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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 days

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How to screw up a whistleblower law

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THIS WEDNESDAY (Apr 17) in CHICAGO, then Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Corporate crime is notoriously underpoliced and underprosecuted. Mostly, that's because we just choose not to do anything about it. American corporations commit crimes at 20X the rate of real humans, and their crimes are far worse than any crime committed by a human, but they are almost never prosecuted:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card

We can't even bear to utter the words "corporate crime": instead, we deploy a whole raft of euphemisms like "risk and compliance," and that ole fave, the trusty "white-collar crime":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/07/solar-panel-for-a-sex-machine/#a-single-proposition

The Biden DOJ promised it would be different, and they weren't kidding. The DOJ's antitrust division is kicking ass, doing more than the division has done in generations, really swinging for the fences:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/22/reality-distortion-field/#three-trillion-here-three-trillion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Main Justice – the rest of the DOJ – promised that it would do the same. Deputy AG Lisa Monaco promised an end to those bullshit "deferred prosecution agreements" that let corporate America literally get away with murder. She promised to prosecute companies and individual executives. She promised a lot:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/22/reality-distortion-field/#three-trillion-here-three-trillion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Was she serious? Well, it's not looking good. Monaco's number two gnuy, Benjamin Mizer, has a storied career – working for giant corporations, getting them off the hook when they commit eye-watering crimes:

https://prospect.org/justice/2024-04-09-reform-groups-lack-of-corporate-prosecutions-doj/

Biden's DOJ is arguably more tolerant of corporate crime than even Trump's Main Justice. In 2021, the DOJ brought just 90 cases – the worst year in a quarter-century. 2022's number was 99, and 2023 saw 119. Trump's DOJ did better than any of those numbers in two out of four years. And back in 2000, Justice was bringing more than 300 corporate criminal prosecutions.

Deputy AG Monaco just announced a new whistleblower bounty program: cash money for ratting out your crooked asshole co-worker or boss. Whistleblower bounties are among the most effective and cheapest way to bring criminal prosecutions against corporations. If you're a terrified underling who can't afford to lose your job after narcing out your boss, the bounty can outweigh the risk of industry-wide blacklisting. And if you're a crooked co-conspirator thinking about turning rat on your fellow criminal, the bounty can tempt you into solving the Prisoner's Dilemma in a way that sees the crime prosecuted.

So a new whistleblower bounty program is good. We like 'em. What's not to like?

Sorry, folks, I've got some bad news:

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/stephen-kohn-on-the-justice-department-plan-to-offer-whistleblower-awards/

As the whistleblower lawyer Stephen Kohn points out to Russell Mokhiber of Corporate Crime Reporter, Monaco's whistleblower bounty program has a glaring defect: it excludes "individuals who were involved with the crime." That means that the long-suffering secretary who printed the boss's crime memo and put it in the mail is shit out of luck – as is the CFO who's finally had enough of the CEO's dirty poker.

This is not how other whistleblower reward programs work: the SEC and CFTC whistleblower programs do not exclude people involved with the crime, and for good reason. They want to catch kingpins, not footsoldiers – and the best way to do that is to reward the whistleblower who turns on the boss.

This isn't a new idea! It's in the venerable False Claims Act, an act that signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. As Kohn says, making "accomplices" eligible to participate in whistleblower rewards is how you get people like his client, who relayed a bribe on behalf of his boss, to come forward. As Lincoln said in 1863, the purpose of a whistleblower law is to entice conspirators to turn on one another. Like Honest Abe said, "it takes a rogue to catch a rogue."

And – as Kohn says – we've designed these programs so that masterminds can't throw their minor lickspittles under the buss and collect a reward: "I know of no case where the person who planned or initiated the fraud under any of the reward laws ever got a dime."

Kohn points out that under Monaco, the DOJ just ignores the rule that afford anonymity to whistleblowers. That's a big omission – the SEC got 18,000 confidential claims in 2023. Those are claims that the DOJ can't afford to miss, given their abysmal, sub-Trump track record on corporate crime prosecutions.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/15/whistleblown/#lisa-monaco

#pluralistic #whistleblowers #doj #false claims act #finance #bezzles #crime #dodd-frank act #lisa monaco

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matan4il · 3 months

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Daily update post:

Today, Israeli forces went into a hospital in Jenin (it's not in Gaza, there is no border fence between Israel and Jenin, there are no security measures other than getting intel and pre-emptively stopping terrorist attacks) in order to eliminate several Hamas terrorists who were hiding in there. Because the operation would require going into a hospital, the intel had to be VERY reliable, the threat huge and immediate, and the IDF's Chief of Staff had to personally approve it. The intel indicated these terrorists were gonna carry out a suicide bombing, that would use an entire vehicle loaded with explosives, rather than a suicide bomber "just" wearing a vest with explosives. The first such terrorist attack that I know of in Israel happened on Feb 22, 1948 (before the State of Israel was established, but after the Arabs started a war against the Jews). It was carried out jointly by rogue (and antisemitic, based on the slurs they used) British soldiers, who did it in the service of the Arabs' war against Jews. They blew up the explosives on a central street (Ben Yehuda) in Jerusalem. This is a partial picture of the damage caused:

Three buildings were completely destroyed, but the impact was much wider (including glass windows shattering across the city). 58 people were killed, 49 of them immediately, while 9 more died in the hospital from their injuries. Hamas itself carried out their first terrorist attack of this type on Apr 6, 1994. A car filled with explosives bypassed a bus driving children back from school, and then blew up right in front of it. When those who were alive tried to get out of the bus, they couldn't because the driver had been killed, and they didn't know how to open the door. 8 people were murdered in total, and 55 injured, almost all kids and teenagers. An extra touch of sickness? That day was the eve of Yom Ha'Shoah, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day. The headline screamed in Hebrew, "Blood of the Children," while in the top left corner, there's a reminder about the sirens for Yom Ha'Shoah going off at 10, to observe a national commemorative minute of silence.

There's a very nice and well intentioned campaign right now, enlisting American celebs to ask everyone to stand against antisemitism. That's incredibly important due to the global rise in antisemitism we've witnessed since Hamas' massacre, but the bigger issue to me is that so many people are ignorant on what actually constitutes Jew hatred. So in one reblog they can oppose antisemitism (and absolutely believe that this is their own stance), while in another they can help spread antisemitic narratives, including antisemitic dogwhistles, modern blood libels, erasure of Jewish rights, history and pain, and demonization of Jews. I'm not talking about people who are aware that stuff like saying "From the river to the sea" is repeating a genocidal chant against the Jews. I'm talking about people who honestly see a non-Jew posting an explanation on why anti-Zionism isn't antisemitism (even though Judaism IS Zionist, and anti-Zionism absolutely IS a tool for antisemites, and goes hand in hand with classic antisemitism), and they totally believe this, and reblog such a post, that is speaking over the majority of Jews, who are Zionist, and repeatedly try to explain how anti-Zionism hurts ALL OF US, every single Jew.

But it is a nice vid, so here:

The president of the Israeli Bar-Ilan University said at the Knesset (Israel's parliament) today that they are trying to deal with thousands of students who come to study, but are suffering from post-traumatic symptoms that impair them psychologically and cognitively, whether from the events of the Hamas massacre, or the fighting in Gaza. He mentioned that these symptoms harm every skill needed for academic work, even for people who are exceptionally gifted. BIU is the university with the fourth biggest number of students in Israel (according to 2021 numbers).

In connection to this subject, in the US, charges have been filed against a man who has threatened to blow up a local synagogue and kill Jews, following the war in Gaza.

New Zealand is another country now suspending funding to UNRWA, the UN agency whose members were found to be complicit in the Hamas massacre. The intel was reliable enough that the UN fired some of these employees, rather than suspend them pending a hearing. I first wrote about the news here. NZ is the 15th country to do this, though it should be noted that Switzerland froze its funding to this UN agency even before this latest intel, because of past antisemitism and terrorism encouragement that UNRWA was regularly responsible for. There is a continuously updated list of who's suspending its UNRWA funding at UN Watch.

This is 76 years old Menucha Cholati with her husband Israel.

On Oct 7, they each hid separately from the Hamas terrorists who invaded their community, kibbutz Kissufim, for hours on end. When Israel was finally rescued by Israeli soldiers, he asked to see his wife. He was advised that it's better not to, but he insisted. Holding on to a bag for all his and her meds, which had been pierced by bullets, he got to see his wife, only to discover that the terrorists burned her alive. May her memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

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heroesriseandfall · 2 months

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Canonical Batfamily Birthdays

Here are all the birthdates I know of that are canon somewhere in DC, with a preference for the main comics continuities. I have included exact sources and image references when possible. I am not including character introduction dates, just actual birthdays.

If you find any other sources for Batfamily birthdays, please do share!

A moment of silence for Batfamily characters who don’t have canonical birthdays yet, so far as I know. This includes Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, and more. :(

Summary

Source images will be further down, but here’s an overview in roughly age order (I’m not sure of Kate vs Selina’s ages) with the dates the birthdays were introduced and used:

Tim Drake: July 19th (from 2003)

Jason Todd: August 16th (from 2004)

Cassandra Cain: January 26th (from 2002)

Helena Bertinelli: February 14th (in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold universe, from 2010)

Helena Wayne: September 7th (from 1984), potentially October 20th or the 22nd of unknown month or maybe October 22 or maybe Feb 28th (all the New 52 on passports from 2011-2012). These could also be New 52 Helena Bertinelli’s birthdays or nobody’s birthdays. who even knows.

Dick Grayson: March 20th (from 1995), October ~24th ish (from 1990), November 11th (from 1976), December 1st (on Earth-16 in animated Young Justice universe, from 2012)

Barbara Gordon: September 23rd (from 1976), sometime in fall (from 1987)

Selina Kyle: March 14th (from 1976)

Kate Kane: January 26th (in Batwoman TV series from 2020), March 21st? (word-of-god by J.H. Williams III from 2012)

Bruce Wayne: October 7th (from 2021), February 19th (from 1970s various to more recently), April ~7th (from the late 1940s)

Jim Gordon: January 5th (from 1976)

Alfred Pennyworth: April 8th (from 1976), August 16th (in the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe, from 2016)

Note: in this post when I say “main comics continuity(s)/universe” I’m referring to anything that’s been a “home” continuity for the comics at some point. For example, pre-Crisis Earth-2, Earth-1/New Earth, and Earth-0/Prime Earth, as opposed to Elseworlds or DCEU earths that are still part of the broader DC multiverse but have never been the primary continuity of the comics.

Below are further details and source panels.

Details and Sources

Tim Drake

Tim has only been given one canon birthday. He turned 16 on July 19th in Robin Vol. 2 #116 (cover date Sep 2003).

Robin Vol. 2 #116 (Sep 2003)

Jason Todd

Jason turned 18 on August 16th in Detective Comics #790 (March 2004). This is his only canon birthday.

Detective Comics #790 (Mar 2004)

In post-Crisis/preboot (1986-2011) continuity, there was a gap of six months between when Jason died and when he was resurrected (Batman Annual 25). Jason died April 27th according to his death certificates in Batman Annual 25 and Batman Files 2011, so he would’ve resurrected near late October.

Batman Annual 25 (May 2006)

So, it could be that post-resurrection Jason is biologically 6 months younger than he chronologically should be. But honestly, do we even really know what multiverse-breaking resurrection punches and then a Lazarus Pit on top of that do to someone’s body??? Either way it’s just much more simple to just use his chronological age.

Cassandra Cain

Much like Tim and Jason, Cass has only ever been given one birthdate: January 26th from Batgirl Vol. 1 #33. With that birthday, she turned 18 in Batgirl Vol. 1 #37.

Batgirl Vol. 1 #33 (Dec 2002)

When Jan 26th actually comes, Bruce suggests David Cain could’ve lied about it, but Cass denies that idea and continues to treat the day as her birthday.

Batgirl Vol. 1 #37 (Apr 2003)

Why it's likely her real birthday: Bruce initially believes Cain must’ve lied because he doesn’t think Cain could’ve known her birthday. However, we later learn Cain had lied about her origins and was actually her biological father. Batgirl v1 #62 and #73 show he was there for her birth and could absolutely know the date.

On top of that, in Batgirl #37 Cass remembers celebrating her birthday with him as a child, so he did seem to actually keep track of it. I honestly don’t see any reason to believe he’d lie (Bruce is just a jealous spoilsport).

Helena Bertinelli + Wayne

I’m combining them here because the New 52 gives me a headache.

Helena Bertinelli celebrated her birthday on February 14th in a spin-off comic from the animated Batman: The Brave and the Bold series. This is obviously not part of regular comics continuity and the characters differ from the usual comics in many ways. And yet, for reasons that will soon be clear, it’s my favorite for actually being about Helena Bertinelli the Huntress and for not being an utter mess.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14 (Apr 2010)

In a character profile at the end of Infinity Inc. #7 (Oct 1984), Helena Wayne’s birthday was September 7th, 1959. Calculating back from October 1984, that would make her 25 at the time.

During the New 52, Helena Bertinelli was initially portrayed as a long-dead (secretly alive but don’t worry about it) mobster’s daughter and replaced by Earth-2’s Helena Wayne who got stranded on Prime Earth. This H. Wayne stole H. Bertinelli’s identity in the form of several forged passports and IDs, which had hints toward birthdates. The question is, can we take any of those birthdates seriously, and if so, which birthdates and for which character? (Cue my headache.)

Skip ahead to Dick if overthinking fake passports sounds boring.

When comparing to a real Italian passport, the date on H. Wayne’s fake Italian passport appears to be a birthdate. Note that the fake name is Carol Bertinelli, not Helena. H. Wayne said her IDs were inspired by H. Bertinelli but clearly she’s taking liberties for the IDs so that’s a point toward these being useless for H. Bertinelli birthdays.

Huntress Vol. 3 #1 (Dec 2011)

I don’t recognize the month abbreviation as a real abbreviation, but from the visible letter O I’m going to assume it means October. If it is, then the date is 20 October 1985. Sidenote: a 1985 birthdate during 2011 could put her age at about 26, which is actually quite close to how old she could’ve been based on pre-Flashpoint! 1985 has been given as Helena Wayne’s death year before, so it’s an interesting choice of a birth year for her. (Thanks to DC’s sliding timescale, though, birth years don’t actually mean anything in the comics.)

They don’t show her complete US passport, but I can see a “22” in line where the day of the month should be for her birthdate. This already contradicts the previous passport. This one uses Helena Bertinelli’s actual name, though–does that make it more relevant than the Carol one or this all still ridiculous because of the discrepancies?

Worlds’ Finest Vol. 1 #1 (Jul 2012)

We can try to glean the US passport birth month from the passport number at the bottom. The first two digits (“12” here) indicate the agency that issued the passport. 12 means the Honolulu agency. Right after “USA” is supposed to be the birthdate plus an extra number, in the order of year/month/day with the year being the last two digits of a year. Here we encounter another problem. It says 810228. This would imply her birthdate is 1981/02/28. That’s February 28, 1981. Since the earlier line indicated her birthday fell on a 22nd, this already contradicts itself.

Interpreting a Machine Readable Zone (MZR) on a Machine Readable Travel Document (MRTD)

However, I’d bet comic writers and artists aren’t always well versed in passport numbers (it’s already a stretch for me to bother checking it…). If they put the extra digit before the birthdate instead after, and the date is formatted month/day/year (the most common format in American English, so probably their first instinct), then we can drop the first 8 and it’s 10/22/8[?] with the last digit unknown. This would put her birthday as October 22, sometime in the 1980s. The 22 matches the earlier line, the October might match the previous passport if that really did say October (but contradicts the 20th), and the 1980s year could be 1985 to match the Italian passport.

At the end of the day I’m personally just going to let Helena Bertinelli be a Valentine’s born baby and call it a day, unless/until she gets a better one in the comics. For Helena Wayne I’d easily pick September 7th.

(My question is: did they give the crossbow vigilante a Valentine’s birthday as a Cupid joke??)

Dick Grayson

Dick has probably had the most birthdays of everyone (unless Bruce has more I don’t know about). All of them have their drawbacks.

In a main comics continuity, his most popular and most recent is “the first day of spring” so probably March 20th. This comes from Robin Annual 4 when his mom says she calls him Robin because he was born on the first day of spring. That presents some problems since there are other explanations given for the origin of “Robin,” including that his mom said he was “always bobbin’ along” (Dark Victory #12, page 17) or the original inspiration of Robin Hood (Detective Comics #38, p3).

Robin Annual 4 (Jun 1995)

Before that, in Secret Origins Vol. 2 #50 (Aug 1990), Marv Wolfman wrote a version of Dick’s origins where Dick turned 10 a week before his parents died on Halloween. That would make his birthday October ~24th (presuming that “a week” before Halloween literally means 7 days here).

Secret Origins Vol. 2 #50 (Aug 1990)

The first drawback of the October birthday is that it’s tied to Dick being 10 when his parents die on Halloween. Dick’s age and the date his parents die change a lot depending on the writer (Nightwing Vol. 1 #1 says his parents died June 27th, Dark Victory #8-9 says May, etc.). The second drawback is that few people remember this version of his birthday even exists.

Dick’s birthday is November 11th in Super DC Calendar 1976. Note: Despite being a non-diegetic calendar from almost 50 years ago, this source remains well known and used among comic enthusiasts (including those working at DC). Generally, I would say it should mainly apply just to pre-Crisis continuity, but it is also useful for characters that haven’t gotten updated birthdays ever since (like Roy Harper, Barbara Gordon, or Selina Kyle, for example).

Super DC Calendar 1976

Sidenote: Since Damian doesn’t have a canon birthday, November 11th is favorite to steal for my own fan canon Damian birthday. Dick has plenty birthdays to share and I think it’s cute. @ DC, give Damian and Steph birthdays, they’ve been birthday-less for decades!

Indeed, DC writer Tim Sheridan and editor Mike Cotton debated whether Dick’s birthday was in March or November. They favored March 20th and wrote a birthday scene in Teen Titans Academy #1 (published March 23rd, 2021). The publishing time near Dick’s birthday was intentional, though the date isn’t mentioned within the comic itself.

Link to tweet

The above birthdays were all meant to apply to a main comics continuity at some point. However, Earth-16, better known as the animated Young Justice universe (therefore outside of main comics continuity), says YJ Dick’s birthday is December 1st.

Young Justice Vol. 2 #20 (Nov 2012)

Unlike Helena Bertinelli, Dick has plenty of comics birthdays to choose from, so personally I’ll only count Dec 1st as being the birthday for YJ animated/Earth-16 Dick Grayson until or unless it’s ever mentioned to apply to main comics continuity.

Barbara Gordon

Super DC Calendar 1976 says Barbara’s birthday is September 23rd.

Super DC Calendar 1976

Since then, the only time I recall her birthdate hinted at is in Secret Origins #20 when her adoptive mom says her birthday is in the fall. This could support her birthday being September 23rd.

Secret Origins Vol. 2 #20 (Nov 1987)

Although she has celebrated her birthday on panel since then (the end of Nightwing Vol. 2 #153), she hasn’t been given any other actual birthdate. So I’ll keep September 23rd and call it a day.

Selina Kyle

Super DC Calendar 1976 says Selina’s birthday is March 14th. Once again, although it hasn’t been mentioned within a comic, it’s stuck around in popular consciousness (see: Catwoman actress Zoë Kravitz wishing Selina a happy birthday on March 14th).

Super DC Calendar 1976

Selina celebrated a birthday on panel in Catwoman (2002) #37 but the date was never mentioned. I don’t know of any other reference to her birthday, but my reading of Selina is thus far more sparse than my reading of the others.

Kate Kane

Kate’s birthday options all come from outside of the comics themselves.

In “An Un-Birthday Present,” season 1 episode 11 of Batwoman, a parallel version of her twin Beth had a driver’s license showing her date of birth as January 26, 1990. She and Kate later celebrated their birthdays on an episode aired Jan 26th, 2020. I don’t keep up with live action DC shows so I unfortunately can’t offer a screenshot (if anyone has one or the timestamp, please let me know!).

(I kinda wonder if somebody looked up Batwoman’s birthday for these episodes, saw Batgirl’s (Cass’s) birthday, and just ran with it. Batwoman and a Batgirl sharing a birthday is just. Ughhh.)

In 2012, one of her comic writers tweeted to choose a random date for her birthday and picked March 21st, which so far as I know has never been used as her birthday in comics.

Link to tweet

Bruce Wayne

Bruce’s most popular birthday is February 19th, but his most recent one is October 7th from the digital-only comic Legends of the Dark Knight. I believe that’s the only time October 7th has been referenced, but I’ve heard the animated show The Batman said his birthday was in October (can’t confirm, haven’t watched it recently).

Legends of the Dark Knight #10 (Jun 2021) - Note: two pages have been combined into one for this post

Still, even associates of DC seem to remember his February 19th birthday better. In February 2023, Warner Bro’s Gotham Knights game did a sale for Bruce’s birthday. I’ve also heard the birthday was used in the Gotham TV show, but again, I don’t watch much live action DC shows.

The February 19th birthday appears to come from the 70s and 80s. It’s his birthday in the Super DC Calendar 1976, and in Batman Family Vol. 1 #11: “Suprise, Suprise!” (May 1977). Bob Rozakis (known as DC’s “Answer Man”) said Feb 19th was Bruce’s birthday in the letter column of Detective Comics #494 (Sep 1980).

Letter column of Detective Comics #494 (Sep 1980)

Batman Family Vol. 1 #11: “Suprise, Suprise!” (Jun 1977)

Super DC Calendar 1976

Way back in the 40s, his birthday was in April, possibly April 7th. During a birthstone murder mystery, Bruce says his birthstone is a diamond, which is traditionally the April birthstone.

World’s Finest Comics #33/6 (Mar-Apr 1948): “The 5 Jewels of Doom!”

Star Spangled Comics #91 (Apr 1949) might imply the exact date was April 7th but we’d have to assume the party is on his birthday and that “this month” refers to the publishing month of April. I believe this is where people get the April 7th birthday when they bring it up.

Star Spangled Comics #91 (Apr 1949)

Early April also shines in Batman: Year One where it shows Bruce’s first night out as Batman being either the night of April 6th or the early morning of April 7th (Batman #405). So although the April Bruce birthday hasn’t been used in decades, it’s still a Batman birthday in a way.

I have also heard people say Frank Miller considered Bruce’s birthday to be in November. However, I have yet to find an original source of him saying that, and honestly (just like the “March 21st” birthday for Kate) if he never used it in any canon material I don’t put much weight in that.

Jim Gordon

The only birthday I’ve ever seen for Jim is January 5th from Super DC Calendar 1976.

Super DC Calendar 1976

Alfred Pennyworth

Alfred’s birthday in Super DC Calendar 1976 is April 8th.

Super DC Calendar 1976

In the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe (an alternate reality where the video game of the same name is set in), they show Alfred’s birth certificate, where it says his birthday is August 16th, 1943.

Injustice: Gods Among Us Year Five #26 (Jun 2016)

Maybe you’ll notice that August 16th is Jason’s birthday. A little funny considering the issue features Alfred refusing to share his birthday only for us to learn it’s the same date as Jason’s. Still, annoying. There are so many days in the year! Stop choosing the same ones!

This Alfred birthdate runs into a similar problem Helena’s birthdates did: it’s not part of main comics canon, it’s an alternate universe, so it may not be applicable to the main comics universe.

Note: if we calculate that 1943 birth year from Jun 2016 when the comic was published, that’d make Alfred 72 soon to be 73. Does that mean anything in canon? Probably not, but oh well. Also...token British character born by Windsor Castle? …of course.

Personally, I would rather go with the April 8th birthday than the Injustice one, since Injustice is an alternate universe. Also, outside of the humor of it, the idea of Alfred and Jason sharing a birthday is a bit too much for me. Still, it’s up to people’s own cherry picking.

Chronology

The birthdays in publishing order alongside notable reboots. A soft-reboot refers to reboots that only changed a few details with minor consequences, keeping the overall continuity mostly intact. A major reboot has significant effects on continuity (too many to list).

1935-1986: Pre-Crisis era (Golden Age begins ~1946, Silver Age runs from late 50s--early 70s)

Mar-Apr 1948: Bruce’s birthday is in April

Apr 1949: Bruce has a birthday party on the 7th of “this month”

Skipping a good three decades because I barely even know what’s in there. Sorry lol

Mid 70s to early 90s: Bronze Age era

1976: the super dc calendar says Bruce’s birthday is February 19th, Alfred’s is April 8th, Dick’s is November 11th, Babs is September 23rd, Selina’s is March 14th, Jim’s is Jan 5th

Jun 1977: Bruce celebrates his birthday on February 19th

Sep 1980: letter collumnist says Bruce’s birthday is February 19th

Oct 1984: Helena Wayne’s birthday is on September 7th, 1959

Mar 1986: the major Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot (begins post-Crisis/New Earth era, many previous comics are now considered Earth-2 instead)

Nov 1987: Babs birthday is in fall

Aug 1990: Dick turns 10 a week before Halloween (probably October ~24th)

Sep 1994: Zero Hour soft reboot (Batman and Robin become urban legends so Robin is not allowed on video, Bruce’s parents’ murderer is changed to unknown instead of Joe Chill, Selina is no longer a once-prostitute)

Apr 1995: Dick’s birthday is the first day of spring (probably March 20th)

Oct 2002: Cass learns her birthday is January 26th

April 2003: Cass turns 18 on January 26th

Sep 2003: Tim turns 16 on July 19th

Mar 2004: Jason turns 18 on August 16th

Jun 2006: Infinite Crisis soft reboot (Joe Chill is restored as the arrested Wayne family murderer, Superboy-Prime's punch retroactively resurrects Jason)

Apr 2010: In the Batman: Brave and the Bold universe, Helena Bertinelli celebrates her birthday February 14th

Oct 2011: the major Flashpoint reboot (end of post-Crisis/preboot, begins the New 52 and changes the primary universe to Prime Earth; significant character/timeline changes and erasures)

Dec 2011: Helena Wayne’s fake Carol Bertinelli passport seems to list October 20th as a birthdate

Jul 2012: Helena Wayne’s fake Helena Bertinelli passport lists some 22nd unknown month, Oct 22nd, or Feb 28th birthday

Sep 2012: Batwoman writer J.H. Williams III randomly picks Kate’s birthday as March 21st on Twitter

Nov 2012: Earth-16/YJ animated Dick Grayson celebrates his birthday on December 1st

Jun 2016: In the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe, Alfred’s birth certificate says his birthday is August 16th

Jul 2016: Rebirth reboot (restores some pre-Flashpoint continuity, some characters regain previous histories but now semi-synchronized with the New 52 era)

Jan 2020: Batwoman TV show Kate celebrates her birthday on January 26th

Mar 2021: Writer Tim Sheridan says he & his editor chose March 20th as Dick’s birthday, between the March or November birthdays

May 2021: Infinite Frontier holds all previous continuities as potential canon, restoring more of pre-Flashpoint

Jun 2021: Bruce says his birthday is October 7th in a digital-only comic

Feb 2023: Gotham Knights game has a sale for Bruce’s birthday

#batfamily #batfam #tim drake #dick grayson #bruce wayne #dc continuity #heroesriseandfall #cassandra cain #dc comics #jason todd #helena bertinelli #selina kyle #barbara gordon #jim gordon #alfred pennyworth

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glennk56 · 1 year

Photo

Martyn Ellis. (2 of 2) photos from 2010 - 2022.

PHOTOS

1. 2010/May. The Tudors 4;6

2 - 4. 2014/Apr. The Smoke 1;8 (first photo is a publicity photo)

5. 2016/July. Agatha Raisin 1;6

6 - 8. 2017/Apr. Decline and Fall 1;2 (British 3 episode mini-series)

(Pictured with Jack Whitehall)

9 - 10. 2017/May The Last Kingdom 2;1

11 - 12. 2017/May. Father Brown 6;3

13. 2019/May. Catch-22 (USA 6 episode mini-series)

14. 2019/Sept. A Confession 1;1 (British 6 episode mini-series)

15 - 16. 2019/Nov. The Accident 1;3 (British 4 episode mini-series)

17. 2021/Feb. It’s a Sin 1;3 (British 5 episode mini-series)

18. 2022/Apr. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans 1;1 (UK-US 3 episode mini-series)

#Martyn Ellis #british actor #fat actor #chub actor

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 days

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 21, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 22, 2024

During her confirmation hearings in 2021, Interior Department secretary Deb Haaland promised “to responsibly manage our natural resources to protect them for future generations—so that we can continue to work, live, hunt, fish, and pray among them.” Noting her Indigenous heritage, Haaland tweeted, “A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior…. I’ll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land.”

Her approach was a shift from the practice the Interior Department had established at the beginning of the twentieth century when it began to prioritize mineral, oil, and gas development, as well as livestock grazing, on U.S. public lands. But the devastating effects of climate change have brought those old priorities into question.

Republicans, especially those from states like Wyoming, which collects more than a billion dollars a year in royalties and taxes from the oil, gas, and coal produced on federal lands in the state, opposed Haaland’s focus on responsible management of natural resources for the future and warned that the Biden administration is “taking a sledgehammer to Western states’ economies.”

On Thursday, April 18, the Interior Department finalized a new rule for a balanced management of America’s public lands. Put together after a public hearing period that saw more than 200,000 comments from states, individuals, Tribal and local governments, industry groups, and advocacy organizations, the new rule prioritizes the health of the lands and waters the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management oversees. Those consist of about 245 million acres, primarily in 12 western states.

The new rule calls for protection of the land, restoration of the places that have been harmed in the past, and a promise to make informed decisions about future use based on “science, data, and Indigenous knowledge.” It “recognizes conservation as an essential component of public lands management, on equal footing with other multiple uses of these lands.” The Bureau of Land Management will now auction off leases not only for drilling, but also for conservation and restoration.

Western state leaders oppose the Biden administration’s efforts to change the Interior Department’s past practices, calling them “colonial forces of national environmental groups who are pushing an agenda” onto states like Wyoming.

The timing of the Interior Department’s new rule can’t help but call attention to Earth Day, celebrated tomorrow, on April 22. Earth Day is no novel proposition. Americans celebrated it for the first time in 1970. Nor was it a partisan idea in that year: Republican president Richard M. Nixon established it as Americans recognized a crisis that transcended partisanship and came together to fix it.

The spark for the first Earth Day was the 1962 publication of marine biologist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which showed the devastating effects of people on nature by documenting the effect of modern pesticides on the natural world. Her exposé of how the popular pesticide DDT was poisoning the food chain in American waters illuminated the dangerous overuse of chemicals and their effect on living organisms, and it caught readers’ attention. Carson’s book sold more than half a million copies in 24 countries.

Democratic president John F. Kennedy asked the President’s Science Advisory Committee to look into Carson’s argument, and the committee vindicated her. Before she died of breast cancer in 1964, Carson noted: "Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself? [We are] challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves."

As scientists organized the Environmental Defense Fund, Americans began to pay closer attention to human effects on the environment, especially after three crucial events. First, on December 24, 1968, astronaut William Anders took a color photograph of the Earth rising over the horizon of the moon from outer space during the Apollo 8 mission, powerfully illustrating the beauty and isolation of the globe on which we all live.

Then, over 10 days in January and February 1969, a massive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, poured between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil into the Pacific, fouling 35 miles of California beaches and killing seabirds, dolphins, sea lions, and elephant seals. Public outrage ran so high that President Nixon went to Santa Barbara in March to see the cleanup efforts, telling the American public that “the Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.”

And then, in June 1969, the chemical contaminants that had been dumped into Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught fire. A dumping ground for local heavy industry, the river had actually burned more than ten times in the previous century, but with increased focus on environmental damage, this time the burning river garnered national attention.

In February 1970, President Nixon sent to Congress a special message “on environmental quality.” “[W]e…have too casually and too long abused our natural environment,” he wrote. “The time has come when we can wait no longer to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future.”

“The tasks that need doing require money, resolve and ingenuity,” Nixon said, “and they are too big to be done by government alone. They call for fundamentally new philosophies of land, air and water use, for stricter regulation, for expanded government action, for greater citizen involvement, and for new programs to ensure that government, industry and individuals all are called on to do their share of the job and to pay their share of the cost.”

Meanwhile, Gaylord Nelson, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, visited the Santa Barbara oil spill and hoped to turn the same sort of enthusiasm people were bringing to protests against the Vietnam War toward efforts to protect the environment. He announced a teach-in on college campuses, which soon grew into a wider movement across the country. Their “Earth Day,” held on April 22, 1970, brought more than 20 million Americans—10% of the total population of the country at the time—to call for the nation to address the damage caused by 150 years of unregulated industrial development. The movement included members of all political parties, rich Americans and their poorer neighbors, people who lived in the city and those in the country, labor leaders and their employers. It is still one of the largest protests in American history.

In July 1970, at the advice of a council convened to figure out how to consolidate government programs to combat pollution, Nixon proposed to Congress a new agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, which Congress created that December.

In honor of Earth Day 2024, Democratic president Joe Biden has called for carrying on the legacy of our predecessors “by building a greener, more sustainable planet and, with it, a healthier, more prosperous nation.”

In a statement, Biden noted that no one can any longer deny the impacts and staggering costs of climate change as the nation confronts historic floods, droughts, and hurricanes.

“Deforestation, nature loss, toxic chemicals, and plastic pollution also continue to threaten our air, lands, and waters, endangering our health, other species, and ecosystems,” he said. He noted the administration’s efforts to build a clean energy economy, providing well-paid union jobs as workers install solar panels, service wind turbines, cap old oil wells, manufacture electric vehicles, and so on, while also curbing air pollution from power plants and lead poisoning from old pipes, the burden of which historically has fallen on marginalized communities.

Biden noted that he brought the U.S. back into the Paris Climate Accord Trump pulled out of, is on track to conserve more lands and waters than any president before him, and has worked with the international community to slash methane emissions and restore lost forests.

And yet there is much more to be done, he said. He encouraged “all Americans to reflect on the need to protect our precious planet; to heed the call to combat our climate and biodiversity crises while growing the economy; and to keep working for a healthier, safer, more equitable future for all.”

Happy Earth Day 2024.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #earth day #history #Letters From An American #Conservation #natural resources #Interior Department #Silent Spring #Rachel Carson

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henrykathman · 26 days

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youtube

The Amateur's Guide to Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley

In this video, I return to the world of Moominvalley to analyze the hotly anticipated game Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley and its relationship with the original Moomin stories, Tove Jansson, and the philosophies it connects with.

Special Thanks to Kiki from Transparency for looking at the script. You can follow her Moomin Stuff at @marsmombestmom

Disclosure: My copy of the game was provided to me by Hyper Games and Raw Fury. While I think objectivity is overrated, the opinions in this video have not been influenced by the developers and are a reflection of my own thoughts on this game and the Moomins.

Work Cited Page

Bletchly, Rachael. “How Moomin Author Built a Brand Worth £700m and Why Brits Still Love Them.” The Mirror, Reach PLC, 4 Jan. 2021, www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/how-moomin-creator-built-brand-23260983. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

Dymel-Trzebiatowska, Hanna. “Moomins Take the Floor. Finnish Trolls in Contemporary Mass Social (Media) Events.” Children’s Literature in Education, Aug. 2022, pp. 1–16. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-022-09497-6 Link

Ellis, Rowan. “Why Is Cottagecore so Gay?” Rowan Ellis, YouTube, 30 July 2020, youtu.be/5odKiL7jRW0.

Kramer, Ash. “Philosophical Materialism: Vital Materialism.” Philosophical Materialism: A Study of Early Modern Literature and Contemporary Theory, The Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, scalar.usc.edu/works/material_philosophy/vital-materialism#:~:text=Frequently gendered female, vital materialism. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

Meereboer, Arwen Dagmar. "Moomins and Complicity with Matter: Tove Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea as an Intervention in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things by Jane Bennett." SATS 23.1 (2022): 17-32. https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/180011/meereboer_arwen.pdf?sequence=2

O’Connell, Joe. “The Melancholy Promise of Heidi, Girl of the Alps.” Beyond Ghibli, YouTube, 20 Sept. 2018, youtu.be/_DFPoZN-FoI. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

O’Luanaigh, Robin. “Co-Opting Cottagecore: Pastoral Aesthetics in Reactionary and Extremist Movements.” Global Network on Extremism and Technology, The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, 19 May 2023, gnet-research.org/2023/05/19/co-opting-cottagecore-pastoral-aesthetics-in-reactionary-and-extremist-movements/.

Peter Marten. “Moomin Characters Ltd Keeps a National Treasure in the Family.” This Is Finland, the Finland Promotion Board , Apr. 2010, finland.fi/business-innovation/moomin-characters-ltd-keeps-a-national-treasure-in-the-family. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

Samson, Anna. “How the Moomins Became an Anti-Fascist Symbol.” Huck Magazine, TCO London, 22 Sept. 2021, www.huckmag.com/article/how-the-moomins-became-an-anti-fascist-symbol.

#video #video essay #youtube #moomin #moominvalley #snufkin #snufkin melody of moominvalley #tove jansson #snufmim #snufmumriken #snufmin #melody of moominvalley #Youtube

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legendaryskyscale · 2 days

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Decided to make a roster of Necros I currently have.

Long wall of text below explaining each Necro!

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First is Saladbowld, my oldest Necro. I mainly use him for Fractals. He was created on Nov 20th, 2015 as a joke. I think I was talking about a sentient Caladbolg and made Saladbowld as kinda a gijinka. His initial design was very VERY different from his current look. I unfortunately do not have any screenshots of his baby years, but he used to have Caladbolg colors and the ponytail hairstyle. He was supposed to be a keyfarmer and I was supposed to delete him, but over the years I got too attached to him and now Saladbowld has a background concerning the Mad Realm. I used to use him for Labyrinth farming, but I've retired him from that.

I didn't make another Necro until May 31st, 2020, and that's when I created Somhanavir. Vir is based on one of my OCs from a story I was writing. His full name is Somhanavir Gabris von Hallow and he's a kind of mantid monster. He has no connections to anything in GW2 story/lorewise. I made Vir for WvW at the time when I was somewhat enjoying Scourge, and when Scourge was somewhat decent in zergs. These days, he's park at New Kaineng JP to collect my daily Jade Runestone.

Nov 27th, 2020 is when Lyikera was created. She was initially created to be a reincarnation of Trahearne after HoT. But now, her story ties in with being Aurene's half, literally being Aurene's twin sister as the two were born together when Mordremoth was vanquished. I still headcanon that she and Aurene both embody Trahearne thanks to Mordremoth's death when they absorbed the magic of the Jungle Elder Dragon. In my story, Trahearne was a part of that blast and now is a part of Lyikera and Aurene.

On Aug 21st, 2021 I created Belavalla. She doesn't have any deep lore, she was just my "Pale Reaper" who guides lost Sylvari back to the Dream. I headcanon that her face is unrecognized/incomprehensible to those not ready to return aka Not Dead Yet. But her face will appear as someone comforting to help ease dead Sylvari back to the Dream.

Mender Lunaria was created on Jun 23rd, 2022 as a companion toon to my Pale Reaver Solaria. My Lunaria was once a Sylvari who was unfortunately a victim and test subject to Ardjin. Ardjin successfully spliced her with a Melandru Stalker. Lunaria was one of the lucky experiments, as she retained her memories and escaped Ardjin's facility in Brisband to return to her Dearheart, Solaria.

Apr 22, 2023 is the creation of Oozwald. I'm prolly the only person in GW2 who's created an NPC clone based off the Inquest Technician who got turned into an Ooze in the Thaumanova Reactor Fractal lol. Oozwald is my bag opener.

Jul 4th, 2023 comes Fish Lich. It is a Fish that is a Lich. That's it. No story as of now.

And my latest, current fascination is Hass (Has Seen Things). Created on Feb 29th 2024, he was supposed to be a kobold, but during character creation I couldn't stop laughing at the max-size eyes on one of the Asura faces and that's how he came to be. He uh doesn't have a story. Yet.

And that, for now, are all my Necros. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #gw2 necromancer #Ro's content #Ro's characters #reen's screenshots

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 16 days

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By: Lucy Bannerman, James Beal, Eleanor Hayward

Published: Apr 10, 2024

The report should be the final nail in the coffin of Gids, the clinic that told thousands of children they were transgender

In 2009 the NHS’s gender identity development service (Gids) saw fewer than 50 children a year. Since then demand has increased a hundredfold, with more than 5,000 seeking help in 2021-22.

The sudden increase has gone hand in hand with the adoption of a model of “gender-affirming” care, which puts children on a life-altering path of hormone treatment. Services have been left overwhelmed, with vulnerable young people clamouring for medical interventions to help them change gender — despite a lack of evidence over the long-term effects.

It was against this backdrop that Dr Hilary Cass was commissioned in 2020 to examine the state of NHS services for children identifying as trans. Her final report, published on Wednesday, delivers a damning verdict on the medical path thousands of children have been sent down. It marks a turning point in years of bitter debate over how to help this distressed group of young people, confirming a shift towards a holistic model that takes into account the wider social and mental health problems driving the rise in demand.

Gen Z and online porn

The Cass report shines a light on the biggest unanswered question over transgender healthcare: why are so many Gen Z women suddenly wanting to change gender?

Cass paints an alarming picture of an anxious and distressed generation of digitally savvy young women and girls, who not only are more exposed to online pornography and the wider problems of the world than any previous generation but also consume more social media and have lower self-esteem and more body hang-ups than their male peers.

When Gids opened in 1989, it treated fewer than ten people each year, mostly males with a long history of gender distress. In 2009 it treated 15 adolescent girls. By 2016 that figure had shot up to 1,071.

Cass concludes that such a sudden rise in such a short time cannot be explained alone by greater acceptance of trans identities, which “does not adequately explain” the switch in patient profiles from predominantly male to female. She also says greater investigation of the “consumption of online pornography and gender dysphoria is needed”, pointing to youngsters’ increasingly early exposure to “frequently violent” online material that can have a harmful impact on their self- esteem and body image.

Gen Z is defined as those born between 1995 and 2009. Rather than focusing on the issue of gender in isolation, Cass looked at the context in which adolescents today, who have “grown up with unprecedented online access”, are experiencing such a disproportionate crisis over their gender.

“Generation Z is the generation in which the numbers seeking support from the NHS around their gender identity have increased, so it is important to have some understanding of their experiences and influences,” she writes. “In terms of broader context, Generation Z and Generation Alpha (those born since 2010) have grown up through a global recession, concerns about climate change and most recently the Covid-19 pandemic. Global connectivity has meant that as well as the advantages of international peer networks, they are much more exposed to worries about global threats.”

The report also focuses on 2014, when female referrals to Gids accelerated. Although this is not mentioned, 2014 was the year that CBBC, for example, broadcast I Am Leo, a video-diary-style documentary, to an audience of to 6 to 12-year-olds, showing the positive personal journey of a child who transitioned from female to male.

Throughout almost 400 pages, Cass argues that the gender-related issues of young patients should be treated in the same context as the wider mental health issues facing their entire generation. “The striking increase in young people presenting with gender incongruence/dysphoria needs to be considered within the context of poor mental health and emotional distress among the broader adolescent population, particularly given their high rates of co-existing mental health problems and neurodiversity.” Cass calls for more research into the “complex interplay” between these issues and a teenager’s sudden desire to change gender.

Lack of evidence for medical pathway

Rather than affirming children’s gender identity with medical treatment, the report calls for a holistic approach that examines the causes of their distress. It finds that, despite being incorporated into medical guidelines around the world, the use of “gender-affirming” medical treatment such as puberty blockers is based on “wholly inadequate” evidence. Doctors are cautious when adopting new treatments, but Cass says “quite the reverse happened in the field of gender care for children”, with thousands of children put on an unproven medical pathway.

Cass says gender care is “an area of remarkably weak evidence” and that results of studies “are exaggerated or misrepresented by people on all sides of the debate”. She adds: “The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

The report finds that treatment on the NHS since 2011 has largely been informed by two sets of international guidelines, drawn up by the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare (WPATH), but that these lack scientific rigour. The WPATH has been “highly influential in directing international practice, although its guidelines were found by the University of York’s appraisal to lack developmental rigour and transparency”, Cass says.

The report says the NHS must work to improve the evidence base.

Mental health

Mental health issues could be presenting as gender-related distress. Children and young people referred to specialist gender services have higher rates of mental health difficulties than the general population. This includes rates of depression, anxiety and eating disorders. Some research studies have suggested transgender people are three to six times more likely to be autistic than the general population, with age and educational attainment taken into account.

Therefore, the report says that the striking increase in young people presenting with gender dysphoria needs to be considered within the context of rising levels of poor mental health.

The increase in gender clinic patients “has to some degree paralleled” the deterioration in child and adolescent mental health, it finds. Mental distress, the report says, can present through physical manifestations, such as eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorders. Clinicians were often reluctant to explore or address co-occurring mental health issues in those presenting with gender distress, the report finds. This was because gender dysphoria was not considered to be a mental health condition.

The report finds that, compared with the general population, young people referred to gender services had higher rates of neglect; physical, sexual or emotional abuse; parental mental illness or substance abuse; exposure to domestic violence; and loss of a parent through death or abandonment.

Puberty blockers

The report says there was “no evidence” puberty blockers allowed young people “time to think” by delaying the onset of puberty — which was the original rationale for their use. It finds the vast majority of those who start puberty suppression continued on to cross-sex hormones, particularly if they started earlier in puberty.

There was insufficient and inconsistent evidence about the effects of puberty suppression on psychological or psychosocial health, it says, and some young females had a worsening of problems like depression and anxiety.

Cass says there is “some concern” that puberty blockers may actually change “the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development”.

Her report warns that blocking the chronological age and sex hormones released during puberty “could have a range of unintended and as yet unidentified consequences”.

It describes adolescence as a time of “identity development, sexual development, sexual fluidity and experimentation”. The report says “blocking” this meant young people had to understand identity and sexuality based only on their discomfort about puberty and an early sense of their gender. Therefore, it adds, there is “no way of knowing” whether the normal trajectory of someone’s sexual and gender identity “may be permanently altered”.

Brain maturation may also be “temporarily or permanently disrupted” by the use of puberty blockers, it says. This could have a significant impact on a young person’s ability to make “complex risk-laden decisions”, as well as possible long-term neuropsychological consequences.

The report highlights the “concern” of young people remaining on puberty blockers into adulthood — sometimes into their mid-twenties. This is partly because some “wish to continue as non-binary” and partly because of ongoing gender indecision, the report says.

Cass adds: “Puberty suppression was never intended to continue for extended periods.”

The report finds young adults who had been discharged from Gids “remained on puberty blockers into their early to mid twenties”. A review of audit data suggested 177 patients were discharged while on puberty blockers.

Cass says the review “raised this with NHS England and Gids”, citing the unknown impact of use over an extended period. “The detrimental impact to bone density alone makes this concerning”, the report adds.

A Dutch study originally suggested that puberty blockers might improve psychological wellbeing for a narrow group of children with gender issues.

Following this, the practice “spread at pace to other countries” and in 2011 the UK trialled the use of puberty blockers in an early intervention study.

The results were not formally published until 2020, at which time it showed there was a lack of any positive measurable outcomes. It also found that 98 per cent of people had proceeded to take cross-sex hormones.

Despite this, from 2014 puberty blockers moved from a research-only protocol to being available in routine clinical practice. “The rationale for this is unclear,” the report says.

Puberty blockers were then given to a wider range of adolescents, it says, including patients with no history of gender issues before puberty and those with neurodiversity and complex mental health issues. Clinical practice, Cass found, appeared to have “deviated” from the parameters originally set.

Overall, the report concludes there was a “very narrow indication” for the use of puberty blockers in males to stop irreversible pubertal changes, while other benefits remained unproven.

It says there were “clearly lessons to be learnt by everyone”.

Social transition

The report concludes it was “possible” that social transition, including the changing of a child’s name and pronouns, may change the trajectory of their gender development. It finds “no clear evidence” social transitioning in childhood has any positive or negative mental health effects, but that children who socially transitioned at an earlier age were more likely to proceed to medical treatment. A more cautious approach to social transition needs to be taken for children than for adolescents, it concludes.

The review also heard concerns from “many parents” about their child being socially transitioned and affirmed in their expressed gender without their involvement. Draft government guidance, published in December, stated that schools should not accept all requests for social transition and should involve parents in any decision that is made.

Despite this, there has been evidence of schools ignoring ministers and allowing children to change gender behind their parents’ backs.

The report makes clear that “parents should be actively involved in decision making” unless there are strong grounds to believe that it may put the child at risk.

It also finds that social debates on trans issues led to fear among doctors and parents, with some concerned about being accused of transphobia.

The interim report, from 2022, had classed social transition as “not a neutral act”. The full report explains that it is an “active intervention”, because it may have significant effects on a young person’s psychological functioning and longer-term outcomes.

In a strong warning to schools, the report describes the need for “clinical involvement” in the decision-making process on social transitioning. It adds: “This is not a role that can be taken by staff without appropriate clinical training.”

The report concludes that maintaining flexibility is key among those going down a social transition route and says a “partial transition”, rather than a full one, could help.

In decisions about whether to transition prepubescent children, families should be seen “as early as possible by a clinical professional”.

Rogue private clinics

Long waiting lists for NHS care mean distressed children are turning to private clinics or resorting to “obtaining unregulated and potentially dangerous hormone supplies over the internet”, the report says.

Some NHS GPs have then felt “pressurised to prescribe hormones after these have been initiated by private providers”, and Cass says this should not happen.

The report also urges the Department of Health to consider new legislation to “prevent inappropriate overseas prescribing”. This is intended to tackle a loophole which means that, despite the NHS banning the use of puberty blockers last month, children can still access them from online clinics such as GenderGP, which is registered in Singapore.

Detransitioning

Cass says some of those who have been through medical transitions “deeply regret their earlier decisions”. Her report says the NHS should consider a new specialist service for people who wish to “detransition” and come off hormone treatments. She says people who are detransitioning may be reluctant to return to the service they had previously used.

NHS numbers

The report recommends that the NHS and Department of Health review current practice of issuing new NHS numbers to people who change gender.

Cass suggests that handing out new NHS numbers to trans people means they risk getting lost in the system — making it harder to track their health histories and long-term outcomes.

The review says that this has had “implications for safeguarding and clinical management of these children”, — for example, the type of screening that they are offered.

Toxic debate

Cass has called for an end to the “exceptionally toxic” debates over transgender healthcare after she was vilified online while compiling her review. In a foreword to her 388-page report, the paediatrician said that navigating a culture war over trans rights has made her task over the past four years significantly harder.

She warned that the “stormy social discourse” does little to help young people, who are being let down by a lack of research and evidence. Cass added: “There are few other areas of healthcare where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views, where people are vilified on social media, and where name-calling echoes the worst bullying behaviour. This must stop.

“Polarisation and stifling of debate do nothing to help the young people caught in the middle of a stormy social discourse, and in the long run will also hamper the research that is essential to finding the best way of supporting them to thrive.”

Cass said: “Finally, I am aware that this report will generate much discussion and that strongly held views will be expressed. While open and constructive debate is needed, I would urge everybody to remember the children and young people trying to live their lives and the families/ carers and clinicians doing their best to support them. All should be treated with compassion and respect.”

The recommendations

Data collection

Gender identity clinics should offer their data to NHS England for review, and more research should be conducted on the impact of psychosocial intervention — such as therapy — and the use of masculinising and feminising hormones, such as testosterone and oestrogen. Cass recommended that the NHS should also consider data from private clinics.

Puberty blockers and hormone treatment

Cass recommended research to establish the long-term impact of puberty blockers, which is expected to start by December.

Assessment of other conditions

Cass said that children arriving at gender identity services should be screened for conditions such as autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions.

Criteria for medical treatment

When treating children with gender dysphoria, only those who have experienced “longstanding gender incongruence” will be able to get medical treatment. Even then, this will only be available — with “extreme caution” — for over 16s.

A holistic approach

Before any medical intervention, Cass recommends that children should be offered fertility counselling and “preservation” by specialist services. This formed part of a more “holistic” approach to gender identity services. Cass suggested the creation and implementation of a national framework and infrastructure for gender-related care.

Growing into adulthood

The review advised that follow-through services for 17 to 25-year-olds should be established to ensure a continuity of care and support when children grow into adulthood.

Detransitioners

The report proposed that NHS England should “ensure there is provision for people considering detransition”, while recognising that they may not wish to attend services that assisted in their initial gender transition.

[ Via: https://archive.today/7GxDe ]

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