17 Comments

The wheels of justice grind slow, but exceedingly fine.

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This series is so good and well supported. Many thanks. The medical profession must train its adherents better in terms of critical thinking and challenging published data. Individuals like Turban need to be censored.

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Another excellent installment, and thank you, also, for collecting such a good set of links on Turban’s pseudoscience. I thought this observation of yours was particularly important: “The plaintiffs got away with it because the judge qualified these witnesses as experts in everything they said and Arkansas didn’t object when their opinions weren’t based on reliable principles or methods (or cross-examine them about their biases and conflicts of interest).”

Also dismaying is the failure of the judge to credit Stephen Levine’s testimony at all. Levine has done an excellent job, so far as I know, in giving expert testimony, so I would be interested in learning more about what you think happened in this case. I assume part of this was the judge’s bias, but suspect also Arkansas’s overall poor performance played a part as well.

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We'll come back to Levine. The judge's bias is a huge part of this story (though Arkansas could have done a better job preserving the record for appeal).

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I look forward to that!

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September 21, 2023
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Haha, I think the problem is not the law per se, but some of those who practice it. I’m keen to get Unyielding Bicyclists take overall on this very question.

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I check Turban’s online activity every once in a while. Recently he posted the HuffPost article “Inside The Cottage Industry Of ‘Experts’ Paid To Defend Anti-Trans Laws.” The entire article is a take on one of the trans activists’ preferred arguments: everyone who challenges this ostensibly morally superior and technically unfalsifiable worldview does so because they are religious zealots.

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All ad hominem attacks. Once one deals with facts it becomes clearer that these " anti trans" people seem to be more in favor of giving these young people appropriate support than those rushing them to unsupported medical intervention.

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Here's a suggestion for getting the truth out in "woke" Park Slope, Brooklyn, where your typical millennial working as a barista never heard of detransitioners, never heard of regret, assumes these teen girls have been in extensive, quality therapy prior to drastic double mastectomies and risk of iatrogenic testosterone damage. Get copies of Trans, When Ideology Meets Reality, or Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, or Sex Change by Christine Benvenuto, or my trans widow memoir, In the Curated Woods. In this clip, I place a signed copy with messages about detransitioner malpractice suits in the back flap. This was across from PS 107, where I taught for 3 years, deep granola nut bar woke territory, also very gentrified. Overnight this 10 seconds got 2,245 views:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ATZM7PRokJA

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Thank you!

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I don’t understand why Arkansas didn’t object to the “experts” testimony? What’s the sense of why this didn’t happen when it seems clear from how you laid it, that they should have been?

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If the hearing was like Texas and I do not know if it was, each side had a limited amount of time and did not use any of it to challenge the expertness of the witnesses. Wish they would, but the AGs do not have the prep time for each case that the ACLU which has been "working" this issue for ages.

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As a note, this should be watched. Note especially how solicitous and meek Trevor Noah is.....

https://twitter.com/MythinformedMKE/status/1704678941854708002

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September 22, 2023
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lol, Clarins self-tanner (I actually LOVE that stuff lol again)

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September 21, 2023
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I am with you all the way!

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September 21, 2023
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Omg! You have crystallized every thought and opinion I have about Turban! He is an utter and absolute disgrace and I look forward to the time when he is relegated to the dustbin of history as a narcissistic and evil charlatan!

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"This is what happens when smart people use their power for evil."

Dr. Turban finds his niche. After the great capitulation of the suits to Trump I have come to see the world differently. Ideas are secondary to power and status. In this instance, Turban has found a role to play that will enhance his project of self-aggrandizement. Riding the wave of fame takes precedence over the collateral damage of other people's lives.

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