From the editor’s desk:
Research Connections published a study, supplemented by further study by researchers at the Manhattan Institute, that examined insurance data for minors aged 8-17 between 2016 and 2023 in Oregon, one of the most progressive states in the U.S. They found that one in 240 girls and one in 630 boys received cross-sex hormones to treat gender-confused youth and that for those in their early teens, Oregon adolescents were between four and five times more likely than 14- and 15-year-olds in other states to be given cross-sex hormones: estrogen for minor boys who believe they are girls and testosterone for minor girls who believe they are boys. Furthermore, 1.51 per cent of minor girls and 0.46 per cent of minor boys received a “gender-related diagnosis” such as gender dysphoria in which an individual rejects the gender that matches their biological sex. While 1.51 per cent of girls and 0.46 per cent of boys does not sound like many, it is a huge outlier. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition reported diagnosed gender dysphoria among adults as between 0.002 and 0.003 per cent for females and between 0.005 and 0.014 per cent for males. Thus, among Oregon minors, the prevalence is 500 times more likely among girls and 30 times more likely among boys. None dare call it a contagion. As the Manhattan Institute’s Leor Sapir said, “about one in every 65 (Oregon) adolescent girls is a potential candidate for medical ‘sex reassignment’.”
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Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologists with the Manhattan Institute, wrote in a commentary for City Journal that “we were told not to worry about pediatric gender medicine because it is vanishingly rare” with medical interventions such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, which stunt the natural development of a female or male body and can render the child permanently infertile, among other physical and mental calamities, “reserved for a tiny number of carefully assessed children with severe and persistent distress.” The aforementioned studies by the Institute and Research Connections suggest those numbers are no longer insignificantly tiny. Wright says that gender ideologues who once argued that critics were exaggerating the issue of medicalizing childhood gender dysphoria because so few kids were being medically transitioned – or stunted so they could be transitioned later – are now saying that critics are wrong because a statistically significant number of children are transitioning which is proposed as evidence that such interventions are appropriate. Heads they win, tails you lose. Though in actuality, it is the youth who lose. Wright says that “no serious person would shrug and say ‘sounds about right,’” about a powerful medical intervention for minor girls that “permanently deepened their voice, caused them to grow beards, altered their sexual function, and affected their fertility.” Yet, that is precisely what defenders of gender medicine do. Wright asks how many gender-confused youth receiving a psychiatric diagnosis that would put young girls onto paths of permanent disfigurement would cause gender ideologues to reconsider? The obvious answer is that advocates of gender medicine have no percentage of diagnosed minor girls that would make them uncomfortable with medical interventions that could eventually lead top surgery (removal of breasts) and bottom surgery (reconstruction of the vagina to appear like a penis). The headline on the City Journal article was “How many girls on testosterone is too many?” The obvious answer is one.
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Childhood gender medicine is an insanity so it is all the more discomfiting that Dr. Natasha Johnson has been selected as the new president of the Canadian Pediatric Society. In 2016, Johnson founded the Gender Diversity Clinic at McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton. In 2021, Johnson told W5 that most individuals who transition from male to female or vice versa are satisfied with their choice and she poo-pooed the idea of detransitioners who regret trying to change their sex. The Canadian Pediatric Society already supports transitioning children but choosing a gender ideologue to lead the organization gives the game away.
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In June, the House of Commons passed a bill that criminalizes sterilization without legal consent, making it a crime (aggravated assault) which will carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. Of course, no one should be sterilized (with or without their consent). But I wonder: does the Act to amend the Criminal Code (sterilization procedures) apply to the sterilization of so-called gender-affirming care for gender confused Canadians? One of the principles of the bill is informed consent and many youth are neither informed about the lasting impact of gender medicine interventions nor capable of consenting to permanent sterilization.
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Gallup polling shows that support for LGBTQ issues is down slightly but that pro-family forces still have a long way to go to turn around American public opinion. A press release by Gallup stated “after two decades of rising support for LGBTQ+ issues, U.S. attitudes have plateaued and begun to slide back.” Today, 65 per cent of Americans support same-sex “marriage,” down from 71 per cent in 2022 and 2023. Likewise, the percentage of respondents who say that same-sex relations are morally acceptable stands at 62 per cent, the lowest level of support since 2016 and down from a peak of 71 per cent in 2022. The most significant drop is among those who say that changing one’s gender is morally acceptable, which has fallen eight percentage points in five years from 46 per cent to 38 per cent. Still, nearly two-thirds of Americans support same-sex “marriage” and same-sex relationships while nearly four in ten support transgenderism. The decline in acceptance of both same-sex relations and transgender was most pronounced among Republicans, although there were also modest declines in support among Democrats and independents. This is a positive trend but there is much work to do still in convincing the public that none of the LGBTQ behaviours are morally licit.
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Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons announced in July that it was launching a Harry Potter-branded line of donuts and treats, capitalizing on the nearly three-decade old popularity of the wizarding books for young adults written by J.K. Rowling. Rowling is a critic of the transgender ideology, standing up for dedicated women’s spaces such as restrooms and sports. So naturally, Egale Canada, a federally funded LGBTQ organization was outraged that Tim Hortons would market a Harry Potter theme: “As anti-2SLGBTQI hate continues to rise in Canda, especially for trans and gender diverse communities, campaigns that celebrate the Harry Potter brand can be deeply disappointing, infuriating, and saddening to those who are directly affected by that harm as well as their allies.” Quillette editor Jonathan Kay tweeted that Egale receives more than $4 million in annual funding from the federal government and “here’s what it pays for: a campaign against a donut chain that’s running a Harry Potter promotion” because its author, Rowling, “believes in biology” which will apparently lead the donuts to “cause ‘anti-2SLGBTQI hate’.” It is hard to argue that “woke is over” as some on the Right are wont to do when a federally funded lobby group is trying to drum up a boycott of a donut chain over a marketing campaign connected to a book that does not itself address LGBTQ issues.
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After unpopular British Prime Minister Kier Starmer resigned in June due to tanking Labour Party numbers and local-level electoral defeats for his party, he attended a pride month celebration at the end of the month where he said: “I’m really proud that we’ve got the gayest parliament, I don’t think just of all time—anywhere in the world. I don’t think there’s any parliament that is gayer than this one.” That’s not the brag he thinks it is, and – yes – he was bragging.
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According to The College Fix, Purchase College in southeastern New York is home to a “Reproductive Justice Garden,” run by the university’s Collective Organizing for Pleasure and Equality or COPE club. COPE’s social media highlights that the garden features the peacock flower, whose seeds, leaves, and flowers can be ingested in tea form to cause an abortion. COPE, which receives funding from mandatory student fees through the Purchase Student Government Association, proudly says that slave women would use peacock flower as an abortifacient and suggested that students might also avail themselves of the lethal possibilities of this and other available plants. Melanie Israel of the Heritage Foundation, told The College Fix that herbal abortifacients are dangerous because they are unpredictable, might be hidden from doctors when complications arise, and could be used by abusive partners to force pregnant girlfriends to abort their preborn children against their will. It is the height of irresponsibility to encourage teenage and young women to experiment with toxic plants under the guise of reproductive justice and freedom; indeed, the possibilities seem to contradict those goals.
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The CBC reported that Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, one of the most prominent abortion advocates in the country, is calling physicians’ refusal to kill a 94-year-old woman in Steinbach, Manitoba, “a mark of cruelty and trauma” inflicted on the senior who has a death wish. She described the refusal as “punishing” and called for the province’s Medical Assistance in Dying (Protection for Health Professionals and Others) Act, which permits doctors to opt out of participation in euthanasia deaths, to be scrapped. It is possible that Arthur wants to score a victory against conscience rights for health care workers, but it is also possible that her heart is so hardened by advocating for baby dismemberment through abortion that she is just enthralled with medically killing vulnerable populations.
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Joyce Arthur is not the only abortion advocate who has jumped on the euthanasia bandwagon. Notorious euthanasia provider Ellen Wiebe was a former abortionist who led the Canadian clinical trials for the abortion drug RU-486, as it was known in 2000. That trial was quickly terminated when a pregnant woman died of complications from taking the abortion pill. Wiebe has simply exchanged one lethally noxious substance for another.
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The Christian Institute reported that one in three babies conceived in the United Kingdom is killed by abortion. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, in 2023 the number of pregnancies increased but the number of births decreased, as the number of pregnancies that ended in abortion rose 13 per cent from the previous year. Nearly one third (32.1 per cent) of pregnancies end in abortion. In total, in 2023, 279,970 babies were killed by abortion, which is a number greater than the 29th most populous city in the United Kingdom (Derby). Abortion became easier to obtain during the pandemic when temporary measures permitted the abortion pill to be prescribed through telehealth visits, a policy that was later made permanent. The number of abortions has increased by more than 35 per cent since 2019 following a decade of stable numbers.
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Someone please explain why Huggies, Pampers, and Luvs, the three largest diaper companies in North America, all fund abortion. Proctor and Gamble, the company that owns the Pampers and Luvs brands, provides healthcare coverage for employees to obtain abortions including covering travels costs. Kimberly-Clark, maker of Huggies, has, for two decades, matched employee donations to Planned Parenthood. Other diaper manufacturers such as The Honest Company and Hello Bello also provide employee benefits that cover abortion costs. Aside from the morality of funding employee abortions and abortion giants like Planned Parenthood, it is not in the interests of these companies to pay for the elimination of its customer base.
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Hello! reported that “grandpa names are making a comeback.” This warmed the cockles of my heart. I’m an inveterate watcher of statistics about names, believing – perhaps hoping — that the popularity of some traditional names might augur a return to traditional values. According to the latest figures from the Society Security Administration, American parents are returning to more traditional names. The most common names for newborn boys in 2025 were, in order, Liam, Noah, Oliver, Theodore, Henry, James, Elijah, Mateo, William, and Lucas. Liam is short for William (although it was also a popular Irish name) and Mateo is Spanish for Matthew, but otherwise the top nine names are fairly traditional, with Noah and Elijah suggesting Biblical influences. Charles still rates in the top 50 while Robert and Arthur are staging a comeback. Alas, the name Paul, which was in the top 20 most common names until 1968, has fallen into disfavour, ranking outside the top 250 for each of the last six years. Girls’ names tend to be more modern and fashionable although Charlotte, Emma, and Amelia all rate in the top five.
-Paul Tuns
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