Here's my letter in case helpful to anyone. Lisa shared the email addresses of the producers in the piece. Subject line: Stop gatekeeping the Truth
Dear Producers at WNYC,
On a recent episode of Brian Leher's show, he interviewed Michael Shermer about his new book, Truth. I was shocked at Leher's unprofessional conduct and shaming of a listener ("Mabel from Trenton") for expressing her opinion about being gaslit by Democrats on transgender issues. Leher went on to denigrate his guest during the show, even though Shermer was simply responding to the caller's reasonable concerns. Truth matters, which is what Shermer's book is all about! It was the topic of the conversation, and Shermer's reflections in response to Mabel were appropriate and interesting.
There are many, many Democrats and liberals who share Mabel's concerns, but Leher and NPR generally constantly present these issues as a left/right divide. That is not the truth.
I have stopped donating to NPR because of my disgust in your reporting, but I would do so again if you would present a truthful account of the controversies over trans-identified kids and youth gender medicine. This is not a right/left issue! And you know that perfectly well. Let us hear what smart and earnest people are saying and decide for ourselves what to think. Stop gatekeeping the truth. Share the diversity of opinions out there, especially the opinions of lefty feminists, dissident liberals and scientists who question "gender affirming care" for kids.
I am not interested in your tired old song about religious MAGA people vs. Chase Strangio. You've played that to death.
This was deeply unprofessional conduct by Brian Lehrer and a disservice to the many listeners. You need to fix it, or you will keep hemorrhaging listeners and funding.
Wow, that's super shocking. Way to ninja your way past the screeners, Mabel from Trenton! Bet there were a lot of people listening who also cheered Mabel and Shermer on.
Perhaps Lehrer has a family member he loves who was or is being “transitioned” as a child?
My instinct is there is a high likelihood that many, many adults who work in public radio and at the New Yorker have transitioned their children or have close family members who have. It is incredibly difficult to admit you have been completely fooled, taken advantage of and harmed your child or to tell a colleague you care about and respect that they have done so. Not saying it’s okay to dig in or stay silent, just saying this is what I imagine we’re up against here.
Carry on Sisyphus. Proteus and the rest of us are not far behind.
I can’t even imagine the horror of a parent (if facts ever do penetrate the denial) about what they’ve done, or helped to do, to their child? I think we’re facing an entire generation of traumatized, irrevocably mutilated children who, as adults, will take their revenge. Not looking forward to who my caregivers might be in 15 years or so.
Anyone who consented to, much less collaborated in poisoning and mutilating a child can 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 admit they were wrong. If they did, they'd simply have to walk over to the next busy street and jump in front of the next bus. The one exception might be a parent whose consent was extortedby Herr Doctor Professor Mengele with that old line, “What do you want, a live girl or a dead gay boy?” And that parent would likely have to be restrained from buying a high powered rifle and stalking Dr Mengele.
I am one of those longtime listeners who, around the 2016 “before and after” moment you describe, hit the off button on NPR and vowed not to give them another dime. I cannot recommend it enough. At first it felt like grieving an old friend. Eventually, though, I came to realize that the friendship was dysfunctional, demanding that I surrender my critical thinking in favor of signaling solidarity with people I realistically had nothing in common with and who probably didn’t even GAF about my kindness and compassion. And so, here I am, much calmer and better able to direct my mental energy towards things where I can actually have an impact.
Same here! NPR's utter one-sidedness blatantly started with the 2016 election, but has only been revealed to more people through their treatment of the gender issue.
Isn’t it weird that the way you and I feel (though I got there way back) isn’t now the majority opinion? Blame the “legacy” media. It makes me so angry!
Alcoholics learn to take responsibility for their actions over time, as part of their rehabilitation. There are speeches and phrases they learn, and their families and associates learn.
One problem that is rarely discussed is that people don’t have an easy way to say, “I was wrong,” “I was mistaken,” or “I was afraid,” or “I caused harm,” about sex mimicry, so instead they repeat obviously false claims defensively.
Lehrer may respond better to talking through options for accountability. (I hate therapy-talk but I don’t quite know how to express this).
Sex mimicry is a natural, selected-for behavior in evolution, and we could all one day get along with these people. Possible, but not at the cost of denying reality, damaging kids who cannot consent, and allowing the taking of rights, honors and safety from women by men who mimic women.
No liberal system forces people to change how they describe themselves on the demand of another group. It’s as true for resisting “trans” as it is for resisting those who name-call someone like him.
He (and all media) need an exit strategy because this obvious defensiveness is not something you can challenge, and he needs to grasp that the liberal enlightened position is not one of denying rights and agency.
De-escalation is the off-ramp.
“I’m still learning how to think about this.”
“I relied too much on language I heard repeated.”
“I didn’t want to hurt people or be seen as hostile.”
“Questioning claims is not the same as denying rights.”
I know I can’t be unilaterally an attacker on this issue - I try to be an updated, not defender or attacker. And when it’s useful, I make statements which I hope the person I argue with can use themselves when I’m not around.
I have some thoughts, and I'm afraid I'll have to make this a two-parter:
Of course, since it takes two to tango, society doesn't want to offer an off-ramp that's too smooth. Some people have occupied positions of power and influence while completely in thrall to "Gender Derangement Syndrome" (can we make this concept viral, please?) in ways that reveal their complete unsuitability to a role that comes with quite that level of power. Returning to systems with some checks and balances again (real reform, that is) does require certain people to be relieved of their positions. Remember the book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me). Someone who is not capable of admitting (even in private reflection) to themselves how badly they screwed up their understanding of an issue -- and this must be a habitual failing to get to the point of broadcasting one's double think in public like Lehrer has -- is someone who's going to be just as susceptible to the next cultish groupthink that comes along. And there will always be other opportunities for cultish groupthink. Historians I've read have said there's something about American culture, which makes large swaths of our population go through intense periods of religious revival, evangelical fervor, and revivalism. (Whether that's unique to our country, or just seems that way because of our unique institutionalization of free speech rights, is an interesting tangent.)
But in every era, there are the Doubting Thomas types. Some people seem to have personality antibodies and stay away from the rallies and "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" compulsion. And, although they seem to be a minority, once they get going and manage to connect with and "pique" others of similar temperament, they've proved sufficient to -- eventually -- slow and then reverse the worst of the hysterias. Their success is always imperfect and slow. (And some of us will not survive this cycle of history to see our compensation of witnessing the next one.) So I don't think we should get so carried away with this "But for the grace of God, there go I" stuff. Not everyone is "nationally known radio personality" material; and we all acknowledge and go along with that. But the talent and skills for pulling that off aren't really as rare as our admiration for a particular individual who's performed in that job for many years seems to imply. There could have been an individual with all that capability and charisma AND a touch of the "Doubting Thomas" trait in him or her too, who could have entertained and served listeners even better than Brian Lehrer has done. In a system that was that much more selective for skepticism in its journalists, those years of listening to that show might have spread more material for critical thinking. Behaving as if Lehrer's is a case of the valiant journalist being brought down by an issue that's proved his Waterloo reminds me of that Douglas Adams description of a puddle waking up in its hole, marveling at how staggeringly well the depression fits its shape, and concluding the universe must have been custom-made for puddles.
"Lehrer has occupied that depression in the ground so perfectly for so many years, it MUST be because he was always the best possible person for that level of responsibility." maybe should change to: "Well, if he got himself so wrapped up in this belief system, what else has he passed off as "truth" on his show by dismissing those who dissent (even before he got on air) because he can't handle cognitive dissonance?" How many Mabels from Trenton haven't been getting through all along? (next part in reply)
Lovely sequence of responses, and we think congruently. I find Facebook is precisely the mimicry of friendship and family that introduces an acidic horror to life that’s so subtle it’s hard to perceive.
I’m quite unforgiving of trans bullshit, and I’ve spoken to the grandest of grand Pooh-Bahs (like Lynn Conway). It’s an internalized crazyland that cannot be negotiates with. I’m also utterly convicted as someone else mentioned that as an alcoholic knows they have a problem, most people know these people have a compulsive delusion.
If they didn’t, where are the happy marriages of men to males mimicking women and vice-versa. Thats what I call “commit” level on such nonsense, and true commit is not there and never will be.
Thats where building off-ramps will help, people who know it can’t be true but have no way to off/ramp from a position they’ve backed into. I’ve been observing this nos for five decades, and I’ve never seen someone shamed into reversing themselves.
Those who know me, know that I tend to bring up the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect? a LOT. (I can't help it. Once you learn about it, the behavior it is so very noticeable!) In fact, it could be that Lehrer has subtly betrayed his profession in various small ways all along and all of us fans of his simply failed to notice because none of our oxen were bleeding before.
If you're unfamiliar, here's a quick explanation: Named after famous physicist Murray Gell-Mann, the Amnesia Effect was coined by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton to describe the act of feeling skeptical as you read a magazine or newspaper article about an area in which you have expertise and then completely forgetting that skepticism as you turn the page and read about something you know less about. If they can get it so wrong on one topic, why assume they get it right on the rest?
So, as the "movement" (ugh, I hate to use terms like that!) or this ongoing process of belief convergence continues on, and more and more compelling stories (human being sure do need those simple comforting "good guy-bad guy" stories to shield us from those wee hours of existential dread, don't we?) finally spread to a sufficiently large audience and this period of insanity will retreat back into the pockets of society that populate every society's ever-present criminal subcultures -- and this process will take more time than any of us would like -- the incompetents will lose their status as the best of the best in the biz and get replaced by those who know how to recognize they just might be wrong about the facts and who've got a track record of subjecting themselves to being screamed at and shunned because they just cannot suppress their compulsion to get to the truth. Here's hoping that we all live to see when the minority of doubting Thomases get their opportunities to finally usher in the major correction in how the population gets its information that our democratic system so badly needs.
Oh, I highly recommend Michael Moynihan's recent interview with historian, and expert on fascism for more tools to get a grip on what happened with Public Radio that we all used to love (although I'm afraid I fell out of love and just casually dated NPR for many years prior to 2016 because of my post-University exposure to things like Reason Magazine and Thomas Sowell and others). I'm not labeling anybody a fascist in this scenario -- although Griffin's description of how the Nazi's hollowed out democratic institutions that the social democrats of Weimar Republic had been busy weakening even prior to Hitler being elected to anything, is eerily familiar to anyone who's listened to whistleblowers' accounts of how their organizations fell to transgender ideology -- but it is fairly widely acknowledged among historians studying that era that a lot of the vital institutions meant to serve that most liberal of european democracies were well on their way to becoming "toxic mimics" of their original selves before the population grew destabilized and fearful enough to yearn for a strongman leader to "save" them from decadence and victimhood.
(BTW, "toxic mimic" originates primarily from the work of radical environmentalist and writer Derrick Jensen (author of books like Endgame and A Language Older Than Words). He uses it to describe something that superficially imitates a healthy, life-affirming, or authentic human/social need or institution but perverts its content, ultimately becoming destructive or exploitative.)
Professor Roger Griffin of Oxford Brookes University, one of the world’s foremost scholars of fascism
Well, this is an *outstanding* comment. I’m not familiar with the rehabilitation process you refer to that alcoholics learn, but I do know enough psychology that I’ve been seriously pondering the obstacles to mind-changing, and casting about for effective techniques that can help people more easily revise their views.
Indeed, the problem you’re pointing out is rarely addressed, and yet it’s vitally important that more of us get better at making it okay to exit the belief system.
I’m saving this comment so I can borrow your phrasing, how you’re modeling the thought process for others with I-statements. (I already do this a bit when I speak with others, but I love the examples you’ve provided here and am adding them to my collection.)
Thank you so much for this, Sufeitzy! If you have more such tips, please keep sharing.
This audio was absolutely staggering, Lisa -- thank you so much for publicizing it. It was staggering to hear Shermer cheerfully articulate the fact-based arguments we've long given up hope of ever hearing on NPR . He just. Kept. Making them, with pleasant but resolute clarity. This was a marvel to behold, and it could only conceivably happen on a live show, but it did! This happened!!
Still more staggering were the remarks of both Lehrer and the indignant callers-in. They clearly lacked every basic, entry-level fact about the risks of medical transition for young people. In 2026! One woman extolled what she believes to be the near perfect success rate of the surgical procedures, adding that all medical treatments should aim for this kind of perfection!! It was simply shocking. I felt delirious afterward, like I was tripping on something.
This is the terminal destination of our rigorously siloed media: educated people honestly convinced they fully grasp a concept around which they've arranged their lives and the lives and bodies of children they love; yet they are wallowing in avant-garde theoretical propaganda which they've mistaken for information. They've been imbibing this dreck exclusively and in earnest good faith, for years! Forsaking all outside voices, because they trust the source that totally. NPR: these are some dark spells you've been casting. Who will hold you accountable?
Great comment. I wonder--did it open anyone's mind? Did it introduce a crack of doubt to the wall of "avant-garde theoretical propaganda," as you put it. At first, I read it as "avant-garde theatrical propaganda," which also works! t's a well-funded (well, a bit less well funded) elaborate theater production, but the curtain was rent for just a moment. Dark spells indeed.
This site has many good comments and yours is fine, too. Regarding: "I felt delirious afterward, like I was tripping on something." Tripping, maybe, well, not on anything good -- Jimson Weed or Anamita muscaria, perhaps, but not on anything good. And a strong mind (and stomach) to listen to the segment in its entirety.
I got on to the live show in my local NPR station where they were talking about gender transition and kids with activists masquerading as objective professionals. I didn't tell the screener exactly what I was going to say. I said that they were disregarding the trends of kids being affirmed unquestioningly and the problems of transition medicine. The calm demeanor of one of their guests was broken and he sounded like a lunatic. I was one of the last callers so breaking his bubble and ending the show with him being hysterical was my coup.
Lisa, thanks for this. I wrote to all three producers with a short version of our family's story. Our daughter is starting to desist, but I took them on the journey of listening to all the NPR stories about poor trans people who would be happy if only... (fill in the blanks with the myriad of ways GAC can help a person be happy) and how we allowed the social transition in part due to their persuasive voices, even though it never felt right. How we had to go to OTHER sources to find information about algorithms, social contagion, neurodivergence, trauma and internalized homophobia as well as ways to help our brainwashed daughter. Anyway, more shouting into the wind, but the more of us shouting maybe we'll be heard.
Well done, Frogmom! Our daughter is slowly starting to desist too, five years and an escape to Europe later. It’s been hard work and a lonely, maddening and very long journey. I will be sure to add our story to the pile of likely ignored emails.
Praying for all these kids to get out of this unscathed and for those who turned a blind-eye get their reckoning. It is such a long road- it sounds like our girls discovered this around the same time. My daughter will turn 18 in the spring and this started around age 13.
So many kids caught up in this around us. Ours was 16, now 21. No way I would send her to college in the U.S. Far too captured. What angers me is how her life was held back, and still is because you can’t trust the adults in the room in the US and many places: the doctors, neighbors, friends, schools … their innocent ‘be kind’ motto.
Yes - even if my daughter comes out of this (she just turned 15 and this started when she was 11) it absolutely BLIGHTED her childhood-adolescence. Friend group shrank, then disappeared after she stopped going to school- refused to participate in anymore activities (swimming, gymnastics, singing, girl guides) no more sleepovers because she didn’t want to deal with parents, basically she’s put her whole life on hold because she doesn’t want to be recognized as female.
It’s tragic to read this and yet we know they aren’t alone. My daughter hasn’t had a single friend since she was 16. No sports, no extracurriculars, only left the house for four years with one of us. I know part of it is due to autism but that just compounds the insanity of society celebrating all of this. I couldn’t even trust the autism centers!
There’s a podcast I like called The Fifth Column, it’s libertarian adjacent, they cover everything from media and politics to music/movies/books. Very smart funny group of Gen X journalists. They never EVER talk about the trans issue. Ever. Every once in a while there might be a reference to some woke trans BS in a public school one of their kids go to and some disapproving chatter about it but they clearly and strategically avoid the topic at all costs. They say they aren’t interested in it, they say it drives people crazy on both sides. But… I suspect there’s a little bit of knowing fear, and unspoken agreement. They would balk at the word fear but they know and admit that it drives people crazy. I’ve heard Michael Moynihan say exactly that “it drives people crazy”. Pro trans activists are so rabid it’s like self immolation to say anything, and those of us that see through it all are driven crazy by the fact that we are screaming into the wind while thousands of CHILDREN are mediated and hurt. Better just pretend to not be interested, huh.
The truth doesn't go away just become you don't like it...or because you don't report it.
I think some of these groups have forgotten they are there to report the truth. Or, as you said once, they decided that in Trump world they need to put their thumb on the scale.
Calling the existence of objective reality right wing is exactly how we Dems lost so many voters.
I did. And yes, Carol and I were in that issue together—that's how I learned of her excellent work on cognitive dissonance. I'll be updating that piece now. If I recall, a certain parent helped me understand the science better...
I notice that, around 23:00, Lehrer gently shames Shermer--"I wouldn't have expected this from you"-- and if I may borrow a term from the kids, I was totally triggered.
I used to move in some VERY leftist circles, and gentle shaming was the initial tactic deployed against comrades who starting thinking for themselves. (Yes, they used the word "comrade.") You'd be told how "surprising" your views were, and you'd be lovingly admonished to stay in your lane, and reminded that you didn't have to hold an opinion on certain things. It was only after that failed that you'd be told you were garbage, a bigot, a fascist, blah blah.
Honestly, I prefered being insulted, because at least it was up-front. When someone has looked you in the eye and said that you want trans children to die, you know exactly where you stand.
Yes I had a close friend who was “so surprised” that my husband and held strong views on the lack of evidence of benefit of medical transition or social transition for children - even though we are parents of 2 trans-identifying children - and that was the beginning of the end of a 30+ yr friendship.
You simply cannot underestimate how strongly western Canadian progressives feel about the primacy of gender identity as like, the thing the most in need of intensive state intervention at every level in every arena (law, policy education healthcare etc)
Central Casting could not have provided a better ensemble of callers. I would have written the Jason from Queens character to say "F" for maximum spice but yeah: Lehrer hung onto composure for dear life. The Q&As are meant to be for the author. Shermer was essentially hung-up on and they went Mean Girls on him.
There's a belief, it seems, in media worlds like NPR, that to allow the expression of certain ideas is to "platform hate" and so must be prevented at all costs. Journalists like Lehrer seem to really believe that they are the Resistance and that to do otherwise will lead to Fascism--or that they are the Civil Rights Movement and that to allow dissent is to support White Supremacy.
Here's my letter in case helpful to anyone. Lisa shared the email addresses of the producers in the piece. Subject line: Stop gatekeeping the Truth
Dear Producers at WNYC,
On a recent episode of Brian Leher's show, he interviewed Michael Shermer about his new book, Truth. I was shocked at Leher's unprofessional conduct and shaming of a listener ("Mabel from Trenton") for expressing her opinion about being gaslit by Democrats on transgender issues. Leher went on to denigrate his guest during the show, even though Shermer was simply responding to the caller's reasonable concerns. Truth matters, which is what Shermer's book is all about! It was the topic of the conversation, and Shermer's reflections in response to Mabel were appropriate and interesting.
There are many, many Democrats and liberals who share Mabel's concerns, but Leher and NPR generally constantly present these issues as a left/right divide. That is not the truth.
I have stopped donating to NPR because of my disgust in your reporting, but I would do so again if you would present a truthful account of the controversies over trans-identified kids and youth gender medicine. This is not a right/left issue! And you know that perfectly well. Let us hear what smart and earnest people are saying and decide for ourselves what to think. Stop gatekeeping the truth. Share the diversity of opinions out there, especially the opinions of lefty feminists, dissident liberals and scientists who question "gender affirming care" for kids.
I am not interested in your tired old song about religious MAGA people vs. Chase Strangio. You've played that to death.
This was deeply unprofessional conduct by Brian Lehrer and a disservice to the many listeners. You need to fix it, or you will keep hemorrhaging listeners and funding.
Thank you,
Great response!
Wow, that's super shocking. Way to ninja your way past the screeners, Mabel from Trenton! Bet there were a lot of people listening who also cheered Mabel and Shermer on.
Perhaps Lehrer has a family member he loves who was or is being “transitioned” as a child?
My instinct is there is a high likelihood that many, many adults who work in public radio and at the New Yorker have transitioned their children or have close family members who have. It is incredibly difficult to admit you have been completely fooled, taken advantage of and harmed your child or to tell a colleague you care about and respect that they have done so. Not saying it’s okay to dig in or stay silent, just saying this is what I imagine we’re up against here.
Carry on Sisyphus. Proteus and the rest of us are not far behind.
Good point. What Roisin Michaux called "non-binary niece disorder". I imagine "trans daughter/son disorder" is an even worse condition.
Yes, I would guess that for most of these true believers, there’s a trans child nearby.
I can’t even imagine the horror of a parent (if facts ever do penetrate the denial) about what they’ve done, or helped to do, to their child? I think we’re facing an entire generation of traumatized, irrevocably mutilated children who, as adults, will take their revenge. Not looking forward to who my caregivers might be in 15 years or so.
Anyone who consented to, much less collaborated in poisoning and mutilating a child can 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 admit they were wrong. If they did, they'd simply have to walk over to the next busy street and jump in front of the next bus. The one exception might be a parent whose consent was extortedby Herr Doctor Professor Mengele with that old line, “What do you want, a live girl or a dead gay boy?” And that parent would likely have to be restrained from buying a high powered rifle and stalking Dr Mengele.
I am one of those longtime listeners who, around the 2016 “before and after” moment you describe, hit the off button on NPR and vowed not to give them another dime. I cannot recommend it enough. At first it felt like grieving an old friend. Eventually, though, I came to realize that the friendship was dysfunctional, demanding that I surrender my critical thinking in favor of signaling solidarity with people I realistically had nothing in common with and who probably didn’t even GAF about my kindness and compassion. And so, here I am, much calmer and better able to direct my mental energy towards things where I can actually have an impact.
Same here! NPR's utter one-sidedness blatantly started with the 2016 election, but has only been revealed to more people through their treatment of the gender issue.
Isn’t it weird that the way you and I feel (though I got there way back) isn’t now the majority opinion? Blame the “legacy” media. It makes me so angry!
Alcoholics learn to take responsibility for their actions over time, as part of their rehabilitation. There are speeches and phrases they learn, and their families and associates learn.
One problem that is rarely discussed is that people don’t have an easy way to say, “I was wrong,” “I was mistaken,” or “I was afraid,” or “I caused harm,” about sex mimicry, so instead they repeat obviously false claims defensively.
Lehrer may respond better to talking through options for accountability. (I hate therapy-talk but I don’t quite know how to express this).
Sex mimicry is a natural, selected-for behavior in evolution, and we could all one day get along with these people. Possible, but not at the cost of denying reality, damaging kids who cannot consent, and allowing the taking of rights, honors and safety from women by men who mimic women.
No liberal system forces people to change how they describe themselves on the demand of another group. It’s as true for resisting “trans” as it is for resisting those who name-call someone like him.
He (and all media) need an exit strategy because this obvious defensiveness is not something you can challenge, and he needs to grasp that the liberal enlightened position is not one of denying rights and agency.
De-escalation is the off-ramp.
“I’m still learning how to think about this.”
“I relied too much on language I heard repeated.”
“I didn’t want to hurt people or be seen as hostile.”
“Questioning claims is not the same as denying rights.”
I know I can’t be unilaterally an attacker on this issue - I try to be an updated, not defender or attacker. And when it’s useful, I make statements which I hope the person I argue with can use themselves when I’m not around.
I love this. Let's make it into a post—verbalizing the off-ramp, replacing certainty with wiggle room, embracing doubt. Want to?
Lisa, I didn’t see your comment ‘til after I posted mine, but I’m delighted you’ve extended this invite to Sufeitzy. Thank you!!
I have some thoughts, and I'm afraid I'll have to make this a two-parter:
Of course, since it takes two to tango, society doesn't want to offer an off-ramp that's too smooth. Some people have occupied positions of power and influence while completely in thrall to "Gender Derangement Syndrome" (can we make this concept viral, please?) in ways that reveal their complete unsuitability to a role that comes with quite that level of power. Returning to systems with some checks and balances again (real reform, that is) does require certain people to be relieved of their positions. Remember the book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me). Someone who is not capable of admitting (even in private reflection) to themselves how badly they screwed up their understanding of an issue -- and this must be a habitual failing to get to the point of broadcasting one's double think in public like Lehrer has -- is someone who's going to be just as susceptible to the next cultish groupthink that comes along. And there will always be other opportunities for cultish groupthink. Historians I've read have said there's something about American culture, which makes large swaths of our population go through intense periods of religious revival, evangelical fervor, and revivalism. (Whether that's unique to our country, or just seems that way because of our unique institutionalization of free speech rights, is an interesting tangent.)
But in every era, there are the Doubting Thomas types. Some people seem to have personality antibodies and stay away from the rallies and "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" compulsion. And, although they seem to be a minority, once they get going and manage to connect with and "pique" others of similar temperament, they've proved sufficient to -- eventually -- slow and then reverse the worst of the hysterias. Their success is always imperfect and slow. (And some of us will not survive this cycle of history to see our compensation of witnessing the next one.) So I don't think we should get so carried away with this "But for the grace of God, there go I" stuff. Not everyone is "nationally known radio personality" material; and we all acknowledge and go along with that. But the talent and skills for pulling that off aren't really as rare as our admiration for a particular individual who's performed in that job for many years seems to imply. There could have been an individual with all that capability and charisma AND a touch of the "Doubting Thomas" trait in him or her too, who could have entertained and served listeners even better than Brian Lehrer has done. In a system that was that much more selective for skepticism in its journalists, those years of listening to that show might have spread more material for critical thinking. Behaving as if Lehrer's is a case of the valiant journalist being brought down by an issue that's proved his Waterloo reminds me of that Douglas Adams description of a puddle waking up in its hole, marveling at how staggeringly well the depression fits its shape, and concluding the universe must have been custom-made for puddles.
"Lehrer has occupied that depression in the ground so perfectly for so many years, it MUST be because he was always the best possible person for that level of responsibility." maybe should change to: "Well, if he got himself so wrapped up in this belief system, what else has he passed off as "truth" on his show by dismissing those who dissent (even before he got on air) because he can't handle cognitive dissonance?" How many Mabels from Trenton haven't been getting through all along? (next part in reply)
Lovely sequence of responses, and we think congruently. I find Facebook is precisely the mimicry of friendship and family that introduces an acidic horror to life that’s so subtle it’s hard to perceive.
I’m quite unforgiving of trans bullshit, and I’ve spoken to the grandest of grand Pooh-Bahs (like Lynn Conway). It’s an internalized crazyland that cannot be negotiates with. I’m also utterly convicted as someone else mentioned that as an alcoholic knows they have a problem, most people know these people have a compulsive delusion.
If they didn’t, where are the happy marriages of men to males mimicking women and vice-versa. Thats what I call “commit” level on such nonsense, and true commit is not there and never will be.
Thats where building off-ramps will help, people who know it can’t be true but have no way to off/ramp from a position they’ve backed into. I’ve been observing this nos for five decades, and I’ve never seen someone shamed into reversing themselves.
(continued from earlier comment)
Those who know me, know that I tend to bring up the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect? a LOT. (I can't help it. Once you learn about it, the behavior it is so very noticeable!) In fact, it could be that Lehrer has subtly betrayed his profession in various small ways all along and all of us fans of his simply failed to notice because none of our oxen were bleeding before.
If you're unfamiliar, here's a quick explanation: Named after famous physicist Murray Gell-Mann, the Amnesia Effect was coined by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton to describe the act of feeling skeptical as you read a magazine or newspaper article about an area in which you have expertise and then completely forgetting that skepticism as you turn the page and read about something you know less about. If they can get it so wrong on one topic, why assume they get it right on the rest?
So, as the "movement" (ugh, I hate to use terms like that!) or this ongoing process of belief convergence continues on, and more and more compelling stories (human being sure do need those simple comforting "good guy-bad guy" stories to shield us from those wee hours of existential dread, don't we?) finally spread to a sufficiently large audience and this period of insanity will retreat back into the pockets of society that populate every society's ever-present criminal subcultures -- and this process will take more time than any of us would like -- the incompetents will lose their status as the best of the best in the biz and get replaced by those who know how to recognize they just might be wrong about the facts and who've got a track record of subjecting themselves to being screamed at and shunned because they just cannot suppress their compulsion to get to the truth. Here's hoping that we all live to see when the minority of doubting Thomases get their opportunities to finally usher in the major correction in how the population gets its information that our democratic system so badly needs.
Oh, I highly recommend Michael Moynihan's recent interview with historian, and expert on fascism for more tools to get a grip on what happened with Public Radio that we all used to love (although I'm afraid I fell out of love and just casually dated NPR for many years prior to 2016 because of my post-University exposure to things like Reason Magazine and Thomas Sowell and others). I'm not labeling anybody a fascist in this scenario -- although Griffin's description of how the Nazi's hollowed out democratic institutions that the social democrats of Weimar Republic had been busy weakening even prior to Hitler being elected to anything, is eerily familiar to anyone who's listened to whistleblowers' accounts of how their organizations fell to transgender ideology -- but it is fairly widely acknowledged among historians studying that era that a lot of the vital institutions meant to serve that most liberal of european democracies were well on their way to becoming "toxic mimics" of their original selves before the population grew destabilized and fearful enough to yearn for a strongman leader to "save" them from decadence and victimhood.
(BTW, "toxic mimic" originates primarily from the work of radical environmentalist and writer Derrick Jensen (author of books like Endgame and A Language Older Than Words). He uses it to describe something that superficially imitates a healthy, life-affirming, or authentic human/social need or institution but perverts its content, ultimately becoming destructive or exploitative.)
Professor Roger Griffin of Oxford Brookes University, one of the world’s foremost scholars of fascism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VisD0GXSgFQ
Sure, glad you enjoyed, I’m not quite sure what it means between us to make a post.
Well, this is an *outstanding* comment. I’m not familiar with the rehabilitation process you refer to that alcoholics learn, but I do know enough psychology that I’ve been seriously pondering the obstacles to mind-changing, and casting about for effective techniques that can help people more easily revise their views.
Indeed, the problem you’re pointing out is rarely addressed, and yet it’s vitally important that more of us get better at making it okay to exit the belief system.
I’m saving this comment so I can borrow your phrasing, how you’re modeling the thought process for others with I-statements. (I already do this a bit when I speak with others, but I love the examples you’ve provided here and am adding them to my collection.)
Thank you so much for this, Sufeitzy! If you have more such tips, please keep sharing.
I’m glad it was of use, and you’re very kind.
This audio was absolutely staggering, Lisa -- thank you so much for publicizing it. It was staggering to hear Shermer cheerfully articulate the fact-based arguments we've long given up hope of ever hearing on NPR . He just. Kept. Making them, with pleasant but resolute clarity. This was a marvel to behold, and it could only conceivably happen on a live show, but it did! This happened!!
Still more staggering were the remarks of both Lehrer and the indignant callers-in. They clearly lacked every basic, entry-level fact about the risks of medical transition for young people. In 2026! One woman extolled what she believes to be the near perfect success rate of the surgical procedures, adding that all medical treatments should aim for this kind of perfection!! It was simply shocking. I felt delirious afterward, like I was tripping on something.
This is the terminal destination of our rigorously siloed media: educated people honestly convinced they fully grasp a concept around which they've arranged their lives and the lives and bodies of children they love; yet they are wallowing in avant-garde theoretical propaganda which they've mistaken for information. They've been imbibing this dreck exclusively and in earnest good faith, for years! Forsaking all outside voices, because they trust the source that totally. NPR: these are some dark spells you've been casting. Who will hold you accountable?
Wow, Jenny, your last paragraph is one for the ages! So very well put.
Great comment. I wonder--did it open anyone's mind? Did it introduce a crack of doubt to the wall of "avant-garde theoretical propaganda," as you put it. At first, I read it as "avant-garde theatrical propaganda," which also works! t's a well-funded (well, a bit less well funded) elaborate theater production, but the curtain was rent for just a moment. Dark spells indeed.
This site has many good comments and yours is fine, too. Regarding: "I felt delirious afterward, like I was tripping on something." Tripping, maybe, well, not on anything good -- Jimson Weed or Anamita muscaria, perhaps, but not on anything good. And a strong mind (and stomach) to listen to the segment in its entirety.
It’s not just what they say. It’s the smarminess. The implied superiority.
Speaking of NPR, yesterday they were talking about milk 🥛 and that it was connected to white supremacy and conservatism.
I don’t listen to them but my friend was traveling by car and this was playing on his radio.
Go Mabel & Shermer!
I want to say "amazing" but I guess I should not be amazed by that.
They're absolutely right. The only kind of milk I like is white. I should go before the People's Committee and confess this sin.
Do the effing work, Friki.
This exchange in particular just hit my funny bone hard this morning! I type out my "Thanks, ladies!" as I continue to chortle.
I got on to the live show in my local NPR station where they were talking about gender transition and kids with activists masquerading as objective professionals. I didn't tell the screener exactly what I was going to say. I said that they were disregarding the trends of kids being affirmed unquestioningly and the problems of transition medicine. The calm demeanor of one of their guests was broken and he sounded like a lunatic. I was one of the last callers so breaking his bubble and ending the show with him being hysterical was my coup.
Way to go Mabel!!
Lisa, thanks for this. I wrote to all three producers with a short version of our family's story. Our daughter is starting to desist, but I took them on the journey of listening to all the NPR stories about poor trans people who would be happy if only... (fill in the blanks with the myriad of ways GAC can help a person be happy) and how we allowed the social transition in part due to their persuasive voices, even though it never felt right. How we had to go to OTHER sources to find information about algorithms, social contagion, neurodivergence, trauma and internalized homophobia as well as ways to help our brainwashed daughter. Anyway, more shouting into the wind, but the more of us shouting maybe we'll be heard.
Thank you for sending out actionable items.
Well done, Frogmom! Our daughter is slowly starting to desist too, five years and an escape to Europe later. It’s been hard work and a lonely, maddening and very long journey. I will be sure to add our story to the pile of likely ignored emails.
Praying for all these kids to get out of this unscathed and for those who turned a blind-eye get their reckoning. It is such a long road- it sounds like our girls discovered this around the same time. My daughter will turn 18 in the spring and this started around age 13.
So many kids caught up in this around us. Ours was 16, now 21. No way I would send her to college in the U.S. Far too captured. What angers me is how her life was held back, and still is because you can’t trust the adults in the room in the US and many places: the doctors, neighbors, friends, schools … their innocent ‘be kind’ motto.
Yes - even if my daughter comes out of this (she just turned 15 and this started when she was 11) it absolutely BLIGHTED her childhood-adolescence. Friend group shrank, then disappeared after she stopped going to school- refused to participate in anymore activities (swimming, gymnastics, singing, girl guides) no more sleepovers because she didn’t want to deal with parents, basically she’s put her whole life on hold because she doesn’t want to be recognized as female.
It’s tragic to read this and yet we know they aren’t alone. My daughter hasn’t had a single friend since she was 16. No sports, no extracurriculars, only left the house for four years with one of us. I know part of it is due to autism but that just compounds the insanity of society celebrating all of this. I couldn’t even trust the autism centers!
I am going to write them all too, about my fully-transitioned son and desperately-wanting to transition daughter.
Well, I would say, OMFG, but I not surprised.
I have just about driven off the road while listening to NPR (on the Left Coast).
NPR, the liberal media, has lost the plot--yet they don't know it; they refuse to know it.
The trans affirmers want all of us to be believers. Because they know "trans people".
They uphold RightThink. Dissent is not allowed.
We must all emulate Mabel.
I love Michael Shremer--Skeptic is definitely worth a paid subscription.
(Wish I could afford to go on the upcoming geology tour with Richard Dawkins.)
There’s a podcast I like called The Fifth Column, it’s libertarian adjacent, they cover everything from media and politics to music/movies/books. Very smart funny group of Gen X journalists. They never EVER talk about the trans issue. Ever. Every once in a while there might be a reference to some woke trans BS in a public school one of their kids go to and some disapproving chatter about it but they clearly and strategically avoid the topic at all costs. They say they aren’t interested in it, they say it drives people crazy on both sides. But… I suspect there’s a little bit of knowing fear, and unspoken agreement. They would balk at the word fear but they know and admit that it drives people crazy. I’ve heard Michael Moynihan say exactly that “it drives people crazy”. Pro trans activists are so rabid it’s like self immolation to say anything, and those of us that see through it all are driven crazy by the fact that we are screaming into the wind while thousands of CHILDREN are mediated and hurt. Better just pretend to not be interested, huh.
Yes, they’re either in the “not a big deal” camp, or there’s a trans child in the vicinity.
Typical of popular bro-casts
Thank you for this! Did you send it to Michael Shermer?
The skeptic started covering this a while ago. With Carol Tavris https://pocketmags.com/eu/skeptic-magazine/271/articles/trans-reality I think. Followed by a great review you wrote, later. And other articles. So I'm thinking he is well informed!
Dear npr, NYT:
The truth doesn't go away just become you don't like it...or because you don't report it.
I think some of these groups have forgotten they are there to report the truth. Or, as you said once, they decided that in Trump world they need to put their thumb on the scale.
Calling the existence of objective reality right wing is exactly how we Dems lost so many voters.
Thank you for alerting us to this!!
I did. And yes, Carol and I were in that issue together—that's how I learned of her excellent work on cognitive dissonance. I'll be updating that piece now. If I recall, a certain parent helped me understand the science better...
Did you also send it to Brian Lehrer?
I notice that, around 23:00, Lehrer gently shames Shermer--"I wouldn't have expected this from you"-- and if I may borrow a term from the kids, I was totally triggered.
I used to move in some VERY leftist circles, and gentle shaming was the initial tactic deployed against comrades who starting thinking for themselves. (Yes, they used the word "comrade.") You'd be told how "surprising" your views were, and you'd be lovingly admonished to stay in your lane, and reminded that you didn't have to hold an opinion on certain things. It was only after that failed that you'd be told you were garbage, a bigot, a fascist, blah blah.
Honestly, I prefered being insulted, because at least it was up-front. When someone has looked you in the eye and said that you want trans children to die, you know exactly where you stand.
Yes I had a close friend who was “so surprised” that my husband and held strong views on the lack of evidence of benefit of medical transition or social transition for children - even though we are parents of 2 trans-identifying children - and that was the beginning of the end of a 30+ yr friendship.
Holy cow...two trans-identifying kids didn't get you a pass?
You simply cannot underestimate how strongly western Canadian progressives feel about the primacy of gender identity as like, the thing the most in need of intensive state intervention at every level in every arena (law, policy education healthcare etc)
This is so perfectly put. I’m going to quote you.
Also now I get the Canadian part…loblaw’s! I’ve shopped there!
Central Casting could not have provided a better ensemble of callers. I would have written the Jason from Queens character to say "F" for maximum spice but yeah: Lehrer hung onto composure for dear life. The Q&As are meant to be for the author. Shermer was essentially hung-up on and they went Mean Girls on him.
I saw Shermer's account of this on X/Twitter. https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/2016257361019891779
There's a belief, it seems, in media worlds like NPR, that to allow the expression of certain ideas is to "platform hate" and so must be prevented at all costs. Journalists like Lehrer seem to really believe that they are the Resistance and that to do otherwise will lead to Fascism--or that they are the Civil Rights Movement and that to allow dissent is to support White Supremacy.