Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Jul 16, 2024 4 tweets 3 min read Read on X
I’m afraid I have some terrible news. The governor of America’s largest and richest state has just signed a law that puts 10 million children and adolescents in grave danger of medical mistreatment.

The media headlines have it wrong. They claim that California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new law protects children by stopping public schools from outing their new gender to their parents.

It does just the opposite. It makes children vulnerable to irreversible and lifelong medical abuse and mistreatment. And it is all based on the pseudoscientific idea that some children are born into the wrong bodies and that we can change a person’s sex through drugs and surgery.

For any of this to make sense, you have to understand what’s happening in Britain. Several years ago, the government appointed a well-respected pediatrician named Hillary Cass to investigate whether it was ethical to block the puberty of children, give them opposite-sex hormones, and perform surgeries on their bodies to make them feel better about their gender. Dr. Cass came back a few weeks ago and said no, absolutely not.

Around the same time, the British government banned puberty blockers nationwide. And, just a few days ago, the new Labor Party government affirmed that it would maintain the former government’s ban.

In her report, Cass said that the so-called “social transition,” whereby a child adopts the identity of the opposite sex, is not a neutral act and has psychological consequences. This means it is the first step toward medical intervention.

What Gavin Newsom has done is actively prevented schools from informing parents that their children have been put on a medical pathway.

This is an outrageous attack on the rights of children and parents. Children have a right to go through puberty. No adult should be able to block their puberty. And parents have a right to know if their child thinks that they are the opposite sex or were born into the wrong body.

We have seen with leaked internal documents of the leading gender medicine group, WPATH, that these medical interventions, namely puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery, are not only irreversible but result in sterilization and loss of sexual function.

Children or adolescents are simply not mature enough to understand the effects of so-called “gender-affirming care.” They cannot, in other words, give their informed consent.

The new law creates the grave risk that activist teachers, students, and outside groups will convince their children that they were born into the wrong body, and hide their “social transition” from parents, which will lead to harmful medical mistreatment.

As such, the law that Newsom just signed is the opposite of what both children and their parents need. We need schools to immediately warn parents if their children think they are the opposite sex.

After all, this is a diagnosable psychiatric condition known as “gender dysphoria.” And if your child has a psychiatric disorder, whether anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, or gender dysphoria, you have a right to know.

And schools must stop teaching children, or allowing other people to teach children, the pseudoscientific and dehumanizing ideas that it’s possible to be born into the wrong body and possible to change one’s sex.

As such, either the legislature, the courts, or a ballot initiative will be required to nullify Newsom’s law. Until then, it is important to spread the word to parents that California public schools are fundamentally unsafe for the millions of children who attend them.
The politicians — @GavinNewsom @EleniForCA @AGRobBonta @XavierBecerra @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris — must immediately stop this grotesque violation of human rights.

The whole world is watching.
@GavinNewsom @EleniForCA @AGRobBonta @XavierBecerra @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris .@GavinNewsom Your garbage legislation is so awful you have lie about it

Your creepy law will be overturned one way or another because it’s grossly unethical and will result in medical mistreatment.

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More from @shellenberger

Sep 10
The media said the case against Brazil's former President Bolsonaro for supposedly plotting a coup was a slam dunk. It wasn't. A Supreme Court Justice appointed by the ruling Left-wing Workers Party just annihilated the prosecution as fraudulent. Incredible to watch. Image
It was a kangaroo court. Bolsonaro wasn't allowed to properly defend himself. Here's Justice Fux (translated)

"And I say, Mr. President, because it is important, and only for this historical reason, that the guarantee of adversarial proceedings and a full defense, incorporated into Western law long ago, was already emphasized in the work of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, who stated that, 'Whoever decides anything... without hearing the other side, even if they decide fairly, is not truly just.'

"This has been reiterated over the years in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly. Article 11: Everyone charged with a criminal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which they have had all the guarantees necessary for their defense."Image
This is Pravda-style propaganda not journalism:

"How to Try, and Fail, to Carry Out a Coup... Evidence suggests this is how he tried to do it."

Pathetic and shameful.

nytimes.com/2025/09/02/wor…Image
Read 6 tweets
Sep 9
For decades, Democrats & @ACLU have opposed mandatory psychiatric care for the violently mentally ill. Charlotte shows it’s cruel *not* to mandate care. President Trump & Congress should require states to mandate care for the dangerously psychotic. Me @NewsNation w/ @EVargasTV
ACLU is to blame for preventing mandatory care of the violently insane. Image
Hollywood and Foucault deserve blame Image
Read 8 tweets
Sep 5
The European Parliament has blocked access to Public.News, apparently in response to TWITTER FILES-FRANCE. @vonderleyen @DelphineColard are ignoring Members of Parliament. This is the censorship that @EmmanuelMacron & @vonderleyen seek to impose on the world. x.com/v_joron/status…
.@DelphineColard and @vonderleyen are obligated by the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure to provide prompt and reasoned replies to requests for information from Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Here is the right-of-reply email I sent. Image
@DelphineColard @vonderleyen Please read and share TWITTER FILES - FRANCE and see for yourself the censorship scheme pursued by @EmmanuelMacron:

Read 5 tweets
Sep 3
🚨TWITTER FILES – FRANCE

L'administration Trump et l'UE conduisent d’âpres négociations commerciales. Leur principal point d’achoppement?  La censure européenne des plateformes numériques. L'année dernière, Thierry Breton,  alors commissaire européen au marché intérieur, avait menacé Elon Musk de sanctions après l'annonce d'une interview avec Donald Trump sur X. Nombreux sont ceux qui tablent sur “l’effet Bruxelles”, la taille importante du marché de l'UE qui lui permet d’imposer sa réglementation au monde entier, y compris aux entreprises américaines, afin de procéder à la censure du contenu publié sur les plateformes, y compris par des citoyens américains résidant aux USA et protégés par le premier amendement de leur Constitution.

Des nouvelles informations extraites des TWITTER FILES laissent penser à une alliance objective du pouvoir politique français, de gouvernements successifs, de parlementaires, d’ONG affiliées à l'État, de médias mainstream subventionnés par l’Etat et d'institutions universitaires, travaillant à inciter le plus influent des réseaux sociaux à censurer des discours pourtant licites et à influencer sa « modération de contenu » bien au delà des frontières françaises et européennes.

Les TWITTER FILES et le rapport “La France a inventé le complexe industriel de censure” révèlent les origines de cette stratégie de censure holistique, pour ne pas dire totale, dont les pièces maîtresses sont les ONG  :

— Le président Macron a tenté avec insistance de contacter le PDG de Twitter de l’époque, Jack Dorsey ;
— Le timing de l’action de Macron suggère fortement une coordination avec des ONG afin d’obtenir davantage de censure et exiger la communication de données personnelles et sensibles des utilisateurs de Twitter ;
— L’enchaînement des événements indique des tentatives de contournement de la loi de la part de divers acteurs non étatiques.

L' enquête TWITTER FILES - FRANCE a été réalisée par @McmahonPascal et @battleforeurope, et éditée par @galexybrane et @shellenberger.
2. « Le président Macron veut envoyer un SMS à Jack »

Le 14 octobre 2020, la directrice des affaires publiques de Twitter pour la France et la Russie a écrit : « L'équipe du président Macron m'a demandé (encore !) le numéro de Jack parce que le président veut lui envoyer par SMS quelques mots de soutien concernant nos nouvelles politiques et fonctionnalités sur l'intégrité des élections. »

Problème : Dorsey ne communique pas ses coordonnées, même aux chefs d'État. « Je lui ai déjà indiqué qu'il pouvait lui envoyer un message privé. Je vais encore le réitérer, mais je voulais d'abord vérifier auprès de vous que Jack ne communique jamais son numéro », a poursuivi la cadre de Twitter.

Public News a demandé une réaction au président Macron. Cette demande est restée lettre morte.Image
3. « Macron n’envoie de SMS qu’à ses proches et à ses collègues… »

La première réponse au courriel de la directrice des affaires publiques France et Russie  est venue de vice-présidente monde des affaires publiques, qui a mis en copie Vijaya Gadde,à l’époque directrice juridique de Twitter et l’un des principaux censeurs de la plateforme.

Cette cadre écrit : « Je sais que Macron n'envoie des SMS qu'à ses proches et qu'il collabore fréquemment avec ses collègues et ses homologues (comme Angela Merkel) par SMS. Pourriez-vous demander à Jack s'il accepterait un SMS de Macron ? Nous demanderons à son équipe de ne communiquer le numéro de Jack qu'à Macron. Merci. »

Le bureau de Dorsey a répondu : « Je vais contacter Jack. Y a-t-il une alternative ? Pour info : Jack n'a pas de numéro de téléphone (je le jure) et seule son équipe rapprochée sait où le joindre. »

« J'ai insisté pour un message privé, mais apparemment, Macron n'utilise pas Twitter lui-même et souhaite écrire un message personnel. Peut-être sur Telegram ou Signal? »

Suit un examen de divers canaux de communication possibles: courrier électronique, Signal, Telegram et iMessage.

Pourquoi donc Macron était-il si empressé d’entrer en contact avec Dorsey ?Image
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Read 19 tweets
Sep 3
🚨TWITTER FILES – FRANCE

At this moment, the Trump administration is negotiating with the EU over final obstacles to a trade deal, one of which is European censorship of US social media platforms.

Many analysts believe the massive size of the EU will lead US social media firms to impose European censorship, including on Americans. Last year, the EU’s then-top digital censor, Thierry Breton, threatened action against Elon Musk after he announced a conversation on X with Donald Trump.

Now, new TWITTER FILES show a coordinated effort by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, legislators, and state-affiliated NGOs working together to force the world’s most influential social media platform to censor users for legal speech and influence Twitter’s worldwide “content moderation” for narrative control.

What’s more, TWITTER FILES - FRANCE reveals the birth of the censorship-by-NGO proxy strategy at the heart of the Censorship Industrial Complex:

— President Macron personally reached out to then-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey;
— The timing of Macron’s action strongly suggests coordination with NGOs on a pressure campaign to win more censorship and demand sensitive user data from Twitter;
— The pattern of events indicates potentially illegal activity by various actors.

The TWITTER FILES FRANCE investigation was led by @McmahonPascal and @battleforeurope, and edited by @galexybrane and @shellenberger.

We are releasing the Files here on X and simultaneously publishing a comprehensive report by Clerótte and Fazi on France’s invention of the Censorship Industrial Complex.
2. “President Macron wants to text Jack”

On October 14, 2020, Twitter’s Public Policy Director for France and Russia wrote, “President Macron's team has been asking me (again!) Jack's number because the President wants to text him some supporting words re our new policies and functionalities on Election integrity.”

There was one issue, though – Dorsey did not give out his contact information, even to heads of state. “I have already advised that he could send him a DM. I'll push back again, but wanted to double check with you first that indeed Jack never shares his number,” the policy director wrote.

Public requested a response from President Macron and did not hear back.Image
3. “Macron only sends texts to people he is close to and works frequently with…”

The first reply came from Twitter's Global Vice President of Public Affairs, who copied Vijaya Gadde, one of the platform's chief censors.

This Global Vice President of Public Affairs noted, “I know that Macron only sends texts to people he is close to and works frequently with colleagues and senior govt. leaders (like Angela Merkel) over text. [redacted] - could you pls. ask Jack if he would be willing to accept a text from Macron, and we will ask Macron's team only to share Jack's number with Macron? Thanks.”

Dorsey’s office replied, “Will circle w Jack. Is there an alternative? FYI: Jack doesn’t have a phone number (I swear) and only immediate team has his contact info to get a hold of him.”

“I am really pushing for DM but apparently Macron doesn’t use Twitter by himself and wants to do a personal note. Maybe a telegram or signal.”

This was followed by a review of various potential communication channels, including email, Signal, Telegram, and iMessage.

But why was Macron so desperate to get in contact with Dorsey?Image
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Read 19 tweets
Aug 31
Conservative populists lead the polls in Europe and so governments are censoring, banning, and prosecuting them. Chancellor @_FriedrichMerz & President @EmmanuelMacron are violating NATO’s charter. Americans should ask why we’re spending billions to defend such totalitarianism. Image
France is on the verge of preventing its presidential frontrunner @MLP_officiel from running for office
@MLP_officiel "In order to save democracy, we must censor, ban, and prosecute the opposition" Image
Read 5 tweets

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