“We were dancing around the lab” – cellular identity discovery has potential to impact cancer treatments

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

 

IMAGE: “POLYCOMB BODIES”: ILLUSTRATION OF THE RESULTS OF GLANCY, WANG ET AL. (2023) MOLECULAR CELL. BLUE PRC2.1 AND PRC2.2 PROTEIN COMPLEXES TARGET DNA IN DIFFERENT WAYS, THROUGH CG-RICH SEQUENCES OR UBIQUITIN-MODIFIED HISTONES, RESPECTIVELY. THEY CATALYZE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF THE RED H3K27ME3 REPRESSIVE MARK. THEY RECRUIT DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE GREEN PRC1 COMPLEXES, CHARACTERIZED BY THE PRESENCE OF THE CBX2/4 OR CBX7 PROTEINS. PRC1 COMPLEXES PROMOTE CONTACTS BETWEEN YELLOW NUCLEOSOMES TO MEDIATE GENE REPRESSION. ARTWORK BY ELLEN TUCK. view more 

CREDIT: ELLEN TUCK, TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

A team of scientists led by those in Trinity College Dublin has discovered new mechanisms involved in establishing cellular identity, a process that ensures the billions of different cells in our bodies do the correct job. This new discovery in stem cells – a result so surprising that the team initially believed it to be an error in the lab – has potential translational impacts in cancer biology and associated targeted treatments.

The research focuses on the workings of Polycomb protein complexes, PRC1 and PRC2, which are studied by Professor Adrian Bracken and his team, based in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology. PhD student, Ellen Tuck, describes these proteins as “strict librarians” inside cells. “PRC1 and PRC2 block access to certain areas of the genetic library, such that a neuron cell won’t have access to muscle genes, and it doesn’t get confused in its cellular identity.” 

A puzzle regarding PRC2 has intrigued the Bracken lab and other scientists in the field for years: two forms (PRC2.1 and PRC2.2) exist in the cell but the Bracken lab previously showed that the two forms of PRC2 target the same regions of DNA and do the same job. So why do we need two versions? 

The new discovery from the lab takes an exciting step towards answering this conundrum, as the team found that PRC2.1 and PRC2.2 recruit different forms of the PRC1 complex to DNA, thereby finally explaining why two versions are needed. 

“This took us by complete surprise. We initially thought there must have been a technical issue with the experiment, but multiple replications confirmed that we had in fact stumbled upon a fascinating new process that reshapes our understanding of the hierarchical workflow of Polycomb complexes. We were dancing around the lab,” said Dr Eleanor Glancy, recalling the evening the team finally realised what the data were telling them.

Successful PhD graduate of the Bracken lab, Dr Eleanor Glancy, together with Postdoctoral researcher, Dr Cheng Wang, spearheaded the work, with important collaborative support from scientists in Italy and the Netherlands. The team has published the work today in leading journal, Molecular Cell.

This research by Trinity scientists represents a massive contribution to the field of chromatin and epigenetics research and has further impact in cancer biology research as the genes encoding Polycomb proteins are frequently mutated in cancers. 

Professor Bracken said: “My team currently studies the effects of these mutations in childhood brain cancers and adult lymphomas, seeking to understand what biological mechanisms go awry and how we can target these complexes with more effective treatments. A firm and comprehensive understanding of the workings of these complexes is critical to figuring out new ways to target them in cancer settings. Therefore, this work led by Dr Glancy and Dr Wang in my lab will be built upon here and by other researchers worldwide to advance our approach to many cancers.”

The team worked through the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, social distancing measures, failed hypotheses, failed experiments and tight deadlines, maintaining belief and determination, to ultimately make a significant advance in our biological knowledge.

More information about the Bracken lab and their research can be found on their website.

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JOURNAL

Molecular Cell

Bill Gates Says High-Voltage Power Lines Will Save America. He's Right.

Story by Darren Orf • Today

Bill Gates wants to build more high-voltage power lines. It’s the best way to support high electricity demand, he says. But there's a big problem.© Artur Nichiporenko - Getty Images

Bill Gates is advocating for building more high-voltage power lines.

It’s the best way to support a 40 to 60 percent increase in electricity demand, he says.

Building transmission lines, however, is easier said than done.

Building a green energy future isn’t as simple as plopping down wind and solar farms (though that is certainly a start). You also need batteries to store that energy, especially when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, and transmission lines to get that energy from point A to point B.

Advancements in those first two categories are progressing nicely. Wind and solar projects continue to rapidly replace dirty energy sources, and many companies are developing storage systems, whether gravity or iron-air batteries, to make sure that energy is ready and available. But transmission lines continue to be a looming issue, and it’s a problem one of the richest men in the world wants to solve.

Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates has his hands in nearly all aspects of the green energy future. He’s actively developing nuclear reactors to replace CO2-spewing coal-fired power plants and he’s investing in next-gen energy storage solutions—now he’s turning his gaze to the problem of transmission lines. After all, you can generate and store all the energy you want. But if you have no way to transmit it to people’s homes or businesses, then it doesn’t do much good.

“Since the beginning of the electric grid, power companies have placed most power plants close to cities,” Gates writes on his blog called GatesNotes. “That model doesn’t work with solar and wind, because many of the best places to generate lots of electricity are far away from urban centers.”

Gates goes one to explain that if the U.S. wants to reach its net-zero carbon emissions goal in 2050, the country is going to need an upgraded energy grid that can handle the estimated 40 to 60 percent increase in electricity demand because of the proliferation of electric vehicles, electric stoves, and other electric-powered appliances and infrastructure. This means building more high-voltage power lines, especially where the wind blows (the midwest) and the sun shines (the southwest), and making them longer as well so they can reach dense population centers.

Gates isn’t the first person to realize America’s dire situation when it comes to transmission lines. By one estimate, the U.S. needs to triple its current transmission capacity if it hopes to be carbon neutral in 30 years.

Gates notes in his blog that transmission infrastructure is largely a policy problem (planning, paying, and permitting) and that innovation has its place, whether designing dynamic line ratings or power flow controls.

However, building transmission lines is an absolute minefield of challenges that has stifled its expansion for decades. In 2021, researchers analyzed the strong opposition to transmission line infrastructure and discovered it was a diverse mix of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) resistance, safety concerns, and also confrontation with “wilderness preservation, alternative land use, strong property rights sentiment, and treaty rights for Indigenous … territories.”

Gates doesn’t outline exactly how he’ll help tackle this transmission line shortfall (though his organization Breakthrough Energy has funded efforts to update the power grid), but it’s clear he’s gearing up for the fight:

“Climate change is the hardest problem humanity has ever faced, but I believe we have the human ingenuity to solve it. And if you care about climate change, you should care about transmission.”

Progressives tout string of wins across US as template for Democrats

Story by Joan E Greve in Washington • Today

 The Guardian

Progressives in the midwest had three reasons to celebrate on Tuesday. In Wisconsin, the liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz delivered a resounding victory in the state supreme court race, flipping control of the court for the first time in 15 years. In Chicago, the progressive mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson prevailed over Paul Vallas, a more conservative Democrat who ran on a tough-on-crime message. And in St Louis, progressives won a majority of seats on the board of aldermen, the lawmaking body for the city.


Photograph: Paul Beaty/AP

Related: Liberal judge’s Wisconsin supreme court race win shows a shake-up in US politics

As they took their victory lap, progressives made clear that they viewed the wins as merely the beginning of a broader trend in America’s elections.

“It’s a multicultural, multi-generational movement that has literally captured the imagination of not just the city of Chicago but the rest of the world,” Johnson said in his victory speech. “Let’s take this bold progressive movement around these United States of America.”

Several lessons can be learned from Tuesday’s results, progressive leaders say. They hope their victories send a message to Democratic party leaders about the enduring resonance of abortion access, the popularity of progressives’ message and the importance of long-term grassroots organizing. The wins also come at a vital moment for progressives, who have criticized Joe Biden’s recent move toward the political center on issues such as energy and crime.

“We’re building a project all across this country, and that project is ascendant,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families party. “It’s both a culmination of years of organizing, and it’s a validation of the popular appeal of that project.”

Abortion as ‘a winning issue for Democrats’

Reproductive rights appeared to weigh heavily on the minds of Wisconsin voters as they went to the polls on Tuesday. Wisconsin has an abortion ban dating back to 1849 on the books, and anti-abortion advocates have argued that the policy should be enforced following the US supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade last summer.

The question of enforcing the 1849 ban is expected to soon come before the state supreme court, and the policy seems likely to be thrown out following Protasiewicz’s win.

“We think that there’s a very great chance now that we’ll be able to get this ban off the books and restore access to folks in Wisconsin,” said Ryan Stitzlein, senior national political director of the reproductive rights group Naral. “This is life-changing for folks.”

Protasiewicz made the end of Roe a central focus of her campaign, emphasizing her personal support for legal abortion access and attacking her opponent, conservative Dan Kelly, over his past work for the anti-abortion group Wisconsin Right to Life.



Janet Protasiewicz reacts while speaking at her election night watch party in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday. Photograph: Mike De Sisti/AP© Provided by The Guardian

“I don’t think you can overstate the importance of abortion in this race. Judge Janet led with her support for reproductive freedom,” Stitzlein said.

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Protasiewicz defeated Kelly by 11 points. The result was extraordinary for the battleground state of Wisconsin, which Biden won by less than one point in 2020. Four years earlier, Donald Trump carried the state with 47.2% of the vote compared with Hillary Clinton’s 46.5%.

To Stitzlein, Protasiewicz’s decisive win should dispel any lingering questions over whether abortion access continues to resonate with voters nearly a year after Roe was overturned. Before the 2022 elections, some Democratic strategists suggested abortion would not sufficiently move the needle with midterm voters, but progressive activists firmly rejected that reasoning.

“I actually feel strongly that the longer these bans are in place, the more energy and more anger that’s going to be out there because there’s going to be more people that are affected by it,” Stitzlein said. “This is a winning issue for Democrats, for folks that support abortion access because support for abortion access is not partisan, as was demonstrated on Tuesday.”

‘Not an overnight coalition’

For progressive organizers in Chicago and St Louis, the victories on Tuesday were years in the making.

When Johnson turned his attention to the mayoral race in Chicago, he drew crucial support from his longtime progressive allies. He received hefty assistance from the Chicago Teachers Union, where he has worked for the past 10 years as the organization pushed for progressive reform. And when Johnson ran for the Cook county board of commissioners in 2018, he received an endorsement from the United Working Families, an affiliate of the Working Families party.

“Brandon is not an overnight sensation; the coalition that he built is not an overnight coalition,” Mitchell said. “This was a coalition that had been measured and patient and consistent over years, slowly aggregating the power to be able to seize the victory on Tuesday.”

A similar story unfolded in St Louis on Tuesday. The progressive mayor, Tishaura Jones, and the board of aldermen president, Megan Green, endorsed a slate of candidates who were able to flip three seats on the board. Green, who became board president last year, served as a convention delegate for Bernie Sanders during his 2016 presidential campaign.

“It’s something that’s seven, eight years in the making,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution. “We’re seeing the fruit of organizing over multiple election cycles.”

Our Revolution made 100,000 phone calls and sent 130,000 texts to supporters in St Louis as part of its organizing efforts there, and the group contacted each of its 90,000 Chicago members an average of three times in connection to the mayoral race. The victory in Chicago was particularly meaningful for progressive groups like Our Revolution given that Johnson was outspent nearly two to one on television advertising.

“The fact that we were able to out-organize big money with people power, I think, is significant because that usually does not happen,” Geevarghese said. “I think it really speaks to the growing sophistication of the progressive movement as a political force.”

‘Another existential election’ on the horizon

As Democrats look ahead to 2024, when they will attempt to maintain control of the White House and the Senate while flipping control of the House, progressives say there are some important takeaways to learn from Tuesday’s results.

“There’s something poetic about the victories in Chicago and Wisconsin taking place because there is a through line there,” he said, “both around what people want – which is responsive government, which is an expansion of their freedoms – and also what the opposition was saying.”

Mitchell saw “fearmongering” being deployed as a weapon in both Wisconsin and Chicago, particularly around the issue of crime. Vallas, Johnson’s opponent in the mayoral race, received the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police and pledged to “make Chicago the safest city in America”, as he attacked Johnson over his past support for the defund the police movement. In the end, Johnson won the race thanks in part to the support of voters living on the city’s South and West sides, which report some of the highest levels of violent crime.

Geevarghese argued that Johnson’s win should prompt some reflection for prominent Democrats, including Biden, who seem fearful of attacks over being “soft on crime”. Progressives expressed dismay last month after Biden signed a Republican bill overturning recent changes to the criminal code of Washington DC.

“We were able to talk about a broader vision of community safety, which is having good schools, which is having investment in mental health, which is making sure there’s good jobs,” Geevarghese said of Johnson’s win.

Even before the 2024 elections, progressives will have additional opportunities to demonstrate the effectiveness of their message. Philadelphia will hold its mayoral race in November, and every state legislative seat in Virginia will also be up for grabs this fall. Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, has called for a 15-week abortion ban.

“I think 2024 is an opportunity for us to learn from this coalition that we built and hopefully replicate it in other places, in other states,” Mitchell said. “We’re going to be faced with another existential election on the federal level in not too much time.”

Opinion: Wisconsin sends an undeniable warning to the GOP

Opinion by James Wigderson •


In every tale of the Faustian bargain, there is the moment when the devil collects his payment. For former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, that moment came when he lost the election that would have put him back on the court and preserved a 4-3 conservative majority.

Inside "the most important election" of 2023
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Opinion: Wisconsin sends an undeniable warning to the GOP

© Provided by CNN  James Wigderson

Instead, Kelly lost to Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz by over 10% in Tuesday’s election to fill a vacancy on the state’s highest court that will be left by the impending retirement of conservative Justice Patience “Pat” Roggensack.

By Wisconsin standards, it was a blowout. It’s the first time liberals will have a majority on the state Supreme Court since 2008.

On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump offered his explanation for why Kelly lost.

“Daniel Kelly of Wisconsin just lost his Supreme Court Election,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “He bragged that he won’t seek Trump’s Endorsement, so I didn’t give it — which guaranteed his loss. How foolish is a man that doesn’t seek an Endorsement that would have won him the Election?”

Just sign here in blood and you will get everything your heart desires.

However, this was Kelly’s second loss since April 2020. Trump failed to mention that Kelly lost his seat on the court three years ago — with an endorsement from Trump. While Kelly may have tried a different tactic this time around, he has been irrevocably associated with Trump, having advised the Republican Party of Wisconsin on the 2020 election, including the decision to have fake Republican electors meet secretly in the state Capitol to falsely claim Wisconsin voted for Trump.

Kelly also harshly criticized fellow conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn for occasionally siding with the liberals on the court on issues such as the state’s pandemic response, redistricting and even blocking Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a 4-3 decision backed by Hagedorn and the three current liberals on the court.

Then Kelly toured the state for the Republican Party, speaking on “election integrity” at events closed to the press.

If being close to Trump would help a statewide candidate in Wisconsin, Kelly would have easily won. Instead, Protasiewicz used part of her fundraising advantage to attack Kelly for his ties to Trump and the Republican Party.

At stake in Tuesday’s election was more than a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. As Protasiewicz made clear during her campaign, the election was a referendum on the state’s 1849 abortion ban and the lines of the legislative districts redrawn after the last census to lock in Republican majorities in the state legislature.

Following the Democratic Party playbook since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Protasiewicz hammered Kelly on the airwaves over his endorsements from the state’s pro-life organizations while telling voters that she personally supported a woman’s right to an abortion.

The Protasiewicz campaign strategy worked. Her victory continued an electoral trend in Wisconsin, with the continued erosion of support for Republican candidates in the suburban counties surrounding Milwaukee in the age of Trump.

If Republicans are going to reverse their fortunes in these suburban counties, they’re going to have to settle the abortion issue. According to the Marquette University Law School poll, the majority of independent voters remains consistently opposed to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe. Those independent voters, especially women, are now pulling the lever for the Democrats.

But Republicans are also going to have to end the blood contract with Trump. The trend of Republicans losing suburban votes began before Roe v. Wade was overturned. As recently as 2012, the Republican margins of victory in presidential elections in the three counties to the north and west of Milwaukee County were 40.1% in Washington County, 34.5% in Waukesha County and 30.3% in Ozaukee County, according to Craig Gilbert in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. By 2020, those margins of victory had dropped to 38.1% in Washington County, 20.9% in Waukesha County and just 12% in Ozaukee County.

Those three counties, collectively known as the WOW counties, once provided enough votes for Republican statewide candidates to offset the Democrats’ advantage in Milwaukee County.

But since the appearance of Trump in 2016, the Republican advantage has been evaporating. Ozaukee County, Milwaukee County’s northern neighbor along the lakefront, is now almost evenly split with Kelly winning just 52% of the vote, down 11% from what the last successful conservative Supreme Court justice received in that county in 2019.

Kelly even lost the city of Waukesha (49.7%), my hometown, which the conservative Hagedorn won with 60.6% of the vote in 2019.

In 2022, businessman Tim Michels ran for governor after seeking Trump’s endorsement and even agreeing with the former president that the election was stolen. Michels lost by 3.3%.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin just managed to squeak out an election victory in 2022 with a 1% margin over a very weak Democratic opponent after attempting to minimize what happened on January 6 and criticizing any investigation of Trump. (Johnson may have been saved by his new position on abortion, calling for limits to be decided in a statewide referendum.)

As long as the Trump drama continues and he continues to lead the race for the Republican nomination for president, Wisconsin’s suburban voters will continue to punish the state Republican Party’s candidates with ties to the former president. The Republican Party of Wisconsin may well regret hosting the national convention in 2024 if Trump is the nominee again.

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How the parental rights movement resurged in response to trans inclusivity in classrooms

Story by Jenna Benchetrit • CBC



House Republicans passed an education bill last month emphasizing parents' rights in the classroom, marking Congress's foray into an increasingly powerful U.S. movement that seeks to expand parent oversight of how gender and race are taught in public schools.

Though the bill is unlikely to pass in a Democrat-controlled Senate, parental rights has emerged as a top issue for Republicans ahead of the 2024 elections, with a tidal wave of legislation having been passed or introduced in two dozen states this year alone.

Critics say the innocuous-sounding term is being weaponized to usher in laws that target trans youth and their families, a strategy with a long history in the U.S. public education system.

"This movement is not taking all parents into consideration," said Debi Jackson, the parent of a trans child and trans rights activist in Kansas City, Mo.

Jackson's 15-year-old child came out as transgender when they were four. Jackson pulled them out of public school after their social transition, which included changing their pronouns, was met with hostility by other parents.

"My right is to have my child be accepted," said Jackson. "My right is for your child to learn about my child and to not think my child is a mistake, or is less than, or should not be treated with respect."

While the parental rights lobby has become a force in U.S. politics, recent school board elections in this country show that a similar movement is burgeoning in Canada.

A wave of legislation

The Republican Party's latest efforts to make parental rights a legislative lodestar began in 2020, when COVID-19 had children learning from home with parents looking over their shoulders.

"There was a lot of grievance around education — as a result of the pandemic, as a result of school closures and mask mandates and vaccine mandates," said Jack Schneider, an education historian and a professor at University of Massachusetts Lowell.



Florida governor Ron DeSantis signs the Parental Rights in Education bill at Classical Preparatory school, March 28, 2022 in Shady Hills, Fla. The controversial bill is otherwise known as the 'Don't Say Gay' law.

© Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/The Associated Press

Those complaints intensified in 2021, during heated school board meetings where parents had disagreements about book bans and critical race theory, an academic framework based on the idea that racism is inherently embedded into American society, including its institutions, laws and public policy.

Politicians took note. Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin cruised to victory on the issue of parental rights alone during his 2021 gubernatorial campaign; Florida governor Ron Desantis — expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 — has made parental rights a core item on his agenda.



Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, then a Republican gubernatorial candidate, speaks during a parents rally on Oct. 13, 2021 in Culpeper, Virginia.

© Alex Wong/Getty Images

Last year, 85 parental rights bills were introduced in 26 states, according to FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank that tracks U.S. education legislation. Four months into this year, that number stands at 62 bills in 24 states.

Many of them focus on gender and sexuality. States like Texas, Iowa and Kentucky, for example, have all introduced or passed bills sharing provisions that would limit or outright ban instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools at all grade levels.

Parental rights groups like Moms for Liberty — a self-styled grassroots political action committee with close ties to the Republican Party — have reportedly funded legions of anti-trans school board trustees across the country.

Other groups, like Parents Defending Education, are actively tracking school districts that allow personnel to keep a child's gender identity hidden from parents.

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"The kind of spectre of parental rights often emerges in relationshipto expanding conversations about sexuality and gender in schools," said Jen Gilbert, an associate professor at York University in Toronto.

Gilbert, who researches LGBTQ issues in education, said that parental rights isn't so much about parents as a group as it is a "conservative strategy to limit the scope of conversations that schools might have with young people about sex and gender."

Other provisions that impact trans students vary across the bills. The Texas bill mandates schools to notify parents of a child's changed gender identity within 24 hours, should a teacher or administrator be made privy to that information.


Alison Croop stands outside the North Carolina Senate Rules Committee room after the committee voted on HB755, the 'Parents' Bill of Rights,' at the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C., on May 31, 2022.© Ethan Hyman/The News & Observer/The Associated Press

Some of the bills block other gender-affirming policies, forbidding school staff from addressing trans students by their preferred pronouns, or barring trans students from using the bathroom of their choice.

LGBTQ organizations, teachers unions and parents groups have criticized the federal and state legislation, some saying that the laws force schools to "out" trans students to their parents and to the wider school community, potentially making them vulnerable to abuse.

The bill would have "devastating consequences for LGBTQ students and their ability to learn in safe, affirming classroom environments all across the country," Casey Pick, the director of law and policy at LGBTQ youth organization The Trevor Project, wrote in a statement.

A long history of parental rights

Schools "are, symbolically and literally, places where the future is being made," said the historian Schneider, which is why they have long functioned as a battleground for culture wars in the U.S.

The fact that most parents don't walk into their child's school on an ordinary day presents "this really ripe opportunity for a kind of cynical politics that would position schools as sites of indoctrination," he added.

The U.S. has a long history of parental rights going back as far as the early 20th century's progressive education movement. During the first and second Red Scare, and again during the 1970s, concerns about communist influence and homosexuality in schools were hot button issues.

"It's no coincidence that schools were used as a way of trying to frighten people, because schools then, as now, are one of the most pervasive institutions, the widest-reaching kind of organization we have in the United States and Canada," said Schneider.

Former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, whose administration launched a massive reform of the country's public education system, invoked parents' rights in a 1983 speech about communism and morality in schools.

A contemporary version of the parental rights movement emerged in 1993, when a New York City school executive introduced a "rainbow curriculum" that included children's books with gay characters, such as Heather Has Two Mommies. Parents angered by the lesson plan organized city-wide protests that led to the executive's firing.

A few years later, Colorado proposed that a parental rights amendment be added to the state constitution. A New York Times article about the legislation called parental rights "the hot new issue of the religious right for the late 1990s."

Canadian movement will be 'a lot bigger' in 10 years


Recent skirmishes at Canadian school boards 'point to the ways … in which conservative parents see themselves as a political lobby and are using the platform of parental rights,' said Jen Gilbert, an associate professor at York University.

© Paolo du Buono/Twitter

The movement isn't confined to our neighbours down south.

"We think of it as a U.S. thing, but if you go back to the controversies about sex education during [2014 to 2018] in Ontario, it was very much framed as a problem with parental rights," said Gilbert, of York University.

Recent skirmishes at Canadian school boards "point to the ways … in which conservative parents see themselves as a political lobby and are using the platform of parental rights."

Several Canadian parental rights organizations have emerged in recent years. Action4Canada, a COVID-19 conspiracy group, did not respond to a request for comment. Blueprint For Canada, which opposes gender-inclusive sex education, declined a phone interview with CBC News.

Canada's parental rights movement will be "a lot bigger 10 years from now," said Marc Vella, the president and founder of ParentsVoice B.C., a parental rights political party that ran 28 trustee candidates in the province's fall school board elections.

Some candidates who ran under its banner opposed the province's sexual orientation gender identity (SOGI) policies, which the province says foster inclusivity towards LGBTQ students.

"I think a lot of people feel like all the social justice-related stuff in schools has gone too far," he said, later adding, "Are we doing that at a detriment to all the regular, kind of, what I think of as the basics of education?"

LGBTQ parents and parents of trans youth are forgotten by that framing of parental rights, said Gilbert. The latter group is especially affected by the current wave of legislation in the United States.

"You're really trampling on the rights of those young people's parents to take care of their children in the way that they see fit," she said. "Somehow, their rights to care for their children don't count."

Three trans girls playing sports is an emergency for Kansas Republicans

Opinion by Arwa Mahdawi

TODAY
THE GUARDIAN

Photograph: John Hanna/AP© Provided by The Guardian
We’re in Kansas now, Toto, show us your genitals

According to the Kansas State High School Activities Association, about 106,000 students participate in the organization’s sports and activities. Guess how many of those students are transgender girls? Three. That’s right, just three.

Three transgender girls enjoying sports is apparently an emergency for Kansas Republicans. For the last few years they’ve been trying to pass a bill that would ban transgender girls and women from participating in female sports at public schools and colleges. The Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, vetoed the bill but, on Wednesday, the Republican-dominated Kansas legislature finally got enough votes to override the veto. Not only are transgender students now restricted from participating in school sports, parents can sue if they think their daughter didn’t make a team because a transgender girl took their place.

(The focus of the bill is very much on transgender girls and doesn’t say much about trans boys.)

Republicans excel at passing deliberately vague bills, whose main purpose is seemingly to terrorize minorities rather than lay out clear law. This bill is no exception: it is very short and doesn’t say how they would determine whether someone is trans. This has led some people to provide their own interpretations.

“Kansas Republicans have successfully overridden the Governor veto to now authorize genital inspections of children in order for kids to play sports,” a viral tweet claimed. While that tweet got thousands of likes it should be noted that the bill doesn’t say anything explicit about genital inspections. However, it’s certainly not a gigantic leap to think something like this might be implemented. A 2021 version of the bill contained language stating that a dispute regarding a student’s sex might be resolved by a “health examination”. Further, during a House meeting in February, state representative Barbara Wasinger, who introduced the legislation, was asked how it would be enforced and answered that it would be via a “sports physical”. Does this mean a “genital inspection”, a Democrat asked. Wasinger said she couldn’t recall. I don’t know about you, but if I introduced legislation that would have a massive impact on people’s lives, I’d try and recall a few details about it.

Kansas isn’t the only state trying to block trans girls’ participation in sports. More than 14 states have passed bills targeting trans people in sports. And, of course, it’s not just sports that are being targeted. Republicans want to stop trans people existing in public at all. At least 452 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the US since the start of this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), with a large number of these targeting trans people.\

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4:20


When it comes to trans people playing sports, the people pushing anti-trans legislation dress up their bigotry in the language of women’s rights. The Kansas bill is predictably and disingenuously called “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act”. Let’s be very clear here: banning trans girls from playing sports at school has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with malice. In 2021 the Associated Press contacted two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring bills that would ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams in public high schools. In almost every case the sponsors couldn’t cite any examples in their state where trans participation in sport had caused a problem.

It’s perfectly reasonable to have a good faith discussion about whether transgender women who have gone through male puberty might retain an unfair advantage in professional women’s sports. It’s a complex subject and many experts believe regulations should be made on a sport-by-sport basis. But that’s professional sport. School sports are meant to be about inclusivity and team work and having fun. Laws like the one in Kansas aren’t being made because of a scientific consensus, they’re not being made because of ‘fairness’–they’re being made to hurt and humiliate young trans people. And these laws, I can’t stress enough, will not just affect trans people: they’ll impact everyone who doesn’t conform to rigid gender stereotypes. Indeed, cisgender women who don’t present in a ‘feminine’ way are already being harassed in public bathrooms because of anti-trans hysteria. There is no clear line between trans rights and women’s rights and gay rights: Republicans are coming for all of us.

‘I got a brain injury and a life sentence’: the hidden legacy of male violence against women

“The connection between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global scandal and a public health secret,” the Guardian reports. For the first time, however, a UK study is under way to investigate the long-term brain health of women abused by their partners.

‘Forever chemicals’ linked to infertility in women, study shows

Unless you subsist on foraged berries and thrice-filtered spring water chances are you’re ingesting tons of “forever chemicals”, or PFAs. They’ve been found in 99% of the people in the US. The first known study on the effect of PFAs on female fertility has found that women with higher levels of these chemicals in their blood have a 40% lower chance of becoming pregnant within a year of trying to conceive.

Women now dominate the book business

“Once upon a time, women authored less than 10% of the new books published in the US each year,” NPR reports. “They now publish more than 50% of them … [and] the average female author sells more books than the average male author. In all this, the book market is an outlier when compared to many other creative realms, which continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by men.”

The week in pawtriarchy

A bunch of researchers recently performed magic tricks for monkeys in the name of scientific discovery. It turns out that monkeys were more likely to be tricked if they had opposable thumbs. “It’s about the embodiment of knowledge,” one of the scientists explained. “How one’s fingers and thumbs move helps to shape the way we think, and the assumptions we make about the world.” Basically the monkey has to be capable of doing the action in the trick to fall for it. Totally bananas.

“Alarming” rate of girls quit sport due to clothing concerns, shows hockey star’s new study already revolutionizing rules

Leading international hockey star’s study has already changed the face of her sport, as English league team players no longer required to wear skirts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

 

VIDEO: ENGLAND HOCKEY STAR TESS HOWARD, WHO LED THE RESEARCH view more 

CREDIT: TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

Sports kit issues shown to be the most underrated cause of low female sport participation. And the solution is simple: choice

New research showing gendered school sport uniform plays a “major role” in high drop-out rates of teenage girls in sport, has already broken boundaries to help remove rigid policies meaning skirts no longer need to be worn in women’s English domestic hockey matches.

Published today in the peer-reviewed journal Sport, Education and Society, the study, which looked at a range of women across the UK aged 18 and over, found 70 percent reported incidents of girls dropping sport at school due to clothing and related body image concerns.

The research was led by England Hockey star, Tess Howard whose strike secured the country’s first-ever Commonwealth Games gold medal, in a 2-1 win against Australia, last summer.

The 24-year-old’s study was carried out whilst she was studying human geography at Durham University. Her early promotion of her dissertation paper within hockey (known as field hockey in the US) circles has already led to new inclusive playing kit regulations being launched at the start of England Hockey’s domestic league 2022/23.

Now, Tess – a forward for East Grinstead Hockey Club – is balancing her playing career with becoming a sports activist. She is on a mission to change the face of hockey internationally, enabling choice for athletes to wear shorts or skorts. Long term, she aims to tackle the issue of gendered uniform across all sport.

“It’s all about choice; choice is being rigorously inclusive,” states Tess, who also stars for Great Britain but cruelly missed out on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics due to an anterior cruciate ligament injury.

“My dream is to go to the Olympics, but my dream is also an Olympics with the option to wear shorts or skorts. That is a powerful statement of inclusion, belonging and evolution in women’s sport.

“No person should be put off participating in any sport based purely on what the uniform requires them to wear. We must put the purpose of sport first and enable individuals to enjoy being active for all the clear benefits.

“If people want to wear shorts or leggings playing basketball or tennis or gymnastics it does not matter.

“The findings I discovered, in terms of the number of girls this is putting off sport, is truly alarming. It's the most underrated cause of low female sport numbers.”

Tess, who is now studying for a master’s at the London School of Economics, adds: “The legacy of gendered and sexualized uniforms is historic, dating back to Victorian times when women and girls in sport had to find ways to emphasize their femininity to be accepted in a masculine world – whether through playing tennis, cricket and hockey in long skirts or sexualization of beach volleyball and gymnastics uniforms. The legacy still exists.

“My research shows it taints a view of women’s sport from a very young age, and it puts focus on what girls’ bodies look like, rather than what they can do on the sports field or in the gym.

“Women’s sport is on the rise – we are so proud of our successful female sporting teams; but think of all the girls we have lost to kit problems. It’s not a girl-issue, it’s systemic in society and it’s a simple fix: choice.”

Historic data shows the gender play gap starts at age 5.
By age 14 only 10% of girls meet physical activity health standards.

Tess wanted to uncover – outside of society norms, social media and class – ‘what are the main barriers?’

Her hypothesis was school sport uniform impacts female sporting experiences and participation in physical activity. She wanted to uncover, too, how a uniform policy could be changed to promote greater female sport participation.

To uncover more, she carried out an extensive analytical online survey, promoted through social media, which 404 women across the UK completed. This was followed-up by eight interviews with a selection of those who had most recently left school.

The findings demonstrate participation and enjoyment of sport was severely impacted by uniform. In total, three-quarters of survey respondents replied ‘often’, ‘many’ and ‘sometimes’, when asked if participants ever saw girls stop playing sport because of sports kit or body image concerns.

But also, the results of the paper showed:

• many women felt sexualized by what they are being forced to wear in sport, contributing to the internalization of the unattainable ‘feminine body ideal’.
• gendered uniforms “influence the development of a fear of ‘masculinization’ and ‘butch/lesbian’ perceptions in sport, and signal the ways uniform can contribute to harmful athletic-feminine identity tensions in teenage girls”.
• gender-split uniforms create behavioral gender role stereotypes, and “undoing cis-normative clothing practices could foster a more inclusive space for all”, especially gender diverse students.
• creating choice is also about supporting physical sporting performance  

Quotes taken from respondents of the study further highlight the issue.

“My friends with larger breasts tended to stop playing sports due to the style of our tops,” said one respondent.

Another said: “From Year 7-9, girls in my PE classes felt uncomfortable in the fit of some kit and their self-confidence decreased in kit if they perceived to not have the ‘ideal female body’.”

Further, another respondent explained: “‘I felt watched when playing sports with boys and felt uncomfortable wearing clothes that showed off my figure.”

Following early results of the study, Tess was able to use her influence within the sport to make a positive change, but she is determined to not stop there.

She is now launching Inclusive Sportswear CIC, a community-interest company specializing in the development of rigorously inclusive sportswear policies and guidance for schools, clubs, sport organizations and brands.
Inclusive Sportswear CIC, and its partnerships with Youth Sport Trust and Sporting Equals, will be launched on the 3rd May at the Include Summit in Manchester, the UK's No.1 Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Summit For Sport.

Tess explains: “I continually ask myself: If not now, when? If not us, who? That is what drives me.

“The momentum has been building, now we must connect sports clothing to inclusion and participation in sport.

“But it’s so much more than that: this connects to a greater global movement for individual choice over how we clothe and treat our bodies.”

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JOURNAL

Sport Education and Society

DOI

10.1080/13573322.2023.2189232 

ARTICLE TITLE

Practical, Professional or Patriarchal? An investigation into the socio-cultural impacts of gendered school sports uniform and the role uniform plays in shaping female experiences of school sport.

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Apr-2023

US Researchers find comprehensive sex education reduces homophobia, transphobia

Findings from a study of High School FLASH, an LGBTQIA+ inclusive evidence-based sex education curriculum

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DFUSION (UNITED STATES)

 

IMAGE: STUDENTS IN SEX ED CLASS view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: DFUSION INC.

Can a school-based sexual health education program that effectively reduces the risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs also decrease homophobia and transphobia?

That question drove a collaborative effort by researchers conducting a randomized controlled trial of an inclusive comprehensive sex education program – High School FLASH. The study evaluated not just the impact on students’ sexual behaviors and related outcomes but also on their homophobic and transphobic beliefs (Coyle et al., 2021). With funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, researchers evaluated High School FLASH in 20 schools in two U.S. regions (Midwest and South). Study findings related to the curriculum’s impact on homophobic and transphobic beliefs are described in this new 2023 article in Prevention Science (Kesler et al. 2023).

The issues.  Young LGBTQ students often endure homophobic and transphobic language at school, experiencing victimization and discrimination based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. These students can experience both negative academic consequences (e.g., lower grades, absenteeism, disconnection from school communities) as well as mental health consequences, including depression, anxiety, and lowered self-esteem.

Schools have a critical role to play in combatting discrimination and transphobic violence for LGBTQ students and improving their academic, health and well-being. Along with anti-bullying policies and sponsoring GSA organizations, schools can contribute to safe and affirming environments for all by offering inclusive curricula. Research has shown that LGBTQ students who received inclusive sexual health curricula experienced lower levels of victimization, increased feelings of safety at school, fewer safety-related school absences, better academic performance, and increased feelings of connection to peers.

Inclusivity goal and challenges.  Even sexual health curricula that claim to be inclusive do not always affirm all young people’s identities and orientations.  Some of the issues identified by LGBTQ youth as contributing to the lack of positive representation in their health curricula include: silences on the part of the teacher or the curriculum about LGBTQ issues/individuals, heterosexist framing of the information presented, and the ongoing pathologizing of LGBTQ individuals or specific sexual practices.

BA Laris, one of the study’s authors, notes that “there is really little to no guidance on how to make a curriculum inclusive.” She observes that quick fixes aren’t the answer. “People will often say ‘just add LGBTQ characters’ or ‘make names gender neutral in scenarios’, but that is not enough and there is no systematic guidance on how to do it.”

Enter the FLASH program strategy. FLASH uses a very systematic process to imbue the whole curriculum to be inclusive. In addition to creating a lesson focusing specifically on sexual orientation and gender identity, all of the FLASH lessons:

• Provide visibility, depicting young people with a variety of sexual orientations and genders and in diverse contexts (e.g., sexually active, abstinent, partnered, single)
• Normalize a wide range of identities
• Portray LGBTQ young people in a variety of situations, including caring, satisfying, healthy relationships
• Use a nuanced approach to inclusive language, striking a strategic balance between broad inclusion (e.g., the use of neutral language such as “partner” that allows a single sentence or concept to be relevant to a large group) and visibility of specific identities (using specific language such as “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”)
• Ensure relevance of content to all. For example, the birth control lesson in High School FLASH starts with the statement “this lesson is for everybody—people who are having vaginal sex now or who will in the future, and teens of all sexual orientations and genders. Even if someone won’t ever need birth control, learning about it now will help them act as health educators for their friends and families on this important topic. Additional inclusivity strategies included in the development of FLASH: a) instructing teachers to use a specially designed protocol to affirm identities in class discussions, when answering questions, along all domains of identity (e.g., sexual orientation, gender, ability, religion, race, ethnicity); b) testing of all curricular messaging with a diverse group of young people, with LGBTQ youth purposefully overrepresented; c) content adjustments according to feedback and re-testing until acceptability was reached; and d) multiple piloting efforts of lessons in public school classrooms to gauge understandability.

Did it work? In the study, 20 schools drawn from 7 districts in two regions of the South and Midwest were randomly assigned to receive FLASH or a comparison curriculum. A total of 1597 9th and 10th grade students took part in the baseline survey (831 intervention and 766 comparison), representing 92% of the students who had positive parent consent and were eligible for the primary study. Students completed follow-up surveys 3 and 12 months after the instructional period. Researchers examined changes in homophobic beliefs among straight cisgender young people versus those who identified as not straight or cisgender. FLASH’s positive impact on reducing homophobic and transphobic beliefs was statistically significant for both straight and cisgender youth at both 3- and 12-month follow up timepoints (p<0.01, n=1144 and p+0.05, n+1078, respectively.) For a full study description, see Coyle et al (2021).

As Laris emphasizes, “what this study showed is that the process is effective because all students (both LGBTQ participants and straight and cisgender participants) decreased their homophobic beliefs.” This has different and important implications for each group. A reduction in homophobic and transphobic beliefs among LGBTQ students signals an improvement in how one feels about themselves (a decrease in internalized homophobia and transphobia). The reduction in homophobic and transphobic beliefs among straight and cisgender students reflects an improvement in how one perceives LGBTQ peers, potentially leading to a reduction in harassment and an improved school climate.

The encouraging take-away here? FLASH is the first evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention program to date to report findings showing it reduces prejudice against people who are LGBTQ.

________________________________________________________

Research team/authors and affiliations:

Kai Kesler and Andrea Gerber (Public Health—Seattle and King County, Seattle WA)

BA Laris (dfusion Inc, Scotts Valley CA) www.dfusioninc.com

Pamela Anderson and Karin Coyle (ETR, Scotts Valley, CA) www.etr.com

Elizabeth Baumler (University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston, Galveston TX)

Citations:

Kesler, K., Gerber, A., Laris, B. et al. High School FLASH Sexual Health Education Curriculum: LGBTQ Inclusivity Strategies Reduce Homophobia and Transphobia. Prev Sci (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-023-01517-1.

Coyle, K., Anderson, P., Laris, B. A., Barrett, M., Unti, T., & Baumler, E. (2021). A group randomized trial evaluating high school FLASH, a comprehensive sexual health curriculum. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(4), 686–695. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.12.005

 

  NEWS RELEASE 7-APR-2023

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JOURNAL

Prevention Science

DOI

10.1007/s11121-023-01517-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

High School FLASH Sexual Health Education Curriculum: LGBTQ Inclusivity Strategies Reduce Homophobia and Transphobia