Full disclosure: I don't follow trans issues much, so I have no clue who's right on these things.
All I know is that based on his social media behavior, Hobbes is one of the most pompous assholes I've ever seen. He's Exhibit A for what went wrong with left-leaning media in the social media world: to be a member in good standing, you have to judge, hector, yell, and dehumanize all day long online.
One thing I've never understood is the requirement to live the desired sex. I'm a women, but other than dealing with biological processes related to being a women, I'm not sure how someone 'lives as a woman'. My husband (a man) and I have very similar lives. Of course society sees me as a woman, so in some situations I'm treated differently to my husband, but that isn't my choice. It's not something that I can create or avoid in life.
As far as I can tell, 'living as a women' means having a feminine name (which of course not all women do - waves to Chris, Alex, and Pat) and wearing dresses and make up. All natal women are still women when not wearing dresses - or not wearing anything at all - and lots of men wear clothes that are very similar to dresses or skirts and wear make up. As far as I can tell, it all boils down to very 1950's stereotypes of the sexes.
The cackle I cackled when this popped up on my phone (because I’m petty).
In all seriousness, this was a great review and debunk of Hobbes. In a sane world, people like him wouldn’t need to be responded to at all because no one would take him seriously, but we don’t live in a sane world.
One thing I find so baffling about American progressives is that they're constantly gushing about Europe and how progressive it is, and no one owns guns, and healthcare is subsidised, and prisons are clean and well-furnished, and why can't we be more like Sweden?
Then gender-critical people quite reasonably point out that if you want the US to follow Europe's lead on so many political issues, why not youth gender-affirming care, when multiple European countries have independently decided to hit pause on it? And the response is lalala can't hear you.
Cass was polite, to the bad faith employees (not all) at the Tavistock and 6 of the 7 adult clinics who hid data from her. Even now some of these people are trying to use opt out privacy legislation to encourage patients to withhold anonymised data from Cass and other researchers. One of the basis of our NHS is that treatment is proved as the service uses our anonymised data in health research for the good of us all. These quacks need to be sacked by the NHS, they are breaking the bonds of the NHS that help us all.
I am writing too much here, and I take responsibility for that. My wife and I had careers in science and in being therapists. It hits deeply.
Having said that, I wish to add another perspective. Michael Hobbes is not trained as a scientist and is not trained in the helping professions. His experience is as a journalist.
What is the main difference between journalism and science? Here is our view: Journalists primarily rely on anecdotes, and opinions derived from anecdotes, and scientists primarily rely on data. To understand social science one needs to be comfortable with the law of large numbers---something that we as a species did not evolve to need to understand. It is foreign to most non-scientists. Cass's report makes wonderful use of integrating anecdotes into scientific findings, and that's what makes it such a joy to read.
Singal was also trained as a journalist. So what is the difference between him and Hobbes?
Answer: Singal has taught himself scientific thinking. He writes with the same cautions about "reality" that scientists do. He seeks out 'large data sets" (i.e., statistics and statistical reasoning).
That's how my wife and I, as scientists and practitioners, can read Singal and not go crazy with the awful reliance and overgeneralizations of anecdotes that Hobbes uses.
Trust people who rely on large data sets for their knowledge, not on anecdotes. Anecdotes are opinions masquerading as facts.
Jesse maybe you can go back on the Majority Report to discuss these issues with the fair-minded hosts of that show!
Jokes aside I do think there is starting to be realization among leftists about just how much damage they've done to their own cause with the massive overreach on trans issues over the past 8 years. They probably won't admit to any mistakes, but I think you are starting to see a slow adjustment to something resembling sanity on these topics. It's why Hobbes and other grifters are so apoplectic about the Cass Report. They know the tide is starting to turn.
It's going to be difficult over the next few years to watch this group of people that has identified so intensely as the smart ones and/or the good guys, that has so loudly condemned anyone who disagreed with them, and that has made themselves so ill from looking at their phones for 12 hours a day for the past decade...turn out to be so publicly, embarrassingly wrong. Good luck everyone!
Hobbes et al. have long since painted themselves into a corner where ANY questioning MUST be borne out of bad faith and a desire for kids to commit suic*de. They have to work backward from that premise, then at the same time have to tout their "I Fucking Love Science" Facebook group membership.
Jesse - you need to consider adding a "listen to this article" element to your platform. This is such good information - but I'd imagine more people would be open to absorption if they could listen over reading. Keep up the good work.
As far as kids accessing hormones w/o parental consent or assessment, pls see the CBC (actually French-language Radio-Canada because obviously CBC is not going to report honestly on youth gender medicine) Enquête investigative journalism program, where a 14-year-old (actress hired for the investigation) was offered a prescription for testosterone nine minutes into her meeting with the clinician. After confirming that, yes, no parent or guardian was with her, and also that she had anorexia, but felt that her issue was she wanted to transition/be a boy.
French only, but maybe there’s a translation/English captioning feature. 36:23 for the segment with the private clinic.
Edit: just re-watched it, and what the girl says is that when she was 12 or 13 her parents took her to psychologist because of an eating disorder, but she watched a video of a trans person who said the problem wasn’t disordered eating but rather being trans, and so she realized that was her issue too.
Full disclosure: I don't follow trans issues much, so I have no clue who's right on these things.
All I know is that based on his social media behavior, Hobbes is one of the most pompous assholes I've ever seen. He's Exhibit A for what went wrong with left-leaning media in the social media world: to be a member in good standing, you have to judge, hector, yell, and dehumanize all day long online.
None of that for me, thanks.
I wrote two Substacks of my own fact checking people about the Cass Review and youth gender medicine:
Activist-Blogger Erin Reed Can't Stop Telling Falsehoods About Gender Medicine https://benryan.substack.com/p/activist-blogger-erin-reed-cant-stop
The Cass Review Fact Check: It's Clear That Many People Never Bothered to Read The Report
https://benryan.substack.com/p/the-cass-review-fact-check-its-clear
One thing I've never understood is the requirement to live the desired sex. I'm a women, but other than dealing with biological processes related to being a women, I'm not sure how someone 'lives as a woman'. My husband (a man) and I have very similar lives. Of course society sees me as a woman, so in some situations I'm treated differently to my husband, but that isn't my choice. It's not something that I can create or avoid in life.
As far as I can tell, 'living as a women' means having a feminine name (which of course not all women do - waves to Chris, Alex, and Pat) and wearing dresses and make up. All natal women are still women when not wearing dresses - or not wearing anything at all - and lots of men wear clothes that are very similar to dresses or skirts and wear make up. As far as I can tell, it all boils down to very 1950's stereotypes of the sexes.
The cackle I cackled when this popped up on my phone (because I’m petty).
In all seriousness, this was a great review and debunk of Hobbes. In a sane world, people like him wouldn’t need to be responded to at all because no one would take him seriously, but we don’t live in a sane world.
I posted a parade of Michael Hobbes' many other falsehoods about youth gender medicine in my tweet thread about Jesse's Substack on him: https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1783493483975639167
One thing I find so baffling about American progressives is that they're constantly gushing about Europe and how progressive it is, and no one owns guns, and healthcare is subsidised, and prisons are clean and well-furnished, and why can't we be more like Sweden?
Then gender-critical people quite reasonably point out that if you want the US to follow Europe's lead on so many political issues, why not youth gender-affirming care, when multiple European countries have independently decided to hit pause on it? And the response is lalala can't hear you.
Cass was polite, to the bad faith employees (not all) at the Tavistock and 6 of the 7 adult clinics who hid data from her. Even now some of these people are trying to use opt out privacy legislation to encourage patients to withhold anonymised data from Cass and other researchers. One of the basis of our NHS is that treatment is proved as the service uses our anonymised data in health research for the good of us all. These quacks need to be sacked by the NHS, they are breaking the bonds of the NHS that help us all.
I am writing too much here, and I take responsibility for that. My wife and I had careers in science and in being therapists. It hits deeply.
Having said that, I wish to add another perspective. Michael Hobbes is not trained as a scientist and is not trained in the helping professions. His experience is as a journalist.
What is the main difference between journalism and science? Here is our view: Journalists primarily rely on anecdotes, and opinions derived from anecdotes, and scientists primarily rely on data. To understand social science one needs to be comfortable with the law of large numbers---something that we as a species did not evolve to need to understand. It is foreign to most non-scientists. Cass's report makes wonderful use of integrating anecdotes into scientific findings, and that's what makes it such a joy to read.
Singal was also trained as a journalist. So what is the difference between him and Hobbes?
Answer: Singal has taught himself scientific thinking. He writes with the same cautions about "reality" that scientists do. He seeks out 'large data sets" (i.e., statistics and statistical reasoning).
That's how my wife and I, as scientists and practitioners, can read Singal and not go crazy with the awful reliance and overgeneralizations of anecdotes that Hobbes uses.
Trust people who rely on large data sets for their knowledge, not on anecdotes. Anecdotes are opinions masquerading as facts.
Jesse maybe you can go back on the Majority Report to discuss these issues with the fair-minded hosts of that show!
Jokes aside I do think there is starting to be realization among leftists about just how much damage they've done to their own cause with the massive overreach on trans issues over the past 8 years. They probably won't admit to any mistakes, but I think you are starting to see a slow adjustment to something resembling sanity on these topics. It's why Hobbes and other grifters are so apoplectic about the Cass Report. They know the tide is starting to turn.
It's going to be difficult over the next few years to watch this group of people that has identified so intensely as the smart ones and/or the good guys, that has so loudly condemned anyone who disagreed with them, and that has made themselves so ill from looking at their phones for 12 hours a day for the past decade...turn out to be so publicly, embarrassingly wrong. Good luck everyone!
Hobbes et al. have long since painted themselves into a corner where ANY questioning MUST be borne out of bad faith and a desire for kids to commit suic*de. They have to work backward from that premise, then at the same time have to tout their "I Fucking Love Science" Facebook group membership.
Jesse - you need to consider adding a "listen to this article" element to your platform. This is such good information - but I'd imagine more people would be open to absorption if they could listen over reading. Keep up the good work.
A+, no notes.
But tell us how you really feel, Jesse
Mark Twain: "It's not what we don't know is the problem, but what we do know and just ain't so.”
As far as kids accessing hormones w/o parental consent or assessment, pls see the CBC (actually French-language Radio-Canada because obviously CBC is not going to report honestly on youth gender medicine) Enquête investigative journalism program, where a 14-year-old (actress hired for the investigation) was offered a prescription for testosterone nine minutes into her meeting with the clinician. After confirming that, yes, no parent or guardian was with her, and also that she had anorexia, but felt that her issue was she wanted to transition/be a boy.
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/tele/enquete/site/episodes/864008/episode-du-jeudi-29-fevrier-2024
French only, but maybe there’s a translation/English captioning feature. 36:23 for the segment with the private clinic.
Edit: just re-watched it, and what the girl says is that when she was 12 or 13 her parents took her to psychologist because of an eating disorder, but she watched a video of a trans person who said the problem wasn’t disordered eating but rather being trans, and so she realized that was her issue too.