Charles Hamilton was described as being “bold and impudent” and continued to defy the world even as the world closed in.
By Laura Linham
Image from a copy in Bristol Library of the pamphlet “The Female Husband” (1813 edition) by Henry Fielding. Cartoon is attributed to George Cruikshank. Text on the image says: “The Prisoner being convicted of this base and scandalous crime was sentenced to be publically and severely whipped four several times in 4 Market Towns, and to be imprisoned for 6 Months.”Photo: British Newspaper Archive
Charles Hamilton, a traveling doctor in 18th-century Somerset, UK, was a dapper, charming suitor who could have his pick of the ladies – and according to some accounts, often did.
But it was love at first sight when the doctor laid eyes upon his landlady’s niece, the beautiful but naive Mary Price.
On July 16, 1746, at St. Cuthbert’s Church in Wells, Somerset, Charles (or, as the parish register has it, James) Hamilton and Mary Price were married by the Reverend Mr. Kingstone.
For two months, the couple traveled through Somerset as husband and wife selling quack remedies – unproven cure-alls that often had little medical value. Still, on September 13, in a nearby town called Glastonbury, Mary denounced her husband to the town authorities.
It turned out that Charles was missing a vital piece of equipment for Mary’s long-term happiness – a penis.
Charles’ story scandalized and titillated society, courtesy of Henry Fielding’s hurriedly-written – and mostly fictionalized book – The Female Husband.
But who was Charles Hamilton?
The person first known to the world as Mary Hamilton was born in Somerset, a rural farming county in southwest England, in about 1725, the daughter of William and Mary Hamilton.
When still a child, her family moved to Angus in Scotland until, at about 14, Mary put on her brother’s clothes and set out on the road back to England alone. From this moment, Mary lived as a man, going by the names of James, George, and Charles Hamilton in the years that followed.
In Northumberland, as Charles Hamilton, he entered the service of Dr. Edward Green, a ‘mountebank’, or seller of quack medicines. He then worked for Dr. Finly Green before setting up independently as an unqualified doctor.
In May 1746, he arrived at Wells in Somerset and lodged in the house of Mary Creed, meeting her niece and falling helplessly in love. This fateful act led to the marriage that would cast him into infamy.
A deposition from Mary Price says that she and Hamilton traveled selling medicines after marriage.
During their time together, Hamilton “entered her body several times” and “so well did the imposter assume the character of man, that she still believed she had married a fellow-creature of the right and proper sex.”
But after gossiping with her neighbors, Mary soon began to suspect her husband was harboring a secret. She confronted her husband when they were in Glastonbury – a town just a few miles away from their home in Wells. Hamilton admitted the truth to Price, who, in turn, instantly ratted him out.
The story was unusual enough at the time to attract the attention of the local newspaper, the Bath Journal.
According to those reports, after news of the arrest, many people visited the prison to gawp at Hamilton, described as being “bold and impudent”.
It added that “it is publickly talk’d that she has deceived several of the Fair Sex by marrying them.”
Another report says that at the trial, the prosecuting attorney, Henry Gould – misspelled as Gold in the newspapers – claimed that Hamilton had been married fourteen times.
The scandalized magistrates struggled to agree what the crime was – or even if one had been committed.
British Newspaper Archive
Records show that it was not so much that Hamilton dressed and worked as a man that was a problem as much as the fact that he deceitfully contrived penetrative sex.
After much debate Charles Hamilton was labeled an ‘uncommon notorious cheat’ and was charged under the vagrancy act of 1744; an act meant to prosecute lack of employment or deceitful attitudes.
During the trial, members of Hamilton’s community wrote a letter to the clerk asking for severe punishment. They demanded public humiliation to ensure that Hamilton would never be able to live as a man again.
The severity of Hamilton’s sentence, and the terms in which the court delivered it, reflected the outrage and perplexity the case had aroused: ‘and we, the Court,’ they said, ‘do sentence her, or him, whichever he or she may be, to be imprisoned six months, and during that time to be whipped in the towns of Taunton, Glastonbury, Wells and Shepton Mallet.’
The newspaper recorded that the ‘bold and impudent’ Hamilton remained at that time ‘very gay, with periwig, ruffles, and breeches’, still defying the world as the world closed in.
He continued to sell his remedies surrounded by fascinated crowds who flocked to see him.
British Newspaper Archive
At three-week intervals, until Christmas 1746, Hamilton was whipped publicly in four different towns. That might have been the end of the saga for Hamilton if it weren’t for the novelist Henry Fielding.
Now considered the founder of the English novel, Fielding hurriedly cashed in on the salacious scandal, claiming he had his information “from the mouth” of Hamilton himself.
However, he likely never met the person he satirized in his work and it was instead cobbled together from court reports and his own (filthy) imagination.
The obscure – and pornographic – pamphlet was published anonymously. Like a Georgian-era 50 Shades of Grey, it was badly written, salacious and sold out almost immediately. Unlike 50 Shades of Grey, only four copies are known to exist today.
In his story, Fielding claims Mary Hamilton was born in 1721 on the Isle of Man, the daughter of a former army sergeant who had married a woman of property on the island.
In his version, she had been brought up in the strictest principles of virtue and religion but was seduced into “vile amours” by her friend Anne Johnson, an enthusiastic Methodist, and “transactions not fit to be mention’d passed between them”.
When Anne leaves him for a man, Hamilton seeks another female lover. He meets Mrs. Rushford, a wealthy 68-year-old widow who takes her to be a lad of about 18. He pretends to be a Methodist preacher and promptly marries the widow.
According to Fielding, he deceived his bride by means “which decency forbids me even to mention.” The bride eventually discovers Hamilton’s birth sex, and Hamilton is forced to flee. Hamilton uses various other aliases to marry other women but is repeatedly forced to run when the ruse is discovered.
Finally, posing as a doctor, he marries Mary Price.
Gendering Hamilton as a woman, Fielding also claims that “on the very evening she had suffered the first whipping, she offered the gaoler money, to procure her a young girl to satisfy her most monstrous and unnatural desires.”
British Newspaper Archive
Historian Louis Crompton describes Fielding’s account as “one part fact to ten parts fiction” – so what did happen to Charles Hamilton once the storm had passed?
In July 1752, an unsigned letter appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette, sent from Chester, just outside Philadelphia. It recounted the story of Charles Hamilton, an itinerant doctor living as a man, who was discovered to be biologically female.
According to the letter, Hamilton said he had been brought up in the business of a doctor and surgeon in the UK.
He said he had set sail for Philadelphia in Autumn 1751, cast away from North Carolina and made his way towards the city, selling medicine and treating people along the way.
Hamilton confessed he had used the “disguise” for many years.
So perhaps, Hamilton headed off to the New World and continued to live his life as he always had – true to himself and unashamed.
Laura Linham is a freelance journalist based in Somerset, UK. You can find her on Twitter, @midsomlaura
A gang of Christian thugs! The Christian Taliban. People demanding their way who refuse to follow the rules, threaten and demean others, believe the country is a theocracy instead of a democracy. All because they can’t / wont accept the advancements in society of understanding and accepting of differences / diversity. They are not content to stop their kids from reading and learning acceptance / tolerance but they are demanding no kid can be allowed to read it even if that child’s parents approve. This is about controlling everyone else and someone else’s child. This is forcing their church doctrines of what is acceptable on everyone else. Having to go see a counselor who will call your parents means no kid will check out the book and other kids will wonder what the kid who wanted to read the book did wrong. This is about saying anything not straight and cis is wrong and must be hidden. Hugs
Screaming parents at a school board meeting refused to follow speaking rules, including one woman who called the board members “sick individuals.”
Parents at the board meeting Photo: WZZM 13 screenshot
If students in a western Michigan school district want to read the graphic novel Gender Queer: A Memoir, they’ll have to meet with a school counselor who will then call their parents for permission.
This is the “compromise” that the Spring Lake School Board reached in a 4-3 vote after a contentious Monday night meeting. The meeting ended early and left board members fearing for their safety after screaming parents refused to follow meeting rules, including one woman who called the board members “sick individuals.”
The board met in order to discuss a parent who wanted Gender Queer to be removed from the district’s library shelves. The memoir, written by Maia Kobabe, covers eir experience discovering and accepting eir nonbinary and asexual identities. The book doubles as an instructive guide for those exploring their own identities.
The meeting spiraled out of control as the first speaker tried to violate the three-minute time limit for all speakers. As a board member took her microphone, she called the board “sick individuals.” Gradually, speakers on both sides of the issue became loud and unruly.
One parent said they objected to the book’s “explicit sexual content” rather than its LGBTQ content, possibly referring to several passages in the book that describe Kobabe’s exploration of eir sexuality.
Katie Pigott, a board member who voted to keep the book on library shelves, told parents, “Students need our affirmation and support much more than a segment of parents need another layer of control over other people’s choices.”
As the crowd became angrier, the board called for a break in an attempt to calm participants. But when the board reconvened, parents continued shouting, and the meeting had to be adjourned — the crowd booed as board members rose from their seats and left the room.
“Two of the board members commented to me that they felt a little bit fearful for their own safety,” district superintendent Dennis Furton told The Daily Beast. He also said that the district already had a policy for parents to prevent their kids from checking out specific titles by alerting the district’s libraries.
School Board President Jennifer Nicles, who also voted to keep the book on library shelves, said of the compromise, “I also know this decision can be seen as simply another hurdle for a student in need.” She said she’d work with the district media specialist to ensure that other resources are available to help LGBTQ students in need now that access to Gender Queer has been restricted.
Board member Kathy Breen, who also voted in favor of keeping the book available, said that the Monday night meeting is just part of a national political trend of “parent’s rights” groups who have been emboldened by the upcoming national midterm elections.
“Sure, some people legitimately may not care for [the book],” Breen said, “but I feel like the book was just another tool to create some chaos.”
Moms for Liberty, one of the national conservative groups pushing to ban LGBTQ books, has started pressuring public school libraries across the country to “accept book donations from conservative publishing companies that promote white supremacist, homophobic, and transphobic ideologies,” Vice News reported.
In an article for The Washington Post, Gender Queer‘s author said that eir own knowledge of LGBTQ identities was assisted by library books.
“By high school, I had met multiple out gay, lesbian and bisexual people, but I didn’t meet an out trans or nonbinary person until I was in grad school,” Kobabe wrote. “The only place I had access to information and stories about transgender people was in media — mainly, in books.”
The Christian bigots should hear what they are saying. They want a neutral place where all children are accepted and loved. Really? Yet what they really mean is where their kids and those that think / act just the good Christian way according to them are accepted and love. LGBTQ+, any other religions, those that dress differently, atheist kids are not welcome. These bigots also said that adults that pretend something not real is real is a mental illness and they needed medication. Boy really can they hear themselves. Their entire life is built around a pretend not real deity. The article lays it out very well. Give it a read. Even a fellow conservative called them out saying it devolved into a hate fest against gay kids. But again a small loud minority got what they wanted forcing everyone else to abide by their church doctrines of what is acceptable. The rest of us who want to be included be damned. Hugs
“It is hate material,” said one conservative parent of the “Stay Healthy” mural with smiling kids and cute animals
The mural features smiling kids and sends a message of inclusivity and the importance of good health (screenshot via News 8)
Reading Time: 3MINUTES
Aharmless mural painted over the summer at the Child and Adolescent Health Center at Grant Middle School in Michigan is under attack by Christian parents who claim it’s “Satanic.”
It was painted by Evelyn Gonzales, a sophomore at the local high school, who won a contest aimed to “brighten up” the health center with a painting that depicted smiling kids and the message “Stay Healthy.” The end result was a mural that included a number of kids, one of whom is wearing a shirt with the pink and white stripes of the transgender flag, another who is decked out in LGBTQ-friendly rainbow clothes, and a third in the colors of the bisexual flag. The point is that everyone is welcome at the school. No one is excluded. Though it’s not like the color scheme would be obvious to viewers unless they were looking for it; on the surface, we’re all just looking at happy smiling kids.
There’s a demon face (in the center left) that’s inspired by the video game Genshin Impact.
There’s also a “Hamsa hand” (on the far left) that, in some cultures, is said to provide good luck.
Gonzalez said the goal of her art was simply “to make people feel welcome.”
Again, none of this would be evident to casual viewers. But it unleashed massive outrage at a school board meeting last week:
“I feel like she did a really good job finding excuses to defend the things she put on,” says Katelyn Thompson. “None of us are that stupid.”
…
As for the transgender flag, one parent implied it’s a sickness.
“When adults pretend things that are like real life, it’s a mental illness,” says Danielle Beight. “We need counselors, we need medication that’s going to help bipolar disorder, fix their brains.”
With another saying it is discriminatory against Christian beliefs.
“We and our administration should embrace that and get all of this hate material out of our schools, because it is hate material,” says Nate Thompson.
Some parents who spoke with a local news reporter refused to give their names because they didn’t want to be harassed. The anonymous cowards broke from their prayer circle to explain why the mural was offensive to them… and why LGBTQ kids shouldn’t feel welcome anywhere.
“We just want a neutral place for our kids,” one said. “We don’t want our kids being politicized.”
…
“Our kids should have neutral places where everybody feels loved and accepted and there doesn’t need to be anything on the wall that causes any sort of division,” one said.
Imagine how warped by faith your mind has to be to look at this mural and claim it’s divisive. They say they don’t want their kids being politicized, yet they’re the ones demanding that LGBTQ kids be excluded from everything. They’re the ones demanding trans kids not be allowed to use the proper bathrooms. They’re the ones demanding schools act like LGBTQ people don’t exist and that acknowledging their existence (a la Florida) is synonymous with some sort of propaganda campaign.
Not all parents felt that way. Tracey Hargreaves spoke out in defense of the mural and called out the outrage of the other parents in the district:
“I am a conservative, right-wing, gun-loving American,” Hargreaves declared at the meeting. “And I’ve never seen more bigoted people in my life.”
In an interview with TODAY.com, Hargreaves said, “The meeting turned into a hate fest. Usually there are 10 people at these meetings, 50 showed up. It wasn’t even about the mural … People were talking about how we need to pray the gay away.”
“I had to stand up and say something,” Hargreaves added. “It was out of control. You can’t catch gay, honey. It’s not contagious.”
Hargreaves added that the symbols were being treated as if they were “satanic.” They were not.
But after running Gonzalez out of that board meeting in tears, by injecting their Christian conspiracy theories onto her work of art that was meant to bring joy to people, the bigots got what they wanted.
Administrators announced late last week that the mural would be revised to remove the Hamsa hand and demon image. The kids, however, would stay. Gonzalez agreed to those changes, in part because those images weren’t on her original submission. It was only when she was painting the mural and realized there was more space than she had anticipated that she added those icons to fill up the space.
If that’s what it takes to keep the rest of the mural up, and if Gonzalez is okay with the changes, so be it. But none of this will prevent those same bigoted parents from spreading conspiracy theories about what the artwork actually means. Instead of accepting the intentions of the child who created the mural, they’re led by their Christianity to pretend their bad-faith interpretation of the picture is the only correct take.
At least the school officials are defending the art and the intention behind it—even while making those minor changes. Unlike the conservative parents, they know what it means to support kids.
This is a political talking point maneuver. It won’t become law as longs the Democrats stay in charge. Should the republicans win any or all branches of government they will try to make it the law. Notice they again equate drag queens reading stories as a sexual event. The bill says sexual orientated material by which they want to target books with LGBTQ+ characters or story lines. But it also means everything. Last I checked if a book with a gay character is sexually oriented then so is a book with straight characters. If gay is sexual so is straight, if same sex marriage / couples are sexual then so is opposite sex couples. This is what the right seems to forget is kids see gender all around them in every person / couple they see. Hugs
More than 30 House Republicans have signed on to a bill to prohibit federal dollars from being used to make “sexually-oriented” materials available to children under the age of 10.
The measure introduced Tuesday by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) would prohibit the use of federal funds to develop and host programs or events for children younger than 10 that contain “sexually-oriented material,” such as drag queen story hours that have recently drawn the ire of conservative politicians and right-wing groups.
Johnson’s bill, titled the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” claims that state and federal agencies including the Department of Defense have in the past used federal funds to promote and host “sexually-oriented events” like drag queen story hours or burlesque shows for children and families.
In 2015 as a Louisiana state rep, Johnson introduced an ultimately failed anti-marriage equality bill patterned after Indiana’s infamous and similarly failed bill. In 2018, Johnson joined with anti-LGBTQ evangelical Kirk Cameron in an attempt to allow Christian prayer in Louisiana’s public schools. Johnson is a freshman in the US House.
Universities, public schools, hospitals, medical clinics, etc. could all be defunded if they host any event discussing LGBTQ people and children could be present. The way they define "sexually oriented material" simply includes anything about LGBTQ people.
It includes a private right of action against any government official AND private entity for a violation. This is SB8 style bounty lawsuits against anyone accepting federal funds. This will be a ban on all discussion of LGBTQ people in any entity that received federal funds. pic.twitter.com/ABndE60wxV
This is the American version of Russia's gay propaganda law passed in 2013. This is their end game. To censor and ban LGBTQ from all public life and force them back into the closet.
The pretext in this bill is clear. They will troll the media about the bill being about "stripping" or drag queen story hour. In reality, the way the law is defined, it could apply to a school that has a screening of Buzz Lightyear.
I can't overstate how radical the private right of action portion is. The bill is so broadly defined that a pediatric hospital could be sued for having a pride flag or a medical pamphlet about gender dysphoria. It deputizes anti-LGBTQ bigots to engage in bounty lawsuits.
As we've seen with SB8, the lawsuits are rarely actually filed. Simply the threat of litigation is enough to create a chilling effect. Any federally funded entity will remove all references to LGBTQ people as a precaution, just as schools in Florida have done.
The press don’t bother to point out that ‘sexually-oriented material’ just means ‘acknowledgement of the existence of people who aren’t cis-het.’ Because that would be editorialising.
“any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects” It sure will be fun learning which “related subjects” to our existence will be criminalized. Not to worry, the media will breathlessly cover the “controversy”.
It amazes me that this is a focus for them. Meanwhile, they are against lowering drug prices, trying to stop inflation, helping veterans, etc. They just want to stir up their base voters with this type of rhetoric.
How are Drag Queens any different than any other entertainer that dresses up for an act? Ban the characters at Disney World and in Times Square. Let’s just ban the Arts and Entertainment.
Imagine how scary it would be for anyone to be boxed in by cars with their little sister / family member with them, unable to leave and threatened by a group of angry people. People this is what the right wants, their enforcer thugs to threaten and terrorize the gays and the family of gay peoples. This is right out of the Russian playbook. My god, not only did the teachers and school let the kid be harassed at school which begs the question of how can a gay / lesbian / trans person get a quality education if they are worried about their safety. Hard to concentrate on the lesson if you are worried about being attacked and hurt. This is why LGBTQ+ kids need to see rainbow flags and to have teachers with rooms they can feel safe in or got to if they are feeling threatened. Seriously one respected person who reads the blog asked why rainbow pride stickers need to be on classroom doors or up in the classrooms. This is why. The point of the republican / right wing media attacks is to drive hate and anger at the LGBTQ+ community. They want this response. Remember the Florida legislator who wrote the don’t say gay bill said he did it because he was angered that gay / trans kids were being accepted by other kids and not targeted for abuse / harm. He wanted to see these LGBTQ+ kids beaten up, abused / hurt. demonized because it turns out he is a highly religious Christian. Son of a bitch! His gods feelings come before the feelings of living kids. Bastard! The longer the Republicans in office and the right-wing media push the evils of the LGBTQ+ kids the more abuse the kids thought to be gay are going to face. Which again is what the republicans / right wing wants. Do you know what would have happened to me if someone had come up to my father and told him I was a faggot? More bruises, broken bones, pain, and rapes. This shit is serious. Religious families will grill the kids and the kids will face going to conversion therapy or being thrown out of their homes. Again these attack were on the decline before trump and DeathSantis. Hugs
“I’m sick of being silent about it, so I finally spoke up.”
A California high school student’s TikTok post exposing the anti-LGBTQ bullying he’s been subjected to has gone viral.
Earlier this month, 18-year-old Landon Jones posted the video, which shows two separate instances of anti-gay bullying caught on camera. One incident, recorded by Jones in August, shows a group of young men surrounding his car in the parking lot of a Starbucks.
“This f**king fa***t,” one of the young men says.
In the video, Jones says the group apparently followed him and his sister to the Starbucks, surrounding his car so that he could not leave, while yelling slurs and threats.
The second incident was captured on Jones’s family’s home surveillance camera, shows a young man approach the front door of his house in the dead of night.
“Does Landon live here,” the teen asks when Jones’s father answers the door.
“Yeah, why?” Jones’s father says.
“Someone said to come up here because he’s a fa***t!” the young man shouts as he runs off.
“I remember being up in my room, hearing it, and I heard what he said. I immediately jumped out of bed and walked outside to see what was happening,” Jones told NBC News. “I had no sleep that night. I was honestly really upset. I was crying.”
“I have been called ‘fa***t’ countless times at school, and it literally doesn’t bother me at all,” Jones says in the TikTok video. “But the fact that they came to my house does.”
Jones said that was a turning point. On October 1, he shared the post on TikTok. The clip has received 1.4 million views and over 12,000 primarily supportive comments.
“I’m sick of being silent about it, so I spoke up finally,” Jones said.
He said that at least two of the young men involved in both incidents attend El Toro High School in Lake Forest, California where Jones is a senior. His parents told NBC News that they are unaware of any action the school has taken in response to the harassment.
But a spokesperson for the school district provided a statement saying that Saddleback Valley Unified School District and El Toro High School “together with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD), immediately launched a comprehensive investigation to uncover the facts of the incidents.”
“We can confirm that the person seen in the surveillance video of the incident that took place at a private home is not a student in SVUSD,” said Wendie Hauschild, the school district’s director of communications and administrative services. “Due to the confidentiality that we are required by law to uphold for our students, as well as other minors, SVUSD is unable to share further information regarding the results of the investigation. SVUSD remains steadfast in its commitment to create inclusive, supportive, and safe environments for all students on our campuses.”
An Orange County sheriff’s spokesperson said that a school resource officer has spoken to “individuals that may or may not have been involved in this incident” or “possibly have knowledge of the incident.” While the young man who approached Jones’s home has not been identified, the officer said that the investigation remains ongoing.
Jones, meanwhile, has transitioned to virtual schooling as a result of bullying at El Toro High School.
Remember this is the same administration / surgeon general that Tildeb used to promote anti-trans nonsense. Politics dressed up as science. For those that did not believe me about Tildeb using fringe science and right-wing talking points, I give you this as exhibit 1! I keep trying to tell people they medical science is in, the studies done, and trans gender affirmative care is the recommended best practices for kids. Hugs
LADAPO: Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, left, and Gov. Ron DeSantis are seen at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Jan. 6. Joe Cavaretta/Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service
This far into the pandemic, tens of millions of Americans have received mRNA COVID vaccines, following vast medical trials. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration continue to review the safety of the vaccines, part of what the CDC calls “the most intense safety monitoring efforts in U.S. history.”
But somehow, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo knows best. Armed only with a skimpy “analysis” done by the state Department of Health — an analysis that is not peer-reviewed, has no named authors and has been blasted by the medical community — he warned last week that men ages 18-39 shouldn’t get the Moderna or Pfizer COVID shots, citing a higher risk of heart-related deaths.
The analysis itself states it should be considered “preliminary” and “should be interpreted with caution.” And yet the stance that Ladapo took on Twitter was far from cautious, insisting that “FL will not be silent on the truth.” Twitter initially pulled down Ladapo’s post, but then restored it
Hand-picked doctor
Ladapo, of course, is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hand-picked surgeon general, and the Harvard-trained doctor knows it. He seems intent on carrying out the governor’s increasingly anti-vax agenda. Ladapo has promoted Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as legitimate treatments for COVID — they are not — and said in March that the state is against COVID vaccines for children. (The vaccines are considered safe and effective for children.) He vowed that Florida would “reject fear” when it comes to public health policy.
Reminder: More than 81,000 Floridians have died of COVID.
This latest report Ladapo is pushing has holes large enough to drive a car through. No amount of calling the resulting criticism an example of cancel culture — which is what a Florida DOH spokesman tried to do — will change that.
For one thing, it’s missing so many key details in the “methodology” section that Daniel Salmon, the director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said he can’t even figure out what the department actually did.
“If you were to submit that to any decent journal, it would be almost certainly rejected quickly,” Salmon said in the Miami Herald. “I think it’s irresponsible for a state government agency to put out something like that without sufficient detail.”
(We can’t ask the study’s authors because Ladapo refused to divulge them, calling that question a “fake” issue during a Washington Post interview.)
Salmon, who is leading a large global study looking into myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle — and the coronavirus vaccine, said the benefits of the vaccines still outweigh any risks. He was far from alone in criticizing Florida’s position.
Jason Salemi, a University of South Florida epidemiologist, told the Herald the study failed to focus on both risks and benefits, looking only at risk. “It’s not a complete picture,” Salemi said. “It’s taking one part of it and using that seemingly in isolation to make a recommendation.”
The Washington Post — because Ladapo’s claims have attracted national attention — spoke to more than a dozen experts on vaccines, patient safety and study design who had concerns with the Florida analysis. Concerns included a too-small sample size, using data from death certificates that are frequently inaccurate and skewed results because the study tried to exclude anyone who had COVID or died from it.
Particularly telling: Ladapo said in The Washington Post interview that he hoped his mentors at Harvard University would support the methods used in the Florida study. The opposite happened. Health economist David Cutler said the Florida report was deeply flawed, he hoped it wouldn’t discourage people from getting vaccines and that Ladapo was wrong to base Florida’s vaccine policy on it.
He went further: “If I was a reviewer at a journal, I would recommend rejecting it,” Cutler told The Washington Post.
Vaccine disinformation has real consequences — and Ladapo’s post has been shared hundreds of thousands of times. A revealing study by Yale University researchers published last month found higher COVID death rates for Republicans compared to Democrats, after vaccines were available.
And there is hesitancy — or at least malaise — when it comes to the most recent booster shot. The new bivalent COVID boosters are widely available, and yet only about half of Americans have heard much about the shot, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. About a third of adults said they had gotten the booster or planned to.
COVID is still with us. There are vaccines that save lives. But people such as Ladapo, with his privileged platform in Florida, can do real damage. His assertions amount to a political position disguised as science and cloaked in the state flag. The danger is that some people may forgo the lifesaving vaccine because Florida, and Ladapo, told them to.
This is another example of superstition being more important than facts. These people protesting are hung up on the name and won’t even bother to learn or find out that the Satanic Temple doesn’t believe in Satan, nor do they worship Satan. The prefer their ignorance. Even if you tell them the truth they still wouldn’t want the group in schools because that name scares / terrifies them. The Satanic Temple is about science, learning, and being a really decent nice person. The Superintendent seems to think the money has cooties or is cursed somehow. The Superintendent wanted the money run through a Christian organization to clean it somehow. That is superstition over facts, hurting kids for no reason. Something an educator should know better than do. Hugs
THERE ARE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL TENETS
I
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
V
Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
VI
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
VII
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Superintendent Steve Kirkpatrick suggested the Satanists donate the money to a Christian non-profit instead
The Satanic Temple’s donation was rejected by the Northern York County School District in Pennsylvania (screenshot via FOX43)
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Adonation by Satanists to the Northern York County School District in Pennsylvania to help purchase school supplies for kids was rejected by the superintendent, who told them to donate the money to a Christian organization instead.
It’s utter stupidity from a district official who seems to think donations from The Satanic Temple are somehow tainted.
All of this began last month. It’s no secret that Christian churches frequently rent out space at public schools in order to hold services on weekends. That’s perfectly legal as long as they’re paying the rental fee and obeying district rules. Under those same guidelines, The Satanic Temple held a fundraising event last month at Northern York High School in Pennsylvania.
While the school board’s decision to approve the rental was followed by a lengthier explanation that they were just following the law, the event itself wasn’t controversial. In fact, it was family friendly:
“The Back-to-School Community Celebration & Fundraiser hosted by The Satanic Temple of Philadelphia & Eastern PA will be various stations of arts & crafts, science experiments, live demos, refreshments, and fun for the entire family,” said June Everett, the campaign director, After School Satan Club (ASSC) and an ordained minister of The Satanic Temple.
As expected, though, the three-hour event was met with protests from right-wing Catholics who have no understanding of how public space works.
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“They’re giving them access to our children,” said John Ritchie. “They should be nowhere near any schools.”
John Ritchie is part of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property. He says he’s outraged the event was allowed to go on, and says his organization is working to get Satan out of schools.
“We are here to say that America is one nation under God; we don’t want Satanism in our schools and we need to do something about it,” said Ritchie.
Ritchie seems to think only the people who belong to the child sex abuse ring known as the Catholic Church should have access to kids. That’s not how anything works. So his protests were meaningless.
While the Catholics were complaining about the evilness of the Satanists, the Satanists were inside the school raising money for children, ultimately collecting $578. (Everett’s emails say they raised $578 in one spot and $587 in another. I’m not sure which one is the typo. News reports are citing the former amount. I’ll use that. It’s not a huge difference either way.)
On a side note, the Satanists paid $1,185 to rent the space. Is that weird? Couldn’t they have just offered to donate that amount instead? Maybe. But sometimes, the publicity is part of the goal since it allows them to raise bigger issues about religious neutrality and church/state separation.
Whatever the case, The Satanic Temple wanted to donate their proceeds to the district and asked administrators for a list of supplies that they could purchase for students.
That’s when things took a weird turn.
Superintendent Steve Kirkpatrick responded to June Everett, telling her the district didn’t want her money. He even suggested she give it to a religious group instead:
Screenshot of the email from Kirkpatrick to Everett
Ms. Everett,
I respectfully decline your offer of a direct donation to the school district and suggest that you instead send your donation to New Hope Ministries or another local social service organization. These organizations are best equipped to effectively distribute supplies and goods to families in our school community that are most in need.
Mr. Kirkpatrick
If there’s some kind of rule prohibiting direct donations, he didn’t point to it. Instead, Kirkpatrick told them to give their money to a Christian non-profit because they are “best equipped” to distribute supplies. But how hard it is, really, to purchase a bulk order of supplies that all teachers can use? It’s a few hundred bucks, not some distribution that requires massive coordination. It’s either religious bigotry or a stunning level of tone deafness.
“I can’t help but wonder if teachers in the community who continually have to dip into their own personal finances for supplies would be frustrated to know that their superintendent can’t get past his own personal bias and bigotry to benefit the children in the district he was appointed to serve.”
In case that wasn’t enough, Everett added a mic drop moment in which she laid out what $587 could purchase:
22,800 sheets of construction paper
543 spiral notebooks
3,410 ballpoint pens
13,152 No. 2 pencils
10,894 crayons
963 erasers
2,018 markers
1,239 highlighters
987 rulers
126 compass/protractors
6,518 sticks of chalk
825,227 staples
36,442 paper clips
31 copies of A Boy Called Bat, Northern York’s “One Book One District” selection
The point is that there are plenty of things here that teachers use all the time. The district could easily make use of the donation.
And yet when the local news spoke with some parents in the community, there were some adults celebrating the decision to reject the Satanists’ donation:
“I am very proud of the school board and district officials for declining that money,” said Amanda, a parent of a child in the Northern York County School District. “I think the taxpayers, who are the community members, have raised their voices saying that we don’t want anything like that in our school district.”
They don’t want… staples and paper clips? Amanda’s bigotry makes no sense whatsoever.
Again, if there’s a policy forbidding donations from outsiders, it should be easy to point to it and suggest a different secular way for the Satanists to help kids. There’s no excuse for rejecting the cash and pointing to a Christian non-profit instead. In a subsequent email Everett offered to donate the money to “the local teachers’ union as well as to individual principals and teachers in your district. The first one to accept will receive it.”
Here’s the bigger concern: Last year, the same district denied the Satanists from starting an After School Satan Club even though they met all the criteria for an extracurricular group. There’s a clear pattern of discrimination that could lead to a possible lawsuit, and it’s hard to see how the Satanists would lose that case.
If that happens, the district would have gone from possibly accepting a donation of nearly $600… to having to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees. All because they didn’t want to accept money from The Satanic Temple. How is any of this better for students?
In a statement to me last night, The Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves couldn’t believe the district’s position:
Does Kirkpatrick himself understand if his way of handling this is legal? I highly doubt it.
Does he care if litigation against his irresponsibility will cost the school district exorbitant sums? Clearly not.
Does he have the answers to basic operations questions that naturally arise from his thoughtless answers to basic questions? It does not appear so, but if he does, he is clearly unwilling to provide them.
This should not be a controversial issue, and for the most part, it isn’t. What we’re seeing here is best understood as the byproduct of a grossly incompetent and unqualified superintendent, and the school district deserves better.
There was no indication yet if the group plans to file a lawsuit.
Right now, they’re just trying to give away this cash.
I wonder if the parents who called the school were anti-trans parents claiming it was a prank to get the school to undo her election as Homecoming Princess. Think how many kids voted in a large school and how could the prankers be a large enough group to swing the election to one person? Seems to me the callers were upset either their daughters lost the vote or that a trans girl won. So starting a rumor is the morally superior position? The saddest part of the story is that some of the kids were swayed by transphobia to not walk with her as the escort as tradition required. This is what the hate rhetoric of the right does, it teaches intolerance while further spreading the hate that spawns it. Hugs
“The negativity empowered me because it made me realize that they are going out of their way to notice me. They’re noticing how bold I am.”
A trans high school student in Cincinnati refused to let a cruel prank bring her down.
Cass Steiner is a sophomore at Mariemont High School and was recently voted Homecoming Princess by her classmates. She was thrilled to be the school’s first trans Homecoming Princess. Her entire family was celebrating.
“Originally, I was really, really, really excited,” Steiner told Fox 19. “Just the thought that I had a chance to make history here.”
Her mother, Kat Steiner, added that she “was absolutely thrilled” for her daughter – until the school counselor spoke to Cass. The counselor told her that some parents had contacted her to let her know Cass’s victory was potentially part of a prank by students.
“It kind of brought down my spirits a little bit,” Cass said.
“Your heart just breaks,” Kat added.
But Cass wouldn’t give in to bullies. The school apologized and gave her the chance to step back from her role as princess, but she said no.
“I don’t think that it was truly a joke,” she said. “I think that part of it really was genuine and that a lot of people have my back and do support me. That’s what gives me hope.”
Cass believes that several of her classmates have noticed how much happier she is since she has embraced her true self.
“I think it’s really empowering because finding myself as a whole was really hard, but now that I’m here and a better version of myself, I’m so much happier, and people in my class and my peers have noticed that.”
She told WLWT that holding onto her title shows her classmates she is proud of who she is.
“If anything, hearing the negativity empowered me because it made me realize that they are going out of their way to notice me. They’re noticing how bold I am.”
“If you did vote for me with negative intentions thank you because I still won the vote and I’m willing to advocate for my community as a whole,” she said.
And her community is advocating along with her. Students and parents showed up at the homecoming parade holding signs to support her. One read, “You are more than a princess. You are a QUEEN!” Another said, “We love our warrior.”
Parent Erin Satterwhite organized the group of supporters.
“Cassie’s story, it just spoke to me as a mom,” Satterwhite said. “And this is an inclusive, kind, supportive community and I wanted that message to be shared and not the original message that was shared.”
And because other members of the homecoming court refused to be Cass’s escort, the principal walked with her.
“Having those people escort me and be there for me is really empowering and showing that the school is there for me,” Cass said. “And they are 100 percent supportive.”
Image from a copy in Bristol Library of the pamphlet “The Female Husband” (1813 edition) by Henry Fielding. Cartoon is attributed to George Cruikshank. Text on the image says: “The Prisoner being convicted of this base and scandalous crime was sentenced to be publically and severely whipped four several times in 4 Market Towns, and to be imprisoned for 6 Months.”Photo: British Newspaper Archive
Parents at the board meeting Photo: WZZM 13 screenshot
Landon Jones Photo: Screenshot
Cass Steiner Photo: Screenshot
