"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"

Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

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Showing posts with label PTSD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PTSD. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

The Hamas War > Casualties from Oct 7th massacre still counting by dozens of suicides

 

Nearly 50 attendees of Israel’s Nova festival died by suicide

since Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, survivor says

Nearly 50 traumatized revelers who survived the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival in Israel have died by suicide in the last six months because they were unable to cope with the tragedy, a survivor revealed Tuesday.

“Few people know, but there have been almost 50 suicides among the Nova survivors. This number, which was true two months ago, may have increased since,” Nova festival survivor Guy Ben Shimon told a parliamentary hearing for a State Audit Commission on the treatment of the Oct. 7 survivors.

He said many of his friends who escaped the massacre could not recover from what they had witnessedI24NEWS reported.

Guy Ben Shimon
Guy Ben Shimon spoke at the parliamentary hearing for a State Audit Commission on the treatment of the Oct. 7 survivors.
The Knesset Channel

“There are many survivors who had to be forcibly hospitalized due to their psychological state. My friends are not getting out of bed, neither am I,” he said in Hebrew.

"I am practically unable to do anything. I had to get a dog to help me survive in my daily life. The goal for all of us is to return to work and function normally, but we cannot do it without adequate help,” Ben Shimon added.

People visit the site of the Nova festival, six months after the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Reim, southern Israel, April 7, 2024.
People visit the site of the Nova festival, six months after the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Reim, southern Israel, April 7, 2024.
REUTERS

The hearing focused on alleged failures by state entities toward the survivors of the Hamas attack on the Jewish state.

Complaints have been made about a variety of difficulties, mostly bureaucratic, that the survivors faced in getting their post-traumatic stress disorder recognized and treated, according to the outlet.

“Why should I constantly prove what I experienced? Why am I forced to go back to the details of what I experienced for them to believe me?” another survivor, Naama Eitan, told the hearing.

“I participated in a study that monitored my pulse and other parameters and revealed how bad my health is. I sleep on average two hours a night. Each morning at 7 o’clock, I relive the moments when I was hidden in the bushes with terrorists passing by me. I can no longer move on my own, I need to be constantly accompanied,” she said.

The Israeli Ministry of Health said it does not have information to corroborate the claim about the suicides.

During the attack, 364 people were slaughtered at the Nova Music Festival in the Negev desert. Some 600,000 Israelis have been waiting for psychological support since Oc. 7, i24NEWS reported, citing recent studies.

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.



Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Military Madness > Former Marine Goes Nuts - Kills 4; UK's New Tanks Can't Fire on the Move and Are Making Soldiers Lose Hearing

..
Caution: Disturbing details in this story.

Former marine surrenders to police after killing four,

including baby in his mother’s arms

5 Sep, 2021 22:14

A photo provided by the Polk County Sheriff's Department shows a burned-out truck in front of the property where a gunman killed four people and wounded an 11-year-old girl near Lakeland, Florida. ©  Polk County Sheriff's Department


A self-described “survivalist” who was “totally outfitted” in body armor allegedly shot and killed four people, including a baby, near Lakeland, Florida, before surrendering after a shootout with sheriff’s deputies.

The murders occurred around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, and the victims included a man, two women and a baby boy who died in his mother’s arms, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told reporters. An 11-year-old girl also was shot multiple times but was expected to survive after being rushed to surgery.

I will never be able to unsee that mother laying there with her dead infant in her arms.


The shooter was identified as Bryan Riley, 33, a former Marine Corps sharp-shooter who had tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He surrendered after being wounded in a gun battle with deputies. Riley told deputies after his arrest that he was on methamphetamine, and he tried to wrestle a gun away from a Lakeland police officer while being treated at a hospital for his gunshot wound.

The suspect is a resident of Brandon, Florida – near Tampa – and is employed as a bodyguard. He also told deputies that his victims “begged for their lives, and I killed them anyway,” according to Judd. The sheriff called Riley “evil in the flesh, a rabid animal.” He also allegedly killed the family’s dog.

Riley’s girlfriend told investigators that he suffered from PTSD and depression. He first came in contact with the Polk County family on Saturday, when he allegedly told 40-year-old Justice Gleason, who was mowing his lawn, that God had given him a vision that his daughter “Amber” would commit suicide. Gleason, who had no daughter by that name, threatened to call police, but Riley reportedly said, “No need to call the cops, I’m the cops for God.”

On Saturday night, the sheriff’s office got a call from the Gleason residence reporting a suspicious person. The man, allegedly Riley, told a woman at the home, “God sent me here to speak with one of your daughters.” The man was gone when a deputy arrived, and his truck wasn’t found in a search of the area, Judd said.

Nine hours later, a sheriff’s lieutenant responding to a nearby call heard two volleys of automatic gunfire. Within seconds, the sheriff’s office began receiving calls reporting an active shooter. Deputies arrived to see a truck on fire and a man wearing body armor, though they didn’t spot a gun, Judd said. He ran back in the house, and deputies heard a volley of gunfire, followed by “a woman’s scream and a baby whimper,” the sheriff said.

A gun battle ensued, and despite as many as hundreds of shots being fired between deputies and the suspect, no law enforcement officers were injured, Judd said. The sheriff lamented that Riley came out of the house with his hands up and no gun.

He either wasn't trying to kill any of the sheriff's deputies, or he was a lousy sharpshooter.

“It would have been nice if he’d come out with a gun, and then we’d have been able to read a newspaper through him and we’d have had a different conversation here this morning,” Judd told reporters. “But when someone chooses to give up, we take them into custody peacefully.”

If he’d given us the opportunity, we’d have shot him up a lot, but he didn’t because he was a coward. You see, it’s easy to shoot innocent children and babies and people in the middle of the night when you’ve got the gun and they don’t. But he was not much of a man.

After Riley’s surrender, deputies discovered the injured girl and three deceased victims -- including Justice Gleason, a 33-year-old woman and her three-month-old son – in the house. They found another victim, a 62-year-old woman, in another house on the property.

Gun control advocates quickly seized on the massacre as another example of the need for stricter firearms laws, while others suggested that the shooter wasn’t killed by law enforcement because he’s white. But Judd argued a different political lesson learned from the shootings.

“Our crime rate in this county is at a 49-year low . . ., but when you get a nut job like this, statistical data makes no difference,” the sheriff said. “I mean, this guy was wired up on dope, on meth -- you know, what those people think is low-level, non-violent meth -- here’s your sign, today, again, and he came here for a gun battle.”

We can go deeper than that! His tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a sniper turned him into the maniac that he was. 




300 British troops offered hearing loss tests after

£5.5bn Ajax tank trials halted over noise complaints

7 Sep, 2021 12:46

© WIkipedia


More than 300 British soldiers are being offered hearing loss assessments after trials of the £5.5 billion Ajax armoured vehicle programme were halted due to an excessive number of noise complaints, a minister has admitted.

In a written statement to Parliament on Monday, Minister for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quin said that the Ajax tank programme, already beset by failures, had engendered adverse health effects among the troops trialing the hardware.

Quin said that while 121 personnel had previously been identified as requiring urgent hearing assessments, that number had now risen by a further 189, bringing the total to 310. In June, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) halted trials of the Army’s new armoured vehicle amid complaints that the noise of the tanks was impacting the health of troops.

He said that 248 of the 310 had already been tested and the MoD was in the process of determining the extent of the damage caused. Six personnel who had recently left the service were also being traced. A report on the issue is being compiled by the department’s director of health and safety.

“While the report has not yet been concluded, it is apparent that vibration concerns were raised before Ajax trials commenced at the Armoured Trials and Development Unit in November 2019,” Quin said.

He said that he expects a key theme of the report to be “the importance of having a culture that gives safety equal status alongside cost and schedule.” Quin added that they would fully support veterans who have been exposed to noise or vibration on this project in getting the care they needed. 

While design changes are being assessed to address vibrations and noise concerns, the minister said it was only part of the solution, and “considerable work needs to be undertaken before any such assurances can be given.”

Britain signed a contract for 589 of the problematic General Dynamics tanks in 2014, with the programme cost reaching £5.5 billion. The vehicles are assembled at the US firm’s Merthyr Tydfil plant.

Earlier reports also suggested the tanks can’t fire on the move due to the vibrations. Trials are expected to resume imminently. “We will not accept a vehicle that is not fit for purpose,” Quin added.

============================================================================================


UK Defence Ministry spent £3.2 billion on tanks

that can’t shoot on the move – reports

24 May, 2021 15:51

Developed by General Dynamics, the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle impressed then-Prime Minister David Cameron so much that he ordered 589 of them in 2014, after receiving the Army’s go-ahead four years earlier. Delivery dates have since been missed, and the Army is still waiting to roll out the vehicles, but a Times report on Sunday revealed that technical experts have encountered numerous “safety issues,” including excessive noise inside the vehicles, and cannons that can’t fire while on the move due to vibration.

Armed with 40mm cannons and light machine guns, the Ajax vehicles are lighter and more maneuverable than Britain’s aging main battle tank, the Challenger 2. As such, an inability to fire while moving renders the vehicles useless to the reconnaissance units that would eventually use them in the field.

Nevertheless, the British government has handed over more than £3.2 billion for the vehicles, out of a total programme cost of £5.5 billion, according to Ministry of Defence documents seen by the Times. The most recent round of payments, adding up to nearly £600 million, were made this year.

Government spending watchdogs are apparently unhappy, and one of the Times’ sources suggested that payments are not linked to the delivery of working vehicles. If so, General Dynamics has thus far earned a sizeable chunk of change from the UK's defence coffers without delivering a working product.

The Ajax was conceived to replace the obsolete 1970s-era Scimitar light tanks currently used by armoured reconnaissance units, yet the future of such vehicles was uncertain even before the latest issues with the Ajax emerged. When Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled a massive hike in defence expenditure last year, he said that the government’s spending would “be focused on the technologies that will revolutionize warfare,” including a heavy investment in artificial intelligence and the creation of an RAF Space Command, capable of launching a rocket from Scotland in 2022. 

However, a parliamentary committee in March excoriated the government for neglecting Britain’s conventional forces, drawing attention to the “deplorable” state of Her Majesty’s armored vehicle capability. Their report heavily criticized the cost and delays involved with the Ajax program, including the vibration issue that Defence Secretary Ben Wallace referred to late last year as “a slight pause in the area around the turret.”

“Of the vehicles we do still have, some date back to the early 1960s, when the Morris 1100 was the most popular car and Elvis was the Christmas number one,” committee chairman Tobias Ellwood said at the time. “A mixture of bureaucratic procrastination, military indecision, financial mismanagement and general ineptitude has led to a severe and sustained erosion of our military capabilities.”

Yet the Ajax boondoggle is not the first incidence of mismanagement at the MoD.

When the Ministry of Defence replaced the FN FAL with the Enfield SA80 as its service rifle in the late 1980s, problems soon emerged. The weapon would jam, its metal components would rust and deform, and it proved wholly unusable in desert environments – which became apparent when British soldiers took part in the Gulf War. After a post-war report identifying these faults leaked to the press, the ministry first pretended the report was fake, before embarking on a costly upgrade programme.

More recently, the ministry has been slammed for spending so much money on its two new ‘Queen Elizabeth’ class aircraft carriers that it couldn’t afford the planes and support vessels needed to deploy them for a year, and couldn’t modify the ships to perform amphibious landings – one of their selling points.

Furthermore, the American F-35 fighter jets that these carriers would launch have been plagued by delays, design flaws and cost overruns, to the point where the ministry has refused to say whether it will buy its original order of 138 F-35s, and declined to offer a cost estimate for the programme as a whole. The 48 jets already ordered are estimated to run up a bill of £9.1 billion by 2025, and the government has not commented on whether upgrade costs will drive that figure up further.

Good Grief!

============================================================================================



Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Think Cannabis is Harmless? So Did I. But I Know Better Now

Opinion: In 2017, 567 people were treated at Vancouver-area
hospitals for cannabis overdoses or related mental issues.
I was one of them.

The emergency entrance at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver is seen in a file photo from June 24, 2009.
Ian Lindsay/Postmedia
By Jennifer Foden, National Post

Last year, shortly before cannabis was legalized, StarMetro Vancouver reported that in 2017, 567 people were admitted to emergency rooms at St. Paul’s, Vancouver General, Surrey Memorial and Kelowna General hospitals for cannabis overdoses or related mental and behavioural issues.

I was one of them.

This isn’t easy to write about. I’m well aware that this will be part of my story forever, for anyone to look up online. Still, people need to know the risks.

In mid-2017, on a typical Saturday night, two friends and I were cooking dinner. A friend offered me half a medical marijuana gummy. She took the other half. About 45 minutes later, I started to feel strange. It’s hard to explain how. I had had bad experiences with weed before. This felt similar; like I knew something very bad was about to happen.

People need to know the risks

I decided to go home. I, still, to this day, don’t know what actually happened that night and what didn’t. I was totally disconnected from reality. I was hallucinating, dreaming while awake. Welcome to a weed overdose, friends — a drug-induced psychosis.

I remember walking down the street, not being able to swallow. Falling down. Laying face-first on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver yelling at people driving and walking by that I was dying. I remember the paramedics kicking me out of the ambulance. I remember dead people being wheeled past me in the emergency room at St. Paul’s. But I’m not entirely sure if any of these things happened.

I didn’t know my name or who I was or where I was or what it even means to be human and have a body and a brain. I didn’t understand time or space, life or death. It was very metaphysical.

Recreational marijuana became legal in Canada on Oct. 17, 2018. Trevor Hagan/Bloomberg

My friend, who ate the other half of the gummy, showed up to hold my hand in the hospital. She was high, but fine. She wasn’t having an adverse reaction like I was.

I started feeling strange after that “bad trip.” Unlike before, my brain was filled with thoughts of suicide, death and existential questions. I attempted to push the thoughts out of my mind, assuming it was the after-effect of that little green drug.

Six weeks after that drug trip, I had nervous breakdown. I was sitting at my desk when suddenly, something felt different, something felt off. I felt uncomfortable in my body. My heart started racing. I began to think a lot about existence. I felt disconnected. Like my mind and my body had separated. Like I was living in an altered reality. I thought I was losing my mind, or perhaps I was dying. The worst part? I wanted to die.

The worst part? I wanted to die
   
I wound up in the emergency room and then a mental health facility. Further psychiatric assessment would tell me I was suffering from panic and residual drug-induced psychotic disorders. Later, I’d have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

It’s been almost a year and a half since the drug trip. I continue to suffer from panic attacks. And, every single day, I still feel disconnected, like my mind and my body have separated, like I’m living in an altered reality. Some days are worse than others.

For some reason, I feel compelled to clarify that up until this point — for over 30 years — I was mentally stable. I have the privilege of white skin, a middle-class upbringing, great friends, a university degree and a post-grad education, too. I’ve held staff editor jobs. I’ve freelanced successfully. There were no red flags for my mental health.

There were no red flags for my mental health
   
A recent report claimed that a bad drug trip can be a sign of mental illness — not as a cause, but as a trigger. I’ve spent a lot of the past year and a half feeling guilty. Like I caused my mental illness by eating that weed gummy. But how could I have known? I have smoked and eaten weed before, sometimes with adverse effects. But the end result has never been multiple mental illnesses: panic, post-traumatic stress and residual drug-induced psychotic disorders. Maybe it was the perfect storm: I ate the right amount of the right strain at a time when I was stressed, and therefore vulnerable to a breakdown.

This is not a pity party. I don’t want you to feel bad for me. I’m telling this story because I think it’s important for people to realize that although cannabis has a reputation as being safe and benign, that’s not always the case. As my psychiatrist likes to remind me: people’s minds and bodies are different, and have varying reactions to drugs, to alcohol, to stress.

I’m still going through the process of healing. For people who haven’t been through something similar: be careful. It’s been reported that the current endorsed guidelines to prevent mental illness risk from marijuana consumption is to use less, use lower levels of THC or abstain. But, talk to your friends. Share this story. So, I guess this article is a PSA: don’t be number 568.

— Originally from Toronto, Jennifer Foden is a freelance writer and editor living in Vancouver.

Jennifer appears to be in her 30s as she recovers from her nightmarish experience. I'm not convinced that you need a predilection toward mental illness to be triggered by cannabis. I am aware, especially of teenagers who have protracted severe schizophrenia and paranoia from using pot, and like Jennifer, had no indicators of mental illness whatsoever.

I hope Coastal and Fraser Health keep detailed records on people who end up in ERs because of cannabis related issues. We have much to learn about this insidious experiment that our Very Liberal government has hastily inflicted upon Canadian society.


Saturday, September 22, 2018

Religion Can Help Improve Children’s Mental Health, New Study Finds

Surprised to find this story on a national news network in Canada

By Laura Hensley Global News

People who grew up in a religious household reported fewer symptoms of depression. Getty

Children who are raised with religious or spiritual beliefs tend to have better mental health into their adulthood, a new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found.

According to the study’s findings, people who attended weekly religious services or prayed or meditated daily in their childhood reported greater life satisfaction in their 20s. People who grew up in a religious household also reported fewer symptoms of depression and lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder.

On top of the mental health benefits, researchers found that religious subjects weren’t as likely to smoke, use drugs, or contract a sexually transmitted infection compared to people who had a less spiritual upbringing.

The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, followed more than 5,000 youths between the ages of eight to 14 years.

Why does religion benefit mental health?

According to Dr. Tyler J. VanderWeele, the study’s senior author and a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, attending religious services, like church, for example, may benefit youth because it’s a shared experience with people who hold similar beliefs and values. Community is thought to be beneficial to well-being.

VanderWeele also said that being involved in a religious community may offer adolescents role models and mentors other than their parents.

When it comes to the positive effects of prayer and meditation, VanderWeele said it’s likely that the practices “give rise to an experience of God or of transcendence so that an adolescent need not turn to drugs or risky sexual behaviours in their search for something more.”

“That experience of God may fundamentally make a person more other-oriented, leading to greater volunteering, forgiveness, and a sense of mission, and these things ultimately make one happier and protect against depression,” he told Global News.

“Adolescence is a particularly critical time of development and self-understanding, and the establishing of these practices may shape health and well-being throughout life.”

Religion also helps people think about their health in a holistic way, where the mind, body and spirit are all connected, said Jane Kuepfer, a specialist in spirituality and aging at Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo.

“[With religion], when one aspect of ‘who we are’ suffers, the whole suffers. And when one aspect is healthy and vital, ‘all that we are’ benefits,” she said to Global News. “Religion teaches us to value life, and to respect and care for our physical bodies.”

Kuepfer also stressed the importance of belonging and feeling connected to others as a factor contributing to well-being. Social isolation and loneliness are harmful to anyone’s mental health, but particularly to vulnerable populations.

“A sense of belonging is really important, and something we don’t always get in our society in other places,” she said. “[Religion] also gives you a larger perspective and connection across generations.”


Even for those who don’t attend religious services, spirituality benefits health

While attending regular religious services was key to well-being, the study also found that daily meditation and prayer greatly benefited mental health — even in adolescents who didn’t attend service as often.

VanderWeele, the study’s co-author, said that previous studies of adults showed that religious service had the strongest effects on health. But with kids, both service attendance and prayer and/or meditation were strongly associated with well-being.

“For some outcomes, the associations with prayer and mediation were even stronger than for service attendance,” he said. “This is different from adult populations.”

Kuepfer said prayer and meditation are known to be calming and can help people cope with stress. They also offer people a chance to connect with something larger than themselves and work through problems they’re dealing with.

“Religion or belonging to a faith community and participating in spiritual practice helps to slow us down and get perspective,” she said. “We realize that life isn’t all about us, and we don’t have to carry the world on our shoulders. It takes the pressure off.”

There is another aspect that has been completely ignored in this article, and that is that children, or adults, who pray and practice their faith, are living, generally speaking, in obedience to God, that is, 'in His Will'. As such, God may offer extra levels of protection from temptations and from evil. God may also very well bless those people in many various ways and direct their steps if they are listening to Him.

Christian prayer and church attendance are not just healthy exercises; they are ways of connecting to the living God, and preparing for Eternity, which is the real purpose for our existence on this earth.


Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Women-only Spa Stirs Controversy after Transgender 'Woman' Turned Away

Transgender author Jia Qing Wilson-Yang tweets that her wife was told
she wasn't allowed in
CBC News 

The King Street East location of Body Blitz in Toronto is a women-only spa whose policy around transgender women is under fire. (Google Maps)

A popular women-only spa is at the centre of a social media maelstrom after a transgender woman said she was not allowed to enter because of a policy forbidding male genitalia.

Transgender author Jia Qing Wilson-Yang tweeted on Friday that her wife had hoped to make her a surprise appointment at Body Blitz, a water circuit spa with multiple locations in Toronto, but had been told that Wilson-Yang would not be allowed in.

Since then, a flurry of tweets and posts on the spa's Facebook page have seen people lining up on both sides of the debate, with some slamming the policy as discriminatory and others applauding it.

"My home girls and I love this spa!! Thank you for keeping women safe," reads one post on the Body Blitz Facebook page.

"As this city prepares to celebrate and honour its great wonderful diversities, your cowardly bullying actions are truly a revolting juxtaposition," reads another.


NDP critic for LGBT issues wades in

On Tuesday, High Park member of the Ontario Legislature and NDP critic for LGBT issues Cheri DiNovo released a statement criticizing the spa for what she described as "blatant transphobia and violation of the Ontario Human Rights Code." 

"Remember lesbians and gays banned from change rooms of health clubs? This is the same thing," DiNovo was quoted as saying. 

Other people have shared similar stories to Wilson-Yang, with one commenter reporting that a transgender friend had been called shortly before their booking to tell them not to come due to the spa's rule regarding male genitalia. 

Another woman said a staff member told her that the spa's rule was "as long as this is gone," before waving her hand over her pelvis. 


Former client calls for apologies, training

Adam Abramovich, a transgender man who was a client at Body Blitz before transitioning, expressed disappointment in what he described as a poorly thought out policy, in an appearance on CBC Radio's Here and Now on Tuesday.  

"I think it's archaic and narrow-minded for a facility to grant access to people based on their genitals," he said. 

Abramovich, who works with LGBT youth in his capacity as a doctor at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, said the comments supporting Body Blitz that focus on women's safety are also missing the mark. 

"I don't really understand what people are so afraid of. Are they afraid that a trans woman who was enjoying a day at the spa like anyone else is going to assault them?" he asked. 

At least one in five Canadian women over 18 have been sexually abused. That percentage increases of women in their twenties and thirties. A number of those women suffer from PTSD from the abuse and some are barely hanging onto their sanity. Body Blitz is a safe place for these survivors to feel like a normal woman for a change. 

The sight of male genitalia in the midst of a refuge presents a needless risk of triggering someone's PTSD. Also, it is flagrant sexual assault - exposure is still against the law in Canada, although with far-left governments in Toronto and Ottawa, and an extremely sympathetic media, I'm sure it will come off the books soon.

Liberals tout safe-places for LGBTQs, but the thought of one for normal women seems to be untenable for them.

Abramovich is calling on Body Blitz to apologize to the trans community and give staff a "trans 101" crash course. He said the spa should develop a new policy and "understand that when you open up a service that says women only, that trans women should be included because trans women are women." 

Trans women are women in their heads only; they are men in their genitalia! Isn't that obvious?


Body Blitz responds

Body Blitz, whose management declined an interview with CBC Toronto, wrote in an email that they "support the LGBTQ community and recognize that this is a sensitive issue. However, because Body Blitz Spa is a single-sex facility with full-nudity, we are not like other facilities." 

The spa had also responded previously in a Facebook post, saying that the owners are working with a "civil rights professional" over the summer to help create a "clear and fair policy."


What do other women-only spas do?

A representative of Sweetgrass, another women-only spa in Toronto, told CBC Toronto that it does not have any policy in place regarding transgender women — but it plans to seek legal advice to ensure that it's being inclusive to all clientele. 

The situation is different at Sweetgrass, said spa director Monique Joustra, because clients are not nude together and typically wear robes during treatments. 

She said she was "never aware" of a transgender woman coming to the spa, but that doesn't mean none have come, because it's possible they came in and received services without incident.