Things Fall Apart: Gender Medicine. Washington Post. No Breaks in Nancy Guthrie Case. Call Out for Vaught. Marsha Blackburn Questions Objectivity of Legal Giant. More
Will listing your pronouns soon be passé?
“The Rise and Fall of Youth Gender Medicine” is the lead headline at The Free Press early this morning. This is the tease on Emily Yoffe’s timely report:
When The Free Press started reporting on gender ideology, it was a third rail. Today, the tide has turned.
An American Greatness piece also heralds the collapse of the transgender industrial complex. If the tide is turning, give a hearty round of applause to Fox Varian, 22, who was recently awarded $2 million by a jury, whetting the appetite of trial lawyers everywhere. Varian was unhappy about a disfiguring double mastectomy performed on her as a teenager.
London Telegraph columnist Michael Deacon (“I don’t believe the ‘experts’ who say trans athletes have no advantage over women”) gives a commonsense debunking of a new study from Brazil purporting that men have no advantage over women in sports. Deacon—who has a witty take on pronoun tyranny—noted:
The governing bodies of various sports started to concede that, on the whole, it would probably be fairer to let women – as in, the old-fashioned, female kind – have competitions of their own again. A woman’s rights, and indeed physical safety, were held to be more important than a man’s feelings. At last, sanity had been restored to its throne.
Let’s hope the Brazilian study is merely a rearguard action. Claire Abernathy, another brave and regretful recipient of “gender-affirming treatment”—mutilation—reminds us that, though guidelines may change, she will always live with the results of her treatment:
I cannot sing like I used to. I loved choir and theater. They were special to me, but now, because no one told me that my vocal chords would expand due to testosterone, I cannot perform as well as I previously could. I will not be able to breastfeed any future children. I still don’t know if I’m fertile or able to conceive. There are countless examples I could give, but what I want to emphasize is that while the standards are moving in the right direction, they can’t turn back time. I’ll never be able to get back the body that I once had.
What’s most painful to sit with is not just what was taken from me, but how confidently it was taken.
Meanwhile, boxer Imane Khelif, who previously competed in women’s boxing at the Olympics, has admitted that he is a man. Bear in mind that the Left will not be eager to see the collapse of the trans movement.
The Rise and Fall of the Washington Post. Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan issues “A Lament for the Washington Post,” which announced this week massive layoffs, in her latest Wall Street Journal column. Alas, not everyone was grief-stricken. “These Top 10 Heartbreaking Posts About the WaPo Layoffs Will (Almost) Make You Forget the Paper Lost $100 Million per Year” at the Free Beacon is hilarious. The subhead: “Democracy Is Dead.” Daily Caller’s Geoffrey Ingersoll acknowledges that being laid off “sucks,” but asks:
Did WaPo really need to pay 13 salaries in the “climate change” beat? Was the output of WaPo’s various “race reporters” really putting the business in the, ahem, black? Why on earth is their sports section, which was almost entirely nuked, leading Super Bowl week with a giant cover story on Excel spreadsheets? …
The third notable freakout was when the new executive editor, Will Lewis, was brought aboard from the Telegraph. Staff revolted. They demanded to know if any black women were considered. (I hear Claudine Gay is looking for C-level employment.)
Apparently, “race-based journalists” have been laid off not only at the Washington Post but at other outlets.
Maybe the Washington Post should have hired Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to help them cut costs. Vaught got a nice call out from Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel this morning. “For the first time in eons, Republicans are getting serious about spending control,” writes Strassel, and Vaught is key. Meanwhile, a man in Maryland has been arrested for the alleged attempted assassination of the OMB Director.
President Trump has called to “nationalize” presidential elections, though an editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes that it’s not crystal clear what he means. The editors are critical of the idea:
Mr. Thune remains “not in favor of federalizing elections,” he told the press. “I’m a big believer in decentralized, distributed power. And I think, you know, it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one.” The resiliency point is a good one, and voting equipment in a given state can vary even by county, so an adversary wanting to disrupt a U.S. election faces a hard challenge.
Mr. Thune also has company. “I do not want to see us nationalizing elections,” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said, though he added that he believes it’s “fitting and proper to set some basic standards for federal elections,” such as voter ID, which Mr. Johnson called “unbelievably popular.” Nationalize elections? “That’s not what the Constitution says,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told MS NOW. “I was against Nancy Pelosi’s bill.” …
MAGA mouthpiece Steve Bannon suggested that Mr. Trump “have ICE surround the polls,” and “call up the 82nd and 101st Airborne.” Yeah, after Mr. Trump’s political debacle in Minneapolis, independent voters would love that.
A Time for Choosing. Even for yoga teachers:
Enraged spandex-clad customers at a Minneapolis CorePower Yoga studio berated staffers for being “complicit” in the federal immigration crackdown during a caught-on-camera clash last weekend — demanding that they immediately condemn ICE.
Video of the clash posted to social media by Heather Anderson, who claims to have been a regular at the location for nearly a decade, shows at least 13 women “spontaneously” facing off against two female staffers inside of the studio’s lobby after a Sunday class let out.
I don’t know if he had to sneak incognito into any yoga classes, but J. Michael Waller infiltrated radical groups 40 years ago, and he’s alarmed about something he sees in today’s counterparts: a thirst for martyrs. The Federalist regards the anti-ICE checkpoints in Minneapolis as evidence that anarchists are an occupying force.
Yet another moral collapse: The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson looks at Spain’s impending mass amnesty for migrants who will never assimilate and sees the future: “Mass Amnesty In Spain Heralds the End of Nationhood.”
“Reality Is Finally Crashing New York’s Utopian Green-energy Party” is the headline on a Bjorn Lomborg story. But is New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani reality-based? Take his idea for free buses, which could ruin one of the nation’s best transportation systems.
Distressing. “No suspects and a new reward: Family pleads for Nancy Guthrie’s return as search enters sixth day,” CNN reports. There are chilling indications that Mrs. Guthrie may have been targeted.
Senator Marsha Blackburn is urging Chief Justice John Roberts to launch an investigation into Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson over her attendance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday amid anti-ICE rhetoric from celebrities and artists at the event. The Senator is concerned that attendance at such an event impugns the legal giant’s objectivity.
The Kennedy Center Without Tears. DC Examiner columnist Henry Olsen has a novel approach to the Kennedy Center. “Mr. Trump, tear down the Kennedy Center,” is his Reaganesque plea:
The Kennedy Center was built in the 1960s and is a testimony to the drab, uninspired architecture of that age. It commands a fantastic site, facing the Potomac River on a bluff visible from the air and from land as visitors enter the city. It should be the type of building that commands awe and attention from all who see it.
Instead, it is a flat, drab rectangle with unadorned columns and an off-white marble exterior. Nothing about it screams American greatness — nothing draws the viewer’s gaze as they fly or drive by. The circular Watergate building across the street has more visual interest than the country’s leading theater. … The interior is, if anything, even more depressing.
Mr. Olsen helpfully supplies the president with ideas gleaned from beautiful public buildings around the world. And what shall we call this triumph of architecture?
