Nationwide study: “Heartbreaking” levels of violence against Queer youth

It’s tempting to respond to this article with a scathing “you don’t say” but it is, at least, contributing to a body of data which confirms what anyone woke is already aware of. It’s an American study that reports on violence trends against Queer youth, and the outcomes aren’t pretty.

The first nationwide study to ask high school students about their sexuality found that gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers were at far greater risk fordepression, bullying and many types of violence than their straight peers.

“I found the numbers heartbreaking,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which includes a division that administered the survey.

The survey documents what smaller studies have suggested for years, but it is significant because it is the first time the federal government’s biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the gold standard of adolescent health data collection, looked at sexual identity. The survey found that about 8 percent of the high school population described themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, which would be about 1.3 million students.

These adolescents were three times more likely than straight students to have been raped. They skipped school far more often because they did not feel safe; at least a third had been bullied on school property. And they were twice as likely as heterosexual students to have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property.

More than 40 percent of these students reported that they had seriously considered suicide, and 29 percent had made attempts to do so in the year before they took the survey. The percentage of those who used illegal drugs was many times greater than their heterosexual peers. While 1.3 percent of straight students said they had used heroin, for example, 6 percent of the gay, lesbian and bisexual students reported having done so.

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Self care Saturday, August 20: ENEMY SIGHTED (Don’t tell Iris)

TRIGGER WARNING: Squirrel terrorism

A local couple made the news when their engagement photo was subject to a terrible act of terrorism. Warning–images may be graphic, viewer discretion is advised.

An Edmonton couple’s romantic mountain engagement photo shoot got a little wild when a nut-munching ground squirrel stole their shot.

squirrel

Their remains have not been located (B.D.F.K. Photography)

Our thoughts are with the victims on this somber day.

-Shiv

By what measure of “effective”?

While reading some of Julia Serano’s work, there was one statement she made about the battle between gender-affirmation treatment models and gender-antagonistic treatment models pointed out by anat in our comments that made me take a second (actually fifth or sixth) look: (emphasis mine)

We can continue to debate the efficacy of gender transition, or of gender-reparative versus gender-affirming approaches, and each side will be able to find statistics to support their side of the argument. But what is really driving this debate is a difference of opinion with regards to what constitutes a “good outcome.” Trans activists and advocates like myself generally think that a good outcome is a happy child, regardless of whether they transition or not, or whether they grow up to be transsexual, non-binary, gender non-conforming, lesbian, gay, bisexual, etcetera. Trans-antagonistic and trans-suspicious people (who constantly cite “80% desistance”) seem to think that a good outcome is a cisgender child, and they seem to be willing to make transphobic arguments and subject transgender and gender non-conforming children to clinically ordained transphobia (i.e., gender-reparative therapies) in order to achieve that end goal.

I’ve certainly tried to explain how frustrating the media can be when it comes to covering trans issues, including trans research. In addition to the media, trans folk have to contend from misinformation perpetuated by religious fundamentalists and/or TERFs as well as academics whose work is completely imbecilic. Common among the many, many groups that antagonize trans women is a refrain that transitioning doesn’t “fix” anything, sometimes citing (when they remember evidence should back up their claims) a Swedish longitudinal study following two cohorts of transgender women over the course of several decades. The Swedish study found that many of the health outcomes of trans women were still poor after transitioning, including gender affirmation surgery.

The problem, of course, is that the numerous trans-antagonistic lobbies didn’t actually finish reading the paper. The primary author of the Swedish study, Cecilia Dhejne, is not pleased with the way her work has been hijacked by motivated reasoners:

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How authoritarian faith caused an HIV epidemic

Rawstory has a comprehensive review of Scott County’s HIV epidemic, charging that Mike Pence’s negligence, belligerent refusal to assess scientific evidence, and sanctimonious grandstanding are major contributors to the County’s state of decay. It’s a long but worthwhile read. It introduces a number of extremely useful and effective public health concepts that have been governing more successful healthcare systems for decades. It also demonstrates that breaking the poverty cycle is complex and multi-faceted. Deteriorating mental health, trauma and violence, addictions, a lack of education, health complications compounded by no healthcare, teen pregnancy, epidemics–the list goes on, and it’s not a cheap list to fix.

Content Notice for brutal, sociopathic classism and ableism:

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Trump Youth: Totally not Hitler Youth

The founder of Trump Youth decided to take a page out of Mein Kampf and start a youth movement in a radical proposal to “remove the parasites from America.”

…I’m literally not making this up.

A website for the group encourages young voters to “[e]mbrace your destiny and become a part of the greatest battle the world has ever seen.”

“We Millennials are destined for greatness; no longer will we sit idle and watch everything our forefathers built be turned to dust,” the website says. “Our world is hurting, and it is up to us, the Youth, to become the Hero Generation and to save the world.”

…

Writing on his personal website earlier this year, Liardi said that he did not understand the “truth” about Adolf Hitler until he read Mein Kampf.

“I began to seek out the history without the propaganda– I wanted to understand the mind of the supposed most evil man in history,” he wrote. “So I studied the events leading up to the war, the german Weimar Republic, WWI and the climate of Europe in the early 20th century. And yes, I read Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’.”

Incidentally, I also studied the events leading up to the Third Reich. My term paper on WW2 was returned with a giant checkmark on it, which when pressed for an actual letter grade, my prof said it meant “A+.” Somehow I walked away from that project without coming to the conclusion that fascism is a sustainable or practical solution for… well, literally anything. I won’t bother with the ample material of ethical and moral considerations of fascism, because anyone persuaded by Mein Kampf is already an ethically bankrupt egotist that isn’t likely to be satisfied by any arguments that appeal to altruism or the slightest sense of empathy.

NSA, I know you’re reading this: This motherfucker and every other motherfucker who joins him better be on a list.

-Shiv

The Education Minister’s open letter to Alberta students

Alberta’s Education Minister, David Eggen, posted an open letter to Alberta students, reiterating the Minister’s stated declaration that all school boards would be in compliance with Bill 10 and the gender-affirmation guidelines:

A few weeks from now, you and thousands of other Alberta students will head back to class. And when you do, you have rights that your schools will respect.

You have the right to feel safe and welcome at school.

You have the right to create a Gay-Straight Alliance or a Queer-Straight Alliance, and you have the right to name your clubs this way.

You have the right to use the washroom that is consistent with your gender identity. I want you to know that I will support each and every one of you. Together, we will make sure that the rights you have, and the policies your school boards have worked on, are being lived out in your schools.

As Minister of Education, I have been working with your school boards to make sure that our schools are welcoming and caring. All boards have created new policies to support LGBTQ students and they will now come to life in your schools.

In the coming weeks, Alberta Education will be promoting new resources to make sure that schools are safe and welcoming. You can also reach out directly to my staff, who can help you ensure your rights are being respected, at [email protected].

As we stand together, let’s embrace the differences in one another.

We will all be better for it in the long run.

And remember: I’m with you one hundred per cent.

David Eggen, Minister of Education

I have criticized the NDP for doing a lot of ideological grandstanding with very little in the way of substantive change. After months of lobbying from reactionary groups (most of which are Catholic affiliated), the Minister releases this statement once again holding firm that no school board, Catholic or public, will be permitted to antagonize Queer students. And it’s worth noting that while the reactionary groups complaining loudly are mostly religious, the local trans community has reported antagonism from public school board administrators as well.

I suppose moving forward I’ll wait a couple months to actually see it in action. I want to see consequences for administrators who bully Queer youth before I believe the NDP’s intentions to be genuine.

And yes, I’m still writing and meeting and speaking with my MLA to write Catholic conscience exemptions out of law. Somehow I doubt that particular agenda will get anywhere. But at least by going to the forums, asking the question in front of everyone, writing in, and making meetings with MLAs and supporting staff, they are aware that some of their voting base would really like to see all public services governed by… you know, public law.

Radical idea, I know.

-Shiv

 

Edit August 17: Fixed formatting glitch.

The paradox of activism

Problem 1: As rationalists or empiricists, we probably agree we need to observe a problem before we can fix it.

Problem 2: The more we start to observe, the more we see that warrants fixing.

Problem 3: Truly grasping the immense cruelty that needs fixing tends to leave one terribly depressed.

Problem 4: Depression demotivates people to fix a problem.

This is the basic principle of career activists and their push to get activists to “turn off” and engage in periodic self care. Being woke is bloody exhausting. Trying to wrap your head around the state of world affairs leaves you with a cold chill–yet you must do it if changing the world matters to you. You need information. You need data. You need the patterns, the knowledge, because those lead to answers and solutions.

But you have to not snap like a twig under the weight of the whole world while you find them.

Good luck.

-Shiv

No, Washington Post–it’s not an “unusual fixation.” It’s called racism, and it’s quite common.

Let’s play a game called “edit out the whitewashing in this Washington Post article:”

Khalid Jabara was worried.

Last year, his mother had been jogging through the family’s quiet Tulsa neighborhood when she was nearly killed in a vicious hit-and-run. Police quickly arrested Vernon Majors, who, according to a police report, confessed to the crime and even offered a motive, calling the Jabaras “filthy Lebanese.”

On May 25 of this year, however, Majors bonded out of jail.

That’s when he returned home — right next to the Jabaras.

Must be some of that “tough on crime” policy to let loose an attempted murderer.

On Friday, Khalid learned that his next-door neighbor, the man accused of harassing his family and attacking his mother, was now armed.

Not “attacking.” Attempting to murder. Let’s not beat about the bush here.

“Khalid called the police stating this man had a gun and that he was scared for what might happen,” his sister, Victoria Jabara Williams, wrote on Facebook. “The police came and told him there was nothing to be done.”

Police useless until there’s a body? Say it ain’t so.

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Internet proves how not racist it is by hurling racist abuse on social media

Content Notice: Virulent racism.

Brad Wall, the Conservative Premier of Saskatchewan, is normally a slime ball.

He still is, generally, but when he asked social media commentators to tone down their racist content following a confrontation that left an Indigenous man dead, the internet decided the best way to prove how not racist it was was to up the ante on anti-Native racism:

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