First of all, I want to contradict the one in 8 statement McWhorter makes about gender fluidity. The actual stat (from the very recent Canadian census. Canada is the first country to do this properly with a question on sex registered at birth as well as gender indentification) is one in 300 or 0.33% for the population at large. The stats were released at the end of last month and did not get much play. The reason why he may see a higher rate where he lives as opposed to say someone in rural Kansas is also included in the census -- the concentration does tend to be in urban areas. According to the Canadian census 9 in 10 non binary people lived in an urban centre with a concentration of over 100 k. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220427/dq220427b-eng.htm gives the official breakdown.
Second, it is worth remembering that the US has a long tradition of limiting speech by public officials operating in a public capacity. The current case of Kennedy v Bremerton School Board seeks to overturn some of the existing prohibitions which have existed since Engel v Vitale. It has to do with teachers expressing philosophical beliefs in the classroom and whether or not it tramples on the parents/guardian's long established right to bring children up according their own philosophical beliefs (something which is guaranteed in the 1st amendment, second clause) as well as in the UN Charter of Human Rights. How can religion be said to be free if one cannot teach one's children one's own beliefs?Once people are adults, they have a right to choose their own philosophical beliefs. Does the teaching of gender theory to grade school students constitute a philosophical belief? I would argue that it does and thus is different what is going on at St Olaf.
Third, in the UK, there is currently an employment tribunal going on -- Allison Bailey (a black, disabled lesbian with gender critical views) is suing her chambers and Stonewall (the leading LGBTQ+ charity) because according to her they colluded to withhold work on account of her philosophical beliefs. The tribunal is on going. Yesterday, however, was instructive. In the morning, one of the representatives from Stonewall admitted that their Diversity Champion scheme and training should be seen as part of their lobbying efforts to affect change, rather than an impartial group which is seeking to explain the actual legal position. In the afternoon, complete with his support dog, mother and solicitor in attendance and requiring frequent breaks, Stonewall's Head of Trans Inclusion Kirrin Medcalf (preferred pronouns they/them/he/his) explained why a white male who identifies as trans should fear sharing a bathroom with Ms Bailey and why he sent a formal letter of complaint to Ms Bailey's chambers about the subject. He also denies the existence of male and female bodies and believes that anyone who believes differently should be shunned. It is an interesting insight into the gender identity culture. https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/allison-bailey-vs-stonewall-and-garden-baa?s=r
The right of dissent aka the right to be wrong without being accused of being disloyal is under threat in the Western world. According to Edward Murrow, it is that right which vanishes first when a nation stumbles down the road to totalitarianism.
To me, a lotta this is to normalize what is, in actual fact, very far to the extreme end of the spectrum. Yeah, every person deserves respect. I don't see where that means every extreme should just be accepted as "normal." That's just me.
You are v welcome. I thought the stats were intriguing. It is lower than the NZ stats of 0.5% but this is the first time a census has actually asked the question properly. Given that Canada is a liberal country and I believe allows for self-id, the numbers should be more accurate.
It is tremendously important to understand the actual population numbers and their location as then government services (including mental health support and domestic violence refuge centres) can be tailored to meet the needs of the local population.
Non-binary accounts for just under half of the Canadian O.33% or about 0.15%. The main difference between non binary and trans is that trans people have generally taken some medical towards wishing to be perceived as another sex, where as non-binary have not taken those active steps.
It is also interesting to see the decrease in the percentage in the non-binary population due to age. It could be down to prejudice or it could be down to feelings of discomfort about one's physical body settling as one grows older.
And as a woman, I do object to having certain words like mother changed which result in 51% of a population being erased to satisfy 0.33%. In order to protect certain hard won rights, one has to be able to define what one is protecting. But this is just me.
"And as a woman, I do object to having certain words like mother changed which result in 51% of a population being erased to satisfy 0.33%. In order to protect certain hard won rights, one has to be able to define what one is protecting. But this is just me."
No, it's not just You. That's the thing I don't get about Professor McWhorter's views. There are a lotta areas where the trans crap interferes with *women's* rights. Who polled women to see if they wanted their safe spaces invaded by males? I'm not just talking about bathrooms, but about domestic violence shelters and prisons.
I'll give You one guess what happened when CA passed a law allowing male trans to be serving in the same cells as women.
According to a Bari Weiss report from the NCAA women's swimming championship, pretty much 100 percent of the female swimmers and their families oppose having their swimming contests invaded by males. The universities demanded the girls not speak out against it, though.
I really don't understand how all this "trans" stuff got any traction in the first place. Why did Democrats view unquestionable support as a political necessity?
"Expressive individualism." What's happening in out society is the culmination of a decades-long (or even centuries-long) trend to unburden the self from any social (or even physical) limitations.
I’m afraid John has got a lot of the trans & gender stuff wrong… I would really recommend both of you read “Trans” by Helen Joyce. It’s very odd hearing someone who is so bang-on regarding most other “woke” or Elect stuff go so easy on the current gender crazes. Especially since John has young girls- please look more into this issue! I also recommend Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier
I disagree. A lot of the moral panicking that's being done by people like the one who runs LibsofTikTok is strictly reactionary--one post from earlier today seemed to say that a teacher's wsimply having a BLM flag and a nonconforming haircut is tantamount to the indoctrination of our children. I look at this as far less threatening to our institutions than the cancellation of heads of departments who are willing to host controversial (read: not completely in line with the predominant doctrine) speakers. In fact, I find nothing disagreeable about the leftist teacher. People are entitled to their opinions and should be free to express those opinions.
Thank You both. i agree with recommendations. Bought all three, but haven't gotten chance to read them.
And I also agree that it's incomprehensible, to me, how Professor McWhorter can just so blithely accept this aspect of the Woke Religion, knowing what it's doing to Black people. (Recommend his book as well.) What the Woke are doing to Black people is nothing compared to what they're doing to the two sexes, particularly *women.*
Part of the trouble is that there is a wide spread belief in bikini medicine -- ie that men and women are alike except the parts which are covered by a bikini. Until 2014, the US NIH did not insist on biological sex as a variable in research. It now does and they are discovering that gender and sex as variables in biological applications are different. Thus, you believe in bikini medicine (which was the norm until recently) it makes a certain logical sense that you can opt out/alter with hormones. But a person can not alter their DNA through taking hormones or surgically altering parts of their body or declaring their sex to be different as a result of a feeling.
Recent NIH research has shown that heart disease is male/female patterned for example. Last month the UK Asthma and Lung Association announced that females are more likely to die due to an asthmatic attack and that it does have some relationship with the female reproductive cycle. And peptides in tooth enamel currently appear to be binary (part of the reason why they are being able to sex various ancient skeletons rather than going by gendered grave goods) (2017 discovery and they are trying to refine to capture DSD/VSD individuals). It also matters in certain drugs as some are better tolerated by males than females.
Males and females differ fundamentally in the shape of the pelvis which I believe is the primary means of distinguishing sex in skeletal remains when that is available for evaluation.
Yes where the skeleton is not degraded, but sometimes in mass catastrophic events (think the Twin Towers collapse) or long burial little remains. DNA is expensive. The radio isotopic analysis of tooth enamel costs less. This last week, the news mentioned the analysis of a Neolithic tooth as being female and I thought -- yes, it is down to this new technique.
It's discouraging that 20 years after the sequencing of the human genome, we act as if it never happened. Massive amounts of information about humans has been dumped in our laps and we refuse to acknowledge it.
"But a person can not alter their DNA through taking hormones or surgically altering parts of their body or declaring their sex to be different as a result of a feeling."
And the bad part is that some percentage of male "trans women" are actually misogynists of the first order. WiLIAm Thomas is the least of it, but that's what gets all the attention. It's misogynists who come up with the term "front hole" to describe women, right? It's disgusting, to me, they get away with that crap.
There are a lotta cases where You gotta either choose to support trans rights or *women's* rights, where the two are diametrically opposed. I dunno how that's even a choice, let alone the loud people's decision to favor trans rights no matter what anybody else thinks/feels.
I think it has to do with shifting baselines (a concept from conservation which is used for explaining why we don't tend to think about the fall in the rate of bugs hitting windshields among other things) and that people forget the various fundamental battles, women had to fight for -- i.e. pregnant women not going down mines, single sex prisons, and yes, a separate category for female sports.
It is not just the terminology such as front hole, but also the hiding of the actual implications of the medication and side effects. Because of the East European sportswomen in the 1970s/1980s, much more is known about the drugs than people like to admit. Putting healthy females into premature menopause does have consequences.
I should point out that many of the surgeries are major surgeries and can have unforeseen consequences as well. I believe the NYT recently ran a piece on a transman attempting to acquire a phallus. Being the NYT, the emphasis was on the need for a quicker rate of surgery, rather than questioning if it was the correct approach to deal with the situation, particularly when you consider that trans people with dementia often forget they have transitioned and can become distressed at the loss of body parts. It is a growing area of research.
There is an enormous difference between presenting various ideas and perspectives to young adults and teaching the gender-identity approach to young children. The "non-binaryesque grade school teacher" presents the gender-identity approach as the right way of thinking. Young children trust their teachers and do not have the same capacity to think critically and to find information from various sources as teenagers or young adults.
Interestingly, the gender-identity approach is very recent, but many people now demonize everyone who disagrees with it as a hateful and backward bigot. I am not a right-wing person, but I regard the aggressive promotion of the gender-identity approach as a form of blatant indoctrination. I don't have any "gender identity", I will never agree to "declare my pronouns", I think that biological sex is important. I don't embrace conventional femininity, but I see absolutely no reason to label myself as "non-binary".
It’s funny. I remember the first time I went to a “queer” meeting as opposed to a “trans” meeting. I felt very similar. The “queer” meeting is actually more political, and has less of a direct goal than the “trans” meeting. The trans meeting is full of boys and girls like me talking about parents, and medication.
I’m actually open to the idea that this trans stuff is a form of mental illness. The spectrum and identity talks open the door too much for hipsters and wannabes, and my experience says this is a serious medical issue.
The defensiveness is more age related than gender based. Who are these young trans people doing the demonizing? Usually it’s college students who just moved out, and have rocky relationships with parents because of an obviously shocking development. In my experience, things settle down, and there is lots of embarrassment about bad behavior to be had afterward.
If I come down on that crowd it’s with the zealotry of a convert. I was one of them. I haven’t been for several years now. Me acknowledging that being trans might be a mental illness would get me canceled. Doesn’t matter that I walk the walk more than a they/them motherfucker with transition and so forth. It really has become a status symbol, I get why people would think I’m this way just to be special. I get it enough to give it the back of my hand.
Being trans fucking sucks. Fuck all that victim shit. Even still, being trans fucking sucks.
Thank you for your reply to my comment, I really appreciate it. People who are doing all the demonizing are very often (if not usually) not trans themselves. There are actually trans people who criticize many of today's trends, e.g. Buck Angel (who is on Twitter as @BuckAngel and describes himself as "a man with a female past").
You say that you think that being trans might be a form of mental illness and I find it very sad that you would be canceled for saying it, though you are trans yourself... I think that the reasons why some people are trans are very complex and often linked to trauma, e.g. a British MP who has recently come out as trans was earlier raped by a man (the MP's name is Jamie Wallis).
I guess that there are also trans people who feel liberated and empowered when they reject their biological sex and I do understand it as a woman who sometimes feels angry because of societal expectations towards women and who feels that her life is limited in some ways because of her sex.
You say that being trans sucks, but without wanting to dismiss your experiences in any way I would say that being a woman who is not trans or a man who is not trans is far from being unproblematic and painless. Plenty of "cis" people suffer because they feel inadequate or even like failures, because they can't find a loving partner etc.
I feel that there are now unfortunately some people who truly jump on the "trans" bandwagon, e.g. middle-class married men who decide to come out as trans women, but continue to enjoy all the benefits of marriage and also actually get more professional opportunities as trans women (this is what some of these people openly admit).
Disturbingly, there have also been some cases of violent and dangerous prisoners who have "come out as trans" because they don't want to be in prison with men...They are sometimes put in cells with female prisoners and some rapes have already occurred, though the mainstream media don't talk about it.
Teens will rebel in ways that will please their peers. In the past it was drinking and smoking cigarettes, then pot and cocaine. Now it’s gender. The slide to decadence mentioned by Glenn is real, in my opinion. It doesn’t seem that any of this “freedom” is making these folks happier. Good luck, modern parents.
Leftists,i.e. Marxists, socialists, communists et al, not traditional liberals, will always accuse their rivals of exactly what they do. They are the real intolerable, racist, homophobic you name it’s!
I have a different take on it. I admire John very much, but I do not consider "the view" John expressed to be "balanced." I have followed Glenn and John for years, and I am always struck by what seems to me to be a tenacious desire on John's part to hold onto the Dem party belief system/political narrative. For example, at a time when Glenn was expressing serious concerns about the effect of CRT and suppression of dissent on college campuses, John was still saying that it was just a passing fad, the way the pendulum swings back and forth, and it certainly wasn't a problem at the institutions with which he was affiliated, namely, Columbia and The Atlantic. At that point, academia was already almost beyond repair. I didn't get a sense, from John's comments in this discussion, that he appreciates the danger that gender activism poses to western civilization. Time magazine declares a male "woman of the year," to cite just one example. Allowing teachers in kindergarten through the early grades to foist their gender ideology on vulnerable, impressionable young children, without parental knowledge and consent, will, IMHO, lead to the destruction of our children, and ultimately, of the West. We are dealing with huge, intolerant, destructive forces, and the sooner we acknowledge it, the greater chance we may have to survive.
Clearly you and I see the world differently, likely more than Glenn and John differ. In my view you equate “western civilization” with a much more rigid, even static framework than I do (e.g. your characterization of Time’s Woman of the Year selection). I won’t belabor the point further.
This is such a challenging and disheartening topic. I lament that the administrators caved to student pressure. I am perplexed regarding what to do about the student body. I am sure it is a vocal minority, but the impact has been the same regardless. I fear that the "long march through the institutions" has a jump start on inculcating "repressive tolerance" into many of our young minds. I did enjoy the work I had seen where you reached out to comedians because I do think that satire will be an important tool to diffuse the tension of the intolerant. I think it would also be important to let the youth know that they are being used as pawns for a political agenda and that they are stronger and more resilient than the dogma will tell them. I hope we have more on all fronts to challenge the narrative and re-instill hope and resolve.
I had a romantic partner break up with me over listening to John during the George Floyd protests. When we first started dating I asked them who their favorite contemporary philosopher was, and the answer was Peter Singer. They were a philosophy major at one point. If you can find these contradictions in the older ones who run with this crowd you can pressure them into talking some sense into the mob. I did a bad job, as this partner broke up with me when I got defensive about John merely being some “cis dude.” Just my experience.
First of all, I want to contradict the one in 8 statement McWhorter makes about gender fluidity. The actual stat (from the very recent Canadian census. Canada is the first country to do this properly with a question on sex registered at birth as well as gender indentification) is one in 300 or 0.33% for the population at large. The stats were released at the end of last month and did not get much play. The reason why he may see a higher rate where he lives as opposed to say someone in rural Kansas is also included in the census -- the concentration does tend to be in urban areas. According to the Canadian census 9 in 10 non binary people lived in an urban centre with a concentration of over 100 k. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220427/dq220427b-eng.htm gives the official breakdown.
Second, it is worth remembering that the US has a long tradition of limiting speech by public officials operating in a public capacity. The current case of Kennedy v Bremerton School Board seeks to overturn some of the existing prohibitions which have existed since Engel v Vitale. It has to do with teachers expressing philosophical beliefs in the classroom and whether or not it tramples on the parents/guardian's long established right to bring children up according their own philosophical beliefs (something which is guaranteed in the 1st amendment, second clause) as well as in the UN Charter of Human Rights. How can religion be said to be free if one cannot teach one's children one's own beliefs?Once people are adults, they have a right to choose their own philosophical beliefs. Does the teaching of gender theory to grade school students constitute a philosophical belief? I would argue that it does and thus is different what is going on at St Olaf.
Third, in the UK, there is currently an employment tribunal going on -- Allison Bailey (a black, disabled lesbian with gender critical views) is suing her chambers and Stonewall (the leading LGBTQ+ charity) because according to her they colluded to withhold work on account of her philosophical beliefs. The tribunal is on going. Yesterday, however, was instructive. In the morning, one of the representatives from Stonewall admitted that their Diversity Champion scheme and training should be seen as part of their lobbying efforts to affect change, rather than an impartial group which is seeking to explain the actual legal position. In the afternoon, complete with his support dog, mother and solicitor in attendance and requiring frequent breaks, Stonewall's Head of Trans Inclusion Kirrin Medcalf (preferred pronouns they/them/he/his) explained why a white male who identifies as trans should fear sharing a bathroom with Ms Bailey and why he sent a formal letter of complaint to Ms Bailey's chambers about the subject. He also denies the existence of male and female bodies and believes that anyone who believes differently should be shunned. It is an interesting insight into the gender identity culture. https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/allison-bailey-vs-stonewall-and-garden-baa?s=r
The right of dissent aka the right to be wrong without being accused of being disloyal is under threat in the Western world. According to Edward Murrow, it is that right which vanishes first when a nation stumbles down the road to totalitarianism.
Very interesting. Thank You.
According to this article, Americans think 21% of people are trans which is part of being "gender fluid." https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/03/15/americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population
To me, a lotta this is to normalize what is, in actual fact, very far to the extreme end of the spectrum. Yeah, every person deserves respect. I don't see where that means every extreme should just be accepted as "normal." That's just me.
You are v welcome. I thought the stats were intriguing. It is lower than the NZ stats of 0.5% but this is the first time a census has actually asked the question properly. Given that Canada is a liberal country and I believe allows for self-id, the numbers should be more accurate.
It is tremendously important to understand the actual population numbers and their location as then government services (including mental health support and domestic violence refuge centres) can be tailored to meet the needs of the local population.
Non-binary accounts for just under half of the Canadian O.33% or about 0.15%. The main difference between non binary and trans is that trans people have generally taken some medical towards wishing to be perceived as another sex, where as non-binary have not taken those active steps.
It is also interesting to see the decrease in the percentage in the non-binary population due to age. It could be down to prejudice or it could be down to feelings of discomfort about one's physical body settling as one grows older.
And as a woman, I do object to having certain words like mother changed which result in 51% of a population being erased to satisfy 0.33%. In order to protect certain hard won rights, one has to be able to define what one is protecting. But this is just me.
"And as a woman, I do object to having certain words like mother changed which result in 51% of a population being erased to satisfy 0.33%. In order to protect certain hard won rights, one has to be able to define what one is protecting. But this is just me."
No, it's not just You. That's the thing I don't get about Professor McWhorter's views. There are a lotta areas where the trans crap interferes with *women's* rights. Who polled women to see if they wanted their safe spaces invaded by males? I'm not just talking about bathrooms, but about domestic violence shelters and prisons.
I'll give You one guess what happened when CA passed a law allowing male trans to be serving in the same cells as women.
According to a Bari Weiss report from the NCAA women's swimming championship, pretty much 100 percent of the female swimmers and their families oppose having their swimming contests invaded by males. The universities demanded the girls not speak out against it, though.
I really don't understand how all this "trans" stuff got any traction in the first place. Why did Democrats view unquestionable support as a political necessity?
It started with Obama, but I dunno anything about the why of it. Wish I did.
"Expressive individualism." What's happening in out society is the culmination of a decades-long (or even centuries-long) trend to unburden the self from any social (or even physical) limitations.
I’m afraid John has got a lot of the trans & gender stuff wrong… I would really recommend both of you read “Trans” by Helen Joyce. It’s very odd hearing someone who is so bang-on regarding most other “woke” or Elect stuff go so easy on the current gender crazes. Especially since John has young girls- please look more into this issue! I also recommend Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier
I disagree. A lot of the moral panicking that's being done by people like the one who runs LibsofTikTok is strictly reactionary--one post from earlier today seemed to say that a teacher's wsimply having a BLM flag and a nonconforming haircut is tantamount to the indoctrination of our children. I look at this as far less threatening to our institutions than the cancellation of heads of departments who are willing to host controversial (read: not completely in line with the predominant doctrine) speakers. In fact, I find nothing disagreeable about the leftist teacher. People are entitled to their opinions and should be free to express those opinions.
Do you consider this "strictly reactionary"?: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1525168605536456704
Whataboutism.
How is that whataboutism?
Totally agree. Kathleen Stock Material Girls is another one. And please do take the time to read the Alison Bailey tribunal yesterday -- the Kirrin Medcalf testimony is jaw dropping. https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/allison-bailey-vs-stonewall-and-garden-baa?s=r
Thank You both. i agree with recommendations. Bought all three, but haven't gotten chance to read them.
And I also agree that it's incomprehensible, to me, how Professor McWhorter can just so blithely accept this aspect of the Woke Religion, knowing what it's doing to Black people. (Recommend his book as well.) What the Woke are doing to Black people is nothing compared to what they're doing to the two sexes, particularly *women.*
Part of the trouble is that there is a wide spread belief in bikini medicine -- ie that men and women are alike except the parts which are covered by a bikini. Until 2014, the US NIH did not insist on biological sex as a variable in research. It now does and they are discovering that gender and sex as variables in biological applications are different. Thus, you believe in bikini medicine (which was the norm until recently) it makes a certain logical sense that you can opt out/alter with hormones. But a person can not alter their DNA through taking hormones or surgically altering parts of their body or declaring their sex to be different as a result of a feeling.
Recent NIH research has shown that heart disease is male/female patterned for example. Last month the UK Asthma and Lung Association announced that females are more likely to die due to an asthmatic attack and that it does have some relationship with the female reproductive cycle. And peptides in tooth enamel currently appear to be binary (part of the reason why they are being able to sex various ancient skeletons rather than going by gendered grave goods) (2017 discovery and they are trying to refine to capture DSD/VSD individuals). It also matters in certain drugs as some are better tolerated by males than females.
Males and females differ fundamentally in the shape of the pelvis which I believe is the primary means of distinguishing sex in skeletal remains when that is available for evaluation.
Yes where the skeleton is not degraded, but sometimes in mass catastrophic events (think the Twin Towers collapse) or long burial little remains. DNA is expensive. The radio isotopic analysis of tooth enamel costs less. This last week, the news mentioned the analysis of a Neolithic tooth as being female and I thought -- yes, it is down to this new technique.
It's discouraging that 20 years after the sequencing of the human genome, we act as if it never happened. Massive amounts of information about humans has been dumped in our laps and we refuse to acknowledge it.
"But a person can not alter their DNA through taking hormones or surgically altering parts of their body or declaring their sex to be different as a result of a feeling."
And the bad part is that some percentage of male "trans women" are actually misogynists of the first order. WiLIAm Thomas is the least of it, but that's what gets all the attention. It's misogynists who come up with the term "front hole" to describe women, right? It's disgusting, to me, they get away with that crap.
There are a lotta cases where You gotta either choose to support trans rights or *women's* rights, where the two are diametrically opposed. I dunno how that's even a choice, let alone the loud people's decision to favor trans rights no matter what anybody else thinks/feels.
I think it has to do with shifting baselines (a concept from conservation which is used for explaining why we don't tend to think about the fall in the rate of bugs hitting windshields among other things) and that people forget the various fundamental battles, women had to fight for -- i.e. pregnant women not going down mines, single sex prisons, and yes, a separate category for female sports.
It is not just the terminology such as front hole, but also the hiding of the actual implications of the medication and side effects. Because of the East European sportswomen in the 1970s/1980s, much more is known about the drugs than people like to admit. Putting healthy females into premature menopause does have consequences.
I found this article about the known connection with Young Onset Dementia interesting: https://www.genderdissent.com/post/transition-your-body-destroy-your-mind
I should point out that many of the surgeries are major surgeries and can have unforeseen consequences as well. I believe the NYT recently ran a piece on a transman attempting to acquire a phallus. Being the NYT, the emphasis was on the need for a quicker rate of surgery, rather than questioning if it was the correct approach to deal with the situation, particularly when you consider that trans people with dementia often forget they have transitioned and can become distressed at the loss of body parts. It is a growing area of research.
Phew. TY for the article. That's news to me. Too bad no way of knowing how many girls get an oophorectimy. If I spelled that right.
There is an enormous difference between presenting various ideas and perspectives to young adults and teaching the gender-identity approach to young children. The "non-binaryesque grade school teacher" presents the gender-identity approach as the right way of thinking. Young children trust their teachers and do not have the same capacity to think critically and to find information from various sources as teenagers or young adults.
Interestingly, the gender-identity approach is very recent, but many people now demonize everyone who disagrees with it as a hateful and backward bigot. I am not a right-wing person, but I regard the aggressive promotion of the gender-identity approach as a form of blatant indoctrination. I don't have any "gender identity", I will never agree to "declare my pronouns", I think that biological sex is important. I don't embrace conventional femininity, but I see absolutely no reason to label myself as "non-binary".
It’s funny. I remember the first time I went to a “queer” meeting as opposed to a “trans” meeting. I felt very similar. The “queer” meeting is actually more political, and has less of a direct goal than the “trans” meeting. The trans meeting is full of boys and girls like me talking about parents, and medication.
I’m actually open to the idea that this trans stuff is a form of mental illness. The spectrum and identity talks open the door too much for hipsters and wannabes, and my experience says this is a serious medical issue.
The defensiveness is more age related than gender based. Who are these young trans people doing the demonizing? Usually it’s college students who just moved out, and have rocky relationships with parents because of an obviously shocking development. In my experience, things settle down, and there is lots of embarrassment about bad behavior to be had afterward.
If I come down on that crowd it’s with the zealotry of a convert. I was one of them. I haven’t been for several years now. Me acknowledging that being trans might be a mental illness would get me canceled. Doesn’t matter that I walk the walk more than a they/them motherfucker with transition and so forth. It really has become a status symbol, I get why people would think I’m this way just to be special. I get it enough to give it the back of my hand.
Being trans fucking sucks. Fuck all that victim shit. Even still, being trans fucking sucks.
Thank you for your reply to my comment, I really appreciate it. People who are doing all the demonizing are very often (if not usually) not trans themselves. There are actually trans people who criticize many of today's trends, e.g. Buck Angel (who is on Twitter as @BuckAngel and describes himself as "a man with a female past").
You say that you think that being trans might be a form of mental illness and I find it very sad that you would be canceled for saying it, though you are trans yourself... I think that the reasons why some people are trans are very complex and often linked to trauma, e.g. a British MP who has recently come out as trans was earlier raped by a man (the MP's name is Jamie Wallis).
I guess that there are also trans people who feel liberated and empowered when they reject their biological sex and I do understand it as a woman who sometimes feels angry because of societal expectations towards women and who feels that her life is limited in some ways because of her sex.
You say that being trans sucks, but without wanting to dismiss your experiences in any way I would say that being a woman who is not trans or a man who is not trans is far from being unproblematic and painless. Plenty of "cis" people suffer because they feel inadequate or even like failures, because they can't find a loving partner etc.
I feel that there are now unfortunately some people who truly jump on the "trans" bandwagon, e.g. middle-class married men who decide to come out as trans women, but continue to enjoy all the benefits of marriage and also actually get more professional opportunities as trans women (this is what some of these people openly admit).
Disturbingly, there have also been some cases of violent and dangerous prisoners who have "come out as trans" because they don't want to be in prison with men...They are sometimes put in cells with female prisoners and some rapes have already occurred, though the mainstream media don't talk about it.
Teens will rebel in ways that will please their peers. In the past it was drinking and smoking cigarettes, then pot and cocaine. Now it’s gender. The slide to decadence mentioned by Glenn is real, in my opinion. It doesn’t seem that any of this “freedom” is making these folks happier. Good luck, modern parents.
Leftists,i.e. Marxists, socialists, communists et al, not traditional liberals, will always accuse their rivals of exactly what they do. They are the real intolerable, racist, homophobic you name it’s!
I greatly appreciated the balance expressed by John.
I have a different take on it. I admire John very much, but I do not consider "the view" John expressed to be "balanced." I have followed Glenn and John for years, and I am always struck by what seems to me to be a tenacious desire on John's part to hold onto the Dem party belief system/political narrative. For example, at a time when Glenn was expressing serious concerns about the effect of CRT and suppression of dissent on college campuses, John was still saying that it was just a passing fad, the way the pendulum swings back and forth, and it certainly wasn't a problem at the institutions with which he was affiliated, namely, Columbia and The Atlantic. At that point, academia was already almost beyond repair. I didn't get a sense, from John's comments in this discussion, that he appreciates the danger that gender activism poses to western civilization. Time magazine declares a male "woman of the year," to cite just one example. Allowing teachers in kindergarten through the early grades to foist their gender ideology on vulnerable, impressionable young children, without parental knowledge and consent, will, IMHO, lead to the destruction of our children, and ultimately, of the West. We are dealing with huge, intolerant, destructive forces, and the sooner we acknowledge it, the greater chance we may have to survive.
Clearly you and I see the world differently, likely more than Glenn and John differ. In my view you equate “western civilization” with a much more rigid, even static framework than I do (e.g. your characterization of Time’s Woman of the Year selection). I won’t belabor the point further.
Singer’s work is important, very, and should not be suppressed. Saint Olaf’s should not support censorship
How can we help Prof. Santurri?
You can consider supporting FIRE, https://www.thefire.org/ which is involved with Prof. Santurri's case.
This is such a challenging and disheartening topic. I lament that the administrators caved to student pressure. I am perplexed regarding what to do about the student body. I am sure it is a vocal minority, but the impact has been the same regardless. I fear that the "long march through the institutions" has a jump start on inculcating "repressive tolerance" into many of our young minds. I did enjoy the work I had seen where you reached out to comedians because I do think that satire will be an important tool to diffuse the tension of the intolerant. I think it would also be important to let the youth know that they are being used as pawns for a political agenda and that they are stronger and more resilient than the dogma will tell them. I hope we have more on all fronts to challenge the narrative and re-instill hope and resolve.
I had a romantic partner break up with me over listening to John during the George Floyd protests. When we first started dating I asked them who their favorite contemporary philosopher was, and the answer was Peter Singer. They were a philosophy major at one point. If you can find these contradictions in the older ones who run with this crowd you can pressure them into talking some sense into the mob. I did a bad job, as this partner broke up with me when I got defensive about John merely being some “cis dude.” Just my experience.
Can you invite him back?