It has been a good day, let me explain. Ron set our folding dining room table up to go through all the large filing cabinet, as he ran out of room for new files and some of our files are over 30 years old. As he worked on that I had made breakfast of thick bacon and scrambled eggs with Ron having muffins and me white toast. After breakfast we worked together on a really great now that it is cooking smelling recipe for pork chops using two packages of ranch dressing mix, can of cream of mushroom soup, and some seasonings I helped adjust.
I was on my way earlier to take my shower and a painful testorne shot when the water was shut down because the phase of the development we are in is hooked to the same water supply as the RV section and when an RVer forgets to unhook their water line and pulls out ripping the pipe apart or they back over and break the water pipe connection for their lot, it shuts down the water supply for both the RV section and the phase 1 homeowner section.
No real problem, as Ron was doing the filing, and I was doing tomorrow’s roundup post and my shower and the dishes could wait. But then Ron decided to go take a nap. I was joined him to help him into bed. As he got undressed I started to flirt and rub him. We had flirted and been sexually suggestive with each other all day. I am hypersexual and that is normal for a person who was abused in childhood as I was. Sex and the function of it are super important to me and mean far more emotionally than the act should. Ron understands that. He accepts that. But he is 71 yrs old and was put on a medication a decade or more ago that we did not know would kill his libido, his desire. He has since gotten off the medication but the damage has been done. He is trying to get over the effects of the drug but it is hard. He struggles to have sexual desires, while I am over sexual desire needing. He tries to meet my needs when ever he can or I need, which is all the time, but I try to control it. We do a lot of touching and at night in bed we cuddle for hours at a time. We simply cuddle pushing our bodies as tight as possible with each other and sleep that way. It makes the cat jealous though.
As he was getting ready for his nap without clothing my desire was going close to out of control even as I understood it as not appropriate or the right time. Ron realized my need and offered and I had a flashback. I was taken over by a memory from my childhood. It was painful and shook me. I started to shake instead of replying. Ron realized what was happening and instead of peppering me with questions moved back while assuring me it was all OK. He got into the bed covering himself while continuing to talk to me calmly and reassuringly. He kept using my name that is different from what my abusers called me. He asked me if he needed to get up and I said no, that was not good. I mumbled some sleep well stuff and went to my Pink Palace office and started to cry.
I gradually got my self undercontrol. I post this to try to explain how triggers work and the minefield my life is even with a loving wonderful husband. We were on the same wavelength for what I was desiring… but then the memories hit shattering everything. If this had happened on a first date or such it could have gone really badly and maybe violently. Ron has lived with me a long time, he understands some of my abuse and he knows how to deal with me to not make things worse. The fact is I basically have to have two minds / people of me. The outfacing person who appears normal and has no issues and who cares for everyone. The second one I try to keep hidden in public life except for here on the blog. A badly damaged person struggling to deal with day to day stuff and trying some how to understand the issues of what is happening with out letting it tear me apart while my memories struggle to constantly surge to the front of my mind.
I don’t know if posting this will have the effect I want it to have which is not pity but understanding the minefield I walk daily in life. It is not just the news about abused kids, it is not the survivor site where people discuss things similar to what I lived through and is still in my mind today. It is not even when my husband sees my needs and wishes the same that a memory or many memories can sabotage and ruin everything. I don’t know if any of you have ever needed to retreat to a “safe space”. It is not a weak person who does that, it is a strong person who knows they are close to breaking. I don’t care if the right calls it woke, I call it needed emotional health care. I often get overwhelmed and sometimes share that with you. But each of you I would think some times reach a point where enough is enough and you need to back off or change what you are doing.
Very few people are an island. I am not and don’t want to be. I love being part of a community and being part of the world I live in. However, I do admit it becomes difficult for me sometimes. I struggle and I stumble in ways that the maga would make fun of me for. I am human. I get it and have been hurt. I still stand up for others. And now I am calm enough that I will go get my shower and take my painful shot. Thank you for letting me express this part of my life and I welcome your comments. Hugs
I have been promising this post since monday. But I have always been too tired or in too much pain to write it or post it. I am going to start this tonight but it is late for me and I may go to bed before finishing so it may take several days.
The fact is before I even went to my pain doctor to tell me the result I knew things were bad. In the morning I can only sit in my chair for at most two hours before I have to get up and do something that helps relieve the pain. Mostly that is going to bed. I don’t sleep just lay their reading news or telling my self stories I create hoping to fall asleep. Randy sent me a headband with speakers but that just interferes with my own thoughts and keeps me awake. It was a good try and I bought one for Ron and he loved it. I will give this one to him. I go to bed and lie there only to get up and sit for a couple of hours to have the pain again overtake me. Once the pain gets that bad it is 10 to 15 minutes at most before I have to leave the desk and simply walk around or do something because the pain gets so bad so fast.
Also Tupac is on the desk being as close to me as he can. He is not lying on the towel I leave down for him but as close to the keyboard as possible even at time placeing his paws on the on the keybord hitting random keys. He wants to be as close to me as possible since Ron has been away so long. He feels he lost another human. I will be exciteed t0 see him react when Ron gets home on monday night.
So before the doctor told me the damage I knew something was badly wrong. So remember that even before I talked to the doctor I knew something had gone drasticly wrong. Sadly the MRI showed that.
Yup figured that would happen the pain levels are too high so I am going to bed. It is 8 PM my time.
It is now Saturday and I am trying hard to get this post done and out. But today my pain levels are very high and it is difficult to focus but I will do my best.
One of the things that the doctor told me was that my spine is no longer aligned; the disks are not lined up with each other but shifted to different degrees. Remember this was only the lower spine now they are going to MRI the upper spine. Second my spine has curved wrong. Then we got to the serious stuff. Degenerative discs, bulging discs, and discs so damaged that the nerves are outside the spinal channel. The arthritis is so advanced it is deep / spread in each vertebra. She tried to explain all the medical terms. At one point she excused herself to go speak to the surgeon I see for spine shots. When she came back it was with bad news. He no longer thinks epidurals will help me in my lower spine and I need nuero surgeon to do back surgery. Crap I cannot afford that. I am losing my sight, Ron has to have eye surgery right away, and the van needs 2 grand in repairs. That doesn’t even include my eye surgery and the repairs on our home.
While I did not understand everything she said I so desperately wished Ron had been there as he often explained these things to me later, and I have forgotten some of it, the situation is I need an MRI of the upper spine as well, she has refered me to her prefered spianl nueraal surgenon. Then I will need spinal surgery as the state and federal government won’t let them increase my pain medication because I can’t take the fentanyl patches with my skin allergies. I am being squeezed into a surgery I cannot afford or seeking illegal drugs for relief to be able to function.
I remember when I started in this clinic in 2009. They looked at my MRI of my spine and gave me 75 gm of morphine twice a day. I asked it to be reduced to half that amount and it was and I could live normally. But after the opioid “crisis” the states started to inject non-medical legislators into the medical field to show they were tough on abuse and misuse of drugs. It got ever more crazy until my life went from normal and even being able to work for a few years to not even getting enough pain relief to sit in my desk chair and blog for an hour. Now the federal government is demanding it be restricted even further, as RFK Jr. taking steroids can work out in jeans. On the restrictions I can’t get enough relief to blog for any extended time of the day. I spend half of my awake time in bed instead of at my desk. I struggle to stand to do dishes. I just told Ron that I cannot clean the floors before he gets home as I tried and it left me in tears. Even with our lightweight, easy to use cleaning devices. The damage to my spine and the lack of medical relief have gotten that bad. This makes no sense to me. Why deny me the pain blocking medications that allow me to fuction semi normally. It simply makes no sense to me. Why put me in this state what is the goal?
Do you see my point? Why put me and people like me through this? Do they want us to use illegal means for relief, or do they want us to suffer to death and go away? Do they care about us at all as they make these rules? There is more things my pain doctor told me about my spine I did not list yet, things like protrusions, spikes hooking nerves, some thing she kept say stenoisis, and nerves being pinched between vertebrae. At one point she mentioned I have advance degerneritive disc, I so wish Ron was there as I understood so little of it, then came the but you need a neurosurgeon and back surgery to help you because the state and federal government won’t let us give you enough medical relief to have any life. I hate this regressive holier than thou republican elected officials that swallow all the illegal drugs they can get from their providers while denying us poor people relief for bigoted racist reasons and their personal gains.
I am sure I left things out. I had to take after talking to Ron a saved 30 miligarm instant relief morphine because I was going out of my mind. I try desperately to save extras so when the pain is so off the chart I can get relief. But with the new restrictions, how do I do that? Why do the people in power who have access to pill mills and who have no pain and want to just make a name for themselves while doing the very thing they legislate against try to hard to make the live so people like me so hard? And I am poor and scared. Hugs
A recent article from Jesse Singal in the New York Times seemed to indicate the organization might be quietly retreating from supporting trans youth care.
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Yesterday, anti-transgender activist and columnist Jesse Singal published a piece claiming there were “cracks in the wall” around gender-affirming care (which you can find fully fact-checked here). To make that case, he relied heavily on a statement from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons that bypassed the organization’s normal scientific review process and was advanced under pressure from leadership aligned with the Trump administration, including a president who is a major Republican donor. Singal also invoked the American Psychological Association, suggesting the organization was retreating from its 2024 position supporting transgender care and rejecting claims that gender identity is “caused” by external factors. But a representative for the APA tells Erin In The Morning that the organization stands firmly by its 2024 guidelines supporting transgender youth care and provided documentation indicating Singal mischaracterized its position.
“No, APA’s position has not changed,” says a representative speaking for the APA, attaching a link to their 2024 policy statement which provided broad support for gender-affirming care. “APA continues to support unobstructed access to evidence-based care for transgender and gender-diverse individuals of all ages.”
The 2024 policy statement is to date one of the most significant supportive stances of any medical organization for gender-affirming care. It states that gender-affirming medical care is medically necessary, opposes bans on gender-affirming care, declares that being transgender is not caused by autism or post-traumatic stress, establishes the organization’s support for combatting disinformation on transgender healthcare, and finds that rejection of a trans youth’s gender identity can increase their risk of suicide and harm their psychological wellbeing. The policy was passed overwhelmingly, 153-9, with each voter representing a large subset of the organization’s 157,000 members. Now, the organization says that it is not accurate to claim that there is any regression on support for transgender youth care from the organization.
The organization also disputes Singal’s portrayal of a 2025 letter written by Katherine McGuire to the Federal Trade Commission. In his piece, Singal claims the APA “cautioned that gender dysphoria diagnoses could be the result of ‘trauma-related presentations’ rather than a trans identity,” and noted that “co-occurring mental health or neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder) … may complicate or be mistaken for gender dysphoria,” framing this as evidence that the organization is retreating from its 2024 policy supporting transgender youth care. That interpretation is incorrect, according to an APA representative, who says the letter does not contradict the organization’s 2024 position and does not represent a regression in its support for evidence-based transgender care.
The FTC letter sent by APA Services was not saying that transgender identity can be caused by autism or depression. Rather, it was describing what any competent psychologist does with any patient: assess the whole person, including whether conditions like depression or anxiety are present. The letter does not say that depression or anxiety or autism cause gender dysphoria; it says that psychologists are careful about not mistaking these conditions for gender dysphoria. Notably, the letter was written in direct response to the Trump administration’s FTC, which had accused gender-affirming care providers of deceiving consumers, and McGuire was explaining that psychologists conduct thorough, individualized assessments—not that the organization’s position on care or “causes” of being transgender had changed. Had McGuire not indicated that psychologists were making these determinations, the FTC would likely then accuse the organization of not investigating its crank theories on gender dysphoria.
You can view the letter here:
American Psychological Assocation Response To Ftc Rfi Gender Affirming Care 9 26 2025 Signature (1)
“The 2024 policy statement and the 2025 FTC letter are consistent. The 2024 statement reflects the organization’s policy position on access to care. The 2025 FTC letter describes what competent psychologists do in individual clinical practice: they do not make generalized claims to families but instead provide individualized, evidence-based assessment. Both documents reflect APA’s consistent commitment to evidence-based psychological care,” says the representative.
The American Psychological Association’s reaffirmation of its support for transgender youth health care is significant. The organization is among several reportedly under FTC investigation as part of a broader effort to pressure medical bodies to retreat from transgender youth care. It is also facing a coordinated pressure campaign from anti-trans activists like Jesse Singal and outlets such as The New York Times, both of which have repeatedly sought to cast doubt on established standards of care. That context makes Singal’s portrayal especially consequential. Readers were left with the impression that the APA was backtracking. According to the organization itself, that is false. What Singal presented as evidence of “cracks in the wall” was yet another attempt to manufacture doubt around the professional consensus supporting transgender youth care.
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18-month-old Amalia, who, according to a lawsuit filed, suffered a life-threatening respiratory illness while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, reacts, in this handout picture obtained on February 7, 2026. Elora Mukherjee/Handout via REUTERS
] Kheilin Valero Marcano and Stiven Arrieta Prieto, parents of 18-month-old Amalia, who, according to a lawsuit filed, suffered a life-threatening respiratory illness while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, pose for a photo, in this handout picture obtained on February 7, 2026. Elora Mukherjee/Handout via REUTERS
Summary
Child had severe respiratory illness, lawsuit says
DHS says child received proper medical care and medications
Trump faces criticism for immigration detention practices
NEW YORK, Feb 7 (Reuters) – An 18-month-old girl detained for weeks by U.S. immigration authorities was returned to custody and denied medication after being hospitalized with a life-threatening respiratory illness, according to a lawsuit filed in Texas federal court.
The child, identified in the lawsuit as “Amalia,” was released by immigration authorities in President Donald Trump‘s administration after her parents sued on Friday. The parents, who also had been detained, were released as well. The suit had sought the release of all three of them.
In a statement provided on Monday following the publication of this story on Saturday, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said claims that Amalia did not receive proper medical treatment or medications were false.
The family was detained during a check-in with immigration authorities on December 11 and held at a facility in Dilley, Texas, according to the lawsuit. Amalia was hospitalized from January 18 to 28, and returned to the Dilley facility in the midst of a measles outbreak, the lawsuit said.
“Baby Amalia should never have been detained. She nearly died at Dilley,” said Elora Mukherjee, an attorney for the family.
Mukherjee said hundreds of children and families detained at Dilley lack sufficient drinking water, healthy food, educational opportunities or proper medical care, and should be released.
McLaughlin said in the statement on Monday that the child immediately received medical care after becoming ill, was admitted to a hospital for treatment and returned to the Dilley facility after being cleared for release by a pediatric doctor. Amalia was housed in the medical unit upon her return and received proper treatment and prescribed medicines, the statement said.
“It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody. This includes medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care,” McLaughlin said.
Trump’s administration has been accused of heavy-handed and inhumane tactics as well as violating court orders while carrying out his mass deportation program.
A federal judge in Michigan criticized the administration in a January 31 ruling ordering the release of a five-year-old boy – seen in a viral photo wearing a blue bunny hat outside his house as federal agents stood nearby – who was detained by immigration agents in Minnesota. The administration is now seeking to deport the boy.
Amalia’s parents, originally from Venezuela, have lived in the United States since 2024 with their daughter, who is a Mexican citizen, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit says all three intend to file asylum applications in the United States.
Amalia developed a fever on January 1 that reached as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), started vomiting frequently and struggled to breathe, according to the lawsuit.
She was taken to the hospital on January 18 with extremely low oxygen saturation levels and diagnosed with COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, viral bronchitis and pneumonia, according to the lawsuit. She was placed on supplemental oxygen.
Amalia was given a nebulizer and a respiratory medication upon her discharge from the hospital, but these were taken away by detention center staff upon her return, according to the lawsuit. The girl has lost 10% of her body weight and was given nutritional drinks to help her regain it, but these were also confiscated by authorities, according to the lawsuit.
Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Sergio Non, Will Dunham and Daniel Wallis
Texas is at the forefront of pushing Christian nationalism along with all its prejudices. Misogyny, strict gender stereotypes, and enforced being straight. They require young people to marry in opposet gender marriages and produce as many children as possible. Why? It promotes their faith while filling church pews which funds more money for the church. Hugs
Suit against Debra Lynch is latest from Texas’s Republican attorney general amid ongoing attacks on abortion pills
Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general, outside the US supreme court in Washington DC on 1 November 2021. Photograph: Rod Lamkey/Newscom via Alamy
As part of its ongoing crusade against abortion pills, Texas sued a nurse practitioner on Tuesday, accusing her of shipping pills into Texas in defiance of the state’s abortion ban.
The nurse practitioner, Debra Lynch, operates a Delaware-based group called Her Safe Harbor, which mails abortion pills to women living in states with abortion bans. Now, Texas wants a court to block Lynch from “performing, inducing or attempting abortions” in Texas, on the grounds that Texas law only permits physicians to facilitate abortions in cases of medical emergencies.
Groups like Her Safe Harbor have proliferated in the four years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, as Delaware and a handful of other blue states have enacted so-called “shield laws”. These laws typically aim to protect abortion providers from out-of-state prosecutions, lending legal cover to providers who ship pills across state lines.
But such efforts have enraged anti-abortion advocates and sparked a legal war between states that protect abortion rights and states that ban the procedure. Texas has already sued a New York-based doctor, Margaret Carpenter, over allegations that she mailed abortion pills into the state, while Louisiana has indicted both Carpenter and a California-based doctor named Remy Coeytaux. Officials in New York and California, which also have shield laws on the books, have refused to cooperate with those efforts.
The safeguards offered by each state’s shield law vary. Eight states, including New York and California, clearly allow providers to use telemedicine to prescribe abortion pills to patients located in states where the procedure is banned. But legal experts have questioned whether Delaware’s shield law, which was first passed in 2022, always protects providers who offer telemedicine across state lines.
Delaware’s law was expanded in late 2025, in part to clarify that officials may not aid out-of-state investigations into abortion providers – a move that may offer Lynch additional protection. The Texas case may then depend on when, exactly, Lynch mailed abortion pills into the red state, according to Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis school of law, who studies the legal history of reproduction.
But, Ziegler added: “It doesn’t sound like they know when any of the abortions happened.”
The cases against Carpenter and Coeytaux largely rest on allegations of specific abortions. The Texas case against Lynch, however, focuses on media reports that feature Lynch saying she mails pills to Texans or advises Texans who want abortions.
After Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Her Safe Harbor and other abortion-providing groups in August, Lynch said she had no plans to stop mailing pills. In fact, in the hours after news of the letter broke, the group received more than 150 requests for pills from Texas, Lynch said at the time.
“None of our providers are primarily concerned with our own wellbeing or our own legal status,” Lynch previously told the Guardian. “All the horrors that women are facing because of these ridiculous bans and restrictions outweigh anything that could possibly happen to us as providers, in terms of a fine or a lawsuit or even jail time, if it were to come to that.”
Lynch did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
I have never understood the rights hate of LGBTQ+ people just for being different. I used to think it was they couldn’t understand it because they did feel that way. If they did not feel that way then it must be wrong or not exist. The very same things they say about trans people they said about gay people when I was a school kid. I remember that people were pushing to ban gay guys, and it was always gay guys just like it is always trans women, from teaching because they would molest the kids. Now it is we can’t let trans people use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity because of some fear they will molest the little girls. Always to protect the kids but if that was the goal then may I mention religious leaders? I think also the fear some religious right wingers have is that they find trans women attractive and that terrifies them. They want to force kids to go through the wrong puberty so it is harder for them to fit in with the stereotypes people have of what is masculine or feminine. For some they think they are doing the bidding of their deity but I don’t remember reading Jesus saying anything about trans people. But he did preach love and tolerance a lot. Maybe the pain and cruelty is the point after all. Hugs
Trans youth almost always feel less suicidal while undergoing treatment. (Getty
Trans youth almost always feel less suicidal while undergoing treatment. (Getty)
Yet another study proving that trans youth almost always feel less suicidal on gender-affirming care has been thrown on the pile of evidence that puberty blockers are safe and effective.
Research set to be published in the Journal of Paediatric’s February volume has once again proved that trans adolescents show “meaningful reductions” in depression and anxiety after beginning clinically-endorsed hormone therapy.
Co-written by paediatricians in Nevada, Texas, and Missouri, the study examined the wellbeing of 432 patients before and after undergoing treatment.
The participants, aged 12 to 20, were surveyed on their mental health before and at least 364 days after beginning appropriate medical treatment such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Trans youth regularly come under attack by politicians. (Getty)
Using the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) toolkit – an internationally acknowledged assessment of suicidality in young people and adults – researchers found significant improvements in the mental health of patients across the board.
Suicidality among participants decreased significantly over time, according to the study’s results, with rates continuing to decrease as time went on.
The reductions, clinicians noted, were consistent regardless of gender identity, treatment duration, and, interestingly, the age at the start of therapy.
This not only once again proves that gender-affirming care is remarkably effective in improving the wellbeing of trans patients, but that its effectiveness in reducing suicidal tendencies does not diminish as patients get older.
Clinicians recommended following-up the study with a “larger sample and longer follow-up” to sufficiently prove the consistency of gender-affirming care’s mental health treatments.
Politicians continue to ban puberty blockers despite evidence
Numerous studies across the globe have proven that gender-affirming care is almost always a good thing for trans people, especially trans young people.
One study from October 2024 found that 97 per cent of trans under-18s were “highly satisfied” with the results of gender-affirming treatment, while another from March in the same year found that, out of 548 patients who accessed trans healthcare, just two regretted it.
Regret rates for gender-affirming treatment are very low according to a paper from May 2024, which found that patients are more likely to regret knee surgery, breast augmentation, and even having children than those starting gender-affirming care.
Despite the mountain of evidence proving that gender-affirming care can be, and almost always is, life-saving, anti-trans politicians and political pundits regularly claim trans young people shouldn’t be allowed to access clinically-approved medical treatment.
Wes Streeting has routinely come under fire for his policies on trans people. (Getty)
At least 27 states in the US ban gender-affirming care in some capacity, preventing over 40 per cent of America’s trans youth population from accessing care. Puberty blockers are also banned for trans youth in the UK, despite being freely available for cisgender youth.
The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ suicide prevention organisation, warned these bans have “detrimental impacts” on the mental health of trans young people, who are already disproportionately likely to feel suicidal.
Research conducted by Dr Natacha Kennedy in the University of London found that Wes Streeting’s ban on puberty blockers for trans young people is “significantly, extensively, and relentlessly harming trans children and young people”.
She spoke to the parents of trans young people who were once “happy, well-adjusted, and little different from most cis children”, but who have now resorted to self-harm because of an inability to access care.
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact the Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
18-month-old Amalia, who, according to a lawsuit filed, suffered a life-threatening respiratory illness while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, reacts, in this handout picture obtained on February 7, 2026. Elora Mukherjee/Handout via REUTERS
] Kheilin Valero Marcano and Stiven Arrieta Prieto, parents of 18-month-old Amalia, who, according to a lawsuit filed, suffered a life-threatening respiratory illness while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, pose for a photo, in this handout picture obtained on February 7, 2026. Elora Mukherjee/Handout via REUTERS
Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general, outside the US supreme court in Washington DC on 1 November 2021. Photograph: Rod Lamkey/Newscom via Alamy
