I think a couple of things J & K don't emphasize enough is
1. how illogical it is to mess with puberty, as the human phase of puberty is right up there with fetal development and the first six years of life in the importance and complexity of what is going on in the brain and the rest of the body, in how monumentally the body and brain are going through a growth spurt, how essential this is to future health, etc. and
2. how robust and obvious the research is that adolescents and teenagers are pretty much DESIGNED to make bad decisions, having markedly less inhibition and emotional regulation, increased need to rebel against voices of reason and increased need to fit in with their peers, etc.
It's all so obvious that it's easy to not think to mention it, but I think it's helpful to continually frame this issue with those facts.
I'm still listening...I just finished Jesse's interview with the Swedish doctor where she describes the documented harms of puberty blockers. It made me think of my dog. Her breeder said to be sure to let her complete at least one heat cycle to be sure she is hormonally mature enough for spay surgery. The breeder kept it simple saying something like, "we want her to have nice bones and smooth joints when she's an old lady". So this is something we know about mammals. Puberty is more than sex organs.
Jesse, c’mon man, Oliver says “related”, not “righty”! Get yer facts straight! If I were even more of a stone-cold maniac than I already am, I might publicly drag you for this obvious anti-British bigotry.
But on a serious note, I’m from Alabama and both my parents are (or “was”, in my late mother’s case) conservatives—shocking, I know. I live in New York now, but whenever I visit my dad, we talk a lot about politics and culture and so on. He’s a thoughtful and sophisticated guy, was a lawyer for decades, but he’s from Alabama and has the accent to prove it. His big gripe about elite New York/Northeast media and cultural types is (and has been for as long as I can remember) that he has a sense that they’re always smugly condescending to him, on account of both his politics and where he lives.
I used to defend my fellow libs much more strenuously from this charge than I do now—though I will always insist that most regular New Yorkers, especially in Queens where I live (Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn are a different story), are not in the same category—but it’s because of precisely the sort of stuff Oliver and Stewart said, and especially the insufferable way they said it, that I’m no longer able to muster much enthusiasm for that kind of a defense anymore.
And to me, the real cherry on top is that Stewart brought on not just a conservative politician, but one with a thick Southern accent, knowing full well how a person who sounds like that will be received by his audience—and even if she was much more articulate and informed than she was on the show, she could always be dismissed (consciously or otherwise) as an ignorant, backward redneck. I personally don’t have a complex about my accent (which isn’t all that strong anyway) or where I’m from at all, but man, it’s impossible not to see what my dad is on about after witnessing a display like that.
Anyway, as usual this is much longer than I meant it to be, but hey, if you made it this far, thanks for indulging me.
I am still listening. But I wonder if you noticed this as well. Jon Stewart asks the endocrinologist what is the harm of waiting until a kid is 18 to do gender affirming care and the endocrinologist says that gender affirming care doesn't mean medical intervention, it just means treating the child with respect and without gender affirming care, there is a 40% chance of the kid trying to commit suicide.
I am 90% sure that is the most obfuscatory language possible. If gender affirming care did not mean medical intervention, there would not be this huge jump on medical transitions. And I am pretty sure the 40% was always connected to medical transitions.
And as for suicide. I do suicide assessments every day. People will say they have tried to kill themselves. When you ask follow ip questions, usually they just strongly strongly thought about it bit never did anything about it.
Also. Self harm and suicide attempts are two entirely different things.
I know I need to hear voices / opinions outside my own view so I don’t fall into the echo chamber trap, but it was almost impossible to listen to such smug bastardness without wanting to throw my phone against the wall. Stewart & Oliver were not trying to change minds or present fact, they were playing to the gallery and I for one can’t wait til a whole tsunami of mea culpas wipe the smug away! Rant over, as you were.
It seems clear to me that social transition is problematic because how does a kid back out of it? With the incredible adulation and support that it is involved now in affirming a "trans child" how would a young person change their mind without feeling like they've let people down? Even more problematic is putting a small child in school stealth so that their peers never know that they've made a change. Can you imagine being a little kid and changing your mind and then having to explain to your entire peer group that you're actually the opposite sex of what you said you were? Then there is also just the basic concept of identity formation. It seems that social transition is the big change from the Dutch approach and probably the cause of the reversal of desistance numbers.
Does anybody else find it disturbing how quickly Americans have gone from “sex change surgeries for kids aren’t happening, nobody would do that!!” to “that’s an intensely personal medical decision, how dare you politicize this”?
American left wing media just completely skipped over the “we can’t believe this is happening, surely the biggest medical scandal of the 21st century” part.
What happened to Stewart and Oliver is indicative of a wider phenomenon, I think: Nobody is allowed to just be goofy and make fun of shit anymore. That’s what they used to do and they’d even say, in effect, Don’t listen to us on important things.
It’s like everybody has to be on the “right side of history” (whatever that means) on every issue. I’ve heard Jesse lament about the end of the “old days” of the internet, when people were just fuckoffs for fun.
We’re all familiar with how this works on the left but it’s true on right too. I remember hearing about the Proud Boys some time ago and they were mostly just a group of harmless dipshits who wanted to drink beer and act bro-y. Fast forward two years and they’re in my home city marching through the streets in paramilitary gear looking like American Isis scaring residents and vandalizing property.
It’s like fuck man why are the stakes so high on everything now? We did we all decide to get so serious?
That link to Carole Hoover’s thread was brilliant. I don’t understand why these people are so obsessed with breaking down the “sex binary.” Even if you accept that “sex is a spectrum”, that doesn’t mean that lopping off healthy organs and “socially transitioning” adolescents is a good idea.
Nov 5, 2022·edited Nov 5, 2022Liked by Jesse Singal
Always odd to hear you guys sometimes mention Dr Edwards-Leeper. She was the psychologist responsible for helping me get on puberty blockers as an adolescent (approved at 14, actually received a supprelin implant [NOT lupron ]shortly after my 15th bday, then HRT at about 16 and a quarter), and although you guys disagree with this stuff I maintain that she saved my life, or at least ability to live a happy fulfilling QOL. When she did my outtake at like... 17 or 18? She said I was one of the most dramatic changes she had seen in a patient because by the start when I wasn't on blockers or Hormones I was extremely agoraphobic, unable to make eye contact and suicidal, when she did my out take she said I was one of the most dramatic changes in a patient she had ever witnessed because by adulthood I was , in the midst of transition, able to do public speaking and able to speak to strangers or basically minimal to no issues, as well as mitigating most of the issues that at least I believe were caused by GD. I know this community is mostly made of people extremely skeptical to outright anti transitioning so I thought it might be a decent analogy. This article, unsure if you guys have seen it goes over how Edward Leeper has been miscontrued by most of the media although I thought the article by Jesse which I was shocked to see her as a controversial figure, as she was quite a fairly progressive person in my experience in 2016. https://www.pacificu.edu/about/media/psychology-professor-laura-edwards-leeper-tapped-expert-youth-gender-dysphoria-and-related-issues
Also, please unblock me on twitter jesse @theofficialgami lol
Agree that this is a mea culpa for Stewart, but I think it has less to do with 20 year old jokes than very recent public appearances with, and defenses of, one Dave Chappelle. My guess is there are people on his show or in his life upset with him about that who then took the time to "educate" him on how serious this all is, and this is his penance. Just my own theory. I have no idea if it's true. But was just surprised that, in the aftermath and criticism of him and this episode, it wasn't brought up
Thanks for doing this one guys. This is a great episode to point someone to who has watched the Stewart or Oliver segments. Demoralizing is right. It’s so hard to push back against this level of Gish Galloping, and these types of shows have perfected the art of sounding “scientific” and legitimate to an audience that is only tangentially familiar with the topic being discussed. When you are familiar enough with a topic to see past the facade, it really makes you question every belief you hold. What else have I been lied to about? It’s really destabilizing.
Don't understand this obsession with people being able to orgasm later in life, my wife has never once had one, and it doesn't seem to bother her
This is the best $5 I spend each month.
Can any of you even imagine someone from NYT doing a step by step analysis like this?
I think a couple of things J & K don't emphasize enough is
1. how illogical it is to mess with puberty, as the human phase of puberty is right up there with fetal development and the first six years of life in the importance and complexity of what is going on in the brain and the rest of the body, in how monumentally the body and brain are going through a growth spurt, how essential this is to future health, etc. and
2. how robust and obvious the research is that adolescents and teenagers are pretty much DESIGNED to make bad decisions, having markedly less inhibition and emotional regulation, increased need to rebel against voices of reason and increased need to fit in with their peers, etc.
It's all so obvious that it's easy to not think to mention it, but I think it's helpful to continually frame this issue with those facts.
I'm still listening...I just finished Jesse's interview with the Swedish doctor where she describes the documented harms of puberty blockers. It made me think of my dog. Her breeder said to be sure to let her complete at least one heat cycle to be sure she is hormonally mature enough for spay surgery. The breeder kept it simple saying something like, "we want her to have nice bones and smooth joints when she's an old lady". So this is something we know about mammals. Puberty is more than sex organs.
Jesse, c’mon man, Oliver says “related”, not “righty”! Get yer facts straight! If I were even more of a stone-cold maniac than I already am, I might publicly drag you for this obvious anti-British bigotry.
But on a serious note, I’m from Alabama and both my parents are (or “was”, in my late mother’s case) conservatives—shocking, I know. I live in New York now, but whenever I visit my dad, we talk a lot about politics and culture and so on. He’s a thoughtful and sophisticated guy, was a lawyer for decades, but he’s from Alabama and has the accent to prove it. His big gripe about elite New York/Northeast media and cultural types is (and has been for as long as I can remember) that he has a sense that they’re always smugly condescending to him, on account of both his politics and where he lives.
I used to defend my fellow libs much more strenuously from this charge than I do now—though I will always insist that most regular New Yorkers, especially in Queens where I live (Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn are a different story), are not in the same category—but it’s because of precisely the sort of stuff Oliver and Stewart said, and especially the insufferable way they said it, that I’m no longer able to muster much enthusiasm for that kind of a defense anymore.
And to me, the real cherry on top is that Stewart brought on not just a conservative politician, but one with a thick Southern accent, knowing full well how a person who sounds like that will be received by his audience—and even if she was much more articulate and informed than she was on the show, she could always be dismissed (consciously or otherwise) as an ignorant, backward redneck. I personally don’t have a complex about my accent (which isn’t all that strong anyway) or where I’m from at all, but man, it’s impossible not to see what my dad is on about after witnessing a display like that.
Anyway, as usual this is much longer than I meant it to be, but hey, if you made it this far, thanks for indulging me.
I am still listening. But I wonder if you noticed this as well. Jon Stewart asks the endocrinologist what is the harm of waiting until a kid is 18 to do gender affirming care and the endocrinologist says that gender affirming care doesn't mean medical intervention, it just means treating the child with respect and without gender affirming care, there is a 40% chance of the kid trying to commit suicide.
I am 90% sure that is the most obfuscatory language possible. If gender affirming care did not mean medical intervention, there would not be this huge jump on medical transitions. And I am pretty sure the 40% was always connected to medical transitions.
And as for suicide. I do suicide assessments every day. People will say they have tried to kill themselves. When you ask follow ip questions, usually they just strongly strongly thought about it bit never did anything about it.
Also. Self harm and suicide attempts are two entirely different things.
I know I need to hear voices / opinions outside my own view so I don’t fall into the echo chamber trap, but it was almost impossible to listen to such smug bastardness without wanting to throw my phone against the wall. Stewart & Oliver were not trying to change minds or present fact, they were playing to the gallery and I for one can’t wait til a whole tsunami of mea culpas wipe the smug away! Rant over, as you were.
It seems clear to me that social transition is problematic because how does a kid back out of it? With the incredible adulation and support that it is involved now in affirming a "trans child" how would a young person change their mind without feeling like they've let people down? Even more problematic is putting a small child in school stealth so that their peers never know that they've made a change. Can you imagine being a little kid and changing your mind and then having to explain to your entire peer group that you're actually the opposite sex of what you said you were? Then there is also just the basic concept of identity formation. It seems that social transition is the big change from the Dutch approach and probably the cause of the reversal of desistance numbers.
Does anybody else find it disturbing how quickly Americans have gone from “sex change surgeries for kids aren’t happening, nobody would do that!!” to “that’s an intensely personal medical decision, how dare you politicize this”?
American left wing media just completely skipped over the “we can’t believe this is happening, surely the biggest medical scandal of the 21st century” part.
Is this what shifting the “Overton window” means?
What happened to Stewart and Oliver is indicative of a wider phenomenon, I think: Nobody is allowed to just be goofy and make fun of shit anymore. That’s what they used to do and they’d even say, in effect, Don’t listen to us on important things.
It’s like everybody has to be on the “right side of history” (whatever that means) on every issue. I’ve heard Jesse lament about the end of the “old days” of the internet, when people were just fuckoffs for fun.
We’re all familiar with how this works on the left but it’s true on right too. I remember hearing about the Proud Boys some time ago and they were mostly just a group of harmless dipshits who wanted to drink beer and act bro-y. Fast forward two years and they’re in my home city marching through the streets in paramilitary gear looking like American Isis scaring residents and vandalizing property.
It’s like fuck man why are the stakes so high on everything now? We did we all decide to get so serious?
That link to Carole Hoover’s thread was brilliant. I don’t understand why these people are so obsessed with breaking down the “sex binary.” Even if you accept that “sex is a spectrum”, that doesn’t mean that lopping off healthy organs and “socially transitioning” adolescents is a good idea.
If 13 year olds aren't children, there should be no problem with trying them as adults, right?
And let's sell cigarettes and offer tattoos in middle schools.
13 year olds aren’t children but somehow 29 year old grad students can LITERALLY be groomed by professors that are 31?
Always odd to hear you guys sometimes mention Dr Edwards-Leeper. She was the psychologist responsible for helping me get on puberty blockers as an adolescent (approved at 14, actually received a supprelin implant [NOT lupron ]shortly after my 15th bday, then HRT at about 16 and a quarter), and although you guys disagree with this stuff I maintain that she saved my life, or at least ability to live a happy fulfilling QOL. When she did my outtake at like... 17 or 18? She said I was one of the most dramatic changes she had seen in a patient because by the start when I wasn't on blockers or Hormones I was extremely agoraphobic, unable to make eye contact and suicidal, when she did my out take she said I was one of the most dramatic changes in a patient she had ever witnessed because by adulthood I was , in the midst of transition, able to do public speaking and able to speak to strangers or basically minimal to no issues, as well as mitigating most of the issues that at least I believe were caused by GD. I know this community is mostly made of people extremely skeptical to outright anti transitioning so I thought it might be a decent analogy. This article, unsure if you guys have seen it goes over how Edward Leeper has been miscontrued by most of the media although I thought the article by Jesse which I was shocked to see her as a controversial figure, as she was quite a fairly progressive person in my experience in 2016. https://www.pacificu.edu/about/media/psychology-professor-laura-edwards-leeper-tapped-expert-youth-gender-dysphoria-and-related-issues
Also, please unblock me on twitter jesse @theofficialgami lol
Agree that this is a mea culpa for Stewart, but I think it has less to do with 20 year old jokes than very recent public appearances with, and defenses of, one Dave Chappelle. My guess is there are people on his show or in his life upset with him about that who then took the time to "educate" him on how serious this all is, and this is his penance. Just my own theory. I have no idea if it's true. But was just surprised that, in the aftermath and criticism of him and this episode, it wasn't brought up
Thanks for doing this one guys. This is a great episode to point someone to who has watched the Stewart or Oliver segments. Demoralizing is right. It’s so hard to push back against this level of Gish Galloping, and these types of shows have perfected the art of sounding “scientific” and legitimate to an audience that is only tangentially familiar with the topic being discussed. When you are familiar enough with a topic to see past the facade, it really makes you question every belief you hold. What else have I been lied to about? It’s really destabilizing.