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Media Engagement Safety

Social and political aspects of the backlash on trans (and more widely LGBT and women's) civil liberties

On "Gender Ideology" as a conspiracy meme

Interview: The Anti-Gender Offensive as State Policy (2020)

Brazilian Feminist Sonia Correa here discusses the significance of anti-"Gender Ideology" rhetoric as a means of consolidating nationalist power under Jair Bolsonaro.

Enloe, Cynthia & Graff, Agnieszka & Kapur, Ratna & Walters, Suzanna. (2019). Ask a Feminist: Gender and the Rise of the Global Right. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 44. 823-844. 10.1086/701162.

social movements that seem to be spanning the globe.*

Gender Ideology Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (2020)

MEET THE MOMENT: Call for Progressive Philanthropic Response to the Anti-Gender Movement

Useful definition and overview of "Anti-Gender ideology" on page 5.

Freedom News: Gender Ideology? Up Yours! (2019)

Tracing the passage of the "Gender Ideology" meme in the English speaking online sphere from its origins in the Christian and particularly Catholic Conservative movement through to its adoption by "Gender Critical Feminists" in c. 2016.

Backlash in Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Rights

The results of a study commissioned by the European Parliament's policy department into the backlash which 'is connected to a significant degree with intensifying campaigning against so-called “gender ideology”':

Considerable energy went into trying to explain that the concept of gender ideology is wrong, or that there is no such ideology, and that families are safe. When similar attacks started against the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention), seen by some as the Trojan horse of so-called gender ideology because of its definition of gender as a social concept, women’s security and rights seemed to be directly at stake.

Korolczuk, Elżbieta. (2017). The Vatican and the Birth of Anti-Gender Studies. Religion and Gender. 6. 293. 10.18352/rg.10181.

Steven Kettell (2016) Always Read the Label: The Identity and Strategy of Britain's ‘Christian Right’, Politics, Religion & Ideology, 17:1, 1-17, DOI: 10.1080/21567689.2016.1157073

In Search of an Imaginary Enemy: Catholic Collective Narcissism and the Endorsement of Gender Conspiracy Beliefs

On Feminist debates over trans issues

Vincent, Ben; Erikainen, Sonja and Pearce, Ruth eds. (2020). TERF Wars: Feminism and the fight for transgender futures. The Sociological Review Monograph Series, 68 (4). London: Sage.

A full length academic book collecting articles on a range of issues that have been raised by the so-called "TERF Wars", from regulation of sex-segregated spaces, to identity, to health issues to detransition.

On "Trans Crime" and the "Male Pattern Crime" hypothesis

Fact Check: Study Shows Transition Makes Trans People Suicidal

In this article, Cecilia Dhejne is interviewed among other things about the implications of the data in her study with respect to criminal offending patterns (her 2011 study having been subject to widespread misinterpretation by both transphobic religious groups and anti-trans feminists). In the interview, she says, unequivocally:

The individual in the image who is making claims about trans criminality, specifically rape likelihood, is misrepresenting the study findings. The study as a whole covers the period between 1973 and 2003. If one divides the cohort into two groups, 1973 to 1988 and 1989 to 2003, one observes that for the latter group (1989 – 2003), differences in mortality, suicide attempts, and crime disappear. This means that for the 1989 to 2003 group, we did not find a male pattern of criminality.

— Cecelia Dhejne

Freedom of Information response: Questions from Gina Davidson

The Scottish Government know full well that the Dhejne (2011) study, otherwise frequently cited by anti-trans advocates as "The Swedish Study" (see Q39 and Q40 of Oral evidence: Reform of the Gender Recognition Act, HC 884 as one example of this) is being widely misrepresented against the actual data it represents.

Antisemitism and Transphobia

Transphobia and Antisemitism by Joaquina (2021)

Racism in Anti-Trans “Feminist” Activism (2019)

The Eradication of “Talmudic Abstractions”: Anti-Semitism, Transmisogyny and the National Socialist Project (2018)

Trans Health Mythbusting

Gender Identity Conversion Efforts

GICE, otherwise known under the umbrella term SOGICE (inclusive of sexual orientation).

APA resolution on Gender Identity Conversion Efforts (February 2021)

Independent Forensic Experts Group - Statement on Conversion Therapy to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

United Nations OCHCR Statement on Conversion Therapy (June 2020)

Authored by the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

UK Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy - Version 2 revision A (3rd July 2019)

This document was cosigned by every major mental health institution in the UK.

Puberty Blockers

Abby Walch, Caroline Davidge-Pitts, Joshua D Safer, Ximena Lopez, Vin Tangpricha, Sean J Iwamoto, Proper Care of Transgender and Gender Diverse Persons in the Setting of Proposed Discrimination: A Policy Perspective, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, , dgaa816, https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgaa816

An in depth discussion from an endocrinological perspective of both the clinical evidence for puberty blockers and the ongoing propaganda campaigns and misinformation sweeping across the USA driving campaigns to legislate against their use.

Simona Giordano & Søren Holm (2020) Is puberty delaying treatment ‘experimental treatment’?, International Journal of Transgender Health, 21:2, 113-121, DOI: 10.1080/26895269.2020.1747768

A peer reviewed article on bioethics around the puberty blockers debate as well as misinformation which is spreading in the British press around these.

Endocrine Society urges policymakers to follow science on transgender health

Press release by the USA based Endocrine Society on disinformation about puberty bockers circulating in the media.

So-called "Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria"

Ashley F. A critical commentary on ‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria.’ The Sociological Review. 2020;68(4):779-799. doi:10.1177/0038026120934693

A sociological analysis of the social panic around the pseudoscientific diagnosis "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria".

Restar, A.J. Methodological Critique of Littman’s (2018) Parental-Respondents Accounts of “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria”. Arch Sex Behav 49, 61–66 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-1453-2

A sexological analysis of "Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria"