The Maine House of Representatives is considering a bill that would protect anyone who takes a child who identifies as transgender away from “non-affirming” parents in order to subject that minor to experimental transgender medical interventions. The legislation also would counteract laws protecting minors from such “treatment” in other states. The Maine bill‚ LD 1735‚ would prioritize “gender-affirming care” in custody disputes. It would prohibit courts from considering that a person applying for custody had taken a child from someone else with legal custody—such as parents—if that person removed the child “for the purposes of obtaining gender-affirming health care… for the child” from a state that restricts this experimental “care.” This means judges in custody cases would have to look favorably on anyone who removes a child from parents‚ so long as that person does so to help the child receive experimental transgender “treatments” that may leave him or her stunted‚ scarred‚ and infertile. Gender activists and their allies who have infiltrated health care organizations often insist that these interventions—which often amount to chemical castration—are essential to prevent gender-confused children from committing suicide. This twisted logic enables activists to claim that a parent’s disagreement on gender identity constitutes a form of “mental harm” to a child.  The idea that a father’s refusing to sign up his daughter for a path leading to the removal of healthy breasts and a healthy womb constitutes child abuse is so absurd‚ it requires multiple levels of doublespeak to justify. False terms such as “gender-affirming care” are necessary to cloak the truth of what is going on.  Yet the Maine bill goes all-in on this deceptive phrase‚ from the title (“An Act to Safeguard Gender-Affirming Health Care”) to the definition framing these interventions as “medically necessary health care that respects the gender identity of the patient‚ as experienced and defined by the patient.” Note that the definition doesn’t say that a medical doctor has to sign off on a diagnosis. The bill’s framing around “gender-affirming care” overlooks the testimony of doctors who warn that even the “social transition” of encouraging a boy to present as a girl “is a powerful psychotherapeutic intervention that radically changes outcomes.” Doctors also warn that children can’t possibly give informed consent for procedures that may sterilize them and put them at risk of long-term side effects such as decreased bone density and cardiovascular disease. Yet LD 1735 would make these interventions sacrosanct by treating any refusal of them as tantamount to child abuse. The bill would grant Maine courts “temporary emergency jurisdiction” in cases where the child must be protected “because the child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care.” This “temporary emergency jurisdiction” in custody cases already applies to child abandonment and to situations where “it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child or a sibling or parent of the child is subjected to or threatened with mistreatment or abuse.” The bill merely would add the inability to receive “gender-affirming health care” to this list of emergency conditions. LD 1735 also would prevent law enforcement in the Pine Tree State from arresting or helping to extradite a person for violating “another state’s law against providing‚ receiving or allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care in this state.” It would bar law enforcement from providing information to an out-of-state agency regarding any such “care” performed in Maine. The bill also states that “an out-of-state arrest warrant for an individual based on violating another state’s law against providing‚ receiving‚ or allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care is the lowest law enforcement priority.” The bill might enable situations such as the child sex trafficking of Sage‚ a girl who was encouraged to hide her transgender identity from her grandmother. According to her grandmother‚ Sage ran away after she was victimized in a boys’ bathroom at school‚ then ended up getting abducted‚ raped‚ and beaten. Sage had been taken across state lines from Virginia to Maryland‚ and a Maryland lawyer fought to keep Sage away from her grandmother. Last February‚ a Virginia bill aimed at preventing Sage’s tragedy from happening again died in the Old Dominion’s Democratic-majority Senate. “This bill would‚ in effect‚ make Maine a party to the trafficking of minors from other states‚” Jay Richards‚ director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life‚ Religion‚ and Family at The Heritage Foundation‚ told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday. (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.) The Maine bill “would draw troubled teens from other states that have protected them from receiving ghoulish sex trait-modification drugs and surgery‚” Richards said. “There is no good evidence that such medical interventions help minors‚ and plenty of evidence of their harms.” Alvin Lui‚ president of the parental rights group Courage is a Habit‚ also opposes the bill. “LD 1735 is a transgender trafficking bill that would permit the state of Maine to receive minors from other states seeking transgender treatments‚ such as breast binding‚ penis tucking‚ irreversible puberty blockers‚ cross-sex hormones‚ or mutilation surgeries‚” Lui told The Daily Signal in a written statement Wednesday. Courage Is a Habit has encouraged Americans to contact Maine legislators about the bill‚ whether they live in Maine or not. The Maine House Judiciary Committee plans to consider the bill Thursday. According to the pro-transgender Movement Advancement Project‚ 14 states have laws or executive orders to “shield” people who perform experimental transgender medical interventions from laws in other states. These laws may include the same sort of custody provisions that could protect kidnappers. Maine-LD-1735-Transgender-TraffickingDownload Have an opinion about this article? To sound off‚ please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. The post Maine Bill Would Protect Kidnappers Who Take ‘Transgender Kids’ From ‘Non-Affirming’ Parents for ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The nation’s college campuses have created a climate of hate. A report released Monday by the Combat Antisemitism Movement in partnership with the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University in Israel found that antisemitism has exploded in U.S. higher education. The numbers are shocking‚ but not surprising. The report found that in the fourth quarter of 2023‚ from October through December‚ there was a 1‚753% increase in far-left incidents of antisemitism and a 268% increase of Islamist antisemitic incidents on college campuses since the previous quarter.  That obviously stems in no small part from the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. A news release from the Combat Antisemitism Movement said that nearly all the antisemitic incidents were “tied to anti-Zionist forms of antisemitism and the conflation of worldwide Jewry with the state of Israel.” The report confirms what many already assumed‚ but there are a few things worth noting here. First‚ it’s absurd to contend that this increase in antisemitism is a general societal problem‚ as witnesses at the now infamous congressional hearing on antisemitism in higher education suggested. Polls show overwhelming U.S. support for Israel. The older the American‚ the more likely they are to support Israel. While there has certainly been an increase in antisemitic incidents in general since Oct. 7‚ it’s on a whole other level in the ivory tower.  Americans didn’t suddenly become frothing antisemites after Oct. 7‚ but college campuses and left-wing enclaves did. Second‚ it’s also incorrect to suggest that antisemitism stems from mere ignorance. Sure‚ plenty of the Hamas-supporting activists in so-called higher education are uninformed lunkheads. However‚ their hate doesn’t stem from a simple misunderstanding. Instead‚ it comes from ideology. There’s a reason for the curious overlap between dedicated supporters of Black Lives Matter and the Palestinian cause‚ for instance. In his 2021 forward to Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth‚” a foundational book on the concept of “decolonialism‚” left-wing academic Cornel West noted that the “Black Lives Matter movement and the Palestinian Lives Matter movement” aligned with the anti-Israel “boycott‚ divestment and sanctions efforts.” Why is that? It’s because hatred of Jews and Israel stems from the Left’s general categorization of the world into oppressor and oppressed groups. They further see this as a global struggle between “colonizers” and the “colonized‚” and between the “Third World” and “the West.” Those positions were promoted by Marxist thinkers throughout the Cold War. They’ve now been repurposed to fit the needs of the modern Left. Does it matter that Jews have historically faced discrimination? Not at all. They are now aligned with “white supremacy‚” according to this mindset. Until Israel is eliminated‚ its people killed or scattered to the wind‚ the far Left will always treat Jews as oppressors whenever the Israel-Palestinian issue comes up. It’s why when acts of terrorism are perpetrated against Israelis‚ many on the Left actually blame Israel. This is about structural forces and fighting oppressors. Hamas terrorists can’t really be held culpable for their acts of evil‚ you see. No amount of violence toward Jews or pleading that they’ve been oppressed‚ too‚ will matter if you embrace this ideology. Just look at this San Francisco city council hearing and the left-wing activists’ behavior toward a Jewish man who lost relatives to terrorists in the Oct. 7 attack. WATCH: A San Francisco Jewish man bravely shares his experiences with antisemitism after losing five family members at Kibbutz Be'eri‚ including two kidnapped by Hamas‚ only to be met with boos and jeers from anti-Israel activists. pic.twitter.com/waUybyoXtg— JCRC Bay Area (@SFJCRC) January 10‚ 2024 It’s clear that where antisemitism is festering and exploding most obviously is among the young‚ the woke‚ and the (allegedly) highly educated—or more specifically‚ those most likely to have gone through our university system. On college campuses‚ such people are in the driver’s seat. They represent the established church of higher education. They are the beating heart of the “great awokening‚” cultivated and protected by vast college campus Diversity‚ Equity and Inclusion administrations. When the activists get out ahead of their skis‚ as they did after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack‚ you can count on university presidents to come up with mealy-mouthed calls for free speech to both avoid provoking their allies and to give them cover from outside criticism. Harvard University’s response to the surge in antisemitism has been particularly revealing. Those who run Harvard apparently care so little about the outrage toward antisemitism on their campus that they chose a professor who called Israel a “regime of apartheid” to lead their pointless task force on antisemitism. Jewish history professor Derek Penslar‚ the man leading the task force‚ has called the boycott‚ divestment and sanctions movement a “a reasonable position” and clearly leans into the “settler colonialism” framework to analyze the state of Israel. That’s the level of contempt they have for their critics. They clearly don’t take the congressional investigation seriously‚ either. This all explains why elite universities won’t willingly reform from the inside. The dominant and nearly exclusive worldview that pervades the most elite campuses is what fueled the rise in antisemitism. It’s that simple. The most you can expect without real political and financial pressure is for them to create more meaningless task forces that waste time in an attempt to get donors and the public off their backs. As long as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues‚ there will be rampant‚ unapologetic antisemitism on college campuses. The only thing that will get it to subside from the inside is if the media news cycle changes and they find some other element of Western society to hate and tear down. Higher education in America has been rotting from within for a long time. After Oct. 7‚ that became impossible for all but dedicated leftists to ignore. Have an opinion about this article? To sound off‚ please email letters@DailySignal.com‚ and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. The post Antisemitism on College Campuses Has Shot Up 1‚753% Since Oct. 7. Higher Education Spawned This Culture of Hate. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

You'd think that after the Dylan Mulvaney/Bud Light fiasco‚ brands would pull the brakes on wholeheartedly endorsing the transgender or gender-nonconforming agenda‚ but for many companies‚ this seems to be an unlearnable concept. And now the Moana Bikini company is the latest in a long line of clueless companies engaged...

During a rare public appearance on Tuesday‚ Joe Biden sounded a lot like an election denier‚ but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted that it's all fun and games. "Hello Virginia -- and the real governor‚ Terry McAuliffe‚" Biden shouted as he gestured toward the state's former chief executive...

The longer President Joe Biden and his administration ignore the true severity of the border crisis‚ the uglier it gets. And a recent photo shared in a Facebook post by the US Border Patrol Yuma Sector graphically demonstrates that fact‚ portraying a border agent's wounds after he was assaulted while...