About now is when parents must steel themselves for another holiday season of family gatherings marred by this reality of an Orwell brand of dystopia: This is the season when the river of sadness that most of us live with overflows its banks and swamps whatever platform of "cope" each of us had constructed for ourselves out of distractions or working on other meaningful areas of our remaining lives. For parents and extended family, this Thanksgiving will be once-again defaced by this "upside-down" culture, resulting in either the absence of children estranged from us, or the presence of "trans-believer" children (who invariably bring along with them an uninvited guest: the "trans ideology" elephant in the room that's impossible for non-believer parents to ignore).
Heather omg thank you. My only child is home from college and I just found out that he has added progesterone to his existing trans meds. He cried when we talked about my concerns, telling me that I don't care that these drugs keep him from killing himself. I am in hell.
In addition to making the normal and natural uncool, we have also pathologized it. Social anxiety in middle school now requires good parents to send children to therapy and then medicalization. SSRIs can cause sexual dysfunction, numbness, etc. And then we wonder why they feel alienated from their bodies, why they aren’t building romantic relationships, etc.
“Once your ability to speak the truth is removed, your ability to recognize the truth fades away.”
This is why, for me, the most important issue in this whole cultural disaster of genderland is the defense of free speech. We are social animals. We must discover truth together. Without free speech we cannot get to truth we agree upon. Without free speech, we cannot know what is worth defending in laws and norms. Remember that science itself is a human invention and a form of free speech. Science, when properly practiced, is a system designed to circumvent inevitable human bias and discover truth. Science has been shut down countless times when discoveries do not conform to what is believed to be “normal” or “moral” at the time. Scientists like Galileo (or Hillary Cass!) have been persecuted or smeared and discredited in their pursuit of truth.
As human societies go, “free speech” itself is not “normal. Neither are gay rights or women’s rights! These are values people living in increasingly complex societies over centuries have developed. For me, they are absolutely moral values, but I no longer believe they are inevitable in an unfurling and righteous display of “progress” as I once did. Obviously, that is not true. Upside-down genderland taught me this. They must always be re-discovered and defended as morally right. All we can do as individuals is keep speaking truth and connecting with fellow dissenters until “normal” is closer to what is both moral and right. When free speech does not flourish, such dissenters will take personal and professional hits, as Lisa and most of us reading her Substack have done. But that is the only way change will happen.
Your comments resonate with me. Historians show us what was considered “normal” in previous societies ( not that long ago) - slavery and slave ownership, women and children as “property”, the “divine right of kings” are examples. I had always believed that “the arc of history bends towards justice” - and then along came Genderism and the post-truth society. Now I’m not so sure. Indeed nothing seems sure anymore. Apart from death and taxes of course.
Narrowly defined, if "normal" meant the "norm," then many things would be abnormal that are perfectly natural and right. Even red hair and blue or green eyes would not be "normal" under that definition. However, "normal" can be broadened to mean one of several things that exist in nature. By that definition, as there are always a certain minority of people who have blue or green eyes, red hair, are homosexual, are very tall or very short, are blind or deaf, or don't conform to sex stereotypes (ie. effeminate males and masculine females), we could call of these things "normal," even if they are not the "norm." This shows the interplay of normal with natural.
At one time, it was somewhat common for American white people, mostly in the South, to have slaves, and, over the long haul of history, slavery in many countries was practiced somewhat regularly. Was slavery, therefore, "normal?" Again, that depends on the definition. If we mean that it was somewhat common or the "norm," then yes. If we mean that it was right, then no. Slavery was never right, and, therefore, we could say it was not normal. This shows the interplay of normal with right.
As for society making the normal wrong, that's just stupid. It's "natural" for young people to question the norms of the day, and that often leads to improvements in society as the new generation weeds out societal assumptions that are unfair, uncomfortable, illogical, useless, etc. We no longer require women to wear dresses all the time, and now men can have long hair. We no longer keep women out of the workforce, and now men can be nurses and teachers. We no longer condemn gay people, and gay marriage is perfectly acceptable. This is all good. We drop the young people's notions that don't really work, such as turn on, tune in, drop out (because it turns out taking drugs and not working makes for an uncomfortable society). The weeding out happens pretty naturally.
However, it's not "natural" for the whole of society to reject some aspect of society that is based on nature simply because it is the norm. Right now, we have a top down movement, not coming from young people. It's being fed to them by trusted adults. They are taught: that a feminine, heterosexual girl or woman or a masculine, heterosexual boy or man is a boring oppressor; that they can choose whether they belong to the male or female category, separate and apart from their bodies; and that they should, or even must, change their bodies to conform to that choice - which they are told isn't really a choice at all because they will be miserable if they don't honor their true "gender." It's nonsense, and it's harming the whole of society, with a disproportionate impact on young people who were brought up on this misinformation.
What can we do to get young people on-board with rejecting newspeak? We should appeal to their sense of fairness, compassion, logic and instincts.
Deep down, we all know that boys are not girls and men are not women. We all know it's not right or fair to put males in female sports when sports are divided by sex, although we all agree that some co-ed sports are perfectly fine. We all know that a convicted male rapist should not be referred to as "she" or "her," given injections of estrogen on the State's dime, and then put in prison with women! Deep down, we all know that a boy who loves Barbie dolls, pink, playing tea party, and dressing up, and who dislikes roughhousing is still a boy. We all know that teenage girls, and some boys, are uncomfortable with their bodies, but that they will get over it if given time. We all know that injecting teens with chemicals to stop natural processes, or cutting off their healthy body parts is wrong. We all know that it is our bodies, and our bodies alone, that determine our sex, not some inner special knowledge. We all know that nobody was born with the necessity to be chemically and/or surgically altered to appear the opposite sex, and the necessity to be referred to and treated as if they are the opposite sex in all respects, in order to avoid suicide or a life of misery.
Fairness, compassion, logic and instincts should be our mantra.
I agree with most of what you say. I also think that people’s moral judgements are heavily influenced by prevailing norms. Today, most people in Western societies eat meat (including myself- but I do harbour moral misgivings). I would not be surprised if, in 100 years time, future generations think about meat-eating in the same way we think about cannibalism.
I totally agree with that. We no longer need to eat meat (at own time I believe we did) so eating it can be looked upon as unnecessary harm to animals.
Eating meat is natural for humans though. I'd be quite opposed to the practice being condemned as "unnecessary harm to animals". I would find that nearly as crazy as genderism (I always say that OF COURSE my niece's transwoman boyfriend is also vegan!), and such ideas would be even more of a policy loser for Democrats. Animals eat other animals, and humans are still just a more intelligent form of animals. It's nature - eat and be eaten. Nothing morally wrong with that. Humans are just lucky that we don't have any predators.
I also don't think that a purely vegetarian diet is optimal. Sure, you can try to make up for the loss if you eat a lot of legumes and nuts, but it's not as optimal as a balanced diet with a moderate amount of meat and/or fish.
Now how we treat the animals we eat - that is a whole different issue, and moral questions definitely play a role here.
Perfectly valid points and part of what I see as a debate to be resolved over the next generation or two. This will give us time to determine how vegetarians versus meat-eaters fare in the long-run, which would resolve the question of the necessity of meat-eating. If it turns out it's necessary for our optimal health and/or functionality, then I would say it's justified. If unnecessary for the health and/or function of our bodies, we can debate whether meat-eating is morally justified on some other basis.
Certainly putting cows in a stall where they can't move for their entire lives, or putting chickens in a room where they peck each other's eyes out is wrong regardless of whether meat-eating is morally appropriate.
I guess I'm just too much of a libertarian after all. As humans and their ancestors have eaten meat for over 2 million years, I don't think government should ever try to restrict the practice, and without government restrictions, I don't think most humans will be dissuaded from doing it. I'm not opposed to government regulation that forbids cruel conditions for animals, but that should have nothing to do with whether humans "need" to eat meat for optimal health or not.
I don’t think we need government regulations for this one. It will take a while, but it is possible (not guaranteed) that people or at least the vast majority of people might ultimately decide that we don’t need it and don’t want to do it - and that it will go out of favor. And yes to regulating against the cruelty!!
Lisa- another brilliantly written and piece. You have tied together a central concept to this agenda. I rember my daughter, 13 at the time, being so excited to buy “stay weird” stickers. At the time I thought it was a cute little nod to being unique. Now I see it as part of the larger queering of society. It has definitely caused a lot of disassociation, confusion and anxiety over the years.
We have a positive impact on broader society one relationship at a time when we show up in relationships with humility, curiosity, and compassion, admitting that we are fallible and accepting that humans can have different points of view. By prioritizing calming our nervous systems, we can have a positive, persuasive impact on others and have a calming effect on societal dialogue.
Tracking how you’re responding to your activities of the day is a good place to start. Is what you’re doing increasing agitation or some other unpleasant state of mind and body? If it’s not an essential activity (too often these days it involves engaging with/ consuming online material), go do something restorative and/ or fun. I’m not aware of how available engaging with the natural world is available to you where you live? Getting outside for me first thing in the morning is a calming way for me to start my day.
outdoors walking, meditation, chanting, deep breathing, Qi Qong, not too much caffeine, whole foods & avoid junk food & sugar, ...
convince yourself that anger is never advantageous and that it is never in your own interest to lose your cool. That way, even when you lose your cool you can immediately begin to re-establish your equanimity. ...
there is of course a huge culture industry that promotes various paths to calm & centered living. Vagal nerve stimulators are one relatively recent innovation. I've not tried them. Beta blockers, I've also never tried. Weed calms some people. Kava is very calming and promotes a mild happiness -- you can order it online or buy tincture of kava in health food stores. The taste of kava is like dirt, so just chug it down without stopping to taste.
Helen Webberly has a pretty calm & soothing demeanor. Is it positive? Does it work? I respect & am grateful to those that are fired up over this. Cancelled dismissed & silenced otherwise. I’m furious to be pushed into this life of ‘deal with it’. The pursuit of calm. There is nothing reasonable about this debate, because there is no debate. Normal reactions aren’t respected.
I think what is happening, in part, is the breakdown of traditional identifiers and systems that produce belonging (the family, the nation, sex-roles [this breakdown is part of what's often called "the postmodern condition"]) and the rise of demographic and interest-based marketing profiles (Female, 18-22, not in college, watched 3.8 hours of anime on Prime on Tuesday, bought scent-free laundry pods on Sunday, pictures with trees in 18% of Instagram posts [when we talk about neoliberalism as a social force marked in part by markets invading our very lives, this is an example]).
So, mindful that the majority position is no position at all, and in a world where one is compelled to build a profile for oneself by forces internal (ennui-alienation) and external (media-advertisement) in order to have a sense of self and community, is it any wonder that people would finely slice their identities like sashimi, categorizing gradations of desire in "pride"ful ways no one historically would? In a world where the first encounter is often online, is it surprising that our self-construction mimics how these marketing and media systems construct us?
It's amazing how far modern "queer" culture is from Foucault's "Other Victorians."
Ann, I’m a longtime fan of her work. And it makes my day to connect with other vegans who have escaped the grip of gender dogma. If that’s you, let’s dm!
I’m now listening to video #3 about infighting, shaming, and blaming. It’s interesting to compare the two movements— different cause but same human dynamics. You’re welcome to be in touch with me; I’m in the Philadelphia area: https://youtu.be/1iFX1-ZZRCY?si=mj5EL2b1DL0BLRdq
Normal = well-socialized = useful member of the clan or tribe. We are social animals and the ability to be socialized was selected for. Individuals who were a danger to the tribe could be killed or ostracized, which amounted to the same thing. That gave a selective advantage to the most easily socialized. So we are predisposed to conflate 'normal' (whatever that is at any given time and place) with 'good'.
Your closing questions lead me back to your wonderful conversation with Carol Tavris. I bet the two of you could offer us all many illuminating lines of thinking we could then follow in our personal lives as well.
I sometimes think that the creepy gender cult, and creepiness in general among young people, has been fostered by the near-constant turmoil of the past 20-25 years. There was 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, birtherism, Donald Trump, two impeachments, a pandemic, October 7, Dobbs, Donald Trump again...we scarcely have time to process one upheaval before the next is upon us.
I was in my thirties when the WTC was destroyed, and so had some life experience to help me propertly manage my feelings, but what about those who were 10? Throw in the various other weirdnesses that took place over the next two decades and you've got a generation of people who really don't remember pre-dysfunction America. Small wonder young people are dealing very badly with real life when real life is scary and bizarre.
The turmoil of the 1960s through the 1980s was pretty destabilizing too. War (hot and cold), protest, women's liberation, Kent State, Watergate, Reagan, Thatcher, AIDS, Iran-Contra, the S&L crisis, The Troubles, and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. Young people reacted to all of that in a variety of ways, from marching to taking drugs to making music.
Real life has been scary and dysfunctional forever, but only in the last 15-20 years have kids sought refuge in genderism. Maybe Jonathan Haidt is right to blame phones and social media (though I don't know if he draws a line to the gender insanity, just to general unwellness).
I think Haidt has a point, yes; forty years ago, you could only get news a few times a day, but in 2025 news is beamed directly to the computer in everyone's pocket. A kid goes missing in New Zealand and the entire world knows within three minutes.
Also, I think that Americans had a bit more faith in insitutions--media, government, churches, academia, science--in the 60s than they do now. These days, everybody distrusts everyone and everything, and we have prominent public figures who encourage and foster that distrust. We've never before had a president who continually and shamelessly broke the law, and who encouraged others to do so. That matters.
I sometimes think the Trans Ideology emerged, in part, from our slow economic decline. As America lost its dynamism in the late 70s it became increasingly difficult to keep a toehold in the middle class on the strength of one's parent's successes. This caused a flatline in status creation. The response of the beleaguered children of the middle class was to invent new pathways to status by keeping things "weird." It also gave them a great out for not achieving what their parent's did. When we don't have the capacity to see systemic problems the burden of failure lies uneasily our own shoulders.
I also think there's a lot of overlap with assisted reproductive technology, or maybe Dolly the cloned sheep. Some doors opened that led to places we couldn't have imagined. Not sure I can prove that, but I think about it a lot.
Assisted reproductive technology helps overcome obstacles to completing a natural process, unlike "gender-affirming care", which actively subverts natural development. I don't see the parallel, unless we are talking "designer babies".
In order to prevail with nature, discipline of mind and logical reasoning, we must identify blather, indoctrination as well as institutional linguistic capture. The recent publicity tour of Dr. Helen Webberley, in her appearances on Robbie Starbuck and Andrew Gold's Heretic channels, are a lesson in brainwashing. The good doctor, who refuses to discuss the fact that her husband was removed from medical credentials because he prescribed puberty blockers to a distressed 9 year old, continues to claim the only approach to cross-sex ideation is "affirming" the fantasy and altering the body to conform with it. No one challenges her with specifics, such as the myriad of flaws in the study that led to the Dutch Protocol. Push back with facts. Call out gaslighting when you hear it. Privately after the pumpkin pie, if necessary.
I genuinely fear for the kids of today. In addition to the gender insanity that they swim in is the upside-down of our national landscape. Virtually nothing that was solid before still is. Even religion is soured by the pedophilia ignored by the Catholic Church for so long, and the horrific misogyny of some forms of Islam. As a lesbian, I also feel great sadness for the fact that young gay kids have none of the support structures I had when I came out in the 1970s. Even 12 Step programs are not thriving like they used to. Yes, I fear not just for the children but for all of us. As someone prone to depression, I don't know where I would be without my non-religious but spiritual belief system. I can still have faith in that.
I have certainly felt this “upside-down” aspect of the last 10 years or so myself. It’s so tempting to also apply this to the generation of kids who have grown up in this era, but I must hesitate when I think of what adults thought of us as children in the ‘70s. We do the best we can, but as adults we have the wisdom of experience to know that we don’t really know how kids take in the same things we know to be abnormal.
But I think what you’re driving at is what guidance can we give them. I truly feel that we were pretty lucky to grow up in the ‘70s: Plenty of freedom to begin to forge our own way; peeks into the adult world (albeit for some adolescent girls this could also be fraught); simple concepts of how to treat others, and letting others know when they hurt you (tell them, don’t expect them to “read the room”); belief that, in the words of Mr. Rogers, “You’re Special”, and that applied to everyone, even the normies!
There was also a tradition of skepticism and argument that has well and truly been squelched. You’ve probably heard the theory that our turn towards science (and the method of questioning and demand for proof that it engenders) was only as a response to Sputnik. If that is accurate then we would need a similarly galvanizing event to get this tradition back, but nevertheless I feel strongly that I have to do my part as a father and a citizen to keep this flame alive.
This next one others may not share, but I feel there was a playfulness about the cosmic unfairness of things. Take National Lampoon’s song “Deteriorata”: “You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here. Whether you believe it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back.” Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is another example (BTW, remember how jogging was coded as “yuppie” and uncool?). In some weird way, these parts of the culture gave me permission to say “No” if I thought something popular was dumb. It would probably still remain popular and dumb, but I felt the confidence to have my own convictions without fear of being ostracized. Disco Demolition also was in this mold, and the revisionist turn to make it into a proto Trump rally says a lot about the “Orewllification” we’re living through. It’s OK to Just Say No, even to “Just Say No”!
This NYT piece from 1988 describing different modes of Saturday Morning TV for kids through the decades, and its recent turn towards portraying villages where to wander off is danger (as opposed to the always adventuring Mystery Machine of Scooby-Doo), feels like a harbinger of what went wrong in the following decades: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/30/magazine/from-lassie-to-pee-wee.html
I am always on the lookout to help my 7 year-old navigate all these waters. Eventually he’ll have to do it on his own, and as I said above I’m well attenuated to the cosmic joke of it all, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
About now is when parents must steel themselves for another holiday season of family gatherings marred by this reality of an Orwell brand of dystopia: This is the season when the river of sadness that most of us live with overflows its banks and swamps whatever platform of "cope" each of us had constructed for ourselves out of distractions or working on other meaningful areas of our remaining lives. For parents and extended family, this Thanksgiving will be once-again defaced by this "upside-down" culture, resulting in either the absence of children estranged from us, or the presence of "trans-believer" children (who invariably bring along with them an uninvited guest: the "trans ideology" elephant in the room that's impossible for non-believer parents to ignore).
Brilliant essay, Lisa!
And yes, Heather. Many of us are stuck in this upside-down culture.
I am a estranged mother, a mother estranged by trans ideology.
(Although I acknowledge that estrangements/estrainments are never pure and simple.)
I find myself constantly turning over words in my head--as one would turn over compost.
What happened, I think. Is this a cult, a subculture, a lifestyle choice, or all of the above?
I'm very sorry about the estrangement. It makes my heart break.
Thank you. Not uncommon, unfortunately.
Heather omg thank you. My only child is home from college and I just found out that he has added progesterone to his existing trans meds. He cried when we talked about my concerns, telling me that I don't care that these drugs keep him from killing himself. I am in hell.
Well said, Heather. Thank you
In addition to making the normal and natural uncool, we have also pathologized it. Social anxiety in middle school now requires good parents to send children to therapy and then medicalization. SSRIs can cause sexual dysfunction, numbness, etc. And then we wonder why they feel alienated from their bodies, why they aren’t building romantic relationships, etc.
“Once your ability to speak the truth is removed, your ability to recognize the truth fades away.”
This is why, for me, the most important issue in this whole cultural disaster of genderland is the defense of free speech. We are social animals. We must discover truth together. Without free speech we cannot get to truth we agree upon. Without free speech, we cannot know what is worth defending in laws and norms. Remember that science itself is a human invention and a form of free speech. Science, when properly practiced, is a system designed to circumvent inevitable human bias and discover truth. Science has been shut down countless times when discoveries do not conform to what is believed to be “normal” or “moral” at the time. Scientists like Galileo (or Hillary Cass!) have been persecuted or smeared and discredited in their pursuit of truth.
As human societies go, “free speech” itself is not “normal. Neither are gay rights or women’s rights! These are values people living in increasingly complex societies over centuries have developed. For me, they are absolutely moral values, but I no longer believe they are inevitable in an unfurling and righteous display of “progress” as I once did. Obviously, that is not true. Upside-down genderland taught me this. They must always be re-discovered and defended as morally right. All we can do as individuals is keep speaking truth and connecting with fellow dissenters until “normal” is closer to what is both moral and right. When free speech does not flourish, such dissenters will take personal and professional hits, as Lisa and most of us reading her Substack have done. But that is the only way change will happen.
Your comments resonate with me. Historians show us what was considered “normal” in previous societies ( not that long ago) - slavery and slave ownership, women and children as “property”, the “divine right of kings” are examples. I had always believed that “the arc of history bends towards justice” - and then along came Genderism and the post-truth society. Now I’m not so sure. Indeed nothing seems sure anymore. Apart from death and taxes of course.
FWIW, I intend on letting my cisgender “freak flag” fly. I had no idea it existed.
It helps that I’m partial to grayscales as well…
Narrowly defined, if "normal" meant the "norm," then many things would be abnormal that are perfectly natural and right. Even red hair and blue or green eyes would not be "normal" under that definition. However, "normal" can be broadened to mean one of several things that exist in nature. By that definition, as there are always a certain minority of people who have blue or green eyes, red hair, are homosexual, are very tall or very short, are blind or deaf, or don't conform to sex stereotypes (ie. effeminate males and masculine females), we could call of these things "normal," even if they are not the "norm." This shows the interplay of normal with natural.
At one time, it was somewhat common for American white people, mostly in the South, to have slaves, and, over the long haul of history, slavery in many countries was practiced somewhat regularly. Was slavery, therefore, "normal?" Again, that depends on the definition. If we mean that it was somewhat common or the "norm," then yes. If we mean that it was right, then no. Slavery was never right, and, therefore, we could say it was not normal. This shows the interplay of normal with right.
As for society making the normal wrong, that's just stupid. It's "natural" for young people to question the norms of the day, and that often leads to improvements in society as the new generation weeds out societal assumptions that are unfair, uncomfortable, illogical, useless, etc. We no longer require women to wear dresses all the time, and now men can have long hair. We no longer keep women out of the workforce, and now men can be nurses and teachers. We no longer condemn gay people, and gay marriage is perfectly acceptable. This is all good. We drop the young people's notions that don't really work, such as turn on, tune in, drop out (because it turns out taking drugs and not working makes for an uncomfortable society). The weeding out happens pretty naturally.
However, it's not "natural" for the whole of society to reject some aspect of society that is based on nature simply because it is the norm. Right now, we have a top down movement, not coming from young people. It's being fed to them by trusted adults. They are taught: that a feminine, heterosexual girl or woman or a masculine, heterosexual boy or man is a boring oppressor; that they can choose whether they belong to the male or female category, separate and apart from their bodies; and that they should, or even must, change their bodies to conform to that choice - which they are told isn't really a choice at all because they will be miserable if they don't honor their true "gender." It's nonsense, and it's harming the whole of society, with a disproportionate impact on young people who were brought up on this misinformation.
What can we do to get young people on-board with rejecting newspeak? We should appeal to their sense of fairness, compassion, logic and instincts.
Deep down, we all know that boys are not girls and men are not women. We all know it's not right or fair to put males in female sports when sports are divided by sex, although we all agree that some co-ed sports are perfectly fine. We all know that a convicted male rapist should not be referred to as "she" or "her," given injections of estrogen on the State's dime, and then put in prison with women! Deep down, we all know that a boy who loves Barbie dolls, pink, playing tea party, and dressing up, and who dislikes roughhousing is still a boy. We all know that teenage girls, and some boys, are uncomfortable with their bodies, but that they will get over it if given time. We all know that injecting teens with chemicals to stop natural processes, or cutting off their healthy body parts is wrong. We all know that it is our bodies, and our bodies alone, that determine our sex, not some inner special knowledge. We all know that nobody was born with the necessity to be chemically and/or surgically altered to appear the opposite sex, and the necessity to be referred to and treated as if they are the opposite sex in all respects, in order to avoid suicide or a life of misery.
Fairness, compassion, logic and instincts should be our mantra.
Well said, and I particularly appreciated your final sum-up line. Amen.
I agree with most of what you say. I also think that people’s moral judgements are heavily influenced by prevailing norms. Today, most people in Western societies eat meat (including myself- but I do harbour moral misgivings). I would not be surprised if, in 100 years time, future generations think about meat-eating in the same way we think about cannibalism.
I totally agree with that. We no longer need to eat meat (at own time I believe we did) so eating it can be looked upon as unnecessary harm to animals.
Eating meat is natural for humans though. I'd be quite opposed to the practice being condemned as "unnecessary harm to animals". I would find that nearly as crazy as genderism (I always say that OF COURSE my niece's transwoman boyfriend is also vegan!), and such ideas would be even more of a policy loser for Democrats. Animals eat other animals, and humans are still just a more intelligent form of animals. It's nature - eat and be eaten. Nothing morally wrong with that. Humans are just lucky that we don't have any predators.
I also don't think that a purely vegetarian diet is optimal. Sure, you can try to make up for the loss if you eat a lot of legumes and nuts, but it's not as optimal as a balanced diet with a moderate amount of meat and/or fish.
Now how we treat the animals we eat - that is a whole different issue, and moral questions definitely play a role here.
Perfectly valid points and part of what I see as a debate to be resolved over the next generation or two. This will give us time to determine how vegetarians versus meat-eaters fare in the long-run, which would resolve the question of the necessity of meat-eating. If it turns out it's necessary for our optimal health and/or functionality, then I would say it's justified. If unnecessary for the health and/or function of our bodies, we can debate whether meat-eating is morally justified on some other basis.
Certainly putting cows in a stall where they can't move for their entire lives, or putting chickens in a room where they peck each other's eyes out is wrong regardless of whether meat-eating is morally appropriate.
I guess I'm just too much of a libertarian after all. As humans and their ancestors have eaten meat for over 2 million years, I don't think government should ever try to restrict the practice, and without government restrictions, I don't think most humans will be dissuaded from doing it. I'm not opposed to government regulation that forbids cruel conditions for animals, but that should have nothing to do with whether humans "need" to eat meat for optimal health or not.
I don’t think we need government regulations for this one. It will take a while, but it is possible (not guaranteed) that people or at least the vast majority of people might ultimately decide that we don’t need it and don’t want to do it - and that it will go out of favor. And yes to regulating against the cruelty!!
Lisa- another brilliantly written and piece. You have tied together a central concept to this agenda. I rember my daughter, 13 at the time, being so excited to buy “stay weird” stickers. At the time I thought it was a cute little nod to being unique. Now I see it as part of the larger queering of society. It has definitely caused a lot of disassociation, confusion and anxiety over the years.
We have a positive impact on broader society one relationship at a time when we show up in relationships with humility, curiosity, and compassion, admitting that we are fallible and accepting that humans can have different points of view. By prioritizing calming our nervous systems, we can have a positive, persuasive impact on others and have a calming effect on societal dialogue.
I love this. How do you prioritize calming your nervous system? It can't be my all-nacho diet.
Tracking how you’re responding to your activities of the day is a good place to start. Is what you’re doing increasing agitation or some other unpleasant state of mind and body? If it’s not an essential activity (too often these days it involves engaging with/ consuming online material), go do something restorative and/ or fun. I’m not aware of how available engaging with the natural world is available to you where you live? Getting outside for me first thing in the morning is a calming way for me to start my day.
outdoors walking, meditation, chanting, deep breathing, Qi Qong, not too much caffeine, whole foods & avoid junk food & sugar, ...
convince yourself that anger is never advantageous and that it is never in your own interest to lose your cool. That way, even when you lose your cool you can immediately begin to re-establish your equanimity. ...
there is of course a huge culture industry that promotes various paths to calm & centered living. Vagal nerve stimulators are one relatively recent innovation. I've not tried them. Beta blockers, I've also never tried. Weed calms some people. Kava is very calming and promotes a mild happiness -- you can order it online or buy tincture of kava in health food stores. The taste of kava is like dirt, so just chug it down without stopping to taste.
It’s weird; if I drink Kava Stress Relief tea, it “keys me up”!
Helen Webberly has a pretty calm & soothing demeanor. Is it positive? Does it work? I respect & am grateful to those that are fired up over this. Cancelled dismissed & silenced otherwise. I’m furious to be pushed into this life of ‘deal with it’. The pursuit of calm. There is nothing reasonable about this debate, because there is no debate. Normal reactions aren’t respected.
I am probably abusing Dr. Hans-Georg Moeller's theory of profilicity here, but I sincerely suggest you look into it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk2PpmlxIfA
I think what is happening, in part, is the breakdown of traditional identifiers and systems that produce belonging (the family, the nation, sex-roles [this breakdown is part of what's often called "the postmodern condition"]) and the rise of demographic and interest-based marketing profiles (Female, 18-22, not in college, watched 3.8 hours of anime on Prime on Tuesday, bought scent-free laundry pods on Sunday, pictures with trees in 18% of Instagram posts [when we talk about neoliberalism as a social force marked in part by markets invading our very lives, this is an example]).
So, mindful that the majority position is no position at all, and in a world where one is compelled to build a profile for oneself by forces internal (ennui-alienation) and external (media-advertisement) in order to have a sense of self and community, is it any wonder that people would finely slice their identities like sashimi, categorizing gradations of desire in "pride"ful ways no one historically would? In a world where the first encounter is often online, is it surprising that our self-construction mimics how these marketing and media systems construct us?
It's amazing how far modern "queer" culture is from Foucault's "Other Victorians."
Yes, the decline of religion and other in-person communities, replaced by personal, individual "identity."
Reminds me of psychologist Melanie Joy’s 3 N’s of the defense mechanism of justification: “normal, natural and necessary”: https://youtu.be/IM0MkDxmCt4?si=v6pu-JAiSibeVE8d
Ann, I’m a longtime fan of her work. And it makes my day to connect with other vegans who have escaped the grip of gender dogma. If that’s you, let’s dm!
I’m now listening to video #3 about infighting, shaming, and blaming. It’s interesting to compare the two movements— different cause but same human dynamics. You’re welcome to be in touch with me; I’m in the Philadelphia area: https://youtu.be/1iFX1-ZZRCY?si=mj5EL2b1DL0BLRdq
Normal = well-socialized = useful member of the clan or tribe. We are social animals and the ability to be socialized was selected for. Individuals who were a danger to the tribe could be killed or ostracized, which amounted to the same thing. That gave a selective advantage to the most easily socialized. So we are predisposed to conflate 'normal' (whatever that is at any given time and place) with 'good'.
Your closing questions lead me back to your wonderful conversation with Carol Tavris. I bet the two of you could offer us all many illuminating lines of thinking we could then follow in our personal lives as well.
I sometimes think that the creepy gender cult, and creepiness in general among young people, has been fostered by the near-constant turmoil of the past 20-25 years. There was 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, birtherism, Donald Trump, two impeachments, a pandemic, October 7, Dobbs, Donald Trump again...we scarcely have time to process one upheaval before the next is upon us.
I was in my thirties when the WTC was destroyed, and so had some life experience to help me propertly manage my feelings, but what about those who were 10? Throw in the various other weirdnesses that took place over the next two decades and you've got a generation of people who really don't remember pre-dysfunction America. Small wonder young people are dealing very badly with real life when real life is scary and bizarre.
The turmoil of the 1960s through the 1980s was pretty destabilizing too. War (hot and cold), protest, women's liberation, Kent State, Watergate, Reagan, Thatcher, AIDS, Iran-Contra, the S&L crisis, The Troubles, and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. Young people reacted to all of that in a variety of ways, from marching to taking drugs to making music.
Real life has been scary and dysfunctional forever, but only in the last 15-20 years have kids sought refuge in genderism. Maybe Jonathan Haidt is right to blame phones and social media (though I don't know if he draws a line to the gender insanity, just to general unwellness).
Yes, I think this is why kids' fairytales were so violent: to prepare them to navigate the world!
I think Haidt has a point, yes; forty years ago, you could only get news a few times a day, but in 2025 news is beamed directly to the computer in everyone's pocket. A kid goes missing in New Zealand and the entire world knows within three minutes.
Also, I think that Americans had a bit more faith in insitutions--media, government, churches, academia, science--in the 60s than they do now. These days, everybody distrusts everyone and everything, and we have prominent public figures who encourage and foster that distrust. We've never before had a president who continually and shamelessly broke the law, and who encouraged others to do so. That matters.
I sometimes think the Trans Ideology emerged, in part, from our slow economic decline. As America lost its dynamism in the late 70s it became increasingly difficult to keep a toehold in the middle class on the strength of one's parent's successes. This caused a flatline in status creation. The response of the beleaguered children of the middle class was to invent new pathways to status by keeping things "weird." It also gave them a great out for not achieving what their parent's did. When we don't have the capacity to see systemic problems the burden of failure lies uneasily our own shoulders.
I also think there's a lot of overlap with assisted reproductive technology, or maybe Dolly the cloned sheep. Some doors opened that led to places we couldn't have imagined. Not sure I can prove that, but I think about it a lot.
I’m not sure what you mean.
Assisted reproductive technology helps overcome obstacles to completing a natural process, unlike "gender-affirming care", which actively subverts natural development. I don't see the parallel, unless we are talking "designer babies".
In order to prevail with nature, discipline of mind and logical reasoning, we must identify blather, indoctrination as well as institutional linguistic capture. The recent publicity tour of Dr. Helen Webberley, in her appearances on Robbie Starbuck and Andrew Gold's Heretic channels, are a lesson in brainwashing. The good doctor, who refuses to discuss the fact that her husband was removed from medical credentials because he prescribed puberty blockers to a distressed 9 year old, continues to claim the only approach to cross-sex ideation is "affirming" the fantasy and altering the body to conform with it. No one challenges her with specifics, such as the myriad of flaws in the study that led to the Dutch Protocol. Push back with facts. Call out gaslighting when you hear it. Privately after the pumpkin pie, if necessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6gB3yZIngM
The brilliance of your CLARITY never ceases to stun and amaze.
Thank you Lisa.
You are very sweet.
I genuinely fear for the kids of today. In addition to the gender insanity that they swim in is the upside-down of our national landscape. Virtually nothing that was solid before still is. Even religion is soured by the pedophilia ignored by the Catholic Church for so long, and the horrific misogyny of some forms of Islam. As a lesbian, I also feel great sadness for the fact that young gay kids have none of the support structures I had when I came out in the 1970s. Even 12 Step programs are not thriving like they used to. Yes, I fear not just for the children but for all of us. As someone prone to depression, I don't know where I would be without my non-religious but spiritual belief system. I can still have faith in that.
I have certainly felt this “upside-down” aspect of the last 10 years or so myself. It’s so tempting to also apply this to the generation of kids who have grown up in this era, but I must hesitate when I think of what adults thought of us as children in the ‘70s. We do the best we can, but as adults we have the wisdom of experience to know that we don’t really know how kids take in the same things we know to be abnormal.
But I think what you’re driving at is what guidance can we give them. I truly feel that we were pretty lucky to grow up in the ‘70s: Plenty of freedom to begin to forge our own way; peeks into the adult world (albeit for some adolescent girls this could also be fraught); simple concepts of how to treat others, and letting others know when they hurt you (tell them, don’t expect them to “read the room”); belief that, in the words of Mr. Rogers, “You’re Special”, and that applied to everyone, even the normies!
There was also a tradition of skepticism and argument that has well and truly been squelched. You’ve probably heard the theory that our turn towards science (and the method of questioning and demand for proof that it engenders) was only as a response to Sputnik. If that is accurate then we would need a similarly galvanizing event to get this tradition back, but nevertheless I feel strongly that I have to do my part as a father and a citizen to keep this flame alive.
This next one others may not share, but I feel there was a playfulness about the cosmic unfairness of things. Take National Lampoon’s song “Deteriorata”: “You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here. Whether you believe it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back.” Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is another example (BTW, remember how jogging was coded as “yuppie” and uncool?). In some weird way, these parts of the culture gave me permission to say “No” if I thought something popular was dumb. It would probably still remain popular and dumb, but I felt the confidence to have my own convictions without fear of being ostracized. Disco Demolition also was in this mold, and the revisionist turn to make it into a proto Trump rally says a lot about the “Orewllification” we’re living through. It’s OK to Just Say No, even to “Just Say No”!
This NYT piece from 1988 describing different modes of Saturday Morning TV for kids through the decades, and its recent turn towards portraying villages where to wander off is danger (as opposed to the always adventuring Mystery Machine of Scooby-Doo), feels like a harbinger of what went wrong in the following decades: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/30/magazine/from-lassie-to-pee-wee.html
I am always on the lookout to help my 7 year-old navigate all these waters. Eventually he’ll have to do it on his own, and as I said above I’m well attenuated to the cosmic joke of it all, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯