Some Fridays, I read Broadview in Brief with a sense of hope that the craziness and the hurt is slowing down. Some Fridays, I read with a sense of dread. This week is one of those: really, the "getting a mastectomy as a teen is like quitting the swim team" lady gets that many words to weigh in where she has no expertise?!? But all the Fridays, I am grateful for your thoroughness, Lisa, and for trying to keep some humor and perspective, when I cannot.
I have a 'funny' story to share with you on the topic of language. I used to work in a university and I was on a committee that was looking at applications from people to teach a single course. The applicants had names like Thomas, Craig, Jennifer, Rose-Ann...you get the idea. So I would refer to each of them as He or She, but my colleagues would only refer to them as They, and eventually it became a kind of power struggle with them emphasising the word They in every sentence they spoke. But I kept using He and She.
Throughout this I was wondering why they were so adamant about not acknowledging the obvious sex of the applicants who weren't even in the room! And it occurred to me that this wasn't about the applicants, it was about virtue signalling. I clearly lack virtue, or more importantly, the appearance of virtue.
When a university has reached the point where most of its teachers are incapable of acknowledging or dealing with the most rudimentary structures of reality without an incoherent ideological framework that they genuinely believe to be truth, it is no longer a university. It's a cult.
Further, aren’t they doing a dis-service to the kids who purposely pick a new “gendered” name so they can pass as the other sex? Why else would the old name be “dead”’if not to allow them to live again as the opposite sex? My daughter would certainly want people reading out her “chosen” name to think she was male and call her “he” when discussing her. Funny how self-contradictory these ideas are!
This is a disturbing trend, but I don't think it's about virtue signaling. I think people increasingly refer to everyone as "they"—regardless of any pronoun preference—either because (1) they fear getting it wrong and being accused of misgendering or (2) they are not comfortable with the person's professed gender but don't want to offend by misgendering. So a male who flashes "her" penis is referred to as they instead of either she or he.
In a way, this trend bothers me, because by not using sex-based pronouns you lose so much information and make the conversation harder to understand. But I also find it kind of hilarious, because people who claim to respect others' pronouns are just deciding what pronoun they will use for someone without that person's permission. I also have a dim hope that when everyone has become a they, it will no longer be seen as cool and subversive to be nonbinary, and all the former enbies will start insisting on their sex-based pronouns.
“…eventually it became a kind of power struggle with them emphasising the word They in every sentence they spoke” - this indicates to me that it was virtue signaling.
Perhaps in this case it was (though I think it was more about correcting their colleague who was at risk of misgendering), but when I've seen/heard it in other instances it's mostly people who are not gender ideologists and are just uncomfortable with the sexed pronouns available.
ETA: I don't know why it would be considered virtuous to use pronouns that no one asked for.
I guess Ms. Polgreen hasn't learned anything since her December 1st Opinion piece, "There Is No Way To Live A Life Without Regret." Her ego sure has gotten bloated, though. She thinks she's qualified to debunk a whole institution's worth of leading medical professionals in the U.K? Some people learn things, some people continue hitting the same sour notes because they're surrounded by cowards who compliment their gorgeous voices rather than advising them to look into some other vocation. That this idiot is still having her stuff published in the Times tells me that after the last of its old guard staff retire it's likely to continue its descent into being just another Pink News . . .
Even if there's no way to live a life without _any_ regret, it may still be possible to live a life with _less_ regret. Not doing stupid things with permanent consequence is a good place to start.
Polgreen's essay was a compendium of false arguments made about gender care and the Cass Review. Incorrect arguments that have been made repeatedly and rebutted so many times that it is unclear how to fathom who people who keep making them are doing so.
Maybe they believe these children are immutably"born this way", somehow assuming that a person's self perception is immutable, at all ages no less, that self perception does not have any relationship to how they learn to perceive anything, that a self perception of the body requires surgical and medical intervention if it is distressing and that there is no way to learn more to improve treatment (in assuming that asking for data before medical intervention is somehow disrespectful).
They appear to see one interpretation and refuse to consider the others and then to think of ways to distinguish between them and to falsify them. To figure out which one is true.
Truly bizarre. It sounds rational to some as they give reasons, but they don't check if their reasons are consistent with the data (desistance, detransitoomers who report peer influence, detransitoomers period-if the response is detrans people never were trans, it's clear MDs and individuals cannot distinguish these categories either and thus even within their framework medicalization is already a problem,).
The taboos against discussion are really harming those involved.
Indian documentary filmmaker, Vaishnavi Sundar, has been dropping trailers for Behind the Looking Glass on Lime Soda Films YouTube channel. This documentary features me and about 20+ other trans widows telling our stories, some through animated sections in our own voices due to fear of the ex-husband, and many, like me, onscreen with a pen name to protect ourselves from trolls. When I was in Park Slope and recognized from my channel by a woman attending a quilt show, I at first wondered if I should run, but she turned out to be a fan. Behind the Looking Glass, an epic worthy of theater screenings, will be released online, due to Sundar's complete cancellation from the film festival circuit after Dysphoria, also on her channel. The clip linked here from Behind the Looking Glass is about a woman's complete cancellation by her crossdressing narcissist ex-husband, for merely telling a few friends on campus why she was divorcing.
Saw something on X about Jeffrey Marsh being asked to be an honored guest at the DNC. I hope that is just a crazy rumor. I also wanted to add that lately everytime I write a letter to the editor of either the NYTimes or the WaPost after any piece that touches on gender, I ask them to please do a proper investigative piece. I tell them it would be great to read an in depth report, maybe a multiple part series involving the history, interviewing parents and kids alike(pro and con), medical doctors, therapists, etc. Kind of like a book, I guess but maybe more likely to be read and shared. Oh yeah and lastly, that it NOT go in the Op-Ed section, phew! Think they ever will?
I think this is real. Harris is very dependent on the California crossdressers to help her overcome the "tough prosecutor" image. Harris facilitated cross-sex ideating male convicts to get sex trait modification surgeries while serving their time, when she was the AG.
Lydia Polgreen really should not be commenting on the Cass review because she has no idea what a systematic review is and the science behind it. In her dingbat mind, the fact that Dr. Cass’ clinical work did not involve treating gender dysphoria kids was a detriment to the report. Wtf is she thinking? Well she can’t think. Truly the emperor is naked and she’s standing there fuming at the fact that finally people are discussing that he is, indeed, without any clothes.
When anyone points out that "very few" people are medically transitioning, I usually pop up with a rant about how all of our institutions are captured so it's affecting all of us.
So I was interested to listen to Brandon Showalter talk to Nina & Corrina about how trans ideology has permeated Christian churches even though he views it as antithetical to basic Christian beliefs. Watching mainline Protestant churches draping themselves in the trans flag (literally) also reminds me of the academic feminists who embraced it--suicidal empathy is the term here, I think, to describe embracing an ideology that seeds your own destruction.
Here is what I find interesting about the American Society of Plastic Surgeon statement.
For years trans activists and media have repeated how all medical association endorse that gender affirming care is life saving, etc. Yet the ASPS says that it has not issued guidance, agreed, or disagreed with this. What gives?
And interesting enough the ASPS statement echoes the Cass Report's finding of low quality evidence and so on.
I know that trans activist Erin Reed is going to release a big statement on the ASPS pronouncement. Lisa, please do read it and let us know what you think. I already have a sense of its level of integrity.....but will say no more.
Tow little critiques - though I love your work and the points you are making here (enough to subscribe, and I only have a few subscriptions).
First, when you write “trans girl,” I wish you would put quotation marks or at least hyphenate, because you are otherwise indicating they there is such a thing as a girl who is “trans,” (ie. Indicating that a boy who thinks he is a girl or wishes he were one is actually a type of “girl,” which he is not).
Second, I might be misconstruing your phrasing as implying an equal dislike for two things - but I think there are some places where straddling the line is the wrong place to stand and just want to make it clear that - when you say “how much money has been spent to fight laws and guidelines either preventing or insisting on schools sharing kids social transitions with parents,” preventing schools from sharing this info is plain wrong, but insisting that schools share such info is absolutely required and correct. It would not be appropriate to allow schools to do whichever they like. This is not a case where we can leave it to schools to decide. Parents absolutely have a right to know what their children are doing in school, especially when the school is facilitating a powerful psychological intervention. (Again, you may already agree with that, but it cannot be emphasized enough!).
Hippiesq, I agree. I suggest terms like "cross-sex ideation" and "took on an opposite sex persona" to push back against the captured speech. Captured speech, I know for 30 years from my crossdressing, female-persona ex husband, is what changes your thinking process. As well, the surgeries should be identified more clinically such as "sex trait modification." The general public has no idea of the real, expensive, damaging effects of these surgeries.
I accept these critiques. It's incredibly hard to keep trying to leave room in the righting for the not-quite-converted. I'm pondering, I'm thinking about it, I'm sharing some thoughts next week. Keep the thoughts and critiques coming.
It's a brain thing. We're overworked trying to use correct and accurate language. For a while, I could not write the word general or generalization, it all came out "genderal"
Just want to say thank you Lisa for another great Friday post. I always look forward to reading what you have to say on the week’s news and am particularly grateful not to have to read Lydia Polgreen’s unhinged and harmful oped. Today you introduced me to a new term, the “yips”. Had to look that one up!
Love this, Lisa, and particularly your so-Lisa-like parenthetical gloss: “Truth hits everybody, as the best rock band of the 80s once sang. (Don’t agree about The Police? Fight me! That said, I have no idea what the lyrics mean, and until yesterday I thought it was “truth hurts everybody.”)”
Some Fridays, I read Broadview in Brief with a sense of hope that the craziness and the hurt is slowing down. Some Fridays, I read with a sense of dread. This week is one of those: really, the "getting a mastectomy as a teen is like quitting the swim team" lady gets that many words to weigh in where she has no expertise?!? But all the Fridays, I am grateful for your thoroughness, Lisa, and for trying to keep some humor and perspective, when I cannot.
I have a 'funny' story to share with you on the topic of language. I used to work in a university and I was on a committee that was looking at applications from people to teach a single course. The applicants had names like Thomas, Craig, Jennifer, Rose-Ann...you get the idea. So I would refer to each of them as He or She, but my colleagues would only refer to them as They, and eventually it became a kind of power struggle with them emphasising the word They in every sentence they spoke. But I kept using He and She.
Throughout this I was wondering why they were so adamant about not acknowledging the obvious sex of the applicants who weren't even in the room! And it occurred to me that this wasn't about the applicants, it was about virtue signalling. I clearly lack virtue, or more importantly, the appearance of virtue.
When a university has reached the point where most of its teachers are incapable of acknowledging or dealing with the most rudimentary structures of reality without an incoherent ideological framework that they genuinely believe to be truth, it is no longer a university. It's a cult.
Further, aren’t they doing a dis-service to the kids who purposely pick a new “gendered” name so they can pass as the other sex? Why else would the old name be “dead”’if not to allow them to live again as the opposite sex? My daughter would certainly want people reading out her “chosen” name to think she was male and call her “he” when discussing her. Funny how self-contradictory these ideas are!
This is a disturbing trend, but I don't think it's about virtue signaling. I think people increasingly refer to everyone as "they"—regardless of any pronoun preference—either because (1) they fear getting it wrong and being accused of misgendering or (2) they are not comfortable with the person's professed gender but don't want to offend by misgendering. So a male who flashes "her" penis is referred to as they instead of either she or he.
In a way, this trend bothers me, because by not using sex-based pronouns you lose so much information and make the conversation harder to understand. But I also find it kind of hilarious, because people who claim to respect others' pronouns are just deciding what pronoun they will use for someone without that person's permission. I also have a dim hope that when everyone has become a they, it will no longer be seen as cool and subversive to be nonbinary, and all the former enbies will start insisting on their sex-based pronouns.
“…eventually it became a kind of power struggle with them emphasising the word They in every sentence they spoke” - this indicates to me that it was virtue signaling.
Perhaps in this case it was (though I think it was more about correcting their colleague who was at risk of misgendering), but when I've seen/heard it in other instances it's mostly people who are not gender ideologists and are just uncomfortable with the sexed pronouns available.
ETA: I don't know why it would be considered virtuous to use pronouns that no one asked for.
You have a point.
Sadly, nowadays it is quite possible that "Thomas" is actually a woman and "Rose-Ann" is a dude so sex is no longer obvious from the applicant's name,
I guess Ms. Polgreen hasn't learned anything since her December 1st Opinion piece, "There Is No Way To Live A Life Without Regret." Her ego sure has gotten bloated, though. She thinks she's qualified to debunk a whole institution's worth of leading medical professionals in the U.K? Some people learn things, some people continue hitting the same sour notes because they're surrounded by cowards who compliment their gorgeous voices rather than advising them to look into some other vocation. That this idiot is still having her stuff published in the Times tells me that after the last of its old guard staff retire it's likely to continue its descent into being just another Pink News . . .
Even if there's no way to live a life without _any_ regret, it may still be possible to live a life with _less_ regret. Not doing stupid things with permanent consequence is a good place to start.
Polgreen's essay was a compendium of false arguments made about gender care and the Cass Review. Incorrect arguments that have been made repeatedly and rebutted so many times that it is unclear how to fathom who people who keep making them are doing so.
Maybe they believe these children are immutably"born this way", somehow assuming that a person's self perception is immutable, at all ages no less, that self perception does not have any relationship to how they learn to perceive anything, that a self perception of the body requires surgical and medical intervention if it is distressing and that there is no way to learn more to improve treatment (in assuming that asking for data before medical intervention is somehow disrespectful).
They appear to see one interpretation and refuse to consider the others and then to think of ways to distinguish between them and to falsify them. To figure out which one is true.
Truly bizarre. It sounds rational to some as they give reasons, but they don't check if their reasons are consistent with the data (desistance, detransitoomers who report peer influence, detransitoomers period-if the response is detrans people never were trans, it's clear MDs and individuals cannot distinguish these categories either and thus even within their framework medicalization is already a problem,).
The taboos against discussion are really harming those involved.
Indian documentary filmmaker, Vaishnavi Sundar, has been dropping trailers for Behind the Looking Glass on Lime Soda Films YouTube channel. This documentary features me and about 20+ other trans widows telling our stories, some through animated sections in our own voices due to fear of the ex-husband, and many, like me, onscreen with a pen name to protect ourselves from trolls. When I was in Park Slope and recognized from my channel by a woman attending a quilt show, I at first wondered if I should run, but she turned out to be a fan. Behind the Looking Glass, an epic worthy of theater screenings, will be released online, due to Sundar's complete cancellation from the film festival circuit after Dysphoria, also on her channel. The clip linked here from Behind the Looking Glass is about a woman's complete cancellation by her crossdressing narcissist ex-husband, for merely telling a few friends on campus why she was divorcing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj0nGVBLWXE&t=7s
Saw something on X about Jeffrey Marsh being asked to be an honored guest at the DNC. I hope that is just a crazy rumor. I also wanted to add that lately everytime I write a letter to the editor of either the NYTimes or the WaPost after any piece that touches on gender, I ask them to please do a proper investigative piece. I tell them it would be great to read an in depth report, maybe a multiple part series involving the history, interviewing parents and kids alike(pro and con), medical doctors, therapists, etc. Kind of like a book, I guess but maybe more likely to be read and shared. Oh yeah and lastly, that it NOT go in the Op-Ed section, phew! Think they ever will?
I think this is real. Harris is very dependent on the California crossdressers to help her overcome the "tough prosecutor" image. Harris facilitated cross-sex ideating male convicts to get sex trait modification surgeries while serving their time, when she was the AG.
I understand it's for real.
Lydia Polgreen really should not be commenting on the Cass review because she has no idea what a systematic review is and the science behind it. In her dingbat mind, the fact that Dr. Cass’ clinical work did not involve treating gender dysphoria kids was a detriment to the report. Wtf is she thinking? Well she can’t think. Truly the emperor is naked and she’s standing there fuming at the fact that finally people are discussing that he is, indeed, without any clothes.
When anyone points out that "very few" people are medically transitioning, I usually pop up with a rant about how all of our institutions are captured so it's affecting all of us.
So I was interested to listen to Brandon Showalter talk to Nina & Corrina about how trans ideology has permeated Christian churches even though he views it as antithetical to basic Christian beliefs. Watching mainline Protestant churches draping themselves in the trans flag (literally) also reminds me of the academic feminists who embraced it--suicidal empathy is the term here, I think, to describe embracing an ideology that seeds your own destruction.
If interested, here's a link:
https://www.heterodorx.com/podcast/143-brandon-showalter/
Thanks for sharing this.
This was a surprisingly good interview.
Here is what I find interesting about the American Society of Plastic Surgeon statement.
For years trans activists and media have repeated how all medical association endorse that gender affirming care is life saving, etc. Yet the ASPS says that it has not issued guidance, agreed, or disagreed with this. What gives?
And interesting enough the ASPS statement echoes the Cass Report's finding of low quality evidence and so on.
I know that trans activist Erin Reed is going to release a big statement on the ASPS pronouncement. Lisa, please do read it and let us know what you think. I already have a sense of its level of integrity.....but will say no more.
The faulty James Esses apology link is probably meant to go to this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/15/student-psychotherapist-wins-apology-over-expulsion-for-gender-critical-views
Great news!
Will fix, thanks!
Tow little critiques - though I love your work and the points you are making here (enough to subscribe, and I only have a few subscriptions).
First, when you write “trans girl,” I wish you would put quotation marks or at least hyphenate, because you are otherwise indicating they there is such a thing as a girl who is “trans,” (ie. Indicating that a boy who thinks he is a girl or wishes he were one is actually a type of “girl,” which he is not).
Second, I might be misconstruing your phrasing as implying an equal dislike for two things - but I think there are some places where straddling the line is the wrong place to stand and just want to make it clear that - when you say “how much money has been spent to fight laws and guidelines either preventing or insisting on schools sharing kids social transitions with parents,” preventing schools from sharing this info is plain wrong, but insisting that schools share such info is absolutely required and correct. It would not be appropriate to allow schools to do whichever they like. This is not a case where we can leave it to schools to decide. Parents absolutely have a right to know what their children are doing in school, especially when the school is facilitating a powerful psychological intervention. (Again, you may already agree with that, but it cannot be emphasized enough!).
Hippiesq, I agree. I suggest terms like "cross-sex ideation" and "took on an opposite sex persona" to push back against the captured speech. Captured speech, I know for 30 years from my crossdressing, female-persona ex husband, is what changes your thinking process. As well, the surgeries should be identified more clinically such as "sex trait modification." The general public has no idea of the real, expensive, damaging effects of these surgeries.
I’ve lost credibility by mis-spelling my first word, “Two.”
I accept these critiques. It's incredibly hard to keep trying to leave room in the righting for the not-quite-converted. I'm pondering, I'm thinking about it, I'm sharing some thoughts next week. Keep the thoughts and critiques coming.
Will do, my dear!
It's a brain thing. We're overworked trying to use correct and accurate language. For a while, I could not write the word general or generalization, it all came out "genderal"
Just want to say thank you Lisa for another great Friday post. I always look forward to reading what you have to say on the week’s news and am particularly grateful not to have to read Lydia Polgreen’s unhinged and harmful oped. Today you introduced me to a new term, the “yips”. Had to look that one up!
Love this, Lisa, and particularly your so-Lisa-like parenthetical gloss: “Truth hits everybody, as the best rock band of the 80s once sang. (Don’t agree about The Police? Fight me! That said, I have no idea what the lyrics mean, and until yesterday I thought it was “truth hurts everybody.”)”