March 23, 2022 Susan Berry, PhD

A coalition of nearly 40 national pro-life leaders sent a letter to the chairs of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Monday specifying the radical pro-abortion record of Biden Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Led by the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), the coalition’s letter was addressed to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) as confirmation hearings began for Jackson, who was chosen by Biden following the announcement of his commitment to nominate a black woman to the nation’s highest court.

The letter explains how the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade has been harmful to the fabric of the country;

One of the destructive outcomes of the Roe decision was removing policymaking decisions from elected representatives. Judicial activism promotes and extends this blatant overstepping of separation of powers. Especially now, as the Supreme Court considers a case that questions Roe’s core holding, confirming a justice to the Supreme Court with a commitment to judicial activism would be a step in the wrong direction.

On Tuesday, during an exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on the issue of abortion and the cases of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Jackson responded:

Roe and Casey are the settled law of the Supreme Court concerning the right to terminate a woman’s pregnancy. They have established a framework that the Court has reaffirmed and, in order to revisit … the Supreme Court looks at various factors because stare decisis is a very important principle.

Jackson added:

[A]ll Supreme Court cases are precedential. They’re binding and their principles and their rulings have to be followed. Roe and Casey, as you say, have been reaffirmed by the Court and have been relied upon, and reliance is one of the factors that the Court considers when it seeks to revisit or when it’s asked to revisit … a precedent. And, in all cases, those precedents of the Supreme Court would have to be reviewed pursuant to those factors because stare decisis is very important.

The letter signed by the pro-life leaders details some of Jackson’s prior work:

Jackson’s past writings strongly indicate that she may be unable to fairly consider arguments from those politically divergent from her own. In an amicus brief co-authored by Jackson on behalf of the Massachusetts National Abortion Rights Action League (Mass. NARAL) and other abortion groups regarding buffer zones around abortion clinics in Massachusetts, she portrayed pro-life sidewalk counselors as a “hostile, noisy crowd of ‘in-your-face’ protesters.” However, offering life-affirming support or prayer outside of a clinic is not “harassment” and to insist that offering an alternative to abortion is “indisputably harmful to a medical patient’s physical well-being” is the height of absurdity.

SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the fact that the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a challenge to Mississippi’s ban on abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, is expected this summer, “the stakes have never been higher in the fight to restore power to protect unborn life to the people and their elected representatives, not unelected judges.”

“Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record of hostility to pro-life Americans is radically out of step with the majority of the country,” Dannenfelser added. “Her nomination fulfills Joe Biden’s promise to only appoint justices who support the Roe v. Wade regime and his party’s broader agenda of abortion on demand up to birth, without limits of any kind.”

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, ADDITIONAL ARTICLES AND TO VIEW VIDEO 

https://tennesseestar.com/2022/03/23/40-pro-life-leaders-expose-biden-supreme-court-justice-nominee-ketanji-brown-jacksons-pro-abortion-extremism/?fbclid=IwAR1CjB_p4kISZLJJJ5UeKZGJNkR7ZToFm5PfvA4xDIJ-iUfLE80ajRSanBQ

Researchers are churning out biased studies promoting medical gender transitions for children, often supported by pharmaceutical companies and activist organizations, and the media frequently promotes the conclusions uncritically.

A March 2021 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence comprehensive review of nine studies failed to find evidence that hormonal therapy and puberty blockers were helpful. The review pointed out common flaws in transgender treatment research, such as confounding variables and bias resulting from observational studies that lack control groups.

Yet the media has widely publicized studies funded by pharmaceutical corporations and activist groups which claim to find that “gender-affirming” medical care, such as hormones that block children from going through puberty, is good for kids’ mental health.

Stanford University published a Jan. 12 study on childhood hormone therapy funded by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), which, according to a Stanford press release, is supported financially by pharmaceutical giants Arbor and Pfizer. Both companies produce hormonal medications used in gender transitions.

AACAP is an outspoken advocate against laws regulating or restricting puberty blockers, hormone therapy and sex change surgeries for children. It awarded its Pilot Research Award, which supports child and adolescent psychiatry research, to Dr. Jack Turban, the lead author on the Stanford study, in May 2019.

“If Pfizer is producing hormone therapies then of course there’s incentives to promote studies that push those,” Dr. Diana Blum, a California neurologist, told DCNF. “Even though things get published in academic journals, a lot of the funding comes from the pharmaceutical industry.”

Pfizer did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

There was no communication between Arbor, Pfizer and Turban regarding the Pilot Research Award supporting the Stanford study, according to documents Turban shared with DCNF. Arbor and Pfizer did not know who the funds would go to or the nature of the project prior to funding it, but Turban knew the funds for the research were from a pharmaceutical company when he was notified of the award, and he knew Pfizer was funding it in by June 2019, years before the Stanford study would be published.

Researchers presumably would have been aware of AACAP’s well-established bias towards what it calls “gender-affirming care;” AACAP’s research committee makes the final decision on which projects and researchers are funded through the money pharmaceuticals companies give them.

The Stanford study claimed to find better mental health outcomes for transgender adults who started hormones in adolescence compared to those who waited until adulthood, and it was touted as evidence of the benefits of hormone therapy for children.

Turban said in the press release that the study was “particularly relevant now because many state legislatures are introducing bills that would outlaw this kind of care for transgender youth.”

Dr. Blum spoke with the DCNF about problems with the study’s methodology. “This was not a double-blind placebo-controlled trial where you can actually say they tested a hypothesis and here’s the conclusion and here’s why you know it’s valid,” she explained.

“The Stanford study used surveys. Right off the bat there are confounding variables never taken into account and thus inappropriate conclusions and generalizations are made that may not apply to the patient population studied,” Blum said.

The study acknowledged that a randomized controlled trial, as opposed to the survey method, would have helped to determine causality, but “many have noted that such a trial design is unethical in this context.”

The claim that childhood hormone treatment is associated with improved mental health outcomes did not apply across the board in the Stanford study. Transgender patients who received hormone therapy between ages 16 and 17 were three times as likely to have attempted suicide in the previous year compared to those who had never undergone hormone therapy, and five times as likely than those who took hormones as adults, according to the study. Sample sizes for groups who took hormones under 18 were smaller than the group who took hormones at 18 or older.

Turban also worked on a 2019 study funded by the AACAP award which concluded that exposure to therapy aimed at helping a transgender person accept their biological gender was linked to adverse mental health outcomes. “Our results support the policy positions of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry … that gender identity conversion therapy should not be conducted for transgender patients at any age,” the study concluded.

Media outlets touted the Stanford study as evidence that puberty-blocking hormones and other hormonal medications given to trans-identifying children are beneficial for mental health. NBC News, the Today Show, USA TODAY and Psychology Today published articles repeating the researchers’ conclusions uncritically and did not note the potential conflicts of interest arising from the AACAP funding or the suicide discrepancy for ages 16 to 17.

The New York Times cited the study to support its claim that “preliminary studies have suggested that adolescents who receive drug treatments to affirm their gender identity have improved mental health and well-being.”

“Once it’s in the headlines it gets people’s attention and no one actually digs deeper into it,” Blum said.

In addition to receiving funding from pharmaceutical companies that sell medications used in gender transitions through the Arbor and Pfizer-funded AACAP, the Stanford study noted that Dr. Turban received “expert witness” payments from the ACLU, which promotes “gender-affirming care” for children in its activism.

Turban was also one of four researchers behind a 2020 AACAP-funded study that claimed to find a strong relationship between puberty blocker use in adolescence and reduced risk of suicide in adulthood.

Oxford Sociologist Michael Biggs pointed out problems with Turban’s 2020 study, titled “Pubertal Suppression for Transgender Youth and Risk of Suicidal Ideation,” in a lengthy commentary.

Among other issues, according to Biggs, the study relied on a low-quality survey which elicited unreliable answers on puberty blockers; it assumed that puberty blockers were available in the U.S. several years before they actually were; it barely acknowledged the fact that adolescents with severe psychological problems were less eligible for drugs; it excluded those who underwent medical intervention and then subsequently stopped identifying as transgender and, perhaps most importantly, it excluded individuals who had actually commit suicide.

A similar story played out in December 2021 when a study conducted by researchers at the Trevor Project, a transgender activism group, claimed to find a positive relationship between hormone therapy for transgender youth and reduced depression and risk of suicide.

The study was not a randomized trial, but was based on a voluntary online quiz which found trans youth through targeted ads on social media and offered $50 prizes to respondents.

In the Trevor Project study, transgender youth who took hormones were 8-14% less likely to report recent depression or seriously consider or attempt suicide in the last year compared to transgender people who wanted but did not receive hormones. At 15%, transgender individuals who had taken hormones were still about 3,000% more likely to have attempted suicide in the last year compared to the general population. The results excluded data on transgender youth who did not want hormone therapy, who comprised 36% of the transgender and nonbinary respondents.

The Trevor Project study stated that researchers were unable to control for the effect of parental support in improved outcomes, as every respondent who said they took hormones also had at least one supportive parent. It’s unclear whether parental support, rather than hormonal medications, could have driven the slight improvement in mental health since researchers were unable to examine those variables independently.

Researchers also noted that those with histories of suicidal thoughts and depression may have been less able to seek out hormone therapy, which could confound the results.

These issues were not mentioned in the brief conclusion of the Trevor Project study, which claimed the “findings support a relationship between access to [gender-affirming medical treatments] and lower rates of depression and suicidality among transgender and nonbinary youth.”

NBC News uncritically reported Dec. 14 that “gender-affirming hormone therapy is strongly linked to a lower risk of suicide and depression for transgender youths,” citing the Trevor Project research alongside quotes from its employees. The NBC report failed to mention the study’s questionable methods, how small the mental health gains were, or that the study did not and could not find causality.

“Causation cannot be inferred due to the study’s cross-sectional design,” the study stated. “It is possible that those who historically have higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors are also less able to seek or obtain GAHT.”

The Trevor Project’s mission is to help “young people” obtain what it calls “gender affirming” healthcare, meaning hormones and genital surgeries rather than counseling to accept one’s biological sex. The organization’s website, which is targeted towards a young audience, tells new users that they can quickly close out of the site by pressing the escape key three times. It also advertises an online community for “LGBTQ young people ages 13–24” where “you can explore your identity, get advice, find support, and make friends.”

Activists are promoting drastic medical interventions for children suffering from gender dysphoria, often touting the high suicide rate of transgender youth as justification. But researchers and doctors don’t all agree that hormones and surgeries for children are beneficial for mental health, and medical practitioners have voiced concern about the harms of gender transition treatments.

Doctors and scientists pointed to emerging research on puberty blockers’ adverse effects on bone and brain health in an October 2020 letter to the editors of Springer Link, a scientific journal. The letter questioned other researchers’ assumption that puberty blockers are safe and reversible.

“Since almost all of the children treated with puberty blockers proceed to cross-sex hormones … puberty blockers may consolidate gender dysphoria in young people, putting them on a lifelong path of biomedical interventions,” the letter noted.

The world’s largest data set on sex reassignment procedures does not show a clear link between mental health benefits and surgical or hormonal interventions, contrary to the narrative many media outlets appear to be advancing. Published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2019, the study of over 9 million individuals including 2,679 transgender patients demonstrated no mental health benefits from sex reassignment surgeries or hormone therapy, and surgeries corresponded with higher likelihood of later treatment for anxiety disorders.

Despite these findings, researchers titled the study “Reduction in Mental Health Treatment Utilization Among Transgender Individuals After Gender-Affirming Surgeries: A Total Population Study,” and claimed patients were less likely to seek out mental health treatment after gender reassignment surgery before issuing a correction nearly a year later amid a deluge of criticism.

“The results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison,” the correction noted, adding that their original claim that the findings lent support to gender transition surgeries was “too strong.”

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Laurel Duggan is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.

FOR MOR INFORMATION AND ADDITIONAL ARTICLES

https://tennesseestar.com/2022/03/08/trans-activists-funded-by-big-pharma-push-biased-research-promoting-medical-transitions-for-children/

MARCH 14, 2022

Summary

Over the past two years, parents across the nation have begun to recognize the extent to which radical ideology permeates K-12 education in government schools. The prevalence of Critical Race Theory (CRT), radical gender theory, and woke teachers motivated more by the prospect of indoctrinating kids than by the duty to educate them can no longer be credibly disputed. 

Parents now have witnessed this radicalism, not just through reports from their children but through the countless videos posted by these teachers themselves–on Twitter, Tik Tok, and other social media platforms–in which they brag about their indoctrination efforts. And in states all across America–most notably in Virginia–parents have led the charge to hold their school boards accountable and reassert control over what their kids are being taught.

These efforts have been inspiring. However, the threats children face in the classroom go beyond race essentialism and radical gender theory. Students are also exposed to an epidemic of violent and pornographic material in school libraries, placed there deliberately by ideological school administrators and staff eager to inform the sexual views of the next generation. 

These materials, funded with tax dollars, are a direct assault on the mental, emotional, and spiritual health of children. Parents have a fundamental right to know what their children are being exposed to while they are on school grounds and in the classroom.

Pornography in Our Schools

The prevalence of pornographic and violent material in K-12 school curricula and libraries is deeply alarming. 

Below are some recent examples of pornographic and violent materials provided to children in their curricula and available in school libraries. This list is by no means exhaustive. Furthermore, perhaps contrary to conventional wisdom, some of the worst anecdotes have emerged from regions that are conservative-leaning in their local or state politics.

• In Canyon, Texas, ninth-grade students were provided a freshman reading list in the fall of 2020 that included The Glass Castle by author Jeanette Walls. This novel includes extremely graphic depictions of sexual assault, incest, and molestation–all aimed at an audience of 14 and 15-year-olds. 
• The Leander Independent School District, just north of Austin, Texas, provided a list of new readings for its English Language Arts curriculum from which students could select books for their assignments. Among the titles in the selected readings list were Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez, which includes violent descriptions of teenage gang-rape, incest, and patricide; My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf, which describes Jeffrey Dahmer’s descent into serial killing, cannibalism, and necrophilia; and In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, which depicts a physically and emotionally abusive homosexual relationship between two women with extremely explicit sex scenes. This same school district also offered the book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov to its eighth-grade students. This novel focuses on an adult man’s obsession with a minor girl and includes depictions of acts of pedophilia. Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, the “Lolita Express,” famously referenced the title. Exposure of the Leander curriculum garnered national attention as outraged Texas parents demanded successfully that the pornographic material be removed from the curriculum.
• In February 2022, Fairfax County school officials at Langley High School in Virginia put up a display in their library with a sign reading, “Stuff Some Adults Don’t Want You to Read.” School officials later apologized for the sign–after an objection was raised. The titles on display at Langley High School included Brave Face by Shaun David Hutchinson, which portrays his account of coming out as a homosexual, suicidal ideation, and various sexual experiences depicted in graphic detail; Gender Queer by Maia Kodabe, which perpetuates radical gender theory and provides illustrations of oral sex, masturbation, and explicit sexual fantasies; and Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson, which deals with the author’s sexual assault as a 13-year old girl and includes domestic violence, recreational drug use, and explicit descriptions of violent sexual assaults.
• In West Whiteland Township, Pennsylvania, a father recently discovered his 11-year-old daughter had been assigned the book George by her teacher. The book is about a fourth-grade boy who takes puberty blockers and wants to “transition” into a girl. The book, one of the many radical gender theory books aimed at children written by Alex Gino, features pornography, explicit descriptions of sexual organs, and masturbation.
• In Hudson, Ohio, outraged parents discovered a writing assignment for high-school seniors to “write a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom” and “rewrite the sex scene from above into one you would let your mom read.” At a school board meeting thereafter, the mayor called on all five sitting school board members to resign or face criminal child pornography charges.
• A similar assignment for eighth-graders in Enfield, Connecticut called “Pizza and Consent” asked 13- and 14-year-old students to use pizza as a metaphor to describe their likes and dislikes when it comes to engaging in sex.
• In Oakland, California, a Spanish teacher at the Oakland Unified School District recently announced that the district would implement a “transition closet” to “provide clothes for transgender, non-binary, and gender exploring youth, who maybe don’t have the access or the safety to get those clothes in their personal lives.” One teacher explained, “The goal of the transition closet is for our students to wear the clothes that their parents approve of, come to school and then swap out into the clothes that fit who they truly are.” While the “transition closet” instance may not seem to be related to the rampant pornographic material percolating in K-12 schools, it is intrinsically tied to the broader problem. Indeed, it highlights the sexually-focused priorities of school district officials who believe it is their responsibility to teach minors radical gender theory, undermine parents, and apparently, take the clothes off children as soon as they arrive on campus.

These examples are but a sampling of the pervasive pornographic and sexually-explicit material and activities being pushed on kids by radicalized Leftists running school boards, administering school systems, and teaching in the classroom. This is predatory behavior by adults against children. It must be exposed and stopped.

The False Cry of Censorship

Elected officials in Texas have launched an effort to determine the extent to which schools are exposing students to sexually explicit and pornographic material. State Representative Matt Krause (R) sent a letter to the Texas Education Association with a list of some 850 books identified as containing radical and pornographic material. Krause, who chairs the General Investigating Committee in the Texas House, requested schools inform the Legislature about how many of these works are in their school libraries or curricula. Governor Greg Abbott (R) has since instructed the Texas Education Association to conduct a full assessment of school libraries to determine the extent of available pornographic content to minors.

Some of these authors have decried parental oversight as “censorship” or “book banning” and adopted a victim posture as their writings have been exposed and removed from some school districts. Ashley Hope Perez, the author of Out of Darkness and a former English teacher, has mocked concerned parents objecting to her graphic descriptions of gang rape and tried to portray herself as the real victim in interviews with publications like Slate and in her own social media feed. Incredibly, Perez even suggested that criticisms of her novel as grooming material for minors could just as easily be leveled at the Bible. As she put it to Slate, “Do you think that the Bible is grooming young people to be sexually abused or gang-raped or to engage in incest, because all of those situations occur in that text?” 

Carmen Maria Machado, the author of In the Dream House, took to the New York Times to lecture parents and concerned citizens seeking to remove her violent and sexually explicit book as being “homophobic” and seeking “to wish away queer experiences.” She sees herself as the victim as opposed to the children and minors she believes should read a book that she infused with BDSM and explicit acts of sexual violence.

These radical, woke authors and school officials do not merely feel comfortable or compelled to expose children to such material. They possess a predatory sense of entitlement to be allowed to continue to do so even after they have been exposed by the very working mothers and fathers whose children are being victimized by them. Parents have every right–indeed, every responsibility–to determine and dictate what their children are exposed to when they are under the supervision of another adult ostensibly attempting to teach and educate. The rights of radical teachers or authors do not and will not ever supersede the rights of parents.

Furthermore, taxpayers and concerned citizens who fund these school systems have every right to place limits on what is taught and how it is taught. In America, states ultimately control education policy. And state legislators not only possess the constitutional authority to ban race-essentialism and CRT in the school systems, but they also possess the power–and responsibility–to pass legislation that prohibits pornographic, sexually explicit, and violent material from being accessible in the classroom or school library.

It is important to note that the works being targeted for removal in schools are not being banned or censored from the public more generally. They can all still be published and purchased online, in bookstores, and in most public libraries. They should not, however, be readily available to minors and children, or directly marketed to them.

It is past time for legislators to do precisely that and to implement measures that will protect children from the pornographic exposure many officials, teachers, and authors apparently seek to impose. The false cries of “censorship” or First Amendment protections in this context do not remotely pass muster. They are little more than an attempt to villainize parents and deflect from the reality of this predation. 

Protecting Our Children

Just as lawmakers across the country have responded to the parental awakening with bans on Critical Race Theory, so too should they take measures to identify, expose, and eliminate pornographic and violent material from school curricula and libraries.

Specifically, states should:

• Follow Texas’ lead and launch a full-scale investigation into the nature and extent of pornographic material available to students in K-12 schools. The findings of this investigation should be placed in a report and made available to the public with specific examples of inappropriate material in specific school systems.
• Pass legislation that prohibits the availability or distribution of any pornographic, sexually-centered, or sexually-explicit material to kids in K-12 schools as part of curricula, work assignments, on-campus extracurricular activities, or in school libraries.
• Pass legislation that imposes a felony charge on any school official, teacher, contractor, or school board member who knowingly violates the prohibition on the availability or distribution of pornographic, sexually-centered, or sexually-explicit material to minors in K-12 schools. This charge should come with a 5-year mandatory minimum prison sentence, a $200,000 fine, registered sex offender status, and the permanent revocation of a teaching license with no possible reinstatement.
• Pass legislation that requires every K-12 school district and county school system in the state to post and/or make publicly available the required and selected reading list of all books included in the curriculum at least 7 calendar days prior to the start of the school year. Failure to do so should result in a fine and possible loss of state funding.
• Pass legislation that expedites state public information requests for school districts, school boards, and school officials. Additionally, ensure that such legislation requires the corresponding school board to comply, respond, and make publicly available the contents of the public information request within 45 days of receiving it.
• Pass legislation at the state level creating a trigger for school board snap elections. If a school board, school district, or school administrator is found to be in violation of the prohibition on pornographic materials in K-12 institutions, state law will require a “snap election” within 90 days of the violation for all elected school board members.

Healthy communities require morally-grounded determinations–by parents–of the material that is and is not appropriate for children. Contrary to the views espoused by many “woke” educators, authors, and school officials, children belong to their parents and are not the property of the community or the government. Such thinking is pure Marxism and must be treated as such.

Educators are entrusted with the responsibility to teach and equip children with the knowledge necessary to become responsible, civic-minded, and productive members of their communities. Indoctrinating children with sexually explicit material and activities must be met with harsh punishment to deter such predatory behavior from corrupting, abusing, and harming the next generation of Americans.

Conclusion

Parents are the frontline defenders of their children. They are also the vanguard necessary to correct what our K-12 school systems have been doing–and continue to do–to our children. The fight against Critical Race Theory remains vital. However, that fight is just the beginning as the rot runs deeper than many would care to admit. State lawmakers and local officials must step up and join with parents to take the actions necessary to curb this latest predatory behavior in our school systems.

The right course of action is to remove clearly age-inappropriate material from being easily accessed by minors. Opponents will proclaim that this constitutes “censorship” or “a violation of First Amendment” rights. Neither of those claims has any legal or logical validity. What is really being sought by those advancing such an argument is to secure the legal protection for their efforts to expose children to pornographic materials, with or without the knowledge of parents.

Ultimately, freedom depends on a morally-grounded and healthy society and that is unattainable if adults entrusted to educate our children seek to corrupt kids with violent and explicit material that will harm them mentally, emotionally, and spiritually

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND ADDITIONAL ARTICLES

https://americarenewing.com/issues/primer-school-systems-are-corrupting-children-with-pornography/