Heya everybody,

It’s Fall, it’s warm and the sun is shining... nice! ☺ I did add about 45 articles the other week, but I still have to write an overview of the most important studies... maybe I’ll manage this weekend.

The British Humanist Association has launched a new ad campaign answering the big question about life, the universe, and everything... here are some examples:

– “The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.” Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)

– “The meaning of your life is what you make of it.” Anthony Clifford Grayling

– “Wear a smile and make friends; wear a scowl and make wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?” George Eliot (1819–1880)

– “My notion is to think of the human beings first and let the abstract ideas take care of themselves.” Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

I quite like the quotes... let’s try to live accordingly!

A magazine called “Townhall” has picked up and re-run the old lies by Paul McHugh about transsexualism being a psychopathological illness and medical treatment not helping transsexuals. It suggests looking to the bible (which is odd, since it doesn’t mention gender dysphoria), builds strawmen arguments, and shows a general lack of knowledge. As an example, it implies that transgender advocates try to hide the “news” that transgender feelings in childhood often go away. There are plenty of studies showing that the vast majority of gender-atypical and gender dysphoric children grow up to be homosexual, with only a small number developing into transsexual adolescents. (The World Professional Association for Transgender Health notes in their latest Standards of Care that gender dysphoria in childhood does not inevitably continue into adulthood: only 6–23 % of boys and 12–27 % of girls showed persistence of their gender dysphoria into adulthood. Further, most of the boys’ gender dysphoria desisted, and in adulthood, they identified as gay rather than as transgender.) I’ve not heard anyone make claims to the contrary. This scientific evidence is the reason why many transgender advocates are for removing the category “gender incongruence in childhood” from the ICD list of diseases - gender dysphoric children usually don’t require medical treatment. Treatment should start only in adolescence if the gender dysphoria persists, first with puberty blockers (a reversible procedure), and only later with hormone treatments and surgery, when the person has reached sufficient maturity. Simple and common-sensical... why do people keep distorting the facts?

If you want to read more about that Paul McHugh “controversy”, please look here and here and here.

That’s me for now... for a smile, try a Google image search on “rainbow cake”.

Take care and be well ☺🐾