Category Archives: Freedom of Speech and of the Press

Posted on by

Propaganda from the credentialed media will not change reality Girls can't be boys and boys can't be girls!

The First Street Journal maintains a Stylebook of its own devise. It includes:

Those who claim to be transgender will be referred to with the names, honorifics, and pronouns appropriate to the sex of their birth; the site owner does not agree with the cockamamie notion that anyone can simply ‘identify’ with a sex which is not his own, nor that any medical ‘treatment’ or surgery can change a person’s natural sex; all that it can do is physically mutilate a person.

Sadly, most credentialed media publications do not do the same, but use the Associated Press Stylebook, something I would like to have, but it isn’t free, and I’m not about to waste my money on it.

You may think that I have issued my Stylebook to reflect my political views, and you would be correct. However, screen capturing Google’s return of associated press stylebook on transgender persons, pictured to the right, you’ll see that they have done so as well. The AP Stylebook is structured entirely on the concept that girls can be boys and boys can be girls, and cautions the users against using terms which might dispute that. I am particularly amused by the part which states:

Sex Assigned at Birth: Use phrases like “assigned female at birth” or “assigned male at birth” rather than “born a girl/boy” or “biological sex”.

Such a point has the underlying assumption that sex is something actually assigned at birth, rather than a simple recognition of the biological determination of sex made at conception. I suppose that King Henry VIII could have avoided a whole lot of trouble had he ‘assigned’ Mary as a boy rather than a girl, if such things could actually be assigned.

And so we come to a fawning article in the Los Angeles Times on Abraham Delgado[1]DailyMail.com can also reveal that AB’s name at birth was Abraham Delgado, born in Riverside, California, on August 4, 2008, according to court records filed by Nereyda (Hernandez) in June … Continue reading, the 17½-year-old boy competing as a girl calling himself A B Hernandez in California high school athletics.

Mother of transgender athlete AB Hernandez determined to push through protests

  • As protests target transgender track star AB Hernandez, her mother feels better prepared for protests and national scrutiny.
  • State policies allowing transgender girls to compete against cis-gender athletes puts California at odds with federal directives.
  • Hernandez, a two-time state champion, dominated Southern Section prelims and eyes a final state title run in Clovis.

By Marisa Ingemi | Thursday, May 14, 2026 | 4 AM PDT

A flyer featuring a pink background was the top Instagram post on California state superintendent candidate Sonja Shaw’s page on Saturday morning. It read, in blue, “a male athlete” held the top spot for an upcoming high school girls’ track and field meet, listing the event start times for protesters.

It was a tactic Nereyda Hernandez previously faced when her daughter, Jurupa Valley High track and field athlete AB Hernandez, first hit the national spotlight last year.

It has been about a year since President Trump targeted AB, who is transgender. As a result, the athlete and her mother knew what to expect when the track postseason began in May. There would be cameras, protesters and vitriol directed at a high school athlete.

You can see it, right away: reporter Marisa Ingemi referred to young Mr Delgado with the feminine pronoun “her”. While our Stylebook notes that we will always refer to the “transgendered” with the names, honorifics and pronouns appropriate to their actual sex, we do not change direct quotations from others.

CIF policies allow transgender athletes to compete alongside other cisgender girls. If the transgender athlete places high enough to advance in qualifying or to medal at a CIF event, the athlete advances or receives the medal. But so does the next athlete in line. As a result, AB shared the first-place podium alongside another athlete twice at the state track and field meet last year.

Perhaps Miss Ingemi simply missed it, and it was just poor prose on her part, but in saying that “CIF policies allow transgender athletes to compete alongside other cisgender girls,” the reporter leaves the implication that there is no difference between “transgender” athletes and “cisgender girls.” That even the Pyrite State recognizes the biological differences is made obvious by the sharing on the podium with real girls.

The Daily Mail reported:

Ahead of the State Championships, DailyMail.com went through the ‘meet program’.

AB Hernandez, as a girl in the Varsity Long Jump category, had a seed mark of 19′ 3.5′ and in the triple jump category 40′ 4.75′. If she, as a biological male, competed against the boys in this year’s championship, AB would not have even qualified in this weekend’s championships.

Naturally, Miss Ingemi failed to include that in her article. Males and females have significantly different hip structures. Because babies have to be able to pass through the birth canal, the hips of females are wider in ways to allow that, while the hip structure of males are optimized for speed and strength, exactly the kind of differences which make a difference in athletic events.

Young Mr Delgado may really see himself as a girl, may really, really, really believe it. He may see himself as a real girl strongly enough that he’d never dream of competing in sports against other boys. But wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’, plannin’ and dreamin‘ each night that he’s a girl won’t make him a girl. Sorry, but it just won’t. And propaganda from the credentialed media will not change reality.

References

References
↑1 DailyMail.com can also reveal that AB’s name at birth was Abraham Delgado, born in Riverside, California, on August 4, 2008, according to court records filed by Nereyda (Hernandez) in June 2012.

The records stated she petitioned the Riverside County courts to change Abraham’s last name from Delgado to Hernandez.

She lists Abraham’s father as JayDee Delgado from Riverside, California. DailyMail.com attempted to reach out to Abraham’s father, but he did not respond to requests for comment.
Posted on by

Some common sense concerning the Louisiana v Callais decision. This might not be quite the result for which Republicans hoped

The two pages of the Congressionally-signed original of the Fourteenth Amendment in the National Archives, written with iron gall ink on parchment. It was last publicly displayed in 2013. As of 2025, it is stored in the research wing of the archives inside a boxed book of Acts of Congress from its 39th session.

Our good friends on the left, who have been so supportive of the Fourteenth Amendment’s provision that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” must grant automatic citizenship to the “anchor babies” of people in our country illegally, they have not been nearly as thrilled with the Equal Protection Clause, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” when that clause says, essentially and throughout dozens of decisions, that Americans may not be treated differently based upon their race. Oh, the left certainly doesn’t want white Americans to be given a legal advantage, but legal “remedies” to “past discrimination” to assist black Americans meet with their approval.

After a Supreme Court ruling that was an affront to history, some states can’t wait to turn back the clock on voting rights | Editorial

After long ago overcoming racist efforts to dilute the power of voters of color, the conservative justices have unreasonably made it more difficult to challenge discriminatory legislative maps.

by The Editorial Board | Monday, May 11, 2026 | 5:01 AM EDT

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the U.S. Supreme Court giving its seal of approval to Republican attempts to turn back the clock on voting rights in America is that, after long ago overcoming racist efforts to dilute the power of voters of color, we now see similar vipers slithering past the corroded gates of hell that were supposed to hold them in check.

The court defied reason with an opinion that, in essence, neutered the 1965 Voting Rights Act by ruling government efforts to remedy past racism, which tipped the scales in favor of white political candidates, are also racist — unless those remedies can be tied to specific acts of past discrimination that made them necessary.

The decision has opened the door for states to attempt to invalidate any congressional district lines drawn to favor candidates of color.

Note what appalls The Editorial Board, that they might lose “congressional district lines drawn to favor candidates of color.” The Board are specifically asking for districts which favor non-white candidates. This would be the same Editorial Board which wrote last January:

The president has also successfully lobbied some Republican-controlled states to remake congressional maps to favor the GOP, regardless of their potential illegality. In Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed 2025 redistricting maps to be used for the upcoming election, even as a legal challenge moves forward over racial gerrymandering.

It seems that the Board approve of racial gerrymandering, an attempt to create, again in their words, “congressional district lines drawn to favor candidates of color,” but are diametrically opposed to district boundaries which favor Republicans.

There is a strong bias on the part of the Board. It would seem that black Americans, in their view, can only be represented by black representatives, but if anyone were to suggest that black representatives cannot represent white Americans, they’d be among the first to scream that’s racist. If someone stated that only a white candidate could reasonably represent a majority white district, they’d also claim such was racist.

Conservatives have long fought against the reverse racism which has been used, but electorally, the Louisiana v Callais decision might not be the win they think. Blacks are the Democrats most loyal voting Demographic, frequently giving 90% of their ballots to Democrats. Creating majority black districts had the effect of making neighboring districts safer for Republican candidates. If those majority black districts are phased out, spreading heavily black areas back into other districts, Republican candidates might fare more poorly, and close races more likely to elect the Democratic candidates. The Editorial Board might be appalled if fewer black Democrats were elected, but I’m sure that they’d trade black Democrats for white Democrats if it meant fewer Republicans of any color were in office.

Posted on by

The journolism of NBC News Can you trust anything from NBC News these days?

That’s not a typographical error in the headline! The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.

Though I spent two years writing for the Kentucky Kernel, I was not actually a journalism student; my degree is not in journalism. But I do know enough to recognize thoroughly biased ‘reporting’ when I see it.

So here you go: from NBC News:

Kyle Rittenhouse hospitalized following bite from venomous spider

“The communists couldn’t take me out and i’ll be damned if I let a brown recluse take me out,” said the gunman who opened fire in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Aug. 5, 2020.

By David K. Li | Thursday, May 7, 2026 | 10:42 AM EDT | Updated” 11:44 AM EDT

Kyle Rittenhouse, who gained fame for opening fire at a 2020 civil rights rally in Wisconsin, was hospitalized after a venomous spider bit him, the noted firearms enthusiast said Wednesday.

Did you catch that? In both the subtitle and the first paragraph, reporter David K Li used the description “opened fire” and “opening fire,” as though Mr Rittenhouse stood on top of a platform, put his weapon on spray and pray, and raked a (peaceful?) crowd indiscriminately, like a Philadelphia gang-banger.

Rittenhouse, 23, told his 100,000 followers on X that he fell victim to a brown recluse, posting pictures of himself in a hospital bed strapped to monitors with one close-up shot of the bite mark.

“The spider, like the commies, also thought it was a good idea to come after me while I was armed,” Rittenhouse posted. “He did not survive.”

Rittenhouse appeared to be in good spirits, joking that his only disappointment was that “I’m not Spider-Man now.”

He did not say exactly when or where the spider attack happened.

Rittenhouse’s post, predictably, drew thousands of responses — a mix of support and mockery.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was among the first and highest-profile well-wishers, telling Rittenhouse “you got this.”

“Thank you, Senator,” Rittenhouse responded Thursday.

Others came at him with body-shaming ridicule, which the shirtless, stout Rittenhouse didn’t appear to respond to.

Rittenhouse became a household name in late summer 2020 after he fatally shot two men and wounded a third during civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

There’s more at the original, and though Mr Li did note that Mr Rittenhouse was tried for “killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding paramedic Gaige Grosskreutz during the melee”, there is absolutely no mention made that Mr Rittenhouse was backing away when he was attacked by Messrs Rosenbaum, Huber, and Grosskreutz. The article did note that he testified in his own defense, claimed the men were shot in self-defense, and that the jury acquitted him on all charges.

Mr Li added hyperlinks to three of his previous articles, plus a fourth, all in the paragraph above, in which he declined to note that Mr Rosenbaum had mental issues and had spent most of his adult life in prison for sexually molesting underaged boys, Mr Huber “had spent time in prison twice, first for violating probation after strangling his brother and again for kicking his sister,” same link, and Mr Grosskreutz was pointing a firearm at Mr Rittenhouse as he was shot, again, same link. The link is to an article by National Public Radio, not some evil, reich-wing source.

If Mr Li’s article was your only source of information, you might be inclined to think that yes, Mr Rittenhouse was the a perched on a platform, mowing down mostly peaceful protesters. That’s journolism, not real journalism.

Mr Li covered the trial and most of the story for NBC News, and was absolutely aware that Mr Rittenhouse was thrice attacked, in succession, by the three men, two of whom were previously convicted felons, and the third armed and pointing his weapon at the defendant at the time he was shot, but he chose not to tell his readers that. His article was not something limited by the old 750-word limit, but had the freedom of the twenty-first century, and virtually unlimited bandwidth.

Both the reporter and his editor — there are editors at NBC, right? — had to have known the article was biased, and had to have known that the case was famous enough that [insert plural slang term for the anus here] like me would notice it, but apparently they just didn’t care. One thing is certain: you cannot trust Mr Li to tell the whole truth in any of his reporting, and NBC News itself must be suspect. The days of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley are in the distant past for NBC News.

Posted on by

No matter how much you hate the credentialed media, you do not hate them enough! It's far more important to protect criminal suspects than it is to protect law-abiding people.

Русский? Я никогда не знал русского по имени Саидахмад.

I saw this tweet from Northeast Philly Degenerate, and of course I snarked, “Russian? I’ve never known a Russian named Saidakhmad.” As it turns out, the Philadelphia Police came to the same conclusion, that they are probably of central Asian descent.

At 4:52 PM EDT, two hours and twelve minutes later, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s after hours reporter, Robrt Moran, published the newspaper’s own story on the crime:

6 men rob, commit assaults at massage business near Chinatown, police say

One of the six men who fled from the roof of the business on the 400 block of North Ninth Street was arrested, police said.

by Robert Moran | Monday, April 27, 2026 | 4:52 PM EDT

Six young men robbed at gunpoint and committed sexual assaults at a massage business just north of Chinatown early Saturday, Philadelphia police said.

The men forced their way into the business on the 400 block of North Ninth Street about 4:40 a.m., police said Monday.

When police arrived, the men “fled from the roof,” the police department said.

One suspect was caught on the roof, police said.

Saidakhmad Bakiev, 18, of Northeast Philadelphia, was charged with rape, robbery, aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, burglary, false imprisonment, sexual assault, indecent assault, and related offenses.

In keeping with the newspaper’s policy of not publishing mugshots, Mr Moran did not include one of the accused. But Mr Moran did include two hyperlinks which did lead to such. One wonders if he’ll be called on the carpet for that.

The link to the Philadelphia Police Department’s press release included photos of the five suspects on the lam. The remaining suspects “are described as white males, late teens into their 20’s, dark hair, possibly Russian/Central Asian descent.” No information on their immigration status was included, but if Mr Bakiev is an immigrant, I’m sure that Will Bunch will defend him at all costs.

The 400 block of North Ninth Street is no great place, a neighborhood of low rent businesses, ill-kept sidewalks, and vacant lots with overgrown grass behind chain link fences. “Massage parlors” are not usually considered high-class businesses.

One would think that the newspaper of record for not only the city but the metropolitan area as well, my unlimited digital subscription for which is $6.99 per week, $363.48 per year, would be more concerned with the safety of the decent people in the City of Brotherly Love, be more willing to include the photos of the (alleged) malefactors, to get the aid of the public in identifying them and helping the Philadelphia Police to capture the suspects, but apparently if one did think that, he’d be wrong, wrong, wrong! It’s far more important to protect criminal suspects than it is to protect law-abiding people.

Posted on by

No matter how much you hate the credentialed media, you do not hate them enough!

When it comes to posts on Twitter, I have gotten away from doing the easy thing and embedding them to taking screenshots and then embedding the links to them. I use them for illustrations on my site, because tweets are not copyrighted, and because they serve as a permanent record.

Well, apparently Bethany Allen, whose Twitter bio states that she is “Head of China investigations @aspi_cts. Was @axios, @foreignpolicy, @yale, @HopkinsNanjing. Author BEIJING RULES, FT Best Books 2023. bethanyallen AT aspi org au” isn’t quite as intelligent and educated as she thinks she is, because Stephen Miller did the same thing, and took a screenshot of his response to her now deleted tweet.

This site has made considerable fun of CNN’s Jake Tapper and his co-author Alex Thompson for their non mea culpa est book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, and now we’re seeing supposedly professional journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading trying to tell us that it’s not their fault that they didn’t report on the perv from the Pyrite State, Rep. Eric Swalwell and his proclivity for sexual assault. No, they knew about it, but it wasn’t their beat, you know?

Steven Tavares of the East Bay Insider admitted that he knew about it as well, since 2013, screenshot here, and also kept his mouth shut.

Well, Mr Tavares is stuck in the area around the city of my birth — Go Oakland, never Las Vegas, Raiders! — and Miss Allen lives in Taipei, far, far away from the corridors of federal power in Washington, DC, and even they had heard about what has been described as an ‘open secret’ concerning Mr Swalwell. So how is it that The New York Times — “All the News That’s Fit to Print” — and The Washington Post — “Democracy Dies in Darkness” — found news about the Distinguished Gentleman from California not fit to print, found it too dark to illuminate for democracy? Do the voters of California’s 14th congressional district not deserve to know this about their representative in Congress? Do the voters in the United States, frequently subjected to Mr Swalwell’s attacks on President Trump, and his attempts to derail the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, not deserve to know what a huge hypocrite was making those allegations?

We have previously noted the losses and layoffs at the Post, but stories about Mr Swalwell’s proclivities had been circulating long before those layoffs, and still the Post never reported on it. There were plenty of stories, including the Post’s Taylor Lorenz’s doxxing of Chaya Raichik, an attempt to expose the previously anonymous producer of the Twitter site Libs of TikTok, hoping to get Miss Raichik to lose her day job or get run out of town, or something else horrible to happen to her, Miss Raichik having done nothing more than to have exposed the idiocy of the #woke[2]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading, but expose an actual predator in Congress? Maybe if he’d been a Republican, yeah, but a prominent Democrat? Nope, not happening.

But let’s tell the full truth here: former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy knew, which means most if not all Republicans in the House of Representatives knew as well, and they didn’t expose Mr Swalwell either. Either they were just fine with the pervert from the Pyrite State’s continued attacks on President Trump, or they didn’t want the light of truth shone on themselves, and both possibilities could be true.

Jeff Bezos, you’ve got some work to do! You want to revive The Washington Post, to get it back to where it was? Get your reporters on the case, get them to document and expose all of the members of Congress who are abusing their power and positions! No one will ever believe that your reporters haven’t heard the rumors about Mr Swalwell, and that there aren’t other possible abusers out there.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity.
↑2 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
Posted on by

Has The Philadelphia Inquirer changed its policies on publishing photos of accused sex offenders?

We noted, on April Fool’s Day, something which wasn’t foolish, that The Philadelphia Inquirer, which has a stated policy of not publishing mug shots chose to publish the photo of a woman charged with, but not yet convicted of, grooming a student for sex, something which allegedly began when the boy was only twelve.

Now we have this story:

Montco teacher who tried to coerce a teenage student to kiss him sent to county jail

John Richards IV told the 13-year-old she was beautiful, and asked if he could kiss her “at least two times” during a field trip last year.

by Vinny Vella | Monday, April 6, 2026 | 4:53 PM EDT

John Richards IV spent a decade working as a teacher, dedicating his life, he told a judge Monday, to a vocation he felt was his calling.

But Richards, 58, ruined his career and his reputation by betraying the authority granted to him, Montgomery County Court Judge Risa Vetri Ferman said as she sentenced Richards to 9 to 23 months in jail for attempting to sexually assault a 13-year-old student.

“The actions that bring us here today are horrific,” Ferman said. “He made a victim out of a girl who wanted nothing more than to be a student. There has to be a severe punishment, otherwise it would diminish the seriousness of this case.”

Richards, of Newtown Square, wrote a message in March 2025 to the girl, a student in his eighth-grade science class at Blockson Middle School in Norristown, telling her that she was beautiful, prosecutors said Monday. He asked permission to kiss her “at least two times” during a field trip to Washington he was chaperoning the next day.

So, Mr Richards was just plain stupid. He made all sorts of excuses for what he did — Mr Richards pleaded guilty to the charges — blaming loneliness among other things, but he wasn’t smart enough to look for women who were actually adults and not under his supervisory authority. Teachers cannot be unaware of what’s been happening to their fellow teachers when they try to form romantic or sexual relationships with minor students. His sentence is for stupidity as much as anything else.

“Looking back at it now, I’m appalled that I could’ve done something so reprehensible,” Richards said. “I think I was in a bad, lonely place, and I was looking to be seen in any way possible.”

Richards blamed what he called a lapse in judgment on what he described as ineffective medication to treat his ADHD diagnosis. He asked the judge for leniency, saying that his three children had already been given life sentences by the “court of public opinion.”

Well, of course he’s going to say anything he could to avoid jail!

But, what interested me more was that the newspaper published his photo[1]I chose to screen capture the newspaper’s Twitter blurb to publicize the story, rather than copy the one directly in the article, to avoid copyright issues. The Twitter feed is open to … Continue reading. The newspaper’s stated policy stated their reasons:

  • Because of longstanding racial disparities in arrest rates, mugshots disproportionately feature Black and Latinx people. Unrelenting, routine publication of such mugshots strengthens stereotypes and contributes to systemic racism.
  • Pre-conviction mugshots are inherently unfair, depicting suspects as criminals before guilt or innocence has been established.
  • Online, mugshots exist indefinitely, easily findable through search engines. Years after the alleged offense, mugshots on Inquirer.com or other news sites can make it harder for individuals to find jobs and move on with their lives.
  • Many published mugshots feature private individuals, charged with routine crimes. They are frequently published out of habit. The news value of these photos is often negligible

Mr Richards pleaded guilty, so the second reason would not apply to his case. However, Ashley Fisler, who was featured in the story we previously noted, has not been convicted, so the second listed reason should have applied.

Both Mr Richards and Miss Fisler are white; some might assume that, given the newspaper’s stated reasoning, the first reason given wouldn’t apply to them. But that third reason, that publishing the photos might make it more difficult for the accused to find new jobs and move on with their lives, certainly does apply. Mr Richards is 58, and the Inquirer’s story did not specify whether he will lose whatever retirement pension he has from the school system, but Miss Fisler is only 36; retirement is a long way away for her. Technically, neither photo is a mugshot, but shouldn’t the same reasons apply to other pictures?

It’s an obvious question: has the Inky changed its policies for accused sex offenders? If so, the newspaper should tell us!

References

References
↑1 I chose to screen capture the newspaper’s Twitter blurb to publicize the story, rather than copy the one directly in the article, to avoid copyright issues. The Twitter feed is open to retweeting, meaning that the newspaper is giving open permission to spread the story and the photo. Our regular readers — both of them — may have noticed that is our normal way of doing things. The photo used by the newspaper in the tweet is the same one published in the story, and which appeared on the newspaper’s website main page, as screen captured here on Tuesday, April 7th, at 10:55 AM EDT.
Posted on by

Transgender-Affirming Specialist Ignores Reality

The tweet from Slate simply said, “The GOP’s most dangerous new policy just forced my family out of our home. I’m afraid they’re not done with us yet,” with a stock image of two blond children putting suitcases into the back of a suburban mother’s SUV. Naturally, I wondered what policy of the evil, reich-wing Donald Trump was kicking them out: families losing their homes because an illegal immigrant father had been picked up and kicked out, or a now former government employee losing her job and no longer being able to live in a high-cost subdivision in northern Virginia. But no, that wasn’t what it was. Rather, some #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading (supposed) adult pissed off because she couldn’t ‘transition’ her son or daughter into another sex.

The GOP’s Anti-Trans Crusade Already Forced Me to Move My Family. I’m Still Not Sure We’re Safe.

We thought our new state would be a haven after the last one turned on us. But I know the signs, and they aren’t looking good.

By Kalen D. Zeiger | Tuesday, March 10, 2026 | 11:04 AM

In May of 2020, my family moved so I could attend a clinical mental health doctorate program at the University of Iowa. I remember being so excited about the program’s LGBTQ Counseling Clinic, where I would be the assistant director and where I would get to focus on providing much-needed therapeutic care for queer folks. It was the deciding factor for me on what program I ended up attending.

At that time, I would never have predicted that the same clinic that had drawn me to Iowa would no longer exist when my family would be forced to flee the state in 2025.

I first read the article on my tablet, loaded via the tweet, while still in bed early this morning, but, of course, I needed my desktop to be able to write about it. That’s when I found out that Slate had the article hidden behind the paywall for a non-first visit. Undeterred, I Google searched for it elsewhere, and found it here as well.

At the beginning of our Iowa adventure, my kids were 9 and 12, and the plan was to stay at least until our oldest graduated from high school in 2026, if not longer. A few years into our time in the Hawkeye State, my oldest child came to us because they wanted to start on puberty blockers, since they were trans, and wanted to delay bodily changes that didn’t match their gender. When my child first came out, I was worried that because I’m a trans clinician who works in gender-affirming mental health care, others would assume my child’s choices were influenced by me. I was very careful to make sure they knew that whether to pursue gender-affirming care was entirely their own choice. The most important thing was that they knew we loved them and that we would support whatever choice they made.

Really? Dr Zeiger claims that such was entirely “their” own choice, but one thing is clear: having a mother who “works in gender-affirming mental health care” doesn’t exactly lead to a parent telling a child the truth, that no amount of hormones or surgeries can actually change a boy into a girl or vice versa.

By early 2023, my 15-year-old was sure they wanted to start puberty blockers, so we followed the World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards to get them started, including getting a letter of support from a doctorate-level mental health clinician after a thorough evaluation. At first, my child felt relief and joy; they were glowing, and so happy that they could do something to slow the changes to their body that did not feel congruent with who they actually are. But that lightness would soon be crushed by a statewide ban on care for transgender minors.

Note that this was 2023, and while the author is blaming all of this on Donald Trump, he was not President at the time, and at the time, it appeared improbable that he’d ever be President again. Federal and state prosecutors were seeking some way, any way, to lock him up and keep him from ever running for President again. In 2023, Joe Biden was President and he and his woke staffers were pushing every possible means of supporting the cockamamie notion the girls could be boys and boys could be girls.

Kalen Zeiger, from Psychology Today.

The fact that children would be denied medically necessary, age-appropriate care did not matter to the fact that children would be denied medically necessary, age-appropriate care did not matter to the Iowa legislators who passed the ban. It did not matter to Iowa legislators that this ban didn’t change the fact that my child was trans—something I think they believe (or at least hope) they can control. It did not matter that this ban meant my child would have to wait three more years to access a well-researched, basic standard of care supported by multiple professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, and more. It also did not matter that this ban means my child will have to undergo far more expensive and invasive procedures down the road than they would have if they had been able to stay on puberty blockers at 15. After years of unnecessary stress and pain, that child started gender-affirming care the week after they turned 18.” target=”_blank”>Iowa legislators who passed the ban. It did not matter to Iowa legislators that this ban didn’t change the fact that my child was trans—something I think they believe (or at least hope) they can control. It did not matter that this ban meant my child would have to wait three more years to access a well-researched, basic standard of care supported by multiple professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, and more. It also did not matter that this ban means my child will have to undergo far more expensive and invasive procedures down the road than they would have if they had been able to stay on puberty blockers at 15. After years of unnecessary stress and pain, that child started gender-affirming care the week after they turned 18.

In the summer of 2025, we were packing our bags yet again. Less than a month after my child was finally able to access trans care, my two kids and I moved to Colorado. I had just spent the last five years completing a Ph.D. in Couple and Family Therapy and a Master of Arts in Educational Measurement and Statistics. My now-18-year-old, a summer baby, had one more year of high school left. Where originally we wanted to make sure they were not moved mid-high-school, we now desperately did not want them coming of age in the state whose legislature had just voted to roll back civil rights protections from trans people like them and myself, including the right to be free from discrimination when it comes to education, employment, housing, and existing in public.

There’s a lot more in the article, and I don’t want to quote it all, but note from that final paragraph, in which Dr Zeiger referred to rolling back civil rights protections from trans people “like them and myself.”

Dr Zeiger was very careful in her article to avoid any indications of whether she was male or female, whether her “partner” or “spouse” was male or female, and whether her child was biologically male or female, though it’s obvious from her professional photographs that the author was born female. I haven’t seen any photos of her now 18 or 19-year-old child, but if it is obvious that Dr Zeiger is biologically female, regardless of how she chooses to present herself, and the guy at the right is male, regardless of his clothing, hair, and earrings, one would hope that the author told her child that “they” would almost certainly be recognized as “their” biological sex rather than the sex “they” pretended to be.

Try a little experiment the next time you are out driving or walking around. When you see an adult 80 yards away, a person with his back turned to you and wearing just blue jeans and a shirt, can you tell if that person is male or female just from that? If your eyesight is good, of course you can, because males and females are built differently. Males are normally taller than females, but proportionally women have longer legs and shorter upper bodies than men. The ability to distinguish between sexes of their own species is something that every bird, every reptile, and every mammal has instinctively; only liberal humans have managed to ‘educate’ that ability out of themselves.

Henry Berg-Brousseau is seen with his politician mother Karen, father Bob, a marketing director, and sister Rachael, a rabbi. Photo from the Daily Mail. Click to enlarge.

We previously noted, in December of 2022, the suicide of “Henry” Berg-Brousseau, the daughter of Kentucky state Senator Karen Berg, who thought that she really was a man. She was given every opportunity, with a supportive father and quack physician mother, and apparently supportive friends.

But I included a photo of the Berg-Brousseau family. In it, “Henry” — I have been unable to find her real name — is shown, seemingly shorter than her mother and sister, and certainly shorter than her father, as well as significantly overweight. Were she an actual boy who grew up that way, “he’d” have been the last picked for a team in Phys Ed, and been dateless as high school girls, real girls, would have rejected “him” for more masculine guys. As an adult, she might somehow ‘pass’ as a male, if no one asked any questions, but she’d have been the least impressive of ‘guys’.

Dr Berg claimed that Miss Berg-Brousseau believed that she was at risk, I assume from violence, walking out in public, but, in the end, the person from whom she wasn’t safe was not evil tormenters, but from herself. Had she been an actual boy who grew up to look the way she looked, she’d have had to get used to the kinds of insults that all boys growing up not masculine enough hear. But Dr Berg wants to blame her daughter’s suicide on people who recognize that her “transgender son” was actually her daughter, and refused to lie about it.

The truth is simple: no matter that the Kinks sang that girls can be boys and boys can be girls, it’s simply not true. As “a Ph.D. in Couple and Family Therapy and a Master of Arts in Educational Measurement and Statistics,” Dr Zeiger ought to be able to recognize that, but as a female who thinks she’s male, she has subordinated reality to what she apparently wants. Normal people just don’t do that.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
Posted on by

#TrumpDerangementSyndrome I can understand not liking the way the Iranian government was struck, but it boggles my mind than any sane person can be sad about it.

As I have previously noted, I was not in favor of the United States launching the attack on Iran; I most certainly wanted the clerical government to fall, and freedom to come to that country, but I wanted the people of Iran to do the job, not have is do so. That said, it is very heartening that so many of the Iranian leadership have been sent to Jahannam and their 72 bacha bazi boys. It’s far too early to know what kind of government will arise from the attack, and leading people like the New Republic’s Michael Tomasky, who admits to proceeding from a position that he “consider(s) Trump a walking malignancy in virtually every imaginable way, a cruel charlatan and sociopath who has done untold damage to the nation and world over the years,” to write that it’s improbable that things will eventually turn out decently.

But at some point you have to wonder about the Westerners demonstrating in support of the now late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the oppressive Iranian government. Under the mad clerics, Iran was sponsoring anti-Western and especially anti-Jewish terrorism anywhere they could. The October 7th massacre was launched by Hamas, but they could only do so due to the monetary and war materiel support they received from Iran. Iran wanted the war to hold up the movement of Saudi Arabia to sign on to the Abraham Accords, because the last thing the mullahs wanted was peace between Israel and the Arab nations. Are American liberals so consumed with #TrumpDerangementSyndrome that they’d rather see girls executed for being raped, women slain for not wearing the hijab properly, and homosexuals publicly hanged by construction cranes than President Trump get a major foreign policy win?

Yes, of course that’s a rhetorical question; that’s exactly how some of our leftists feel. If Mr Trump cured cancer, they’d combitch that he was putting doctors and nurses out of work. Our left have become so stupid that they are going to support people who would happily kill them as long as those people are opposed to Western civilization. They use their freedom of speech and of the press to disseminate views in support of people and governments which would deny them freedom of speech and of the press.

The left try to tell us that they are just so much smarter than we evil, reich-wing conservatives, so much more educated, yet it seems that, today at least, when Mr Trump is in office at least, that they are a dumb as a box of rocks. I can understand not liking the way the Iranian government was struck, but it boggles my mind than any sane person can be sad about it.

Posted on by

Now you know why I call it Journolism! ** Updated! 9:05 PM EST ** #FreedomOfThePress includes the right not to publish what you don't want to publish, but concealing uncomfortable facts hurts the media's reputation

In the wake of the roughly 300 layoffs at The Washington Post, there has been a lot of blame spread, both among the subscribers who quit for owner Jeff Bezos refusing to endorse Kamala Harris Emhoff in 2024, and the paper itself for it’s very liberal leanings. The Post managed to piss off both the conservatives who might have been willing to subscribe, and the liberals who cancelled their subscriptions. Mr Bezos, in trying to fix a long-ongoing problem, fouled up.

But let me be clear here: the Freedom of the Press includes the freedom not to publish something. That should be obvious: there are only so many pages a newspaper can print, though with digital publishing these days, those limits have expanded.

And now we see just what isn’t being published, when it doesn’t fit Teh Narrative. When the mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in a small town in northeast British Columbia occurred, the Associated Press told us, at 8:59 AM EST, that the (alleged) killer was a “woman” and a “female suspect.” At 9:32 AM EST, CNN simply identified the killer as “they,” being careful to not use a pronoun to specify the killer’s sex. At 9:32 AM EST, The New York Times told us nothing about the shooter.

But, as early as 6:48 AM EST, Matt Van Swol was telling us on Twitter the news which was not politically correct, that the killer was a mentally ill boy who thought he was a girl. I checked the credentialed media, and found several instances of the media concealing the knowledge that the (alleged) killer was transgender.

The killer’s name is Jesse Van Rootselaar, though initially identified as Jesse Strang, 18 years old, and yes, he’s transgender.

I don’t get it. The credentialed media want to build trust in their accuracy, so why conceal information that they know will come out soon enough?

My spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. And now you know why I spell it that way.

Well, eventually even The New York Times had to admit what had previously been revealed, that young Mr Van Rootselaar was the killer, and that the “suspect” was born as biologically male and chose to identify as a female about six years ago. That acknowledgement was time-stamped at 2:45 PM EST, just three minutes short of eight hours after Mr Van Swol’s tweet. The Times also revealed that the “suspect” had quit school four years earlier, which would have meant he wasn’t in school since age 14.

From the Times at 3:19 PM EST:

“Police had attended that residence on a number of occasions over the last several years dealing with concerns of mental health with our suspect,” Dwayne McDonald, the deputy commissioner, said, referring to the home where the suspect’s mother and stepbrother were found dead. On one of those occasions, “firearms were seized.” The most recent police call to the residence was in the spring of last year.

So, the local police already knew that young Mr Van Rootselaar was just plain nuts. Isn’t being biologically one sex but believing you are the other one definition of just plain nuts?

Of course, the newspaper continued to use the feminine pronouns to refer to the killer, as did local officials, because for some stupid reason they think a guy calling himself a girl really is a girl; are the editors and writers at the Times just as nuts as Mr Van Rootselaar?

Yeah, I think that they are!