Trans controvesy engulfs the NYT

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It's getting tough to argue that this isn't the most dangerous issue for people in media to talk honestly about. Israel-Palestine might even be less contentious at this point.

It's not just the media. Last year Texas declared that being trans is the same thing as being a child abuser and started taking kids away from trans parents. It's so much more dangerous to simply BE trans in the 2020s than it was last decade thanks to Republican politicians with a twisted agenda, and milquetoast centrists like New York Times with the constant need to "both sides" the issue.

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Let's look into the journalist Paul cited, EJ Rosetta. The more you look into her, the more awful she is and the more I'm convinced she is actually lying to push her agenda:

* She said that there was "only one word" in the English language for cis, and even then it wasn't even derived from the same root as "cisgender.
* Doxing a former friend for calling her out on her anti-trans posts.
* Fabricating articles full of unsourced, uncited news, about "cancel culture" and trans activists being unreasonable.
* Retweeting false flag troll ops in order to push an agenda.

She has also apparently been denounced by the anti-trans crowd for threatening to doxx an anti-trans leader's children and falsely accusing her husband of sexual misconduct, all over a dispute over money. Just an all-around nutjob that nobody on any side takes seriously.

You can read more detail in this thread:
https://twitter.com/AidanCTweets/status/1618737075301523456

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The whole thing is just a giant tree of "this person is bad because this thing said so" or "this person is bad because they associate with this other person who is bad" and when you actually get to the leaves of the tree, which is an arduous task on its own, all too often the result is just something really minor, meaningless or stupid.

You're willfully burying your head in the sand at this point. We have repeatedly linked very specific and documented things that Rowling has said and done, and it's not just feelings or vibes. If you want to argue that she's not as bad as Raichik or Walsh, fine, I agree, but to gloss over the whole thing like it's a witch-hunt shows a complete lack of interest on your part in learning why so many pro-trans people feel the way we do about her.

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I'm sorry but I'm not going to watch something longer than the Lord of the Rings movies to find out what the overwhelming evidence is that Rowling is a bigot. 

That's fine, but you ought to modify your argument to say "I don't have time to learn about the things Rowling has said and done" rather than "nobody can ever say anything that Rowling has done that is actually bad, therefore I suspect this is just a witch-hunt."

And the complaint about the time-length is a no-win scenario anyway. If it were a short video, people would say it was just a few things that people are blowing out of proportion. The YouTuber took her time to very carefully document and support every criticism of Rowling so that people could see that it's not just a one-time awkward slip-up or whatever, and now it's too much. You can watch on 1.5x speed and skip around if you actually are curious. I don't think you literally have to watch every minute of it to get the gist.

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because Rowling is so violent and hateful and dangerous that even granting her defenders a voice is a form of violence.

And that's a strawman.

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Half of the internet seems to believe that Rowling is the new Hitler

And that's another strawman. Why can't you engage on this topic in good faith?

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Half of the internet seems to believe that Rowling is the new Hitler

And that's another strawman. Why can't you engage on this topic in good faith?

It's not a strawman, it's a casual exaggeration to illustrate my main point in a colorful way.

It's only a strawman if the basis of my argument rested on dismantling this belief that people allegedly hold.  Whether or not half of the internet literally believes Rowling is Hitler is immaterial to my point that it's not reasonable to ask someone to watch a 3 and a half hour long movie just to figure out how you arrived at your beliefs.

Dude, I don't care if you watch it or not. Just don't falsely claim that "no one will ever give me an example of why Rowling is bad!!! " when actually lots of us do, and that 1 video is not the only thing I cited in the thread.

If you don't care enough either way, it's totally fine.

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Rowling's violence and bigotry and hate speech

.... and that's another strawman. I've never used the word "violence" to describe her.

Like, I would be more than happy to spend a couple hours typing up an "effortpost" that compiles everything that Rowling has said and done (and generally been linked to here) into a single post that we could all reference, but it's pretty obvious that you would first complain about how long it is, and then say something like "well that's not the violence you promised!" and dismiss the whole thing out of hand. It would just be a huge waste of time.

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Then they act incredulous when people say they don't like the idea of giving kids chemical castration drugs when they say they believe they're trapped in the wrong body.

...

Rowling doesn't even really talk about the youth stuff. It's all about adult transwomen with her and whether they should have the same rights and privileges as if they were ciswomen.

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Without having watched it I would assume most of the video is "Rowling liked a tweet by this person, here's a 20 minute segment on why that person is pure evil".

Please. I wouldn't link or endorse a stupid video. You know me better than that.

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Rowling's violence and bigotry and hate speech

.... and that's another strawman. I've never used the word "violence" to describe her.

Like, I would be more than happy to spend a couple hours typing up an "effortpost" that compiles everything that Rowling has said and done (and generally been linked to here) into a single post that we could all reference, but it's pretty obvious that you would first complain about how long it is, and then say something like "well that's not the violence you promised!" and dismiss the whole thing out of hand. It would just be a huge waste of time.

This is the fourth post in this genre that you've written.  This is an internet conversation, not a legal argument before the Supreme Court.  It's imprecise and casual.  I do not have every single poster on this forum's exact position memorized, and if I accidentally ascribe minor elements of someone else's position to you, such as the exact language you use to characterize your opposition to J.K. Rowling, you should just clarify your position and move on.  It is not intentional and it is certainly not some nefarious attempt to strawman you into submission.

Which posters do say Rowling uses "violence" ? I'm not asserting that no one ever has (because it's not like anyone can read and memorize every post year), but it's not like everyone else does and it's some strange idiosyncrasy that I do not.

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Putting all the semantic back-and-forth aside, the central point I was making by bringing up Rowling was the more general point I've made repeatedly on this forum that people who try to provide moderate points of view in this space tend to get smeared by trans-rights activists as bigots, but those activists rarely provide any actual quotes, and the argument is usually based on either mischaracterizing what they've said or trying to link them, even by the flimsiest links imaginable, to very real, very horrible far-right anti-trans bigots -- or, more commonly, people who aren't those sorts of horrible people, but who have already been characterized as a bigot by a successful execution of the same strategy.

And I will reiterate my point that I believe you are entirely wrong, that Rowling isn't "moderate" by any reasonable definition but actually quite strongly on the anti-trans side (though as always I will sincerely acknowledge that there are others in America who are worse), and that I along with others have posted many concrete and valid examples that you have either missed, ignored, forgotten, or dismissed.

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Different patients may have been handled differently by different care givers at different points in time under different policies. For example, maybe the policies changed after Reed made complaints internally, and was called on the carpet for it, and then sucked it up, least she be fired. Maybe this, maybe that.

One assumes that in any investigation, all the patient files will be reviewed. Testimonials to the press by various individuals is no substitute for that, or on what a reasoned judgement can be made.

Be patient.

One person disagreeing doesn't disprove anything, but the fact that the article has been out there a month and I haven't seen a shred of corroboration, or any patient agreeing that they were mistreated, strongly suggests it wasn't true.

I'll keep being patient just in case though.

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Fair enough. What would Reed's motive be for making it all up however? Or is she the crazy one?

Who knows? She could be mistaken, lying, exaggerating, insane, paid off, or any combination or other thing. It sure looks like she's wrong somehow though.

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Agreed, comparing one random trans person as the ideological equivalent of Matt Walsh is ridiculous. All Thomas did was follow the [not well designed] rules that the NCAA put out there. Those rules have since been fixed.

It's not like she fought for this special right or demanded it. The bad rule was made by the NCAA before she even transitioned.

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Fair enough. What would Reed's motive be for making it all up however? Or is she the crazy one?

What stands out is the more identical story and whistleblower testimony about Tavistock appearing in the Times around the same time. She is not the only person on earth making these sorts of charges. Almost every country with a major gender clinic seems to be producing whistleblowers who found similar stuff, and the Cass report/internal reports in Sweden seem to have corroborated enough of the concerns to shutdown the clinics in question.

Whatever is alleged to have happened in England or Sweden or wherever has no bearing on this story.

I have already pre-condemned everything described in the "article" (blog post), and will continue to do so if it's corroborated. I just strongly suspect that it never will be corroborated. We'll see.

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Fair enough. What would Reed's motive be for making it all up however? Or is she the crazy one?

Who knows? She could be mistaken, lying, exaggerating, insane, paid off, or any combination or other thing. It sure looks like she's wrong somehow though.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this (I thought there was a thread all about the allegations, but maybe it was deleted?), but it looks like we can safely label this one debunked.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1631117218019790848

(Sorry for linking an article that requires you to turn off your AdBlocker. I generally refuse to do that out of principle, but this was important enough to read.)

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Wow, who could have predicted this — except for you know, anyone with a brain?

Certainly not the people who were angry at me for simply asking the question of whether the "whistleblower" would have even been able to know the things she claimed (turns out the answer is apparently not) or whether anyone from the clinic would corroborate her accusations (also no, at least so far, even as the SLPD found a few parents who weren't 100% satisfied with the clinic overall)...

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I'm sorry but what do you guys want, a medal?

Sure. Otherwise maybe people shouldn't get angry and/or dismissive when someone asks if there is any corroborating evidence to a bombshell accusation like this.

Like Roman has said, other whistleblowers have said similar things.

Who? When? Did those turn out to be hoaxes too?

This needs to be investigated and if these clinics are not following best practices there should be consequences.

That's what we said all along, while the angry and anti-trans people wanted to just believe it uncriticially because it confirmed their priors.

If you want trans children's  rights to be protected in this country, you need to weed out the bad apple clinics

Sure, if "bad apple clinics" even exist in the first place, which I have yet to see any evidence of.

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1. You wouldn't ask for corroborating evidence of a conservative politician/group doing something unethical/illegal and you know it

I 100% would and I honestly perplexed at your accusation that I wouldn't. Are you confusing me with someone else?

I think you're just salty because you acted like a smartass and lashed out at me and now you're embarrassed to have been wrong. I get it. I've done it myself before, but that's the risk anyone takes when they get snarky. I'm not going to hold a grudge.

2. Why don't you do research and prove that all of those are hoaxes too. I'll wait. I wish you luck in disproving the majority of them, let alone every single one.

I literally don't know what you're referring to here. That's why I asked "Who? When? Did those turn out to be hoaxes too?"