On The War Path For WPATH!

A snowball chance in hell? Or a death knell for us.

I would say "a snowball chance in hell" but the FTC has cherrypicked the judges.

Federal Trade Commission sues leading transgender health group

AP News

By  DEVI SHASTRI

June 17, 2026

The Federal Trade Commission and four states sued the World Professional Association for Transgender Health on Wednesday, in the latest push by President Donald Trump’s administration and others to limit gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

The suit alleges the group, known widely as WPATH, made deceptive claims about gender-affirming care for minors and its members profited off the claims. Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas filed along with the FTC.

Since a lot of things have been happening. First Kennedy had to get his two cents in...

HHS Applauds FTC Action to Protect Children from Deceptive WPATH Guidelines

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today commended the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decision to pursue legal action against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) over alleged deceptive trade practices.

“I commend Chairman Ferguson and the FTC for taking decisive action against WPATH,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Medical organizations must follow the science, disclose conflicts, and put patients first. Children deserve the highest standard of care, parents deserve honest information, and the American people deserve accountability.”

You know that this is like suing the AMA for malpractice but it seem to okay with them because it is against us, so anything goes. But they hit one road block but got a green light on another.

Trump officials were so extreme in transgender health case that a Texas judge hit pause

The FTC tried to keep WPATH from seeking relief outside Texas. After two judges talked, that plan stalled.

The Advocate

Christopher Wiggins

Jul 04, 2026

A federal judge in Texas has paused consideration of an emergency request in the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health after an unusual confrontation between two federal courts over where the fight should proceed, Law Dork first reported.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee in the Northern District of Texas, canceled a July 7 hearing on the Federal Trade Commission’s request and said he would wait for Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to rule first in WPATH’s related D.C. lawsuit challenging the FTC’s earlier investigative demand.

[...]

At the time, Boasberg granted preliminary injunctions to WPATH and the Endocrine Society, temporarily halting FTC investigations that the groups argued were politically motivated and unconstitutional. As The Advocate previously reported, the FTC had issued civil investigative demands seeking years of internal records, communications, financial information, conference materials, and documents related to medical guidance on transgender care.

But they went judge shopping so...

Update: Judge denies WPATH request to block FTC from proceeding in Texas

Judge James Boasberg heard arguments on Thursday afternoon in D.C.

Law dork

Chris Geidner

Jul 09, 2026

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Friday, from D.C., denied the request from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, for a temporary restraining order blocking the Federal Trade Commission from proceeding with its enforcement action against WPATH in the Northern District of Texas.

Boasberg found that WPATH had not shown that the Texas action needs to be blocked to protect Boasberg’s jurisdiction over an order he issued previously protecting WPATH from needing to respond to an FTC Civil Investigative Demand or because that D.C. case and Texas action would be sufficiently duplicative.

Additionally, Boasberg found that that WPATH had not shown they will face irreparable harm if forced to litigate related matters in both D.C. and Texas.

The ruling is not a ruling on the merits of the FTC’s action filed in Texas, and Boasberg did not address that. It is, instead, solely an order on WPATH’s request to block the FTC from proceeding with the action in Texas.

That said — and the reason why this request was so hard-fought by both parties — the FTC action in Texas is before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a far-right judge with a history of anti-LGTBQ rulings. Further still, any appeals of O’Connor’s rulings go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, one of the more far-right appeals courts in the nation.

You see Trump, Gov. Abbott and Attorney General Paxton all have been putting far right extremists judges on the benches who put party before the Constitution and now it is paying off!

I don't know how this case will finally be settled...why? Because the federal courts in Texas have been packed with far right Christians judges who put their religious beliefs before the Constitution.

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The feds also got their hand slapped in a case where they wanted medical records of trans patients,

 Judge blocks Trump DOJ’s latest effort to obtain medical records of transgender minors

The court stepped in after families warned that the Trump administration was using a grand jury investigation to access confidential medical information.

The Advocate

Christopher Wiggins

Jun 09, 2026

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from obtaining confidential medical records belonging to transgender youth and their families, intervening just one day before federal prosecutors sought to force a California children's hospital to turn over the documents.

In an emergency order issued Monday night, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts directed Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford not to produce additional records sought through a federal grand jury subpoena and barred the government from taking further action to enforce similar demands while the court considers pending motions in the case.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's Thoughts on Transgenderism

Accuracy

[Editorial]

Accuracy counts, but it matters much more in some situations than in others. While accuracy in a cornhole game might not be important, accuracy in reporting crimes is critical. The tech industry and academia give a nice, fancy name to this disparity: "surveillance asymmetry." However, out on the streets, an automation error puts innocent people in life-or-death situations.

'Flock Flocked up'

How a license plate camera misread unraveled one man's life.

Business Insider

By Nicole Einbinder 

Mar 9, 2026

In April 2024, Brandon Upchurch and his cousin were driving home from a convenience store when they noticed flashing lights behind them. When Upchurch pulled over, officers from the Toledo Police Department drew their guns and ordered him out of his red Dodge Ram.

Upchurch initially refused to turn off the engine or exit the truck, and repeatedly asked officers why he was being pulled over. An officer named Adrian Wilson warned that he would deploy his police dog if Upchurch didn't get on the ground. As Upchurch began to get down, Wilson released the animal.

The dog latched onto Upchurch's dreadlocks, rammed his head into the ground, and sunk its teeth into his arm. Wilson later said he thought Upchurch had tripped and was getting ready to run.

"Your car has a stolen license plate on it," one of the officers said. His plates weren't stolen, Upchurch insisted. He was transported to a hospital for his injuries, then sent to the county jail, where he remained for hours. The charges, which were later dismissed, were obstructing official business and resisting arrest.

Flock's stated mission is "shaping the future of safety." Or is it actually bringing us into the dystopian era of George Orwell's 1984 and Big Brother? The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote back in 2024 about this exact crisis:

The Human Toll of ALPR Errors

By Adam Schwartz

Imagine driving to get your nails done with your family and all of a sudden, you are pulled over by police officers for allegedly driving a stolen car. You are dragged out of the car and detained at gun point. So are your daughter, sister, and nieces. The police handcuff your family, even the children, and force everyone to lie face-down on the pavement, before eventually realizing that they made a mistake. This happened to Brittney Gilliam and her family on a warm Sunday in Aurora, Colorado, in August 2020.

And the error? The police officers who pulled them over were relying on information generated by automated license plate readers (ALPRs). These are high-speed, computer-controlled camera systems that automatically capture all license plate numbers that come into view, upload them to a central server, and compare them to a “hot list” of vehicles sought by police. The ALPR system told the police that Gilliam’s car had the same license plate number as a stolen vehicle. But the stolen vehicle was a motorcycle with Montana plates, while Gilliam’s vehicle was an SUV with Colorado plates.

You don't hear about these "errors" until they get someone killed.

Wrongful detentions like these happen all over the country. In Atherton, California, police officers pulled over Jason Burkleo on his way to work, on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. They ordered him at gun point to lie on his stomach to be handcuffed, only to later realize that their license plate reader had misread an ‘H’ for an ‘M’. In Espanola, New Mexico, law enforcement officials detained Jaclynn Gonzales at gun point and placed her 12 year-old sister in the back of a patrol vehicle, before discovering that the reader had mistaken a ‘2’ for a ‘7’ on their license plates. One study found that ALPRs misread the state of 1-in-10 plates (not counting other reading errors).

What someone needs to do is sue the pants off of the ALPR companies. Right now, there are no incentives for the companies to achieve 'Zero Defects.' In the meantime, I hope that no one gets killed.

[/Editorial]

Not So Fast

People think that the United States v. Skrmetti case banned trans healthcare nationwide... but it only upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors. It had nothing to do with Connecticut at all. So when I see this article... they are blowing smoke!

High court’s trans ruling leaves state case open

Litigation on whether states can permit biological males in women’s sports to resume

By Edmund H. Mahony

Hartford Courant

July 12, 2026

When the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that states can bar biological males from competing in women’s sports, it left unanswered the other side of the question: Can states

permit it?

The question is pointed directly at Connecticut or, more particularly, at a case referred to as Soule that has percolated in Connecticut’s federal district court for six years. The Supreme Court acknowledged as much in the first footnote in its late June decision.

The cases on which it based its opinion, the court said in the footnote, “do not present the distinct question of whether (under federal law) schools may allow biological males who identify as female to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams.”

“That question is currently the subject of litigation in some lower courts,” the court said.“Nothing in this opinion is intended to decide that question.”

Selina Soule is one of four female high school track athletes who sued the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and four local school boards in 2020 to reverse policies that allow biological males who identify as female to compete in women’s high school sports. It is the mirror image of the question raised in the two cases on which the high court ruled on June 30 — cases referred to as B.P.J from West Virginia and Hecox from Idaho.

So, contrary to what many have heard, United States v. Skrmetti has not banned healthcare nor sports for us here in CT. And from what I remember of the Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools case, it was initially dismissed because the court found there were no injuries to the students. They still received scholarships to the colleges of their choice. (By "injuries," the court meant legal injuries—like being denied college admission or a scholarship—not physical injuries.)

The four women bringing the suit, who competed at a high level in high school sports when the suit was filed, claim that two biological men who identify as woman repeatedly outperformed them in championship level events that might have created scholarship opportunities.

Because they got into their schools and received scholarships anyway, the transgender student-athletes didn't legally harm them.  You have to realize where the Republicans are coming from... the 1950s! Back then, they thought people chose to be LGBTQ+. They still believe that chromosomes alone determine gender. They completely ignore conditions like Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), Swyer syndrome, or mutations in the SRY gene. But now, we know there are complex medical and biological factors involved in being trans.

So, if the Supreme Court says it is a matter of states' rights when it comes to banning trans healthcare, then that state-level autonomy should also hold true for schools and trans students in sports here in Connecticut.

Surprise! Surprise!

As Gomer Pyle used to say, but is anyone really surprised that gay cruise going to an Islamic country this wouldn't be their response?

Egypt turns away cruise ship with mostly gay men after Turkey blocked same voyage from docking

The Virgin Voyages ship Scarlet Lady, chartered by Atlantis Events, was reportedly denied entry into Egyptian waters after Turkish authorities barred it days earlier.

The Advocate

Christopher Wiggins

Jul 09, 2026

A Mediterranean cruise chartered for thousands of LGBTQ+ travelers, most of them gay men, has been blocked from docking at a second country along its itinerary because of who the travelers are.

As The Advocate reported on Friday, Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady, chartered by Atlantis Events for a 10-day sailing from Athens, Greece, to Italy, was denied scheduled port calls in Kuşadası and Istanbul by Turkish authorities last week, citing "moral standards," forcing organizers to change the route shortly before the ship arrived. Atlantis said on its website that Turkish authorities informed the company the ship would not be permitted to dock in either city.

Now come on folks, what were they thinking?

CNN wrote;

“My mind went to the LGBTQ communities in Egypt and Turkey where LGBTQ individuals don’t have the opportunities to just sail away,” passenger Morley told CNN. “Discrimination and the lack of opportunities that come with the shortsighted marginalization of LGBTQ people and other minorities damages far beyond a cruise ship rescheduling.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party has adopted increasingly harsh rhetoric against the LGBTQ community over the past decade, sparking condemnation from rights groups. Authorities have banned Pride marches in Istanbul since 2015, citing public safety and security concerns.

What were they thinking? It is like waving a red flag in front of a bull!

Cuckoo Award Ops...

Leave it to Trump & Company to get more egg on their face. This is what happens when you hire morons.

Trump’s Department of Education Celebrates ‘American History’ With Old Photo From U.K. 

Gizmodo

By Matt Novak

July 8, 2026

The U.S. Department of Education posted a historic photo to Facebook on Wednesday proclaiming, “American history is worth learning.” The image shows women in clothes from the early 20th century demanding the right to vote. It’s an inspiring thing to behold. But it’s not American history. The photo is from the United Kingdom.

Only this is really British suffragettes demanding the right to vote in London around 1912

Ops...

So with great fanfare the coveted Cuckoo Award is give to the DoEd staff!

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: There'll Be Some Changes Made (1962)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this song, Ann-Margret sings that she's going to change her way of living. If you could simply snap your fingers and change something in your life, what would it be?

My back… lower back is becoming chronic.

2) She tells us she's going to change her name. Have you ever changed your name, or asked people to refer to you differently? (Example: "Don't call me Betty anymore. I want to be Elizabeth.")

Ha… I got you all beat!

3) Ann-Margret was born Ann-Margret Olsson in Sweden and when was 5, her family moved to Winnetka, Illinois. She is fluent in both Swedish and English. When did you last converse in a language other than English?

Um… never. I don’t even know any other language than English.

4) Olivia Newton-John was a big Ann-Margret fan. When she was cast in the movie Grease, Olivia asked that her character's name be changed from "Sandy Dumbrowski" to "Sandy Olsson" in tribute. Grease is one of the most profitable movies ever made. Have you seen it more than once?

On a date I saw it when it first came out. And a couple of times on TV.

5) Ann-Margret celebrated her 85th birthday earlier this year. Back in 2024, Ann-Margret told a reporter that she planned to celebrate her 83rd birthday with a spin on her motorcycle, a lavender Harley-Davidson. "I love speed," she explained. Do you always observe the speed limit? Or have you been known to zip along a little faster?

I try not to go over 5 mph over the speed limit on local roads and no more than 75 on the interstates.

6) This week's song was written in 1921 and over the last 100+ years it's been recorded more than 400 times. Before today, had you heard it?

Nope… never.

7) The lyrics were written by William Weldon Higgins, who was better known as vaudeville comic Billy Higgins. When did you most recently laugh out loud?

I don’t usually mark down when I laugh… but it was recently.

8) The music was composed by William Overstreet. In addition to writing music, he was a respected director aat Chicago's Grand Theater. When did you last see a live performance (concert, play, etc.)?

A decade ago. I went to see a Broadway play on Saturday October 01, 2016, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical you can read about the trip here.

9) Random question: Do you have more or less than $20 cash in your wallet right now?

More.

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What a wild and crazy day the Fourth of July was!

It all started in the morning when the central air went out. It was 95°F outside and getting hot fast inside—with no AC! Originally, I was 20th in line for a repairman, but then I played my ace card: I mentioned that I’m 77. Just like that, I moved up to first on the list! I hadn’t even planned on using my age, it just popped into my head, so I said it.

The real "fun" began three or four hours later. Around 7:00 PM, I was sitting under the deck overhang listening to my audiobook when it absolutely poured. It came down in buckets for about five seconds, and then the sun popped back out, sending me retreating indoors.

A bit later, I was in the atrium listening to my book again when the weather went totally insane. Extreme winds hit, hail started bouncing off the skylights, and stripped leaves blew past. It felt exactly like the opening scene of The Wizard of Oz. Branches flew by, the hail pounded, and then—in less than two minutes—it was completely over. The sun came back out and the birds started singing, looking just like an ordinary Saturday afternoon. Except for one thing: trees and limbs were down everywhere, and the power was dead.

The weather forecast had only predicted a slight chance of a severe storm, so it took everyone completely by surprise. It turned out to be a microburst with straight-line winds clocked at 60 to 70 mph.

Eversource initially promised the power would be back on by 6:00 AM Sunday. Instead, it finally kicked back on at 3:19 AM on Tuesday.

To charge my phone and survey the damage, I took a drive around town. The aftermath was textbook microburst: a linear path of destruction about a mile wide and three miles long. Everywhere outside of that strip was completely untouched and had power. At the end of my road where it meets the state highway, the top of a telephone pole was dangling from its wires just five feet above the asphalt. Looking both ways, trees were down in every direction. Trying to navigate my way to McDonald’s for breakfast and a hot coffee was like trying to get through a maze. Every single street was blocked by downed trees and live wires.

The repair process itself was fascinating to watch. First, an assessment guy walked the lines with a tablet. A few hours later, the tree crews arrived—I could hear the chainsaws and woodchippers roaring. Next came two full line crews. Optimistically, I guessed I'd have power back in an hour. (Ha! That was a bit conservative... try three days later!)

Now, the politicians are screaming about how long the cleanup took. But this literally came out of the blue. Unlike a hurricane, where you have days to preposition utility crews, everyone here was just sitting around a holiday cookout when—WHAM! They had to mobilize and bring in emergency workers from all over the Northeast.

Looking around today, just a week later, you wouldn’t have a single clue what happened last Saturday.