The recommendations, released by the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany, come at a time when US politicians erroneously claim that Europe is "pulling back" on transgender care.
I'm old enough to remember when the government had to force certain people to save their children's lives with leukemia treatment. They thought it was unnatural, and that if it was God's will, their child would live. It seems to me that the same superstitious spirit has turned outward, and these same superstitious spirits now want to deny other people's children life-saving healthcare because, in their mind, it's something about God's plan that children shouldn't be given medicine.
Yes, as you say David is so. This is how it’s always been in my experience also. Apparently in this world, we can see nearly anything we look for; including evil, and good.
Of course, this is not entirely out of our control. I’m sure most of us have heard the clichés, such as: Be the change you wish to see; or Be the best that you can be.
So I remind myself (frequently these days), it’s really the easiest thing to do. If any person wishes to see good in the world, all they need do is; “do good” in their world.
It doesn’t always seem so easy, but something as simple as helping a stranger by showing kindness, patience, or understanding. Little things we do can be the difference in a person's day.
We can learn to see ourselves reflected in the smiles we bring others.
Little ripples, that’s what I tell myself. I’m just a little ripple. I might as well make it a ripple of kindness, empathy, and a healthy dose of detachment.
It's nothing really to do about being given medicine. When you look at how the extreme-right in some countries (The Netherlands, UK) has only been starting to cause a scene about endocrine care for trans children after having allowed treatment of trans girls for decades without them even flinching, you see one thing, and one thing only: an intense hate for the bodily autonomy of women and girls.
If you watch this debate closely it comes as no surprise that anti-trans political parties (typically extreme and ultraconservative to sometimes downright fascist-right) who love to shout that they are about protecting women have no trouble attacking the rights of women.
The Netherlands has seen the same parties losing their fucking mind over endocrine care for trans children (again: because the amount of referrals exceeded those of possible trans girls and now pertains to more possible trans boys) and using "the protection of women and children" as an argument there now attacking the right to abortion.
This right, by the way, is not enshrined in the Dutch constitution, but in our Criminal Code, described as "Punishable by law, unless..."
It's the "unless" where doctors come in. And you can probably guess why extreme-right and fascist parties have such a disdain for doctors: they hate knowledge, they hate facts, they hate the truth and science. And doctors stand for most of that.
Anti-trans rhetoric is typically used to massage the public, to convince people who typically are informed very badly about trans healthcare, if at all, that it's completely normal that politicians are now doctors and much better equipped to judge medical care than actual doctors. This lowers the threshold to start banning other forms of care, because people will be normalized to the idea that that is normal for a politician to decide.
The language is the exact same: "OMG We need to protect these emotionally unstable girls who are confused and otherwise make a life-altering, permanent decision!"
Now you can guess if I'm talking about trans boys or the right to abortion...
Extreme- and ultraconservative right politics has a tremendous disdain for personal freedom because it allows people to live in a society that doesn't look like the one they grew up in. It's the result of a misplaced form of nostalgia for a time that never existed, in which women were women (but could be beat up by their man without the man facing any repercussions), men were men (but those suffered a tremendous amount of stress for being the main provider of financial income), children could be children (but could receive a good slapping whenever they misbehaved as in: show to "gay" behavior or, god forbid: put on the clothes of the other sex).
Most of those types of politicians fail the ability to have some introspection into why this changing society scares them so much. That's why they project these fears onto all the people they deem were non-existent when they grew up.
It has nothing to do with children not being given medicine, but with the right to make decisions over your own body. That's why they didn't give a fuck about trans girls EVER.
Thank you Iris for your detailed response. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your perspective. I understand your point about the connection to bodily autonomy and how this issue intersects with broader debates about women's rights.
While I see the connections you have made to other political issues, my core concern remains the same: the danger of allowing fear, superstition, and political ideology to dictate medical decisions. Whether it's denying leukemia treatment or trans healthcare, the result is the same: children are denied potentially life-saving care.
I agree that the language used in these debates is often emotionally manipulative, and it's crucial to remain focused on the facts and the well-being of the individuals involved. Ultimately, medical decisions should be made by qualified professionals, in consultation with patients and their families, not by politicians or those driven by fear and prejudice.
I understand the shift in focus you explained about the trans boys versus trans girls, and appreciate you explaining that. My main point is that medical care should not be denied to anyone based on political or religious bias.
Oh absolutely, I was not trying to negate that viewpoint in any way. I was merely trying to show that as much as these parties like to claim they are about protecting a certain class, they are also hypocrites for similar reasons as you point out.
Extremist-Christian parties are often contradictory: they claim to be superstrict in their religious beliefs, but at the same time make remarks that are ultimately against any form of scripture of the Bible.
It is indeed true that medical care should never ever be the subject of political ideology based on the politician's personal or party conviction or hate of whatever treatment there is available.
The only thing I tried to make clear is that this fear, superstition and ideology typically starts with a much smaller group to massage the public: they should not only allow government to intervene, they should want it. That was the point I was trying to make but didn't bring across very well.
(I've been recovering from a stupidly strong flu and at times, my mind does not cooperate well).
As a resident of western Europe for almost 2 months now, I have to say that this is not surprising, but it is certainly welcome at a time when we're under such fire. Aside from my downstairs neighbor who seems to be losing his mind, everything seems calm and "normal" here. I've not seen or heard a single gun, and I don't even have to worry that the poor guy downstairs might have one. He almost certainly does not. People here know I'm trans, because I tell them. Because I want them to know what is happening to us in the US. And so far, I have received nothing but acceptance.
I"ll add an experience I had in Germany ca. 2009, just after I had come out (and before my wardrobe was very well developed 😏). I was on a train between Eindhoven and Dortmund, and a young woman (only other person in the compartment) asked, in German, if I was transgender. My German at that time was extremely rusty, but she made no effort to use English, so we had a very polite and respectful half-hour conversation as best I could manage; she didn't know the answer to her questions and was genuinely interested. It was one of those moments one doesn't forget.
Then, a year or so later, while waiting for the tram at the Hauptbahnhof in Dresden (yes, near the epicenter of the AfD) I was angrily accosted by a young woman about my gender. I ignored her for a couple of minutes before the tram arrived. She continued with her invective, and a much older man (sixties at least), rather grizzled appearance (as one might stereotypically be suspicious of) just told her to shut up. I smiled and nodded to him, and that was that.
NYC is like this as well. We're not a "gun culture" per se (Health Insurance CEOs notwithstanding), I have my GAC paid for with medicaid, and most of the single-stall bathrooms in business establishments are gender-neutral. Whenever I use women's bathrooms (I'm transfeminine), nobody looks at me funny or fearfully and some even smile. I don't own a car, as I never learned to drive, and I take public transportation everywhere.
What Trumpy is doing to us feels like excising a European City out of an infernal America.
With so many Western countries advocating for trans care, it's going to get harder for America to justify their negative stance. We need the UK to *completely* reject the Cass Review.
Allito, Kavanaugh, and Roberts brought up Cass, certainly a bad sign for their votes.
Thomas said little, but well, he's Thomas.
It comes down to Gorsuch (who voted for trans rights in Bostock) and Barrett (who wasn't on the court for Bostock) and who seemed to be exploring whether transgender people met the criteria for a quasi-suspect class, and seems to acknowledge the prior existence of cross dressing laws (when pointed out by the trans ACLU attorney) was an important factor to consider.
I'm nervous about what's going to happen for sure, but I see some rational reasons for some hope.
I wish these guidelines got way more media coverage! Whenever guidelines or a study condemning gender affirming care comes out, it gets covered in all the big news outlets. But when guidelines and studies recommending it come out, almost no one covers it, certainly not the big news outlets….
This kind of literature is very important to help dispel the lies and misinformation about gender dysphoria, from same sex attraction to transgender changes. Its a long road. I knew an older woman, from Europe who said she had never liked being a girl and still did not like being a woman. But after WW2, she had few options. A German man, after release from American POW camp met her, fell in love, so she married and had 4 children, but it was not what she wanted. Her life may have been different if she had been born in the 21st century in a large city. Continue publishing like this.
when they show you stats that indicate tiny percentages of boomers and genxers are lgbt and try to infer that it’s all social contagion, remember that that absolutely doesn’t follow. greyed-out options and sunk costs is what it is.
This is good news, but the anti-trans efforts in the US have never cared one iota about the scientific data. It’s all about hatred, bigotry, and intolerance.
The same is true for the UK and The Netherlands: We currently have a party that on the 19th of February openly advocated for the torture of trans children to the point that the law should allow the space to drive them towards suicide.
Which in itself is absolutely horrendous as a party to hold as a political motivation, but becomes even worse when you know the remark was made in a debate about actually making it easier to hold the people practicing conversion therapy responsible and prosecute them.
In the debate, the party openly said that it should exclude trans children "because there is a worldwide active debate among scientists and doctors about a shift in what is considered correct treatment, and we should be worried that this law change stops allowing the heavily favored "watchful waiting approach".
Even worse: the person saying this? A former lawyer and public prosecutor...
A different member of the same party received an email from me, asking for a declaration about a very contradictory statement. In their election program they said "We understand the unique challenges that transgenders face in society and think it is adament to support transchildren when they seek medical help where we see a big role layed out for the professionals in helping these children as best they can. Especially now that the amount of girls seeking treatment is on the rise."
I mean, there's already a couple of red flags in there, small ones, but also big ones, from the "transgenders" to the idea that transchildren now do not receive medical support in their decision making to the mention of a rise in **referrals** (and thus, not diagnosis) and misgendering the possible trans boys reflected in those statistics.
Never the less, I asked for a declaration on how to rhyme that party program part with their strong embrace of Hilary Cass as the virulent transhobic heroin they deemed her to be and how calling an outgoing minister of Public Health, Wellbeing and Sports an ideologic bitch (in obviously less direct language, but still) for having the audacity to abide by the science and facts and doctors telling her "The panic these politicians and Cass are spreading is false, this is not happening".
I didn't really get a response, other than being accused of having "an ideological angle of attack in the questions I asked".
Oh, and the person making those remarks and asking the questions in which she made the suggestion the outgoing minister lacks any credibility for abiding by the science? A former doctor holding an active medical license!!!
Great news. Hopefully, it will convince some dems who are thinking of Newsoming us to think twice about the betrayal. Unfortunately, I fear that such evidence these days is only a signal to the radical right that they need to up their misinformation efforts. I'm also sending this to all my one-way pen pals at the NYTERFTimes.
It ought to be more obvious, but at least time is on our side, refusing to deal with trans people as they are doesn't work, GAC as is appropriate does work. I go with what works, and what is just for these individuals.
This is fantastic world news! And I so appreciate that US Fed Judge in Maryland for calling out the Cass Report for what it is (a piece of shit if you ask me).
Now to change the gender marker on my adult daughter's birth certificate (she was born in a very red county in WA State ~ oy!) and to get her a new passport!
fwiw i have indefinitely postponed changing any of my legal documentation because it isn’t worth the risk of having a passport or some other key document stolen by a hostile bureaucracy. i have dual U.S. and German citizenship, and while it’s easy enough to change one’s German ID, it’s pretty much catastrophic to have mismatched passports. i refuse to compromise on the medical side, hrt is critical for me, but the social side isn’t a hill i want to immolate myself on for the moment. people are different, and if her dysphoria is just as bad or worse socially as physically then maybe you forge ahead and just roll with the punches, but want to just point out that nothing is mandatory and it’s ok to pick your battles
It's depressing that this isn't going to get any significant media coverage. But we can be assured that whenever the American version of the Cass Review that Trump ordered drops, there will be media coverage that blots out the sun.
Is there a way we can get an English version to send to all of our representatives and news outlets? Maybe if a lot of people bombard them with copies they will be forced to take notice.
Deutschland und Österreich und Schweiz sind so wunderbar! (pardon my rudimentary German)
It's nice to see them take this stance. I really wish I could move to Europe, but it would be extremely difficult to move both of my partners and me there. Maybe one day it will all work out.
At least good progress is still being made 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 in the world. Back here in the Benighted States, on the other hand, the shifter's stuck in reverse and the yahoos have jammed the gas pedal with a cinderblock.
I'm old enough to remember when the government had to force certain people to save their children's lives with leukemia treatment. They thought it was unnatural, and that if it was God's will, their child would live. It seems to me that the same superstitious spirit has turned outward, and these same superstitious spirits now want to deny other people's children life-saving healthcare because, in their mind, it's something about God's plan that children shouldn't be given medicine.
There has been so much evil, and still is, propagated and performed by humans. Humane treatment, loving care for other humans, is so slow in coming.
Yes, as you say David is so. This is how it’s always been in my experience also. Apparently in this world, we can see nearly anything we look for; including evil, and good.
Of course, this is not entirely out of our control. I’m sure most of us have heard the clichés, such as: Be the change you wish to see; or Be the best that you can be.
So I remind myself (frequently these days), it’s really the easiest thing to do. If any person wishes to see good in the world, all they need do is; “do good” in their world.
It doesn’t always seem so easy, but something as simple as helping a stranger by showing kindness, patience, or understanding. Little things we do can be the difference in a person's day.
We can learn to see ourselves reflected in the smiles we bring others.
Little ripples, that’s what I tell myself. I’m just a little ripple. I might as well make it a ripple of kindness, empathy, and a healthy dose of detachment.
Paying it forward creating outward ripples. 💜
It's nothing really to do about being given medicine. When you look at how the extreme-right in some countries (The Netherlands, UK) has only been starting to cause a scene about endocrine care for trans children after having allowed treatment of trans girls for decades without them even flinching, you see one thing, and one thing only: an intense hate for the bodily autonomy of women and girls.
If you watch this debate closely it comes as no surprise that anti-trans political parties (typically extreme and ultraconservative to sometimes downright fascist-right) who love to shout that they are about protecting women have no trouble attacking the rights of women.
The Netherlands has seen the same parties losing their fucking mind over endocrine care for trans children (again: because the amount of referrals exceeded those of possible trans girls and now pertains to more possible trans boys) and using "the protection of women and children" as an argument there now attacking the right to abortion.
This right, by the way, is not enshrined in the Dutch constitution, but in our Criminal Code, described as "Punishable by law, unless..."
It's the "unless" where doctors come in. And you can probably guess why extreme-right and fascist parties have such a disdain for doctors: they hate knowledge, they hate facts, they hate the truth and science. And doctors stand for most of that.
Anti-trans rhetoric is typically used to massage the public, to convince people who typically are informed very badly about trans healthcare, if at all, that it's completely normal that politicians are now doctors and much better equipped to judge medical care than actual doctors. This lowers the threshold to start banning other forms of care, because people will be normalized to the idea that that is normal for a politician to decide.
The language is the exact same: "OMG We need to protect these emotionally unstable girls who are confused and otherwise make a life-altering, permanent decision!"
Now you can guess if I'm talking about trans boys or the right to abortion...
Extreme- and ultraconservative right politics has a tremendous disdain for personal freedom because it allows people to live in a society that doesn't look like the one they grew up in. It's the result of a misplaced form of nostalgia for a time that never existed, in which women were women (but could be beat up by their man without the man facing any repercussions), men were men (but those suffered a tremendous amount of stress for being the main provider of financial income), children could be children (but could receive a good slapping whenever they misbehaved as in: show to "gay" behavior or, god forbid: put on the clothes of the other sex).
Most of those types of politicians fail the ability to have some introspection into why this changing society scares them so much. That's why they project these fears onto all the people they deem were non-existent when they grew up.
It has nothing to do with children not being given medicine, but with the right to make decisions over your own body. That's why they didn't give a fuck about trans girls EVER.
Thank you Iris for your detailed response. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your perspective. I understand your point about the connection to bodily autonomy and how this issue intersects with broader debates about women's rights.
While I see the connections you have made to other political issues, my core concern remains the same: the danger of allowing fear, superstition, and political ideology to dictate medical decisions. Whether it's denying leukemia treatment or trans healthcare, the result is the same: children are denied potentially life-saving care.
I agree that the language used in these debates is often emotionally manipulative, and it's crucial to remain focused on the facts and the well-being of the individuals involved. Ultimately, medical decisions should be made by qualified professionals, in consultation with patients and their families, not by politicians or those driven by fear and prejudice.
I understand the shift in focus you explained about the trans boys versus trans girls, and appreciate you explaining that. My main point is that medical care should not be denied to anyone based on political or religious bias.
Oh absolutely, I was not trying to negate that viewpoint in any way. I was merely trying to show that as much as these parties like to claim they are about protecting a certain class, they are also hypocrites for similar reasons as you point out.
Extremist-Christian parties are often contradictory: they claim to be superstrict in their religious beliefs, but at the same time make remarks that are ultimately against any form of scripture of the Bible.
It is indeed true that medical care should never ever be the subject of political ideology based on the politician's personal or party conviction or hate of whatever treatment there is available.
The only thing I tried to make clear is that this fear, superstition and ideology typically starts with a much smaller group to massage the public: they should not only allow government to intervene, they should want it. That was the point I was trying to make but didn't bring across very well.
(I've been recovering from a stupidly strong flu and at times, my mind does not cooperate well).
A fascinating perspective. Thank you for such a clear note.
As a resident of western Europe for almost 2 months now, I have to say that this is not surprising, but it is certainly welcome at a time when we're under such fire. Aside from my downstairs neighbor who seems to be losing his mind, everything seems calm and "normal" here. I've not seen or heard a single gun, and I don't even have to worry that the poor guy downstairs might have one. He almost certainly does not. People here know I'm trans, because I tell them. Because I want them to know what is happening to us in the US. And so far, I have received nothing but acceptance.
I"ll add an experience I had in Germany ca. 2009, just after I had come out (and before my wardrobe was very well developed 😏). I was on a train between Eindhoven and Dortmund, and a young woman (only other person in the compartment) asked, in German, if I was transgender. My German at that time was extremely rusty, but she made no effort to use English, so we had a very polite and respectful half-hour conversation as best I could manage; she didn't know the answer to her questions and was genuinely interested. It was one of those moments one doesn't forget.
Then, a year or so later, while waiting for the tram at the Hauptbahnhof in Dresden (yes, near the epicenter of the AfD) I was angrily accosted by a young woman about my gender. I ignored her for a couple of minutes before the tram arrived. She continued with her invective, and a much older man (sixties at least), rather grizzled appearance (as one might stereotypically be suspicious of) just told her to shut up. I smiled and nodded to him, and that was that.
Yeah, there are admittedly parts of even western Europe I wouldn't visit. Glad that the grizzled guy stood up for you! :-)
He represented a classic strain of his culture - mind your own business. :) That was the only negative experience I ever had there.
God bless you and peace to us all.
NYC is like this as well. We're not a "gun culture" per se (Health Insurance CEOs notwithstanding), I have my GAC paid for with medicaid, and most of the single-stall bathrooms in business establishments are gender-neutral. Whenever I use women's bathrooms (I'm transfeminine), nobody looks at me funny or fearfully and some even smile. I don't own a car, as I never learned to drive, and I take public transportation everywhere.
What Trumpy is doing to us feels like excising a European City out of an infernal America.
With so many Western countries advocating for trans care, it's going to get harder for America to justify their negative stance. We need the UK to *completely* reject the Cass Review.
"just last week, a U.S. judge deemed the Cass Review unworthy of consideration in federal court."
And I hope the SCOTUS agrees as to the worth of it.
Me too, but in their hearing on the upcoming Tennessee case, SCOTUS signalled their embrace of Cass. Well, the fascist ones did.
Allito, Kavanaugh, and Roberts brought up Cass, certainly a bad sign for their votes.
Thomas said little, but well, he's Thomas.
It comes down to Gorsuch (who voted for trans rights in Bostock) and Barrett (who wasn't on the court for Bostock) and who seemed to be exploring whether transgender people met the criteria for a quasi-suspect class, and seems to acknowledge the prior existence of cross dressing laws (when pointed out by the trans ACLU attorney) was an important factor to consider.
I'm nervous about what's going to happen for sure, but I see some rational reasons for some hope.
I wish these guidelines got way more media coverage! Whenever guidelines or a study condemning gender affirming care comes out, it gets covered in all the big news outlets. But when guidelines and studies recommending it come out, almost no one covers it, certainly not the big news outlets….
This kind of literature is very important to help dispel the lies and misinformation about gender dysphoria, from same sex attraction to transgender changes. Its a long road. I knew an older woman, from Europe who said she had never liked being a girl and still did not like being a woman. But after WW2, she had few options. A German man, after release from American POW camp met her, fell in love, so she married and had 4 children, but it was not what she wanted. Her life may have been different if she had been born in the 21st century in a large city. Continue publishing like this.
when they show you stats that indicate tiny percentages of boomers and genxers are lgbt and try to infer that it’s all social contagion, remember that that absolutely doesn’t follow. greyed-out options and sunk costs is what it is.
This is good news, but the anti-trans efforts in the US have never cared one iota about the scientific data. It’s all about hatred, bigotry, and intolerance.
The same is true for the UK and The Netherlands: We currently have a party that on the 19th of February openly advocated for the torture of trans children to the point that the law should allow the space to drive them towards suicide.
Which in itself is absolutely horrendous as a party to hold as a political motivation, but becomes even worse when you know the remark was made in a debate about actually making it easier to hold the people practicing conversion therapy responsible and prosecute them.
In the debate, the party openly said that it should exclude trans children "because there is a worldwide active debate among scientists and doctors about a shift in what is considered correct treatment, and we should be worried that this law change stops allowing the heavily favored "watchful waiting approach".
Even worse: the person saying this? A former lawyer and public prosecutor...
A different member of the same party received an email from me, asking for a declaration about a very contradictory statement. In their election program they said "We understand the unique challenges that transgenders face in society and think it is adament to support transchildren when they seek medical help where we see a big role layed out for the professionals in helping these children as best they can. Especially now that the amount of girls seeking treatment is on the rise."
I mean, there's already a couple of red flags in there, small ones, but also big ones, from the "transgenders" to the idea that transchildren now do not receive medical support in their decision making to the mention of a rise in **referrals** (and thus, not diagnosis) and misgendering the possible trans boys reflected in those statistics.
Never the less, I asked for a declaration on how to rhyme that party program part with their strong embrace of Hilary Cass as the virulent transhobic heroin they deemed her to be and how calling an outgoing minister of Public Health, Wellbeing and Sports an ideologic bitch (in obviously less direct language, but still) for having the audacity to abide by the science and facts and doctors telling her "The panic these politicians and Cass are spreading is false, this is not happening".
I didn't really get a response, other than being accused of having "an ideological angle of attack in the questions I asked".
Oh, and the person making those remarks and asking the questions in which she made the suggestion the outgoing minister lacks any credibility for abiding by the science? A former doctor holding an active medical license!!!
Taking away an argument is still helpful though.
Great news. Hopefully, it will convince some dems who are thinking of Newsoming us to think twice about the betrayal. Unfortunately, I fear that such evidence these days is only a signal to the radical right that they need to up their misinformation efforts. I'm also sending this to all my one-way pen pals at the NYTERFTimes.
One way pen pals! Amazing, thank you for that work.
well-written and important to show what the scientific community says about transgender issues. people need the truth and support
It ought to be more obvious, but at least time is on our side, refusing to deal with trans people as they are doesn't work, GAC as is appropriate does work. I go with what works, and what is just for these individuals.
This is fantastic world news! And I so appreciate that US Fed Judge in Maryland for calling out the Cass Report for what it is (a piece of shit if you ask me).
Now to change the gender marker on my adult daughter's birth certificate (she was born in a very red county in WA State ~ oy!) and to get her a new passport!
fwiw i have indefinitely postponed changing any of my legal documentation because it isn’t worth the risk of having a passport or some other key document stolen by a hostile bureaucracy. i have dual U.S. and German citizenship, and while it’s easy enough to change one’s German ID, it’s pretty much catastrophic to have mismatched passports. i refuse to compromise on the medical side, hrt is critical for me, but the social side isn’t a hill i want to immolate myself on for the moment. people are different, and if her dysphoria is just as bad or worse socially as physically then maybe you forge ahead and just roll with the punches, but want to just point out that nothing is mandatory and it’s ok to pick your battles
It's depressing that this isn't going to get any significant media coverage. But we can be assured that whenever the American version of the Cass Review that Trump ordered drops, there will be media coverage that blots out the sun.
I expect you're right and it's so disgusting.
Is there a way we can get an English version to send to all of our representatives and news outlets? Maybe if a lot of people bombard them with copies they will be forced to take notice.
Nice to see real information get out there!
Deutschland und Österreich und Schweiz sind so wunderbar! (pardon my rudimentary German)
It's nice to see them take this stance. I really wish I could move to Europe, but it would be extremely difficult to move both of my partners and me there. Maybe one day it will all work out.
Thank you for the article as always!
At least good progress is still being made 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 in the world. Back here in the Benighted States, on the other hand, the shifter's stuck in reverse and the yahoos have jammed the gas pedal with a cinderblock.