Bluesky is a nightmare. I draw the line at the calls on there for the murder of you as well as me. British trans activist Mallory Moore, for example, said I should be "Supplied for the consideration of the Midnight CEO Murder Society. I have alerted the British police.
The stuff on Bluesky was positively unhinged. I couldn't believe how many block lists and stuff I ended up on just for either following Singal or merely making comments. These folks think they own the place.
The treatment of yourself and Jesse shows, I think, that there is simply no way, no matter how moderate or sympathetic, in which you can criticise any aspect of gender identity care. In fact the more moderate and sympathetic you are the more furious transactivists get.
Ben, I’m so sorry you are going through this. These people, to put it bluntly are what we used to say in the olden days, mental. The more they post, the more their echo chamber agrees with them, the more power they think they have. Hopefully the police will take it as seriously as they do for “misgendering” someone. You will be remembered for being on the right side of history
As a parent who is grateful that you didn’t take the easy path and drop this issue years ago I again want to thank you for remaining true to your identity as a journalist and remind you that while we might not post flyers near your home we appreciate your courage with more depth of feeling than your critics’ anger.
Are you ever frustrated that more pundits don’t defend you? Imagining folks like Yglesias, Noahpionion, Ezra Klein, Nate Silver just saying, “look, this guys keeps getting smeared. For the record, he is merely doing normal reporting on a hot button issue.”
Lmao, Noah Smith, Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and Nate Silver would need to have at least one single functioning testicle between all four of them first.
I also vaguely remember Yglesias indirectly showing approval. And that none of them piled on at any point is a good thing too. But would love to see something more concrete. I wonder how many people are fooled by, "lot's of people screaming this guy is a bigot, I better just steer clear".
I think the issue is one described by Musa Al-Gharbi in "We Have Never Been Woke". To wit, elites want "social justice" but, and this is the quiet part that no one ever says out loud, they still want to be elites. The people you mentioned above certainly want to maintain their elite status and so won't truly rock the boat.
I think a lot of high-profile people may still be scared of deviating from the orthodoxy on this. I mean, look what happened to Seth Moulton when he gently suggested that males playing girls’ sports may not be the hill the Democratic Party should die on if they want to win elections.
I thought the same when Ezra’s name was mentioned above. He has gone somewhat out on a limb regarding Israel/Gaza in the past year (relative to the political terrain that he occupies) but it seems like the transgender kid medical treatment is an issue where he wants to keep a distance.
This is hot take-ish, but if I'm off, I don't think I'm that off.
Ezra Klein is almost sociopathically masterful about how he manages his political capital. It's why he's reached the place of esteem he has.
He'll never do anything that might risk the winds of left reaction blowing him over but he'll pick his spots when he's strong enough to take it like a champ, eg re Biden's age. Having built up his capital by eg making an example of Sam Harris.
In the dryest sense I respect his ability to play the game, but the game itself is a ugly and noxious symptom of the deep sickness of media. It should not be like House of Cards or even one tenth of the way there, but here we are.
(ETA - to any Sam Harris haters: I'm not out here to change your minds but I'm also not going to re-litigate anything.)
Jesse, have you spoken to a lawyer about any of this? Not that I’m an expert on the relevant laws, but if this doesn’t constitute libel I cannot imagine what would.
If a small group of radical ideologues can hold an entire debate hostage by smearing and maliciously libeling anyone who opposes them without facing consequences, we don’t have an informed democracy anymore. It is well past time we started talking legal options.
This is literally a brilliant start up idea for the times that we live in! An intrepid group of legal entrepreneurs could come up with a business model for this. My sense is that there is probably a kind of legal defense/offense formula that could be developed, to enable repeatability and handling all clients of clients regardless of the substance of the accusation. It’s really all about demonstrating that there is zero evidence behind these claims. I see a $500M market cap in the distance! Wish I were at attorney. Damn it!
- Jesse said out-and-out said in the past he won't seek legal action. He should stop saying that.
- Talking about lawsuits are incredible drama fountains. They will generate a tizzy of activity and buzz and traffic.
- That's bad and will generally make everything worse even though it might look like it's getting better. The lawsuit will be *entertainment* for all sides.
- However, Jesse contacting a lawyer, and then *not talking about it*, is completely fine.
- If it's ever done, it should be a place where Jesse and his lawyer are really sure they'd win or get some kind of major concession, because it has to be worth it.
I was wondering the same thing. It’s one thing to give an opinion that you think someone is creepy; it’s another thing altogether to claim Jesse has committed a crime and has done so motivated by bigotry and hatred. I am not a lawyer, but I’d be interested in hearing what one has to say.
Agreed. What are your thoughts on what could be done about it, if anything? I find the “surveillance capitalism” argument appealing, but I haven’t looked super closely at it.
I don’t know much about LinkedIn’s business model, but the surveillance capitalism model definitely applies to Meta and Google. I’m inclined to agree with it, but haven’t done much digging into counterarguments. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism
I love this interview about it. The interview portion starts around 34:30. I used to be a paid subscriber to Useful Idiots and the full interview I thought was excellent (you have to be a paid subscriber to listen to it; otherwise you just get the first 20 minutes or so). https://youtu.be/qkqJmeVIWSQ
We're friends here, right? I try to be as objective as I can be when I read stuff from anyone at all--I try to parse the words written, and ask "What's unsaid?," "Why choose those particular words to describe what happened?," and "Assuming all this is true, what other facts might discredit what's written here?"
I read everything that came out around Jamie Reed that I bumped into (a topic of my interest). I listened to the BARpod podcasts about this.
It seems clear to me that words from a medical record were repeated outside of the medical community. Jesse did use these words from a medical record. That's it.
HIPPA is for privacy--and disclosure of PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and PHI (Protected Health Information) are the critical accusations here. That's the equivalent of "doxxing" a patient--something none of us would endorse.
There's zero evidence that exists anywhere in Jamie Reed's stuff, nor his.
If Jesse quoted a medical record that said "Take two aspirin, and call me in the morning" that would be entirely similar to what he did do--and no PII nor PHI is included in either statement.
Did he use words from a medical record, sacred as those might be? Yes. Does it really matter? No--except that the trans activists can stomach no association with attack helicopters or any other suggesting that "self-ID" is a stupid, stupid thing.
When they react so extremely, we can all take solace that it's a recognition the the tenets that their religion is founded upon are fragile, so, so fragile.
They'll crack before Jesse does. And I'm with him.
Jesse is a hero not only for his honesty, integrity and bravery but also because he's provided us all with a valuable lesson in what happens when you stand up to zealots and fanatics, armed only with reason and fact.
The Gender cult can't honestly publicly defend any of their sacred narratives—not any definition of "gender" and certainly not any of their medical experiments on children—so instead they've launched an endless vicious campaign to smear, lie, and vilify him, even slyly hoping that someone delivers some vigilante justice to shut his heretical mouth. And then when he or anyone else responds the best they can come up with is hysterically whining about "erasing their existence", as if they and their dogma are a single body and if you puncture one you puncture the other (which sadly might be true).
Cheers to Jesse, one of America's last real honest journalists, who will be one of the very few people left with their reputations or dignity intact once these years of Gender madness are over and its tale gets told.
The fact that people associated with some of the most elite and prestigious institutions *on the planet* are THIS emotionally dysregulated, THIS unable to think critically before making public statements, and THIS impervious to the idea that anybody who disagrees with them may not actually be the embodiment of evil is incredibly disturbing. The coddling of the American mind indeed. Our supposed best and brightest are as mentally fragile as an eggshell, incapable of generating anything other than perpetual outrage, and have no grasp of the idea that there may be consequences for libel or promoting violence against people they disagree with - because they have never faced serious consequences for any of their childish, hystrionic behavior, and now that they’re middle-aged, they are too set in their ways to change. It’s truly horrifying in a way. The chickens of the past 20+ years of higher education are coming home to roost. Mental children good at regurgitating talking points with adult vocabulary - that’s what we’ve got to show for it.
when I read these blue sky posts, it just seems so kind of crazy, particularly the person who is like making this big effort to gather as many people as possible to ban Jesse. I mean, like calling him a pedophile and it’s like pretty gross that they are doing that. It keeps me off of blue sky because I just think it’s creepy high school behavior where people who don’t go outside enough sit around and just talk shit about people for clout.
Like it’s a genuinely creepy how much they are calling him a pedophile. It’s like there was a comment from someone saying that they are minimizing child molestation which is totally true. They sound like QAnon like just deciding that that’s a good smear.
The hysteria, the exaggeration, the self-obsession, the fabrication, the splitting: trans activists as a group exhibit all the hallmarks of a severe personality disorder. Social media rewards people with severe personality disorders with the attention they crave.
It's almost like we've been running a giant controlled trial for the influence of cross-sex hormones during adolescence on the development of adult emotional regulation.
Honestly, Jesse, I couldn’t do your job for five minutes without going completely insane. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking journalism seriously.
My guess is much of the hysteria surrounding various trans issues will only abate when the lawsuits become a burden. Lawsuits for malpractice against the providers of the care and lawsuits for defamation and/or libel against people making wild and damaging accusations against people like Jesse. I wish it didn't have to come to that, but that's how we seem to do it in the good old U S of A.
Plaintiffs may well have the burden of proving that medical professionals failed to adhere to the applicable standard of care. The defendant will cite WPATH's standards and claim they did nothing wrong. Hence, sex realists have two battles to fight. The first is to completely discredit the spurious standards of care that have been influenced by trans activists and their allies. The second is then to hold health care providers liable under the appropriate standard of care. I do not know whether that could be accomplished in single lawsuit.
Not a single lawsuit but perhaps a Singal one? ;-)
Even if a doctor can appeal to the WPATH standards initially, no one wants to be sued for med-mal, because med-mal insurance rates increase regardless of the outcome of the case. Moreover, the physician will be represented, at least in part, by the insurance companies lawyer. They will typically want to settle the case (~95% of all civil suits settle) instead of fighting some ideological battle.
Caraballo repeated "never knows a moment of peace" after being absolutely owned by Nancy Mace on national television for that? Is there a lead poisoning issue going on or something?
Bluesky is a nightmare. I draw the line at the calls on there for the murder of you as well as me. British trans activist Mallory Moore, for example, said I should be "Supplied for the consideration of the Midnight CEO Murder Society. I have alerted the British police.
See: https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1867254511917465861
The stuff on Bluesky was positively unhinged. I couldn't believe how many block lists and stuff I ended up on just for either following Singal or merely making comments. These folks think they own the place.
I had the feeling it would be the nastiest hall monitors on twitter decamping for its happy skies.
This too shall pass.
Up top
The treatment of yourself and Jesse shows, I think, that there is simply no way, no matter how moderate or sympathetic, in which you can criticise any aspect of gender identity care. In fact the more moderate and sympathetic you are the more furious transactivists get.
Ben, I’m so sorry you are going through this. These people, to put it bluntly are what we used to say in the olden days, mental. The more they post, the more their echo chamber agrees with them, the more power they think they have. Hopefully the police will take it as seriously as they do for “misgendering” someone. You will be remembered for being on the right side of history
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was mental.” —Edna Turnblad
Please stay safe. This is unbelievably dangerous and deeply upsetting.
This really sucks I’m so sorry Ben!
As a parent who is grateful that you didn’t take the easy path and drop this issue years ago I again want to thank you for remaining true to your identity as a journalist and remind you that while we might not post flyers near your home we appreciate your courage with more depth of feeling than your critics’ anger.
Are you ever frustrated that more pundits don’t defend you? Imagining folks like Yglesias, Noahpionion, Ezra Klein, Nate Silver just saying, “look, this guys keeps getting smeared. For the record, he is merely doing normal reporting on a hot button issue.”
Lmao, Noah Smith, Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and Nate Silver would need to have at least one single functioning testicle between all four of them first.
Well that image will haunt my nightmares forever
I’m almost positive I saw an off-hand positive reference from Silver recently.
I also vaguely remember Yglesias indirectly showing approval. And that none of them piled on at any point is a good thing too. But would love to see something more concrete. I wonder how many people are fooled by, "lot's of people screaming this guy is a bigot, I better just steer clear".
I think the issue is one described by Musa Al-Gharbi in "We Have Never Been Woke". To wit, elites want "social justice" but, and this is the quiet part that no one ever says out loud, they still want to be elites. The people you mentioned above certainly want to maintain their elite status and so won't truly rock the boat.
I feel like Ezra's capacity for ingesting and synthesizing data is generally top notch, but in this particular area he seems to have a blind spot.
I think a lot of high-profile people may still be scared of deviating from the orthodoxy on this. I mean, look what happened to Seth Moulton when he gently suggested that males playing girls’ sports may not be the hill the Democratic Party should die on if they want to win elections.
I thought the same when Ezra’s name was mentioned above. He has gone somewhat out on a limb regarding Israel/Gaza in the past year (relative to the political terrain that he occupies) but it seems like the transgender kid medical treatment is an issue where he wants to keep a distance.
I think he's merely a coward.
This is hot take-ish, but if I'm off, I don't think I'm that off.
Ezra Klein is almost sociopathically masterful about how he manages his political capital. It's why he's reached the place of esteem he has.
He'll never do anything that might risk the winds of left reaction blowing him over but he'll pick his spots when he's strong enough to take it like a champ, eg re Biden's age. Having built up his capital by eg making an example of Sam Harris.
In the dryest sense I respect his ability to play the game, but the game itself is a ugly and noxious symptom of the deep sickness of media. It should not be like House of Cards or even one tenth of the way there, but here we are.
(ETA - to any Sam Harris haters: I'm not out here to change your minds but I'm also not going to re-litigate anything.)
Hey, looks like Yglesias agreed it was bad to call for the murder of Jesse - progress!
https://bsky.app/profile/mattyglesias.bsky.social/post/3ld7igasdmc23
Jesse, have you spoken to a lawyer about any of this? Not that I’m an expert on the relevant laws, but if this doesn’t constitute libel I cannot imagine what would.
Yes I would gladly contribute to a legal fund to hold these people accountable for libeling Jesse.
If a small group of radical ideologues can hold an entire debate hostage by smearing and maliciously libeling anyone who opposes them without facing consequences, we don’t have an informed democracy anymore. It is well past time we started talking legal options.
This is literally a brilliant start up idea for the times that we live in! An intrepid group of legal entrepreneurs could come up with a business model for this. My sense is that there is probably a kind of legal defense/offense formula that could be developed, to enable repeatability and handling all clients of clients regardless of the substance of the accusation. It’s really all about demonstrating that there is zero evidence behind these claims. I see a $500M market cap in the distance! Wish I were at attorney. Damn it!
It's a tricky patchwork of state and federal laws relating to defamation and anti-SLAPP, but it is certainly a good idea.
scattered thoughts here:
- Jesse said out-and-out said in the past he won't seek legal action. He should stop saying that.
- Talking about lawsuits are incredible drama fountains. They will generate a tizzy of activity and buzz and traffic.
- That's bad and will generally make everything worse even though it might look like it's getting better. The lawsuit will be *entertainment* for all sides.
- However, Jesse contacting a lawyer, and then *not talking about it*, is completely fine.
- If it's ever done, it should be a place where Jesse and his lawyer are really sure they'd win or get some kind of major concession, because it has to be worth it.
"Jesse said out-and-out said in the past he won't seek legal action. He should stop saying that."
Yeah, no offense to Jesse but this explains a lot.
I was wondering the same thing. It’s one thing to give an opinion that you think someone is creepy; it’s another thing altogether to claim Jesse has committed a crime and has done so motivated by bigotry and hatred. I am not a lawyer, but I’d be interested in hearing what one has to say.
Social media is making everyone sick, and everyone knows it, and no one is doing anything about it. Not great.
Agreed. What are your thoughts on what could be done about it, if anything? I find the “surveillance capitalism” argument appealing, but I haven’t looked super closely at it.
Surveillance capitalism? You mean LinkedIn?
I don’t know much about LinkedIn’s business model, but the surveillance capitalism model definitely applies to Meta and Google. I’m inclined to agree with it, but haven’t done much digging into counterarguments. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism
I love this interview about it. The interview portion starts around 34:30. I used to be a paid subscriber to Useful Idiots and the full interview I thought was excellent (you have to be a paid subscriber to listen to it; otherwise you just get the first 20 minutes or so). https://youtu.be/qkqJmeVIWSQ
We're friends here, right? I try to be as objective as I can be when I read stuff from anyone at all--I try to parse the words written, and ask "What's unsaid?," "Why choose those particular words to describe what happened?," and "Assuming all this is true, what other facts might discredit what's written here?"
I read everything that came out around Jamie Reed that I bumped into (a topic of my interest). I listened to the BARpod podcasts about this.
It seems clear to me that words from a medical record were repeated outside of the medical community. Jesse did use these words from a medical record. That's it.
HIPPA is for privacy--and disclosure of PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and PHI (Protected Health Information) are the critical accusations here. That's the equivalent of "doxxing" a patient--something none of us would endorse.
There's zero evidence that exists anywhere in Jamie Reed's stuff, nor his.
If Jesse quoted a medical record that said "Take two aspirin, and call me in the morning" that would be entirely similar to what he did do--and no PII nor PHI is included in either statement.
Did he use words from a medical record, sacred as those might be? Yes. Does it really matter? No--except that the trans activists can stomach no association with attack helicopters or any other suggesting that "self-ID" is a stupid, stupid thing.
When they react so extremely, we can all take solace that it's a recognition the the tenets that their religion is founded upon are fragile, so, so fragile.
They'll crack before Jesse does. And I'm with him.
Yes to all of this. The only way this text identifies a person is if you already had access to the medical records! It's absolutely absurd.
Jesse is a hero not only for his honesty, integrity and bravery but also because he's provided us all with a valuable lesson in what happens when you stand up to zealots and fanatics, armed only with reason and fact.
The Gender cult can't honestly publicly defend any of their sacred narratives—not any definition of "gender" and certainly not any of their medical experiments on children—so instead they've launched an endless vicious campaign to smear, lie, and vilify him, even slyly hoping that someone delivers some vigilante justice to shut his heretical mouth. And then when he or anyone else responds the best they can come up with is hysterically whining about "erasing their existence", as if they and their dogma are a single body and if you puncture one you puncture the other (which sadly might be true).
Cheers to Jesse, one of America's last real honest journalists, who will be one of the very few people left with their reputations or dignity intact once these years of Gender madness are over and its tale gets told.
Jesus, I had no idea things were this bad!
WTF Harvard? Why are they employing someone so unethical?
The fact that people associated with some of the most elite and prestigious institutions *on the planet* are THIS emotionally dysregulated, THIS unable to think critically before making public statements, and THIS impervious to the idea that anybody who disagrees with them may not actually be the embodiment of evil is incredibly disturbing. The coddling of the American mind indeed. Our supposed best and brightest are as mentally fragile as an eggshell, incapable of generating anything other than perpetual outrage, and have no grasp of the idea that there may be consequences for libel or promoting violence against people they disagree with - because they have never faced serious consequences for any of their childish, hystrionic behavior, and now that they’re middle-aged, they are too set in their ways to change. It’s truly horrifying in a way. The chickens of the past 20+ years of higher education are coming home to roost. Mental children good at regurgitating talking points with adult vocabulary - that’s what we’ve got to show for it.
Harvard has fallen a long way. This did not start with Caraballo. Check the dismal history of Sarah Jeong. She 'only' attended Harvard Law School.
when I read these blue sky posts, it just seems so kind of crazy, particularly the person who is like making this big effort to gather as many people as possible to ban Jesse. I mean, like calling him a pedophile and it’s like pretty gross that they are doing that. It keeps me off of blue sky because I just think it’s creepy high school behavior where people who don’t go outside enough sit around and just talk shit about people for clout.
Like it’s a genuinely creepy how much they are calling him a pedophile. It’s like there was a comment from someone saying that they are minimizing child molestation which is totally true. They sound like QAnon like just deciding that that’s a good smear.
Do not be shocked. There is a whole cadre of unethical profs parading around as SJW (and I don't mean single Jewish women).
https://nypost.com/2024/12/11/us-news/socialist-upenn-professor-hides-social-media-after-celebratory-post-about-ceo-murder-suspect-goes-viral/
Harvard is a refuge for scoundrels. I suspect it's always been.
The stupidity will continue until the alumni wake up and take their money elsewhere. (Beyond what's already happened since Oct 7 '23)
The hysteria, the exaggeration, the self-obsession, the fabrication, the splitting: trans activists as a group exhibit all the hallmarks of a severe personality disorder. Social media rewards people with severe personality disorders with the attention they crave.
It's almost like we've been running a giant controlled trial for the influence of cross-sex hormones during adolescence on the development of adult emotional regulation.
Activists lie. And they feel justified in doing so. Anything to defeat a perceived enemy.
Honestly, Jesse, I couldn’t do your job for five minutes without going completely insane. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking journalism seriously.
Here here!!!!! 👌🏽
Looking quickly at the Blusky posts and I am once again surprised to the degree to which Popehat has seemingly lost his fucking mind.
He's been out of his head for years now, so I'd hate to see how much worse it's gotten
never mind my previous comment
whoever said "severe internet poisoning" was right
My guess is much of the hysteria surrounding various trans issues will only abate when the lawsuits become a burden. Lawsuits for malpractice against the providers of the care and lawsuits for defamation and/or libel against people making wild and damaging accusations against people like Jesse. I wish it didn't have to come to that, but that's how we seem to do it in the good old U S of A.
Plaintiffs may well have the burden of proving that medical professionals failed to adhere to the applicable standard of care. The defendant will cite WPATH's standards and claim they did nothing wrong. Hence, sex realists have two battles to fight. The first is to completely discredit the spurious standards of care that have been influenced by trans activists and their allies. The second is then to hold health care providers liable under the appropriate standard of care. I do not know whether that could be accomplished in single lawsuit.
Not a single lawsuit but perhaps a Singal one? ;-)
Even if a doctor can appeal to the WPATH standards initially, no one wants to be sued for med-mal, because med-mal insurance rates increase regardless of the outcome of the case. Moreover, the physician will be represented, at least in part, by the insurance companies lawyer. They will typically want to settle the case (~95% of all civil suits settle) instead of fighting some ideological battle.
Agreed. I hate the fact there is so much litigation in this country, but lawsuits are the weapon of choice here.
Caraballo repeated "never knows a moment of peace" after being absolutely owned by Nancy Mace on national television for that? Is there a lead poisoning issue going on or something?
In a sane world, Caraballo would be unemployable.
Exactly! Why do “they” have a job after all the controversy & attention they bring?
What a strange distasteful little corner of the internet Bluesky seems to be.