It's interesting how closely related the Covid (my original "red pill" moment) and gender issues seem, on several levels. Not only because the Covid lockdowns that isolated a generation of kids and forced them into virtual spaces played a big role in helping transgenderism explode, but also because the approach taken to evidence by progressive elites on these two issues is so very similar. Before Covid, I didn't realize how much they were willing to distort and disregard evidence in the service of ideological belief. Now I know.
I have admired David Zweig (who I just learned used to be a fellow magazine fact-checker) since 2020 for the way he spoke out on school closures and other policies affecting kids, and I will go to his event in DC. I will bring my now 12-year-old, who was in first grade when the schools closed for a year and a half and has some views on this topic as well.
And yes, the general, NYTimes reading public must not be written off. I just had a discussion about the gender stuff when we visited my gay brothers-in-law in Manhattan. They were receptive on the revelation (to them) that this ideology is really based on regressive stereotypes, but they brushed off the sports issue by saying that it was too rare to matter, and that it was more important to prevent "trans kids" from "killing themselves" (they clearly have swallowed that narrative) than protecting the women who might get beaten by the rare transwoman in sports. Lots of work to do, and as always, I feel like I did not do an optimal job of explaining my position, and the conversation would need to be much longer to really change minds. The problem is that most people who don't really have a personal stake in this don't have the patience for that.
And here is one anecdote from our local public schools: My 6th grader was asked yesterday in geography class to state his "identity" in various categories, and he said, among other things, that he was "a boy - OBVIOUSLY!". The teacher responded: "How do you know for sure you are a boy?", to which he just snorted and didn't say anything. Apparently several other boys came up to him afterwards shaking their heads at the teacher. As much as it infuriates me that the teacher even asked that question (are they really on a mission to confuse kids?), it gives me some hope that this generation will rebel against the insanity.
Actually, I think you should become highly engaged with your son's school over this event that you describe. This teacher is trying to induce mental illness in children. No, I am not kidding, to de-stabilize young minds in this manner is a terrible terrible thing to do and is NOT within the remit of a grade school teacher.
It is not ok for teachers to play psychologist with students. It is not their professional capacity.
Moreover it is highly invasive of the child's intimacy. The teacher has no business holding such a conversation with any child.
Make good trouble over this. Please, for the sake of any child that teacher might encounter, please do not just let this slide.
Yeah, I can't unless I want to risk losing my freelance job... I'll let my kids talk back (which they love), and if anyone gets them in trouble over it, then I will certainly step up for them. But in this city, I cannot be the public face of protest against this stuff, given my precarious professional situation.
Yup, in geography class. That teacher is an especially woke one. My son loathes her. I don't think his twin brother has been asked the same in his geography class yet, but if that happens, they will get an earful about small gametes. He actually told me a while ago, before we ever talked about this gender stuff, that he stopped watching a particular science channel he used to like on YouTube because they had a video on how sex is a spectrum, based on the existence of DSDs, which he rightly identified as an absurd argument. Hilariously, he said the voiceover sounded like from a hostage video - as if the speaker was held at gun point to spout such nonsense! He could never trust anything from that channel again.
To add to this idea that maybe this generation will fight back - I was reminded of what happened when our elementary school finally dropped the outdoor (!) mask mandate in March 2022 (!). My son told me that all the kids on the playground at recess were jumping around chanting "Freedom! Freedom!". Clearly, the narrative so popular among their progressive parents, that kids really "don't mind masking" and only complain if their parents are "anti-maskers", was not true...
Did he drop trou?! 😬😉😱😂. (Kidding, kidding, kidding, tho really, what was that teacher thinking?! That's the obvious response for a middle school boy!! 😉)
please, escalate this to the principal and to the school board if necessary. This is a huge infringement on your rights as a parent. teachers are not parents. teachers are not psychologists nor psychiatrists. Teachers have ZERO reason to push children to question their most fundamental and intimate sense of self.
Given my kids' special needs (as well as my precarious professional situation), I'm going to let this one slide. I depend on the goodwill of the principal, and this stuff is endemic in our school system. I would be a lone voice in the wilderness, which I cannot afford to be. I'm already known as a squeaky wheel when it comes to my kids' needs, and I cannot risk becoming an outright pariah.
Many, probably most, of those “NFL watching, non-organic food eating“ people live in states that have outlawed gender medicine for minors. These people never believed in gender ideology to begin with, so they don’t need to be “reached“ in the same way that elites still do.
Link please to Alisdair Gunn /Benjamin Boyce convo?
I can no longer talk about politics with my liberal friends, especially on this issue—I get too hot inside and have trouble moderating my emotions so I tend to ignore or change subjects
The only friends who I find are sympathetic and routinely extremely well informed on the gender issue are my more conservative friends who probably get it from Fox News but then I feel uncomfortable that I’m signaling I’m now on that political “side” which I’m not, really and I hate that Fox News is the only reliable source of current information
The only place I try to exert influence now is with colleagues and it’s a rough uphill climb with many who are also reliant on mainstream media and legacy LGB orgs for their info and they get zero accurate education via professional outlets who are determined to toe the party line
I do think Lisa’s right that the bubble needs to be burst to get more coverage in mainstream and traditional news outlets otherwise the myth will persist that it’s all safe to ignore as right wing conspiracy—why else would the story be relegated to alternative media, people must think 🤔
We won't reach those on the left until two things happen:
1) it's perceived by the left as being the opposite of what republicans believe and support.
2) Enough powerful and influential people on the left come out in tipping point numbers showing the research that the suicide claims and 1% regret rate claims are not true while at the same time not changing any of their other beliefs so they can't be written off as being captured by the right. For example, you'd need people like Jon Stewart, John Oliver, AOC, Harris, etc all coming out together saying they had looked at the data and are outraged by the deceit, misinformation, and corruption surrounding this issue while still saying all the same "correct" left and progressive talking points about every other hot button issue.
I can't get away from the 1,000+ at the NYU protest - all of whom - but for 10 of us (one was Billboard Chris, who isn't even from NY) - were yelling their hearts out to FORCE NYU TO PUT 2 12-YEAR-OLDS ON PUBERTY BLOCKERS (one of whom is "non-binary" and the other "transgender"). That's the Real World, and either they weren't all in the bubble, or the bubble is really big and, as you say, must be burst. They need to be educated.
It's not just NY or California either. Michigan, as one example, is apparently just as bad as CA and NY (I've been told by residents thereof), and let's remember that half of the states are pushing this hard. Even Justices of the Supreme Court are in the dark on this issue as evidenced by the oral argument in Skrmetti. So, unfortunately, the Real World is still very much in need of education on this issue, and, if all these people are in a bubble, the bubble is subsuming at least half our population, including many of those in power.
As to how to persuade them to re-think this issue, I wish I knew. Rational discussion would be my first thought, but that doesn't seem to work.
It was Justice Alito, during Skremetti oral arguments, who read to Chase Strangio an excerpt from Cass about suicide and Strangio admitted that very, very few people actually complete suicide. Jaw dropping moment.
Of course, the activists and their political acolytes, continue to spread the "they will kill themselves" narrative unabated.
That was one of the better moments of the oral argument. Justice Brown and Justice Kagan, on the other hand, had it all wrong. Justice Brown's analogy to the Loving case (involving inter-racial marriage) was especially infuriating.
Yeah, because it's emotion that gives the quickest and most powerful jolt, one that can reset one's little grey cells, right? The last couple days I've been reflecting on a bit of a "Whoah, wait a minute!" experience that I had while listening to all the chatter following the U.K. Supreme Court's ruling on the legal definition of "woman." I had also just been listening to the very feminine, yet NON-transitioned young gay man, Pear Joseph, give an interview in which he described the frightening and disgusting behavior of some men who have fixated on him (here's the link to his interview by Jack Jewell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drk0NhzzHN8 ). Apparently some men fetishize males who've added "female" body parts -- or simply young men, as is Pear's case, who are naturally very effeminate men.
And then I ran across a young woman responding to the argument that women should only be strip-searched by biologically female police, by pointing out that medically transitioned males should not be strip-searched by male policemen either. And I experienced an emotional jolt, like "No! I also find the idea of a trans-identified male who's undergone vaginoplasty being searched by a male policeman very troubling as well . . . " - particularly after learning about how some males fetishsize "trannies." I'm not sure that makes any sense; but I did feel repulsed by the idea . . . and it stopped me short.
Perhaps the thought of being strip-searched by anyone is so horrible that it'll trigger me to feel sympathy for anyone having to experience that . . .? I don't know. But maybe there are other issues with the standards set for things the authorities have license to do, quite apart from the sex of whomever those things are done to. Just a meandery thought ...
You definitely still need to reach educators in Massachusetts, which is why I am so heartened when the Boston Globe publishes your work. (Which I wish was more often)
You are completely correct. Just for one example, the fact is that the majority of college staff and faculty throughout the USA (in red and blue states) either buy the gender ideology or are silent. You won't be hired unless you, at least, pretend to buy it in most administrative roles at most institutions. In particular, the colleges' staff (think res life, student activities, orientation, and housing) foist off this nonsense, aided by the activist students found in whatever queer center they have. Take California. There are about half a million students in the UC and CSU systems. Most of them live in the sea of gender ideology conformity, particularly if you live on campus. The staff - and many faculty - of the California Community College system (2.2 million students strong) are no different, though they have much less sway in that the student body isn't captured in the same way as 4-year live-in students are. Yes, I am sure there are many - maybe most? - of those students who don't buy any of it. But many do. It's the air they breathe. We have to somehow break the grip of the true believers in the educational industry (from K - college) to get back to normality. And that is just one institution in which this is the case, but a particularly important one.
Also, remember they are teaching this in elementary, middle and high school so these kids going into college have grown up being told this is reality. I think quite a few of them do believe it. How do you wake these kids up when they’ve been indoctrinated so young? My daughter’s middle school brought in a trans man to talk about their ‘identity’. I had no idea this happened until afterwards when she told me about this ‘cool trans guy’. I think many parents a decade ago were naive. You don’t expect your 12 year old to be taught this in school! It wasn’t even on our radar.
Yes. Even in supposedly non-woke New Mexico (outside of Santa Fe), where my daughter attended one year at a state school, the requisite sheet on her dorm room asking her preferred name and pronouns took her very shaky desistance and derailed it. Back home went to the suitcase full of more feminine clothing, and more deeply was the social transition ensconced.
Well, for me, the Left has entered a new low. The lady down the street who just put up the new, improved, TQ "Trans flag" which conflates immigrants with individuals who ideate an opposite sex persona just spit near me as she passed me while gardening on my street front. She stopped, made it clear she was spitting at me, and walked on as if this is normal. I'm going to do some kind of documentation. It took me a day to understand.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. What an idiotic person this woman is.
I am starting to believe that humans have a proclivity for cruelty and bullying that's a common addiction like to sugar or alcohol. The more you do the more you want to do.
The entire Trans/Queer/Hamasnik contingent demonstrates the absolute worst of human behaviour, which seems to have emerged out of a period where people simply have not had enough struggle and challenge in their lives.
A lack of friction seems to produce Grade-A Assholes.
Oh, Lisa! I share your angst! My husband and I just spent an afternoon w/ a seldom-seen old friend and her new partner. I had to be particularly cagey the whole time simply because I knew I'd get a swift kick under the table from my husband if I answered her many queries honestly (and forget adding my 2 cents as she repeatedly remarked on various issues.) I'm certain she would be horrified to know I believe Harris was the worse of two bad options, for example. Towards the end of our visit, she expressed guilt at having retreated from the news lately, and she declared that she was intends to subscribe to the NYT to become uber-informed soon. And I groaned inwardly. If she becomes any more smug and certain about how well-informed she is, I fear I'll be unable to restrain myself the next time we're in the same room.
I don't know what the answer is, but I agree with you that we cannot abandon the "passionately uninformed." I hope you keep trying within your bubble (which you've upgraded with an escape hatch). Really, to give up and sourly conclude that human beings are just too glitchy to survive for much longer is just nihilism.
I have been reflecting on the recent conversation between Benjamin Boyce and Alasdair Gunn, in which Alasdair remarks that the problem with both liberals and libertarian types is "they lack a theory of mind for people who are stupider or smarter than them" and "not everyone can solve problems through rational debate." And so I feel frustrated that evidence and reason are useless, even as they *should* be enough to convince basically sane and good people. But then I torture myself with one of Billboard Chris' recent videotaped conversations -- yet another smugly uninformed guy who obviously has more than 2 brain cells to rub together (see "He disagrees with me but doesn’t know why. Let it go, bro. Gender ideology is all lies."), but who cannot see how ridiculous it is to justify his opinions with nothing but his own ego. (Maybe he really will go read all those sources Chris recommended, but I doubt it.)
Tangential comment, but just like how you put “affirmed” in italics, so many words are now too difficult for me to use. What’s a different word for when you go from one place or one idea to another? I just cannot use the T word.
Lisa, you’re right. There are a lot of people who still need to wake up and instead they are doubling down. They are the majority of dems I think, at least where I was in CA. I did wake up one friend a bit when I sent her Helen Joyce’s article on the UK court decision about biological sex. She’s a feminist so said ‘This is a good thing!’ surprising herself. It’s the little cracks in the foundation we need to point out bit by bit. They have to absorb it on their own, in their own terms. Pulling people out of a cult is slow, hard work. They go back to their NYT and all of your conversation is…. Poof! Gone like a puff of smoke. I’ve had that happen to me SO many times with friends.
Lisa (I feel odd with first names), is “gender identity” still taught in psychology, is it still in textbooks in medical contexts?
Perhaps going after the publishers might be more of a “root cause” cause because society tends to follow medicine, and doctors have been unable to label men’s compulsion to imitate women as a simple compulsion, and from that has sprung all manner of ills.
the people you were talking to are clueless about Blue Orthodoxy and if they think it's irrelevant it might be because they're totally fine with the current president "disrupting" our government and economy to smithereens.
IF Democrats are to recover, IMHO, they need to change their minds about "gender transition medicine".
But we've not yet seen anyone emerge who can change the Democratic narrative/allegiance. Gavin Newsome made a slight gesture, but his administration has allowed and facilitated the radical legislation of Jon Wiener, so I wouldn't trust Newsome at all.
The Democrats are entrenched on this topic. This is partly because voters have been mobilized on this issue previously and the trans lobby groups are deep pocketed. There's a lot of sunk costs in this battle.
Rather than change perspective, of course, there's a great likelihood of Blue America "influencers" "doubling down" and fighting the presidential initiatives and using that fight to energize voters. Fighting trump featured in 2024 election and seems to continue to focus Dems ... rather than, for example, having other ways of moving forward. We are already seeing the fight in the court battles against the EOs directed at schools and universities. Politico has an article on how court-issued injunctions has stalled the EOs implementation.
The Harvard fight will be major. Then there's the ACLS and other academic institutions ... that the annual ACLS meeting is featuring Judith Butler as the plenary speaker ... speaks for itself, doesn't it?
It's interesting how closely related the Covid (my original "red pill" moment) and gender issues seem, on several levels. Not only because the Covid lockdowns that isolated a generation of kids and forced them into virtual spaces played a big role in helping transgenderism explode, but also because the approach taken to evidence by progressive elites on these two issues is so very similar. Before Covid, I didn't realize how much they were willing to distort and disregard evidence in the service of ideological belief. Now I know.
I have admired David Zweig (who I just learned used to be a fellow magazine fact-checker) since 2020 for the way he spoke out on school closures and other policies affecting kids, and I will go to his event in DC. I will bring my now 12-year-old, who was in first grade when the schools closed for a year and a half and has some views on this topic as well.
And yes, the general, NYTimes reading public must not be written off. I just had a discussion about the gender stuff when we visited my gay brothers-in-law in Manhattan. They were receptive on the revelation (to them) that this ideology is really based on regressive stereotypes, but they brushed off the sports issue by saying that it was too rare to matter, and that it was more important to prevent "trans kids" from "killing themselves" (they clearly have swallowed that narrative) than protecting the women who might get beaten by the rare transwoman in sports. Lots of work to do, and as always, I feel like I did not do an optimal job of explaining my position, and the conversation would need to be much longer to really change minds. The problem is that most people who don't really have a personal stake in this don't have the patience for that.
And here is one anecdote from our local public schools: My 6th grader was asked yesterday in geography class to state his "identity" in various categories, and he said, among other things, that he was "a boy - OBVIOUSLY!". The teacher responded: "How do you know for sure you are a boy?", to which he just snorted and didn't say anything. Apparently several other boys came up to him afterwards shaking their heads at the teacher. As much as it infuriates me that the teacher even asked that question (are they really on a mission to confuse kids?), it gives me some hope that this generation will rebel against the insanity.
Actually, I think you should become highly engaged with your son's school over this event that you describe. This teacher is trying to induce mental illness in children. No, I am not kidding, to de-stabilize young minds in this manner is a terrible terrible thing to do and is NOT within the remit of a grade school teacher.
It is not ok for teachers to play psychologist with students. It is not their professional capacity.
Moreover it is highly invasive of the child's intimacy. The teacher has no business holding such a conversation with any child.
Make good trouble over this. Please, for the sake of any child that teacher might encounter, please do not just let this slide.
Yeah, I can't unless I want to risk losing my freelance job... I'll let my kids talk back (which they love), and if anyone gets them in trouble over it, then I will certainly step up for them. But in this city, I cannot be the public face of protest against this stuff, given my precarious professional situation.
In a geography class?
OMG.
Yup, in geography class. That teacher is an especially woke one. My son loathes her. I don't think his twin brother has been asked the same in his geography class yet, but if that happens, they will get an earful about small gametes. He actually told me a while ago, before we ever talked about this gender stuff, that he stopped watching a particular science channel he used to like on YouTube because they had a video on how sex is a spectrum, based on the existence of DSDs, which he rightly identified as an absurd argument. Hilariously, he said the voiceover sounded like from a hostage video - as if the speaker was held at gun point to spout such nonsense! He could never trust anything from that channel again.
That’s great that your son understands what BS this is.
To add to this idea that maybe this generation will fight back - I was reminded of what happened when our elementary school finally dropped the outdoor (!) mask mandate in March 2022 (!). My son told me that all the kids on the playground at recess were jumping around chanting "Freedom! Freedom!". Clearly, the narrative so popular among their progressive parents, that kids really "don't mind masking" and only complain if their parents are "anti-maskers", was not true...
Did he drop trou?! 😬😉😱😂. (Kidding, kidding, kidding, tho really, what was that teacher thinking?! That's the obvious response for a middle school boy!! 😉)
I told him to just say next time "because I have a penis"! Then let's see if she actually go so far as to tell him that some girls can have penises...
please, escalate this to the principal and to the school board if necessary. This is a huge infringement on your rights as a parent. teachers are not parents. teachers are not psychologists nor psychiatrists. Teachers have ZERO reason to push children to question their most fundamental and intimate sense of self.
Teachers, leave the kids alone.
Given my kids' special needs (as well as my precarious professional situation), I'm going to let this one slide. I depend on the goodwill of the principal, and this stuff is endemic in our school system. I would be a lone voice in the wilderness, which I cannot afford to be. I'm already known as a squeaky wheel when it comes to my kids' needs, and I cannot risk becoming an outright pariah.
Cue Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IpYOF4Hi6Q
Many, probably most, of those “NFL watching, non-organic food eating“ people live in states that have outlawed gender medicine for minors. These people never believed in gender ideology to begin with, so they don’t need to be “reached“ in the same way that elites still do.
Link please to Alisdair Gunn /Benjamin Boyce convo?
I can no longer talk about politics with my liberal friends, especially on this issue—I get too hot inside and have trouble moderating my emotions so I tend to ignore or change subjects
The only friends who I find are sympathetic and routinely extremely well informed on the gender issue are my more conservative friends who probably get it from Fox News but then I feel uncomfortable that I’m signaling I’m now on that political “side” which I’m not, really and I hate that Fox News is the only reliable source of current information
The only place I try to exert influence now is with colleagues and it’s a rough uphill climb with many who are also reliant on mainstream media and legacy LGB orgs for their info and they get zero accurate education via professional outlets who are determined to toe the party line
I do think Lisa’s right that the bubble needs to be burst to get more coverage in mainstream and traditional news outlets otherwise the myth will persist that it’s all safe to ignore as right wing conspiracy—why else would the story be relegated to alternative media, people must think 🤔
Benjamin Boyce's YouTube channel is I think called "The Boyce of Reason," but if you search that it was recent.
I guess I was just being a bit lazy:) I am aware I could search for it that way but thx 😉
We won't reach those on the left until two things happen:
1) it's perceived by the left as being the opposite of what republicans believe and support.
2) Enough powerful and influential people on the left come out in tipping point numbers showing the research that the suicide claims and 1% regret rate claims are not true while at the same time not changing any of their other beliefs so they can't be written off as being captured by the right. For example, you'd need people like Jon Stewart, John Oliver, AOC, Harris, etc all coming out together saying they had looked at the data and are outraged by the deceit, misinformation, and corruption surrounding this issue while still saying all the same "correct" left and progressive talking points about every other hot button issue.
I can't get away from the 1,000+ at the NYU protest - all of whom - but for 10 of us (one was Billboard Chris, who isn't even from NY) - were yelling their hearts out to FORCE NYU TO PUT 2 12-YEAR-OLDS ON PUBERTY BLOCKERS (one of whom is "non-binary" and the other "transgender"). That's the Real World, and either they weren't all in the bubble, or the bubble is really big and, as you say, must be burst. They need to be educated.
It's not just NY or California either. Michigan, as one example, is apparently just as bad as CA and NY (I've been told by residents thereof), and let's remember that half of the states are pushing this hard. Even Justices of the Supreme Court are in the dark on this issue as evidenced by the oral argument in Skrmetti. So, unfortunately, the Real World is still very much in need of education on this issue, and, if all these people are in a bubble, the bubble is subsuming at least half our population, including many of those in power.
As to how to persuade them to re-think this issue, I wish I knew. Rational discussion would be my first thought, but that doesn't seem to work.
It was Justice Alito, during Skremetti oral arguments, who read to Chase Strangio an excerpt from Cass about suicide and Strangio admitted that very, very few people actually complete suicide. Jaw dropping moment.
Of course, the activists and their political acolytes, continue to spread the "they will kill themselves" narrative unabated.
That was one of the better moments of the oral argument. Justice Brown and Justice Kagan, on the other hand, had it all wrong. Justice Brown's analogy to the Loving case (involving inter-racial marriage) was especially infuriating.
Yeah, because it's emotion that gives the quickest and most powerful jolt, one that can reset one's little grey cells, right? The last couple days I've been reflecting on a bit of a "Whoah, wait a minute!" experience that I had while listening to all the chatter following the U.K. Supreme Court's ruling on the legal definition of "woman." I had also just been listening to the very feminine, yet NON-transitioned young gay man, Pear Joseph, give an interview in which he described the frightening and disgusting behavior of some men who have fixated on him (here's the link to his interview by Jack Jewell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drk0NhzzHN8 ). Apparently some men fetishize males who've added "female" body parts -- or simply young men, as is Pear's case, who are naturally very effeminate men.
And then I ran across a young woman responding to the argument that women should only be strip-searched by biologically female police, by pointing out that medically transitioned males should not be strip-searched by male policemen either. And I experienced an emotional jolt, like "No! I also find the idea of a trans-identified male who's undergone vaginoplasty being searched by a male policeman very troubling as well . . . " - particularly after learning about how some males fetishsize "trannies." I'm not sure that makes any sense; but I did feel repulsed by the idea . . . and it stopped me short.
Perhaps the thought of being strip-searched by anyone is so horrible that it'll trigger me to feel sympathy for anyone having to experience that . . .? I don't know. But maybe there are other issues with the standards set for things the authorities have license to do, quite apart from the sex of whomever those things are done to. Just a meandery thought ...
You definitely still need to reach educators in Massachusetts, which is why I am so heartened when the Boston Globe publishes your work. (Which I wish was more often)
You are completely correct. Just for one example, the fact is that the majority of college staff and faculty throughout the USA (in red and blue states) either buy the gender ideology or are silent. You won't be hired unless you, at least, pretend to buy it in most administrative roles at most institutions. In particular, the colleges' staff (think res life, student activities, orientation, and housing) foist off this nonsense, aided by the activist students found in whatever queer center they have. Take California. There are about half a million students in the UC and CSU systems. Most of them live in the sea of gender ideology conformity, particularly if you live on campus. The staff - and many faculty - of the California Community College system (2.2 million students strong) are no different, though they have much less sway in that the student body isn't captured in the same way as 4-year live-in students are. Yes, I am sure there are many - maybe most? - of those students who don't buy any of it. But many do. It's the air they breathe. We have to somehow break the grip of the true believers in the educational industry (from K - college) to get back to normality. And that is just one institution in which this is the case, but a particularly important one.
Also, remember they are teaching this in elementary, middle and high school so these kids going into college have grown up being told this is reality. I think quite a few of them do believe it. How do you wake these kids up when they’ve been indoctrinated so young? My daughter’s middle school brought in a trans man to talk about their ‘identity’. I had no idea this happened until afterwards when she told me about this ‘cool trans guy’. I think many parents a decade ago were naive. You don’t expect your 12 year old to be taught this in school! It wasn’t even on our radar.
Yes. Even in supposedly non-woke New Mexico (outside of Santa Fe), where my daughter attended one year at a state school, the requisite sheet on her dorm room asking her preferred name and pronouns took her very shaky desistance and derailed it. Back home went to the suitcase full of more feminine clothing, and more deeply was the social transition ensconced.
Well, for me, the Left has entered a new low. The lady down the street who just put up the new, improved, TQ "Trans flag" which conflates immigrants with individuals who ideate an opposite sex persona just spit near me as she passed me while gardening on my street front. She stopped, made it clear she was spitting at me, and walked on as if this is normal. I'm going to do some kind of documentation. It took me a day to understand.
How awful! I'm sorry this happened to you. And from a neighbor! I bet she prides herself on her kindness (no pun intended).
Yups
I'm so sorry this happened to you. What an idiotic person this woman is.
I am starting to believe that humans have a proclivity for cruelty and bullying that's a common addiction like to sugar or alcohol. The more you do the more you want to do.
The entire Trans/Queer/Hamasnik contingent demonstrates the absolute worst of human behaviour, which seems to have emerged out of a period where people simply have not had enough struggle and challenge in their lives.
A lack of friction seems to produce Grade-A Assholes.
Wow, that’s insane. I am so curious what this new flag looks like. Sigh.
It has a lot of words in rainbow colors. Thank goodness, it's hard to read.
Oh, Lisa! I share your angst! My husband and I just spent an afternoon w/ a seldom-seen old friend and her new partner. I had to be particularly cagey the whole time simply because I knew I'd get a swift kick under the table from my husband if I answered her many queries honestly (and forget adding my 2 cents as she repeatedly remarked on various issues.) I'm certain she would be horrified to know I believe Harris was the worse of two bad options, for example. Towards the end of our visit, she expressed guilt at having retreated from the news lately, and she declared that she was intends to subscribe to the NYT to become uber-informed soon. And I groaned inwardly. If she becomes any more smug and certain about how well-informed she is, I fear I'll be unable to restrain myself the next time we're in the same room.
I don't know what the answer is, but I agree with you that we cannot abandon the "passionately uninformed." I hope you keep trying within your bubble (which you've upgraded with an escape hatch). Really, to give up and sourly conclude that human beings are just too glitchy to survive for much longer is just nihilism.
I have been reflecting on the recent conversation between Benjamin Boyce and Alasdair Gunn, in which Alasdair remarks that the problem with both liberals and libertarian types is "they lack a theory of mind for people who are stupider or smarter than them" and "not everyone can solve problems through rational debate." And so I feel frustrated that evidence and reason are useless, even as they *should* be enough to convince basically sane and good people. But then I torture myself with one of Billboard Chris' recent videotaped conversations -- yet another smugly uninformed guy who obviously has more than 2 brain cells to rub together (see "He disagrees with me but doesn’t know why. Let it go, bro. Gender ideology is all lies."), but who cannot see how ridiculous it is to justify his opinions with nothing but his own ego. (Maybe he really will go read all those sources Chris recommended, but I doubt it.)
Oh, the humanity!!!!
Tangential comment, but just like how you put “affirmed” in italics, so many words are now too difficult for me to use. What’s a different word for when you go from one place or one idea to another? I just cannot use the T word.
evolve? shift, move, change, or pivot? progress? Hey, I've started using https://x.com/i/grok like a thesaurus lately. Very convenient.
Lisa, you’re right. There are a lot of people who still need to wake up and instead they are doubling down. They are the majority of dems I think, at least where I was in CA. I did wake up one friend a bit when I sent her Helen Joyce’s article on the UK court decision about biological sex. She’s a feminist so said ‘This is a good thing!’ surprising herself. It’s the little cracks in the foundation we need to point out bit by bit. They have to absorb it on their own, in their own terms. Pulling people out of a cult is slow, hard work. They go back to their NYT and all of your conversation is…. Poof! Gone like a puff of smoke. I’ve had that happen to me SO many times with friends.
Lisa (I feel odd with first names), is “gender identity” still taught in psychology, is it still in textbooks in medical contexts?
Perhaps going after the publishers might be more of a “root cause” cause because society tends to follow medicine, and doctors have been unable to label men’s compulsion to imitate women as a simple compulsion, and from that has sprung all manner of ills.
Hi Lisa & All,
the people you were talking to are clueless about Blue Orthodoxy and if they think it's irrelevant it might be because they're totally fine with the current president "disrupting" our government and economy to smithereens.
IF Democrats are to recover, IMHO, they need to change their minds about "gender transition medicine".
But we've not yet seen anyone emerge who can change the Democratic narrative/allegiance. Gavin Newsome made a slight gesture, but his administration has allowed and facilitated the radical legislation of Jon Wiener, so I wouldn't trust Newsome at all.
The Democrats are entrenched on this topic. This is partly because voters have been mobilized on this issue previously and the trans lobby groups are deep pocketed. There's a lot of sunk costs in this battle.
Rather than change perspective, of course, there's a great likelihood of Blue America "influencers" "doubling down" and fighting the presidential initiatives and using that fight to energize voters. Fighting trump featured in 2024 election and seems to continue to focus Dems ... rather than, for example, having other ways of moving forward. We are already seeing the fight in the court battles against the EOs directed at schools and universities. Politico has an article on how court-issued injunctions has stalled the EOs implementation.
The Harvard fight will be major. Then there's the ACLS and other academic institutions ... that the annual ACLS meeting is featuring Judith Butler as the plenary speaker ... speaks for itself, doesn't it?
here's a link to the Politico article: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/24/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-education-department-from-enforcing-dei-orders-00307831
I saw this comment posted on Colin Wright's latest Substack piece:
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/time-for-a-shift-in-the-gender-affirming
(It is a link to another Substack author):
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/quietly-correcting