The number of significant, new blurbs and quotations on these “Tuesday Topics” is decreasing, but that trend does not mean that this series is dying a natural death just yet. Today, the two categories are gender issues and Covid. To lead off, from the Cancel-Crazy, “Grow a Spine” department, comes some news from the West Coast. The L.A. Dodgers have recently committed sequential stupidity, ending up more stupid than they began. If this weren’t so serious and ridiculous, it would be entertaining.
(1) There is a Pride night at Dodger Stadium. (2) The Dodgers countenanced the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, inviting them to the event and even tagging them to receive a community service award. Seriously? In what universe is this kind of stuff seen as service? Some would say that (3) bending to pressure from morally upright people and dis-inviting the group was weak. I would quickly add that (4) bending again to pressure from LGBTQ organizations and the drag group, re-inviting the “Sisters” showed very little spinal column, and a lot of nerve.
Surely the exclusion of one over-the-top, counter-cultural group would not have compromised the Dodgers’ commitment to Pride Night, which is unnecessary and offensive to so many in the first place. The Los Angeles LGBT Center pulled out of Pride Night over the dis-inviting of the “Sisters,” but simple math ought to tell the Dodgers that they pandered to the wrong side. Actually, sides didn’t even need to be considered here. It’s a matter of respectful, courteous behavior—toward which the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence stand in perpetual mockery. (I won’t dignify this group [which seems to be, not incidentally, pretty much the definition of a “hate group”] by providing details in this space.) The once-proud Dodgers have shown unbelievable stupidity here with their tip of the hat to “pride” here.
Addendum: Now comes the news that Christian pitcher Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers have planned a Christian Faith event. OK, that’s nice, but, as someone else said, “Nice try. Too late.” One offense causes another, which leads to another, and another . . . on and on the madness goes, because the whole human lot has lost its collective mind.
Dear Dad, I’m so sorry your Dodgers went guano-crazy. (I wonder what Reese or Roe or Robinson or Rickey would have done.) Dear Catholic friends, even those of us who don’t accept many of your tenets stand with you in this. Dear Dodgers who avow Christ, I’m so sorry you have to deal with this. I hope you will be allowed the dignity of being absent from the field during such perverse, disrespectful festivities. It will be a dysphoric intrusion into what ought to be simply a night of baseball.
Dear God, forgive us all, for we know not what we do as a culture. Restore our sanity, and in the meantime, show us how to live at peace.
Gender/Gender Dysphoria
The Daily Wire reported on 5/27/23 that Procter & Gamble,¹ through its Always product line of feminine hygiene products, has started referring to product users as “people with female sex organs” (as opposed to “girls” and “women”). Companies need to stop caving in to the predatory demands of insane, and insanely vocal, minorities who don’t have their facts straight and don’t manifest respect toward others. On that same day, the Morning Wire Saturday Extra report was released, providing additional news in this arena.
Here are four excerpts on gender dysphoria:
“Astor relies on the euphemism ‘transition care’ when she means ‘chemical and surgical sex change services.’ This is neither medically necessary nor lifesaving, but rather elective, cosmetic, and experimental.” – Detransitioner Chloe Cole, in reference to a “hit piece” by NY Times reporter Maggie Astor, “We’re Not Going Away,” Reality’s Last Stand substack, 5/17/23
“Because the culture war was getting boring: The LGBTQ advisory group of Massachusetts is recommending that the commonwealth expand child abuse laws to include “the withholding of gender-affirming care for LGBTQ youth.” . . . Tasking child protective services with taking children away if they’re not immediately put on hormone therapy will surely calm the conversation around this. ” – Nellie Bowles, TGIF 5/19/23, www.TheFP.com
“The madness masquerading as care and kindness is something we have to protect our children from.” – Heather Heying, Dark Horse Podcast, 5/20/23
BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that consistent with the APA definition of evidence-based practice (APA, 2005), the APA affirms that scientific evidence and clinical experience indicate that GICE put individuals at significant risk of harm;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the APA opposes GICE because such efforts put individuals at significant risk of harm and encourages individuals, families, health professionals, and organizations to avoid GICE;
Excerpted from the American Psychological Association Resolution on GICE (Gender Identity Change Efforts), Feb. 2021
I believe that so-called gender-affirming care, when it surfaces as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones administered to minors, is rightly considered abuse, not medical care.
Prescribing or allowing cross-sex hormones or mutilating surgeries—especially, but not only, in the case of a minor—is destructive and harmful. Any medical practitioner who does such things ought by all rights to be tried as a criminal. Cross-sex “therapies” do not heal, and that fact counters the very concept of therapy. Such treatments violate basic morality and civility, the Hippocratic Oath, and International Law. The very notion of “transgender rights” is a fallacy. The problem is, some justices, national executives, and medical groups (JohnsHopkins, AMA, etc.) have their heads on upside down. May more medical practitioners have the courage to oppose them. Physicians must not wash their hands by saying, “Well, this person’s beliefs are not mine, but I have to treat her.” On the contrary, a physician ought to say, with all calm confidence: “I will never mutilate your body or give you drugs that would alter your perceived sex. It’s doesn’t even matter what I believe. Doing such a thing would violate common sense, biology, and the solid tenets of medical practice.”
God, intervene quickly and decisively. I am begging You, on behalf of the world.
The creation, either de jure or de facto, of trans “sanctuary states” (e.g., Minnesota, California, Colorado, and Washington) is an abhorrent, groundbreaking development in the U.S.A. What is a “sanctuary state”? That is a state that opens the door for minors to seek a new kind of asylum: protection from parents who were trying to protect the minors from destructive behavior. If a mom tries to keep her daughter from cutting her wrists or overdosing on methamphetamine, we affirm that. Why would the same mom be castigated and stripped of her parental rights by a crazy state that says,
Give me your emotionally unstable, your struggling, your social-app-addicted . . . give me all your children who think, because of the craziness all around them, that they were “born in the wrong body.” We will help them mutilate their bodies and give them free access to drug therapies that will assure that they require medical and psychological treatment for the rest of their lives.
Readers, I earnestly suggest that gender-related issues are a larger concern than any other issue that you might consider a “moral” one. This far exceeds the blight of rampant abortion,² for instance. I might get in trouble for saying this, but I think it just might exceed the Nazi Holocaust in terms of far-reaching impact on global, human existence. If there were a reason to become politically active, and not just socially or relational “leaven” in one’s community, gender-related issues constitute that reason.
Sars-CoV-2
Just when I thought Covid comments were drying up and being washed away, I’ve read of the following during the last couple of weeks:
- Dr. Fauci’s sometimes-shadowy, sometimes-false influence on public policy
- The need for reparations to employees who were fired over refusal to take a Covid shot [There has been at least one settlement (Barrington schools in Rhode Island) in which back pay and the right to be reinstated were granted.]
- Public health experts (MPH-types) who, during the summer of 2022, spread false and/or exaggerated, fearful information about Monkeypox/MPox, especially with regard to its danger to children [This disinformation seems so very connected to the disinformation that was (and is still being) spread about Covid, such as the once-supposed effectiveness of masks, physical distance, shots, and other medicines.]
I include the indirectly related passage below in order to show how at least one reputable, credentialed scientist has come to distrust the government/pharmaceutical cartel. Pfizer³ is, of course, one of the 2-3 leading producers of a Covid-related serum, and they are apparently being given nearly-carte-blanche again with another drug, despite production-halting red flags with a similar vaccine. -bc
The FDA uses the colloquial, rather than technical, definition for “effectiveness” in the first question. If you are used to the technical terms, just think “efficacy.”
Before we talk about safety and efficacy, I’d like to share a moment from the meeting that left me dispirited. At the end of the meeting there are two hours set aside for the committee to discuss and vote on the questions. They end up going around and having each committee member give their thoughts with respect to efficacy and safety. Once this is complete, the committee votes. As the vote was about to happen, Peter Marks, M.D., PhD, the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the FDA, turned his camera on and contributed for the first time that day.
One might hope such a powerful figure in the FDA might talk about the importance of such a vote, of course without trying to influence it. He might thank the committee, the sponsor, and his colleagues at the FDA for their work to get to the end of an arduous process. If you watch from 7:55:00, you can see that instead he interjected to request that Pfizer be allowed the last word prior to a vote.
The optics were unseemly, prompting a visceral reaction in my gut. I was literally nauseated by this genuflection to Pfizer.
Their representative went on to make unsubstantiated claims about the effectiveness of their product. He also made light of the outstanding safety concerns and was more than happy to kick the can down the road to “post-approval pharmacovigilance.” – Vinay Prasad, “Pfizer’s Maternal RSV Vaccine Clears FDA Advisory Committee,” 5/21/23
¹ P&G once set up a special toll-free number to deal with the deluge of complaints over its alleged Satanic connection (or something along those lines). That, I’m pretty sure was proven to be a hoax. This “attack on women and girls” is not.
² Personally, I see some gray in the abortion arena. Overall, though, I think the extent to which abortion is performed and defended is far too great, indicating deeper, root issues in sexual morality and basic responsible behavior.
³ I understand that Pfizer is a leading producer of cross-sex hormone therapy drugs.