Nope, they’re not the same
The largest study of transgender people, and how gender surgery affects their mental health, has reversed it’s results. The original study said that such surgery was helpful to their mental health. That was covered by the news media. But 10 months later, it turns out that the results were not as they were sold. Has that been covered?
Dan was the last of his kind, but now he’s been cast aside. What was it that caused his demise?
Many of my friends on Facebook have been conflating absentee ballots with all-mail (or universal mail-in) ballots. They are not the same, and yes they do have serious fraud risks. That’s not just me saying it.
Mentioned links:
American Journal of Psychiatry retracts claim that sex-change surgery helps patients’ mental health
Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is ‘Mental Disorder;’ Sex Change ‘Biologically Impossible’
Episode 192: The Transgender Suicide Epidemic [Consider This]
Google News search for “Bränström Pachankis”
Farewell to the Pro-Life Democrats
8 Key Points to Distinguish Absentee and All-Mail Voting
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Show transcript
Last fall, the American Journal of Psychiatry published a study using the largest data set up to that point that looked into whether “gender-affirming surgeries” were beneficial to transgender people. The study showed that it was, and thus this was cited and reported all over. Those “transphobic” conservatives got put in their place.
And now, 10 months later, now that everyone who cited this and reported on this has moved on to other things, now the AJP has released a correction to the data After some people didn’t think the numbers added up, they’ve been reviewed and a correction was issued. So now that we have good data, it turns out that the largest study of its kind shows that “gender-reassignment” surgery has no appreciable benefit to mental health.
As I reported back in episode 192, Dr. Paul R. McHugh, who used to do “gender reassignment” surgery for John Hopkins Hospital, knew this as early as 2015. Further, he reported back then on a study that showed that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery was 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people. This new, corrected study once again lines up with his experience and other studies that preceded it.
Will that be reported? Will news outlets issue a correction? Heh, take a wild guess. When I did a search for the two authors of the study on Google News, I got a few hits from right-of-center websites and a couple from Australia. All the bigger names were from the time that the study first came out. So if you aren’t reading any right-leaning sites, you won’t get the whole story. Even WebMD reported on the study the day it came out, but is silent on the correction 16 days later. Keep that in mind when you go looking for medical advice on a politically-charged topic.
Ten months on the Internet is an eternity, so the damage has been done and the misinformation will continue to inform decisions to have these surgeries and medical treatments for some time to come. But before we start 6-year-olds on transitioning meds or before adults start mutilating their bodies, it might be good to take a step back and consider the permanent nature of some of these changes. Trading in body parts for inclusion in a group that has a huge suicide rate had better be really worth it.
Dan was the last of his kind. His breed had been disappearing for quite some time, and by all appearances had been extinct for quite a while. But Dan was the last holdout. See Dan held to an idea that his tribe had since left behind. It’s not that he changed his mind; it’s just that he got, as it were, voted off the island.
Well the island is Washington, DC, and Dan Lipinski was the last pro-life Democrat in Congress. He recently lost his primary to a challenger who is pro-abortion thus quietly putting an end to any whiff of concern by Democrats at the national level for pre-born human life. But consider this; only 18% of Democrat voters agree with 3rd trimester abortions, and 30% consider themselves pro-life.
So now voters need to decide what their priorities are. If matters of life and death matter to you, and you normally vote for the Democrat, it’s time to reconsider your vote. Actually it was time a long time ago. But yeah, you may disagree with Republicans on a variety of policies, but none of that matters – none of it is relevant to the unborn – if they never get a chance to live. Your view on education doesn’t matter unless they get to take advantage of it. Your view on tax rates don’t matter unless they get to grow up and pay them. Your view on Social Security doesn’t matter if they never grow old to use them. Nothing matter if they don’t get a chance to live.
And so if no other rights matter if you never get a chance to live, I have a thought as to where to cast your next vote. Republicans would certainly like to represent you. If life or death matters, consider this.
There’s a link in the show notes to an article that I posted to my personal Facebook profile which I did as a sort of public service announcement. What I had noticed is that quite a number of friends of mine didn’t understand the difference between a state offering absentee ballots and just mailing out ballots to all registered voters, a practice with the unfortunate-sounding name “all-mail voting”.
With absentee voting, one person requests one ballot. There’s usually a form to fill out and a signature. In some states they validate the information against their database, and others validate the signature, or both. With all-mail voting, the state just sends out ballots to every person on the rolls. This includes people who have died and people who have moved. Think about it; when’s the last time you let your state or county elections board know that you left the precinct? So no, when Trump applied for an absentee ballot, it’s not the same as his criticism of all-mail voting.
The claim from the Right is that this all-mail voting is just asking for fraud. Well, it’s not just from the Right. In 2005, the Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican (who served under Reagan and H. W. Bush), concluded that absentee ballots “remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”
In 2008, the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project recommended: “First, restrict or abolish on-demand absentee voting in favor of in-person early voting. The convenience that on-demand absentees produces is bought at a significant cost to the real and perceived integrity of the voting process.” Remember that these are finding about absentee ballots, specifically requested by voters, never mind the even more error-prone all-mail voting.
Further, the 2005 Carter-Baker commission recommended that states “prohibit a person from handling absentee ballots other than the voter, an acknowledged family member, the U.S. Postal Service or other legitimate shipper, or election officials.” Yet 15 states and DC place no restrictions on who can handle ballots, in a practice called “ballot harvesting” where political operatives may collect absentee ballots from voters and even be present when a voter makes selections. California just legalized it last year, and Democrats want to expand it nationwide. So no, when Trump applied for an absentee ballot, it’s not the same as his criticism of all-mail voting. There’s a lot more at the link in the show notes in case you have friends that are confusing the two, or who don’t know there are two.
The post Episode 299: Reversal of Transgender Study / Last of a Political Type / Mailing Your Ballots appeared first on Consider This!.