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The Tale of Two Contagions In 2019, German psychiatrists observed a sudden surge of adolescent girls presenting to clinics with abrupt-onset Tourette-like tics. This immediately raised alarm bells. Tourette’s typically affects boys and begins in early childhood. This was an entirely new patient population. Researchers quickly identified the index case: Jan Zimmermann, a young Tourette sufferer, whose YouTube channel had recently exploded in popularity. The girls displayed the exact same symptoms as Jan: the same outbursts and catchphrases. The phenomenon soon migrated to TikTok, where it spread like wildfire. Researchers coined a new term for what they were observing: mass social media–induced illness — a modern iteration of the long-recognized phenomenon of mass sociogenic illness. Yet, in 2014, when paediatric gender clinics across the Western world began to fill with adolescent girls — another entirely new patient population — “gender-affirming” clinicians didn’t even bother to look for the trigger. And it wouldn’t have taken much effort to find. All it required was a glance at the cultural messaging of the time. Because 2014 was the year Time magazine put Laverne Cox on its cover with the headline: The Transgender Tipping Point: America’s Next Civil Rights Frontier. And with that, the modern trans rights movement launched. Trans-identified celebrities were everywhere, trans characters appeared in children’s books and television shows, trans influencers proliferated with astonishing speed online, and schools began teaching gender identity ideology as if it were scientific fact. And in a perfect-storm scenario, smartphones and social media exploded in popularity, creating the ideal super-spreading environment for this seductive idea to go viral. The message adolescents received was simple: If you hate your body, that could mean you’re trans. And right on cue, legions of confused adolescents who hated their developing bodies began showing up at gender clinics believing themselves to be trans. Just like the TikTok tics. A mass social media–induced illness. Except on this occasion, instead of scrambling to contain the epidemic, doctors picked up their syringes and scalpels and set about permanently medicalising the innocent youth caught up in this powerful cultural storm. And activists marched in the streets demanding that these young people be allowed to sacrifice their health, fertility, and body parts — while swiftly demonising anyone who dared point out the obvious parallels to social contagions of the past.

That moment when your partner is a chicken

@MacLeodLisa Just a humble piece of advice Lisa Get help. Stay out of politics. K. Bye ottawacitizen.com/news/ottawa-mp…

Youth On Gender-Transition Treatment Saw Dramatically Worsening Mental Health In Large Finnish Study benryan.substack.com/p/youth-on-gen… The study, which was based on comprehensive nationalized health data and included control groups, calls into question the claim that such treatment is broadly beneficial to mental health. I write in my Substack: A large study of Finnish youths who sought care from gender clinics has found evidence challenging the prevailing claim that gender-transition interventions are tied to improvements in mental health. Quite the contrary. This new study found that the use of specialist psychiatric care—an indication of severe mental health problems—increased dramatically among those adolescents and young adults who underwent gender-transition interventions. Among such youths, the proportion who had appointments with specialist psychiatrists prior to attending the gender clinic, compared with the proportion who had such appointments during later years, rose: among natal males, from 10 percent to 61 percent; and among natal females, from 22 percent to 55 percent. The study, published Saturday in Acta Paediatrica, included data on nearly 2,100 Finnish people who first sought care from a gender clinic before age 23 between 1996 and 2019. Thirty-eight percent underwent gender-transition interventions. Youths who first presented to gender clinics in 2010 or later had much worse mental health than those who presented previously, the researchers found. The study gave credence to the theory, anathema among proponents of gender-transition interventions for minors, that for some adolescents, gender dysphoria may be an outgrowth of deeper psychological problems and that their adoption of a transgender identity may amount to a maladaptive coping mechanism. The study authors concluded that, among some youth presenting at gender clinics, gender dysphoria “may be secondary to other mental health challenges.” They continued: “The notable increase in those contacting [gender clinics] and the increased psychiatric morbidity among them since the 2010s may also suggest that, for some, mental health challenges may manifest as concerns related to gender identity.” After controlling for differences in the prior use of specialist psychiatric treatment, the study authors found that regardless of whether they underwent gender-transition treatment, youth who went to gender clinics had much higher use of specialist psychiatric treatment during follow-up compared with age-matched controls from the general population—about three times higher than females and five times higher than males. Given the study’s robust and comprehensive data set, long follow-up time and use of age-matched controls, it addressed key limitations seen in various other studies that have found such interventions are linked to improvements in mental health outcomes. Most studies of youth who undergo gender-transition interventions are small, have short follow-up times, no control groups, and suffer from substantial loss to follow-up. Read more about the study here: benryan.substack.com/p/youth-on-gen…

@jkamckenzie Oh, bullshit.

Mark Carney was just shown on the Jumbotron, and fans booed. And I don't think he expected that!!

Tucker Carlson can kiss my Canadian ass.

These sweeping claims on Bluesky about the NHS system for treating for gender-distressed minors are misleading at best. The NHS is not “refusing to treat gender incongruence.” Following the Cass Review, they are switching to a holistic, mental-health–led model, in which care targets distress and co-occurring psychiatric issues rather than charting kids into the blockers-and-hormones pathway of the pre-Cass era. The NHS guidance does not say gender incongruence “disappears at 18” or mandate zero transfers. It says that a transition to adult services is not automatic and must be assessed case by case. So they’re shifting away from a default pipeline. This is not a claim no one needs care.

YOU think is un-American because it's a black dude. Everything about this is American from the over zealous pagentry, large portions of food, and money shot of cheese goo. The only thing that would make this more American is if the cheese came out of a bald eagles penis.

Oh dear. The New York Times clever headline about NATO is entirely based on them getting its name wrong 😐 The A doesn’t stand for America, dudes.

Increasingly, people don't know the difference between punditry and journalism.

Meryl Streep: The SAVE America Act, if that passes, all the married women that have changed their names are going have to go to the registrar and prove who they are. Otherwise, when you get to the voting booth in November, you might be disqualified, because your name on your birth certificate doesn't match the name on the voting rolls. I think that women need to be heard

Let me explain something to the MAGA crowd, because clearly someone needs to. They seem to think NATO is cosmic room service. You pick up the phone, say “hello, we’re having a bit of a war here,” and thirty-one countries march to your rescue. A continental Uber for military adventures. That is not how it works. Article 5 is a mutual defense clause. The clue is in the word mutual. And it has been triggered exactly once in NATO’s entire history. After September 11. When America was attacked. Not Europe. America. Every NATO member showed up. They went to Afghanistan. They fought. They bled. They died. In America’s war. On America’s behalf. Now imagine they hadn’t. Over 1,100 allied soldiers died in Afghanistan. British, Canadian, German, Danish, Polish. And yes, even Ukrainian soldiers, who had no NATO obligation whatsoever. Gone. Without them, those are American names on those graves. Sons from Ohio. Fathers from Georgia. Kids from Nebraska who never came home. Then there is the money. NATO allies spent over 100 billion dollars on a war that started on American soil. Without that, Washington pays every cent. On top of the 2 to 3 trillion the war already cost. And without allied bases across Europe and Central Asia, American supply lines collapse entirely. Without British forces in Helmand and Canadians in Kandahar, the Taliban reconstitutes in three years instead of ten. The gaps get filled one way. More American deployments. More American coffins arriving at Dover. Afghanistan was bloody. But NATO took the hit. Without them, every single one of those casualties would have had an American name. Trump called allies like these losers. Suckers. If you are a certain kind of broken person, that probably makes sense to you. But for the rest of us, what those soldiers did has a different name. Honor. The bond between men who have been in the same dirt, under the same fire. Between Brits and Americans, Frenchmen and Norwegians, Canadians and Danes. Not a diplomatic relationship. A blood bond. Brotherhood forged in places most people will never see and cannot imagine. In that culture, you do not mock a fallen ally. You do not sneer at the dead. It is the lowest thing a human being can do. Trump did it to a standing ovation. If you are a MAGA supporter travelling to NATO countries, understand this. There are no friendly pats on the back waiting for you. No one will buy you a beer. The governments who share your worldview sit in Minsk, Moscow and Pyongyang. Brutal dictatorships where journalists disappear, elections are theatre and dissent is a medical condition treated in basements. Not London. Not Paris. Not Rome, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin or Ottawa. You have abandoned the open societies, the free press, the rule of law, the places where people actually want to live. You traded the best of civilization for a very small, very dark room. Frankly, it serves you right.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

@sarobertsonca Now he's getting bad at lying. What good is he if he can't even do that right.

What we could have, if people didn’t insist on living in service to their cars.

The actual scale of the Artemis II mission

Jewish troops will be looking for Muslims hidden in the attics of Christians. Let that sink in.

Visualization of the distances in astronomy

the way this is genuinely how it’s felt since the election i’m in tears😭

Regardless of what "side" you may be on in the gender debate, I think we can all agree from this clip that Mr. Baker is an insufferable twat.

Artemis II: the ultimate getaway vehicle