Tag: Health

I miss this and right now I need it

https://www.tumblr.com/whatareyoureallyafraidof/794697500044967936/justcatposts-this-little-cutie-climbed-up-on-me

Some what like what I am dealing with

#Pawn Stars from What Are You Really Afraid Of?

 

Things That Matter

‘Like walking through time’: as glaciers retreat, new worlds are being created in their wake

As Swiss glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, new species move in and flourish, but entire ecosystems and an alpine culture can be lost

 Photographs by Nicholas JR White By Katherine Hill

From the slopes behind the village of Ernen, it is possible to see the gouge where the Fiesch glacier once tumbled towards the valley in the Bernese Alps. The curved finger of ice, rumpled like tissue, cuts between high buttresses of granite and gneiss. Now it has melted out of sight.

People here once feared the monstrous ice streams, describing them as devils, but now they dread their disappearance. Like other glaciers in the Alps and globally, the Fiesch is melting at ever-increasing rates. More than ice is lost when the giants disappear: cultures, societies and entire ecosystems are braided around the glaciers.

The neighbouring Great Aletsch, like the Fiesch, flows from the high plateau between the peaks of the Jungfrau-Aletsch, a Unesco region in the Swiss canton of Valais and Europe’s longest glacier. It is receding at a rate of more than 50 metres a year, but from the cable car above it remains a mighty sight.

View of a glacier running through a valley with snow-clad peaks in the distance
The Aletsch glacier viewed from Moosfluh, looking towards the Olmenhorn and Eggishorn peaks

Clouds scud across the sky and shafts of light marble the ice. On the rocky slopes leading down to the glacier from the ridge, there are pools of aquamarine brilliance, the ground speckled with startling alpine flowers. The ice feels alive, with waterfalls plunging into deep crevasses and rocks shimmering in the sun.

“It’s just so diverse, these harsh mountains and ice, and up the ridge, a totally different habitat,” says Maurus Bamert, director of the environmental education centre Pro Natura Aletsch. “This is really special.”

Participants now pray for the glacier not to vanish, but they once prayed for it to retreat and stop swallowing their meadows

Many of the living worlds in the ice and snow are not visible to the human eye. “You don’t expect a living organism on the ice,” Bamert says. But there is a rich ice-loving biotic community and surprising biodiversity that thrives in this frozen landscape.

Springtails or “glacier fleas” survive on the snow’s crust – this year alone, five new species were identified in the European Alps. But there are also algae, bacteria, fungi and ice worms, as well as spiders and beetles, which feed on springtails.

Folds of ice with a sooty crust on a glacier
A fissure in the glacier where water has cut a channel
Folds on the glacier showing the sooty crust left on the ice from fossil fuels, wildfires, mineral dust and organic matter. The bare rock shows the retreat of the ice, leaving meltwater pools and rivulets cutting through the ice

As ice melts, this landscape and its inhabitants, human and non-human, are all affected. Along the glacier’s path, ice turns to water and the rushing sound of the river becomes audible. In 1859, at the greatest extent of its thickness, the glacier reached 200 metres higher than it does now.

The landscape revealed by the melt is mostly bare rock, riven with fissures that spill across the hillside. Jasmine Noti from Aletsch Arena, the regional tourism organisation, says these widen each year, new cracks appear and routes are redesigned. The ice acts like a massive buttress, gluing the hillside together, and as it melts, slippage and instability increase.

As the edges of the glacial valley descend into the cool cover of the Aletschwald forest, “it’s like walking through time”, says Bamert. On the higher slopes, older pines dominate, but lower down the trees thin, and the pioneer species of larch and birch cover the hillside: early signs of newer postglacial reforestation.

It only takes about five to 10 years for plants to colonise the land. Further down yellow saxifrage and mountain sorrel cling to the rocks. All this was once under ice sheets, but the succession of growth tells a story of glacial retreat, historic and recent.

View from a peak of a glacier running through a valley with trees covering the slope
Larch and birch are beginning to cover hillsides laid bare by the retreating glacier, with pines higher up the slopes

Tom Battin, professor of environmental sciences at Lausanne’s Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, says glacial margins are a transitional landscape where ecosystems are vanishing and appearing. An expert on the microbiology of stream ecosystems, Battin led a multiyear project on vanishing glaciers and what is lost with them.

As he walks down to the Märjelensee, one of the Aletsch’s glacial lakes, this transition is readily apparent. In this mountain hollow, there was once an expansive lake with ice cliffs around its rim. Today, the pools of water are lit by patchy sun and rain, fish jumping and bog cotton dancing in summer light.

Battin points to aquatic mosses. These, he says, could never live in glacial streams which are fast flowing and extreme. Wading into the water, he searches for the golden-brown blooms of a particular alga, Hydrurus foetidus, which is a keystone species that thrives in glacier-fed rivers, fixing carbon dioxide into organic matter.

A man stoops to pick something out of a mountain stream
Prof Tom Battin inspects a stream near the Märjelensee. He studies the biodiversity that will be lost with glaciers

Lee Brown, professor of aquatic sciences at Leeds University, has studied invertebrate communities in glacier-fed rivers around the world, and says we do not yet know the full importance of those that are likely to disappear.

“It’s a challenge to communicate,” he says, pointing out the crucial roles that tiny organisms have in the “trophic networks” – the nutrients flowing between organisms within an ecosystem – that connect ice, rivers, land and oceans. Biofilms, or communities of micro-organisms that stick to the surface of ice and rivers, filter the water. Glaciers wash down vital nutrients from the mountain, but their rivers may run dry when the ice melts.

Without this biodiversity which you can’t see, all that other biodiversity that people care about might disappear

Tom Battin

There are whole worlds in and around the ice, poorly known and understood until recently. Mountains are like high islands, Battin says, with unique ecosystems and endemic species.

“Without this biodiversity which you can’t see,” he says, “all that other biodiversity that people care about might disappear.”

A small yellow plant seen growing under a ledge with an alpine lake and snowy peaks in the background
Small saplings growing on a rocky slope with an glacier and snowy peaks in the background
Birch trees in the foreground with a larch in the background
Pioneering plants and trees such as birch and larch colonising the slopes above the Aletschwald

Francesco Ficetola is a professor of environmental science at Milan University who leads the PrioritIce project examining emerging ecosystems in glacial forelands, or land exposed by the retreating ice. As it melts, he says, “there’s a powerful combined effort of organisms” to create new and increasingly complex habitats.

As something is gained, however, much is lost. Cold-climate specialists such as ptarmigan and Alpine ibex are retreating up mountains, their habitats becoming ever smaller. The Swiss pines, on whose seeds nutcracker birds feed, are also moving upwards. Specialist alpine flowers and other pioneer plants at glacier edges are threatened, pushed out by the succession of forests and meadows.

Two people sit on a rocky ledge above the glacier with snowy peaks in the background
Admiring the Aletsch glacier. A timeless landscape, but for how much longer?
Portrait of an older man and a younger one with their arms around each other and the glacier behind them
Local guides, father and son Martin and Dominik Nellen

For the people of this region, too, life alongside the glacier is changing. The guides Martin Nellen and his son, Dominik, have lived with the Aletsch glacier all their life. Martin jokes that the older he gets, the farther he must climb from the ridge to the glacial valley as the ice melts. “It’s rubbish,” he says.

An aerial view of the destruction of Blatten

Martin was instrumental in raising funds for information boards, which he also helped design, that explain the life story of the Aletsch. Dominik says they feel “sad, of course” about the glacier’s retreat, but they are also proud to educate people about glaciers and the distinctive landscape of snow-covered peaks and lush pastures.

Every year at 6am on 31 July people gather for a procession that winds from the church in Fiesch to the Mariahilf chapel in the forest above. Participants now pray for the glacier not to vanish, but they once prayed for it to retreat and stop swallowing their meadows and grazing land.

A baroque-style painting of Jesus and angels above a white church with a glacier in a valley and snow-clad peaks in the background
An altarpiece in the chapel in Ernen, showing the Fiesch glacier

Divine assistance was first requested in 1652. Rosa, one of those gathered for the pilgrimage, remembers the deep snow and cold of past years. “I have been going since I was five,” she says. “There used to be more people.”

This procession is special for the reversal of its request, but similar stories exist across the Alps. They are a reminder that something intangible is lost as glaciers disappear. The great rivers of ice have shaped the imaginations of inhabitants and visitors. Not everyone sees the glacier through the lens of faith, but many visitors – whether praying, guiding or educating – worry what the future holds.

At a place called Baseflie, a cross still stands, erected in 1818 to banish the Aletsch glacier when it threatened pastures. Today, the wooden silhouette against a blue sky seems like a memorial to all that may be lost as glaciers vanish.

Two cattle on a mountain path with a valley with snow-clad peaks in the distance
Cattle above the Aletsch glacier

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage

The Trump Slump Is Real

Both Ron and I worked ICUs and we have seen people who had strokes.  I had a small stroke in early 2023.  Ron and I agree that tRump has suffered a stroke and that was why he was out of sight for a week and why he has repeated bruising on his hand.  Hugs

Reblogging A Reblog-

Yes, it will be 2 more clicks. Trust me, you’ll be better for the clicking!

Reblog

16-year-old Florida boy held in Israeli prison

My Last Days in Reality

I’m not sure how to begin this tale. It seems like a fruitless endeavor, a constant push that yields little result but loss. I’ve watched the company I came to as an opportunity for a new start some five years ago slowly dwindle through decreasing ups and increasing downs to the point that I find myself frustrated with an inability to keep up with the disappointments.

These images I use are meant to be hyperbolic, nonetheless, they do well to express this lament, my own and others in this country, that I’m losing the fight.

The past weeks have seen our shop lose half of our workers due to layoffs, and more to leaving the fight to better opportunities elsewhere even as I am also dealing with reduced pay.

I thought I would learn so much at this job, and I have – though not quite the way I’d hoped, and not the things I’d hoped. And, now… Now I find that I am faced with a decision to fight the good fight and do what I can to save this floundering vessel, or am I committing slow suicide riding a sinking ship.

I am faced with the question of who is owed my loyalty? When the stone reaches the tipping point, do I push harder or do I get out of the impact zone? Our jobs are more than a way to put beans on the table; it is our identity, our productivity, our impetus to face the day and the very slings and arrows of life. I’ve sacrificed blood, sweat, tears, agility, health and a great deal of my sanity. Now I wonder if I’m too old, too broken down and jaded to begin anew.

These are the thoughts that have ravaged my spirit these past weeks. Some days reality sucks, the sky is dark and storms rage, but does that define my life or does it just describe my moment?

So, now, here I sit. A generally frugal nature and a number of blessings in my life has allowed me to realize some things: I’m not going to starve, I’m not going to be homeless, I’m just going to have a bit more time. The horror of being forced to deal with many of the things I just didn’t have the time or energy for earlier!!! So, no, I’m not worried for me. And, if I am so fortunate to ride out this storm I will be better for the opportunity to care for the things I’ve allowed to wallow in neglect. But, I very much do worry for those who will truly suffer under our Dear Leader.

-randy

‘I Look Like an Expert’: The Sexologist Testifying Against Trans Youth Care [WATCH]

This article is long but worth the read.  This expert refuses to talk to trans people and has never treated a trans person.  His knowledge is from what he believes to be true color by his biases, so he also ignores the views of the majority of medical societies opinions and views.    The so called expert refuses to accept that anyone at any age felt they were trans without someone putting the idea in their head someway.  To him it is not natural so it can’t exist.  He thinks being gay is wanting to be the other sex, so a gay male wants to be female and he questions if they can be any happier as the other sex.  And he is a gay man himself.  This is who the anti-trans Christian haters hire to lie about trans issues so that they have cover to make bans on needed gender-affirming medical care.   Plus he is a real prima donna wanting the center stage and being the star.   Hugs

 No. See? It’s not either one. The tiny fraction of repris- One in tens of thousands who, at this point, kind of essentially born gay, but so gay, they really are happier living as the other sex. Won’t know it until later in life, but they exist.

 No 8-year-old ever said that. Eight-year-olds repeat what they’re told, and what they are getting told are from activists. It’s not credible to say that all of this existed, this was so extreme and obvious, and nobody ever noticed it, including the experts doing the research on it who could have gone either way. But everybody all of a sudden noticed it at exactly the same time when smartphones got invented and hit 15 percent. That’s just a coincidence that the demographic who is doing this the most are exactly the same demographic most given to other social contagion issues. Usually young adolescent females, the same group most likely to report suicidality. Not actual suicide, but suicidality. Most likely to report eating disorders. Most likely to dislike their bodies. All sheer coincidence!

But what about so there’s 8-year-olds can’t say that? Sure, I understand that argument. But there’s 14-year-olds, 17-year-olds, 25-year-olds, 40-year-olds. There are people of every single age.

JC:Find me one who didn’t get it from the website.

SM: Who didn’t get being transgender from a website?

JC: Ah ah ah.The “my rights, you’re hurting us,” the “suicide.” Verbatim they are all saying the same thing. None of these are their words. These are words that they’re repeating because of everybody else in their social group.

SM: I want to be clear, because I want to make sure we characterize everything accurately. Do you believe that all transgender people are trans due to social contagion?

JC: No.

SM:. So you believe a lot of people are born trans and feel that way from birth?

JC: 

SM: But you said one in 10,000—

JC:We also have a cluster who, until they’re in their 40s or 50s, are just turned on by the idea of being female. They’re attracted to women. They’re not gay. They’re always men. So we have one in tens of thousands and one in tens of thousands. And then we have this 5% of the entire population which came out of nowhere when smartphones were invented. They are dominating the conversation. They, except for one in ten thousand, they are not trans. They just hate their own bodies and here’s a narrative that’s close enough that says, “It’s not me, it’s everybody else on the planet and somebody else, no effort to me, I just have to lie there, the doctor will come and fix me. It’s not that I have issues to work on because I hate my body.” Taking the easy way out.

———————————————————————————————————————————–

https://www.unclosetedmedia.com/p/i-look-like-an-expert-the-sexologist

James Cantor, who has never treated a trans kid, has testified in dozens of cases concerning gender-affirming care for minors in the U.S.

Spencer Macnaughton

,

Hope Pisoni

, and

E. E. Oliver
Aug 26, 2025

Editor’s note: This interview was originally conducted on August 7, 2024.

James Cantor is a Canadian psychologist and sexologist who has been hired by Alliance Defending Freedom—a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group—and by Republican states to serve as an expert witness in defense of laws that ban or restrict gender-affirming health care.

Last year, Uncloseted Media interviewed Cantor for a larger investigation into expert medical witnesses paid to defend restrictions on trans kids’ access to health care.

Since then, attacks on gender-affirming care have escalated—121 anti-trans bills have been passed in state legislatures this year and a recent Supreme Court decision upheld the constitutionality of bans on gender-affirming health care for minors nationwide. Cantor, who has never treated a trans kid and whose primary research centers around pedophilia, kink and BDSM, has had his expertise called into question by some judges.

Despite this, he’s remained active since we published our article, testifying in support of gender-affirming care bans in South Carolina and North Dakota. And while Cantor didn’t speak at the Supreme Court, his expert testimonies were cited by the defendants.

Since Cantor continues to influence trans health care policy in the U.S., we decided to share a longer cut of our interview to provide more context on one of the most prolific faces in the fight over trans health care.

Watch the full interview above or read the transcript here:

Spencer Macnaughton: Tell me how you came to know Alliance Defending Freedom. How did they get to you? Or did you get to them?

James Cantor: No, they came to me. I never, in any of these controversies that I’ve been [in]—this is, I guess, the biggest one now. But I’m a sex researcher, I’ve been through several controversies.

SM: Sure.

JC: They came to me. In 2018, I guess it was, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a policy, essentially saying, “Do whatever the kid wants.” And I’m just reading and reading. As I went, I [knew] these papers he’s citing. This isn’t what they say. So all I did is take the policy and go through the reference list, every single one, and say, “This is what you said they said,” and then I quoted them directly. Here they are saying the opposite. Just, again, because somebody who obviously doesn’t know this field was grossly misrepresenting the science of it.

SM: So then how did they find you? Because you’re in Canada.

JC: So I published that paper as a peer-reviewed study. So when the Alliance Defending Freedom had its first couple of lawsuits on the topic, they, of course, in any issue like this, need experts to testify to what the content of the science was. They were already working with Stephen Levine, very, very well-established and well known in my field. And so he suggested to ADF, “There’s this guy who always follows the science no matter what and isn’t afraid of the politics.” So then they came to me. We did our first case together. Josephson, freedom of speech case, essentially was a professor who said what a bunch of activists didn’t want to hear. He got disciplined for it. He didn’t let them get away with it. He started his lawsuit challenging his treatment. That was the first one. Then when they say, “Oh, this guy knows how to talk.” So it was networking since then.

SM: And do you actually go? Do you zoom in or do you go? How many cases have you worked with them on?

JC: For them, just that one. All the others, I’ve been hired by the state directly. As I say, it’s really just kind of networking amongst those, and there are not many people willing to do it at all.

SM: Did they like you because of the expert testimony you gave for Alliance Defending Freedom and then they would find you? Cause it’s random to me that you’re from Canada being thrown into the mix in all these states. Is it not or no?

JC: Oh, no, not really. It’s just there are very, very few people able to talk about this and have a mastery of the science at all. But yes, so the Canadian thing really just doesn’t matter. [I’m] just a person who is well spoken, can get an idea across under pressure on the stand, [I have] experience at it. And the state AG offices are networked together in a bunch of different ways and they often have similar kinds of cases. This person knows that person who knows the other person. They’re always looking for experts for whatever their cases are. So when they start looking for someone, I was one of the first people with a peer reviewed paper on the topic. So that very quickly put me on their radar screen. And then it’s just case after case. The ADF—again, although they only hired me for that one case—they also hold events and conferences and so on. And this is one of the topics where they asked me to speak. And so many people from many offices in conservative states are also attending. So when they get a case [they think,] “Oh, I saw this guy who…”

SM: Okay, so the AG offices could go to a conference that the ADF puts on, Dr. Cantor speaks, the AG office says, “I like that,” they reach out and then could have you testify in their state. But it’s the AG officers, with that exception of the one, that would be the ones reaching out to you.

JC: Yes, exactly. So the ADF are assisting with networking like any group. They’re politically conservative. But like any other group, including the ACLU on the other side, sponsor conferences and people network. And so when they need somebody on whatever topical issue like this one, they assist the networking. But they don’t have any direct financial or other connection.

SM: How much do you get paid? How much do they pay you for that?

JC: Same as experts on the other side, 400 an hour U.S.

SM: And they pay for all flights and everything, obviously that would be paid for?

JC: Yeah, the state, yes. That’s part of their usual expert budget.

SM: And how many hours would you spend on a case typically?

JC: Uh, generally anywhere between 15 and 80.

SM: Can you make a salary off it?

JC: It’s ended up pretty much that way for me, which was an unexpected surprise.

SM: Like over 150?

JC: It varies year by year, but somewhere around there per year. But I wouldn’t call it… Again, it’s just dumb luck on my part. I’m towards the end of my career. I’m within five, six years of retiring. So I don’t have a lot to lose. As I say, this was not a plan. It just kinda happened.

SM: What’s your experience treating trans kids? Like how many have [you treated?] I’m assuming, [because] you’ve taught like you’ve treated dozens.

JC: No, I don’t treat kids at all. I’m a sex therapist. If you wanna know if whatever procedure works, you can’t ask the people who use the procedure. Easiest to understand by analogy: You will never find out if astrology works if you only ask the astrologers. If you want to know if Childhood Transition works, you can’t ask the people whose careers and practices depend on the answer being yes. You’re just going to get yes!

SM: Do you talk to kids? I’m assuming you at least talk to trans kids to learn their perspective a little bit given your expert testimony on all these cases. Like do you sit down with them? Do you try and learn—

JC: No.

SM: From them to learn about their—no?

JC: Nope.

SM: Why not?

JC: Because that is exactly the source of bias.

SM: To learn from the people who… I would disagree with that. Don’t you want to learn from the people you’re speaking on?

JC: I learn from the research about the people. An 8-year-old telling me that they were born in the wrong body? They didn’t come up with that themselves. They were told that narrative as a way to help understand themselves. What I am hearing is the accumulation of what the 8-year-old has been told.

SM: So your strategy is literally actually the opposite. Don’t talk. It’s important not to talk to trans kids about it?

JC: Along those lines. Again, it’s because the exception is really easy to exaggerate on the other side. Either side can, at least in theory, be correct. But people are taking, as the definition of expert, the one who has spoken to the most 8-year-olds, but da-da-da. They can color the picture, they can be compelling narratives, they can provide ideas for things to do research on. But the answer is going to come from the neutral, can go either way, does not have an emotional investment in what’s going on. It’s, “What would Mr. Spock say?”

SM: There’s a whole narrative from one subset of the media, mainly the right media, they’ll say, “Transgenderism, it doesn’t exist,” that kind of thing. So do you believe that transgender people exist?

JC: Again, it’s a bit of a loaded question. In the way that they’re saying it as a phenomenon doesn’t exist, that’s a bit of an overstatement. But the very concrete way the opposite extreme is discussing it isn’t exactly true either. You can’t prove things don’t exist. You can only fail to find evidence that it does exist.

SM: Do you believe that it should exist? Would our world be better off if we just didn’t have trans people?

JC: I don’t know if there is a way to answer that question.

SM: Alliance Defending Freedom’s background is alarming, not just for trans stuff but for gay issues, right? The guy who founded it coined a book called The Homosexual Agenda. They passed laws against gay marriage, against gays in the military. They’ve gone to Africa, to Eastern Europe, to promote laws against the entire umbrella of the LGBTQ community. Why affiliate yourself with a group like that, especially as an openly gay man?

JC: That’s an excellent question. First, the way they came to me was exactly the right way. Hand extended, “Dr. Cantor, we disagree probably on every single other issue but this one, but we can work together on this one.” That’s what a liberal is supposed to say. If they’re willing to overlook and work with the gay Jew, who’s the bad guy if I’m saying, “No, I’m sorry, your religious views, I won’t tolerate.” The shoe was on the other foot. I am willing to work with people I disagree with on the other issues. We will be on the opposite side on that issue. We will be on the same side on this issue. So if anybody ever, for any issue asks, “Why is Cantor on whatever side,” there’s gonna be a stack of science behind it.

SM: You mentioned earlier that we shouldn’t be listening to people who are getting paid to have their livelihood like pediatricians make these decisions, right?

JC: That’s standard medical ethics, it’s in every conflict of interest policy, including the associations who have disregarded their own conflict of interest.

SM: Right. But you’re getting paid almost $150,000 to argue against it. So isn’t that the same thing?

JC: No, as I said, that’s what I was saying, has been the same for 20 years. Now it’s associated with money for me to say—

SM: Right, but your argument is that we shouldn’t be listening to those people, but you’re still getting paid to make the argument.

JC: I’ve been expressing these issues for no money in my original paper before any of these laws, never mind lawsuits, existed. It was just the money and the cases came because of the opinion I had already expressed rather than the other way around. And then, I developed an opinion that was convenient because it was marketable. I gave it away for free. Really at this point, my plan for the money was that there would be a couple of cases for a little while so I could take a couple months off afterwards to do the writing that I don’t get to do as much as I used to. That was the plan. Then when there was this flood of cases, I don’t have time to do that and that’s when I mostly shut down my private practice.

SM: Marketable is an interesting word. What do you think makes your opinion so marketable?

JC: A combination of things. One is just my knowledge of science. Their Jedi mind tricks don’t work on me. A lot of lawyers’ questions are loaded questions or come down to people’s fundamental understanding or misunderstanding of science. And because I have a mastery of it, their subtle illogic that other people would not notice or let slide don’t affect me. I’m able to correct it. And part of it, I’m just a natural communicator. I’m good with audiences. I don’t mind being on stage. My adrenaline, let’s say, is under control.

SM: I bet you could bring it in a courtroom.

JC: I look like an expert.

SM: Right, what do you mean you look like an expert?

JC: They tell me that. I just have the right amount of age, gray hair, bit of an accent. I look like an expert. Ohio, oh, they just announced we won the Ohio case. There was a television camera for the news back here and then the courtrooms up here. The next day on social media, all I kept hearing was what a good hair day I was having.

SM: Do you like the feeling of, it feels like a star a little bit, maybe?

JC: I was president of the RPI Players when I was an undergrad. I’ve always enjoyed theater. If I could sing, I’d be on Broadway. So no, I do enjoy a stage. I do enjoy the media. If I could wave a wand, my real career goal was to be the Carl Sagan of sex.

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SM: Oh, wow. Okay. And when you go to the courtroom, do you crank it up a little bit? Like, what do you do to kind of bring it in the courtroom?

JC: It’s a subtle part to be cast in, in that overdoing it, the overacting doesn’t help. I have be in character as Dr. Cantor.

SM: Hmm, okay.

JC: So clear, succinct, direct, confident, but not overdoing it either. Not effusive. The hardest part for me is suppressing jokes. I become the Lord of the pith.

SM: Ooh, what does that mean?

JC: Oh, pithy, short, succinct, and I am indeed much more oriented towards being pithy. To get the idea across in a concrete way that gives people the “aha!” Even if they don’t agree with me, they understand what I am thinking and saying. For example, one of the ones that came together in my head relatively recently when you were asking before about what boils down to conflict of interest. I started out by explaining the relevant policies, what’s in it, what’s not in it, why they are the way they are, all of which was absolutely true. And after reading a couple of pages, people went, “Oh, okay.” But when it hit me to say, “You can’t find out if astrology is real by just asking astrologers,” that’s when people went, “Oh, duh! Of course!”

SM: There was obviously a theater kid in you when you were younger. Is this kind of, it feels camp a little bit, going into American courtrooms and kind of like testifying. Is there a part of that that it’s a bit of fulfilling a dream in that respect?

JC: In an unexpected way. It wasn’t a dream in a way that I ever went, “I wish I could.” If anything, it was the opposite. I don’t know about fun, but I enjoyed the challenge and it was a very, very different kind of a thing to do. But being the, loud mouthed New Yorker theater queen that I am, oh, that’s another one of the jokes I used. Whenever they set up a deposition for me, I always kind of have to say, “I’m the most deposed queen in the world.” The first time I was going in court, we were just laughing. Oh, I’ve forgotten her name. My Cousin Vinny. Right, when she comes in, big New York accent.

SM: Yes.

JC: So we replayed that in my head a lot. And the more recent one, do you watch Schmigadoon?

SM: No.

JC: She was in Ally McBeal. She played the lawyer and she comes down in a trapeze and she’s now doing the bells and whistles is the performance she’s giving in the courtroom.

SM: And you felt like her a little bit, like Ally?

JC: “Felt like her.” It was just teasing about a performer on stage, enjoying an audience. And here I’m doing it in a courtroom. So I’m not afraid of it. I’m not intimidated by it. Where most scientists are not like that.

SM: How many trans-related cases in the U.S. have you testified for as expert witness? There was the one with ADF and then how many from their respective states?

JC: I could send you the whole list, it’s about 30-ish.

SM: When you speak for ADF, how much do they pay you? If I can ask.

JC: Oh, it’s not paid to me. It’s like a conference presentation to bring together lawyers, you know, on similar sides.

SM: What’s the biggest one you’ve ever spoken at? Like, how many people go to these things?

JC: The largest ADF one was their Summit, they call it. I guess that was 500-ish?

SM: They’re obviously a legal behemoth, right? So they know what’s up when it comes to the law. What kind of legal tips and tricks do they give you before you go in and Ally McBeal testify?

JC: The particular person that they had me working with is the Yoda to my Ben Kenobi. He has been absolutely wonderful to work with. His training, his knowledge of the strategizing and of the performance aspects in court have been—his advice has been dead on from the beginning.

SM: What are the best points of advice?

JC: It’s really more about his description of the points of view of the several different audiences. The judge, the jury, the other officers, the experts on the other side, and the mindset I need to be in in testimony, in the different kinds of testimony at the different phases of the case. For example, before anything goes to trial, each expert gets deposed. The point is, and it’s a full day, eight hour day, where the lawyers for the other side get to ask you whatever they want for eight hours. And the way that my trainer was explaining that to me was to help me appreciate that I’m not going to counter-argue. There’s no point to it. There’s nobody to convince. There’s no audience here. The judge isn’t going to see or read every word of it. The judge is only going to the parts the other side wants them to see. So a deposition is the portion at which I can lose ground, but not gain any. So once I was aware that, oh, okay, so this is deflecting. This is not counter-attacking. This isn’t making my argument. This is my defending my argument or, what it largely came out to be, untwisting their trick questions. So even if they weren’t testing me, they come out of it with, “Nothing’s gonna work on this guy.” And then the other one for a lot of the cases, the mindset he described to me was the judge is never going to be an expert on this.

It’s not the judge’s job to be an expert on this, and usually it just boils down to experts on the one side, experts on the other side, and everybody else knows they don’t know. So really the job is [to] tie myself up with dynamite and throw myself on the other expert and neutralize us both.

SM: What does that mean?

JC: It’s really probably not going to happen, that the judge listens to me and decides, “Oh, that’s the scientifically superior argument.” That’s not what happens. In a lot of ways, my favorite part of it is rebutting the arguments of the other side. Here’s what they said, here’s what the citation they’re referring to actually says, oh gosh, it’s the opposite. From the judge’s point of view, it’s just expert versus expert. It’s a mutually assured destruction. They destroy each other. And then from the judge’s point of view, let’s just get back to the legal issue.

SM: Right, because the judge isn’t necessarily going to be able to infer what’s methodologically sound evidence-based research versus what’s not.

JC: Typically not on their own.

SM: What would you say to the many many trans kids and their families across the United States who say, “You’re hurting us, you are hurting us, this is essential care, we need this.”

JC: No 8-year-old ever said that. Eight-year-olds repeat what they’re told, and what they are getting told are from activists. It’s not credible to say that all of this existed, this was so extreme and obvious, and nobody ever noticed it, including the experts doing the research on it who could have gone either way. But everybody all of a sudden noticed it at exactly the same time when smartphones got invented and hit 15 percent. That’s just a coincidence that the demographic who is doing this the most are exactly the same demographic most given to other social contagion issues. Usually young adolescent females, the same group most likely to report suicidality. Not actual suicide, but suicidality. Most likely to report eating disorders. Most likely to dislike their bodies. All sheer coincidence!

SM: But what about so there’s 8-year-olds can’t say that? Sure, I understand that argument. But there’s 14-year-olds, 17-year-olds, 25-year-olds, 40-year-olds. There are people of every single age.

JC: Find me one who didn’t get it from the website.

SM: Who didn’t get being transgender from a website?

JC: Ah ah ah. The “my rights, you’re hurting us,” the “suicide.” Verbatim they are all saying the same thing. None of these are their words. These are words that they’re repeating because of everybody else in their social group.

SM: I want to be clear, because I want to make sure we characterize everything accurately. Do you believe that all transgender people are trans due to social contagion?

JC: No.

SM:. So you believe a lot of people are born trans and feel that way from birth?

JC: 

SM: But you said one in 10,000—

JC: We also have a cluster who, until they’re in their 40s or 50s, are just turned on by the idea of being female. They’re attracted to women. They’re not gay. They’re always men. So we have one in tens of thousands and one in tens of thousands. And then we have this 5% of the entire population which came out of nowhere when smartphones were invented. They are dominating the conversation. They, except for one in ten thousand, they are not trans. They just hate their own bodies and here’s a narrative that’s close enough that says, “It’s not me, it’s everybody else on the planet and somebody else, no effort to me, I just have to lie there, the doctor will come and fix me. It’s not that I have issues to work on because I hate my body.” Taking the easy way out.

 

About The Foreign Aid Funding Case-

The D.C. Circuit’s realpolitik orders in the foreign aid funding case by Chris Geidner

What happened? Law Dork digs in. Read on Substack

A federal appeals court on Thursday evening took steps that Democratic appointees wrote could represent that best possible way of helping organizations funded by foreign aid payments to get money before a quickly approaching September 30 deadline.

It was the latest unusual sets of rulings in a case challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to cut foreign aid funding — raising the “impoundment” question about the president’s ability not to spend money that Congress has, with its control over appropriations, directed the federal government to spend — that has been up to the U.S. Supreme Court already twice this year.

On Thursday evening over the course of 30 minutes, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit took seven actions that ultimately sent the case — technically, a pair of cases — back to the district court, where it is before U.S. District Judge Amir Ali.

It was a stark sign of where we’re at: Judges on the court generally thought of as second only to the Supreme Court taking strategic steps to try to protect people and organizations’ rights due to the ways other branches — and actors within their own branch — are failing to do so. (snip-go read the rest, if you’re interested. It’s very well-written.)

This is a thread on Bluesky. One doesn’t need an account to read there. It’s also an excellent explanation.

This was an extraordinarily shrewd *and* principled resolution by the en banc court, in a case in which the various arguments in the trial court and on appeal were *almost* hopelessly entangled and hard to parse. Of greatest importance are two things: [1]

[image or embed]— Marty Lederman (@martylederman.bsky.social) August 28, 2025 at 7:48 PM

And I got this all on Friday, but was out for a while, so here it is for Saturday mid-morning beverage. https://morningmemo.talkingpointsmemo.com/i/172269056/for-the-legal-nerds –A.

Here’s To Quick Recovery For Scottie

after his first cataract surgery. Eat all the ice cream, Scottie!

Open comments for well wishes, jokes, etc. —