Monthly Archives: April 2022

CLEVELAND, Ohio Stand-up comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried, who died this week at 67, lived for years with the rare genetic muscle disorder myotonic dystrophy type 2, a common form of muscular dystrophy.

The cause of death was recurrent ventricular tachycardia, a heart condition, his longtime friend and publicist Glenn Schwartz announced.

Gottfried, known for his distinctive voice, was a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and the wisecracking parrot Iago in the animated Disney film Aladdin, among other roles.

Here are five things to know about myotonic dystrophy, with information provided by Med Page Today, the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation and the Cleveland Clinic.

1. What is myotonic dystrophy?

Myotonic dystrophy is a rare, inherited disease that affects the muscles and other body systems. It is usually diagnosed in adulthood, often when a person is in their 20s or 30s. In this disorder, muscles throughout the body are unable to relax after they contract.

The condition is classified into two types: myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), sometimes called Steinert disease, and myotonic dystrophy type 2 (DM2).

DM2 is generally considered less severe than DM1 -- though symptoms may vary among patients.

2. What causes it?

Myotonic dystrophy is usually caused by a gene mutation. It can be passed on by a family member, but may occur without a family history of the illness. People living with myotonic dystrophy have a 50% chance of passing on the mutated gene to their children.

3. What are the symptoms?

Symptoms include problems with muscles, heart, breathing, digestive system, hormonal, speech, swallowing, diabetic, immune system, vision, daytime sleepiness and cognition. Different people can have different symptoms.

The DM2 that Gottfried had is characterized by muscle weakness, wasting and pain. Muscles in the neck, fingers, elbows and hips are typically affected.

While the diseases rate of progression can vary, symptoms generally progress slowly.

4. How is it treated?

There are no treatments or cure available. Patients manage symptoms in a variety of ways, such as wearing ankle-foot braces, using a wheelchair, having cataracts removed or undergoing testosterone replacement therapy.

An implantable cardiac defibrillator devices that monitor the heart rate and send an electric pulse or shock to the heart to restore a normal heartbeat may be used to treat heart arrhythmias.

5. How many people have myotonic dystrophy?

It affects an estimated 1-in-2,100 people, or more than 3.6 million people globally. The muscular dystrophies as a whole are estimated to affect 250,000 Americans.

For more information:

Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation

Muscular Dystrophy Association

National Organization for Rare Disorders

Excerpt from:
Gilbert Gottfrieds myotonic dystrophy: 5 things to know about the rare genetic disorder - cleveland.com

The Eagles swim against the University of North Carolina (UNC)-Wilmington in the WoodPEC in 2014. (Courtesy of Jason Oh)

Following the end of University of Pennsylvania swimmer and transgender woman athlete Lia Thomas collegiate career in March, the subsequent wave of nationwide anti-trans athlete legislation has jeopardized the future of inclusion in sports. But while the world becomes increasingly embroiled in legislative battles designed to maximize exclusion, the nuances of the controversiality of fairness and inclusion have been swept to the wayside.

Thomas broke barriers as the first trans female athlete to win a title at the NCAA Swimming and Diving championships. Despite following NCAA policy and undergoing over two years of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), she endured hate from not only her teammates, but also politicians and avid swim fans arguing about her eligibility. The uproar of concern about compromising the integrity and fairness of womens sports could be labeled as transphobic and for some, it certainly comes from a place of bigotry. But perhaps the arguments also stem from our curiosity surrounding the creation of the policy and how we reconcile existing laws with a future in which binary classifications no longer apply.

After consulting with athletes, sports organizations and medical experts in 2015, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) determined that while transgender men can take part in competitions without any restrictions, testosterone levels of transwomen must be below 10 nanomoles/liter for at least one year prior to competing. Later in 2021, however, the guidelines were adjusted to consider hyperandrogenism, a medical condition commonly affecting more women than men, which may result in higher testosterone levels irrespective of HRT. Instead of an overarching criteria for all athletes, IOC now shifts to an evidence-based, sport-specific framework where the data must strongly suggest a consistent, unfair, disproportionate competitive advantage. While the change is a step forward in the right direction, defining a disproportionate advantage remains vague and is not conducive to conversation.

Current political debates emphasize the most widely accepted definition of inclusion and equity: that all people, regardless of gender identity or expression, be afforded the same chances and opportunities. Transgender folks deserve the same basic respect as those who conform to now outdated gender binary classifications. At the same time, failing to consider the biological differences such as lean body mass, pelvic width and lung capacity neglects the full story.

Physicality is undeniably a more pertinent factor in sports than in other aspects of life. The innately different build of cisgender men offers them a significant and often insurmountable competitive advantage over women. For instance, men have a longer and larger bone structure which supports more powerful muscles and a wider frame. Their high muscle mass to body-weight ratio also gives men a noticeable advantage in speed-based competitions. In sports such as swimming, where athletes race against the clock and one another, female records will always be slower than male ones.

Different body compositions are advantageous in different sports, and forcing the same sweeping ban on all athletes would not be equitable or fair. Body composition can be measured by a number of factors, namely body fat and the ratio of strength-to-mass. While lower body fat and higher levels of lean body mass might benefit weightlifters, boxers and footballers, this body type doesnt necessarily work for everyone. Many distance runners and track athletes would be faster with lower body fat as it reduces air drag. Higher strength-to-mass ratios like martial artists and gymnasts have may hold their bodies up with more ease and better counteract the effects of gravity. But for swimmers, its not as clear cut. Body fat may be more buoyant, but too much concentrated in one area will lead to drag. Too much lean body mass may also result in sinking. Optimal body composition is not universal, so we shouldnt treat everyone the same way either.

In Florida, Texas and other traditionally right-leaning states, legislators have recently passed laws forcing public school students to only compete on sports teams based on the sex they were assigned at birth. The policies continue, despite a persisting lack of research and evidence indicating that innate biological differences give trans athletes a significant advantage. I would be remiss not to consider the nuance behind the substantial physical advantages of trans female athletes. HRT may increase body fat and decrease lean muscle mass. But with a lack of research, it is unclear how long it takes for this to occur, and to what extent it will affect the bodies of trans athletes and subsequently, their swimming technique.

Its foolish to dismiss such stark time differences during formal competitions. For the duration of the 2021-2022 season and at the 2022 Ivy League Womens Swimming and Diving Championships, Thomas competed on the womens team; at the championships, she won the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:43.12. The top finisher on the mens side, Dean Farris from Harvard University (Mass.), finished in 1:32.67. In many parts of life, nine seconds isnt much: being nine seconds late to class or taking nine seconds to remove a pie from the oven is inconsequential. But in swimming, especially on an elite level such as the NCAA, being nine seconds slower could cause an athlete to fall behind by nearly an entire pool length.

Striving to bridge the gap between the divisiveness of transgender policies in sports is an admirable goal, but it grows complicated when we continuously try to consolidate contradictory research claims on sex and gender. For instance, HRT, which transgender women sometimes use to lower their testosterone levels, can be an essential part of the transition process for transgender people. It not only has beneficial physical effects, such as blocking testosterone or increasing estrogen, but also has psychological effects like mitigating gender dysphoria. On the other hand, a 2018 study also claimed that medicine would be unable to completely suppress testosterone levels in about 25% of the transgender women who participated in the study. Another quarter of trans women were able to lower testosterone levels, whereas another quarter could not reach typical female levels but remained below typical male testosterone values.

Scientific research, raging pundits and international sports committees on both sides of the debate have all put forth opinions and claims that often contradict with another. The effects of HRT and studies on hormones are still relatively new. Coming to a consensus on fair policies requires more than just political squabbling. No one can seem to propose a solution that is both equitable and inclusive, and I still have several unanswered questions: how long should an individual have to undergo HRT to be considered athletically equivalent to a cisgender women? How should fairness be defined in sports is it about unequivocal inclusion or about ensuring equal competitive opportunity? Do trans female athletes have a significant competitive advantage over cisgender women and, if so, to what extent? Hopefully, with more research and involving transgender people in these discussions, we will be able to answer these questions and reconstruct fairness in sports.

I must admit that the news of Thomas record-breaking swims perplexed me, likely for the same reasons it has angered elite athletes: how could it ever be fair? At the same time, I cant help but be in awe and admiration of the time and effort Thomas must have spent training in order to win so definitively in the face of so much vitriol.

Truly, asking Thomas to give up swimming or banning her from the sport would be a devastating blow. For any elite athlete, the dedication, passion and love they have for a sport is ingrained in their identity. Taking those opportunities away because of someones gender expression or identity fails to coincide with the spirit of sportsmanship we try to teach. Continuous accusations of injustice to womens sports come from desperation, to be part of a fight for or against Thomas and all other trans athletes. The true root of the issue lies with clumsy, contradictory and uninformed legislative and administrative voices unwilling to do any research that might unravel their biases.

Read more here:
Lia Thomas started a conversation about transgender rights. It's time we dive into it. - The Emory Wheel

Parents of four teens suing Alabama over its ban on treatment for transgender minors say the new law will drastically change their kids lives, taking them from happy teenagers back to their lives of depression and confusion they faced before starting treatment and leaving them a shell of themselves.

At least two federal lawsuits have been filed since Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a law last week making it a crime for transgender minors to receive gender-affirming medical treatment. The new law goes into effect May 8.

The standard of care for gender dysphoriathe clinical diagnosis for when a persons gender identity doesnt match their birth sextypically includes treatments like puberty-blocking medication, hormone-replacement therapy, and surgical treatment. Doctors and experts say no gender-affirming surgeries are performed on transgender minors in the state of Alabama.

One lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Alabama by the families of two transgender teens and two Childrens of Alabama and University of Alabama at Birmingham doctors. The other suit was filed in the Middle District of Alabama by two different families of trans teens.

Teens in the first federal suit, filed in Birmingham, are identified under the pseudonyms Mary Roe and John Doe. The second lawsuit, filed in Montgomery, lists the plaintiffs as teenagers identified by their initials, H.W. and C.W.

These are not random kids. These are kids in your communities who will suffer tremendously, said Asaf Orr, an attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is one of the groups representing the parents and their children.

A spokesperson for the governors office said, We are prepared to defend our Alabama values and this legislation. The Alabama Attorney Generals Office did not respond to requests for comment.

Heres what we know about the teenagers who are fighting Alabamas new law based on the lawsuits:

Mary Roe

Mary, 13, is a transgender girl in Jefferson County. She started showing symptoms of gender dysphoria from a young age and began to tell her family that she was a girl starting around age 6. After seeking therapy and advice from medical professionals, Mary started to dress like a girl and her mental health greatly improved.

Following issues at school the next year with her new gender identity, Marys parents enrolled her in a new school, where Mary was allowed to dress like a girl and go by her new name. Since Marys transfer to the new school, she has returned to being the happy, active child she was during the summer prior to first grade, the lawsuit suit states.

In early 2021, Marys pediatrician evaluated her for puberty blockers. She began taking the medicine in April 2021 and has been taking it since.

It is essential for Marys mental health that she continues to receive puberty-blocking medications every three months and is able to obtain any future medical treatments that her healthcare providers determine are medically necessary to treat her gender dysphoria, her lawsuit states. For Mary to be forced to go through male puberty would be devastating; it would predictably result in her experiencing isolation, depression, anxiety, and distress. Marys parents are also concerned that without access to the puberty-blocking medication she needs, Mary would resort to self-harm as a means of coping with her psychological distress or even attempt suicide.

If the law goes into effect on May 8, Mary will have to stop her medication.

Without access to puberty-blocking medication, Marys body will produce testosterone, and she will begin to develop secondary sex characteristics associated with males. The changes to Marys bodysome of which would be permanent or would require surgery to reversewould make visible to others that she is a transgender girl and would cause her to experience again the distress she experiences from having a body seen by others as inconsistent with her female identity.

John Doe

John, a 17-year-old in Shelby County, also began showing symptoms of gender dysphoria at a young age. While his parents thought the behavior was a phase, they were accepting. He began to see a therapist when he was about 8. While it helped at first, the suit said Johns mental health declined when he started puberty.

He quickly developed large breasts, which was very distressing for John. He would often cry in the shower because of the shape of his chest, wear multiple sports bras at a time, and slouch his shoulders to make the appearance of his chest less prominent, the lawsuit said. Getting his period was equally distressing for John. Johns dysphoria was so severe that he stayed home from school for at least one day each month.

When John was in high school, he told his parents he was transgender. With the help of his parents, John connected with mental health and medical providers at UAB. He started medication to stop his period and, about a year later, he started testosterone treatments.

Starting testosterone has been amazing for John, his lawsuit states. He finally is feeling more like himself, building greater confidence, and is happier overall. Over the past year and a half, Johns voice has dropped, and he has developed facial hair. Those features have allowed him to feel more comfortable in his body and eased his anxieties about not being treated as a male by others.

John will also be forced to stop his medications if the law goes into effect, leading to what the legal team calls devastating physical and psychological consequences.

The stories of Roe and Does experiences are the norm for transgender minors, Orr said, and the new law means parents cant be in charge of their childs medical decisions.

That should be frightening to people who identify as political conservatives, he said.

H.W.

A transgender 15-year-old, H.W., came out to her parents as trans at 10. She began her social transition soon after and legally changed her name and altered her clothing and appearance. Those changes were very helpful to H. W., but she remained terrified about what would happen when she started puberty, as she could not imagine having a body like a teenage boy, the lawsuit states.

At the recommendation of her multiple doctors and after evaluations, H.W. started puberty-suppressing medicine at 12. The treatment has prevented H. W. from having to undergo a puberty that would cause changes in her body- some irreversible- that would severely exacerbate her gender dysphoria. By allowing H. W. to pause puberty and not experience the physical changes that terrified her, puberty-suppressing medication has significantly improved H.W. s health, according to the lawsuit.

She is also set to begin hormone therapy in the fall.

Growing up in a body that did not match who she was made H.W. miserable, lawyers said in the suit. Accessing medical care has been transformative for H.W. She became less shy and more confident and began thriving in school.

Without H.W. s puberty-suppressing medication, she would be forced to undergo a typical male puberty, which would cause her to develop a deep voice, a typically masculine jawline, an Adams apple, hair growth on her body, and a broadening of her shoulders. The changes are potentially irreversible, the suit said, and would cause H.W. to not feel like herself anymore, and cause her to likely be bullied.

H.W.s family would have to leave Alabama if the law goes into effect, the suit said, leaving her parents without work and splitting her apart from her siblings.

C.W.

C.W., 13, is a transgender girl who first told her parents about her severe stress and anxiety at 9, and soon after came out as trans. After sharing her new pronouns and name with those around her, the lawsuit said, C.W.s outlook, demeanor, and overall well-being immediately improved.

When she was in fourth grade in 2018 and asked people at school to call her by her new name, there were incidents of bullying and harassment, which lasted several years. In 2019, her parents legally changed her name and submitted the legal name change to the school.

At 11, C.W. consulted with a team of doctors and was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Later that year, she started puberty suppressing medication. According to the lawsuit, the medicine has made an incredible difference in C.W.s life. She, too, would suffer possibly irreversible changes to her body if she stopped the medications.

C.W. s parents are concerned that without her medical treatment, C.W. s confident self would fade away, the suit said, adding her family would consider moving out of Alabama and leaving behind their families, support networks and jobs.

Claims

Both lawsuits say the teens are being denied medical treatments and taking the decision out of the hands of doctors and parents.

The (law) abandons science and seeks to stop safe, effective, and medically necessary treatments for children with gender dysphoria in Alabama without any rational basis, the Doe and Roe lawsuit states. The law also ignores established medical science.

Doctors and parents of transgender minors are forced to choose between withholding medically necessary treatment from their minor transgender patients or children, on the one hand, or facing criminal prosecution, on the other, that lawsuit adds.

Orr and lawsuits also point out the treatments themselves are not bannedif another minor needed puberty blockers or hormone therapy for issues that were not related to gender dysphoria or being transgender, they could receive them. Orr said thats a clear discrimination based on sex.

RELATED: Alabama schools chief: Teachers could have to navigate tricky conversations after new law - al.com

Neil Rafferty, Alabamas only openly gay legislator: Why cant we just let people live their lives in this state?

Alabama families with transgender children crowdsource to flee to safer state for medical care

View post:
Who are the teens at the center of the legal fight over Alabamas law banning transgender treatment? - AL.com

VENICE, Italy From the time he was a child, Edoardo Beniamin could envision paddling a gondola through the waterways of Venice, his native city. He saw himself, dressed in a striped jersey and ribboned straw hat, following his father and an uncle into a profession that has served as the enduring symbol of La Serenissima for a thousand years.

To be a gondolier was always my dream, Mr. Beniamin, 22, said one bright winter day in a Venice rendered vacant by a wave of Covid-19 sweeping across Europe.

Seated at an outdoor cafe near the San Zaccaria waterbus station on the Grand Canal, Mr. Beniamin explained why his childhood imaginings had felt to him unrealistic. In the gondola business, it matters a lot if you are the son of someone, he said. But I really didnt think it could be possible, since girls could not do it.

A slight man with a thatch of coppery hair and facial scruff, Mr. Beniamin was assigned female at birth. For the first 16 years of his life, he said turning up the collar of his shearling jacket against the chill he had not felt a need to call that into question.

When I was very very young lets say, 6 or 7 I wanted to be a man but it was more for fun, he said. I preferred boys clothes, for example, and I used to say these things I want to dress like a man that were not serious. I thought I was a girl and so I forgot all about it.

Five years ago, while still in high school and dating his girlfriend Claudia Nardelli, now 22 and his fiance he experienced what some in the trans community term an egg moment, an emergence. He began questioning whether the crippling migraine headaches and related health complaints that plagued him, most notably after gym class and that led his mother to take him from one doctor to another had origins that were not neurological.

Lets say everything started from my health, he said. I was suffering and feeling bad with myself, but I didnt know it was dysphoria: I didnt even know the word existed. It was Claudia who opened my mind. She said, Maybe something else is going on. And then, you know, gradually this thing happened that I found out I was a guy.

In a sense Mr. Beniamins experience resembles that of many trans people, who for reasons that may be societal, cultural, legal or psychological or all of those things combined are often forced to confront a constellation of challenges when reconciling the divergence between the gender assigned them and who they truly are. In his case there was an additional hurdle. Mr. Beniamin had always assumed that entering his fathers profession was impossible.

It is not that there are no female gondoliers, although thats how it was for 10 centuries. In 2010, Giorgia Boscolo became the first woman officially recognized by the Associazione Gondolieri di Venezia, or Venice Gondoliers Association. Now, of the 433 licensed gondoliers at work in Venice, five are women, according to Andrea Balbi, the president of the gondoliers association.

There is, in addition, Alex Hai, a German-Algerian transgender man who runs a private gondola service under the auspices of a hotel. Mr. Hai took the licensing test before transitioning to male in 2016, but did not pass it, Mr. Balbi said.

That test is open to all, Mr. Balbi insisted. Our job is for everyone male, female, transgender, maybe some other kind of gender we dont even know about, he said. Yet breaking into this signature profession is not so simple.

Nicolo Casarin, 37, was well established as a boat captain on the citys waterbus system when he finally passed the gondoliers test on his fourth try. I started when I was 19, and I got my license at 34, Mr. Casarin said. Its super-hard to get in, almost impossible if there is not someone in your family in the business.

The test, administered annually, entails much more than knowing how to master the art of balancing and rowing an asymmetrical 36-foot vessel through Venices 177 canals.

There are many hours of art history, histories of the city, navigation, routes, foreign languages to learn in addition to Italian and Venetian dialect, Mr. Casarin said. There is, too, boat maintenance and study of the tides and fickle winds along the Adriatic Sea.

Those things came easily enough to Mr. Beniamin, a byproduct of his upbringing around watercraft, a city kids easy familiarity with Venices six distinct districts, as well as a series of part-time high school gigs working as a tour guide. Although his comparatively small frame could be seen as an impediment to him as an oarsman, the toughest barrier he confronts as he begins training to enter the family business as the first openly transmasculine and licensed Venetian gondolier is also, in some ways, the least expected.

Since 2019, when he began hormone replacement therapy, Edoardo Beniamins outward appearance has increasingly conformed to conventional masculine ideals. Since December of last year, when he succeeded in petitioning the Italian bureaucracy to amend his birth certificate and other official documents to reflect his gender, he has been legally male.

What happened next, Mr. Beniamin said, is that, once I figured out I was a male, I also realized I had always had a certain idea of what masculinity is. I thought that to be a man is to be a certain way. Now what I think about is different. What I ask myself all the time is, What is a man?

In certain ways Venice is an ideal backdrop for his question. Insular, cryptic, ineffable in its appeal and yet riddled with clich, the labyrinthine city is intricately mapped and yet, as any visitor knows, confounding to navigate. Masculinity can also be like that.

Before I encountered Edoardo Beniamin, at the office of his speech therapist, Eleonora Magnelli, in Florence in January, I had given little thought to what bearing the sounds produced when air passes over my vocal cords had on my identity. I took for granted that I sounded like a cisgender man or, anyway, myself.

When Mr. Beniamin first contacted Ms. Magnelli, via Instagram, seeking information about a program to help transgender singers, his voice was, as she said, very metallic, and it bothered him. At the time there was little in the clinical literature about voice and gender stereotype. Many in her field assumed that taking testosterone and lowering vocal tones was sufficient to address the concerns of a transgender man.

But pitch is not the only parameter, Ms. Magnelli said. And the training we do differs from other kinds of speech therapy, because clinicians must always remember that clients are not affected by any pathology. We are just helping them in affirming their identity.

For Mr. Beniamin, the process of affirming himself through vocalization was as critical as some of the medical procedures underway to alter his physical appearance. You need to talk a lot if you want to be a gondolier, he said.

In fact, a gondoliers palaver and (less often these days) crooning is a large part of what tourists expect when they pay $85 for a half-hour of being rowed along a preset route in a velvet-upholstered craft. Changing my voice changed my life, Mr. Beniamin said.

It is not just that strangers no longer call him madam. (I dont just want a deeper voice at the end of this journey, he said.) Neither is it that Rambo, the Chihuahua he shares with fiance, now obeys his commands after years of ostentatiously ignoring him.

Obviously, its more than that, Mr. Beniamin said. What brings me euphoria is feeling people see me as I see me.

On an unseasonably warm January day in Florence, I accompanied Mr. Beniamin on a visit to Dr. Giulia Lo Russo, an aesthetic surgeon with a subspecialty in performing chest masculinization, or so-called top, surgery on transgender men. A video Dr. Lo Russo brought up on an iPad illustrated how broad the range of results can be. The point is not just to remove the breasts and reduce a female torso, Dr. Lo Russo said. You have to make a male torso.

Asked to explain the difference, Dr. Lo Russo spoke instead about her therapist. My psychologist asked me why I do these surgeries, she said. Why me? Im not L.G.B.T.Q. But I am deeply anti-conformist. I have had three children with three different men.

While we chatted, Mr. Beniamin casually prepared for his examination by stripping off a pullover sweater and T-shirt and unwinding the kinesiology tape he uses to bind his chest.

The state doesnt make it easy for people to get this surgery, Dr. Lo Russo continued. You have to wait one year for documents and, because of that, its hard to get on my schedule. I only do one top surgery a month, though with Edoardo, I put him on the roster a year in advance because it was clear to me that this was the right thing.

In the end, she added, as she held up a smartphone to snap before photos of her patient, people must be true to themselves.

For Sara Mion, 51, Mr. Beniamins mother, Edoardo is now her son the apprentice gondolier, a guy with a future wife and plans to start a family after marriage. If for a long while she was reluctant to accept her sons transition, she no longer has any such hesitation. As a mother, I decided, Do I lose her or do I try to understand him? she said.

Ms. Mion is a renal care nurse at a hospital in Venice and so it is somehow more poignant that the moment she accepted Edoardo as her son occurred when she administered one of his early testosterone injections. I told him then, I gave birth to you twice the first time in the hospital and now again with this, she said.

Ms. Mion and I were sitting in the sun near one of Venices many (opinions vary, but the overall consensus is there are about 450) footbridges. Gondoliers gossiped nearby in clusters, awaiting the tourists that uniquely in recent Venetian history were nowhere to be found.

Ms. Mion and Mr. Beniamins father, Paolo, divorced when their two children were young. Their relationship since then has remained cordial, if distant or as detached as any Venetian can hope to be in a city whose native population is small enough to see itself as endangered.

Paolo Beniamins gondola bobs in a prime berth along the Grand Canal, just outside the water gates of the luxurious Hotel Danieli. Ms. Mion said she finds it reassuring to know that, when the time comes for Edoardo to join in the family business, he can rely on his father as a cicerone.

Things were not always like that, as Edoardo Beniamin explained one day on a gondola piloted by Mr. Casarin. My dad tried to push the reality away for a long time, he said as Mr. Casarin propelled us through a series of especially narrow canals, or rii. He didnt want to use the pronouns, Mr. Beniamin said, referring to his preferred he and him. But then, the last time we talked, my dad said to call him when it was time for my top surgery and he would drive me to the hospital.

Venice that day was eerily tranquil, as at various times since the start of the pandemic, and this must also have been true during the great plague that permanently altered its history as a great world power. The lagoons bottle-green surface remained relatively placid as wavelets hit the gondolas glossy hull with lulling slaps.

Suddenly, a chevron of Italian Air Force jets blasted across the horizon toward the city, arcing through the sky above the St. Marks Square and the Doges Palace and leaving behind a trail of tricolor plumes. The mysterious aerial acrobatics continued for the next 20 minutes as jets zoomed in and out of view, the din from their turbines making it difficult to be heard.

Then, as abruptly as they had appeared, the aircraft tipped upward and vanished into the ether. That was when Mr. Beniamin noted how it seemed as if downdraft from the flyover had disturbed the waters surface, jostling the iron prows of vessels at mooring.

Gondolas are basically flat at the bottom, he said. Its an interesting thing to know about them, that it takes very little disturbance to rock the boat.

Originally posted here:
In Venice, a Young Boatman Steers a Course of His Own - The New York Times

The Kansas Senate passed a bill last month that would prevent transgender women from competing in girls sports in public schools from the elementary level to the state collegiate level. Kansas is the eighteenth state to propose a ban on transgender athletes competing in girls sports.

Labeled pro-girl and pro-women, proponents of the Kansas bill and similar bills claim that these actions protect female athletes.

However, I think this is one of the most covert misogynistic pieces of legislation ever written.

The bill, also called the Fairness in Womens Sports Act, requires teams to designate themselves as males, females or mixed, solely based on biological sex. The bill then explicitly states that sports designated for females, women or girls shall not be open to members of the male sex. If a person or organization sues on grounds of athletic opportunity deprivation and prevails on that claim, it is entitled to a broad remedy of monetary damages, including for any psychological, emotional and physical harm suffered, reasonable attorney fees and costs and any other appropriate relief.

Labeling transgender women and girls as members of the male sex is transphobic. Transgender folks are already at risk for discrimination because there are no laws in the state of Kansas that protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations.

This bill would allow for schools to freely refuse to recognize students gender identity, who already experience higher rates of suicide, bullying and feelings of isolation at school.

School should be a safe place for all students. Recognizing students' differences especially those whose identities put them at riskis a key part of supporting students.

This legislation implies that there is no physical way that any woman born female could beat anyone born male in any sport under any circumstances. It continues the decades-long trend of underestimating female athletes by implying that they are fundamentally weaker.

The bill makes no express mention of people born female competing in male sports teams, only choosing to target those born male competing in women's and girls sports teams. Additionally, there has been almost no discourse around people born female competing in boys sports. Most of the bills passed focus solely on people born male competing in girls sports.

States such as Oklahoma, whose bill is titled the Save Womens Sports Act, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and other states only target transgender peoples participation in girls sports only with little to no mention of transgender participation in boys sports.

This is further indication that the ideas behind the bills are sexist and discredit female athletes. Legislators seem to have little to no concern for transgender males competing in boys sports further implying that legislators believe female athletes are inferior to male athletes.

Legislatures do not see people born female as threats to athletes born male because of traditionally sexist attitudes that state that women are weaker than men from the moment they are born.

This legislation also portrays people born male as predisposed athletic machines who would beat any woman simply because they have one X and one Y chromosome.

Saying this is offensive and simply untrue.

In reality, men and women have different strengths, such as women excelling more than men in endurance sports and men excelling in strength-related sports.

Further, Dr. Josha D. Safer, an endocrinologist at Mount Sinai Beth Israel with over 20 years of experience and the president of the U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health, said it best: A persons genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance and have not been used in elite competition for decades.

People born male are not automatically better at sports in the same way that people born female are not automatically better at cooking. Pushing these ideas just serves to reinforce offensive stereotypes.

Though the presence of testosterone can boost athletic performance, the differences in testosterone levels in males and females do not show up until after puberty.

Therefore, banning elementary-aged transgender women from competing in sports is unproductive and does not protect women (who, by the way, dont need your protection). It only serves to further alienate and bully children who are already among one of the highest-risk groups in the country.

Transgender youths are predisposed to experience higher levels of physical violence, sexual violence, discrimination and mental health struggles than their cisgender counterparts.

Other proponents of the bill have argued that transgender female athletes have a biological advantage after puberty due to the presence of testosterone in transgender women and that their athletic presence ensures that the playing field for cisgender women would not be equal.

However, 94% of transgender women have less than two nanomoles of testosterone per liter when on hormone replacement therapy, congruent with 95% of cisgender women having less than two nanomoles of testosterone per liter. So, where is the competitive advantage?

If legislatures really cared about female sportsmanship, I would encourage them to follow and engage with professional womens sports. Or I would encourage them to allocate more funding to women and girls in sports, to raise awareness for sexual assault and harassment in sports or invest in campaigns to encourage women and girls, cisgender and transgender, to get involved in sports. However, no legislatures have taken such action.

Their worry for womens sports is merely a facade for underlying sexism and transphobia.

These bills do not help women. Instead, they grossly alienate transgender children and belittle the work that female athletes put in nearly every day.

Allow transgender girls to have a childhood beyond discrimination and stop underestimating female athletes.

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Female athletes are as capable as male athletes | Opinion | kansan.com - The University Daily Kansan