Was it illegal to say "We don't know" when public health officials didn't know? Instead, they showed hubris when they should have admitted ignorance, hurting millions of people, killing some of them and setting children backwards in their education, by imposing a nationwide lockdown. Here's an example of how they "followed the science."
The first question we must ask regarding EVERY controversy is whether one side is disproportionately well-funded, institutionally-fortified and ill-motivated (by $, power or ideology) and thus able to manufacture a false consensus. If so, meaningful discussion is impossible.
Excellent analysis of the problem with most transgender discussions by Geoffrey Miller here:
Good thread, in principle. But in practice, the woke left has captured most of the biomedical scientific institutions. If we want studies challenging their narrative, who gives the research grants? Which academics would have the guts to run the studies, knowing it would nuke their careers? Who else is willing to collaborate on the studies? Which journals would even consider them? Who would review them objectively? How would journals withstand woke pressure to retract 'transphobic' studies? Which media would cover the results, rather than ignoring them? These problems seem very severe... and probably explain why we haven't already seen countervailing studies.
Pamela Paul writes in the NYT:
Is a gay Republican Latino more capable of conducting a physics experiment than a white progressive heterosexual woman? Would they come to different conclusions based on the same data because of their different backgrounds?For most people, the suggestion isn’t just ludicrous; it’s offensive.
Yet this belief — that science is somehow subjective and should be practiced and judged accordingly — has recently taken hold in academic, governmental and medical settings. A paper published last week, “In Defense of Merit in Science,” documents the disquieting ways in which research is increasingly informed by a politicized agenda, one that often characterizes science as fundamentally racist and in need of “decolonizing.” The authors argue that science should instead be independent, evidence-based and focused on advancing knowledge.
This sounds entirely reasonable.
Yet the paper was rejected by several prominent mainstream journals, including The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Another publication that passed on the paper, the authors report, described some of its conclusions as “downright hurtful.” The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences took issue with the word “merit” in the title, writing that “the problem is that this concept of merit, as the authors surely know, has been widely and legitimately attacked as hollow as currently implemented.”
Instead, the paper has been published in a new journal called — you can’t make this up — The Journal of Controversial Ideas.
Here is the abstract to the excellent article to which Paul was referring, co-authored by 29 scientists, "In Defense of Merit in Science":
Merit is a central pillar of liberal epistemology, humanism, and democracy. The scientific enterprise, built on merit, has proven effective in generating scientific and technological advances, reducing suffering, narrowing social gaps, and improving the quality of life globally. This perspective documents the ongoing attempts to undermine the core principles of liberal epistemology and to replace merit with non-scientific, politically motivated criteria. We explain the philosophical origins of this conflict, document the intrusion of ideology into our scientific institutions, discuss the perils of abandoning merit, and offer an alternative, human-centered approach to address existing social inequalities.
For the past two years, Billboard Chris has traveled across North America wearing a billboard and carefully explaining his concerns that children and teenagers are being grossly mistreated and permanently injured by those who embrace gender ideology. In a recent tweet, Chris is shown talking to those who would like to discuss these issues:
Thank you to everyone for the outpouring of support. I’ve been at this for 2 and a half years, with the audacious idea that having intelligent conversations out in the real world would help educate millions, and spread awareness about the abuse of child transition.
Much has happened, and we are winning spectacularly. I will try to get back to as many of you as I can in the coming days. If you are media and I have missed your message, please send it again.
Children are never born in the wrong body!
In the process of trying to have conversations, Chris has repeatedly been assaulted by trans rights activists, resulting in several serious injuries. The TRAs are desperately trying to keep the rest of us from having meaningful discussions about the damage being done to children, especially by the "gender affirming care" version of treatment.
I take the position that adults (those over 18) have, and should have, the liberty to do whatever they want with their own bodies. With regard to those under 18, I largely agree with Chris. He recently explained his position to the Florida Health and human Services Committee (I created the transcript you will find below):
In November, 2022, Jamie Reed quit her job at the The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital because she came to the conclusion that the way the Center treated its young patients was "morally and medically appalling." Here are the opening paragraphs of her detailed story at The Free Press: "I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle."
I am a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders. My worldview has deeply shaped my career. I have spent my professional life providing counseling to vulnerable populations: children in foster care, sexual minorities, the poor.
For almost four years, I worked at The Washington University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases with teens and young adults who were HIV positive. Many of them were trans or otherwise gender nonconforming, and I could relate: Through childhood and adolescence, I did a lot of gender questioning myself. I’m now married to a transman, and together we are raising my two biological children from a previous marriage and three foster children we hope to adopt.
All that led me to a job in 2018 as a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital, which had been established a year earlier.
The center’s working assumption was that the earlier you treat kids with gender dysphoria, the more anguish you can prevent later on. This premise was shared by the center’s doctors and therapists. Given their expertise, I assumed that abundant evidence backed this consensus. During the four years I worked at the clinic as a case manager—I was responsible for patient intake and oversight—around a thousand distressed young people came through our doors. The majority of them received hormone prescriptions that can have life-altering consequences—including sterility.
I left the clinic in November of last year because I could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to “do no harm.”
Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care. Today I am speaking out. I am doing so knowing how toxic the public conversation is around this highly contentious issue—and the ways that my testimony might be misused. I am doing so knowing that I am putting myself at serious personal and professional risk.
Almost everyone in my life advised me to keep my head down. But I cannot in good conscience do so. Because what is happening to scores of children is far more important than my comfort. And what is happening to them is morally and medically appalling.
[More . . . .]