Free Republic

As I learned through my painful experience, ‘gender affirming treatment’ is medical fraud and malpractice.This April marks 40 years since my therapist told me a “sex change” was the only answer to my persistent mental difficulties. Unfortunately, I followed his advice, obtained cross-sex hormones, and underwent surgery. As I learned through my painful experience, “gender-affirming treatment” (GAT), also known as “gender-affirming care,” is medical fraud and malpractice.A person’s sex cannot be changed. I know. I lived and identified as a woman for eight years. Hormones and surgery didn’t change my sex. I was a man before surgery, and I remained...

A South Carolina Republican congressman is not backing down from critics after he pulled out his own personal — and loaded — .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun during a meeting with constituents Friday. U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill, told The Post and Courier he pulled out the weapon and placed it on a table for several minutes in attempt to make a point that guns are only dangerous in the hands of criminals. "I'm not going to be a Gabby Giffords," Norman said afterward, referring to the former Arizona Democratic congresswoman who was shot outside a Tucson-area grocery store...

It’s not hard to get your hands on illegal guns and rifles in America. It took me about two hours. I called a guy from the old neighborhood in LA, said something about a “piece”, and, hours later, I was staring at an AK-47 and an illegally modified AR-15, which were sitting on a kitchen table. Welcome to America. Admittedly, he was surprised at my interest in being strapped since it’s been a good minute since I was about the life, but when I explained I was simply curious to see how long it’d take for me to get a...

NEW YORK (CNN Money)-- The head of Barilla pasta issued a new apology and said he will meet with gay groups, adding he "has much to learn" about the evolution of the family. Guido Barilla, president of Barilla, said on an Italian radio program last week that he wouldn't feature same-sex couples in his company's commercials because he prefers the "traditional" family. The company quickly issued a statement apologizing for the comment. Now Barilla has posted a video of him apologizing in English on its Facebook page. "Through my entire life I have always respected every person I've met, including...

HANOI (AFX) - The government here and the US have reached an agreement in principle that should enable Vietnam to join the WTO, staterun news media reported at the weekend. The state-owned Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said Hanoi had 'technically concluded the 12th round of negotiation with the US' on WTO accession Saturday after a week of 'intense discussions'. But the VNA report also said: 'Several issues remain unsolved'. The Tuoi Tre daily newspaper quoted Minister of Trade Truong Dinh Tuyen as saying: 'The talks reached agreements in principle.' He reportedly added: 'The official signing will take place in the...

White House threatens Buy American veto WASHINGTON, May 11 (UPI) -- The White House Thursday threatened to veto the House versions of the 2007 defense authorization bill. The White House took the action because of a series of "buy American" provisions. The White House contends that the prohibition on purchasing foreign goods for the U.S. military will cause "irreparable damage" to U.S. efforts to build alliances and coalitions. One of the prohibitions bars procurement from any entity that has exported or transferred certain items linked to the U.S. Munitions List to the People's Republic of China. The White House argues...

WATSONVILLE — The city's food-processing industry has wilted to a shadow of its former self. Only a trio of independent food-processing and cold-storage businesses remains. Ray Rodriguez, 59, owner of Farmers Processing & Cold Storage, a Castroville native and son of field workers, is one. Del Mar Food Products Corp. and BirdsEye are the others. There was a time when the city was so overrun with the likes of Rodriguez that it was nicknamed the "Frozen Food Capital of the World." That was the 1930s and '40s, well before the North American Free Trade Agreement appeared in the early 1990s,...

It is often overlooked that George Orwell’s Animal Farm predicted not only the horrors of communism but also the end of the Cold War. At the end of the fable, the farmer, who symbolizes the capitalist West, returns to the farm and plays cards with the pigs, who symbolize communism. The shivering creatures outside, symbolizing ordinary people, “looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” We normally think of the end of the Cold War as having marked the unambiguous victory of...

Dig backs biblical account of Philistine city of GatLast update - 02:53 09/08/2005 By Amiram BarkatThe moat running around Gat that was to enforce the siege. David Bachar New evidence regarding the bitter end of Gat, the largest and most important Philistine city, was recently unearthed at a dig at Tel Zafit near the Masmia intersection in the Lachish region. According to Kings II (12:18), Gat was conquered by King Hazael of Aram. He intended to capture Jerusalem as well, but King Jehoash of Judah saved the capital while losing treasure taken from the Temple (Kings II 14:14). Findings at...

MUMBAI: The annual cap for H-1B visas will now be 65,000. This is a sharp drop from the earlier limit of 195,000 visas. The US plans to enforce this rule from October 1, 2003. The Indian IT industry has been lobbying hard to freeze H-1B visa limits at current levels. However, these efforts which had the support of some US corporations to retain H-1B visa limits have failed. (Will Europe be the next big hunting ground for Indian IT pros?) Indian IT professionals are among the largest users of H-1B visas, as US Big Tech shops big from this technical...