After spending last month with Judith Butler’s excruciating Who’s Afraid of Gender?, we’re going to move in the opposite direction (readable, practical) for our next book-club read, How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay (notably, before he contracted Internet brain-poisoning…):
I will let Jesse Singal answer that. Mr. Singal is a journalist who is one of the pioneers on the youth gender medicine beat. He co-hosts the Blocked and Reported podcast with Katie Herzog, another trailblazing journalist who had the temerity to report on the detransitioner phenomenon. Both were canceled for reporting inconvenient truths that trans activists really don't want the public to know. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/02/style/what-is-cancel-culture.html
Last year, Genspect made the regrettable decision to bring James Lindsay to their Denver conference to speak on the Marxification of Gender. Mr. Singal attended his presentation and had this to say about it on the podcast:
Blocked and Reported
Episode 191: A Man in a Dress in a Pile-On. 18 November 2023.
“This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse and Katie discuss the furor over a self-described autogynephile who wore a dress to a gender conference. Also, Zoomers discover 9/11.”
\Here, Jesse and Katie discuss Genspect’s Denver conference of November 4 – 5, which co-host Jesse Singal attended. Before turning to the main topic of their conversation, Jesse gives his opinion on James Lindsay and Mr. Lindsay's talk at the conference.
(40:00) Jesse: And most regrettably, from where I sit, they invited James Lindsay to give a talk on the Marxification of gender.
Katie: Yeah, James Lindsay. That jumped out at me, and it strikes me that if you want to be taken seriously outside of your bubble, James Lindsay is not the person to invite to speak at your conference, especially on this issue. Like if your conference is about how to have impossible conversations, maybe invite him. But if your conference is about gender, maybe not.
Jesse: Yeah. I mean, from my point of view, someone like Lindsay just tips you in the direction away from legitimate science and discourse, of which there was plenty at this conference, and into demagoguery. James Linsday is not a serious voice on sex and gender. His talk made very little sense. He just has these, like . . . his theories are very superficial and often misguided, in my view. And he’s a huge prick online, a massive asshole, which does not help anyone. Which most people associated with Genspect are not.
/ / /
(43:05) Katie: Actually, I do want to get a little bit more into [James Linsday’s] talk, if you don’t mind. Did he seem crazy, the way he was speaking, the way he does on Twitter? Because he comes across on Twitter like a giant, flaming, fucking asshole.
Jesse: He was more charismatic and less crazy-seeming than I thought, and more polished. There had been one TV appearance that he’d done in the past that was just a train wreck.
Katie: He didn’t just recite a bunch of citations?
\Jessie: Well, no. He dropped a lot of names. And I haven’t rewatched it since I saw it. He makes all these claims trying to link everything to Marxism and a lot of what he’s saying is what ideologues in general do: accepting different standards of evidence, trying to change the subject . . . He has, like, this grand theory. Yascha Mounk’s book talks about how a lot of this stuff [i.e., post-structuralist ideologies] isn’t Marxism. It’s postmodern, it’s a rejection of these grand theories. I don’t think he really latches onto the nuances of what’s going on or how much of this is human nature and ideology in general. He claims to be an expert on all these different thinkers. I don’t think he is.
That was the temperate take on James Lindsay. Here is part of the Daily Beast's 2022 appraisal of James Lindsay:
Even if you’ve never heard of James Lindsay, you probably know a few of his hits.
He was part of that “grievance studies hoax” a few years back, where he and a couple of other anti-woke activists published a handful of ridiculous papers (the most headline-grabbing was arguably one about “rape culture” at Portland dog parks) in academic journals. It became known as the “Sokal Squared Hoax,” and to its admirers it was a devastating exposé of how far the humanities in higher education had sunk in service of identity politics.
At the time, in 2018, Lindsay insisted he was a “left-leaning liberal,” a fellow traveler of the erstwhile anti-woke collective that once called it itself the “Intellectual Dark Web,” and he was praised and promoted by some of its leading figures as an important and brave public intellectual.
But in 2022, he’s a Trump-supporting, Big Lie-espousing, vaccine-denying, far-right bigot who thinks Sen. Joe McCarthy “had it right” and “didn’t go nearly far enough” during his infamous (and near-universally repudiated) witch hunts of suspected communists during the 1950s.
And, perhaps most notably, he helped popularize the “Ok Groomer” epithet (and hashtag) on Twitter, feeding the right wing’s moral panic about LGBTQ teachers.
/ / /
Along with compatriots like Christopher Rufo of the right-leaning Manhattan Institute, Lindsay has relentlessly stoked both the critical race theory (CRT) and groomer panics, which have already led to book bans, speech restrictions, and history erasures—lest students be taught “divisive topics.”
Right-wing culture war heroes such as former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have embraced both panics, helping to stuff their supporters’ brains with nightmare visions of Marxist pedophiles indoctrinating their children.
So even if you're unfamiliar with the name “James Lindsay,” if you follow U.S. politics, you’ve probably heard his increasingly mainstreamed illiberal ideas (thanks in large part to overly credulous anti-woke centrists) subsequently filtered through Republican politicians, conservative news aggregators, and cable TV/talk radio gasbags.
/ / /
Senior Opinion Editor Anthony L. Fisher
Updated Aug. 09, 2022 1:36PM EDT / Published Aug. 09, 2022 4:51AM
So excited! I’ve read it 5 times. Any excuse to read it again!
I think that's a great choice.
Really important topic, and also those two can be a little divisive, so I'm sure there will be some interesting discussion points!
Why do you say James Lindsay was brain-poisoned?
I will let Jesse Singal answer that. Mr. Singal is a journalist who is one of the pioneers on the youth gender medicine beat. He co-hosts the Blocked and Reported podcast with Katie Herzog, another trailblazing journalist who had the temerity to report on the detransitioner phenomenon. Both were canceled for reporting inconvenient truths that trans activists really don't want the public to know. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/02/style/what-is-cancel-culture.html
Last year, Genspect made the regrettable decision to bring James Lindsay to their Denver conference to speak on the Marxification of Gender. Mr. Singal attended his presentation and had this to say about it on the podcast:
Blocked and Reported
Episode 191: A Man in a Dress in a Pile-On. 18 November 2023.
https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-191-a-man-in-a-dress-in-a#details
“This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse and Katie discuss the furor over a self-described autogynephile who wore a dress to a gender conference. Also, Zoomers discover 9/11.”
\Here, Jesse and Katie discuss Genspect’s Denver conference of November 4 – 5, which co-host Jesse Singal attended. Before turning to the main topic of their conversation, Jesse gives his opinion on James Lindsay and Mr. Lindsay's talk at the conference.
(40:00) Jesse: And most regrettably, from where I sit, they invited James Lindsay to give a talk on the Marxification of gender.
Katie: Yeah, James Lindsay. That jumped out at me, and it strikes me that if you want to be taken seriously outside of your bubble, James Lindsay is not the person to invite to speak at your conference, especially on this issue. Like if your conference is about how to have impossible conversations, maybe invite him. But if your conference is about gender, maybe not.
Jesse: Yeah. I mean, from my point of view, someone like Lindsay just tips you in the direction away from legitimate science and discourse, of which there was plenty at this conference, and into demagoguery. James Linsday is not a serious voice on sex and gender. His talk made very little sense. He just has these, like . . . his theories are very superficial and often misguided, in my view. And he’s a huge prick online, a massive asshole, which does not help anyone. Which most people associated with Genspect are not.
/ / /
(43:05) Katie: Actually, I do want to get a little bit more into [James Linsday’s] talk, if you don’t mind. Did he seem crazy, the way he was speaking, the way he does on Twitter? Because he comes across on Twitter like a giant, flaming, fucking asshole.
Jesse: He was more charismatic and less crazy-seeming than I thought, and more polished. There had been one TV appearance that he’d done in the past that was just a train wreck.
Katie: He didn’t just recite a bunch of citations?
\Jessie: Well, no. He dropped a lot of names. And I haven’t rewatched it since I saw it. He makes all these claims trying to link everything to Marxism and a lot of what he’s saying is what ideologues in general do: accepting different standards of evidence, trying to change the subject . . . He has, like, this grand theory. Yascha Mounk’s book talks about how a lot of this stuff [i.e., post-structuralist ideologies] isn’t Marxism. It’s postmodern, it’s a rejection of these grand theories. I don’t think he really latches onto the nuances of what’s going on or how much of this is human nature and ideology in general. He claims to be an expert on all these different thinkers. I don’t think he is.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That was the temperate take on James Lindsay. Here is part of the Daily Beast's 2022 appraisal of James Lindsay:
Even if you’ve never heard of James Lindsay, you probably know a few of his hits.
He was part of that “grievance studies hoax” a few years back, where he and a couple of other anti-woke activists published a handful of ridiculous papers (the most headline-grabbing was arguably one about “rape culture” at Portland dog parks) in academic journals. It became known as the “Sokal Squared Hoax,” and to its admirers it was a devastating exposé of how far the humanities in higher education had sunk in service of identity politics.
At the time, in 2018, Lindsay insisted he was a “left-leaning liberal,” a fellow traveler of the erstwhile anti-woke collective that once called it itself the “Intellectual Dark Web,” and he was praised and promoted by some of its leading figures as an important and brave public intellectual.
But in 2022, he’s a Trump-supporting, Big Lie-espousing, vaccine-denying, far-right bigot who thinks Sen. Joe McCarthy “had it right” and “didn’t go nearly far enough” during his infamous (and near-universally repudiated) witch hunts of suspected communists during the 1950s.
And, perhaps most notably, he helped popularize the “Ok Groomer” epithet (and hashtag) on Twitter, feeding the right wing’s moral panic about LGBTQ teachers.
/ / /
Along with compatriots like Christopher Rufo of the right-leaning Manhattan Institute, Lindsay has relentlessly stoked both the critical race theory (CRT) and groomer panics, which have already led to book bans, speech restrictions, and history erasures—lest students be taught “divisive topics.”
Right-wing culture war heroes such as former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have embraced both panics, helping to stuff their supporters’ brains with nightmare visions of Marxist pedophiles indoctrinating their children.
So even if you're unfamiliar with the name “James Lindsay,” if you follow U.S. politics, you’ve probably heard his increasingly mainstreamed illiberal ideas (thanks in large part to overly credulous anti-woke centrists) subsequently filtered through Republican politicians, conservative news aggregators, and cable TV/talk radio gasbags.
/ / /
Senior Opinion Editor Anthony L. Fisher
Updated Aug. 09, 2022 1:36PM EDT / Published Aug. 09, 2022 4:51AM
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-banned-ok-groomer-guy-james-lindsay-is-not-a-free-speech-martyr
I admit to recommending it without having read it! So I’m looking forward to reading it.
I have listened to Peter Boghossian roleplay a parent with Stella O’Malley roleplaying a daughter wanting to trans on Gender:A Wider Lens.