Monday Miscellany, 4/29/24

• While a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.

• The strengths and weaknesses of the evidence base on the care of children and young people are often misrepresented and overstated, both in scientific publications and social debate.

• The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health. The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown.

• The use of masculinising / feminising hormones in those under the age of 18 also presents many unknowns, despite their longstanding use in the adult transgender population. The lack of long-term follow-up data on those commencing treatment at an earlier age means we have inadequate information about the range of outcomes for this group.

• Clinicians are unable to determine with any certainty which children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity.

This report is about as decisive as it can be.  Not only the UK but other European countries are putting the brakes on so-called “gender-affirming” treatments for children.  Even the World Health Organization, while developing guidelines for the treatment of trans adults is refusing to apply them to children and young adults, that is, to people under 20, saying the evidence for this age group is “limited and variable.”

But the major American medical organizations–such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–that support gender-identity treatments for children have so far been silent about the Cass Report.

And the major American media outlets have given it little coverage.  The report goes against their party line on the issue.  CNN, for example, regularly adds a boilerplate sentence to its stories about transgenderism:  “Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender—the one the person was designated at birth—to their affirmed gender—the gender by which one wants to be known.”

The Cass Report shows–scientifically–that such “care” is not “medically necessary” or “evidence-based.”  Nor is it “gender-affirming.”

Not Hiring Someone with a Criminal Record Is Racist?

The Biden administration is suing Sheetz, a gas station/convenience store chain, for racial discrimination.  This is because the company requires employees to pass a criminal background check.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is taking Sheetz to court for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for these reasons, according to a Daily Caller story on the subject:

Sheetz “violated federal law by denying employment to a class of job applicants because of their race, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today,” the EEOC said in a Thursday press release.

“Sheetz has maintained a longstanding practice of screening all job applicants for records of criminal conviction and then denying them employment based on those records,” the EEOC statement alleges.

Now where do you see racism in all of this?  Who is assuming that racial minorities are criminals?  Isn’t it the EEOC?  Black conservatives think so.

Besides, the EEOC statement says that Sheetz screens “all job applicants”–not just black applicants–“for records of criminal conviction” and denies applicants employment “based on those records.”  Not based on their race, but on “records of criminal conviction.”  How is that a violation of the Civil Rights Act?

Are Catholics Catholic?

The Roman Catholic Church has definite and strongly-held moral and theological teachings.  For example, the Roman Catholic Church is forthrightly pro-life, maintaining that abortion is a serious sin.  And the Roman Catholic Church has a high view of Holy Communion, teaching that the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  But American Catholics do not necessarily hold to the beliefs of their church.

According to a new study from Pew Research, 6 in 10 American Catholics believe that abortion should be legal.  (That comes to 39% who believe abortion should be legal in most cases, and 22% who say it should be legal in all cases.  Conversely, 28% say it should be illegal in most cases.  Only 11% believe it should be illegal in all cases.)

The signature Catholic belief in transubstantiation is also rejected by many, if not most, Catholics. In 2019, another Pew Study found that only 31% of American Catholics believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ.  Conversely, 69% believe, like Zwingli, that Holy Communion is only symbolic.  In 2022, another study that sought to go into more depth found that while only 35% believe the elements “become” the body and blood, 44% believe Jesus is “truly present” and 48% believing He is only “symbolically present,” with 9% saying “neither of the above.”  Asked a different way, 57% said they believe in some form of the real presence.

This is not simply a disagreement with the church over a very difficult concept.  Nearly half of American Catholics, 48%, did not know what their church teaches on the subject!  Such data has prompted American bishops to launch a 3-year “National Eucharistic Revival” program to teach the laity on the subject and to encourage sacramental piety.