Our Stellar Neighbourhood

Exosolar : a really neat Flash application enabling you to see our stellar neighbourhood. Great if you're writing SF:

"From Sol we jumped to the Inner Worlds of 61 Cygni, then Sigma Draconis, before heading to the colonies at Beta Canum Venaticorum and Beta Comae Berenices"

This application allows you to see where all the extra-solar planets we've detected are too. Extremely Cool.

Time for a new Look?

I stopped updating my blog picture about a year ago. Before then, I'd updated it about every month. Well, I had to, my appearance changed from month-to-month.
But around January 2006, when I finally went onto full-strength Hormone Replacement Therapy, guaranteed to cause changes.... things stuck. Or rather, instead of moving at inexplicably rapid speed, they proceeded at the normal, glacial rate expected when giving HRT to someone in her 40's.
Anyway, the blog picture on the left was taken a year ago - in late March 2006. Now I've been told I look younger now, and SRS sometimes does that. It sometimes increases effectiveness of HRT too, and in my case, it may be doing that as well. I just need to lose weight - some of my winter clothes DON'T FIT! AGH!
Anyway, I was thinking of getting a makeover and a pro photographer to take a glamour shot of me. I've never had one - heck, I still haven't had a facial - Heck I haven't ever had my hair styled! Or a Manicure, or a Pedicure, or any of a number of other luxuries I've promissed myself.
Then again, my budget just got hit with 4 $38 standard prescriptions for antibiotics, and with Andrew going to the Easter Show, well, money's tight.

I took a photo using my laptop's webcam, just to see what I looked like now. Not Bad, and maybe I should update my blog pic. Anyway, I thought I'd fish for compliments - so am I using the right bait? Answers in the negative will be given dirty looks, but not deleted, that's not my style.

You know, according to the Birth Certificate, that picture, unretouched, no makeup, is of a 49 year old man. I don't know about any of my readers, but I find that concept sidesplittingly funny!

An Interview for Cosmos

A Freelance reporter for Cosmos Magazine interviewed me a little while ago. His article is on Intersex, and I'm sorta kinda the Australian National University's Ally Programme "Expert" on the issue. Scare quotes intended. I did tell him that "in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king", but he went ahead anyway.

I'm bound to cop some flak for my views in Transsexuality being just a subset of Intersex: some Intersexed people argue passionately that it isn't. They argue, and with justification, that the evidence for this theory is by no means conclusive. Yet the trouble is, if it isn't biological, how can we explain, well, ME??? That's the trouble. Yes, I'm a "lusus naturae", a Freak if you like, but it's not as if I could do anything about that apart from play the best hand I could with the cards dealt to me. No Black Queens marked "Myeloma" or "Sarcoma". Ok, well, yes, I did have a few bad cards that landed me in Ward C3 West of Royal Prince Alfred (Thoracic Surgery and Oncology), but I survived. Many didn't, and getting to know people who didn't make it has given me a sense of perspective that has helped me throughout my life. It's difficult thinking "poor little me" because of some bureaucratic persecution when you've seen people whose kids are dying.

But I digress.

The point is, that unusual as I am, I'm a "boundary case" if you like that I think has lessons for us regarding Intersex and Transsex conditions. I'd like to think that I'm exaggerating the natural changes, that my intense desire to have a body that fitted my mind has caused me to ms-interpret (sic) the evidence, and I have yet to have any professional medic commit themselves in writing to anything other than a safe, standard diagnosis of Transsexuality.

Verbally is a different matter. And in some e-mails too, I've been described as "endocrinally weird" and more. This is by people used to dealing with "standard transsexuals" - standard Intersex cases too.

I wish someone would study my case more - even if it's to examine the hypothesis that I'm exaggerating things. (But what about the photos? The blood tests? The Eye Witnesses for Goodness' Sake? Hush, Zoe). There are lessons to be learnt, I just don't know for sure what they are, being too close to the situation to be objective.

Anyway, the article may end up in the cutting-room floor, and never see the light of day. The Editor may take to it with an Axe, removing my "words of wisdom" in whole or in part. But then again, they may not.

Two Videos

The First, something of an anthem for people like me. Though if I had a body like that I don't think I'd have cause for complaint!

I was lost
And I'm still lost
But I feel so much better
'cause now I know
It's not so far
To were I go
The hardest part
Is inside me
I need
To just be
Just be

The second also has a message for us, and from such an unlikely source! I'm no great fan of the Kabbalistic Madonna, yet this one she gets exactly right, Madonna playing the role of Eva Duarte, woodenly acting the role of EVITA PERON! She captures the histrionic demagoguery seen in filmclips of the time exactly. Trying - and failing, yet no-one seems to notice - to be what Society expects.

Have I said too much?
There's nothing more I can think of to say to you.
But all you have to do, is look at me to know
That every Word is True

Useful Zaps

Zaps for getting rid of white backgrounds, or Cascading Style Sheets, or annoying Flash Games or Music, or cookies from the site you last visited.... Really Useful Stuff. From Bookmarklets.

Some Thing Like Me

Further to a previous post , from an E-mail by Christine Burns :

One story I CAN tell was the first to arrive, within a few minutes of publishing yesterday's article... A trans man wrote,

"... I found myself in a not dissimilar situation [to Claire] in January last year. I finally plucked up the courage to ask my GP for a smear test, and was told I would have to go to Charing Cross [GIC] and go through their checks before she'd do the test. I refused to go the Charing Cross for the unnecessary checks when all I required was a routine test and was then struck off. I've still not had that test!"

He adds,

"[This isn't the first problem I've had] ... The first GP I went to about my trans issues in 1998 was my family GP in Henley who I'd known for the best part of ten years. When I asked him if he'd help, he said, 'I can't possibly treat something like you. I'm a good Catholic!' "

Some thing like me. And he's a Good Catholic, hence by definition, a Good Christian.

Some people don't get it, do they? You know, 'Christ's Message'? Heck, they don't even get the "Hippocratic Oath".

I lived not far from Henley when I was young. It's not impossible that I went to school with this so-called doctor, that he could have been a member of one of the gangs that stoned me with broken bricks when I was 8. Unlikely, but not impossible.

When I read this, I was angry. Then I was depressed. Then I was scared, as such a thing could easily happen to me too. My GP warned me in a joking fashion who in the Clinic I could turn to (he's away for a week) if things turned nasty. Who could handle it - and who couldn't.

I still feel all of those things, but now I'm just overwhelmingly Determined. Enough is Enough, I have seen far too much of this now. As soon as my health is a little better, time to take up the fight again, for a passport, for human rights. I was content before to agitate for a transition from fourth class citizen to third. No longer. Enough people don't regard me as human at all, time to disabuse them of that notion. And third class is no longer enough.

Who's the guy in the picture? A film star. The star of the documentary film Southern Comfort :

SOUTHERN COMFORT is a 90-minute feature-length documentary about the life of Robert Eads, a 52-year-old female to male transsexual who lives in the back hills of Georgia. "A hillbilly and proud of it," he cuts a striking figure: sharp-tongued, bearded, tobacco pipe in hand. Robert passes so well as a male that the local Klu Klux Klan tried to recruit him to become a member.

Though his home is nestled among tranquil hills dotted with hay bales, Robert confronts a world as hostile to him as if he were an African American in the ante-bellum South. He was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, then turned away by more than two dozen doctors who feared that taking on a transgendered patient might harm their practice.

SOUTHERN COMFORT follows the final year of Robert Eads' life....

The film was made 6 years ago. It still happens today. And people like Robert die. People - Things - like me. Well I am not going to go gently into that Good Night, I am going to do a bit of Raging against the dying of the Light before it even starts to dim for me. I've had it easy. Time I did my duty and stood up for others.

Not Reassuring

From The Australian, about the "Cat's Meat" Mufti, the Thick Sheik, Sheik Taj al Din al Hilali:

AFIC President Ikebal Patel has today denied a report in Fairfax newspapers which claimed AFIC had sacked the sheik from the position of mufti, and abolished the position. "No, we haven't sacked the mufti ... (Sheik Hilali) is still the mufti," Mr Patel told Sky News this morning.

He said the report, which claimed AFIC had severed all ties with Sheik Hilali, could be discounted.

However, he confirmed the sheik's pay had been suspended some time last year.

"The position of mufti itself is very much there and the ... incumbent, while not being paid for the position, is still the holder of the position," he said.
...
"I will probably be scoffed at when I say this, but he's probably one of the most moderate of the imams in Australia..."

I have news for Mr Patel: no we're not scoffing, that is what we are afraid of. That the Sheik's views are not held by a Lunatic Fringe, but a sizeable proportion of the Islamic community here, including most of the Clerics.

NHS - No Humanity Shown

I'm still bringing myself to write about the Clarke Institute in Toronto. But to give you an idea of the kind of things that happened, and are happening now, here's a tale of the National Health Service in the UK. It's what happens when bureaucracy goes mad, were rules become instruments of abuse, and where the review panels designed to stop such silliness abdicate their responsibility.

A Halifax woman must undergo a thorough psychiatric assessment before she can see a specialist about an ordinary urological problem. If she refuses then NHS treatment will be denied.

This is the stark ultimatum presented to Claire Eastwood, a woman who underwent private vaginoplasty treatment in Thailand a few months ago, having given up the struggle to obtain an NHS (National Health Service) GIC (Gender Identity Clinic) referral with Calderdale PCT (Primary Care Trust) after more than eighteen months of waiting.

And the Leeds Gender Clinic, who insist she undertakes their twelve page standard evaluation, refuse to wave her through to a specialist -- even though the medical treatment she needs may not even require surgery.

***

Claire Eastwood's problems with Calderdale PCT are nothing new. Her original campaign to obtain a referral to Leeds GIC for NHS gender treatment has been covered in the past by local newspapers in Yorkshire, and by the BBC -- all sympathetic to her plight. She wrote first hand for PFC News about her campaign involving the council's health scrutiny committee earlier this year:

Calderdale UK: Standing up to the West Yorkshire PCTs

Her problems started because she simply could not obtain even a referral to a gender clinic within a reasonable time via local health administrators. This is because of the PCT's fixed annual quota for referrals to the clinic, which it was unwilling to exceed.

Having failed to budge the Primary Care Trust's stand through a series of solicitors' letters and the threat of court action, Claire eventually decided to cut her losses in 2006 -- and used the money she would have spent on legal action to hop on a plane to Thailand. There she received both breast and vaginal surgery without fuss and at a fraction of the costs quoted for NHS services in the UK. Overall she is delighted with the treatment she received there.

Unfortunately, as can sometimes happen with any treatment, Claire developed a small urinary problem as her new vagina healed. Such problems can be dealt with by any competent urological specialist; sometimes without any further surgery. Doctors call these kinds of minor adjustments "revisions". And revisions are commonplace in the NHS, even for people whose original surgery has been privately obtained.

But Claire's Care Trust responded to her trip abroad by announcing in writing that any medical treatment on the privately operated parts of her body would have to be considered in future by their "Exceptional Cases Committee" -- for the rest of her life!

It's unclear whether the PCT contemplated any exceptions at all, such as malignant tumours or urinary infections threatening the patient's kidneys. The PCT didn't appear to distinguish. And, without evaluation, who is to tell whether a urological problem is potentially life-threatening or not?

Department of Health policy advisors are on record as stating that penalising private patients in this way goes against health service policy. Yet according to Claire, in a February public meeting about local healthcare, the Deputy Director of Public Health for the area said in front of visiting senior civil servants that he didn't think such lifelong exceptional case treatment for private patients was "unfair".

In this case, of course, the PCT would claim that it hasn't refused a referral. It's just that it insists any treatment should go via the Leeds Gender Identity Clinic. And, if the Leeds GIC were acting rationally then Claire's problems might end there.

After all, Claire isn't seeking Gender Reassignment Surgery. She's had that, and she's glad and happy that she did. She's not even seeking surgery of any kind. A GP has already diagnosed that she needs to see a specialist to evaluate and treat her urologial problem. Nobody knows yet whether that requires surgery or not. She's not depressed. She's not suicidal. She's not seeking something irreversible. She clearly doesn't NEED a psychiatrist!

Yet none of this seems to have penetrated the Leeds GIC's mechanical approach towards anyone coming through their doors...

In a letter dated 23rd March a clinician wrote to Claire from the Leeds GIC :

"...The team discussed your case today. In order for us to recommend you for a surgery consulation [..] WE HAVE A DUTY OF CARE TO COMPLETE A PSYCHOSOCIAL ASSESSMENT" (emphasis added).

The letter continues,

"It would be the role of [the consultant] to assess in depth the physical issues in relation to revisional surgery. As you have not been through any NHS assessment for gender reassignment it is our duty to ensure this occurs before we can recommend for any type of surgery"

"In order for us to complete this assessment we would need you to fully co-operate with our assessment process. However if you do not wish to engage fully in this type of assessment then this is of course your choice, and we would then have to discharge you from our service. If you do choose not to engage in this process you would need to approach another healthcare professional, eg your own General Practitioner, who would then need to put a case together for the exceptional cases panel"

And then the "Catch 22" is delivered...

"The exceptional cases panel would then have to make a decision as to if such a request would be considered appropriate from outside of a gender service. We have discussed your case with the commissioners who fully support the assessment approach of the Leeds Gender Identity Service."

The "assessment" supplied to Claire when she requested a copy is a twelve page document labelled "Initial Assessment" which asks questions such as :

* The patient's sexual orientation
* Their religion
* Their school achievements
* Where they live and the type of accommodation
* Whether they are employed or not and
* If they have any convictions or have been to prison

That's the Initial assessment, remember. The really invasive stuff comes later.

And remember this has to be answered in full by Claire in order to see a specialist because of a problem with urinating!

At the moment Claire's position is unresolved. Instead of being seen by a choice of urologist within NHS waiting time limits, like any other member of the public in this position, her case has first been assessed by non-clinical staff because of a policy they've chosen to impose on her in a discriminatory manner. Then she has been further mis-referred to psychiatrists to assess whether she lives in the right kind of house and is sane enough for a proper specialist to look at her problem. And, if she quite reasonably refuses forced psychiatric evaluation in this manner, her urinary problem will go untreated with possibly serious consequences for her health.

OK, maybe time to swallow pride, fill out the stupid forms, jump through the hoops, whatever. Except....

Claire herself if quite clear about the mutual interests which she alleges are being served. In a letter accompanying a copy of the GIC's assessment documents, sent to me, she writes,

"...The GIC benefits [..] because it is paid £1,500 for an assessment"
She adds,"Furthermore the GIC is only paid to do one type of work and
that is to assess psychiatric assessments that the [Service Level
Agreement] insists must be no less than six interviews in duration over
six months. If it doesn't assess you it isn't paid, so in the spirit of
placing the needs of the PCT and itself above that of its patients it
will assess your psychiatric state or discharge you if you disagree."

Yes, it seems that in order to have a urologist assess her physical state, they must first have a program 6 months long assessing.... well, a programme 6 months long anyway. Because they have a "Duty of Care" to make sure that... well, a Duty of Care for something. They can't actually say what. But it's so important that even assessment before treatment must wait 6 months, no matter how much worse that makes the physical problem.

Psychiatrists and doctors who have seen these details are in agreement that the process being operated is improper -- ethically and medically.
Above all, psychiatrists have no business placing themselves between a patient and a specialist in a situation that is outside of their remit.
It has been suggested by one observer that such action is most probably actionable as malpractice.

What Claire will do next is not certain. Every day that passes means her simple medical problem is going unattended and may, as a result, deteriorate. Yet she is also quite right to reject inappropriate care under circumstances amounting to professional duress.

This story will clearly run and run...

- Christine Burns

Par For The Course.

Also Par for the Course is for them to state that as the result of psychiatric assessment, they cannot recommend referral at this stage. My bet is that they would be unable to recommend referral because the problem is obviously not psychological in nature. No matter, the next step would be barred anyway. You see, when there is evidence of such Bad Faith, Malpractice and Transphobia, it's not Paranoid to expect the worst, it's merely prudent. Heck, it would be insane to expect any other outcome!

Australia has a different setup, less bureaucratic, but also with rather more expense to the patient. But despite my dire financial state, I took one look at it and said "no". My decision was made easier by the fact that the procedure that was optimal for me isn't performed here (or anywhere else outside of Thailand). I would have ended up with a "Barbie Job"- no actual female genitalia, there wasn't sufficient raw material to construct any using the normal techniques practised here.

And for those who have been following my blog, the megadoses of Antibiotics have cleared up the infection, but as my GP predicted, have made me feel absolutely rotten. Good job it's a holiday weekend, there's no way I'd be well enough to drive to work. Or even get out of bed, much.

Inhuman Monsters

I recently read an article, written over a decade ago, that had me in tears. While reading it, I couldn't help bit say over and over again "But these were children... how could they do this to them....".

Let me explain. There are two clinical centres noted for their inhumane treatment of patients with gender issues. One I've mentioned before, Charing Cross in the UK. A woman I was in Chonburi with at the Suporn clinic, a serving member of the British Armed Forces, was given an appointment to see one of the "experts" there. Nothing too good for her, you see, the MO thought he was doing the right thing.

The brutal physical examination by this "expert" left her split and bleeding. The trouble is, he really is probably the best surgeon in the UK. The others are even worse.

That's Charing Cross. But worse, far worse, so bad that it is spoken of with a shudder, is the Clarke Institute in Toronto, Canada.

The article is about kids with the wrong-shaped brains for their bodies - either transsexual or gay - who are given "aversion therapy" - tortured, basically. Many are "cured", and only suicide after treatment. This is considered a "success", and no, I am not joking. I genuinely believe that a small element in the Psychiatric profession, really bright people (you have to be unusually smart, even a genius, to qualify as a psychiatrist), are so used to being amongst comparative morons that they cease seeing their patients as human. No cruelty is too painful if it leads to a "successful cure", and besides which, most of the rabble are better off dead anyway.

I've seen the same sorts of attitudes amongst many elites. The Hackers who are bright and can cut code, but are nowhere near as good as they think they are. The ones whose talents are large, but whose egos are far larger.

In Software, all that happens is that projects are late and the product is buggy. But let such people loose in positions of power, and see what happens:

When Daphne Scholinski was fourteen years old, her distraught parents
had her committed to a psychiatric institute in Chicago. She had become
unmanageable, they said. She was doing poorly in school, experimenting
with drugs, defying her parents. And she would not do anything to soften
her behavior or appearance. Her hair was short, she liked playing
baseball, and she wouldn't wear dresses. At Michael Reese Hospital, her
psychiatrist gave her a diagnosis: Oppositional Defiant Disorder
complicated by Gender Identity Disorder. He placed Daphne on a behavior
modification program along with individual and group counseling
sessions.

Part of Daphne's treatment consisted of cosmetics therapy: Every day,
Daphne's treatment partner became her beauty consultant, applying
lipstick, rouge, eyeliner, foundation, and eye shadow to Daphne's face.
Professional counselors talked to Daphne about ways she could appear
more feminine. Daphne was asked about her sexual fantasies. Her
friendship with another girl on her ward was treated as a problem. When
she spoke of male friends, she was told she was making progress.

Daphne spent four years in psychiatric institutions, all because she was
"an inappropriate female," she says today. Her "treatment" didn't change
her feelings about dresses or baseball or hair length. It only made her
feel insecure, as though who she was wasn't acceptable to the world. It
only made her sad.
...
Daphne Scholinski, the girl who underwent cosmetics therapy, was released at the age of eighteen ("just when my insurance ran out," she notes dryly). She felt no different than when she was admitted, even though her mental health counselors declared her "cured." For years afterwards, she says, she was wary of the world and intensely unsure of her place in it. She came close to suicide. As she writes in her memoir of those years, The Last Time I Wore a Dress, "In the hospital, I lost my ability to trust myself. In any interaction, I'm always thinking, I must be the one screwing up." Far from changing her, Daphne's treatment only delayed her acceptance of herself as a gay woman, she says. She couldn't think of herself as a lesbian until she was an adult.

These days, she is mostly sad and bewildered that she had to endure treatment for Gender Identity Disorder: "I still wonder why I wasn't treated for my depression, why no one noticed I'd been sexually abused, why the doctors didn't seem to believe that I came from a home with physical violence. Why the thing they cared the most about was whether I acted the part of a feminine young lady. The shame is that the effects of depression, sexual abuse, violence: all treatable. But where I stood on the feminine/masculine scale: unchangeable. It's who I am."

That was at Chicago, where the behaviouralist theories if the time held that that should have cured her. Brainwashing.

But there's worse.

Parents who brought their children to Rekers had to agree to participate in the "curing" of them. "Kraig," a four-year-old who participated in the UCLA Feminine Boy Project, was also monitored in the clinic's play-observation room. Only this time, it was his mother who wore the bug-in-the-ear, listening for her behavioral cues from the folks behind the wall. While playing, "Kraig would have seen her suddenly jerk upright, and look away from him toward the one-way window," Burke reports (based on transcripts of his case):

His mother was being prompted, through the earphones, by the doctor. She was told to completely ignore him, because he was engaged in feminine play. Kraig would have no understanding of what was happening to his mother. On one such occasion, his distress was such that he began to scream, but his mother just looked away. His anxiety increased, and he did whatever he could to get her to respond to him, but she just looked away. She must have seemed like a stranger to have changed her behavior toward him so suddenly and for no apparent reason . . . He was described as being in a panic, alternating between sobs and "aggressing at her," but again, when his distraught mother finally looked at him and began to respond, she stopped mid-sentence and abruptly turned away, as if he were not there. Kraig became so hysterical, and his mother so uncomfortable, that one of the clinicians had to enter and take Kraig, screaming, from the room.

Kraig's treatment continued in this vein. He was also put on the "token system" at home. Inappropriate, feminine behaviors earned him a red token, masculine ones, a blue token. Each red token earned him a spanking from his father. After more than two years of treatment, Kraig's behavior had turned around. He was now described by his mother as a "rough neck," and he no longer cared if his hair was neat or his clothes matched. But when he was eighteen, after years of being held up (under a pseudonym) by Rekers as "the poster boy for behavioral treatment of boyhood effeminacy," Kraig attempted suicide, because he thought that he might be gay.

How could they? How could they? Sorry, maybe I'll write about the Clarke institute, their crackpot theories and Mengele-like treatment later, I just can't stop crying.

How COULD they?

Warning! Time Waster Ahead!

At the moment, I am flat on my back, taking huge amounts (about 3 grams/day) of antibiotics, trying to beat off a really nasty post-surgical infection.
You do all you can, use anti-bacterial soaps etc, but there will always be a certain proportion who get something like this. Now I deliberately took a risk, over-doing things in order to get a paper out in January, when I should have been resting. I thought that the malaise, pain and bleeding was a normal consequence of that.

Oops.

My GP was most unimpressed that I didn't see him before now - an emergency appointment, as I had a sudden bleeding attack at 5am, not the usual thimblefull, but a cupfull. Oops again.

Now between the painkillers, the anti-inflammatories, the 3 different antibiotics, the hormones, I am in no condition to do very much but lie here and let the air get at the wound. I tried doing some computer housekeeping, but after a while, I realised that took meticulous care, and I can't do that with fever spikes.

So I've been setting up online game accounts for my boy. And in the course of looking for such things, I found this addictive game : Desktop Tower Defence. You Have Been Warned.

Leaping Shampoo

When I was working in Hengelo, the Netherlands, with Hollandse Signaal Apparaten, every day I'd drive past the University of Twente. This University has a reputation in Computer Science and other engineering and scientific activities rather higher than its relatively modest size would indicate.
Now, Scientists of the University of Twente have won a prestigious place in the 'Hall of Fame' of videos about fluid-in-motion. They have made a video of leaping shampoo, in which they explain the so-called Kaye effect.

I have to say I find this one of the more convincing arguments for there being an Almighty. In any event, how wonderful to live in a Universe where such things are not just permitted, they are mandatory by Natural Law.

Question Answered

Regarding a Previous Post, I asked a not-so-rhetorical question:

There is no controversy, nor serious argument. But nearly 40% of Americans think there is. Why?

I got an answer from a dear friend of mine, and a Christian Gentleman in the finest sense of the phrase, old-fashioned though that term is. It fits.

Here it is:

Why?
And on the other hand, a lot of people aren't particularly rational or well-read--some people believe in astrology!--and that includes people who identify themselves as Christians. If you read Genesis, you'll see that chapter 2 or 3 says the EARTH brought forth the animals, which fits in with evolution tolerably well.
Some people don't recognize that parts of it are poetry, not literal history.
(On the other hand, some problems are probably translation problems--I suspect "the whole earth" should really be "the whole land" in several places).

And we're used to being lied to by experts pushing an agenda. I'm not familiar with the history of evolution and related hoaxes, but Piltdown Man was pretty prominent, and there have been others.
And the initial arguments weren't terribly convincing. "You see, a hundred zillion years ago, there was this chemical soup, and....uh...life happened. And then...it randomly got better. Grew eyes and feet and all that." That may not be a fair summation of the actual arguments but that's how it came across. There are no "evolution predicts this, let's see if that's what actually happens" so it doesn't come across as scince. Further, when half the scientists are arguing with the other half about, e.g., Punctuated Equilibrium, the public gets the idea these guys don't really know what they're talking about. And the ones who are most strongly in favor of evolution are also the most stridently atheistic--from one point of view that makes sense, but it hardly makes them look unbiased.
In addition, a lot of the people arguing for evolution don't actually show any evidence. They'll argue by assertion or by appeal to authority, but they don't show the fossil record, they don't talk about the DNA sequences. Or perhaps they do, and it just doesn't make it into the media.
There's a book by a Christian researcher who headed up the Human Genome project--can't think of his name at the moment--whose book makes a pretty good case for evolution.

Well Said.

I think the problem is that Religion deals with Certainties, Science deals with Doubt. Religion states eternal Truth, Science nothing but Lies-that-work-in-practice, approximations, models that we know are wrong or incomplete, yet are true enough to be useful.

Let's take the "Earth is Round not Flat" Theory. Every time you use a street map, you violate this principle, because locally, with small distances, the Earth really is Flat, the curvature is lost in the noise of hill and dale, valley and forest.
But the Earth is spherical at large scales, right? Well, it's more an oblate spheroid that is, a roughly spherical object definable by 2 different axes - something like a rugby or gridiron football. So it's not "spherical" at all.

There are alternative ways of specifying the dimensions of the spheroid other than by its major and minor radii a and b. The flattening, f, is defined by f=1-b/a, and the eccentricity e by e^2=1-b^2/a^2. For the WGS84 spheroid, a=6378.137 km and f=1/298.257223563. The eccentricity and flattening are thus related by: e^2=f(2-f)
From Ed Williams Spherical Geometry

So what's this "WGS84" bit? From a site on mapping:

North American mapping agencies are in the process of moving from the 1927 datum (NAD27), which uses the Clarke 1866 spheroid, to the 1983 datum (NAD83), which uses the GRS80 spheroid (identical to within a few mm to the WGS84 spheroid) derived from satellite geodessy. To further complicate matters, the 3-arcsecond digital elevation data compiled by the Defense Mapping Agency and distributed by the USGS uses an earlier satellite-derived spheroid, WGS72. The three spheroids differ not only in their major and minor semiaxes, but also in the location of the center of the spheroid relative to the center of mass of the Earth and in the direction of the x axis.

Platygeans could have a field day - those Atheistic Humanists can't even decide on what shape this so-called "Round Earth" is, let alone what size it is!

I'm old enough so that a lot of my work used in military systems used WGS-72, and it's still "good enough" for most purposes. Heck, a spherical Earth is good enough for most purposes, distances of around a hundred km.

Our understanding of evolution is like that. Until the discovery of DNA, and its role in Life-as-we-know-it, we didn't know anything about the mechanics. Even now, many of the minor details (like WGS72 vs WGS84) are unknown. But not unknowable. And WGS84 will be superceded in time as the need for even more precise measurements come up, and the Earth changes shape slightly due to tectonic forces.

The Defence of Marriage

Lisa Pryor in the Opinion pages of the Sydney Morning Herald:

The views I am about to express are not very fashionable. They are certainly not politically correct. But I believe what I am about to say must be expressed to protect the institution of marriage.

Too often in the media, currency is given to the theory that everyone should be allowed to marry regardless of gender, outlook and whether the two people are creating a suitable family environment in which to bring up children.

Well, it is time to ask some hard questions about this attitude. The only way we will save marriage is to reclaim the institution for the mainstream. Marriage is for normal people who want to raise children in a healthy and secure environment......

Please read the whole thing.

A Good Story for April 1st

From Newsweek:

A belief in God and an identification with an organized religion are widespread throughout the country, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Nine in 10 (91 percent) of American adults say they believe in God and almost as many (87 percent) say they identify with a specific religion. Christians far outnumber members of any other faith in the country, with 82 percent of the poll’s respondents identifying themselves as such. Another 5 percent say they follow a non-Christian faith, such as Judaism or Islam. Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact. Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.

It would be interesting to see how many of those who believed in the Creation also believed the Earth is Flat.
No, I do not wish to make fun or denigrate Evangelical Christians. I know too many who are really Good people to do that. I just find it hard to see how they can draw the line between the two beliefs, and believe in Creation (in accordance with the literal word of the Bible) while rejecting Platyheanism (which is also in accordance with the literal word of the Bible).

From Scientific Creationism, Geocentricity, and the Flat Earth :

The Genesis creation story says the earth is covered by a vault (firmament) and that the celestial bodies move inside the vault. This makes no sense unless one assumes that the earth is essentially flat.16 Isaiah wrote that “God sits throned on the vaulted roof of earth, whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers.”17 In the book of Job, Eliphaz the Temanite says God “walks to and fro on the vault of heaven.”18 That the earth was considered essentially flat is clear from Daniel, who said, “I saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth; the tree grew and became strong, reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth’s farthest bounds.”19 This statement makes no sense for spherical earth.

The New Testament also implies a flat earth. For instance, Matthew wrote that “The devil took him [Jesus] to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory.”20 From a sufficiently high mountain, one could see all the kingdoms of the world -- if the earth were flat. Finally, Revelation refers to “the four corners of the earth,”21 and corners are not generally associated with spheres.

16. See any Jewish encyclopedia, under “Cosmogony.”
17. New English Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), Isaiah 40:21- 22.
18. Ibid, Job 22:141
19. Ibid, Daniel 4:10-11.
20. Ibid, Matthew 4:8.
21. Ibid, Revelation 7:1.

Either the Bible is Literally (not Figuratively) True, or it isn't. How can so many Evangelicals Cherry-Pick?

The actual question asked is even more worrying: I'll quote.

---

12. Which one of the following statements come closest to your views about the origin and development of human beings? Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process (or) Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process(or) God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so?

	God guided process	God had no part	Created in present form	Other/Don't Know
Current Total	30%	13%	48%	9%
Evangelical Protestants	18%	4%	73%	5%
Non-Evangelical Protestants	42%	9%	39%	10%
Catholics	42%	11%	41%	6%
Agnostics/Atheists	27%	45%	13%	15%

---

13. Do you think the scientific theory of evolution is well-supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community?

	Well-supported	Not well-supported	Don't Know
Current Total	48%	39%	13%
Evangelical Protestants	25%	63%	12%
Non-Evangelical Protestants	57%	24%	19%
Catholics	58%	33%	9%
Agnostics/Atheists	73%	18%	9%

Now why am I worried about the second question? More worried than about the first? From Newsweek magazine 29 June 1987, p23: "there are some 700 scientists (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve but appeared 'abruptly'".

Yet a substantial proportion of Americans believe that Scientists are somehow divided on this. Well they are, 680-odd on one side to every 1 on the other.

There is no controversy, nor serious argument. But nearly 40% of Americans think there is. Why?

What ARE they teaching in UK Medical Schools These Days

From the Daily Telegraph :

A survey of more than 1,000 GPs and hospital doctors showed that 70 per cent said that the NHS should not pay for every type of operation but there was no consensus on what the NHS should fund.
...
Eighty per cent did not believe that the NHS should pay for vasectomy reversal and 84 per cent said the NHS should not pay for gender reassignment surgery.

There's disagreement on whether the whole-of-life suicide rates amongst Transsexuals is 30% or 70%, or anywhere in between. Certainly the best, most scientifically credible evidence from the Scottish Office showed 50% of TS people had self-harmed before age 25, though the figures on successful suicide attempts were less precise. People who successfully suicide don't usually reply to surveys, and often don't leave any indication why they suicide.

It's also not in contention that gender reassignment has a greater than 97% rate of making the patient feel better. Very few treatments have that degree of success.

The cost of psychiatric treatment to try to keep these people alive over 10 years greatly exceeds the cost of surgery, so it's not as if any money would be saved.

One can only assume that either the Medical Schools are clueless about Transsexuality, or there is moral condemnation of such a degree that they think we should have treatment deliberately withheld, so we die. Unlike drug addicts, for example: only 44% of doctors thought that their treatment shouldn't be free.

Never attribute to Malice what is adequately explained by Stupidity - or its partner, Ignorance.

A Morale Booster

Here. One which any woman of any age would appreciate.

How come guys just become "ruggedly handsome" as they get older? It's Not Fair!

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm

The Top 15 Unintentionally Funny Comic Book Panels.

Firespawn!

If Only It Were So Simple

No wonder I faced such a credibility gap. It seems that there's a whole sub-genre of fiction to do with spontaneous sex-change, and always "men losing their manhood".

It's not so clean, simple, or quick when it happens in Reality. Most cases take years, at normal pubescent rates, I've not been able to track down a single reliably recorded case where it happened as quickly as it did for me, at least, not one where the patient survived.

Victory in Yogyakarta

People like me are Human.

Yes, I know that may sound obvious to many (and a contradiction to a few unlikely to read this blog), but that is what was decided at Yogyakarta, Indonesia this week.

I will quote from the Introduction to the Statement of Principles:

The international system has seen great strides toward gender equality and protections against violence in society, community and in the family. In addition, key human rights mechanisms of the United Nations have affirmed States’ obligation to ensure effective protection of all persons from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. However, the international response to human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity has been fragmented and inconsistent.

To address these deficiencies a consistent understanding of the comprehensive regime of international human rights law and its application to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity is necessary. It is critical to collate and clarify State obligations under existing international human rights law, in order to promote and protect all human rights for all persons on the basis of equality and without discrimination.

The International Commission of Jurists and the International Service for Human Rights, on behalf of a coalition of human rights organisations, have undertaken a project to develop a set of international legal principles on the application of international law to human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity to bring greater clarity and coherence to States’ human rights obligations.

A distinguished group of human rights experts has drafted, developed, discussed and refined these Principles. Following an experts’ meeting held at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia from 6 to 9 November 2006, 29 distinguished experts from 25 countries with diverse backgrounds and expertise relevant to issues of human rights law unanimously adopted the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

This is not "new law". It is a clarification by legal jurists of States' existing obligations under Human Rights conventions that have already been signed and are the Law of the Land.

We are Human. Human Rights apply to us even though we are Transsexual or Intersexed. (Or Gay or Lesbian for that matter).

The experts agree that the Yogyakarta Principles reflect the existing state of international human rights law in relation to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. They also recognise that States may incur additional obligations as human rights law continues to evolve.

The Yogyakarta Principles affirm binding international legal standards with which all States must comply. They promise a different future where all people born free and equal in dignity and rights can fulfil that precious birthright.

At least one Australian legal case currently being heard will be affected by this.

And in view of my passport woes, I'll quote Principle 22:

Everyone lawfully within a State has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of the State, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Sexual orientation and gender identity may never be invoked to limit or impede a person’s entry, egress or return to or from any State, including that person’s own State.

States shall:
a) Take all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to ensure that the right to freedom of movement and residence is guaranteed regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Later, it explains

Gender identity is understood to refer to each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms.

This directly makes the odious section 89 in the Explanatory Notes to the Australian Passports Determination an explicit violation of the Law of the Land, and therefore arguably void and a legal nullity, not being within the powers of the Minister to decide. In any event, Australia is now obligated to take all necessary measures to remove its provisions.

I am now, under International Human Rights Law, officially Human. And yesterday, I wasn't.