Free Republic

Playing a role in the sudden rise of transgender children may be "transhausen by proxy," a term coined for narcissistic parents who push so-called "gender transitioning" on their children, some experts say. Celebrities are increasingly in the limelight with announcements about their children who come out as transgender or nonbinary. Nonbinary individuals identify as neither male nor female. "Transhausen by proxy" isn't an officially recognized psychological condition. It's a play on an official condition known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP). MSBP is a mental illness that's also sometimes called medical child abuse or factitious disorder imposed on others. It's...

Just in case you're feeling too cheerful, here are ten more statistics to make you consider emigrating to Mars: 1. Paul Bond quotes a poll by the Barna Group: "Nearly 40 Percent of U.S. Gen Zs, 30 Percent of Young Christians Identify as LGBTQ, Poll Shows." (The Gallup Poll shows considerably less SNIP 2. We read in Breitbart that a poll shows that a majority of Americans aged 18-24 say the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians was ‘justified.’ SNIP 3. A friend of mine moved to Arizona years ago to escape New York taxes. Though that state is overly hot...

The number of children lining up for gender-change treatment on the NHS has soared by more than a fifth since the Covid lockdowns, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. According to new meeting minutes uncovered by this newspaper, there are about 5,500 children on the waiting list for treatment at the controversial Tavistock and Portman Trust's Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in London. Senior figures at the NHS trust have expressed fears 'the list had grown substantially during the lockdown' and admitted it was a huge 'preoccupation' for the Board of Trustees. Last night, Stephanie Davies-Arai founder of campaign group...

When it comes to “going on a diet”, there are many well-trodden approaches. The traditional one, usually advocated by official policy makers, is to eat less and move more. This advice is based on the first law of thermodynamics, a law that applies beautifully to internal combustion engines. Not so much human metabolism. Nevertheless, the simplicity of this theory is so intuitively appealing that it has endured, and continues to endure, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It assumes that obesity is a disorder of energy imbalance: when calories-in exceed calories-out, there is an energy surplus that the body...

The other day I was speaking before a group on the topics of homosexuality and transgenderism, and I asked, “How many of you would say the transgender revolution has been going on ten years now? Raise your hands, please.” Would you raise your hand? Almost half of them did. The truth? I gauge it off my book Critical Conversations: A Christian Parents’ Guide to Discussing Homosexuality With Teens, which I sent off to final editing and production right after the Obergefell gay marriage decision in June, 2015. I said almost nothing about the transgenderism it — because the transgender movement...

In a recent article by Marie Claire on how to bring on periods, the author said that the herb is a natural emmenagogue – meaning that it can stimulate or increase menstrual flow. While that is true, there’s a massive difference between sprinkling a bit of parsley over your pasta and shoving a bunch into your vagina. Marie Claire said: “Parsley can help to soften the cervix and level out hormonal imbalances that could be delaying your cycle, helping your period come faster.” “If you’re struggling to find a dish based on parsley, don’t panic – the most effective forms...

It's 2019. We need to stop shaming women who refuse to succumb to stereotypical gender norms-women have every right to embrace their body hair. Gloriously, the first month of the new year has been dubbed "Januhairy," an ongoing celebration on social media encouraging women to grow out and show off their body hair. Now, women are dynamic, radiant, vibrant beings-so, naturally, Januhairy got really colorful. On Instagram, some women are dying their armpit hair in rainbow shades and calling them #UnicornPits. Girls just wanna have fun.

QAnon is a conspiracy theory so far reaching and comprehensive, there is virtually no other conspiracy theory it leaves untouched, from the government hiding the UFOs to JFK Jr. surviving his plane crash. The fact that it envelops so many other theories helps explain why QAnon is the most popular shadow-rule fantasy of our time. ... top Democrats are actually human traffickers and pedophiles, along with some Hollywood stars. Many are also supposedly Satanists and blood-drinkers and drug traffickers, too. This cabal of evildoers is supposedly headed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are secretly planning a coup on...

The idea of ingesting a Tide Pod used to be a little bit funny. For example, when The New York Daily News printed a comment from Senator Chuck Schumer under a rudely ageist headline in September 2012. He had recently been informed that 40 children in New York City had eaten Tide Pods and received medical attention for eating Tide Pods in the preceding five months. And he said, mostly unprovoked, “I saw one on my staffer’s desk and I wanted to eat it.” It’s good in print and it’s better out loud. “I saw one on my staffer’s desk...

On Thanksgiving Day, while America ate its biggest, most famous meal of the year, The Washington Post wrote about something for which everyone ought to be thankful: more millennials are taking up farming. That’s right: For the first time in a long time, a growing number of young Americans are ditching cities and desk jobs to sow seeds and pull weeds. In fact, it’s only the second time in the last century that the number of farmers ages thirty-five and under has increased.

This was the year that brought us Salt Bae, Prosecco-flavoured everything and more vegan options than ever. But while those viral food trends are here to stay, other much weirder fads are bound to be consigned to history. Coffees in cones, cakes that look like raindrops, naturally pink chocolate and cloud eggs were just some of the zany foods that had spells in the spotlight in 2017, according to Twitter. But though they were all the rage on Instagram for a time, it's predicted that these foods certainly won't be on the table in 2018.

“Todd Myers is an eco-mythbuster. He exposes trends among modern environmentalists that are based more on ‘feel-good’ sentimentality than on scientific reality. If you truly care about the environment, then you should read this book.” Alex B. Berezow, Ph.D., Editor of RealClearScience.com Wherever we turn, politicians, businesses and activists are promoting the latest fashionable “green” policy or product. Green buildings, biofuels, electric cars, compact fluorescent lightbulbs and a variety of other technologies are touted as the next key step in protecting the environment and promoting a sustainable future. Increasingly, however, scientific and economic information regarding environmental problems takes a back...

Something that should give would-be education reformers pause but probably won’t: when ephemeral education fads finally come in for much-needed criticism, they have already done their damage. Case in point: the self-esteem courses popular 15-20 years ago. “Raising it in isolation was counter-productive,” Martin West, an associate professor of education at Harvard said at the Brookings Institution on March 31, 2015. West is also a nonresident senior fellow with the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings. He was chairing a panel on “Incorporating noncognitive skills into education policy.” “Education is very faddish and there’s a danger that the fads...

Back in the early 1948, two enterprising Californians formed a small company in one of their garages -ala Steve Jobs- then began to manufacture a powerful slingshot of Ash wood. The weapon was of their own design, demonstrated enthusiastically by the pair, and was utilized by shooting clubs for practice/some kinds of hunting, even for firing meat up to trained falcons in flight... Richard Knerr and Arthur 'Spud' Melin were bored with their jobs upon graduation from USC, so they brewed-up the idea of the slingshot, which was a mild success and set their taste for marketing alight. Legend goes that the 'Wham-O' name was taken from the sound...

Sellotape selfies, aka sellofies, have spread in popularity on Facebook as the latest baffling craze for people with too much time on their hands. Since Bradley Cooper and Ellen Degeneres sent Twitter into meltdown with their Oscars selfie, the world has been subjected to a relentless stream of copycat acts. From Dylan Hartley and the England rugby team to the old dude with two dogs, some efforts have been mildly amusing, while others have just left us thinking WHERE WILL IT ALL END? This latest hybrid is apparently inspired by Jim Carrey film Yes Man, but there is also evidence...

It’s shear madness! Brooklyn’s hipster beard craze has grown so popular that men in New York are rushing to doctors for “facial hair transplants” — surgery that helps make beards look thicker and less patchy, sources said. Stubble-challenged guys are forking over up to $8,500 for the beard-boosting procedure, which has spiked in popularity in recent months, plastic surgeons told The Post. “Brooklyn is probably the nucleus of the trend, it’s the hipster ‘look’ guys want. If you have a spotty beard, and you let it grow out, it looks sloppy, ” said Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, a Midtown-based plastic surgeon....

Would you pay $40 for a doughnut? Sounds nuts, right? A few weeks ago, we reported on the advent on the cronut --which basically is croissant dough fried like a doughnut. That was the first day the pastry was for available for sale publicly, and the first batch sold out in in just 35 minutes.

People: I don't know how to broach this painful topic, but, there is something strange taking place in our country, and, indeed, throughout the entire world. What is that, you ask? It is the far-too-prevalent, far-too-long-lasting fad of men wearing purple neckties -- light purple, lavender, dark purple, solid, striped, or with patterns. Now, let me allow for some exceptions, for those with darker skin (blacks, Hispanics, etc), purple ties have probably always been worn, because, due to color-matching issues, folks with darker skin actually look GOOD wearing purple (not just ties, either). Another obvious exception would be, say, a...

Across the country, cities are joining the latest environmental trend – banning plastic grocery bags. Concerned about the amount of plastic that reaches our oceans and the impact on wildlife, communities have decided that banning the bags is a simple and environmentally responsible approach. But is it? What does the science say? The evidence points to the fact that banning the bags may actually be a net negative for the environment, yielding little benefit to wildlife while significantly increasing carbon emissions and other environmental impacts. Advocates of banning plastic grocery bags often cite impacts on marine life and mammals, but...

The sad truth for ridiculous Web memes is that they have remarkably poor shelf lives. So, farewell planking. Hello, owling. Deciding that striking a "light as a feather, stiff as a board" pose in public, photographing it and posting it on the Web is old news, some Internet denizens have moved on. Now, it's all about squatting, arms pressed toward the ground and eyes locked in a wise, faraway gaze. You know ... like an owl. If it all seems sort of ludicrous, well, that's kind of the point. "Owling is actually more of an indication of how big planking...