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Twit Awards for the Week 2/12/24

ceciliab | Feb 12, 2024

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The Catholic News Agency has a story about how state legislators in conservative states are “[continuing] efforts to protect minors from transgender procedures.” But, minors almost never receive transgender procedures, and the youngest to receive them in the U.S. are 17 years old, which is nearly an adult. As for prescription medicines, they are safe, and their effects will reverse when the medicine is discontinued. For praising legislators who try to solve a problem which barely exists, Catholic News Agency gets a Twit Award.

The New York Times ran an opinion piece by Pamela Paul, in which she gave the usual nonsense about rapid-onset gender dysphoria and regret for gender-affirming care. She seemed to think that both gender-affirming care and regret for it was much more common than statistics show. For making up her own facts, Pamela Paul gets a Twit Award, which she shares with The New York Times’ editors who chose to run her piece. Erin Reed has a piece debunking The New York Times.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak make a joke that the Labour party “could not define what a woman is.” Obviously, they can’t define what a woman is–they just have a different definition from that of the Conservative party. What makes this worse is that the mother of murdered trans teen Briana Ghey had been specially invited to attend parliament that day. For amazing insensitivity, and for compounding that with a refusal to apologize, insisting that his political hyperbole was true, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gets a Twit Award. This story comes from Reuters.

In Iowa, the debate over recognizing gender as equal to the sex defined at birth took an ugly turn. The bill claims that “equal” does not mean “the same” or “identical,” which may be true, but the bill never says what the term does mean. Moreover, the bill insists that “separate” is “not inherently unequal,” denying the decades-old finding of Brown v. Board of Education. For ignoring legal history, and for bringing back legal segregation, the authors of this bill get a Twit Award. The Guardian has commentary by Erin Reed on this.

Valentina Gomez, a political candidate in Missouri, used a flamethrower to destroy some books which she claims are inappropriate for children. She claims, “When I’m Secretary of State, I will BURN all books that are grooming, indoctrinating, and sexualizing our children. MAGA. America First.” For the mistaken belief that access to information is responsible for turning children LGBTQ, for promoting ignorance, and for use of a dangerous and imprecise weapon to destroy books, Victoria Gomez gets a Twit Award. This story comes from The Advocate.

Senator Tommy Tuberville has gone over the top to promote his bill which would impose a national ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports, especially in the Olympics. In an interview with Newsmax, he claims, “The Democratic party is totally against gender. . .They do not like women. They want women to be extinct and now they’re getting into athletics to make sure that ‘hey, let’s don’t let women learn from sports. Let’s attack them by letting biological men compete against them.'” First off, athletes may learn to excel at a sporting endeavor, but they do not learn that much from sports. Secondly, wanting to allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s athletics is very different from wanting women to “go extinct.” Thirdly, if women did go extinct, the human species would not survive to another generation. For hyperbole which drifts into nonsense, Senator Tommy Tuberville gets a Twit Award. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

In part two of a continuing series on gender-affirming care, the Daily Signal lets a “truthful therapist” explain why parents cannot trust therapists who provide gender-affirming care. Mind you, this “truthful therapist” believes in rapid-onset gender dysphoria, and disputes the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine. In Part Three of the Daily Signal series, a lawyer predicts $10,000,000 verdicts for desisters, despite the fact that the regret rate is lower than for common medical procedures. For promoting fact-free fantasy, the alleged experts in this series, and the editors who approved it, get a Twit Award.

Florida state Senator Erin Grall would allow schools to replace guidance counselors with “volunteer school chaplains.” Not only would this replace people who use science with people who dispute science, it would also put religion back into public schools despite the fact that fewer people are believers. For promoting religion in the place of science, state Senator Erin Grall gets a Twit Award. This story comes from Into More.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach told school officials that they are “required” to inform parents when their child changes gender at school, despite the fact that Kansas has no law requiring such disclosure. The law in Kansas is silent, allowing teachers and school officials to decide for themselves if they should inform parents. For attempting to make the law what he wants instead of what it says, and for not trusting school officials to judge the situation when it arises, Attorney General Kris Kobach gets a Twit Award. The Associated Press has this story.