The American Psychiatric Association (APA) released its Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care (GAPC) textbook and it’s crazier than I thought. In a recent op-ed, @Miriam_Grossman and @LHSchwartzMD call it a “political manifesto posing as a scientific guide for mental health care.”🧵
The authors of the GAPC claim the sex binary is “mythical,” created by “European colonial influences," and that scientific neutrality is a “fallacy.”
It says trans-identified youth are oppressed from “living in a cis heteronormative society” created by “cisgender people in power.”
Grossman and Schwartz argue, “If a brain surgeon told you that scientific neutrality is a fallacy and brain anatomy is a result of European colonial influence, you would probably look for another surgeon.”
Unsurprisingly, nearly 90% of the guide’s 56 authors identify as “transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-expansive.”
“Only those committed to the radical ideas and practices announced in the book are considered experts,” say Grossman and Schwartz.
The GAPC demands that medical and surgical interventions be readily available to all patients, regardless of age or psychiatric conditions, including psychosis, stating, “Psychosis alone is not a contraindication to gender-affirming services.” (!)
An Open Letter to the APA, authored by a coalition of clinicians, educators, and researchers, is currently gathering public signatures. With over 6,600 signatures already, everyone is encouraged to sign.
Some of the most interesting research-based findings and insights from my new @CityJournal piece on the left’s depraved celebratory reactions to Charlie Kirk’s murder 🧵
Post analysis:
Across all platforms, there were posts and comments that celebrated, mocked, or justified the murder.
Many of the explicitly celebratory posts were concentrated on TikTok, where people filmed their reactions; some drew hundreds of thousands of likes before being removed for violating rules against celebrating violence.
On Instagram and Blue$ky, the most common posts used false or context-stripped quotes attributed to Kirk, paired with sentiments implying he hated minorities and thus deserved what happened and shouldn’t be mourned. These drew hundreds of thousands of likes and shares.
TikTok and Instagram Reels also had a large volume of one-minute mashups of out-of-context Kirk quotes, carrying the same sentiment.
Taken together across these posts and platforms, millions engaged with them in agreement.
Cognitive shortcuts:
Bandwagon effect: Believing something because others believe it. A large number of likes and shares on a post suggests many have vetted and endorsed the message; when that number is high enough, the post feels almost certainly true.
Illusory truth effect: As platform algorithms push similar posts, repetition makes users more likely to accept a claim as true simply because it is repeated.
Confirmation bias: When a post’s message aligns with a user’s worldview, they are less likely to question it or seek out opposing information.
🧵How we interpret psychological distress is shaped by the narratives around us—both cultural and medical.
This process, known as the cultural scripting of distress, involves filtering internal suffering through the frameworks available in one’s environment.
Humans are meaning-making creatures. When we’re in pain, especially when the pain is diffuse or difficult to name, we search for explanations.
Adolescents are especially susceptible to this. They are actively forming their identities while navigating intense emotional shifts.
The surrounding culture plays a significant role in how they come to understand themselves.
With the mainstreaming of transgender identity in media and public discourse, it is not surprising that more young people have begun identifying as trans.
🧵There’s an Instagram creator I follow called “Mister Mainer” who makes really funny dog videos. He puts wigs on his dogs, gives them voices, and creates characters—one of them is a realtor named Karen Bark.
The videos are very entertaining, and he’s built a large following—close to 2 million on Instagram, and over 20 million on TikTok.
Lately, though, he’s been posting nonstop leftist political content—“trans rights,” “No Kings” (promoted as protesting fascism), and anti-deportation videos.
He recently lost two sponsors because they have policies against working with political creators.
He framed it as being dropped for supporting human rights.
I’m sure he really believes that. I did too, for a brief period back in 2020, when I got swept up in the same social justice rhetoric. I had only a very superficial understanding of politics, but being part of a group gave me undeserved confidence in my views.
This isn't about human rights at all. It's about a narrow, far-left worldview that employs dishonest framing and childish tactics—claiming that if you don't agree with their approach, you oppose human rights. That kind of social pressure works on a lot of people.
🧵A key claim behind medical interventions for minors is that being transgender is innate and immutable—something you're born with and can't change.
In Skrmetti v. U.S., the Supreme Court addressed that claim. “Immutable” appears 19 times in the ruling.
In the Opinion of the Court, the Supreme Court affirmed the Sixth Circuit’s judgment, which declined to treat transgender status as a protected class—partly because it is not “defined by obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics.”
Justice Barrett wrote that transgender status isn’t immutable like race or sex. It can’t be identified at birth, develops at different ages, and some people detransition. For that reason, it doesn’t qualify for heightened legal protection.
Paris Hilton says it’s her mission to shut down the “troubled teen industry.” Youth residential treatment serves kids in deep psychiatric crisis. She suggests parents try grounding them or taking their phone.
She helped pass 12 state laws—and the fallout is already visible. 🧵
Residential treatment isn’t for teens who miss curfew.
It’s for kids who’ve made serious attempts to harm themselves or others, experienced psychosis, or cycled through multiple hospitalizations.
For many families, it’s the last hope after everything else fails.
Paris Hilton went to Provo Canyon School, a psychiatric residential facility, in the late ’90s. Her expanding, uncorroborated story of abuse has helped pass 12 state laws and a federal bill. I went there a few years later. It wasn’t abusive. It helped me.