As a clinical geneticist, Paul James is accustomed to discussing some of the most delicate issues with his patients. But in early 2010, he found himself having a particularly awkward conversation about sex.
A 46-year-old pregnant woman had visited his clinic at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia to hear the results of an amniocentesis test to screen her baby’s chromosomes for abnormalities. The baby was fine—but follow-up tests had revealed something astonishing about the mother. Her body was built of cells from two individuals, probably from twin embryos that had merged in her own mother’s womb. And there was more. One set of cells carried two X chromosomes, the complement that typically makes a person female; the other had an X and a Y. Halfway through her fifth decade and pregnant with her third child, the woman learned for the first time that a large part of her body was chromosomally male. “That’s kind of science-fiction material for someone who just came in for an amniocentesis,” says James.
Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome is what counts: with it, you are male, and without it, you are female. But doctors have long known that some people straddle the boundary—their sex chromosomes say one thing, but their gonads (ovaries or testes) or sexual anatomy say another. Parents of children with these kinds of conditions—known as intersex conditions, or differences or disorders of sex development (DSDs)—often face difficult decisions about whether to bring up their child as a boy or a girl. Some researchers now say that as many as 1 person in 100 has some form of DSD.
When genetics is taken into consideration, the boundary between the sexes becomes even blurrier. Scientists have identified many of the genes involved in the main forms of DSD, and have uncovered variations in these genes that have subtle effects on a person’s anatomical or physiological sex. What’s more, new technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is, to varying degrees, a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of their body. Some studies even suggest that the sex of each cell drives its behaviour, through a complicated network of molecular interactions. “I think there’s much greater diversity within male or female, and there is certainly an area of overlap where some people can’t easily define themselves within the binary structure,” says John Achermann, who studies sex development and endocrinology at University College London’s Institute of Child Health.
These discoveries do not sit well in a world in which sex is still defined in binary terms. Few legal systems allow for any ambiguity in biological sex, and a person’s legal rights and social status can be heavily influenced by whether their birth certificate says male or female.
“The main problem with a strong dichotomy is that there are intermediate cases that push the limits and ask us to figure out exactly where the dividing line is between males and females,” says Arthur Arnold at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies biological sex differences. “And that’s often a very difficult problem, because sex can be defined a number of ways.”
THE START OF SEX
That the two sexes are physically different is obvious, but at the start of life, it is not. Five weeks into development, a human embryo has the potential to form both male and female anatomy. Next to the developing kidneys, two bulges known as the gonadal ridges emerge alongside two pairs of ducts, one of which can form the uterus and Fallopian tubes, and the other the male internal genital plumbing: the epididymes, vas deferentia and seminal vesicles. At six weeks, the gonad switches on the developmental pathway to become an ovary or a testis. If a testis develops, it secretes testosterone, which supports the development of the male ducts. It also makes other hormones that force the presumptive uterus and Fallopian tubes to shrink away. If the gonad becomes an ovary, it makes oestrogen, and the lack of testosterone causes the male plumbing to wither. The sex hormones also dictate the development of the external genitalia, and they come into play once more at puberty, triggering the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts or facial hair.
Changes to any of these processes can have dramatic effects on an individual’s sex. Gene mutations affecting gonad development can result in a person with XY chromosomes developing typically female characteristics, whereas alterations in hormone signalling can cause XX individuals to develop along male lines.
For many years, scientists believed that female development was the default programme, and that male development was actively switched on by the presence of a particular gene on the Y chromosome. In 1990, researchers made headlines when they uncovered the identity of this gene, which they called SRY. Just by itself, this gene can switch the gonad from ovarian to testicular development. For example, XX individuals who carry a fragment of the Y chromosome that contains SRY develop as males.
By the turn of the millennium, however, the idea of femaleness being a passive default option had been toppled by the discovery of genes that actively promote ovarian development and suppress the testicular programme—such as one called WNT4. XY individuals with extra copies of this gene can develop atypical genitals and gonads, and a rudimentary uterus and Fallopian tubes. In 2011, researchers showed that if another key ovarian gene, RSPO1, is not working normally, it causes XX people to develop an ovotestis—a gonad with areas of both ovarian and testicular development.
These discoveries have pointed to a complex process of sex determination, in which the identity of the gonad emerges from a contest between two opposing networks of gene activity. Changes in the activity or amounts of molecules (such as WNT4) in the networks can tip the balance towards or away from the sex seemingly spelled out by the chromosomes. “It has been, in a sense, a philosophical change in our way of looking at sex; that it’s a balance,” says Eric Vilain, a clinician and the director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s more of a systems-biology view of the world of sex.”
According to some scientists, that balance can shift long after development is over. Studies in mice suggest that the gonad teeters between being male and female throughout life, its identity requiring constant maintenance. In 2009, researchers reported deactivating an ovarian gene called Foxl2 in adult female mice; they found that the granulosa cells that support the development of eggs transformed into Sertoli cells, which support sperm development. Two years later, a separate team showed the opposite: that inactivating a gene called Dmrt1 could turn adult testicular cells into ovarian ones. “That was the big shock, the fact that it was going on post-natally,” says Vincent Harley, a geneticist who studies gonad development at the MIMR-PHI Institute for Medical Research in Melbourne.
The gonad is not the only source of diversity in sex. A number of DSDs are caused by changes in the machinery that responds to hormonal signals from the gonads and other glands. Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, or CAIS, for example, arises when a person’s cells are deaf to male sex hormones, usually because the receptors that respond to the hormones are not working. People with CAIS have Y chromosomes and internal testes, but their external genitalia are female, and they develop as females at puberty.
Conditions such as these meet the medical definition of DSDs, in which an individual’s anatomical sex seems to be at odds with their chromosomal or gonadal sex. But they are rare—affecting about 1 in 4,500 people. Some researchers now say that the definition should be widened to include subtle variations of anatomy such as mild hypospadias, in which a man’s urethral opening is on the underside of his penis rather than at the tip. The most inclusive definitions point to the figure of 1 in 100 people having some form of DSD, says Vilain.
But beyond this, there could be even more variation. Since the 1990s, researchers have identified more than 25 genes involved in DSDs, and next-generation DNA sequencing in the past few years has uncovered a wide range of variations in these genes that have mild effects on individuals, rather than causing DSDs. “Biologically, it’s a spectrum,” says Vilain.
A DSD called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), for example, causes the body to produce excessive amounts of male sex hormones; XX individuals with this condition are born with ambiguous genitalia (an enlarged clitoris and fused labia that resemble a scrotum). It is usually caused by a severe deficiency in an enzyme called 21-hydroxylase. But women carrying mutations that result in a milder deficiency develop a ‘non-classical’ form of CAH, which affects about 1 in 1,000 individuals; they may have male-like facial and body hair, irregular periods or fertility problems—or they might have no obvious symptoms at all. Another gene, NR5A1, is currently fascinating researchers because variations in it cause a wide range of effects, from underdeveloped gonads to mild hypospadias in men, and premature menopause in women.
Many people never discover their condition unless they seek help for infertility, or discover it through some other brush with medicine. Last year, for example, surgeons reported that they had been operating on a hernia in a man, when they discovered that he had a womb. The man was 70, and had fathered four children.
CELLULAR SEX
Studies of DSDs have shown that sex is no simple dichotomy. But things become even more complex when scientists zoom in to look at individual cells. The common assumption that every cell contains the same set of genes is untrue. Some people have mosaicism: they develop from a single fertilized egg but become a patchwork of cells with different genetic make-ups. This can happen when sex chromosomes are doled out unevenly between dividing cells during early embryonic development. For example, an embryo that starts off as XY can lose a Y chromosome from a subset of its cells. If most cells end up as XY, the result is a physically typical male, but if most cells are X, the result is a female with a condition called Turner’s syndrome, which tends to result in restricted height and underdeveloped ovaries. This kind of mosaicism is rare, affecting about 1 in 15,000 people.
The effects of sex-chromosome mosaicism range from the prosaic to the extraordinary. A few cases have been documented in which a mosaic XXY embryo became a mix of two cell types—some with two X chromosomes and some with two Xs and a Y—and then split early in development. This results in ‘identical’ twins of different sexes.
There is a second way in which a person can end up with cells of different chromosomal sexes. James’s patient was a chimaera: a person who develops from a mixture of two fertilized eggs, usually owing to a merger between embryonic twins in the womb. This kind of chimaerism resulting in a DSD is extremely rare, representing about 1% of all DSD cases.
Another form of chimaerism, however, is now known to be widespread. Termed microchimaerism, it happens when stem cells from a fetus cross the placenta into the mother’s body, and vice versa. It was first identified in the early 1970s—but the big surprise came more than two decades later, when researchers discovered how long these crossover cells survive, even though they are foreign tissue that the body should, in theory, reject. A study in 1996 recorded women with fetal cells in their blood as many as 27 years after giving birth; another found that maternal cells remain in children up to adulthood. This type of work has further blurred the sex divide, because it means that men often carry cells from their mothers, and women who have been pregnant with a male fetus can carry a smattering of its discarded cells.
Microchimaeric cells have been found in many tissues. In 2012, for example, immunologist Lee Nelson and her team at the University of Washington in Seattle found XY cells in post-mortem samples of women’s brains. The oldest woman carrying male DNA was 94 years old. Other studies have shown that these immigrant cells are not idle; they integrate into their new environment and acquire specialized functions, including (in mice at least) forming neurons in the brain. But what is not known is how a peppering of male cells in a female, or vice versa, affects the health or characteristics of a tissue—for example, whether it makes the tissue more susceptible to diseases more common in the opposite sex. “I think that’s a great question,” says Nelson, “and it is essentially entirely unaddressed.” In terms of human behaviour, the consensus is that a few male microchimaeric cells in the brain seem unlikely to have a major effect on a woman.
Scientists are now finding that XX and XY cells behave in different ways, and that this can be independent of the action of sex hormones. “To tell you the truth, it’s actually kind of surprising how big an effect of sex chromosomes we’ve been able to see,” says Arnold. He and his colleagues have shown that the dose of X chromosomes in a mouse’s body can affect its metabolism, and studies in a lab dish suggest that XX and XY cells behave differently on a molecular level, for example with different metabolic responses to stress. The next challenge, says Arnold, is to uncover the mechanisms. His team is studying the handful of X-chromosome genes now known to be more active in females than in males. “I actually think that there are more sex differences than we know of,” says Arnold.
BEYOND THE BINARY
Biologists may have been building a more nuanced view of sex, but society has yet to catch up. True, more than half a century of activism from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has softened social attitudes to sexual orientation and gender. Many societies are now comfortable with men and women crossing conventional societal boundaries in their choice of appearance, career and sexual partner. But when it comes to sex, there is still intense social pressure to conform to the binary model.
This pressure has meant that people born with clear DSDs often undergo surgery to ‘normalize’ their genitals. Such surgery is controversial because it is usually performed on babies, who are too young to consent, and risks assigning a sex at odds with the child’s ultimate gender identity—their sense of their own gender. Intersex advocacy groups have therefore argued that doctors and parents should at least wait until a child is old enough to communicate their gender identity, which typically manifests around the age of three, or old enough to decide whether they want surgery at all.
This issue was brought into focus by a lawsuit filed in South Carolina in May 2013 by the adoptive parents of a child known as MC, who was born with ovotesticular DSD, a condition that produces ambiguous genitalia and gonads with both ovarian and testicular tissue. When MC was 16 months old, doctors performed surgery to assign the child as female—but MC, who is now eight years old, went on to develop a male gender identity. Because he was in state care at the time of his treatment, the lawsuit alleged not only that the surgery constituted medical malpractice, but also that the state denied him his constitutional right to bodily integrity and his right to reproduce. Last month, a court decision prevented the federal case from going to trial, but a state case is ongoing.
“This is potentially a critically important decision for children born with intersex traits,” says Julie Greenberg, a specialist in legal issues relating to gender and sex at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California. The suit will hopefully encourage doctors in the United States to refrain from performing operations on infants with DSDs when there are questions about their medical necessity, she says. It could raise awareness about “the emotional and physical struggles intersex people are forced to endure because doctors wanted to ‘help’ us fit in,” says Georgiann Davis, a sociologist who studies issues surrounding intersex traits and gender at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who was born with CAIS.
Doctors and scientists are sympathetic to these concerns, but the MC case also makes some uneasy—because they know how much is still to be learned about the biology of sex. They think that changing medical practice by legal ruling is not ideal, and would like to see more data collected on outcomes such as quality of life and sexual function to help decide the best course of action for people with DSDs—something that researchers are starting to do.
Diagnoses of DSDs once relied on hormone tests, anatomical inspections and imaging, followed by painstaking tests of one gene at a time. Now, advances in genetic techniques mean that teams can analyse multiple genes at once, aiming straight for a genetic diagnosis and making the process less stressful for families. Vilain, for example, is using whole-exome sequencing—which sequences the protein-coding regions of a person’s entire genome—on XY people with DSDs. Last year, his team showed that exome sequencing could offer a probable diagnosis in 35% of the study participants whose genetic cause had been unknown.
Vilain, Harley and Achermann say that doctors are taking an increasingly circumspect attitude to genital surgery. Children with DSDs are treated by multidisciplinary teams that aim to tailor management and support to each individual and their family, but this usually involves raising a child as male or female even if no surgery is done. Scientists and advocacy groups mostly agree on this, says Vilain: “It might be difficult for children to be raised in a gender that just does not exist out there.” In most countries, it is legally impossible to be anything but male or female.
Yet if biologists continue to show that sex is a spectrum, then society and state will have to grapple with the consequences, and work out where and how to draw the line. Many transgender and intersex activists dream of a world where a person’s sex or gender is irrelevant. Although some governments are moving in this direction, Greenberg is pessimistic about the prospects of realizing this dream—in the United States, at least. “I think to get rid of gender markers altogether or to allow a third, indeterminate marker, is going to be difficult.”
So if the law requires that a person is male or female, should that sex be assigned by anatomy, hormones, cells or chromosomes, and what should be done if they clash? “My feeling is that since there is not one biological parameter that takes over every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter,” says Vilain. In other words, if you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask.
Former Heisman Trophy winner and candidate for US Senate Herschel Walker (R-GA) speaks to supporters of former President Donald Trump during a rally on March 26, 2022 in Commerce, Georgia.
For years, Herschel Walker has told the same inspiring story: that he graduated in the top 1% of his class at the University of Georgia. He’s told the story, according to a review of his speeches by CNN’s KFile, during motivational speeches over the years and as recently as 2017. The only problem: it’s not true.
Walker, who is a candidate in the Republican primary race for US Senate in Georgia, acknowledged in December that he did not graduate from Georgia after the Atlanta-Journal Constitution first reported that the false claim was listed on his campaign website.
But a CNN KFile review found that Walker himself has been repeating the claim for years. Walker’s comments in 2017, and others made over the years, show the former football star repeatedly misrepresented his academic credentials.
“And all of sudden I started going to the library, getting books, standing in front of a mirror reading to myself,” Walker said in a 2017 motivational speech. “So that Herschel that all the kids said was retarded become valedictorian of his class. Graduated University of Georgia in the top 1% of his class.”
Walker also made the claim in another interview in 2017.
“I also was in the top 1% of my graduating class of college,” Walker told Sirius XM radio.
Walker did not graduate from Georgia, where he was a star running back after entering as a prized high school recruit. A profile of Walker from 1982 in the Christian-Science Monitor and an article in The New York Times said he maintained a B average at the school. Walker himself told The Chicago Tribune in 1985 he maintained a 3.0 before his grades dropped. He left to play professional football before graduating and, though having repeatedly said he was returning to obtain his degree, he never received a diploma.
The Walker campaign did not provide proof of Walker’s claims when asked by CNN, but they defended his record as a professional athlete.
Walker is endorsed by former President Donald Trump and is expected to be the Republican nominee to run against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in November.
The claim was removed from his website between December and January, according to screenshots from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
That was not the only claim about Walker’s education that was adjusted on his website at the time. After a review of the revised site, CNN’s KFile found another little-noticed claim was removed that said Walker graduated valedictorian of his high school. The website now says that Walker graduated “top of his class.” The claim still remains on the Heisman Winners page for Walker.
While Walker was a top student at his high school and the president of the Beta Club — he maintained an “A” average to be in the school’s Beta Club — CNN’s KFile found no evidence he was the class valedictorian.
Walker has mentioned in numerous speeches over the years, including in the 2017 speech where he claimed to have graduated in the top 1% of his college class, and in his 2008 autobiography that he was class valedictorian at Johnson County High School. The street where Johnson County High School resides was officially renamed “Herschel Walker Drive” in 2017 in honor of Walker’s football achievements.
“If I’m proud of anything I did in my high school career, it’s what I did in the classroom that I reflect on and relish the most. I did more than just shed the “stupid” label placed on me as a result of my speech impediment. I shed it, erased it, and rewrote it with the titles: Beta Club president and class valedictorian,” wrote Walker in his 2008 “Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder.”
CNN’s KFile reviewed Walker’s high school yearbooks and coverage of him in local newspapers at the time.
According to the local newspaper The Wrightsville Headlight, at Walker’s 1980 graduation he was not given the award for the student with the highest GPA in any academic subject. He did tie with another student for a leadership award based on participation in clubs and his GPA, and won numerous awards that year for his football achievements. While Walker was one of the ceremony’s honor graduates, the article does not mention the school naming a valedictorian or a salutatorian.
A 15-year review of local press coverage did not find the school naming a valedictorian until 1994 — when the paper acknowledged the school was naming a valedictorian and salutatorian for the first time in “many years.”
Walker’s campaign did not provide evidence that Walker graduated as his high school’s valedictorian other than pointing to news articles from the early 1980s after he began his career at the University of Georgia making the claim.
“There is not a single voter in Georgia who believes that whether Herschel graduated at the ‘top of his class’ or as Valedictorian 40 years ago has any bearing on his ability to be a great United States Senator,” Mallory Blount, communications director for the campaign, said in a statement.
The campaign also did not provide an explanation for why it removed the claim that Walker was valedictorian from his website. When repeatedly asked if the campaign stood by the since-removed claim from his website, the Walker’s campaign manager Scott Paradise sent the same statement three times in a row which did not address KFile’s questions.
“Multiple reporters wrote about this 40 years ago. If you have a problem with what they wrote, please contact them. If you have a difficult time getting in touch with them, ask yourself why you are asking such a stupid question,” said Paradise to CNN.
Johnson County Schools declined to comment and directed questions to Walker’s campaign when asked if they named a valedictorian that year or if Walker was the top student.
An evolving claim
It’s unclear when Walker began claiming he graduated from Georgia, and press accounts began listing him as returning to get his degree as early as 1983 after he left to join the United States Football League, a rival to the National Football League in the 1980s. Walker joined the New Jersey Generals, which was owned by then-businessman Trump. Over the years, Walker repeatedly told interviewers he had gone back to Georgia during the off-season to take classes. A 1986 article from The Dallas Morning News on his football career states Walker completed his degree in criminal justice and features a quote from Walker talking about his degree.
“Getting a degree is one of the paths you can take on the way to becoming an FBI man,” Walker said. “Of course, my life is not going in that direction right now, but I think police work, especially the FBI, would be my choice if I wasn’t a pro football player.”
Speaking on a YouTube show in 2008, following the release of his book, Walker told the interviewer he went back to get his college degree from University of Georgia
“You know it was said whether I leave or stay in school. It came up that I leave — and what was weird about that is people said, ‘Why would you leave college so early?’ And that’s like guys, ‘I went back to get my degree which is what you’re supposed to do.'”
Press reports from the time of the book’s publication listed Walker’s website for his book and subsequent speaking on mental health as HerschelWalker.net — which also said Walker returned to college and completed his degree.
The claim is brought up in interviews with Walker, on at least two separate occasions — with the host saying he returned to get his degree. In neither instance did Walker correct interviewers.
Is it really news that a Republican running for office lies constantly? I thought that was their standard operating procedure.
.@KFILE also found no evidence for Walker's claim, on his website and in his autobiography, that he was high school valedictorian: https://t.co/AG6taRKinD
When we noticed the claim was changed from "valedictorian" to "top of his class," we looked into the coverage of the graduation. Walker was not the top GPAed student in any subject, according to the now-defunct local paper.https://t.co/uCPQ7rnVnmpic.twitter.com/yZnYsqPFc2
Republican lawmaker tweeted about repealing Reedy Creek act after company denounced ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
Republican lawmaker tweeted about repealing Reedy Creek act after company denounced ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – The Reedy Creek Improvement District—created by state lawmakers in 1967—acts as Walt Disney World’s own government with two cities and land in Orange and Osceola counties.
“In effect, they’re their own city out there. They can zone the way they want. They can do things the way they want. They can even build a nuclear power plant if they want,” News 6 political analyst Jim Clark said.
Those rights are now being discussed among some Florida lawmakers who are thinking about repealing the Reedy Creek Improvement Act of 1967.
“I think that this is a feud that is escalating into a war between Florida Republicans and the Disney corporation which is the largest single-site employer in Florida,” Clark said.
The law — which has been the subject of controversy, sparking protests around Walt Disney World after the company did not initially publicly condemn it — bans discussions on sexual identity in Florida classrooms in kindergarten through third grade and requires such conversations to be “age-appropriate” in successive grades, though the law does not define “age-appropriate.”
“For Disney to come out and put a statement and say that the bill should have never passed and that they are going to actively work to repeal it, I think, one was fundamentally dishonest but, two I think that crossed the line,” DeSantis said Tuesday.
This response came a day before Florida House Rep. Spencer Roach tweeted that legislators held two meetings in the past week to discuss repealing the 1967 Reedy Creek Improvement Act.
“Disney has been extremely generous with Republican politicians in Florida. They give about $200,000 a year, including $12,000 to the state representative who is stirring this up,” Clark told News 6. “It would be a disaster for Disney. One of the reasons they came here in the mid-60s was the legislature’s promise that they could have self-government.”
Richard Foglesong, a retired Rollins College political science professor and the author of Married to the Mouse, said he believes talks of revoking the act is just a way of the Republican party showing what they stand for, but no real change will come out of those discussions.
“If you ask me whether it’s politically possible to take these privileges away from the Disney company, I don’t think so,” Foglesong said. “I think that cooler minds will prevail and that this is really a shot across the bow to try to bring the Disney company, Mickey Mouse if you will, into line with Governor DeSantis. I thought it was more of March Madness of the political kind, the thought that the Republican Party, which used to be the party of business, would want to take on of their biggest donors.”
News 6 reached out to Reedy Creek Improvement District and its spokesperson responded they have no comment at this time. A request for an interview with Rep. Spencer Roach was forwarded to his office but they have not yet replied.
Is this part of the cancel culture of the libs that the right wing keeps claiming exists. Because it seems to me the ones doing all the canceling of people is the right / Republican thugs.
Several hundred Russian troops reportedly rushed to a special medical facility in Belarus after digging in radioactive soil in a forest near the infamous nuclear plant.
Barbie Latza Nadeau
Correspondent-At-Large
SeanGallup
Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after suffering “acute radiation sickness” from contaminated soil, according to Ukrainian officials.
The troops, who dug trenches in a contaminated Red Forest near the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, are now reportedly being treated in a special medical facility in Gomel, Belarus. The forest is so named because thousands of pine trees turned red during the 1986 nuclear disaster. The area is considered so highly toxic that not even highly specialized Chernobyl workers are allowed to enter the zone.
Energoatom, the Ukrainian agency in charge of the country’s nuclear power stations, said the Russian soldiers had panicked and fled.
“It has been confirmed that the occupiers who seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and other facilities in the Exclusion Zone set off in two columns towards Ukraine’s border with Belarus. The occupiers announced their intentions to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant this morning to the Ukrainian personnel of the station,” the agency said in a statement on Telegram, adding that a small number of Russians still remained at the facility.
The agency said it had also confirmed reports of Russian forces digging trenches in the Red Forest, “the most polluted in the entire exclusion zone.”
“Not surprisingly, the occupiers received significant doses of radiation and panicked at the first sign of illness. And it showed up very quickly.”
Local reports suggest that seven buses with the zapped troops arrived in Gomel early Thursday. Journalists on the ground have also reported “ghost buses” of dead soldiers being transported from Belarus to Russia under the cover of dark.
U.S. intelligence reported Wednesday that Russian forces began withdrawing from the defunct site. Russia said the withdrawal from Chernobyl was part of a pledge to scale back the invasion. But Ukrainian media says it is actually because the troops were “irradiated” from the contaminated soil.
“Another batch of Russian irradiated terrorists who seized the Chernobyl zone was brought to the Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel today,” Yaroslav Yemelianenko, who works for the Public Council at the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management, posted on Facebook. “There are rules for dealing with this territory.”
The Chernobyl facility fell to Russian control on Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion. Workers were on duty for more than 600 hours before being allowed a shift change. International concern grew immediately when Russian troops moved heavy military hardware through the area, kicking up radioactive dust without any protective equipment. Forest fires in the area also raised concern about environmental contamination.
Digging trenches in the forest—considered the most contaminated area of the site—drew widespread ridicule from Ukrainians who work at the site.
#UPDATE Russian forces have begun to pull out of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power site, a US defense official said Wednesday, a day after Moscow said it would scale back attacks on two key Ukrainian cities https://t.co/apsEuYTsif
"The regular soldiers one of the workers spoke to when they worked alongside them in the facility had not heard about the explosion, he said." Unprotected Russian soldiers disturbed radioactive dust in Chernobyl's 'Red Forest', workers say https://t.co/NZZnF1hhHy
Russian soldiers who seized the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster drove their armoured vehicles without radiation protection through a highly toxic zone called the "Red Forest", kicking up clouds of radioactive dust, workers at the site said. https://t.co/efcDfBORAa
Seven busses packed with Russian soldiers suffering from Acute Radiation Syndrome arrived to #Belarus from the #Ukrainian#Chernobyl exclusion zone. Source: member of public council of state #Ukraine agency of exclusion zone Yaroslav Yemelyanenko via Unian news agency.
So if a doctor doesn’t want to treat colored folk that would be OK. What about the people with red hair because they are icky folk? When does the right of quality healthcare take a back seat to bigotry? Oh yes when it is Christians needed to discriminate so they demand the right to refuse to help / treat a patient in medical need. God before helping the sick and caring for the needy, was that what old Jesus said? See if they are of the right political party and follow your church doctrines before you give medical aid was a verse I never learned was in the bible.
South Carolina lawmakers on Friday passed a bill allowing medical professionals and insurance companies to deny care based on personal belief. Some say the legislation, which now heads to the state Senate for consideration, would disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ people, women, and people of color.
Under the bill, titled the “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act,” South Carolina law would be altered to excuse medical practitioners, health care institutions and health care payers from providing care that violates their “conscience.”
Dozens of state residents in February testified against the bill, calling it vague and overbroad. They also shared concerns that the legislation would disproportionately impact marginalized communities.
HB 4776 allows healthcare institutions to refuse to provide care, even when it is medically necessary and in the best interest of the patient. Under this legislation, healthcare institutions will be able to refuse to refer, teach, and research any items they deem to be against their beliefs.
These bills will impact access to gender-affirming care, contraceptives, HIV medications, fertility care, end of life care, and mental health services, as well as allow insurance companies and employers to refuse to reimburse, pay, or contract for medically necessary services.
Religious freedom is a fundamental American value that is entirely compatible with providing quality, non-discriminatory healthcare. It is not a license to deprive others of their rights simply because of personal beliefs.
This bill sends the message that those seeking medical care in conflict with their doctor’s non-medical values are not equal members of society entitled to dignity and respect.
The South Carolina House passed a bill that would allow medical professionals, healthcare institutions, and insurers to deny access to gender-affirming care, contraceptives, HIV medications and more.
FILE — Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey gives his state of the state address at the Arizona Capitol, Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, in Phoenix. Governor Ducey signed a series of bills Wednesday, March 30, targeting abortion and transgender rights, joining a growing list of GOP-led states pursuing a conservative social agenda. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
FILE — A number of Arizona reproductive health, rights, and justice advocates protest an abortion bill at the Arizona Capitol Monday, April 26, 2021, in Phoenix. Arizona governor Doug Ducey signed a series of bills Wednesday, March 30, targeting abortion and transgender rights, joining a growing list of GOP-led states pursuing a conservative social agenda. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey refused to say Thursday if transgender people actually exist, twice dodging direct questions on the subject just a day after he signed legislation limiting transgender rights.
The Republican worked instead to defend his signatures on bills that bar transgender girls and women from playing on girls high school and women’s college sports teams and barring gender affirming surgery for anyone under age 18.
When specifically asked if he believed that there “are really transgender people,” the governor paused for several seconds before answering.
“I’m going to ask you to read the legislation and to see that the legislation that we passed was in the spirit of fairness to protect girls sports in competitive situations,” Ducey said, referring to the new law that targets transgender girls who want to play on girls sports teams. “That’s what the legislation is intended to do, and that’s what it does.”
Asked again if he believed there are “actual transgender people,” he again answered slowly and carefully.
“I … am going to respect everyone, and I’m going to respect everyone’s rights. And I’m going to protect female sports. And that’s what the legislation does,” Ducey said.
Ducey’s response was “appalling,” according to the Arizona director of the Human Rights Campaign, a national civil rights group that advocates for equality for LGBTQ people. The organization worked to ensure families and transgender young people came to the Capitol to testify against the bills as the Republican-led House and Senate considered them this session.
“It’s quite shocking that he can’t even address trans people or even say that he thinks they exist,” Bridget Sharpe said.
Wednesday’s signing of the two transgender bills and a third that bars abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and is currently unconstitutional put Ducey right in the middle of two top issues national Republicans are highlighting in the runup to November’s midterm elections.
Ducey also signed election legislation that minority Democrats said amounted to voter suppression by requiring longtime Arizonans to be thrown off the voter rolls if they did not prove their citizenship and residence location.
The governor leads the Republican Governors Association, which is charged with helping elect GOP chief executives in U.S. states. He in is the last year of his second term as Arizona governor and term limits bar him from seeking reelection.
The top Democrat in the state House, Rep. Reginald Bolding, called Wednesday “probably one of the darkest days we’ve seen in the history of Arizona.”
“With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Ducey has hurled Arizona backwards to its ugliest past,” Bolding said Wednesday. “And today, he put in jeopardy pregnant people, transgender youth in danger and curtailed voting rights for people of color.”
Social conservative groups and the Arizona Republican Party praised Ducey’s action. The Center for Arizona Policy, whose president shepherded the abortion and women’s sports bills through the Legislature, called it a victory.
“Thank you, Governor Ducey, for taking a bold stand for women athletes, vulnerable children, and the unborn by putting your signature on (the bills) in the face of intense opposition from activists,” Center for Arizona Policy president Cathi Herrod said in a news release she posted on Twitter.
She said the legislation protects the unborn, ensures a level playing field for female athletes and shows that “Arizona will do everything it can to protect vulnerable children struggling with gender confusion” by enacting the surgery ban.
Ducey said the surgery ban protects children from irreversible decisions.
“These are permanent surgeries of reassignment that are irreversible, and those discussions can happen once adulthood is reached,” he said.
The American Civil Liberties Association has vowed to sue over the surgery ban. U.S. Supreme Court precedent currently says women have a constitutional right to abortion until about 24 weeks of pregnancy, although it is considering whether to uphold a 15-week ban enacted in Mississippi and may overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision enshrining a woman’s right to choose.
Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s failed anti-COVID strategy, at a 2020 news conference.
(Associated Press)
Throughout much of the pandemic, Sweden has stood out for its ostensibly successful effort to beat COVID-19 while avoiding the harsh lockdowns and social distancing rules imposed on residents of other developed nations.
Swedish residents were able to enjoy themselves at bars and restaurants, their schools remained open, and somehow their economy thrived and they remained healthy. So say their fans, especially on the anti-lockdown right.
A new study by European scientific researchers buries all those claims in the ground. Published in Nature, the study paints a devastating picture of Swedish policies and their effects.
Projected ‘natural herd-immunity’ levels are still nowhere in sight.
— Brusselaers, et al, Nature
“The Swedish response to this pandemic,” the researchers report, “was unique and characterized by a morally, ethically, and scientifically questionable laissez-faire approach.”
The lead author of the report, epidemiologist Nele Brusselaers, is associated with the prestigious Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; her collaborators are affiliated with research institutes in Sweden, Norway and Belgium.
The details of Swedish policies as described by Brusselaers and her co-authors are horrifying. The Swedish government, they report, deliberately tried to use children to spread COVID-19 and denied care to seniors and those suffering from other conditions.
The government’s goal appeared geared to produce herd immunity — a level of infection that would create a natural barrier to the pandemic’s spread without inconveniencing middle- and upper-class citizens; the government never set forth that goal publicly, but internal government emails unearthed by the Swedish press revealed that herd immunity was the strategy behind closed doors.
Explicit or not, the effort failed. “Projected ‘natural herd-immunity’ levels are still nowhere in sight,” the researchers wrote, adding that herd immunity “does not seem within reach without widespread vaccinations” and “may be unlikely” under any circumstances.
That’s a reproach to the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely criticized white paper endorsing the quest for herd immunity and co-written by Martin Kulldorf, a Sweden-born Harvard professor who has explicitly defended his native country’s policies.
The country’s treatment of the elderly and patients with co-morbidities such as obesity was especially appalling.
“Many elderly people were administered morphine instead of oxygen despite available supplies, effectively ending their lives,” the researchers wrote. “Potentially life-saving treatment was withheld without medical examination, and without informing the patient or his/her family or asking permission.”
In densely populated Stockholm, triage rules stated that patients with co-morbidities were not to be admitted to intensive care units, on grounds that they were “unlikely to recover,” the researchers wrote, citing Swedish health strategy documents and statistics from research studies indicating that ICU admissions were biased against older patients.
These policies were crafted by a small, insular group of government officials who not only failed to consult with experts in public health, but ridiculed expert opinion and circled the wagons to defend Anders Tegnell, the government epidemiologist who reigned as the architect of the country’s approach, against mounting criticism.
The bottom line is that Swedes suffered grievously from Tegnell’s policies. According to the authoritative Johns Hopkins pandemic tracker, while its total death rate from February 2020 through this week, 1,790 per million population, is better than that of the U.S. (2,939), Britain (2,420) and France (2,107), it’s worse than that of Germany (1,539), Canada (984) and Japan (220).
Sweden has done better than the U.S. and Britain against COVID, but worse than many other countries that imposed stricter lockdowns and much worse than its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland.
(Johns Hopkins University via Our World in Data)
More tellingly, it’s much worse than the rate of its Nordic neighbors Denmark (961), Norway (428) and Finland (538), all of which took a tougher anti-pandemic approach.
Anti-lockdown advocates continue to laud Sweden’s approach even today, despite the hard, cold statistics documenting its failure.
The right-wing economic commentator Stephen Moore, a reliably wrong pundit on many topics, preened over Sweden’s death rate compared to other countries that imposed more stringent lockdowns: “Sweden appears to have achieved herd immunity much more swiftly and thoroughly than other nations,” Moore wrote.
That was better than the rate of 6.84 in the U.S. , where lockdowns had been fading and had always been spotty, and in Denmark (5.65), but worse than France (3.97), Germany (2.23), Britain (2.23), Canada (2.03) and Norway (0.92).
Moore also declared, “What is clear today is that the Swedes saved their economy.”
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, of which Sweden is a member, isn’t quite so sanguine.
The OECD found that in terms of pandemic-driven economic contraction, Sweden did marginally better than Europe as a whole, but markedly worse than its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland, “despite the adoption of softer distancing measures, especially during the first COVID wave.” COVID-19, the OECD concludes, “hit the economy hard.”
The Nature authors show that Swedish government authorities denied or downplayed scientific findings about COVID that should have guided them to more reasoned and appropriate policies.
These included scientific findings that infected but asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people could spread the virus, that it was airborne, that the virus was a greater health threat than the flu and that children were not immune.
The Swedish policymakers “denied or downgraded the fact that children could be infectious, develop severe disease, or drive the spread of the infection in the population,” the Nature authors observe. At the same time, they found, the authorities’ “internal emails indicate their aim to use children to spread the infection in society.”
So the government refused to counsel the wearing of masks or social distancing or to sponsor more testing — at least at first. One fact that tends to be glossed over by anti-lockdown advocates is that Sweden did eventually tighten its social distancing regulations and advisories, though only after the failure of its initial policies became clear.
At first, in early March when other European countries went into strict lockdowns, Sweden only banned public gatherings of 500. Within weeks, it reduced the ceiling to 50 attendees. The state allowed no distance learning in schools at first, but later permitted it for older pupils and university students.
In June 2020, Tegnell himself acknowledged on Swedish radio that the country’s death rate was too high. “There is quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done in Sweden,” he said, though he backtracked somewhat during a news conference after the radio interview aired.
And in December 2020, King Carl XVI Gustaf shocked the country by taking a public stand against the government’s approach: “I think we have failed,” he said. “We have a large number who have died and that is terrible.”
He was correct. If Sweden had Norway’s death rate, it would have suffered only 4,429 deaths from COVID during the pandemic, instead of more than 18,500.
What may be especially damaged by the experience is Sweden’s image as a liberal society. The pandemic exposed numerous fault lines within its society — notably young versus old, natives versus immigrants.
The Nature authors underscore the irony of that outcome: “There was more emphasis on the protection of the ‘Swedish image’ than on saving and protecting lives or on an evidence-based approach.”
The lesson of the Swedish experience should be heeded by its fans here in the U.S. and in other lands. Sweden sacrificed its seniors to the pandemic and used its schoolchildren as guinea pigs. Its government plied its people with lies about COVID-19 and even tried to smear its critics.
These are features of the policies of the states that have been least successful at fighting the pandemic in the U.S., such as Florida — sacrifices borne by the most vulnerable, scientific authorities ignored or disdained, lies paraded as truth. Do we really want all of America to face the same disaster?
To everyone celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility, I want you to know that your President sees you.
The First Lady, the Vice President, the Second Gentleman, and my entire Administration see you for who you are — made in the image of God and deserving of dignity, respect, and support.
On this day and every day, we recognize the resilience, strength, and joy of transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people. We celebrate the activism and determination that have fueled the fight for transgender equality.
We acknowledge the adversity and discrimination that the transgender community continues to face across our Nation and around the world.
Visibility matters, and so many transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming Americans are thriving.
Like never before, they are sharing their stories in books and magazines; breaking glass ceilings of representation on television and movie screens; enlisting — once again — to serve proudly and openly in our military; getting elected and making policy at every level of government; and running businesses, curing diseases, and serving our communities in countless other ways.
Despite this progress, transgender Americans continue to face discrimination, harassment, and barriers to opportunity.
Transgender women and girls — especially transgender women and girls of color — continue to face epidemic levels of violence, and 2021 marked the deadliest year on record for transgender Americans.
Each of these lives lost was precious. Each of them deserved freedom, justice, and joy. We must honor their lives with action by advancing equity and civil rights for all transgender people.
In the past year, hundreds of anti-transgender bills in States were proposed across America, most of them targeting transgender kids. The onslaught has continued this year.
These bills are wrong. Efforts to criminalize supportive medical care for transgender kids, to ban transgender children from playing sports, and to outlaw discussing LGBTQI+ people in schools undermine their humanity and corrode our Nation’s values.
Studies have shown that these political attacks are damaging to the mental health and well-being of transgender youth, putting children and their families at greater risk of bullying and discrimination.
My entire Administration is committed to ensuring that transgender people enjoy the freedom and equality that are promised to everyone in America. That is why I signed an Executive Order Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.
We are expanding Federal non-discrimination protections; promoting strategies to address violence against the transgender community and advance gender equity and equality; and disseminating new resources to enhance inclusion, opportunity, and safety for transgender people.
Additionally, Americans will soon be able to select more inclusive gender markers on their passports.
I continue to call on the Congress to swiftly pass the bipartisan Equality Act, which will ensure that LGBTQI+ individuals and families cannot be denied housing, employment, education, credit, and more because of who they are or who they love.
We will continue to work to help transgender people around the world live free from discrimination and violence.
On this Transgender Day of Visibility, we honor transgender people who are fighting for freedom, equality, dignity, and respect.
We also celebrate the parents, teachers, coaches, doctors, and other allies who affirm the identities of their transgender children and help these young people reach their potential.
Transgender people are some of the bravest Americans I know, and our Nation and the world are stronger, more vibrant, and more prosperous because of them.
To transgender Americans of all ages, I want you to know that you are so brave. You belong. I have your back.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2022, as Transgender Day of Visibility.
I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating discrimination against all transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people — and all people.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.
This is not a family in Ukraine. This is a picture of a family in the US trying to survive by living in a large old van. This is what some kids going to school deal with. This is why reducing free meals is so horrible. This is parents trying to work to keep their children fed and clothed yet can not afford the cost of housing in the US. In some areas rents rose by 66%. Yes that number is true. How can anyone deal with this? Why is the wealthy allowed to profit from the misery of families?
Republicans eliminate precedent all the time. SCOTUS wants to overturn decided cases like Roe v Wade. Why would the worst president of all time, who personifies obstruction of justice, benefit from precedent?
“The average citizen views today’s Supreme Court as highly politicized because we all saw what our politicians did to it. The Republican political hardball, and the brazen dishonesty that was used to justify it, Trumpified the court with three out of nine justices — one stolen from the first Black president, one rammed through just days before the 2020 election, and one with a surprise resignation. Now, no one is shocked that a court forged with such political bad faith is making bad decisions with nakedly political overtones.”
This illegitimate SCOTUS majority does not interpret laws. They abuse their power to impose their regressive, revanchist, theocratic will on a population that does not respect them, did not vote for them, and has no way at all to hold them accountable.
I don’t know how, but this has to change.
Just when you think the three new judges are the worst, Clarence makes sure you know he is horrible, too.
What the right calls sexual indoctrination is the idea that gay or trans people exist and are normal. The only parents the right wants to have a say are right wing maga parents, the rest of the parents get told to shut up. They are trying to win the culture war by making even the exposure to LGBTQ+ people illegal. Even though kids are exposed to straight couples and straight sexuality all the time. So it is not about the sexual indoctrination of kids, it is about the idea they hate anyone different from them and don’t want kids to know about them until they have been taught to hate them.
Because this is not happening! It is a lie and misinformation from those that are anti-trans or using it as a political wedge issue. Men are not suddenly deciding they are not good enough to win in a sport as a man so will up-end their lives and face unending discrimination to live their life as a woman so they can compete as a female to win. Where the fuck to start to explain how stupid this idea is. First if a guy is not good enough to win against male competitors it is doubtful that after they take the necessary treatments to qualify to play on a women team they would win there either. Second what guy who is a male gender is going to stop his entire way of life that makes him happy and start living in a way that will make life harder for him and could cost him his entire sexual enjoyment / life. How is he going to date the girls he likes if he is not the man he was but a girl like them? If he was in to men who liked men, they wont date him because he is a girl now. So he is giving up that. How about his family, are they OK with it? How about his political friends, if Republican he loses all them. This is why the idea of guys just claiming to be girls falls apart and is not happening. Think it through people. If it was a huge problem it would be happening every day in every sport, and it is not. If all the trans women were winning all the awards, setting all the records, and winning every event it would be daily news. But it isn’t because they are not. Look at the scores, look at the totality of the wins, look at the awards. Most often the trans person is working harder and has less support, and only sometimes wins. The records are still held by non trans women. It is simply bigotry. Sort of like when black people were allowed to play sport with white people. It was said white people couldn’t win anymore. Yet they do. They still play and they still win.
She declined to become entangled in verbal traps. Anything else? Yawn. The Cons. are pissed that she is much smarter than they are. The point is that her job isn’t to define things. Her job is to interpret and rule on the law when presented with evidence and arguments in court. Cases which come before the Supreme Court are not going to be simple ones. They will be cases which challenge the edges of established definitions. Asking a candidate to decide without first hearing the arguments in a particular case is basically asking them if they would like to disqualify themselves for the position.
Oh, haha, it’s totally the Fed’s fault, even though CEOs are BRAGGING about their record profits they’ve “earned” by hiking prices across the board for everything under the sun. The GQP is having a sh*tfit over gas prices. They would do the same if Biden did anything to stop Big Oil’s obscene profiteering. The same for every other issue today.
She declined to become entangled in verbal traps. Anything else? Yawn. The Cons. are pissed that she is much smarter than they are. The point is that her job isn’t to define things. Her job is to interpret and rule on the law when presented with evidence and arguments in court. Cases which come before the Supreme Court are not going to be simple ones. They will be cases which challenge the edges of established definitions. Asking a candidate to decide without first hearing the arguments in a particular case is basically asking them if they would like to disqualify themselves for the position.