This whole thing makes me wonder what other (less currently politicized) medical interventions are built on such a shaky edifice. Or is it that this *one* issue just caused otherwise sensible clinicians to take leave of their senses?
--Screenings for several cancers have turned out to have limited to no benefit, including breast, prostate, and thyroid cancers. Increased screening hasn't led to a decrease in mortality because most of the cancers these screenings catch are cancers that would never have been life-threatening
--Quite a bit related to birth: electronic fetal monitoring offers no benefit, episiotomies increase risk of severe vaginal tears, inductions and c-sections are vital when necessary but overprescribed, the standard birthing position on the back is the worst possible position, and directed pushing is incorrect
--A minority of people who benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs, but they are a small minority of the overall population who has been prescribed them
--SSRIs are increasingly contentious
--There are a variety of "medicalized" conditions, wherein a difference in the body is associated with a disease state, but that difference has come to be treated as a disease itself despite not being a disease in the traditional sense. High cholesterol, prediabetes, obesity, osteopenia, psychiatric conditions like social anxiety and ADHD, and the like are arguably not diseases and there is no benefit (to the patient) to treating them like they are (there is a benefit for doctors and pharmaceutical companies: money). Prediabetes, for example, is controversial: the majority (90-95%) of people with a "prediabetic" A1C will never go on to develop diabetes, and it is not recognized as a disease outside a few countries. But it makes a lot of money for pharmaceutical companies in the US.
Re social anxiety and ADHD: I don't know how people started thinking it was "healthy" to have kids diagnosed with psychological disorders. Even if they have behavioral problems, even serious ones, telling a kid "your brain is broken" is...shall we say...a fucking bad message for a child. At a fundamental level it's dismissing & suppressing a child's emotions and desires in favor of emotions and behaviors that the overseeing adults would prefer. This is inherently distressing - and that's before we get into the social effects of being stigmatized with disorders, and that's before we get into the developmental effects of taking psychoactive medications while you're developing. Anecdotally, every person in my family (several) who was prescribed ADHD meds as a kid went on to have serious substance abuse issues as an adult. Anecdotally...but one can certainly see how it's maybe not good to teach a child "pills fix me" from an early age.
The weirdest part to me is that it's same people who act like spanking a kid is a war crime who will also be fine with feeding a kid psychotropic drugs.
Be wary of swinging too far the other way. By the time I hit college, I was already starting to limit my own idea of what I thought I was capable of, because I could tell something was holding me back but I didn't know what. I would later be diagnosed with severe ADHD, but not until my late 20s. Meanwhile, despite lots of therapy, I of course blamed myself for my struggles. I didn't think I fit the ADD descriptions (tuns out it's MUCH different and rather understudied in women) and thought I could just push through it. But instead of becoming more resilient, I just ground away my confidence.
I think it's clear this stuff is overprescribed and overdiagnosed, and probably super underresearched given the severity and ubiquity of the drugs, but it's also important not to forget diagnosis can be an absolute relief. These conditions aren't made up, and they can be crippling and become much worse if left untreated. I'm old enough to know I literally can't hold down a full-time job or meet deadlines without stimulants. (Fun Fact: UCSF once scanned my brain with one of those electrode caps in order to use it as a primo example of confirmed ADHD while they try to develop new diagnostic criteria! I got $100! Lol)
But it's *also* worth noting that I think "medicating" ADHD away would be laughably unnecessary if we lived in a healthier, less-capitalist society that was more interested in supporting and benefiting from intensely creative people in a less exploitative fashion.
"-A minority of people who benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs, but they are a small minority of the overall population who has been prescribed them"
I'm interested in knowing more about this. I resisted going on cholesterol reducing drugs for a long time but are now taking them. I wonder if I'm wasting my time taking them.
If you have cardiovascular disease or a genetic condition that leads to very high cholesterol, they have a significant benefit because you are at high risk of a heart attack or stroke. If your only risk factor is high cholesterol, you are much less likely to benefit because you have a pretty low risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Statins do raise the risk of diabetes so if you just have high cholesterol and no cardiovascular disease and a strong family diabetes, the risks may outweigh the benefits.
Find a doctor who will work with diet snd exercise related factors first, it worked for people I know with family history of cholesterol issues. I also know people with substantial bad side effects from taking statins. :(
Yes! I’ve been wondering when more journalists will start to notice that hormone pushers are targeting the moms and dads as well as the kids.
-“Low T” for men (diet snd exercise and talking about stuff is usually helpful) ,
- “T will solve “libido and mood issues for menopausal women”, (again diet and exercise, and therapy for burnout related stress is usually the solution) Dr. Jen Gunter’s book covers this pretty well
- all the kid dysphoria issues treated with hormones instead of looking at the environment
Very much the former. There are huge categories of elective surgeries for things like backs, hips, and knees which are presented to patients as clearly beneficial but for which there is very, very little evidence of actual benefit. Even a procedure as simple, and seemingly obviously beneficial, as removing wisdom teeth isn’t actually supported by much in the way of rigorously demonstrated benefit. I'm never closer to putting on a tinfoil hat then when I'm interacting with the US medical system. It's simply true that doctors and health systems only make money treating sick people; so there's an incentive to decide that you're sick, and there's an incentive to sell you a treatment.
If you want to experience some massive dissonance. visit a university dental school clinic instead of a private dentist next time. Completely different attitude, and they actually differentiate between cosmetic and medically-necessary procedures, a line that private dentists love to blur.
What's extra funny is, at the dental school they'll openly talk about "what would we do in private practice" - in my case recommend all wisdom teeth be pulled - vs "what will we do here" - in my case just pull the one wisdom tooth that broke.
Removing not-yet-emerged and firmly rooted wisdom teeth is serious surgery and massively traumatic to a developing jaw structure - elderly people lose jaw bone mass after they lose their teeth, and the same is doubtless true here to a lesser extent. And for what? Mostly for preventing infections (the kind thing we're like, really good at treating actually), and for cosmetic reasons.
If you're sending people off into the jungle, where they might not have access to modern medicine for months and months, and a wisdom tooth abscess would be dangerous, that's one thing - similar to African explorers getting their appendixes removed preemptively. This is quite another matter, and blanket wisdom tooth removal seems increasingly unnecessary when most people don't experience any "side effects" of having their natural teeth grow in naturally. And maybe...we shouldn't be surprised be that at all, actually.
We still do these things in Canada where we have an antagonistic relationship between doctors and the provincial boards who choose what procedures to pay for.
I have the example of having severe ankle arthritis from a bleeding disorder called Hemophilia and Ontario will not pay for minor quality of life surgeries like arthroscopy on my ankles because it has been deemed not effective enough of a treatment. At least that's my read, my docs just tell me the only option is full fusion (screwing them together with metal screws) or replacement, but my I could probably get the surgery in the US if I paid for it, but I trust the general stance of our provincial system not deeming it worth their time.
SSRIs/SNRIs if you want to really get blackpilled. BBC Horizon is doing a report on how the industry for 30+ years ignored antidepressant discontinuation/withdrawal syndrome. Maybe they'll also hit on the fact we have no long term data for long term use, or that a landmark study showed no benefit when going over the minimum effective dose because of how neurotransmitter reuptake works.
One of the big ones was the APA's recommendations for peanut allergy prevention which ended up increasing the incidence of peanut allergies. They recommended that children not be given peanuts until age two in order to reduce the chance of peanut allergies. This was a nonsense recommendations: there was good quality animal evidence that early exposure to potential food allergens made it harder to experimentally induce allergic reactions to that food. We also had epidemiological evidence: Israel is a rich country with a very low rate of peanut allergies and one of their most popular baby snacks is made of peanuts. Everyone who worked in Immunology knew that the APA recommendations were making kids more likely to develop peanut allergies. And yet, pediatricians adhered to the recommendations and parents were sternly scolded if they allowed their kids to eat anything containing peanuts before age two.
The recommendations were eventually reversed after an RCT found that kids at high risk of developing peanut allergies were much less likely too develop a peanut allergy if they were exposed to peanuts before age two. We're lucky to be in a rich country where epipens are available but it is entirely possible that there are people who will die of peanut allergies that they would not have developed if their parents had not followed the APA's recommendations.
I have wondered about the massive increase in allergies in recent generations (I know about the "hygiene hypothesis", I guess I should be grateful my mother let me eat dirt?).
And if I have a baby I will be smearing its little face with peanut butter and shellfish all day.
I heard a BBC podcast interview with a guy who studied hunter-gatherers and he was flummoxed to discover that they burned the same amount of calories per day as sedentary westerners. They also had much lower instances of things like allergies and anxiety disorder and autoimmune maladies. The idea is that when you are not using those calories for physical activity your body diverts them to your immune system or endocrine system, leading to the problems in question.
I have no idea if it holds up but it’s interesting.
The hygiene hypothesis phenomenon probably plays a big role in peanut allergies. Stuff like "don't feed your kids peanuts until they're two" makes it worse. My hope is that we figure out how much dirt kids need to eat to keep them allergy and autoimmune disease free.
There's some evidence that cats/cat feces may be carriers for a virus that affects long-term human behavior slightly (makes you slightly more risk tolerant)
(My Source: the book "Never Home Alone")
(But maybe that'll turn out to be wrong, or maybe the net benefit is still positive, or maybe my personal preference for dogs acts as confirmation bias here!)
anecdata/n=1: cousin has twins who both have fake gluten intolerances. They have always eaten healthy and been very active, but ALSO LOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEE antibacterial hand sanitizer. They fucking LOVE THAT SHIT LIKE CANDY! I've been out with them and they clean restaurant tables (and children's hands) with wet wipes and have the hand sanitizer out all the time.
I ate a LOT of dirt as a kid and probably didn't get a bath every 16 hours.
They say they have negative digestive reactions to gluten. My dickish perspective is that people may have actual digestive reactions to gluten or other carb heavy foods, but I don't believe that a significant percentage of our population have genuine, built-in, genetic-level intolerance of food that humans have been eating for a very long time. I know people with "real" digestive issues like IBS and Ciliac, and I know other people who have major digestive problems because they eat nothing but Taco Bell and frozen chicken fingers.
Something else must be going on, be it a lack of gut bacteria from eating too much processed, clean food that's shelf stable for months because of a lack of bacteria population or genetic modification creating food that is actually intolerable to an otherwise healthy digestive system.
We just don't know what is going on because it's easier and more profitable to sell gluten free products to cash-strapped people because they can choose to stop paying for Netflix but they can't stop eating.
In addition to what others have said, being born by c-section increases risk of allergies. The theory is going through the vagina "primes" the immune system with a bunch of bacteria, and c-section babies have worse allergies because they never got that bacterial dose.
Myself and my siblings have no family history whatsoever of allergies, but we were all c-sections. And we all have severe allergies.
I volunteered at an afterschool program while I was in high school. We had to check allergy sheets for a group every day and compare them against an ingredient list for that day's snacks/meals. There were about 30 kids in each class from each grade pre-K to 8th, and seeing all the allergies for each class laid out side by side, it was absolutely shocking how many more allergies the younger groups had. At that time the oldest kids were born about 2000 and the youngest born about 2010, and the youngest groups had 3x-4x the number of kids with allergies, and the kids with allergies had about 2x more allergies each. It was downright scary.
A better slogan than "believe science" would be "use science" - there is no meaningful, unalterable scientific authority that can be trusted on many issues, but it is possible to do a better job of evaluating the scientific evidence on many specific claims.
When I was young, it was the rare kid who didn't have their tonsils out, and pretty common for the moms to have a hysterectomy. When I was a mom it was common for kids to have tubes installed in their ears to prevent ear infections.
The stats on back surgery are bad, lots of unnecessary and ineffective procedures.
As a child, I had my tonsils out twice, along with my adenoids, and had tympanostomy tubes surgically implanted AND surgically removed because at ages 5,6, and 7 I refused to let the ENT do it in the office. (Now the tubes are left to extrude on their own.) I’ve had two major surgeries on one ear to remove a growth called cholesteatoma, have a prosthetic bone implanted, and my ear drum reinforced with a piece of my tragus. The ear that wasn’t operated on is causing new problems.
The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy article some 15-20 years comparing all the alternatives for healing backs, from surgery to wholistic approaches. None were deemed successful, if I recall correctly.
Maybe if more doctors read journals - and wrote angry letters about things they didn't like - these organizations would better reflect the views of this "silent majority" of doctors. In staying quiet they allow others to speak for them.
Several major scientific and medical institutions have now delegitimized themselves in my view, including AMA, AAP, and Scientific American. They join a growing list of formerly respectable institutions (Yale, Harvard, Princeton) that have shown themselves to be ideologically captured and thus no longer trustworthy.
The fact that 90% of children presenting with gender dysphoria naturally grow out of it with no intervention is enough reason not to make any medical interventions with puberty blockers or cross sex hormones, let alone surgery, before the age of 18. These treatments can have lifelong harmful effects, i.e., they are not always reversible. This can lead to terrible effects on children's mental and physical health.
I agree that the kneejerk conservatives are not the thoughtful, measured, and above all, scientific experts that we need to combat this. Unfortunately, they happen to be the only ones who are trying to do anything about this right now. The Left has gone completely doolally on this and cannot be trusted either.
The perhaps more disturbing but less satisfying read is that all of these institutions have *always* been this way -- they were not captured; they have always been political (as I believe virtually all human institutions are). Your politics simply no longer reflect the elite politics. Classical liberalism is where most of the elites *used to be* politically and their institutions reflected that. Elites are now somewhere else politically and their institutions reflect that. The institutions were never non-political.
Correct, and I'd go much further. A good 75% of the voting populace, half or more of the Democratic base and a large majority of Republicans, have mostly "knee-jerk" political views. It's surprisingly rare that the average voter has given their opinions more than a cursory examination.
And as a side-note, I would argue that if a political party does not appreciate being called a cult, they should stop acting like a cult.
The document may be full of lies and unsupported nonsense, but it contains at least one hidden truth. By saying that no one under 18 is getting "gender-affirming genital surgery" it essentially acknowledges that plenty of under-18s are having their breasts removed.
Ava, Look at the age that the famous Jazz Jennings had genital surgery and look to see who the surgeon was....if not, look her up too. Jazz was born 10-6-2000.
"In an interview published in the April 11, 2018, issue of People, Jennings said that, per her surgeons' instructions, she had lost at least 30 pounds (14 kg) in order to have gender reassignment surgery, which was scheduled for June 20, 2018.[48] The surgery was successful,[49] but was followed by complications that required another procedure.[50] The surgery was performed by Dr. Jess Ting and Dr. Marci Bowers.[51]"
This comes out the same day as another Detransitioner files suit against Kaiser Permanente after she was first brought to a clinic at 12 and by 13 she had a masectomy.
I am alarmed by this phenomenon after following many gender critical feminists for years on Twitter. Some have become so jaded by the dishonesty promulgated by “authorities” on the issue of childhood transition, that they have apparently decided no scientific bodies are to be trusted about medicine, and are now anti-vaxxers. Some were genuine lefties who have literally said they would vote for *Ron deSantis* because he seems “sane” to them on gender.
The Democratic Party is genuinely going to lose voters over this one issue, because once you’ve seen the truth of the “trans kid” phenomenon, you can’t unsee it, and to those of us who are parents it is a deeply personal issue.
I remain a committed Democrat, who nevertheless will never again just accept whatever position or slogan the Democrats (and any other trusted institution) passionately espouse. But it’s harder and harder to do so when they double down on dangerous, toxic nonsense. It’s so dispiriting that I can absolutely understand how people will just generalize that if they’re so terribly, harmfully, PASSIONATELY wrong about one thing, they’re probably obfuscating and creating false narratives about other issues. And they’ll have no problem finding groups of people who will welcome them with open arms into conspiracy theories and reflexive distrust of “mainstream” authorities.
"Some were genuine lefties who have literally said they would vote for *Ron deSantis* because he seems “sane” to them on gender."
I am a genuine lefty, and not only will I vote for DeSantis, I will vote for Trump.
The Democrats are all-in on child mutilation and sterilization, and I simply WILL NOT be part of that, in any way, period.
At age 67, after a lifetime of Democrat voting and activism since volunteering for McGovern in 1972, I now vote straight Republican.
I simply don't care about anything else as much as I do about stopping this ongoing crime against humanity, and the Republicans are the only semi-organized opposition.
I come from the same historical period as you. Was lefty when young. Voted for McGovern at 18. I agree the Dems now are out of their minds and the Republicans are the only ones opposing some of their idiocy.
But I can’t vote Trump or DeSantis or any of these characters. No way. They are vengeful authoritarians who are not normal conservatives but radicals with psychopathic tendencies.
If you consider those elected officials “authoritarian,” what word do you use to describe the unelected bureaucrats who write and enforce rules in the federal agencies?
I call them employees of the government doing their mostly boring jobs. The tyrants at the top set the pace. The tyrants can be in either party but the most vocal ones are meat balls like DeSantis and his ilk. Can’t vote for them.
Yeah, except the culture war is stoked from two sides. Realistically DeSantis (or any other culture-war forward candidate) will only make this issue worse. The only solution are politicians like Obama who can turn the temperature down (much like Biden promised to do but didn’t exactly follow through)
For me, "culture war temperature" has no relevance. I have one question: are you FOR or AGAINST mutilating children? Democrats (most definitely including Biden) are FOR. Republicans are AGAINST. Therefore, I now vote Republican.
Me personally? I’m against pushing kids into elective medical procedures but I’m also against the federal government sticking it’s nose into what people can and can’t willingly do to their bodies, even if they are minors. This is a complex cultural issue without easy answers.
Then you must be in favor of dismantling the Food & Drug Administration and its regulation of what drugs and medical procedures can and cannot be prescribed by licensed physicians.
It's a short (but in my case painful) step to no longer considering myself a "committed Democrat." But where to go? Not (in my case) to the Republicans. Uh-uh. Rather, politically, I'm committed to divided government. It seems the best option.
I cannot help but feel that these are examples of people reasoning normally (not necessarily well, but normally). Once we set ourselves up in opposition to some group on an emotional level, unless we have excellent intellectual discipline, we will begin to notice all the less flattering things we used to ignore or overlook about them because we knew they were good folks. The desire to confirm our rightness to ourselves will increasingly compel us to find reasons to justify that rightness, driving us to seek out ever more reasons why the opposition should be rejected.
Add the divisiveness and purity test tribality of social media to that emotional state and people can change their perceptions of others quickly and dramatically without their really noticing that the others haven't changed all that much. Those of us who undergo such changes in those circumstances seem manifestly normal to me.
Just read this and then read the Times reporting on the supreme court’s decision to uphold tribal sovereignty over adoption cases
“Medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have weighed in to support the legislation, arguing that it is an important tool to help redress “the intergenerational pain of lost connections and the trauma of historical loss.”
Super worrisome that these organizations are leaning into doing “woke“ concept creep so much. Reminds me of the ACLU which has gotten so off mission.
for various reasons the American liberal class fell asleep about 30 years ago and have now awoken to find every sense-making institution in the country controlled by Critical Studies Leftists...oops!
People with no principles besides status and cash are always defeated and displaced by people with strong principles, no matter how stupid or demented, but this seems to be a lesson humans need to learn every 2-3 generations.
Kind of on a tangent, but... does anyone else get the feeling that the generally increasing public acceptance of the LGB folks over the last two decades is rapidly being undone by the TQ+ folks?
Yes. The generally positive sentiment towards LGB folks has declined per survey results. They didn't necessarily check for cause, to my knowledge. Similarly I've not seen a survey which measures sentiment towards, Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts individually. Even positive sentiment towards the LGBT folks among younger individuals has declined, which is surprising considering that supposedly the younger generation has the highest numbers of LGBT folks of any group ever.
My supposition is that the past demands by LGB folks were centered around tolerance, acceptance, and equality under the law. Where as the Ts and Qs have demands which focus on a change of world view. Gays are men who are attracted to other men, Ts require us to see men as both biological men and men who are biological women. Thus the request of the Ts is not simple tolerance or legal equality but a demand that people see the world differently to our biology.
To make this more real a relative of mine is an Emergency Room nurse and was starting a urinary catheter on a biological male who identified as a female. She was inserting a catheter into a penis but had to address the patient as ma'am. She said sir multiple times, the patient was upset and she was reprimanded as a result. We see multiple articles talking about the female penis and male vagina. Now we are hearing about a cervical cancer society using the phrase "bonus hole" to describe vaginas in a non-triggering way. We also see the phrase "birthing person" being pushed not just by activist groups but also by politicians. Additionally, we are seeing video upon video where supposed trans individuals flying off the handle at being misgendered where they are not making an effort to "pass". Perhaps one of the most egregious examples is the demand that people be attracted to feminine presenting people or masculine presenting people regardless of their genitals. The result is if you don't want to date trans people you are a transphobe. Thing is that most people want to marry and have kids and dating a trans person will not necessarily accomplish that goal. We've gone from get government out of our bedrooms to culture and society will be in your bedroom demanding you like want we tell you to. This all pushes past the ideal of equality to a new ideal of conform to my wishes and I don't think that's something people are comfortable with.
As for the Qs, Queer Theory has literally called Queer as an identity with out an essence and Queer Theory itself as challenging all normativity. This of course doesn't really work for most people since most people, even most gay and lesbian people, operate within the societal norm. Much like how so much of this ideology spread via the internet and social media, the most extreme forms of the Qs are being passed around social media and people are reacting to it.
I guess it can all be summed up as LGBs want to be able to be live their lives with equality under the laws and the Ts and Qs want you to think of them as they want to be thought of.
Where I think I'm settling on this is to know this is an ideologically captured blind spot - and to be skeptical on coverage about it. I also feel like I can't get a good picture of the evidence anywhere. Jesse, you've helped a lot, but sorry to say I can't also feel like I can trust one journalist on it either - typically being able to weigh multiple opinions is what really gives me context. And using "this pundit is skeptical about youth gender medicine" as a proxy for "they are doing a fair, measured, job on this" doesn't really work either - plenty of cranks who hold that position. Sadly we are all left to evaluate individual journalists, which we don't have that much time for. Jesse, you've earned my trust, but I wish I didn't have to rely just on you about this issue.
All that said, I don't think we need to lose trust in these major institutions on the whole because most issues are not nearly so politically charged. The heuristic should be: have healthy skepticism about any science reporting, but there's no reason to dismiss "the mainstream media" writ large - instead, know about their blind spots as best you can to weigh your skepticism. Seek a list of independent bloggers who've earned your trust to complement - but no need to stop reading the NYT, WSJ, etc. Oh, and I should say that The Economist has been pretty level headed about this issue and other charged issues over the years and I would recommend it as a major piece of anyone's news diet.
The Economist has quietly been an excellent news organization for decades. Their podcast is quite informative and succinct, especially on science issues.
Thing I can't get around. We have a natural experiment readily available:
A) Transhistory says that trans kids have always been there, always and forever.
B) If identity is left unaffirmed, trans kids kill themselves.
C) Medical transition for *anybody* has only been available since the 40s-50s, and for minors only in this century.
D) Youth (ages 10-24) suicide rate, with all this affirmation being affirmated, is running around 10/100K, for *whatever* reasons the individuals may have had.
E) Youth suicide rate for any year, (again, for *whatever* reasons), between 1950-1964 never went over 2.5/100K.
Yes, and are we seeing a stampede by the older generations to transition now that it’s finally “safe”? We’ve been told the reason the numbers of childhood transitions have skyrocketed is because it’s finally socially acceptable and supported. What is the increase in transitioning among millennials, the Gen Xers, etc? Hell, even the boomers. The youngest boomers are just in their 60’s. I remember when people could finally come out of the closet and many a grandpas did so. Has anyone seen these statistics?
As a long time member of the AMA (and many other organizations) I and many of our peers find this behavior scandalous, unscientific, unsupportable and, in many cases, heinous. The fact is that most physicians have no idea what the AMA is promulgating. It gets into the news somewhere, but the AMA NEVER writes to their members and says "here's what we are telling folks now" because they know that half (or more) of the membership would resign.
Every time I show some of my peers (even those in organized medicine) what the AMA policy might be on something or what they are promulgating, they are horrified. And the rest of the professional societies (especially AAP) are similarly captured or worse.
AAPS or someone with a platform needs to inform the physicians about the positions that are being taken in their name. I bet it would make a difference. I do my part, but my bully pulpit is not very bully.
P.S. I have been amazed/shocked at how correct Alex Jones has been on so many issues. I used to dismiss him completely out of hand. Now I read what he says and say "hmmmm"...we'll wait and see.
My adult daughter is listening to Alex Jones now. In the past I might have been horrified. Nowadays, I wonder--he might be correct about a few things, even if he’s mostly selling snake oil. In other words, I don’t trust a single thing I’ve read *about* Alex Jones, maybe it’s not all insanity?
I had to overcome my assumption that all those trusted folks on Twitter piling on Jesse had to have *something* to justify their rage. Boy oh boy, they did not, and here I am wondering if Alex Jones has anything useful to say.
Sorry to make the umpteen millionth reference to The Emperor's New Clothes, but it really is a good allegory for pluralistic ignorance. The ending is profound in one sense, that the truth is revealed by a child unburdened by the fear of ostracism or concern over social status which cause all the adults to play along in the farce. The only problem is that the idea of everyone else finally outwardly admitting it on the spot just doesn't align with human nature.
If Andersen could've seen the way people like Jesse get savaged in the age of Twitter for telling the truth about something like this, he might've ended the story with:
"The child was then placed in a pillory and all the people took turns making a great show of spitting on him and throwing rotten lettuce, lest they find themselves in his predicament, or even merely risk losing the slightest bit of standing at court or amongst their neighbors.
A few years later, after enough individuals showed the courage to profess the truth and suffer public scorn themselves, the consensus became that the emperor was indeed naked. And once he was overthrown and replaced by someone more dignified, one could search far and wide and never encounter a solitary soul who remembered celebrating the previous emperor's imaginary clothes or hurling expired produce."
Between Covid and the gender stuff, I have zero faith in any medical system or pharmaceutical company. I know you aren’t a fan of banning these treatments for minors completely, but what other solution is there? Without a complete ban, these unscrupulous organizations will continue to do this to kids.
Thanks for this write-up. I was at dinner with some friends this weekend, and at some point the idea of “republicans just don’t believe in science” came up, and I sat there utterly baffled as every one of them chimed in with the same talking point. I’ve spent the past few days sharpening my arguments to point out that their “side” is just as bad. All of your write-ups/takedowns help me strengthen my position.
Honestly it's hard not to laugh at the "party of science" these days. The guys who think climate change might be a crock seem more rational than those telling us that there is such a thing as "frost gender" or that being on time for a meeting is "whiteness".
I don't understand why "gender diverse" replaced/is replacing "gender nonconforming". Is it because calling stereotypes bad might hurt some trans-identified male's feelings?
As many people who resigned from or protested against Jim Jones' People's Temple...meaning: if anyone wasn't gonna ride this to the bitter end, they were gone years ago.
Transmania is a sacred cult for our supposedly credentialed expert class, the policing of dogma and the demand for obedience is too intense, and we all know how the world works now inside the Church of Social Justice: heretics and apostates will have their careers and reputations destroyed.
All these people have painted themselves into quite a corner, but luckily for them they have the entire corporate state, Dem party and MSM on their side: expect a very large broom and a very large rug that they will try to sweep all this under.
George Will argues that things change back and forth. He may be right. Look at the UK, Norway, Sweden, & Finland -- all to the left -- changing on youth trans treatments.
George Will and the other establishment "conservatives" are house eunuchs whose job it is to help keep the servant class from making too much noise so the masters upstairs can count their money in peace.
It doesn't take an expensive bowtie to know that the pendulum swings both ways, but the question remains: how much damage will be done and will anyone be held responsible?
It's like reverse Gell-mann amnesia. "I know they're wrong here, why should I trust them anywhere?" even though they seem to be much more willing to adhere to data in other areas.
This whole thing makes me wonder what other (less currently politicized) medical interventions are built on such a shaky edifice. Or is it that this *one* issue just caused otherwise sensible clinicians to take leave of their senses?
A lot.
--The big scandalous ones: lobotomies, memory recovery, thalidomide, etc
--Hormone replacement therapy for post-menopausal women (although that might be making another reversal)
--Stents for blocked arteries (the Atlantic has a nice write-up: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/02/when-evidence-says-no-but-doctors-say-yes/517368/)
--A lot of medications have been withdrawn after FDA approval when serious side effects were discovered (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Withdrawn_drugs)
--Screenings for several cancers have turned out to have limited to no benefit, including breast, prostate, and thyroid cancers. Increased screening hasn't led to a decrease in mortality because most of the cancers these screenings catch are cancers that would never have been life-threatening
--Quite a bit related to birth: electronic fetal monitoring offers no benefit, episiotomies increase risk of severe vaginal tears, inductions and c-sections are vital when necessary but overprescribed, the standard birthing position on the back is the worst possible position, and directed pushing is incorrect
--A minority of people who benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs, but they are a small minority of the overall population who has been prescribed them
--SSRIs are increasingly contentious
--There are a variety of "medicalized" conditions, wherein a difference in the body is associated with a disease state, but that difference has come to be treated as a disease itself despite not being a disease in the traditional sense. High cholesterol, prediabetes, obesity, osteopenia, psychiatric conditions like social anxiety and ADHD, and the like are arguably not diseases and there is no benefit (to the patient) to treating them like they are (there is a benefit for doctors and pharmaceutical companies: money). Prediabetes, for example, is controversial: the majority (90-95%) of people with a "prediabetic" A1C will never go on to develop diabetes, and it is not recognized as a disease outside a few countries. But it makes a lot of money for pharmaceutical companies in the US.
Eating healthy foods, getting regular exercise, going outside, and hanging out with people has held up pretty well!
Re social anxiety and ADHD: I don't know how people started thinking it was "healthy" to have kids diagnosed with psychological disorders. Even if they have behavioral problems, even serious ones, telling a kid "your brain is broken" is...shall we say...a fucking bad message for a child. At a fundamental level it's dismissing & suppressing a child's emotions and desires in favor of emotions and behaviors that the overseeing adults would prefer. This is inherently distressing - and that's before we get into the social effects of being stigmatized with disorders, and that's before we get into the developmental effects of taking psychoactive medications while you're developing. Anecdotally, every person in my family (several) who was prescribed ADHD meds as a kid went on to have serious substance abuse issues as an adult. Anecdotally...but one can certainly see how it's maybe not good to teach a child "pills fix me" from an early age.
The weirdest part to me is that it's same people who act like spanking a kid is a war crime who will also be fine with feeding a kid psychotropic drugs.
Be wary of swinging too far the other way. By the time I hit college, I was already starting to limit my own idea of what I thought I was capable of, because I could tell something was holding me back but I didn't know what. I would later be diagnosed with severe ADHD, but not until my late 20s. Meanwhile, despite lots of therapy, I of course blamed myself for my struggles. I didn't think I fit the ADD descriptions (tuns out it's MUCH different and rather understudied in women) and thought I could just push through it. But instead of becoming more resilient, I just ground away my confidence.
I think it's clear this stuff is overprescribed and overdiagnosed, and probably super underresearched given the severity and ubiquity of the drugs, but it's also important not to forget diagnosis can be an absolute relief. These conditions aren't made up, and they can be crippling and become much worse if left untreated. I'm old enough to know I literally can't hold down a full-time job or meet deadlines without stimulants. (Fun Fact: UCSF once scanned my brain with one of those electrode caps in order to use it as a primo example of confirmed ADHD while they try to develop new diagnostic criteria! I got $100! Lol)
But it's *also* worth noting that I think "medicating" ADHD away would be laughably unnecessary if we lived in a healthier, less-capitalist society that was more interested in supporting and benefiting from intensely creative people in a less exploitative fashion.
"-A minority of people who benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs, but they are a small minority of the overall population who has been prescribed them"
I'm interested in knowing more about this. I resisted going on cholesterol reducing drugs for a long time but are now taking them. I wonder if I'm wasting my time taking them.
If you have cardiovascular disease or a genetic condition that leads to very high cholesterol, they have a significant benefit because you are at high risk of a heart attack or stroke. If your only risk factor is high cholesterol, you are much less likely to benefit because you have a pretty low risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Statins do raise the risk of diabetes so if you just have high cholesterol and no cardiovascular disease and a strong family diabetes, the risks may outweigh the benefits.
Thanks!
Find a doctor who will work with diet snd exercise related factors first, it worked for people I know with family history of cholesterol issues. I also know people with substantial bad side effects from taking statins. :(
Yes! I’ve been wondering when more journalists will start to notice that hormone pushers are targeting the moms and dads as well as the kids.
-“Low T” for men (diet snd exercise and talking about stuff is usually helpful) ,
- “T will solve “libido and mood issues for menopausal women”, (again diet and exercise, and therapy for burnout related stress is usually the solution) Dr. Jen Gunter’s book covers this pretty well
- all the kid dysphoria issues treated with hormones instead of looking at the environment
Very much the former. There are huge categories of elective surgeries for things like backs, hips, and knees which are presented to patients as clearly beneficial but for which there is very, very little evidence of actual benefit. Even a procedure as simple, and seemingly obviously beneficial, as removing wisdom teeth isn’t actually supported by much in the way of rigorously demonstrated benefit. I'm never closer to putting on a tinfoil hat then when I'm interacting with the US medical system. It's simply true that doctors and health systems only make money treating sick people; so there's an incentive to decide that you're sick, and there's an incentive to sell you a treatment.
If you want to experience some massive dissonance. visit a university dental school clinic instead of a private dentist next time. Completely different attitude, and they actually differentiate between cosmetic and medically-necessary procedures, a line that private dentists love to blur.
What's extra funny is, at the dental school they'll openly talk about "what would we do in private practice" - in my case recommend all wisdom teeth be pulled - vs "what will we do here" - in my case just pull the one wisdom tooth that broke.
Removing not-yet-emerged and firmly rooted wisdom teeth is serious surgery and massively traumatic to a developing jaw structure - elderly people lose jaw bone mass after they lose their teeth, and the same is doubtless true here to a lesser extent. And for what? Mostly for preventing infections (the kind thing we're like, really good at treating actually), and for cosmetic reasons.
If you're sending people off into the jungle, where they might not have access to modern medicine for months and months, and a wisdom tooth abscess would be dangerous, that's one thing - similar to African explorers getting their appendixes removed preemptively. This is quite another matter, and blanket wisdom tooth removal seems increasingly unnecessary when most people don't experience any "side effects" of having their natural teeth grow in naturally. And maybe...we shouldn't be surprised be that at all, actually.
We still do these things in Canada where we have an antagonistic relationship between doctors and the provincial boards who choose what procedures to pay for.
I have the example of having severe ankle arthritis from a bleeding disorder called Hemophilia and Ontario will not pay for minor quality of life surgeries like arthroscopy on my ankles because it has been deemed not effective enough of a treatment. At least that's my read, my docs just tell me the only option is full fusion (screwing them together with metal screws) or replacement, but my I could probably get the surgery in the US if I paid for it, but I trust the general stance of our provincial system not deeming it worth their time.
SSRIs/SNRIs if you want to really get blackpilled. BBC Horizon is doing a report on how the industry for 30+ years ignored antidepressant discontinuation/withdrawal syndrome. Maybe they'll also hit on the fact we have no long term data for long term use, or that a landmark study showed no benefit when going over the minimum effective dose because of how neurotransmitter reuptake works.
One of the big ones was the APA's recommendations for peanut allergy prevention which ended up increasing the incidence of peanut allergies. They recommended that children not be given peanuts until age two in order to reduce the chance of peanut allergies. This was a nonsense recommendations: there was good quality animal evidence that early exposure to potential food allergens made it harder to experimentally induce allergic reactions to that food. We also had epidemiological evidence: Israel is a rich country with a very low rate of peanut allergies and one of their most popular baby snacks is made of peanuts. Everyone who worked in Immunology knew that the APA recommendations were making kids more likely to develop peanut allergies. And yet, pediatricians adhered to the recommendations and parents were sternly scolded if they allowed their kids to eat anything containing peanuts before age two.
The recommendations were eventually reversed after an RCT found that kids at high risk of developing peanut allergies were much less likely too develop a peanut allergy if they were exposed to peanuts before age two. We're lucky to be in a rich country where epipens are available but it is entirely possible that there are people who will die of peanut allergies that they would not have developed if their parents had not followed the APA's recommendations.
I have wondered about the massive increase in allergies in recent generations (I know about the "hygiene hypothesis", I guess I should be grateful my mother let me eat dirt?).
And if I have a baby I will be smearing its little face with peanut butter and shellfish all day.
I heard a BBC podcast interview with a guy who studied hunter-gatherers and he was flummoxed to discover that they burned the same amount of calories per day as sedentary westerners. They also had much lower instances of things like allergies and anxiety disorder and autoimmune maladies. The idea is that when you are not using those calories for physical activity your body diverts them to your immune system or endocrine system, leading to the problems in question.
I have no idea if it holds up but it’s interesting.
The hygiene hypothesis phenomenon probably plays a big role in peanut allergies. Stuff like "don't feed your kids peanuts until they're two" makes it worse. My hope is that we figure out how much dirt kids need to eat to keep them allergy and autoimmune disease free.
Then that will become a prescription people obsess over (the "correct" amount). Some obsessive mother will be measuring out soil by the gram.
Just get pets, and let your kids get dirty out of doors.
Dog though, not a cat.
There's some evidence that cats/cat feces may be carriers for a virus that affects long-term human behavior slightly (makes you slightly more risk tolerant)
(My Source: the book "Never Home Alone")
(But maybe that'll turn out to be wrong, or maybe the net benefit is still positive, or maybe my personal preference for dogs acts as confirmation bias here!)
Cat virus makes you love cats
anecdata/n=1: cousin has twins who both have fake gluten intolerances. They have always eaten healthy and been very active, but ALSO LOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEE antibacterial hand sanitizer. They fucking LOVE THAT SHIT LIKE CANDY! I've been out with them and they clean restaurant tables (and children's hands) with wet wipes and have the hand sanitizer out all the time.
I ate a LOT of dirt as a kid and probably didn't get a bath every 16 hours.
What do you mean they have "fake gluten intolerances"?
Are they or aren't they gluten intolerant?
They say they have negative digestive reactions to gluten. My dickish perspective is that people may have actual digestive reactions to gluten or other carb heavy foods, but I don't believe that a significant percentage of our population have genuine, built-in, genetic-level intolerance of food that humans have been eating for a very long time. I know people with "real" digestive issues like IBS and Ciliac, and I know other people who have major digestive problems because they eat nothing but Taco Bell and frozen chicken fingers.
Something else must be going on, be it a lack of gut bacteria from eating too much processed, clean food that's shelf stable for months because of a lack of bacteria population or genetic modification creating food that is actually intolerable to an otherwise healthy digestive system.
We just don't know what is going on because it's easier and more profitable to sell gluten free products to cash-strapped people because they can choose to stop paying for Netflix but they can't stop eating.
In addition to what others have said, being born by c-section increases risk of allergies. The theory is going through the vagina "primes" the immune system with a bunch of bacteria, and c-section babies have worse allergies because they never got that bacterial dose.
Myself and my siblings have no family history whatsoever of allergies, but we were all c-sections. And we all have severe allergies.
Yes some clinic now basically smear vaginal secretions on the newborn's face for this reason after a c section.
I volunteered at an afterschool program while I was in high school. We had to check allergy sheets for a group every day and compare them against an ingredient list for that day's snacks/meals. There were about 30 kids in each class from each grade pre-K to 8th, and seeing all the allergies for each class laid out side by side, it was absolutely shocking how many more allergies the younger groups had. At that time the oldest kids were born about 2000 and the youngest born about 2010, and the youngest groups had 3x-4x the number of kids with allergies, and the kids with allergies had about 2x more allergies each. It was downright scary.
how many of them I wonder were actual will-die-of-anaphylaxis allergies, versus trendy "intolerances"
It really exposes the whole "Believe Science" mantra as just another phony phrase designed to 86 debate.
A better slogan than "believe science" would be "use science" - there is no meaningful, unalterable scientific authority that can be trusted on many issues, but it is possible to do a better job of evaluating the scientific evidence on many specific claims.
My sense after seeing this is that you have to monitor your emotional response to the “truth.”
If you go “oh” or “huh” probably true.
If you go “YES!!!!” or “NOOOOO!!!!” there’s probably some kind of distortion.
Whenever I really deeply learn how something works it is almost never an emotive experience it’s always just a “huh, well that was weird.”
When I was young, it was the rare kid who didn't have their tonsils out, and pretty common for the moms to have a hysterectomy. When I was a mom it was common for kids to have tubes installed in their ears to prevent ear infections.
The stats on back surgery are bad, lots of unnecessary and ineffective procedures.
As a child, I had my tonsils out twice, along with my adenoids, and had tympanostomy tubes surgically implanted AND surgically removed because at ages 5,6, and 7 I refused to let the ENT do it in the office. (Now the tubes are left to extrude on their own.) I’ve had two major surgeries on one ear to remove a growth called cholesteatoma, have a prosthetic bone implanted, and my ear drum reinforced with a piece of my tragus. The ear that wasn’t operated on is causing new problems.
The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy article some 15-20 years comparing all the alternatives for healing backs, from surgery to wholistic approaches. None were deemed successful, if I recall correctly.
Re "As a child, I had my tonsils out twice..."
Did they grow back?
That’s what I was told! ….or was it a recurring nightmare?
Maybe if more doctors read journals - and wrote angry letters about things they didn't like - these organizations would better reflect the views of this "silent majority" of doctors. In staying quiet they allow others to speak for them.
Mmmm...opioids. (stupid war on drugs!)
Several major scientific and medical institutions have now delegitimized themselves in my view, including AMA, AAP, and Scientific American. They join a growing list of formerly respectable institutions (Yale, Harvard, Princeton) that have shown themselves to be ideologically captured and thus no longer trustworthy.
The fact that 90% of children presenting with gender dysphoria naturally grow out of it with no intervention is enough reason not to make any medical interventions with puberty blockers or cross sex hormones, let alone surgery, before the age of 18. These treatments can have lifelong harmful effects, i.e., they are not always reversible. This can lead to terrible effects on children's mental and physical health.
I agree that the kneejerk conservatives are not the thoughtful, measured, and above all, scientific experts that we need to combat this. Unfortunately, they happen to be the only ones who are trying to do anything about this right now. The Left has gone completely doolally on this and cannot be trusted either.
The perhaps more disturbing but less satisfying read is that all of these institutions have *always* been this way -- they were not captured; they have always been political (as I believe virtually all human institutions are). Your politics simply no longer reflect the elite politics. Classical liberalism is where most of the elites *used to be* politically and their institutions reflected that. Elites are now somewhere else politically and their institutions reflect that. The institutions were never non-political.
Today's "left" falls into the appeal to authority fallacy pretty readily.
“The knee jerk conservatives”? Who are they? Are they the Ultra MAGA extremists? Are the the Party that H. Clinton calls a “cult”?
The ones jumping on the trans issue for political gain
Again, who are they? Are they just the flip side of the knee jerk leftists seeking political gain by aligning with trans activists and Pride parades?
I believe so
Similar to the Democrats jumping on the (other side of) Trans issues for political gain?
Exactly
Correct, and I'd go much further. A good 75% of the voting populace, half or more of the Democratic base and a large majority of Republicans, have mostly "knee-jerk" political views. It's surprisingly rare that the average voter has given their opinions more than a cursory examination.
And as a side-note, I would argue that if a political party does not appreciate being called a cult, they should stop acting like a cult.
The document may be full of lies and unsupported nonsense, but it contains at least one hidden truth. By saying that no one under 18 is getting "gender-affirming genital surgery" it essentially acknowledges that plenty of under-18s are having their breasts removed.
Good catch!
Ava, Look at the age that the famous Jazz Jennings had genital surgery and look to see who the surgeon was....if not, look her up too. Jazz was born 10-6-2000.
"In an interview published in the April 11, 2018, issue of People, Jennings said that, per her surgeons' instructions, she had lost at least 30 pounds (14 kg) in order to have gender reassignment surgery, which was scheduled for June 20, 2018.[48] The surgery was successful,[49] but was followed by complications that required another procedure.[50] The surgery was performed by Dr. Jess Ting and Dr. Marci Bowers.[51]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Jennings
This comes out the same day as another Detransitioner files suit against Kaiser Permanente after she was first brought to a clinic at 12 and by 13 she had a masectomy.
Exactly: 13, late adolescence. 🙄
I am alarmed by this phenomenon after following many gender critical feminists for years on Twitter. Some have become so jaded by the dishonesty promulgated by “authorities” on the issue of childhood transition, that they have apparently decided no scientific bodies are to be trusted about medicine, and are now anti-vaxxers. Some were genuine lefties who have literally said they would vote for *Ron deSantis* because he seems “sane” to them on gender.
The Democratic Party is genuinely going to lose voters over this one issue, because once you’ve seen the truth of the “trans kid” phenomenon, you can’t unsee it, and to those of us who are parents it is a deeply personal issue.
I remain a committed Democrat, who nevertheless will never again just accept whatever position or slogan the Democrats (and any other trusted institution) passionately espouse. But it’s harder and harder to do so when they double down on dangerous, toxic nonsense. It’s so dispiriting that I can absolutely understand how people will just generalize that if they’re so terribly, harmfully, PASSIONATELY wrong about one thing, they’re probably obfuscating and creating false narratives about other issues. And they’ll have no problem finding groups of people who will welcome them with open arms into conspiracy theories and reflexive distrust of “mainstream” authorities.
"Some were genuine lefties who have literally said they would vote for *Ron deSantis* because he seems “sane” to them on gender."
I am a genuine lefty, and not only will I vote for DeSantis, I will vote for Trump.
The Democrats are all-in on child mutilation and sterilization, and I simply WILL NOT be part of that, in any way, period.
At age 67, after a lifetime of Democrat voting and activism since volunteering for McGovern in 1972, I now vote straight Republican.
I simply don't care about anything else as much as I do about stopping this ongoing crime against humanity, and the Republicans are the only semi-organized opposition.
I come from the same historical period as you. Was lefty when young. Voted for McGovern at 18. I agree the Dems now are out of their minds and the Republicans are the only ones opposing some of their idiocy.
But I can’t vote Trump or DeSantis or any of these characters. No way. They are vengeful authoritarians who are not normal conservatives but radicals with psychopathic tendencies.
Be careful what you wish for.
If you consider those elected officials “authoritarian,” what word do you use to describe the unelected bureaucrats who write and enforce rules in the federal agencies?
I call them employees of the government doing their mostly boring jobs. The tyrants at the top set the pace. The tyrants can be in either party but the most vocal ones are meat balls like DeSantis and his ilk. Can’t vote for them.
Yeah, except the culture war is stoked from two sides. Realistically DeSantis (or any other culture-war forward candidate) will only make this issue worse. The only solution are politicians like Obama who can turn the temperature down (much like Biden promised to do but didn’t exactly follow through)
For me, "culture war temperature" has no relevance. I have one question: are you FOR or AGAINST mutilating children? Democrats (most definitely including Biden) are FOR. Republicans are AGAINST. Therefore, I now vote Republican.
Me personally? I’m against pushing kids into elective medical procedures but I’m also against the federal government sticking it’s nose into what people can and can’t willingly do to their bodies, even if they are minors. This is a complex cultural issue without easy answers.
Then you must be in favor of dismantling the Food & Drug Administration and its regulation of what drugs and medical procedures can and cannot be prescribed by licensed physicians.
The problem is cultural politics. In areas where the FDA becomes a culture-war political cudgel, (eg the drug war), I’m opposed.
Whereas I will vote for Dems. Because I live in Indiana and would love to have a divided government.
It's a short (but in my case painful) step to no longer considering myself a "committed Democrat." But where to go? Not (in my case) to the Republicans. Uh-uh. Rather, politically, I'm committed to divided government. It seems the best option.
Oh -- I too am a coward.
I cannot help but feel that these are examples of people reasoning normally (not necessarily well, but normally). Once we set ourselves up in opposition to some group on an emotional level, unless we have excellent intellectual discipline, we will begin to notice all the less flattering things we used to ignore or overlook about them because we knew they were good folks. The desire to confirm our rightness to ourselves will increasingly compel us to find reasons to justify that rightness, driving us to seek out ever more reasons why the opposition should be rejected.
Add the divisiveness and purity test tribality of social media to that emotional state and people can change their perceptions of others quickly and dramatically without their really noticing that the others haven't changed all that much. Those of us who undergo such changes in those circumstances seem manifestly normal to me.
Just read this and then read the Times reporting on the supreme court’s decision to uphold tribal sovereignty over adoption cases
“Medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have weighed in to support the legislation, arguing that it is an important tool to help redress “the intergenerational pain of lost connections and the trauma of historical loss.”
Super worrisome that these organizations are leaning into doing “woke“ concept creep so much. Reminds me of the ACLU which has gotten so off mission.
for various reasons the American liberal class fell asleep about 30 years ago and have now awoken to find every sense-making institution in the country controlled by Critical Studies Leftists...oops!
People with no principles besides status and cash are always defeated and displaced by people with strong principles, no matter how stupid or demented, but this seems to be a lesson humans need to learn every 2-3 generations.
Wake me when we get to de-Sovietization!
Kind of on a tangent, but... does anyone else get the feeling that the generally increasing public acceptance of the LGB folks over the last two decades is rapidly being undone by the TQ+ folks?
Yes. The generally positive sentiment towards LGB folks has declined per survey results. They didn't necessarily check for cause, to my knowledge. Similarly I've not seen a survey which measures sentiment towards, Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts individually. Even positive sentiment towards the LGBT folks among younger individuals has declined, which is surprising considering that supposedly the younger generation has the highest numbers of LGBT folks of any group ever.
My supposition is that the past demands by LGB folks were centered around tolerance, acceptance, and equality under the law. Where as the Ts and Qs have demands which focus on a change of world view. Gays are men who are attracted to other men, Ts require us to see men as both biological men and men who are biological women. Thus the request of the Ts is not simple tolerance or legal equality but a demand that people see the world differently to our biology.
To make this more real a relative of mine is an Emergency Room nurse and was starting a urinary catheter on a biological male who identified as a female. She was inserting a catheter into a penis but had to address the patient as ma'am. She said sir multiple times, the patient was upset and she was reprimanded as a result. We see multiple articles talking about the female penis and male vagina. Now we are hearing about a cervical cancer society using the phrase "bonus hole" to describe vaginas in a non-triggering way. We also see the phrase "birthing person" being pushed not just by activist groups but also by politicians. Additionally, we are seeing video upon video where supposed trans individuals flying off the handle at being misgendered where they are not making an effort to "pass". Perhaps one of the most egregious examples is the demand that people be attracted to feminine presenting people or masculine presenting people regardless of their genitals. The result is if you don't want to date trans people you are a transphobe. Thing is that most people want to marry and have kids and dating a trans person will not necessarily accomplish that goal. We've gone from get government out of our bedrooms to culture and society will be in your bedroom demanding you like want we tell you to. This all pushes past the ideal of equality to a new ideal of conform to my wishes and I don't think that's something people are comfortable with.
As for the Qs, Queer Theory has literally called Queer as an identity with out an essence and Queer Theory itself as challenging all normativity. This of course doesn't really work for most people since most people, even most gay and lesbian people, operate within the societal norm. Much like how so much of this ideology spread via the internet and social media, the most extreme forms of the Qs are being passed around social media and people are reacting to it.
I guess it can all be summed up as LGBs want to be able to be live their lives with equality under the laws and the Ts and Qs want you to think of them as they want to be thought of.
Where I think I'm settling on this is to know this is an ideologically captured blind spot - and to be skeptical on coverage about it. I also feel like I can't get a good picture of the evidence anywhere. Jesse, you've helped a lot, but sorry to say I can't also feel like I can trust one journalist on it either - typically being able to weigh multiple opinions is what really gives me context. And using "this pundit is skeptical about youth gender medicine" as a proxy for "they are doing a fair, measured, job on this" doesn't really work either - plenty of cranks who hold that position. Sadly we are all left to evaluate individual journalists, which we don't have that much time for. Jesse, you've earned my trust, but I wish I didn't have to rely just on you about this issue.
All that said, I don't think we need to lose trust in these major institutions on the whole because most issues are not nearly so politically charged. The heuristic should be: have healthy skepticism about any science reporting, but there's no reason to dismiss "the mainstream media" writ large - instead, know about their blind spots as best you can to weigh your skepticism. Seek a list of independent bloggers who've earned your trust to complement - but no need to stop reading the NYT, WSJ, etc. Oh, and I should say that The Economist has been pretty level headed about this issue and other charged issues over the years and I would recommend it as a major piece of anyone's news diet.
The Economist has quietly been an excellent news organization for decades. Their podcast is quite informative and succinct, especially on science issues.
Thing I can't get around. We have a natural experiment readily available:
A) Transhistory says that trans kids have always been there, always and forever.
B) If identity is left unaffirmed, trans kids kill themselves.
C) Medical transition for *anybody* has only been available since the 40s-50s, and for minors only in this century.
D) Youth (ages 10-24) suicide rate, with all this affirmation being affirmated, is running around 10/100K, for *whatever* reasons the individuals may have had.
E) Youth suicide rate for any year, (again, for *whatever* reasons), between 1950-1964 never went over 2.5/100K.
So.
WHY THEY LIVED?
Yeah I’ve used that argument before. Where are the mountain of dead trans kids in the 20th century?
Yes, and are we seeing a stampede by the older generations to transition now that it’s finally “safe”? We’ve been told the reason the numbers of childhood transitions have skyrocketed is because it’s finally socially acceptable and supported. What is the increase in transitioning among millennials, the Gen Xers, etc? Hell, even the boomers. The youngest boomers are just in their 60’s. I remember when people could finally come out of the closet and many a grandpas did so. Has anyone seen these statistics?
As a long time member of the AMA (and many other organizations) I and many of our peers find this behavior scandalous, unscientific, unsupportable and, in many cases, heinous. The fact is that most physicians have no idea what the AMA is promulgating. It gets into the news somewhere, but the AMA NEVER writes to their members and says "here's what we are telling folks now" because they know that half (or more) of the membership would resign.
Every time I show some of my peers (even those in organized medicine) what the AMA policy might be on something or what they are promulgating, they are horrified. And the rest of the professional societies (especially AAP) are similarly captured or worse.
AAPS or someone with a platform needs to inform the physicians about the positions that are being taken in their name. I bet it would make a difference. I do my part, but my bully pulpit is not very bully.
P.S. I have been amazed/shocked at how correct Alex Jones has been on so many issues. I used to dismiss him completely out of hand. Now I read what he says and say "hmmmm"...we'll wait and see.
My adult daughter is listening to Alex Jones now. In the past I might have been horrified. Nowadays, I wonder--he might be correct about a few things, even if he’s mostly selling snake oil. In other words, I don’t trust a single thing I’ve read *about* Alex Jones, maybe it’s not all insanity?
I had to overcome my assumption that all those trusted folks on Twitter piling on Jesse had to have *something* to justify their rage. Boy oh boy, they did not, and here I am wondering if Alex Jones has anything useful to say.
Sorry to make the umpteen millionth reference to The Emperor's New Clothes, but it really is a good allegory for pluralistic ignorance. The ending is profound in one sense, that the truth is revealed by a child unburdened by the fear of ostracism or concern over social status which cause all the adults to play along in the farce. The only problem is that the idea of everyone else finally outwardly admitting it on the spot just doesn't align with human nature.
If Andersen could've seen the way people like Jesse get savaged in the age of Twitter for telling the truth about something like this, he might've ended the story with:
"The child was then placed in a pillory and all the people took turns making a great show of spitting on him and throwing rotten lettuce, lest they find themselves in his predicament, or even merely risk losing the slightest bit of standing at court or amongst their neighbors.
A few years later, after enough individuals showed the courage to profess the truth and suffer public scorn themselves, the consensus became that the emperor was indeed naked. And once he was overthrown and replaced by someone more dignified, one could search far and wide and never encounter a solitary soul who remembered celebrating the previous emperor's imaginary clothes or hurling expired produce."
"To our Israeli allies
Let us raise a toast
Sure there were some Nazis
Two or three at most...
Sing the I was not a Nazi polka!"
-- Chad Mitchell Trio
(I Was Not a Nazi Polka)
Between Covid and the gender stuff, I have zero faith in any medical system or pharmaceutical company. I know you aren’t a fan of banning these treatments for minors completely, but what other solution is there? Without a complete ban, these unscrupulous organizations will continue to do this to kids.
There is no other solution.
Thanks for this write-up. I was at dinner with some friends this weekend, and at some point the idea of “republicans just don’t believe in science” came up, and I sat there utterly baffled as every one of them chimed in with the same talking point. I’ve spent the past few days sharpening my arguments to point out that their “side” is just as bad. All of your write-ups/takedowns help me strengthen my position.
Honestly it's hard not to laugh at the "party of science" these days. The guys who think climate change might be a crock seem more rational than those telling us that there is such a thing as "frost gender" or that being on time for a meeting is "whiteness".
Just reading the activist nonsense phrase "gender diverse teens" from supposedly respected organization makes me distrust them.
I don't understand why "gender diverse" replaced/is replacing "gender nonconforming". Is it because calling stereotypes bad might hurt some trans-identified male's feelings?
I am hoping that there are people protesting within and resigning from these societies. Would love to know if there is any evidence of that happening.
As many people who resigned from or protested against Jim Jones' People's Temple...meaning: if anyone wasn't gonna ride this to the bitter end, they were gone years ago.
Transmania is a sacred cult for our supposedly credentialed expert class, the policing of dogma and the demand for obedience is too intense, and we all know how the world works now inside the Church of Social Justice: heretics and apostates will have their careers and reputations destroyed.
All these people have painted themselves into quite a corner, but luckily for them they have the entire corporate state, Dem party and MSM on their side: expect a very large broom and a very large rug that they will try to sweep all this under.
George Will argues that things change back and forth. He may be right. Look at the UK, Norway, Sweden, & Finland -- all to the left -- changing on youth trans treatments.
George Will and the other establishment "conservatives" are house eunuchs whose job it is to help keep the servant class from making too much noise so the masters upstairs can count their money in peace.
It doesn't take an expensive bowtie to know that the pendulum swings both ways, but the question remains: how much damage will be done and will anyone be held responsible?
Was anyone ever held by responsible for recovered memories?
It's like reverse Gell-mann amnesia. "I know they're wrong here, why should I trust them anywhere?" even though they seem to be much more willing to adhere to data in other areas.