justdad7 Profile picture
Retired lawyer from Canada with interest in human rights and medical ethics. Women have a right to same sex spaces and sterilizing children is unethical. 🇨🇦
Martin Cleaver - 🇪🇺🇺🇦 Profile picture Dialogia Profile picture Pam Heinze Profile picture Kathryn Hall Profile picture 4 subscribed
Feb 16 8 tweets 2 min read
1/ The Hill Times suggests that gender identity could become a critical issue in marginal seats where there are significant numbers of socially conservative minority voters, but it could become more than that.
hilltimes.com/story/2024/02/… 2/ Canadian Liberals have traditionally been good at brokering compromises in this kinds of conflict but transgender activists have insisted on no compromise / no debate. Neither the Liberals nor the NDP will want to risk being the first to break ranks on gender issues.
Feb 6 10 tweets 2 min read
1/ Danielle Smith has got a lot of things right with the unroll of her policy on gender identity. The announcement by a video statement was a brilliant move. It allowed her to control the message without committing to any specifics in writing. 2/ She now has the freedom to build support and work out the details at her own pace. In Saskatchewan and New Brunswick the governments rushed ahead with actual policies and were immediately faced with court challenges for which they were not prepared.
Jan 28 9 tweets 2 min read
1/ The Canadian debate on pediatric gender transition needs new language. The debate has been reduced to one where slogans replace substance. Rather than framing it as a conflict between parents' rights and children's rights, we need to start talking about child safeguarding. 2/ The problem with the concept of parents' rights is that it can be misinterpreted to means that parents claim a proprietary rights over their children which the law does not recognize. This is not what the self-described parents' rights movement is actually claiming.
Jan 16 4 tweets 2 min read
1/ 🚨 Action alert and update. The World Health Organization has responded to public criticism of its guideline development process on transgender health by extending the deadline for public comment to February 2.
who.int/news/item/15-0… 2/ The most visibly biased member of the GDG, Florence Ashley, has been dropped due to an alleged scheduling conflict but the committee membership is still dominated by activists and clinicians with significant conflicts of interest.
cdn.who.int/media/docs/def…
Dec 22, 2023 15 tweets 4 min read
1/ The proposed membership of the World Health Organization guideline development group on the health of trans and gender diverse people reads like a who's who of transgender activisits.
who.int/news/item/28-0… 2/ The biographies of all of the development group members have now been released and the make up of the group flagrantly disregards the WHO standards for avoiding conflict over interest in guideline development.
cdn.who.int/media/docs/def…
Oct 10, 2023 8 tweets 3 min read
1/ Canadian Conservatives are often accused of copying the U.S.Republicans, but on the pronouns in schools issue, they aren't copying them very well. Their response, when challenged, shows that they don't fully understand the issue.
nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-… 2/ They seem to have looked at a poll which shows that 78% of respondents believe that parents should be informed when a child changes pronouns at school and rushed ahead without any serious research or preparation.
Sep 29, 2023 14 tweets 3 min read
1/ The current controversy in Saskatchewan shows how the gender debate has become the perfect storm for loss of confidence in the Charter. The Charter has never commanded universal respect among Canadians but in recent years these doubts have increased. 2/ The Charter was introduced by Pierre Trudeau over opposition from the provinces. The notwithstanding clause was one of a series of compromises which won the grudging support of 9 provinces. Quebec did not agree and has used the notwithstanding clause regularly.
Sep 12, 2023 8 tweets 3 min read
1/ The Canadian Paediatric Society @CanPaedSociety has issued an updated position statement on affirming care for youth but it seems like they have been hiding under a rock (or just listening to the @cbc ) for the last 3 or 4 years.
cps.ca/en/documents/p… @CanPaedSociety @CBC 2/ There is no pretense of being evidence based. The authors do not even mention the systematic reviews which have led Finland, Sweden the United Kingdom and others to re-think the gender affirming model.
bmj.com/content/380/bm…
Aug 30, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
1/ 🇨🇦🧵 This question requires a thread to answer fully. In Canada, there are human rights commissions at both the federal and provincial levels. The provincial commissions have exclusive jurisdiction over provincial matters such as health and education.
2/ Both federal and provincial human rights law is subject to the protections, such as the right to freedom of expression and religion, found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Jun 16, 2023 8 tweets 2 min read
A thread on children's rights, parents rights, schools, gender identity and due process. There are some basic principles which are found in both Canadian law and international instruments such as the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child./2 The first principle is that children require adult guidance and direction. Allowing them to choose the adult who provides the direction defeats the purpose. The second is that the adults who provide this guidance and direction must act in the best interests of the child. /3
Jun 8, 2023 5 tweets 3 min read
1/ The changes to New Brunswick Policy 713 on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools announced by @premierbhiggs and education minister Bill Hogan are both good news and bad news
www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en… @premierbhiggs 2/ The good news is that the changes are sound policy. An age limit of 16 to change name and pronouns without parental consent is consistent with research on child development, and the effect of social transition on solidifying gender identity.
cass.independent-review.uk/publications/i…
Dec 30, 2022 24 tweets 7 min read
1/ 🧵 In the struggle against the medical abuse of gender non-conforming children, the year 2022 was, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, if not the beginning of the end, at least the end of the beginning. 2/ The year started badly with Bill-C4, Canada's ill considered conversion therapy law coming into force. There was better news in the UK where there government agreed to exclude gender identity from its proposed bill.
Dec 23, 2022 13 tweets 5 min read
1/ 🧵 The article by @RobinRespaut on detransition and regret is an excellent piece of journalism, but it also shows how far the mainstream press in North America still has to go in opening up the debate on gender medicine.
reuters.com/investigates/s… 2/ Not much in the article has not already been reported by many Substack blogs and conservative media outlets, but the Reuters brand means that the story will reach an audience that never reads the National Review or Christian Post.
Oct 18, 2022 13 tweets 4 min read
1/ 🇫🇮🇸🇪🇬🇧🧵 One of the talking points of TRAs when confronted with the changes in policy on hormonal treatment of children with gender dysphoria in Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom is to claim that these changes are simply political decisions by right wing governments. Image 2/ It is true that last month Sweden elected a new government with support from far right parties but the policy changes on gender transition all happened while a Social Democrat / Green coalition was in power.
dw.com/en/sweden-lawm…
Oct 12, 2022 13 tweets 5 min read
1/ 🧵 This is some background to the viral video posted by @JuliaMasonMD1 which shows a doctor speaking at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference glorifying the suicide of a trans-identified teen as "bold"
2/ An article in @ReduxxMag provides some further details. The doctor in the video is referring to the Leelah Alcorn, a trans-identified teen who died by suicide in 2014
reduxx.info/gender-doctor-…
Jul 18, 2022 16 tweets 3 min read
1/ I have followed a lot of detransitioners and I see them pulled between two contradictory sets of needs. On one hand, they to heal. Mental health professionals often say you can't heal in the environment that made you sick. 2/ For many detransitioners this means getting out of the toxic social media bubbles. They need to reconnect with family, friends and their own bodies in the offline world. They also need competent medical and mental health support. This last need creates the contradiction.
Jun 15, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
The article by @emilybazelon in the New York Times seems to be attracting flak from both sides of the debate. You can read an archived version here. I found her understanding of the issues quite shallow. /2
archive.ph/kvxd8 The most interesting part of the article were the hints of a conflict in WPATH on the child and adolescent chapter of the SOC8. It seems that the committee tried to stick to an evidence based approach and therefore recommended caution and an extensive assessment period. /3
May 23, 2022 13 tweets 4 min read
1/ A silly meme that keeps showing up on trans apologist Twitter compares the growth of transgender identification with left handedness, the point being that both became more visible as a result of greater social acceptance.
2/ There is a more relevant comparison which clearly shows the difference between acceptance of a natural phenomena and the results of a social contagion and that is the growth of same sex couples following the legalization of same sex marriage.
May 21, 2022 22 tweets 6 min read
1/ The state of informed consent in Canadian gender clinics. This is a package which a Canadian hospital sends to general practitioners who make a referral to their gender clinic. It includes information on puberty blockers that can be started prior to the initial appointment. 2/ In other words, the clinic is encouraging doctors to start young patients on Lupron prior to any meetings with a mental health professional. Here is the background information they provide. There are more details in the attached consent form but not much.
May 19, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
A 14 year old girl under extreme stress consents to a medical procedure. Years later she finds out that here tubes were tied and she is sterile This article describes the horrors of coerced sterilization in Canada. /2
cbc.ca/radio/whitecoa… Some cases involve actual physical coercion but in others the woman agreed to the procedure at a time when she was incapable of giving real consent because she was under extreme stress and not able to understand the true nature of the procedure. Many victims were indigenous. /3
Apr 28, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
1/ ctvnews.ca/canada/new-cen… It's hard to understand how 0.33% of the population has such a hold on public policy until you realize that gender ideology meets a need of the managerial class of all parties - a perfect strategic lie. 2/ Political leaders want followers who will fall into line without asking difficult questions. Demanding that people assent to a strategic lie is a test of loyalty. This is what the Chinese proverb to call a deer a horse means
templeofzagan.org/2018/03/02/to-…