Free Republic

Whenever a shooting event, like the murder-suicide at UCLA, gains national notoriety, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over “our” alleged failure to deal adequately with issues of “mental health.” Tragically, it is the rarest of figures who dares to challenge this consensus. But challenge it we must, for as innocuous as the term sounds, “mental health” is fraught with philosophically problematic assumptions and implications. First, the sole reason for concluding that, say, Mainak Sarkar, the UCLA gunman, is “mentally ill” is that he became a murderer. Yet this in turn logically implies that anyone who murders is...

Move over, Caitlyn Jenner. RadarOnline.com has learned that Richard Simmons is the latest Hollywood star to secretly undergo a sex change! The National ENQUIRER broke the explosive news today with a jaw-dropping cover story that features never-before-seen photos of Simmons living as his female identity, Fiona. The incredible pictures of Simmons, 67, with flowing brunette locks and womanly curves are photoshop-free. And a friend of the exercise guru insisted, “[This is] not just Richard Simmons in drag. This is Richard dressed as a softly spoken woman named Fiona!”

The Malleus Maleficarum is a 15th century text which instructed Inquisitors in the proper methods of identifying, trying and executing witches. Many years ago, renowned psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) used the example of the Malleus to write: "In the days of the Malleus, if the physician could find no evidence of natural illness, he was expected to find evidence of witchcraft.” “Today,” continued Szasz, “…if he cannot diagnose organic illness, he is expected to diagnose mental illness." Szasz was joined by other psychiatrists and educators in believing that the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V” (DSM 5) published...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Charlotte resident Janice Allison refuses to abide by the bathroom principles laid out in North Carolina’s House Bill 2. A military veteran and transgender woman herself, she made her stance on the law clear at last week’s Charlotte City Council meeting. HB2 overturned a non-discrimination local ordinance passed by the Charlotte City Council to expand protections to the LGBT community, including a clause to allow people to choose the bathroom or locker room of their gender identification. Allison was born a man, but identifies as a woman. To make a statement, she took a photo of...

LONDON — Amid discussion about transgender accommodations, and following reports of men in the U.K. who live as dogs in their private lives as a means of escapism, another story has emerged—this time about a man in London who took a “holiday from being human” to live as a goat. Thomas Thwaites, 35, details his research project to live as a goat in the Swiss Alps in his book “GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human,” which was released on May 17. “The dazzling success of The Toaster Project, including TV appearances and an international book tour, leaves...

Thomas Beatie's eyes filled with tears as he watched his beautiful bride Amber walk down the aisle just behind his beaming seven-year-old daughter Susan, scattering rose petals. His sons Austin and Jensen, dressed identically in little black suits and striped ties, stood nearby nervously checking the wedding bands in their care. To the casual observer, 42-year-old Beatie and 46-year-old Nichols looked like any other couple tying the knot. Yet Thomas was no ordinary groom - in 2008 he made headlines as the world's first pregnant man. Beatie was born female but started hormone treatment at 23 to become a man....

People with the condition are known to have any of a number of delusions that range from believing they have no organs, blood or body parts to insisting they are actually dead even though they are very much still breathing. In even more rare cases of what is also known as walking corpse syndrome, people with the condition consider themselves immortal. Although walking corpse syndrome is considered extremely rare, its exact prevalence is unknown. One Hong Kong study involving 349 psychogeriatric patients suggests the condition afflicts about 0.57 percent of the population. Another study conducted in Mexico in 2010, which...

It’s a classic case of fearing the wrong thing Real danger is to transgendered population insidiously presented as a threat We are works in progress, often defying fixed categorization

A Delaware transgender woman says she was harassed and told to leave a Gloucester County McDonald’s after she used the women's restroom. Misty Hill, 42, of Wilmington, Delaware, told NBC10 she was using the women’s restroom at a McDonald’s in Paulsboro, New Jersey Wednesday around 4:30 p.m. Hill, who says she transitioned and has been living as a woman for a little over a year, told NBC10 she was wearing cargo pants and didn’t have any makeup on when she used the restroom. Read more: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Transgender-Woman-McDonalds-Bathroom-Paulsboro-New-Jersey--380907081.html#ixzz49n7kKiyo Follow us: @nbcphiladelphia on Twitter | NBCPhiladelphia on Facebook

The Baker act, also known as the Florida Mental Health Act of 1971, Florida Statute 394.451-394.47891 or commonly known as the Baker Act. A draconian and unjust law that allows the involuntary institutionalization and examination of an individual for any reason at all. The Baker Act allows for involuntary examination (what some call emergency or involuntary commitment). It can be initiated by judges, law enforcement officials, physicians, or mental health professionals. There must be evidence that the person possibly has a mental illness or is a harm to self, harm to others or self neglectful. Truthfully these standards are...

“It hasn’t been easy for Caitlyn, it’s been very hard,” Ian Halperin recalls one source telling him Caitlyn Jenner, who announced her transition from man to woman last year, has considered de-transitioning, the author of a new book about the Kardashian family told TheWrap on Wednesday. Ian Halperin, the author of “Kardashian Dynasty: The Controversial Rise of America’s Royal Family,” said that, while researching his book, multiple sources told him that the former Olympian had been miserable for months and has considered transitioning back to a man. “One source confirmed to me Caitlyn has made whispers of ‘sex change regret,’...

A Muslim terrorist stabbed four people at a train station near Munich while screaming, “Allahu Akbar”. In between proclaiming the glory of Allah, he also shouted that his victims were all “unbelievers”. A woman heard him say, “Infidel, you must die”. The German authorities came to the inescapable conclusion that the attack had nothing to do with Islam. Instead the Muslim terrorist had been “mentally ill” and was probably not even fit to stand trial. The Koran wasn’t to blame. It was the fault of his psychological problems. This isn’t surprising. It’s a well known fact that there is no...

Ted Cruz isn’t giving up. While Donald Trump dispatches three advisers to Texas’s convention in Dallas this week and makes a pitch for party unity, his team will be running up against a Cruz operation that is still maneuvering to stuff the state’s delegation with allies the senator could call on to snub the presumptive nominee. “We have a busy weekend planned,” said a source familiar with the Cruz campaign’s plans. Cruz is scheduled to deliver an address at the Texas convention after a week of hinting he could jump back into the presidential contest and urging activists to thwart...

After reading this article, you will have officially “heard everything.” Yes, a man really has petitioned a court to issue a restraining order against God because of how unkindly He has been treating him.The Times of Israel is reporting on the story of a man who petitioned the Haifa Magistrate’s Court to issue a restraining order against God because He had been treating in a particularly unkind way.The man argued that “over a three-year period God, had exhibited a seriously negative attitude toward him, although details of just what divine mischief he had borne the brunt of were not mentioned...

Frustrated commuters are familiar with the deep voice of Scott Eck, who reports from the skies in the WBZ NewsRadio 1030 helicopter, describing traffic snarls during rush hour every weekday morning and afternoon. On Wednesday morning, the 45-year-old reporter signed off using a new name: Kristen Eck. Eck’s gender transition may have surprised listeners, but it wasn’t news to family and friends. Eck picked out her new name two years ago and began the process of transitioning a year ago, and now she’s telling the world who she really is. “All of it’s been difficult: Hiding it, feeling ashamed, not...

With Indiana primary voters headed to the polls in less than 24 hours, Ted Cruz said he will "absolutely" have a path to victory even if he loses the next GOP presidential nominating contest. "We intend to do absolutely everything possible to win tomorrow. It's gonna be up to the people of Indiana," Cruz told ABC News while campaigning in Osceola, Indiana. "The polls have been all over the place. There has literally been a 30-point swing depending on what poll you are looking at. We are neck-and-neck right now in the state of Indiana."

When retail giant Target announced their new policy of allowing anyone to use whichever bathroom they wish in their stores it was completely predictable that a firestorm was going to follow… and boy howdy, has it ever. While the SJW crowd cheered the decision, realists around the country signaled their collective displeasure with a boycott of the store spearheaded by The American Family Association. In a relatively short time, more than one million people had signed on to the protest. (Fox News) More than one million people have decided they will no longer buy their Nutter Butters or Wet...

For the past month, a media narrative has taken hold that something must be done to reform, simplify, streamline, and democratize the delegate selection system of the Republican presidential nomination process. Is our GOP presidential primary system rigged, meaning it is corrupt because it favors the establishment? Is it convoluted, arbitrary, arcane...and too often "voteless"? Is it wrong to allow "Trojan horse" delegates to change their vote on the second ballot of the national convention? Why do we have a separate election for delegates after we vote for candidates? The system is not rigged, convoluted, arbitrary, arcane, or voteless. It...

As I have made the stroll from my wife’s hospital room to the NICU these past few days it has been hard to fathom the way that our family has been put together. This past Sunday, my gorgeous wife – a white evangelical, like me — gave birth to our beautiful African-American triplet daughters whom we adopted as embryos. These sweet girls will hopefully soon be coming home to meet their 3-year-old African-American brother and 2-year-old biracial sister, both of whom we adopted as infants. The normalcy of this paragraph is something I have come to take for granted. Yet...

After getting a thorough shellacking in New York, Ted Cruz faces an almost equally bleak battlespace in the upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Delaware. Cruz’s strategy seems to be to concede the latter three states to Donald Trump and fight it out in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The former state elects mainly unpledged delegates, so Cruz will use his organizational wizardry to woo most of them to his corner. In Maryland, the senator from Texas will try to get some delegates on the congressional district level.