This conversation (like some others) felt a little disorganized and incomplete. It would have been nice to hear about the content of Sarah and Cori’s presentations at ESCAP and how they were received. Could we hear more about these presentations next week? I like the organic nature of your discussions but sometimes it comes across like you jump from one topic to another before completing the thought or skip over things that would be helpful for the listener to hear.
I appreciate Cory's revised intro: "an adult human male with 'trans' experience..." Gets to the heart of things!
I think maybe "detransitioners" could also use a new name, since treating "detransition" as a real thing implies "transition" is a real thing, and everybody knows that you can't transition to the opposite sex or out of your own sex. Yep, *everybody*. Which is why there's going to be an extremely painful, decades-long hangover from this thing, for everybody. Maybe some of the (fading) cheerleaders for "trans" already realize this, and their rah-rahs are squeezed out as a way of trying to delay the inevitable.
At the beginning of this ep Cory seemed entirely too fatalistic...in response to his devil's-advocate *What harms?* we in our millions want to shout: THEY CUT BALLS OFF! THEY SLICE DICKS! THEY CHOP BREASTS! THEY WRECK CLITS! While fraud in the name of gender is ubiquitous, let us never concede the other cause for annihilation of this industry.
Sarah, between your traveling, reading, writing, speaking and being generally stellar, please be sure you are getting adequate nutrition. This includes a full slice of babka.
Do you ever make smoothies? If you use high fat ingredients like peanut butter, Greek yogurt, or avocados they're a great way to up your calorie intake without having to go to the trouble of chewing your food...
That'll work, thought oatmeal smoothies are a thing. I think you can even use warm oatmeal if you want. Just think of all the extra time you could have for things like reading, writing, and entertaining Sancho if you could drink your oatmeal and coconut cream instead of eating it, it could be as much as several whole minutes a day...
"THEY CUT BALLS OFF! THEY SLICE DICKS! THEY CHOP BREASTS! THEY WRECK CLITS!"
I was thinking that too. The harms are pretty obvious. If they were removing limbs from people with Body Dysmorphia just because they asked it would be seen as a clear breach of ethics. I guess the issue is that legally speaking GD and BD are classed as two different things, with two different treatment pathways. It makes me wonder how many surgeons would be willing to remove limbs from people with BD if it weren't for those pesky legal restrictions...
>> It makes me wonder how many surgeons would be willing to remove limbs from people with BD if it weren't for those pesky legal restrictions... <<
It seems they left the screen door open at the surgical schools and swarm upon swarm of opportunistic monsters flew in. I don't doubt the number of armchoppers, say, would be shockingly large. But what gets me is that limbs seem to be *more* protected than sex organs!! Wouldn't you rather lose an arm or a leg than...??!!
And here again, you don't have to assume conscious conspiracy to note that to sever sex organs goes even beyond causing immediate debility, pain, infections and so on for the individual thus severed. You are shortening and massively circumscribing a person's life--and all but destroying his or her chances of joining forces with a partner and building a family, including a family of just two. This is Mengele-level stuff *including* when viewed through a societal lens.
I love the non gender discussion at the end. Very curious to hear more about Cori’s reading about the early Christian sects and councils.
Thank you also to Sarah for the reference to Marina Warner, which let me to this lovely interview. I used my free monthly pass to the New Yorker to read this, and so glad because Marina has some insight into the hallucination of internet reading.
“I just mean that, online, the types of discourse could be differentiated more clearly. At the moment, we tend to receive every piece of information coming at us as part of a news feed. That’s why conspiracy stories flourish, because they look like news. If they were packaged in yellow paperbacks with screaming headlines—“The Phantom Rides Again”—if there were some sort of Stephen King frame, it would give the subliminal signal that this was a fiction.
For me, the difficulty is that I am a believer in fictions. I don’t want us to be leached of all fantasy. It wouldn’t be healthy, nor enjoyable, nor possible. But, at the same time, when people believe these fictions in a dangerous way—and some of them truly are lethal, the racist fictions and so forth—we need to think about how to prevent such toxic credulity.”
I think the FTC workshop was a pretty significant event. The force of the US government pivoting and poised to go after providers based on consumer protection laws is good news. The legal theory is that gender care providers failed to adequately inform patients especially minors and perhaps intentionally misled about risks and benefits. I didn't listen to all 7 hours but skipped around quite a bit. I think the doctor showing medical records was significant. Dr. Miriam Grossman - she has been an advocate for children and very much opposed to gender affirming care and the idea of transing children.
And yes, that goes to insurance companies intentionally being misled. But there is also a legal theory with plenty of evidence (my opinion and many others share) that the public and patients are being misled, intentionally about unsubstantiated benefits for minors especially. Glenna Goldis (excellent lawyer and advocate) discusses how the trans industry intentionally manipulates and controls the use of language to further the transgender agenda. This language is designed to be confusing and circuitous on gender related words and concepts. We'll see what happens next but this has got to have the industry on edge and very worried about future prospects to grow their billion dollar cash cow.
Im in Canada. This week my step kid was prescribed hrt at 14. They see a psychologist and somehow the psychologist works with a doctor and got them to prescribe estrogen to my step kid without ever meeting him. No baseline blood tests either. It’s a split custody situation and Canada has medical autonomy at 14 years old. Our hands are tied. But I just needed to get this off my chest and say fuck these health care providers.
I’m wondering if there is a way to sue the govt of my province about medical autonomy but I’m not sure that’s even possible.
Calling it "HRT" is already fraudulent. They are not replacing hormones, like with HRT for women in menopause. They are giving the WRONG hormones to a child, in order to actively disrupt their endocrine system. It's sickening.
Medical autonomy at 14???? Wow. This sounds really difficult. I’ve been appreciating Sasha Ayaid’s new You Tube channel The Metaphor of Gender. It’s very teen focused, maybe something to try watching with your step kid, as a bridge building trying to understand exercise or offering? Each person could share a video about what this means.
I wish I could have done this with a cousin but it was too complicated at that point
I watched parts of the FTC event, and I just wanted to make one comment on the presentation of the commissioner. First, did anyone else feel like this was an AI generated video of her speaking? It just looked so fake. Not her voice, but the visual. It made me wonder if she only did an audio recording, and then they AI generated a video of her speaking. Total speculation, but there was an "uncanny valley" quality about that video.
Secondly, I was disappointed to hear her use the genderwoo jargon of some kids having a "gender identity misaligned with their biological sex", and of "gender dysphoria that if left untreated, can have serious consequences". It seemed like she was not fully grasping the issue of those very premises being at least debatable.
It's possible that I misunderstood and she was just describing the views of the other side. I didn't have much time and didn't watch the entire statement to the end (partially also because I was so creeped out by the "uncanny valley" vibe).
Oh, she was very forceful! I also liked FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson’s opening remarks. Actually, so many of the presentations were powerful. I was able to watch the recording off and on yesterday and was glad I did. Each speaker tried to bring out what they viewed as deceptive or fraudulent.
Most of the detransitioner lawsuits will probably fail, which will disappoint those individuals, but I think the FTC and the DOJ going after institutions will be much more effective in reducing harm. Lawsuits can end in settlements and NDAs, but FTC investigations and DOJ prosecutions can change how things are done across the board.
Non-gender recommendation: music, one of my fav albums ever is "XII Ceasars" by H.E.R.R. Lyrics are based on biographies of twelve roman ceasars written by in 121 AD by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, combined with classical music - mostly by not exclusively war marches. It feels very transcendental. Depiction of social relations, violence and sexuality typical for the era, BIG MOOD, go listen!
My favs are "The moon devours the sun" (I always have shivers)
I'm not fan of Rome and this album was my emotional support through history class in high school and course of roman law in university. I love it I love it I love it.
The album „Winter of Constantinople” is good too, but I don’t like their other work. From that album the strongest song is „The fall of Constantinople”, which is really moving desperate last minute alarm that this is really happening, enemies at the gates, enemies at the gates. https://open.spotify.com/track/2UHlPpAWDzvCYDSDC81ZRy?si=7XM1Jt7VQPOY9jFh8AM0tg
Nothing inspires faith in institutional science like articles in Nature (leading title of that newsletter) how there is only one valid conclusion about countless fails of modern institutional science
(Disclaimer: I sincerely think RFK is a crank, my opposition/eyeroll doesn’t come from support for RFK)
*I as a lawyer* (from different jurisdiction, different speciality) think gender medicine is misselling and that route can be good path for detransitioners
As a legally-uninformed person, this is my sense as well. What is being treated exactly? (Distress? *Wanting* something?) It’s vague, but the marketing presents a different, more certain reality.
@Syl imo what you're point at is problems inherent to gender dysphoria as psychiatric diagnosis and its treatment, which are huge problems, but ultimately contained within medicine. Misselling is act of selling something that doesn't match the needs of consumer; in this case, it's diagnostic overshadowing and promise that all psychiatric, social issues will be solved by medical transition. Practitioners see comorbidities and poor social functioning of their trans patients, but instead of doing differential diagnosis, sticking to exploratory psychotherapy (i.e. normal psychotherapy) or prescribing normal treatment for depression, they proceed with transition.
Recently I often think about one class from course of philosophy of science about problem of induction. Because it’s not logically possible to make any conclusions from the past what will happen in the future, it’s also not possible to falsify something definitively. Therefore it’s not right or wrong answer to the question of what’s worth studying, because hypothesis rejected in the past still can come true in the future - the only valid reason to choose one hypothesis over another or one science project over another (even if this is heliocentrism over geocentrism) is subjective perception what is most likely to bring useful results and advance science. Like that class delivered absolutely mindbreaking revelation that the only reason why scientists stick to heliocentric model is social, arguments for that model persuaded the field that this is science project worth advancing.
Problem of induction has more relevance in social sciences and to some degree in biology too, because cohorts change, environment change, social incentives change.
So referring to scientific consensus is really the act of trust rather than something grounded in solid foundations. If have objections to how that consensus was reached, like objections to social process which resulted in consensus (version for non-scientists like me and Jesse Singal) or objections to epistemology/data in science part (version for scientists), then I don’t have reason to trust that this group of people choose wisely. And in case of gender medicine there are very good reasons to not trust consensus.
It's also not changing their sex, which is the most fraudulent part of the whole endeavour. For most Americans "gender" is just a polite way of saying "sex", and when changing gender involves modifying sex characteristics it should be pretty obvious that even the Trans movement uses them interchangeably, despite often claiming otherwise.
This conversation (like some others) felt a little disorganized and incomplete. It would have been nice to hear about the content of Sarah and Cori’s presentations at ESCAP and how they were received. Could we hear more about these presentations next week? I like the organic nature of your discussions but sometimes it comes across like you jump from one topic to another before completing the thought or skip over things that would be helpful for the listener to hear.
I appreciate Cory's revised intro: "an adult human male with 'trans' experience..." Gets to the heart of things!
I think maybe "detransitioners" could also use a new name, since treating "detransition" as a real thing implies "transition" is a real thing, and everybody knows that you can't transition to the opposite sex or out of your own sex. Yep, *everybody*. Which is why there's going to be an extremely painful, decades-long hangover from this thing, for everybody. Maybe some of the (fading) cheerleaders for "trans" already realize this, and their rah-rahs are squeezed out as a way of trying to delay the inevitable.
At the beginning of this ep Cory seemed entirely too fatalistic...in response to his devil's-advocate *What harms?* we in our millions want to shout: THEY CUT BALLS OFF! THEY SLICE DICKS! THEY CHOP BREASTS! THEY WRECK CLITS! While fraud in the name of gender is ubiquitous, let us never concede the other cause for annihilation of this industry.
Sarah, between your traveling, reading, writing, speaking and being generally stellar, please be sure you are getting adequate nutrition. This includes a full slice of babka.
I got food poisoning while we were in France and haven't totally recovered the weight I lost yet! Hence looking a little too skinny!
Do you ever make smoothies? If you use high fat ingredients like peanut butter, Greek yogurt, or avocados they're a great way to up your calorie intake without having to go to the trouble of chewing your food...
No, but I put full-fat coconut cream in my oatmeal, lol.
That'll work, thought oatmeal smoothies are a thing. I think you can even use warm oatmeal if you want. Just think of all the extra time you could have for things like reading, writing, and entertaining Sancho if you could drink your oatmeal and coconut cream instead of eating it, it could be as much as several whole minutes a day...
"THEY CUT BALLS OFF! THEY SLICE DICKS! THEY CHOP BREASTS! THEY WRECK CLITS!"
I was thinking that too. The harms are pretty obvious. If they were removing limbs from people with Body Dysmorphia just because they asked it would be seen as a clear breach of ethics. I guess the issue is that legally speaking GD and BD are classed as two different things, with two different treatment pathways. It makes me wonder how many surgeons would be willing to remove limbs from people with BD if it weren't for those pesky legal restrictions...
>> It makes me wonder how many surgeons would be willing to remove limbs from people with BD if it weren't for those pesky legal restrictions... <<
It seems they left the screen door open at the surgical schools and swarm upon swarm of opportunistic monsters flew in. I don't doubt the number of armchoppers, say, would be shockingly large. But what gets me is that limbs seem to be *more* protected than sex organs!! Wouldn't you rather lose an arm or a leg than...??!!
And here again, you don't have to assume conscious conspiracy to note that to sever sex organs goes even beyond causing immediate debility, pain, infections and so on for the individual thus severed. You are shortening and massively circumscribing a person's life--and all but destroying his or her chances of joining forces with a partner and building a family, including a family of just two. This is Mengele-level stuff *including* when viewed through a societal lens.
I love the non gender discussion at the end. Very curious to hear more about Cori’s reading about the early Christian sects and councils.
Thank you also to Sarah for the reference to Marina Warner, which let me to this lovely interview. I used my free monthly pass to the New Yorker to read this, and so glad because Marina has some insight into the hallucination of internet reading.
“I just mean that, online, the types of discourse could be differentiated more clearly. At the moment, we tend to receive every piece of information coming at us as part of a news feed. That’s why conspiracy stories flourish, because they look like news. If they were packaged in yellow paperbacks with screaming headlines—“The Phantom Rides Again”—if there were some sort of Stephen King frame, it would give the subliminal signal that this was a fiction.
For me, the difficulty is that I am a believer in fictions. I don’t want us to be leached of all fantasy. It wouldn’t be healthy, nor enjoyable, nor possible. But, at the same time, when people believe these fictions in a dangerous way—and some of them truly are lethal, the racist fictions and so forth—we need to think about how to prevent such toxic credulity.”
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/marina-warner-sees-the-myths-in-our-moment
I love love love her work. She's the most beautiful writer. Insane to see all the connections she can make.
I think the FTC workshop was a pretty significant event. The force of the US government pivoting and poised to go after providers based on consumer protection laws is good news. The legal theory is that gender care providers failed to adequately inform patients especially minors and perhaps intentionally misled about risks and benefits. I didn't listen to all 7 hours but skipped around quite a bit. I think the doctor showing medical records was significant. Dr. Miriam Grossman - she has been an advocate for children and very much opposed to gender affirming care and the idea of transing children.
And yes, that goes to insurance companies intentionally being misled. But there is also a legal theory with plenty of evidence (my opinion and many others share) that the public and patients are being misled, intentionally about unsubstantiated benefits for minors especially. Glenna Goldis (excellent lawyer and advocate) discusses how the trans industry intentionally manipulates and controls the use of language to further the transgender agenda. This language is designed to be confusing and circuitous on gender related words and concepts. We'll see what happens next but this has got to have the industry on edge and very worried about future prospects to grow their billion dollar cash cow.
LMFAO at the Event Horizon reference. that movie is fucking crazy
Ive always thought Paris Texas had more cultural significance than previously realised
Im in Canada. This week my step kid was prescribed hrt at 14. They see a psychologist and somehow the psychologist works with a doctor and got them to prescribe estrogen to my step kid without ever meeting him. No baseline blood tests either. It’s a split custody situation and Canada has medical autonomy at 14 years old. Our hands are tied. But I just needed to get this off my chest and say fuck these health care providers.
I’m wondering if there is a way to sue the govt of my province about medical autonomy but I’m not sure that’s even possible.
Calling it "HRT" is already fraudulent. They are not replacing hormones, like with HRT for women in menopause. They are giving the WRONG hormones to a child, in order to actively disrupt their endocrine system. It's sickening.
Medical autonomy at 14???? Wow. This sounds really difficult. I’ve been appreciating Sasha Ayaid’s new You Tube channel The Metaphor of Gender. It’s very teen focused, maybe something to try watching with your step kid, as a bridge building trying to understand exercise or offering? Each person could share a video about what this means.
I wish I could have done this with a cousin but it was too complicated at that point
I watched parts of the FTC event, and I just wanted to make one comment on the presentation of the commissioner. First, did anyone else feel like this was an AI generated video of her speaking? It just looked so fake. Not her voice, but the visual. It made me wonder if she only did an audio recording, and then they AI generated a video of her speaking. Total speculation, but there was an "uncanny valley" quality about that video.
Secondly, I was disappointed to hear her use the genderwoo jargon of some kids having a "gender identity misaligned with their biological sex", and of "gender dysphoria that if left untreated, can have serious consequences". It seemed like she was not fully grasping the issue of those very premises being at least debatable.
Actually I thought she, Ms Holyoak, was describing what that field represented itself as. I could be wrong, memory can be fuzzy.
It's possible that I misunderstood and she was just describing the views of the other side. I didn't have much time and didn't watch the entire statement to the end (partially also because I was so creeped out by the "uncanny valley" vibe).
Oh, she was very forceful! I also liked FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson’s opening remarks. Actually, so many of the presentations were powerful. I was able to watch the recording off and on yesterday and was glad I did. Each speaker tried to bring out what they viewed as deceptive or fraudulent.
Most of the detransitioner lawsuits will probably fail, which will disappoint those individuals, but I think the FTC and the DOJ going after institutions will be much more effective in reducing harm. Lawsuits can end in settlements and NDAs, but FTC investigations and DOJ prosecutions can change how things are done across the board.
Non-gender recommendation: music, one of my fav albums ever is "XII Ceasars" by H.E.R.R. Lyrics are based on biographies of twelve roman ceasars written by in 121 AD by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, combined with classical music - mostly by not exclusively war marches. It feels very transcendental. Depiction of social relations, violence and sexuality typical for the era, BIG MOOD, go listen!
My favs are "The moon devours the sun" (I always have shivers)
https://open.spotify.com/track/6QWd5Y8KTyO4Dp5lu1gvoW?si=a028514295b34402
"Hear them cheer" (dynamic and very vicious war march)
https://open.spotify.com/track/1tjWzgBXsMhhiT9vACf7r3?si=d2ef130db06c4c6b
and "Queen of Bythinia" (about Julius Ceasar, not war march, optimistic in tone and well it captures all beauty of The Classic)
https://open.spotify.com/track/5uZ1fUUbLpuCgwNZO4Img3?si=8e1c0be261cd47cf
I'm not fan of Rome and this album was my emotional support through history class in high school and course of roman law in university. I love it I love it I love it.
The album „Winter of Constantinople” is good too, but I don’t like their other work. From that album the strongest song is „The fall of Constantinople”, which is really moving desperate last minute alarm that this is really happening, enemies at the gates, enemies at the gates. https://open.spotify.com/track/2UHlPpAWDzvCYDSDC81ZRy?si=7XM1Jt7VQPOY9jFh8AM0tg
I'm a big fan of Ancient Rome - especially the XII Caesars. I will check it out.
Time to do Old Man stuff. Love it.
Cori is not 50! No way. That blew my mind. He looks like he is in grad school.
Part of the fraud was telling surgical patients they were getting opposite sex genitals from the surgery.
Part was not telling them the interventions are not evidence based.
Part was wpath not being accurate in its recommendations, deceiving the public about systematic reviews etc.
Lappert and Grossman and Friday all listed fraud angles. I think others too.The FTC also explained how it is relevant for this.
I'm only halfway through but it was very clear about why the FTC is relevant here and ways it is.
Re: framing debate „as long as we agree that all the contentious issues are on my side we can talk”
I’m subscribed to Nature newsletter and it delivers dogmatic political opinions (naturally it’s one-sided and in line with the american Democratic Party) and science news in proportion almost 1:1. This week this was this: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02163-z?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=fd9f267681-nature-briefing-daily-20250710&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-51277672 problems with science are weaponized by RFK!!!
Nothing inspires faith in institutional science like articles in Nature (leading title of that newsletter) how there is only one valid conclusion about countless fails of modern institutional science
(Disclaimer: I sincerely think RFK is a crank, my opposition/eyeroll doesn’t come from support for RFK)
*I as a lawyer* (from different jurisdiction, different speciality) think gender medicine is misselling and that route can be good path for detransitioners
As a legally-uninformed person, this is my sense as well. What is being treated exactly? (Distress? *Wanting* something?) It’s vague, but the marketing presents a different, more certain reality.
@Syl imo what you're point at is problems inherent to gender dysphoria as psychiatric diagnosis and its treatment, which are huge problems, but ultimately contained within medicine. Misselling is act of selling something that doesn't match the needs of consumer; in this case, it's diagnostic overshadowing and promise that all psychiatric, social issues will be solved by medical transition. Practitioners see comorbidities and poor social functioning of their trans patients, but instead of doing differential diagnosis, sticking to exploratory psychotherapy (i.e. normal psychotherapy) or prescribing normal treatment for depression, they proceed with transition.
Okay, I think I see the distinction you’re making.
^this is what Sarah is saying
Hello everyone, I have gender recommendation and some Deep Thoughts about argument of scientific consensus.
Gender recommendation: this debate between Jesse Singal and Lance from the Serfs. Debate is hilarious, because Lance has no ability to critically think whatsoever https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/bonus-finally-an-adversarial-interview
My Deep Thoughts:
Recently I often think about one class from course of philosophy of science about problem of induction. Because it’s not logically possible to make any conclusions from the past what will happen in the future, it’s also not possible to falsify something definitively. Therefore it’s not right or wrong answer to the question of what’s worth studying, because hypothesis rejected in the past still can come true in the future - the only valid reason to choose one hypothesis over another or one science project over another (even if this is heliocentrism over geocentrism) is subjective perception what is most likely to bring useful results and advance science. Like that class delivered absolutely mindbreaking revelation that the only reason why scientists stick to heliocentric model is social, arguments for that model persuaded the field that this is science project worth advancing.
Problem of induction has more relevance in social sciences and to some degree in biology too, because cohorts change, environment change, social incentives change.
So referring to scientific consensus is really the act of trust rather than something grounded in solid foundations. If have objections to how that consensus was reached, like objections to social process which resulted in consensus (version for non-scientists like me and Jesse Singal) or objections to epistemology/data in science part (version for scientists), then I don’t have reason to trust that this group of people choose wisely. And in case of gender medicine there are very good reasons to not trust consensus.
Jamie at 26mins:
It's also not changing their sex, which is the most fraudulent part of the whole endeavour. For most Americans "gender" is just a polite way of saying "sex", and when changing gender involves modifying sex characteristics it should be pretty obvious that even the Trans movement uses them interchangeably, despite often claiming otherwise.