through a human voice. But spiritually, your ears were opened, and your heart brought to life by the voice of God himself. Jesus, our great Shepherd, calls his sheep by name, and his sheep know his voice (John 10:27). …
And re ‘doing politics’ with humility for those who are believers in this heated season:
Cherie Harder, president of The Trinity Forum:
~ If your aim is a just, civil, charitable and flourishing society, your means must also be just, civil, and charitable. You can’t have means that contradict the end.
And a second thing I’ll mention is the self deception that eventually comes with that. As believers, we follow the Way, the Truth and the Life. But it’s often tempting to believe that, because we follow the truth, we always have the truth. But our ability to accurately perceive truth in any given moment is affected by the fall. Our judgment is not perfect. And so it’s important to allow for what’s been called a healthy “epistemological modesty.” ~
We all knew this was coming… they’re going to throw everything they can at Pres. Trump to keep him from winning the Presidency again. Yet they can’t find who brought cocaine into the most secure building in the country?
It’s actually an attack on We the People. They are not just going after Pres. Trump, they are seeking to silence anyone who questions the Communist Party. (This has been repeated over and over in the history of the world.) Our Founding Fathers warned us that this would happen…
Election interference strikes again! The people aren’t going to tolerate it…
“Former President Donald Trump said that he received a letter on July 17 informing him that he is a target of the special counsel investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
Mr. Trump said the Sunday letter from special counsel Jack Smith gave him four days to report to a grand jury. In a message posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on July 18, the former president suggested that the short deadline may mean he would be arrested and indicted.
Mr. Trump called the letter “HORRIFYING NEWS for our country” and framed it with the backdrop of the two other indictments he is facing amid a heated presidential reelection campaign in which he is dominating the GOP field.
Mr. Trump was charged earlier this year in connection to payments for a non-disclosure agreement in a state case in New York. He was later charged in a federal case in Miami in connection to his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
“THIS WITCH HUNT IS ALL ABOUT ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND A COMPLETE AND TOTAL POLITICAL WEAPONIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT,” Trump wrote.
Mr. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for a copy of the target letter. The Epoch Times has also asked Mr. Trump’s campaign to answer whether he would present himself to the grand jury as the letter reportedly ordered.
The Department of Justice has indicted hundreds of people for participating in the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In two of the most prominent cases, the government convinced juries in Washington that members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, two right-wing groups, were guilty of seditious conspiracy.
Legal experts had previously suggested that the successful prosecution of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys cases spelled trouble for Trump, who could be snarled with seditious conspiracy charges over parts of the speech he delivered on Jan. 6 and other remarks he made leading up to that day.
Defense attorneys maintained that their clients exercised their First Amendment rights to free speech.
The Proud Boys were convicted even though an FBI informant testified that, to his knowledge, there was no organized plan to storm the building. Instead, he said, “a herd mentality” took hold.”
Pathetic. DeSantis is now echoing Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney talking points because he now fully recognizes that his only chance of winning the nomination is if the Biden DOJ takes Trump out.
People need to be held responsible, or they’ll keep doing it. This is the establishment/uni-party answer.
Ron DeSantis Blames President Trump for J6 Insurrection, Pledges to Stop Prosecuting Corrupt Democrats and Return to Political Civility https://t.co/UzRHsrKDcI
Under oath, unlike the liars on the Jan6 Committee.
🚨FBI whistleblower testifies under oath that FBI won’t allow 11,000+ hours of J6 footage to be released b/c it would expose undercover agents committing crimes inside Capitol
Having read up on some of the most banned books, I saw most were LGBQT memoirs. Would those in favor of censorship be okay with Lolita? The other issue would be teacher guidance in reading “controversial” books. I’ve discussed Ellen Hopkins books with students, and the methods are similar to discuss Lord of the Flies or Mice and Men. With the right person these books don’t elicit controversy
Not that I support Disney but its still making billions no matter what crap they produce. Twitter on the other hand is falling apart.
Is it ideology or profit that is tainting medicine? In Europe and elsewhere, health care is non profit. They look at the evidence and decide. Now in the US, profit is included in the equation. Could it be that profit is the reason trans care is far more common in the US than in Scandinavia ? They are far more “woke” than the US but are far more cautious about trans care. Perhaps money is the factor.
Curious; How do extended sick leave apply in the military in all cases. Comparing hormone treatment individuals with maternity and other health leaves, do LGBQT reasons receive different treatment. I certainly hope maternity leave is generous and similar to hormone treatment.
Wandering Views 
Know your enemy.
Educate yourselves.
https://twitter.com/donna_woman1/status/1679144496829980672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1679144496829980672%7Ctwgr%5Ecf426f9a5190872302d3d00f40e80803ea283fdb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fbrettt%2F2023%2F07%2F15%2Fchristopher-rufo-releases-short-video-exposing-the-transgender-empire-n2385436
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CONTENT WARNING!!!!!
This is why the news media never shows you the books being “banned”.
If you saw the books, you’d disagree with them and side with decency and agree these are inappropriate for young kids.
So now I will show you.
CONTENT WARNING!!!!!
Even Obama has rushed out to defend the pervs pushing this on kids, of course. But like the media, he doesn’t show you what they’re trying to show the kids.
So which book exactly are you speaking of Barry?
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The media of course sides with the pervs and groomers. If decency wins the day, it’s all the fault of right wingers pointing out the pesky truth.
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Disney continues to push the perv agenda with their newest remake, Snow White and the 7 Gender Fluid Misfits…
Gee, why are they losing billions?
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Democrats just can’t stand that any limitations be put on abortion. It’s a religion to them. Moloch would be pleased.
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Dare to side with decency and you will be attacked by the Democrats, their media stooges, and the left.
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Jen gets fact checked, and is found lacking. 🙂
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Where’s Mayor Pete?
Biden?
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People need to start paying attention to what Dems are up to. Europe is already turning away from many of the things they’re pushing, having learned the hard way. But Dems are full speed ahead….
“When Ideology Corrupts Medicine—and How One Reporter Exposed it
A conversation with Hannah Barnes about the medical scandal at Tavistock, the UK’s flagship youth gender clinic.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/when-gender-ideology-corrupts-medicine-tavistock
“Last month, Britain’s National Health Service made major news when they announced that they were banning the use of puberty blockers for children, except for those enrolled in a tightly regulated clinical trial. The decision was made after an independent review found there were “significant uncertainties” surrounding the long-term effects of these drugs, which had previously been touted as totally reversible.
The announcement followed another major decision the NHS made last year on the same subject, which was to close Britain and Wales’ only treatment center for children with gender dysphoria: the Gender and Identity Development Service (GIDS) at Tavistock. The NHS found that the care provided at GIDS, which has operated for nearly 35 years, was “not safe or viable as a long-term option for the care of young people with gender related distress.”
These decisions bring the UK in sync with countries like Sweden and Norway, which have made similar policy decisions about gender care for children. But all of those countries are light-years away from how the United States approaches these issues.
My guest today, Hannah Barnes, has reported on this topic for years. Indeed, her reporting was the catalyst for many of these new changes. She’s here to explain what happened in the UK, and why the U.S. is so out of step with one of our strongest allies.
Hannah is an award-winning investigations producer at Newsnight, one of the BBC’s flagship news programs. Her important new book, Time To Think, follows the story from Tavistock’s inception to its imminent closure. It investigates how a clinic can open its doors to thousands of young patients at their most vulnerable, how it can operate for more than three decades without oversight or regulation, and how—in the words of some of the clinic’s own staff—this “medical scandal” unfolded.
On investigating the Gender Identity Development Service at Tavistock:
Bari Weiss: Hannah, you’ve had a really long career at the BBC. You’re an award-winning producer for their flagship news and current affairs program, Newsnight, which is a bit like 60 Minutes in terms of prestige. For the past decade and a half, you’ve been reporting and editing some of the BBC’s most respected documentaries and shows. But for whatever reason, you decided to step into the most controversial topic in the world. Why did you decide to do that?
Hannah Barnes: Well, I didn’t realize at the time it was the most controversial topic in the world. I think I stepped into it because I thought there was something going on there, and it’s the job of a journalist to shine a light on something that’s important but that we’re not hearing much about. This is about children receiving off-label drugs and doing something potentially major to their bodies. For some children that will obviously be the right path, but when we started looking into it, we found that there were ten clinicians—a quarter of the staff—at the Gender Identity Development Service (or GIDS) that had expressed quite serious concerns at this point. Yet, the British media weren’t giving it the attention it deserved. I went into it thinking I don’t know if what they’re saying is true, but it’s really worth looking at because that’s the kind of thing we should be doing as journalists.
BW: And as you’re looking through the documents, the internal emails, these unpublished reports, what was your light bulb moment, if there was one? When did you realize that this wasn’t just a few examples of treatment gone awry but a system-wide problem?
HB: So, this is a healthcare story. No one is questioning someone’s identity or that trans people should have anything other than happy lives free of harassment. It wasn’t about identity for us ever. It’s about “Are vulnerable young people being given the best and safest care possible in each and every case?” But I think I realized that there was something quite serious here when I saw the transcripts of some of the interviews that took place as part of an official review of the clinic that was published early in 2019. The review said they had investigated, and none of the concerns that had been raised and leaked to the media were of immediate safeguarding concerns. And then you read what a sizable number of clinicians told the medical director on record, and it’s awful. Some of them had serious child protection concerns. There were clinicians saying these are some of the most vulnerable children they’d ever worked with and they are in really desperate situations. In some cases they’re being referred for a medical intervention after an hour. It’s quite clear from those documents just how worried they are, and it’s just impossible to see those concerns as coming from a place of transphobia. It’s just not credible. These are professional people who’ve dedicated their working lives to helping young people, and what they were saying boils down to: this is not good clinical practice. This isn’t how we’ve ever practiced in other places we’ve worked. Somehow, because this is a gender clinic, the same questions that we would ask normally were not welcome.
On whistleblowers, ignored research, and bad clinical practice:
BW: In your book, you report that in 2000 there was an internal audit done of about 150 patients at the Tavistock gender clinic. That audit found the vast majority of the clinic’s patients were dealing with lots of other issues on top of gender dysphoria, whether that was anxiety or depression, abuse in the home, or an eating disorder. There was this additional internal report done in 2005 by the medical director of Tavistock, and what it found was pretty alarming. It found that no one was collecting data on the patients and that there was a lot of internal confusion and conflict within the clinic about the very treatments they were providing. In short, providers at Tavistock could not agree on whether they were treating children distressed because they were trans or children who identified as trans because they were distressed? Or was it a combination of both? The medical director also said this of puberty blockers in 2005: “They are relatively untested and unresearched.” Tell me about both of these findings of the audit and the report, and what changes were made at the gender clinic following these things coming to light.
HB: The audit was meant to be the start of a more rigorous, scientific approach to helping this group of vulnerable young people. The better you know your patients and what’s going on with them, the more you can cater their care. So David Freedman, a social sciences researcher, undertook this audit with a couple of other people, and the idea was that they would use the findings to improve, and then continue. But they didn’t do that. Even in 2005, Sue Evans, who was the first whistleblower, felt that young people were being referred too quickly for physical interventions for puberty blockers, and there really wasn’t adequate exploration in some of these cases. So, the report, which was very thorough, went unseen until 2020 when I filed a Freedom of Information Act and received it from Tavistock (they had resisted quite vigorously). And it’s really striking because the recommendations are really sensible. What Dr. David Taylor, who was the medical director, said was: if we’re going to do this, we need to do it properly. We need to conduct proper research. How are these young people using the blocker? Are they using it as time to think, or what else is going on? Who are the people that we’re seeing? And he said, look, I’m not saying we shouldn’t use blockers. But they should be a last resort. Therapy should come first. Most importantly, he said, we have to support our staff in being able to say no when a patient requests puberty blockers and intervention. And he said, if our staff doesn’t think it’s appropriate, they must be able to say no and be supported in doing that. Dr. Taylor also suggested that they do regular and retrospective audits of both those who went on the blockers and those who didn’t, because you can learn from everyone. But none of that happened. So, as for the second part of your question, how were the findings used? Well, they were ignored.
On the NHS’s decision to close Tavistock:
BW: Your reporting helped precipitate this very extensive review by the UK’s National Health Service in February 2022, which found that the type of care that was being provided at the Tavistock gender clinic wasn’t safe. Dr. Hilary Cass wrote in one part of the report that, “Primary and secondary care staff have told us that they feel under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach and that this is at odds with the standard process of clinical assessment and diagnosis that they have been trained to undertake in all other clinical encounters.” Tell us about the details of the report and why the NHS ultimately decided that they’re going to close the clinic in 2024.
HB: In January 2021, the CQC, our healthcare inspectorate, published a report that rated the clinic and its leadership inadequate. While it acknowledged that the staff were compassionate and cared about the young people, the report said that in lots of cases there was no evidence informed consent had been obtained. They said that risk wasn’t being adequately managed, both for those on the very long waiting list for care, but also those who were already being treated at the service. They said they couldn’t understand why clinical decisions had been taken because it wasn’t well documented. There wasn’t the expertise to deal with young people with autistic traits who, according to Tavistock’s own figures at one point at least, made up 35 percent of referrals. They said that staff felt unable to speak up for fear of retribution. The report was very, very damning. When we got the interim report from Dr. Cass, it was quite sad because she made exactly the same points that these members of staff had been raising for seven years, but nothing had changed. It explained that there needed to be different pathways—that, just as there were different ways into gender dysphoria, there had to be different ways out of it as well. It said there was no agreement on what the purpose of the blocker was. All these things were—although they wouldn’t put it in these words—vindicated, really. As a consequence of that, the NHS made the decision that it has to be a fundamentally different model that was more holistic. There had to be greater emphasis on mental health, and you needed experts in really working with young people. You didn’t have to be a gender expert; you needed to understand adolescents and mental health, and maybe autism and neurodiversity and trauma. Dr. Cass called for a fundamentally different model, and the NHS is now closing GIDS, the Tavistock gender clinic. It was meant to be shut by now, but it’s going to be another year, they say. March 2024 is the latest they’ve given. In the meantime, it’s a complete mess. You’ve got 8,000-plus struggling young people on a waiting list with absolutely no care or support whatsoever. “
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Tear it down and rebuild.
“FBI whistleblower: FBI headquarters tipped Hunter off, prevented interview”
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/07/18/fbi-whistleblower-fbi-headquarters-tipped-hunter-off-prevented-interview-n565281
“A new FBI whistleblower has confirmed that FBI headquarters and the Secret Service colluded to keep Hunter Biden from having to do an interview with the agents investigating his illegal activities.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
“I am sure this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, leading the MSM to hop on the bandwagon and start demanding answers from the FBI and begin digging into the clear politicization of the nation’s law enforcement apparatus, right?
After all, the media could be forgiven for covering for the FBI after the FISA court rebuked the agency for lying to them. And after the Inspector General report detailed massive incompetence and political bias. And after the Durham Report blew the lid off the Crossfire Hurricane fiasco. And after multiple whistleblowers revealed the political machinations that kept Hunter Biden nearly free and clear after his uncountable felonies, most were caught on tape and many were put down in his own words.
That’s understandable, because the FBI had some credibility to burn, after all.
But now that all the credibility was used up, I expect the MSM will feel a bit embarrassed about being so credulous and finally dig in as yet another FBI agent picks up yet another rock, revealing the creepy crawlies underneath.
Uh-huh.”
—
“House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer issued the following statement after committee staff today conducted a transcribed interview with a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation:
“Today, a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation confirmed key portions of the IRS whistleblower’s testimony. The night before the interview of Hunter Biden, both Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were tipped off about the planned interview. On the day of the Hunter Biden interview, federal agents were told to stand by and could not approach Hunter Biden—they had to wait for his call. As a result of the change in plans, IRS and FBI criminal investigators never got to interview Hunter Biden as part of the investigation.
“The Justice Department’s efforts to cover up for the Bidens reveals a two-tiered system of justice that sickens the American people. The Oversight Committee, along with the Judiciary Committee and Ways and Means Committee, will continue to seek the answers, transparency, and accountability that the American people demand and deserve.””
—
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But no mean tweets!
“‘Massive US Oil Caverns’ Are Now Empty, Will Take ‘Decades To Refill’ Thanks To Biden”
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/massive-us-oil-caverns-are-now-empty-will-take-decades-refill-thanks-biden
“While it took the Biden administration the better part of six months to drain the US oil supply down to a precarious 20-days of emergency reserves (a 40-year low), it will take decades to refill – if that happens at all, Bloomberg reports.
Thanks to the Biden administration, these reserve sites are sitting half empty.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) now sits at 346.8 million barrels – a level unseen since 1983 – out of a total authorized storage capacity of 714 million.
Perhaps even more noteworthy, the emergency reserves are equal to approximately just 20 days worth of supply – an all-time record low…”
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/bfmAD81.jpg?itok=_7edbKt7
—-
Remember when Trump tried to refill our reserves at bargain basement prices of $35 a barrel, Dems in Congress voted no.
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Interesting piece out of the Aquila Report:
Why Are So Many of Our Youth Identifying as LGBTQ+?
Many in the Gen Z and alpha generation who currently find their value, meaning, and identity in an LGBTQ+ label will, in God’s good timing, find Christ alone to be their all-in-all.
~ … Regardless of what you think about COVID lockdowns, we can’t deny the social impact of forced isolation. Kids were taken out of school and put in front of screens. Not only were many of these children receiving consistent LGBTQ+ indoctrination in their virtual classrooms, but they were also getting heavy doses of it on social media. By April 2020, just as the lockdowns began, TikTok surpassed 2 billion downloads worldwide.
Consider what happens when our youth are cut off from the real world and plugged into an attractive, addictive virtual world algorithmically curated to show only one perspective?
Social media platforms specialize in creating echo chambers, with sophisticated algorithms designed to keep our attention as long as possible. The more we click on one type of video or post, the more we’ll see that type of content. Even if we click on just one pro-LGBTQ+ post, we’ll start seeing more of them. The more we click, the more dominated our feed becomes. Consider what happens when our youth are cut off from the real world and plugged into an attractive, addictive virtual world algorithmically curated to show only one perspective? …
… Adolescence is a scary, confusing time for everyone. Our bodies and minds are going through countless changes which we struggle to know how to interpret. But now doctors, teachers, therapists, scientists, and politicians are giving new answers for these age-old questions. Consider that 66% of Gen Zers identifying at LGBTQ+ identify as bisexual. Why has bisexuality become so prevalent? Boys and especially girls will often go through seasons during adolescence when they might develop new feelings for a friend of the same sex. Historically, those feelings wouldn’t have materialized into anything more than a fleeting quasi-crush, leading to little (if any) questioning of their sexuality. But today, their radars have been trained and conditioned to see even the slightest attraction toward the same sex as incontrovertible evidence that they are indeed bisexual.
The questions used to be, “How do I live as a man? How do I live as a woman?” But now the question every child is being forced to consider is, “Am I a boy or a girl?” …
… I recently spoke at a retreat for a few hundred Christian college students from a variety of secular campuses. I was sobered by the extent to which worldly categories have infiltrated this generation. The deck has been stacked against them. They’ve been fed language, narratives, and parameters that prohibit any biblical categorization for who we are and how we are to live. Truly, Gen Z needs an entire deconstruction of their sexual worldview for a biblical framework to make any sense. …
… But this is where Christians have every reason for unshakable hope and confidence: we have a better story to tell. The gospel is the only narrative that accounts for everything we experience in this life and promises transcendent, everlasting hope and purpose. And we have the best Story-Teller in the universe! If you’re a Christian, it’s because you were told the story of the gospel by the Holy Spirit. Yes, you audibly heard it through a human voice. But spiritually, your ears were opened, and your heart brought to life by the voice of God himself. Jesus, our great Shepherd, calls his sheep by name, and his sheep know his voice (John 10:27). …
https://theaquilareport.com/why-are-so-many-of-our-youth-identifying-as-lgbtq/
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And re ‘doing politics’ with humility for those who are believers in this heated season:
Cherie Harder, president of The Trinity Forum:
~ If your aim is a just, civil, charitable and flourishing society, your means must also be just, civil, and charitable. You can’t have means that contradict the end.
And a second thing I’ll mention is the self deception that eventually comes with that. As believers, we follow the Way, the Truth and the Life. But it’s often tempting to believe that, because we follow the truth, we always have the truth. But our ability to accurately perceive truth in any given moment is affected by the fall. Our judgment is not perfect. And so it’s important to allow for what’s been called a healthy “epistemological modesty.” ~
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We all knew this was coming… they’re going to throw everything they can at Pres. Trump to keep him from winning the Presidency again. Yet they can’t find who brought cocaine into the most secure building in the country?
It’s actually an attack on We the People. They are not just going after Pres. Trump, they are seeking to silence anyone who questions the Communist Party. (This has been repeated over and over in the history of the world.) Our Founding Fathers warned us that this would happen…
Election interference strikes again! The people aren’t going to tolerate it…
https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-received-letter-stating-he-is-target-of-january-6-investigation_5405674.html
“Former President Donald Trump said that he received a letter on July 17 informing him that he is a target of the special counsel investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
Mr. Trump said the Sunday letter from special counsel Jack Smith gave him four days to report to a grand jury. In a message posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on July 18, the former president suggested that the short deadline may mean he would be arrested and indicted.
Mr. Trump called the letter “HORRIFYING NEWS for our country” and framed it with the backdrop of the two other indictments he is facing amid a heated presidential reelection campaign in which he is dominating the GOP field.
Mr. Trump was charged earlier this year in connection to payments for a non-disclosure agreement in a state case in New York. He was later charged in a federal case in Miami in connection to his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
“THIS WITCH HUNT IS ALL ABOUT ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND A COMPLETE AND TOTAL POLITICAL WEAPONIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT,” Trump wrote.
Mr. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for a copy of the target letter. The Epoch Times has also asked Mr. Trump’s campaign to answer whether he would present himself to the grand jury as the letter reportedly ordered.
The Department of Justice has indicted hundreds of people for participating in the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In two of the most prominent cases, the government convinced juries in Washington that members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, two right-wing groups, were guilty of seditious conspiracy.
Legal experts had previously suggested that the successful prosecution of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys cases spelled trouble for Trump, who could be snarled with seditious conspiracy charges over parts of the speech he delivered on Jan. 6 and other remarks he made leading up to that day.
Defense attorneys maintained that their clients exercised their First Amendment rights to free speech.
The Proud Boys were convicted even though an FBI informant testified that, to his knowledge, there was no organized plan to storm the building. Instead, he said, “a herd mentality” took hold.”
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Get Trump is the game, by any means necessary Tychicus.
Meanwhile….
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/2024/
Trump +35
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This is BS.
https://twitter.com/ShawnQuinn83/status/1681370040300601344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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I fear the longer this goes, the worse it’s gonna get for Ron.
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Yeah, no.
People need to be held responsible, or they’ll keep doing it. This is the establishment/uni-party answer.
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Under oath, unlike the liars on the Jan6 Committee.
Fed op from day one.
#USELESS GOP
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Having read up on some of the most banned books, I saw most were LGBQT memoirs. Would those in favor of censorship be okay with Lolita? The other issue would be teacher guidance in reading “controversial” books. I’ve discussed Ellen Hopkins books with students, and the methods are similar to discuss Lord of the Flies or Mice and Men. With the right person these books don’t elicit controversy
Not that I support Disney but its still making billions no matter what crap they produce. Twitter on the other hand is falling apart.
Is it ideology or profit that is tainting medicine? In Europe and elsewhere, health care is non profit. They look at the evidence and decide. Now in the US, profit is included in the equation. Could it be that profit is the reason trans care is far more common in the US than in Scandinavia ? They are far more “woke” than the US but are far more cautious about trans care. Perhaps money is the factor.
Curious; How do extended sick leave apply in the military in all cases. Comparing hormone treatment individuals with maternity and other health leaves, do LGBQT reasons receive different treatment. I certainly hope maternity leave is generous and similar to hormone treatment.
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Is Gov Abbot pro-life?
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/border-trooper-migrants-wire-18205076.php#:~:text=WASHINGTON%20%E2%80%94%20Officers%20working%20for%20Gov,of%20Public%20Safety%20trooper%20who
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