I can't believe I have to say this, but no one has a leg to stand who has called for violence toward reporters, including Jesse Singal and me, who cover pediatric gender medicine with circumspection.
No one is owed Healthcare. We can agree that the system is flawed, but probably disagree on how we got here. Execution of those you don't like is not the solution.
I don't think society has decided whether or not we are "owed" health care, whatever that actually means. If you look at polls, it seems it's a fairly popular notion but a goal that's always obstructed by those defending the profit-reaping status quo. Of course, those people already have health care and I'm guessing you're not up late worrying about it either.
This is scary on so many levels, the first of which is, of course, a rightful fear of violence. I happen to agree with your stance on gender ideology (happen to is not exactly accurate because I believe your stance is reasonable, rational and compassionate and those ways of being are of tremendous value to me), but, even if I disagreed with your reporting (and I probably do disagree with some specific aspects of your writing), I would never think you should feel in danger for your life and safety as a result. I wouldn't dream of threatening someone like Joanna Olson-Kennedy with violence, even though I vehemently disagree with her entire stance on gender, and think her "care" of her young patients is appalling. Violence is never the correct response.
Secondly, this article is scary because you have alerted me to the fact that someone so violent and so ignorant is teaching at Harvard. What the heck are these students learning?
Thirdly, while I do think our healthcare system is a shambles, and programs that deny claims are pretty evil, I would never celebrate murder - but some people are doing just that. It's beyond even using threats of violence to shut people down. It's actually glorifying violence. How warped have we become?
Disgust, horror, dismay, I can't think of enough words to express how much all of this bothers me - almost as much as I am bothered by the mass gaslighting, poisoning, mutilation and sterilization of something like 2% of a generation, cheered on by every major institution of society. What's happening?
Re: Harvard and what is being taught there, the gender ideology undercurrents apparently run deep. For further reading, I invite anyone to read about Carole Hooven, who taught human evolutionary biology and related courses there for 20 years. She wrote about her experience in The Free Press earlier this year. Here’s the subheading from her piece:
“After I stated banal facts about human biology, I found myself caught in a DEI web, without the support to do the job I loved. The only way out was to leave it.”
If you want some further stuff on Hooven then you might have some interest in a conference she was speaking at about a year ago on "The Big Conversation ... among international experts (?) on the origins, mechanisms, and meaning of sex/gender differences":
Nub of the matter is a comment by David Geary, one of the panelists:
Geary (@ 15:56): "I have no idea what 'gender' means. The definition is too fluid. I mean it's all over the place. .... I have no idea what one author means by [gender] versus another. ...."
Pretty much everyone has a contradictory definition for "gender" -- impossible to discuss the related phenomena under those circumstances.
You might also have some interest in this YouTube interview of Hooven:
Science of testosterone; Carole Hooven; Reason with Science:
I agree with your statement that murder is wrong, which is why I condem you too. The hatred you yourself are trafficking in here without even realizing it is astounding. I’m trans and you people are trying to take my healthcare away. But you use the state to attack me as a proxy and don’t see the blood on your hands. “Gender ideology” is just bigotry by another name
I can see, off in the distance, that the Springfield song was probably by Stills. Though the "getting late" is, I think, a Bob Dylan song -- "All Along The Watchtower", if I'm not mistaken. Made "famous", or infamous, by Jimi Hendrix.
Can't say that I followed all the artists of that era to much depth. Or any subsequent ones for that matter. Just kind of the high points, and not all of those either.
Christmas coming up. As part of which I have to go rescue a damsel in distress myself, to ask Rapunzel to let down her hair from the battlements of a tower that I, and some of my family, helped to build. The fairest maiden that did ever walk in chains, as I think Leonard Cohen — or The Guess Who/Lenny Kravitz — once put it. Or maybe just another fallen woman, not that I'm likely to throw any stones in either case.
But in other news and a note from our sponsor, coming up on 77 real fast — or so I've been told. 🙂
It is wrong to call for violence against anyone, outside of self-defense and outside of war. That is what rule of law is all about. Settling disagreements of any and all kinds without resort to violence.
I follow a few of these trans "journalists" to see where their minds are. I find that their writings and the comments of their followers are quite basic and immature. There is a Disney movie level portrayal of good and evil that is not just sophomoric, but puerile. It is as though they are stuck in a pre-adolescent state of mind. I wonder if this is part of the disorder.
Black-and-white thinking is characteristic of people with BPD. The rate of BPD in the trans-identified population is several times the rate in the general population.
I remember learning about the French revolution, and thinking how does a society descend into a "reign of terror", like what occurred during that period. Now I can see where the seeds can be planted (this person is very evil, which turns into this next person and so on) , and so where it starts and where it ends can be very different, until it just a witch hunt. Now, I do not think it is likely that this will end up with guillotines around each city, nor spread out. Reading all of these justifications of a flat out murder, including from a U.S. Senator , it does frighten me.
Sharon Stone made a movie called 'The Year of the Gun' about the political assassinations in Italy during 1978. It remained pretty bad in the early 80's, with John Lennon, the Pope and Reagan all getting shot. Let's not go there again.
I think we as a culture should dispense with the idea that someone who has the "right" political opinions is necessarily a good person. Sociopaths can absolutely believe in social justice and still be self-obsessed, unremorseful, deceitful, and completely anti-social. The proof of that is on Twitter and, now, on Bluesky as well.
To my mind, you are what you do. Good people don't threaten the lives of others, however coyly, on social media or anywhere else. If you want to be a good person, act like one.
What do you expect when the NYT which does monitor its comment section allows a comment like this:
"The kind of pain he [the murderer] suffered - as many of us know - is like sitting on a hot stove. I do think he is a hero. In the fight for justice there is collateral damage."
Do you really think these are calls for violence or just stupid virtue signaling for cred in an ingroup where everybody already agrees with you, so you have to say outrageous things to show you really, really, really believe? One of many awful things the internet has wrought is it has made cheap as fuck words carry more weight than they should. Shouldn't we see an uptick in political violence on both sides given how the worst 10% on each side thinks the other side is so evil they should be eliminated? Yet we don't see that uptick. This reminds me of BLM and their weird belief that being killed by cops is a statistically relevant danger to black people. Being killed by a gender radical (or a MAGA radical) is literally less likely than being bitten by a shark on land. Its this same sort of mistaking virtue signaling for policy pronouncement that leads to liberal hysteria around MAGA trolls yet we do the same thing. Maddening.
"Online harassment of journalists poses a grave risk to press freedoms: retaliating in response to a disfavored article or post, trolls coordinate abuse in the hopes of silencing the journalist altogether. This is exactly what the dogpile participants want: to mold civic discourse, determining what can be said without reprisal. To protect journalists from this outcome, this white paper provides recommendations for interventions to interrupt the lifespan of harassment online, from the release of the work; to the inciting incident of harassment; into dogpiling; and ultimately, the chilling effect, in which the journalist does not publish again or limit the scope of their discourse due to the lasting psychological or reputational harm."
It's wrong to call for the murder of ANYONE.
Shannon knows what’s up.
Is it murder to take away someone’s life saving healthcare? Or is it different because the state did it?
No one is owed Healthcare. We can agree that the system is flawed, but probably disagree on how we got here. Execution of those you don't like is not the solution.
I don't think society has decided whether or not we are "owed" health care, whatever that actually means. If you look at polls, it seems it's a fairly popular notion but a goal that's always obstructed by those defending the profit-reaping status quo. Of course, those people already have health care and I'm guessing you're not up late worrying about it either.
One often hears the slogan from progressive nonprofits that "health care is a human right."
This is scary on so many levels, the first of which is, of course, a rightful fear of violence. I happen to agree with your stance on gender ideology (happen to is not exactly accurate because I believe your stance is reasonable, rational and compassionate and those ways of being are of tremendous value to me), but, even if I disagreed with your reporting (and I probably do disagree with some specific aspects of your writing), I would never think you should feel in danger for your life and safety as a result. I wouldn't dream of threatening someone like Joanna Olson-Kennedy with violence, even though I vehemently disagree with her entire stance on gender, and think her "care" of her young patients is appalling. Violence is never the correct response.
Secondly, this article is scary because you have alerted me to the fact that someone so violent and so ignorant is teaching at Harvard. What the heck are these students learning?
Thirdly, while I do think our healthcare system is a shambles, and programs that deny claims are pretty evil, I would never celebrate murder - but some people are doing just that. It's beyond even using threats of violence to shut people down. It's actually glorifying violence. How warped have we become?
Disgust, horror, dismay, I can't think of enough words to express how much all of this bothers me - almost as much as I am bothered by the mass gaslighting, poisoning, mutilation and sterilization of something like 2% of a generation, cheered on by every major institution of society. What's happening?
Re: Harvard and what is being taught there, the gender ideology undercurrents apparently run deep. For further reading, I invite anyone to read about Carole Hooven, who taught human evolutionary biology and related courses there for 20 years. She wrote about her experience in The Free Press earlier this year. Here’s the subheading from her piece:
“After I stated banal facts about human biology, I found myself caught in a DEI web, without the support to do the job I loved. The only way out was to leave it.”
www.thefp.com/p/carole-hooven-why-i-left-harvard
If you want some further stuff on Hooven then you might have some interest in a conference she was speaking at about a year ago on "The Big Conversation ... among international experts (?) on the origins, mechanisms, and meaning of sex/gender differences":
https://santafeboys.org/recordings-of-the-big-conversation/
Of particular note is a "Round-table discussion" to close out the proceedings, particularly the segment from about the 10 minute mark to the 20th:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRW_II_-iFY&t=758s
Nub of the matter is a comment by David Geary, one of the panelists:
Geary (@ 15:56): "I have no idea what 'gender' means. The definition is too fluid. I mean it's all over the place. .... I have no idea what one author means by [gender] versus another. ...."
Pretty much everyone has a contradictory definition for "gender" -- impossible to discuss the related phenomena under those circumstances.
You might also have some interest in this YouTube interview of Hooven:
Science of testosterone; Carole Hooven; Reason with Science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYqz5OYMvRI
ETA: I thought the comments had been deleted, but they're still there; see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYqz5OYMvRI&lc=UgzgCkQbPdIHWLT8eBN4AaABAg
I agree with your statement that murder is wrong, which is why I condem you too. The hatred you yourself are trafficking in here without even realizing it is astounding. I’m trans and you people are trying to take my healthcare away. But you use the state to attack me as a proxy and don’t see the blood on your hands. “Gender ideology” is just bigotry by another name
Get some help.
> "What's happening?"
Indeed. A question of the hour which is getting very late indeed -- as Bob Dylan, not Dylan Mulvaney, once put it. A blast from the past:
"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down ...."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY
This was actually penned by Stephen Stills.
I can see, off in the distance, that the Springfield song was probably by Stills. Though the "getting late" is, I think, a Bob Dylan song -- "All Along The Watchtower", if I'm not mistaken. Made "famous", or infamous, by Jimi Hendrix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Along_the_Watchtower
"probably by Stills" is an odd thing to say. Of course it was.
Well, excuse me ... 😉🙂
Can't say that I followed all the artists of that era to much depth. Or any subsequent ones for that matter. Just kind of the high points, and not all of those either.
I love that song!!! "For What Its Worth" - Buffalo Springfield. And yes, it is timely again. :)
FWIW, indeed. 🙂
Christmas coming up. As part of which I have to go rescue a damsel in distress myself, to ask Rapunzel to let down her hair from the battlements of a tower that I, and some of my family, helped to build. The fairest maiden that did ever walk in chains, as I think Leonard Cohen — or The Guess Who/Lenny Kravitz — once put it. Or maybe just another fallen woman, not that I'm likely to throw any stones in either case.
But in other news and a note from our sponsor, coming up on 77 real fast — or so I've been told. 🙂
Thanks, Ben, for your ongoing commitment to simply telling the truth and reporting reality. Please take good care of yourself.
Thanks, Paula.
glad to know that bluesky is a safe space for communication (not)
It is wrong to call for violence against anyone, outside of self-defense and outside of war. That is what rule of law is all about. Settling disagreements of any and all kinds without resort to violence.
Rule of law wielded by the many against the few will always provoke violence
You are a brave man who deserves the support of rational people.
I follow a few of these trans "journalists" to see where their minds are. I find that their writings and the comments of their followers are quite basic and immature. There is a Disney movie level portrayal of good and evil that is not just sophomoric, but puerile. It is as though they are stuck in a pre-adolescent state of mind. I wonder if this is part of the disorder.
Manicheanism
Black-and-white thinking is characteristic of people with BPD. The rate of BPD in the trans-identified population is several times the rate in the general population.
“The disorder” incredibly cruel way to talk about trans people
I remember learning about the French revolution, and thinking how does a society descend into a "reign of terror", like what occurred during that period. Now I can see where the seeds can be planted (this person is very evil, which turns into this next person and so on) , and so where it starts and where it ends can be very different, until it just a witch hunt. Now, I do not think it is likely that this will end up with guillotines around each city, nor spread out. Reading all of these justifications of a flat out murder, including from a U.S. Senator , it does frighten me.
Sharon Stone made a movie called 'The Year of the Gun' about the political assassinations in Italy during 1978. It remained pretty bad in the early 80's, with John Lennon, the Pope and Reagan all getting shot. Let's not go there again.
I'm glad and grateful to you and Jesse and the others who are reporting accurately on this!
For those calling for murder..... unbelievable.
A lot of people on blue sky have no idea: https://krassencast.com/p/why-blueskys-better-conversations/
?!?!?
Speaking of Jesse Singal did you respond to this bad faith attack on https://t.co/7mhpElIJ2p
Yes. And I just emailed the author and suggested he might do some fact checking. I do not have high hopes of a mature and sincere reply.
I have a question could you tell me your main problems with that article and where he misrepresents Jesse
Yeah, that one borders on libel on so many fronts.
I think we as a culture should dispense with the idea that someone who has the "right" political opinions is necessarily a good person. Sociopaths can absolutely believe in social justice and still be self-obsessed, unremorseful, deceitful, and completely anti-social. The proof of that is on Twitter and, now, on Bluesky as well.
To my mind, you are what you do. Good people don't threaten the lives of others, however coyly, on social media or anywhere else. If you want to be a good person, act like one.
What do you expect when the NYT which does monitor its comment section allows a comment like this:
"The kind of pain he [the murderer] suffered - as many of us know - is like sitting on a hot stove. I do think he is a hero. In the fight for justice there is collateral damage."
Do you really think these are calls for violence or just stupid virtue signaling for cred in an ingroup where everybody already agrees with you, so you have to say outrageous things to show you really, really, really believe? One of many awful things the internet has wrought is it has made cheap as fuck words carry more weight than they should. Shouldn't we see an uptick in political violence on both sides given how the worst 10% on each side thinks the other side is so evil they should be eliminated? Yet we don't see that uptick. This reminds me of BLM and their weird belief that being killed by cops is a statistically relevant danger to black people. Being killed by a gender radical (or a MAGA radical) is literally less likely than being bitten by a shark on land. Its this same sort of mistaking virtue signaling for policy pronouncement that leads to liberal hysteria around MAGA trolls yet we do the same thing. Maddening.
Could you respond to this attack piece by the integrity project https://files-profile.medicine.yale.edu/documents/98a6e83f-d1ac-4098-b67a-25be370aec2b
"Online harassment of journalists poses a grave risk to press freedoms: retaliating in response to a disfavored article or post, trolls coordinate abuse in the hopes of silencing the journalist altogether. This is exactly what the dogpile participants want: to mold civic discourse, determining what can be said without reprisal. To protect journalists from this outcome, this white paper provides recommendations for interventions to interrupt the lifespan of harassment online, from the release of the work; to the inciting incident of harassment; into dogpiling; and ultimately, the chilling effect, in which the journalist does not publish again or limit the scope of their discourse due to the lasting psychological or reputational harm."
Uh huh. From the introduction of that Harvard Berkman Klein Center White Paper. I believe people in glass houses are advised not to throw stones. https://cyber.harvard.edu/publication/2024/white-paper-interventions-online-harassment-journalists