Jordan Peterson Interviews Chloe Cole

Fascinating in-depth conversation between psychologist Jordan Peterson and Chloe Cole. Chloe got caught up in transgender ideology as a teenager. After becoming convinced that she was a trans boy at 12, she started puberty blockers at 13, testosterone a month later, received a double mastectomy a month before she turned 16, and detransitioned at 17.

I saw this conversation last month, but was reminded of it when I read an article by Dr. Peter McCullough, who also watched this video and had this reaction:

I will limit my commentary to a fundamental question:

Why would ANY reasonable and responsible adult believe that an unhappy and confused 13-year-old child has a clear understanding of her “true” gender and sexual identity?

Adolescence (from Latin: adolescere “grow to maturity”) is, by definition, and unstable time of transition. The word shares a common root with dolor—the Latin word for pain. As everyone with a shred a common sense knows, growing up is an awkward and painful experience, fundamentally characterized by instability.

In recent years we’ve witnessed a steady train of mind-bogglingly stupid ideas and beliefs presented on a mass scale, but the mere thought—never mind the execution—of “transitioning” a 13-year-old child to the opposite sex may be the most criminally insane notion that ever sprang from the disordered mind of man.

When, in the entire history of civilization, have adults allowed 13-15-year-olds to make irrevocable, fundamentally life-changing decisions about ANYTHING, much less the decision to undergo a double mastectomy surgery?

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Specialist at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles Advises That Doctors Can Cut off Girls’ Breasts and Simply Restore Them if they Change their Mind

At the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy urges that "adolescent" girls "have the capacity to make a reasoned and logical decision" to cut off their breasts. No problem if they later have regrets: "“Here’s the other thing about chest surgery. If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them!” In the meantime, 45,000 young women and girls are currently attempting to raise money to cut off their breasts on GoFundMe.

Billboard Chris has worked tirelessly for several years to get the word out about Transgender Ideology, suffering at least two hospitalizations for being attacked while doing so.

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Andrew Sullivan Applauds NYT Decision to Practice Journalism Regarding Transgender Issues

Andrew Sullivan celebrates that the NYT has declared that will insist on doing real journalism on transgender issues, even though loud activists, many of them posing as journalists, demand otherwise:

[T]his week, we saw another campus maneuver: an open letter from a thousand or so New York Times contributors, accusing the NYT of “follow[ing] the lead of far-right hate groups” in its coverage of transgender issues. Other campus tactics: a loud demo outside; alliance between insiders and outsider activists; public shaming of named journalists; accusations that the NYT is a “workplace made hostile by bias” (the now-familiar HR gambit); and non-negotiable demands for even more hiring solely on the basis of identity and ideology.

It’s an echo of Evergreen and Yale and Middlebury and Reed. The ploys are repeated because they work and there’s no downside. And almost all the university presidents caved. They held meetings and meetings; they apologized; they appeased; they conceded core liberal principles of free speech and dissent; they terminated dissident faculty; they equivocated and collaborated in the pursuit of “diversity” and then “equity.” In a word, they were pathetic.

And in the summer of 2020, when campus tactics invaded newsrooms, and writers and editors were purged for committing journalism that violated the orthodoxies of social justice, we saw a similar collapse of nerve.

But this time was different. Check this out, from the executive editor of the NYT. It’s the response we always needed from the leadership of besieged liberal institutions before and never got:

It is not unusual for outside groups to critique our coverage or to rally supporters to seek to influence our journalism. In this case, however, members of our staff and contributors to The Times joined the effort. Their protest letter included direct attacks on several of our colleagues, singling them out by name. Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy … We have a clear policy prohibiting Times journalists from attacking one another's journalism publicly or signaling their support for such attacks …

We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.

Readers know I’m often merciless about the NYT, but Joseph Kahn is a hero for the clarity of this."

Continue ReadingAndrew Sullivan Applauds NYT Decision to Practice Journalism Regarding Transgender Issues

NYT’s Continued Meaningful Discussion of Transgender Issues

Apparently, the memo has gone out that we can start relying on common sense again. Pamela Paul, writing at the NYT, discusses the bizarre and unfair campaign of threatened violence against J.K. Rowling. Perhaps this is the beginning of what surely should be a more productive conversation that recognizes the reality of the two biological sexes:

So why would anyone accuse her of transphobia? Surely, Rowling must have played some part, you might think.

The answer is straightforward: Because she has asserted the right to spaces for biological women only, such as domestic abuse shelters and sex-segregated prisons. Because she has insisted that when it comes to determining a person’s legal gender status, self-declared gender identity is insufficient. Because she has expressed skepticism about phrases like “people who menstruate” in reference to biological women. Because she has defended herself and, far more important, supported others, including detransitioners and feminist scholars, who have come under attack from trans activists. And because she followed on Twitter and praised some of the work of Magdalen Berns, a lesbian feminist who had made incendiary comments about transgender people.

You might disagree — perhaps strongly — with Rowling’s views and actions here. You may believe that the prevalence of violence against transgender people means that airing any views contrary to those of vocal trans activists will aggravate animus toward a vulnerable population.

But nothing Rowling has said qualifies as transphobic. She is not disputing the existence of gender dysphoria. She has never voiced opposition to allowing people to transition under evidence-based therapeutic and medical care. She is not denying transgender people equal pay or housing. There is no evidence that she is putting trans people “in danger,” as has been claimed, nor is she denying their right to exist.

Take it from one of her former critics. E.J. Rosetta, a journalist who once denounced Rowling for her supposed transphobia, was commissioned last year to write an article called “20 Transphobic J.K. Rowling Quotes We’re Done With.” After 12 weeks of reporting and reading, Rosetta wrote, “I’ve not found a single truly transphobic message.” On Twitter she declared, “You’re burning the wrong witch.”

On Feb 15, 2023, GLAAD and its allies sent a letter to the NYT, broadcasting clearly that they don't want people to have real conversations about transgender topics. They insist that there is only one side to the story, and their allies have done their damndest to silence anyone with a differing viewpoint with shame, cancelation, economic loss and violence. GLAAD's letter was signed by more than a few people who have written for the New York Times. I waited with interest, curious about how the NYT would respond. The NYT response was very difficult to find on Google, which pretends to be an unbiased search engine, but was worth the wait:

The NYT also released this message that they will not tolerate the authoritarian tactics of those who pretend to seek to discuss trans issues:

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Whistle-Blower Speaks Out at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital

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 . . . .]

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