2/ Endless iterations of the Onion thing where people laugh uproariously at jokes about the Holocaust/disabled people/religious beliefss/everything else -- then they make fun of a child actress in a ridiculously over-the-top way and everyone needs a fainting couch. Disingenous.
(From 2017, also Vice)
ONE OF DAVE CHAPPELLE'S OLD STANDUP CHARACTERS WAS A FOUL-MOUTHED CRACK-DEALING BABY
This stuff annoys me because I think cultural criticism, and conversations about what we should joke about, are important. And they are being outsources to people who are either too young or too clueless or too scoldy to bring any context to these controversies. You *cannot*
laugh along as a comedian skewers almost every possible subject offensively, clap along, write glowing profiles of him, and then, when he's mired in controversy, start combing through his new material - but only his new material - with a fine-tooth offense-comb. It's incoherent!
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There's a culture of just total impunity over there when it comes to violence. On Twitter, as far as I can tell, it's rare for people to post violent threats or musings under names identified with their IRL identities. Over there, they know they can do so without any risk.
2/ All the death threats are couched in the idea that *I* pose an imminent threat to the community. That's the line: I'm putting users there at risk. No one can explain how. NBC is at work on an article with that angle, based on the request for comment they sent me.
2/ They're going after Hannah Gais, who works at the SPLC and who I knew foreeeeeever ago (People's Republik RIP). She stands accused of not giving a straight answer as to whether she'll sign (she'll sign, I'm sure), and liking a problematic skeet.
FASCINATING community.
3/ This is like an online summer camp for people who would have been gulag guards if they'd been born in a different time and were capable of leaving their houses. I've never see anthing like it and I can't turn away.
1/ New from me in @TheEconomist Johanna Olson-Kennedy is the most famous youth gender doctor in the U.S. She has long been skeptical of comprehensive assessments, viewing them as unnecessary gatekeeping. Now, she’s being sued by a former patient who argues she didn't get *enough* gatekeeping.
2/ Clementine Breen is a 20-year-old UCLA student. She got puberty blockers at 12, testosterone at 13, and a double mastectomy at 14. She regrets it all and her lawsuit argues that Olson-Kennedy, her therapist, and her surgeon all provided her with lackluster care. Olson-Kennedy’s own notes, ...
3/ ...which Breen’s legal team acquired and shared with me, substantiate many of her claims. For example, Olson-Kennedy referred Breen for puberty blockers at her first visit. In her notes from that visit, Olson-Kennedy explicitly states Breen hasn’t seen a therapist yet and had come out as trans...
MASSIVE scoop here. Many of us have wondered why Johanna Olson-Kennedy's team, which has received ~$10 million in NIH funding, hasn't published its study on puberty blockers. JOK says the results weren't positive and she doesn't want them weaponized.
2/ A situation in which a researcher can ask for money from the federal government to run a study, run the study, and then not release the results because they weren't what she wanted is a situation in which federal funding for science is fundamentally broken.
3/ Congrats to Azeen Ghorayshi -- this is massive.
I don't know what to say anymore, man. There are just no adults left at most of these supposed gatekeeping and quality-control institutions within journalism.
2/ This is the textbook definition of "manipulation." I don't understand this.
3/ This is also just completely wrong, factually speaking. My article drew upon emails submitted as evidence, not some politicized amicus brief. Where are the standards?
I thought the contemporary concept of 'gender' was muddled beyond repair. Then the American Medical Association's Draft Guidance on Reporting Gender, Sex, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Age in Medical and Scientific Publication TOTALLY cleared it up.
Thank you AMA!
2/ Let's affirm everyone's individuality by dictating to them that they have these four characteristics, two of which aren't coherently defined anywhere