73 Comments

Jesse, you should always alert us to your freelance stories.

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Yeah why the hell would he not use his own platform, paid for by people who like his work, to advertise more of his work?? Jesse please work on your marketing game buddy

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Came here to say this. I enjoyed his recent piece in Reason about the collapse of SciAm's credibility. Would be great to get notice of these things.

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Omigosh, the article is so good. I kind of feel like he has been holding out on us.

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I agree!

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It is interesting how the "Gasp, of course no one is giving minors surgery/puberty blockers/hormones!" talking point has fallen out of favor now that there is a SC case arguing that it must be done.

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The more I read about this stuff, the less uncomfortable I become with these bans.

Double-mastectomy at fourteen. Fourteen! This is horrifying.

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In many if not most pockets of the progressive internet, among people who are Too Online, detransitioners are categorically almost literally demonized—the exact flip of the love-bombing trans kids get, called fools and grifters who knew what they were doing and who are now going for a quick payday at the expense of real trans people. No doubt for a while longer at least they will be met from the "be kind" crowd with more derision. But the tide is turning.

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I hear you but I think these lawsuits will be more effective at protecting kids in every state and they won’t foreclose interventions that might be appropriate for the small number of kids who have an early and persistent identification with a gender that doesn’t match their sex. I do think that there may be some young natal males who will have a much happier life as adult trans women if they have some of these interventions to stave off some of the more obvious physical changes that come with puberty. I know there is the whole orgasm issue and I don’t think it’s ok to intervene in a way that will prevent that from being available to them but I really think that male to female trans children deserve to be considered separately from female to male transitioners. I am sad for Ms. Breen and for her parents who I trust believed that they were protecting her.

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I think you may be right about separating considerations of FTMs from MTFs. But we also need greater clarity about the actual definition of trans, because with self-ID it's basically a personal opinion. We need gatekeepers who are at least as righteously afraid of hurting a confused "cis" person as they are eager about helping a "trans" person, who reject the whole "people are who they say they are" meme.

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she did 13 also. Wrote a paper about it.

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About 5 minutes ago…

“Of course this isn’t happening and you’re crazy to think it is, but… it should happen and it would be a good thing if it did.”

I still in awe of all of this.

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Exactly! Exactly. As with all of these things. "Of course nobody would think of housing male inmates who hadn't had surgery or hormones in with female ones. That would be crazy! ...But that exact thing should be happening!"

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"Johanna Olson-Kennedy" where have I heard that name before? That would be the same person who refused to release the results of a $10 million study of puberty blockers. The study showed that puberty blockers don't produce the improvements (in mental health) that the victims of transmainia expect of them.

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From the article: “But the therapist Ms Breen is suing told us, via a lawyer, that almost all of the notes were unavailable, due to water damage.”

I work in a completely different industry, so I could be totally off base, but it seems insane to me that records that are required to be retained aren’t digitized and backed up.

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Someone, somewhere, has to have done some analysis of lawsuits and the percentage of defendants whose "notes were damaged" and unavailable. Including the federal government's... but we can start anywhere with the research.

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Wonder who has the higher casualty rate - critical records implicated in a lawsuit, or fictional grandmas during exam season?

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You're on to something!

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Yes, this seems like it's either highly unprofessional or a flat-out lie.

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Hippa violation! Go directly to Hippa jail! 😆

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The hippa ate her homework.

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I don’t know the law but perhaps she’s hoping no one will come after her with stronger measures.

At this moment, however, I would guess there will be more lawsuits, more discovery, and stonewalling will become more challenging.

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"Unavailable due to water damage" was my girlfriend in high school.

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I know that for medical appointments they are required to be digitized. It was part of the ACA

Maybe mental health got an exception.

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Is this the same Johanna Olson-Kennedy who famously said (and I'm paraphrasing) "If you regret getting your tits chopped off, you can always get someone to sew on some new ones"?

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I suppose it should come as no surprise that someone who thinks about body parts as commodities would also be so cavalier about gender medicine for minors.

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$$$$$$

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Yes. She also explained, helpfully, that regret is just part of life. Those who regret transitioning are the ones responsible for having made that decision. I think Ben Ryan’s piece on this includes that quote.

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I am sure that, someday, we will all feel better about ourselves when we explain to permanently altered young adults that they have a perfect right to regret the things we let them choose when they were fourteen.

This stuff is just...I have no words.

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NAMBLA would love this rationale.

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Is this the same Clementine who was recently interviewed by Billboard Chris? I would think so, since she also said Johanna Olson Kennedy was her doctor.

Update: It is indeed. https://x.com/BillboardChris/status/1848590036133900752

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Dec 6Edited

A really good article, and it's not just me. J. K. Rowling think the same: "This, by @jessesingal, should be read by everyone….."

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Dr Olsen-Kennedy has in my opinion been cavalier about the potential devastating lifelong harm that could be caused by "gender-affirming care." The facts of this case seem damning. I hope Ms. Breen gets justice, closure, and check with at least 8 figures in it.

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As the author do you get a free link that you can share?

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If you register they let you read the article for free.

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Yeah...but then they have your data....

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Video of what I would call a flippant attitude about pediatric elective double mastectomy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y6espcXPJk

"If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them."

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I would absolutely love to, Jesse, but I'm not a subscriber to "The Economist" and I have plenty of existing subscriptions as it is.

But, knowing you and your knowledge of and past writing on this issue, I'm sure it's an excellent article.

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By providing my email address, I was able to get a free link to read this article. I am sure this will lead to a massive email campaign by the Economist to try to get me to subscribe lol.

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This is what a trash email account is for. The Economist will send endless solicitations to an account I almost never check.

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I have been a suscriber since 1990. Other than a handful of Substackers and my local newspaper, it is the only subscription I have. You can listen to the entire edition from real people (or very good AI). No urgent news alerts, Lydia Polgreen would not last 10 minutes on The Economist staff, and the occasional deep dive into places, people, and things I would have never heard of. I highly recommend.

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Jesse, I love your work, both on here and on Blocked and Reported. You are a real ally to LGB people.

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“I don’t send someone to a therapist when I’m going to start them on insulin”

And one doesn't get labs for fasting blood sugar when someone says they feel sad and want their breasts removed.

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Great article , Jesse, you're doing a true service.

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Jesse—do you have any plans to write about the SC arguments that occurred on Wednesday? I’d be curious to read your perspective. You seem to be one of the few objective voices in this area.

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