My latest for UnHerd on the SPLC’s bizarre report on the “anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network,” which could have been produced by a ChatGPT prompt: “Create a dozen infographics linking everyone on my burn list and denounce them using the very latest DEI terminology in the style of Joseph McCarthy but also add a lot of wacky spelling errors so it has that homebrewed manifesto feel.”
"... using “critical reasoning and attention to detail” when evaluating counterargument..." This alone is an admission in the clearest terms that trans ideology - and perhaps other "progressive" strands - have nothing to do with objective reality or the scientific method. It reinforces the impression of trans ideology as being religious in nature, dependent on mindlessly accepting what someone else says. Can we chalk this up as another success for Operation Let Them Speak?
Clearly, only the anointed ones who are pure of heart can be trusted to understand or employ (their version of) the scientific method. Gender critical heretics are black of heart and thus cannot ever hope to glimpse the Gender God’s sacred vision. Only to those who believe shall the truth be revealed. Amen.
...“manufacturing doubt” by, for instance, using “critical reasoning and attention to detail”--
my god what a dastardly move on the part of these terrible satanic forces; who would have thought even those loathsome TERFs capable of deploying critical reasoning and attention to detail in their ceaseless campaign againt decency..
Why do these idiots remind me of terrorists? Because they suppress anyone who disagrees with them. Including trans widows, the ex-wives. I now have data on 56 of us. It's not a pretty picture. More than half of us were coerced, then defamed. One third of us, 20/56, were sexually assaulted by demanding husband wearing panties. Just sayin' as I have the only data in the world on our experiences.
If you follow the link above and select the manipulation article you find more of the quote, that one could argue makes them sound more reasonable, and may be they "sound" more reasonable, but argue it does not "Therein lies the double standard many of these expert witnesses use to manufacture doubt: they use critical reasoning and attention to detail when they question the evidence in favor of gender-affirming care, but abandon these faculties when providing evidence against gender-affirming care, invoking severely outdated models and theories and speculative opinions as if they were established, indisputable facts." Helen Joyce recently pointed on in a new Podcast by Henrik Beckheim "Trans is a godless neo-religion..." (I'll paraphrase) that those that tout a new science have to prove it is valid and true, there is no burden on others to disprove it when it has never been proven in the first place. If "critical reasoning and attention to detail" disprove your assertions, a separately researched counter assertion is not required.
“ The authors make the bold move of defining pseudoscience (“knowledge or conclusions we assume were produced by following the scientific method or best practices within a specific field of study — like psychology, psychiatry and various fields of medicine — but are not actually scientific”) while peddling it themselves, passing off unverifiable concepts like gender identity as established and unquestionable “scientific” facts.”
“ The report then moves on to accuse the “anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network” of “manufacturing doubt” by, for instance, using “critical reasoning and attention to detail” when evaluating counterarguments (guilty as charged?) “
Crazytown.
Why is there not more discussion of what the hell has happened to the SPCL and ACLU and other like orgs? Can FIRE or the Free Press get in touch with the founders or early members of these orgs??
I’m not sure if people in the UK realize how insane this kind of stuff is coming from the Southern Policy Law Center. The SPLC is a non profit org from Montgomery Alabama that was set up to help African Americans litigate property damage and violence from the Ku Klux Klan through civil courts, essentially bankrupting racist domestic terrorist orgs in the South. The capture of this legendary institution is tragic, mind boggling, and really scary.
Will you write more about your experience with liberal non profits being infiltrated and captured like this Eliza? Or else if you already have some articles about it, can you link them? Curious what your take is on how these storied institutions have crumbled so quickly.
I once was in a zoom meeting with a woman about my age (67) who witnessed, and at the time, approved, an irrevocable stipulation in his will that 10s of thousands of dollars would go to Planned Parenthood, SPLC, ACLU upon his death. He's apparently no longer of sound mind. I suggested she try to fight it anyway, as these organizations have changed completely.
Made me laugh out loud sitting on my own on a dark and cold evening in London at the real absurdity and constant internal self-contradiction of it all. You are brilliant Eliza. Thank you!
It's situations such as this one that necessitate taking a critical look at the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." It's not complicated. All you need do is ask what your allies - the ones you have and the ones you want and really need - what they think of your new friends. You might be surprised to hear them ask: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
Unless the plan is to hope for Trump to win in November and suppress gender medicine and trans rights activism by authoritarian means, curbing the excesses of gender identity ideology will require convincing persuadable people on the left side of the spectrum in blue states that trans is a dead end at the personal, family and whole-of-society level. That's because it's those people, not Trumpist zealots, who have the access to liberal political decision makers who can undo the laws, regulations and policies that caused the trans mess in the first place. In that fails, they can vote them out of office.
Gender critical activists need to exercise common sense and avoid engaging with people widely and justifiably considered toxic on the left. All that does is make them an easier target for progressive extremists in places such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.
For example, the right-wing culture warrior Chris Rufo, who is now going after trans the way he did CRT, should be about as welcome among principled gender critical activists as fire ants in a pre-schoolers' sandbox.
Genspect made a colossal error when it invited two highly polarizing figures, James Lindsay and Heather Heying, to speak at its November 2023 conference in Denver. Here is what two highly respected journalists, Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog, pioneers in covering detransition and detranstioners, had to say about Linsday on their podcast "Blocked and Reported": [1]
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 [Genspect] 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.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about Heather Heying, another of the baggage-laden speakers at Genspect's Denver conference:
"Heying has said that she has taken ivermectin to guard against COVID-19 and that she and Weinstein have not been vaccinated 'because we have fears [about the side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccines], as we have discussed at length on this podcast.' Heying compared the use of ivermectin for this purpose to taking anti-malarial drugs. . . Whereas all WHO-approved vaccines have shown a high level of safety and efficacy in all populations, . . . there is no good evidence of benefit from ivermectin in preventing or treating COVID-19. . . " [2]
What was Genspect thinking when it selected as a speaker a COVID-19 vaccine skeptic and proponent of one of the most notorious quack cures of the pandemic? How can Genspect reconcile that with its professed commitment to science?
Similarly, as necessary and important as Abigail Shrier's outstanding book "Irreversible Damage" was to the gender critical cause, she made herself and the book's message extremely toxic to potential allies on the left when she appeared on Tucker Carlson's program to discuss the book. Why preach to the choir when the costs to the gender critical movement in terms of loss of support within its natural constituency are potentially so high?
Now, it appears that the SPLC's connection with fact-based reality may be as tenuous as Trump's and his supporters. Not much can be done to prevent a bad-faith actor from penning a baseless hit piece against an adversary. Still, opponents of gender identity ideology should not invite attacks from the left by being seen in the company of individuals who are widely thought to be hostile to our liberal constitutional democracy and its values.
Your post rubs me the wrong way, so please consider some pushback:
You seem to be arguing that the last things needed are "polarizing figures" at Genspect, because that just pushes the gender extremists, and the persuadable middle, away. Do I have that correct?
And Jesse and Katie (and you) are the arbiters of who is and isn't an asshole, so case closed on that. Right?
Quoting Wikipedia as a source of truth is where your post lost any whiff of credibility.
Anyone who thinks that speaking with Tucker Carlson (or Chris Hayes) nullifies the speaker's credibility is not exercising wise judgment. Do you really think there was any chance that Schrier would have been listened to by the gender extremists if she hadn't spoken to Carlson?
Anyone who was persuadable, but we lost because Schrier spoke to Carlson, is not someone I'm interested in having on my side anyway. I don't think coddling the extremist, unscientific views of the far left gender movement by avoiding Carlson or people with heretical Covid opinions brings the far left gender movement any closer to reasonable discourse.
I don't live neck-deep in this world, and was not at Genspect to observe directly. I am not an expert like Eliza or perhaps you. I am not aware of an example where a Vishy approach has worked against a militant, religious movement and I have seen no evidence that it is effective here. Yeah, Carlson and Rufo and Heying and Lindsay piss off the gender extremists. But guess what? They were pissed off long before these 4 people joined the battle.
The thing that I most strongly reacted to in your post was calling Rufo and Heying and Lindsay "hostile to our liberal constitutional democracy and values". That was a low blow and an unsubstantiated hostile characterization. One of our liberal constitutional democratic values is that people can have different opinions—and approaches—than you, Jesse, and Katie. You can disagree with Rufo/Heying/Lindsay, but you can't back up your insult that they are not supporters of liberal constitutional democracy and values. They, in fact, epitomize those values, even if you disagree with their viewpoints and tactics.
One of your crowning achievements is in being able to distill, down to cask-strength potency, complex and multifaceted dynamics, in such a way that the interested (but perhaps as-yet-unfamiliar-with-the-nightmare) reader can take the merest sip and come to grips immediately with the issue without mistaking the complexity.
"... using “critical reasoning and attention to detail” when evaluating counterargument..." This alone is an admission in the clearest terms that trans ideology - and perhaps other "progressive" strands - have nothing to do with objective reality or the scientific method. It reinforces the impression of trans ideology as being religious in nature, dependent on mindlessly accepting what someone else says. Can we chalk this up as another success for Operation Let Them Speak?
But don’t you understand that critical reasoning is a tool of the oppressors?!?!?!? 😜
That's another badge I'll wear with pride, alongside "transphobe" and "bigot" - they seem to indicate I'm doing something right! 😁 😁
Yep. It’s upside down world. The good is bad the bad is good 😜
Just a few short years ago, I would have been mortified to be called those things - now, they're so abused a claim them as my own!
Me too!! And don’t forget that critical thinking is the work of the devil and white supremacy!
Me and the devil are best mates 😁😁😁
Well, that certainly was a word salad of gobbledygook!
Clearly, only the anointed ones who are pure of heart can be trusted to understand or employ (their version of) the scientific method. Gender critical heretics are black of heart and thus cannot ever hope to glimpse the Gender God’s sacred vision. Only to those who believe shall the truth be revealed. Amen.
Sanity has definitely left the building.
Great piece Eliza.
Articulate takedown of unscientific religious cult; thank you Eliza. Will post on X
Perfect critique again.
...“manufacturing doubt” by, for instance, using “critical reasoning and attention to detail”--
my god what a dastardly move on the part of these terrible satanic forces; who would have thought even those loathsome TERFs capable of deploying critical reasoning and attention to detail in their ceaseless campaign againt decency..
Why do these idiots remind me of terrorists? Because they suppress anyone who disagrees with them. Including trans widows, the ex-wives. I now have data on 56 of us. It's not a pretty picture. More than half of us were coerced, then defamed. One third of us, 20/56, were sexually assaulted by demanding husband wearing panties. Just sayin' as I have the only data in the world on our experiences.
If you follow the link above and select the manipulation article you find more of the quote, that one could argue makes them sound more reasonable, and may be they "sound" more reasonable, but argue it does not "Therein lies the double standard many of these expert witnesses use to manufacture doubt: they use critical reasoning and attention to detail when they question the evidence in favor of gender-affirming care, but abandon these faculties when providing evidence against gender-affirming care, invoking severely outdated models and theories and speculative opinions as if they were established, indisputable facts." Helen Joyce recently pointed on in a new Podcast by Henrik Beckheim "Trans is a godless neo-religion..." (I'll paraphrase) that those that tout a new science have to prove it is valid and true, there is no burden on others to disprove it when it has never been proven in the first place. If "critical reasoning and attention to detail" disprove your assertions, a separately researched counter assertion is not required.
The Iron Law of woke projection :
“ The authors make the bold move of defining pseudoscience (“knowledge or conclusions we assume were produced by following the scientific method or best practices within a specific field of study — like psychology, psychiatry and various fields of medicine — but are not actually scientific”) while peddling it themselves, passing off unverifiable concepts like gender identity as established and unquestionable “scientific” facts.”
Loved this article. Thanks for everything you do
“ The report then moves on to accuse the “anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network” of “manufacturing doubt” by, for instance, using “critical reasoning and attention to detail” when evaluating counterarguments (guilty as charged?) “
Crazytown.
Why is there not more discussion of what the hell has happened to the SPCL and ACLU and other like orgs? Can FIRE or the Free Press get in touch with the founders or early members of these orgs??
I’m not sure if people in the UK realize how insane this kind of stuff is coming from the Southern Policy Law Center. The SPLC is a non profit org from Montgomery Alabama that was set up to help African Americans litigate property damage and violence from the Ku Klux Klan through civil courts, essentially bankrupting racist domestic terrorist orgs in the South. The capture of this legendary institution is tragic, mind boggling, and really scary.
Will you write more about your experience with liberal non profits being infiltrated and captured like this Eliza? Or else if you already have some articles about it, can you link them? Curious what your take is on how these storied institutions have crumbled so quickly.
I've written a little about my own nonprofit experience... https://wesleyyang.substack.com/p/think-tanked
https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/coming-soon
I once was in a zoom meeting with a woman about my age (67) who witnessed, and at the time, approved, an irrevocable stipulation in his will that 10s of thousands of dollars would go to Planned Parenthood, SPLC, ACLU upon his death. He's apparently no longer of sound mind. I suggested she try to fight it anyway, as these organizations have changed completely.
Made me laugh out loud sitting on my own on a dark and cold evening in London at the real absurdity and constant internal self-contradiction of it all. You are brilliant Eliza. Thank you!
It's situations such as this one that necessitate taking a critical look at the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." It's not complicated. All you need do is ask what your allies - the ones you have and the ones you want and really need - what they think of your new friends. You might be surprised to hear them ask: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
Unless the plan is to hope for Trump to win in November and suppress gender medicine and trans rights activism by authoritarian means, curbing the excesses of gender identity ideology will require convincing persuadable people on the left side of the spectrum in blue states that trans is a dead end at the personal, family and whole-of-society level. That's because it's those people, not Trumpist zealots, who have the access to liberal political decision makers who can undo the laws, regulations and policies that caused the trans mess in the first place. In that fails, they can vote them out of office.
Gender critical activists need to exercise common sense and avoid engaging with people widely and justifiably considered toxic on the left. All that does is make them an easier target for progressive extremists in places such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.
For example, the right-wing culture warrior Chris Rufo, who is now going after trans the way he did CRT, should be about as welcome among principled gender critical activists as fire ants in a pre-schoolers' sandbox.
Genspect made a colossal error when it invited two highly polarizing figures, James Lindsay and Heather Heying, to speak at its November 2023 conference in Denver. Here is what two highly respected journalists, Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog, pioneers in covering detransition and detranstioners, had to say about Linsday on their podcast "Blocked and Reported": [1]
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 [Genspect] 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.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about Heather Heying, another of the baggage-laden speakers at Genspect's Denver conference:
"Heying has said that she has taken ivermectin to guard against COVID-19 and that she and Weinstein have not been vaccinated 'because we have fears [about the side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccines], as we have discussed at length on this podcast.' Heying compared the use of ivermectin for this purpose to taking anti-malarial drugs. . . Whereas all WHO-approved vaccines have shown a high level of safety and efficacy in all populations, . . . there is no good evidence of benefit from ivermectin in preventing or treating COVID-19. . . " [2]
What was Genspect thinking when it selected as a speaker a COVID-19 vaccine skeptic and proponent of one of the most notorious quack cures of the pandemic? How can Genspect reconcile that with its professed commitment to science?
Similarly, as necessary and important as Abigail Shrier's outstanding book "Irreversible Damage" was to the gender critical cause, she made herself and the book's message extremely toxic to potential allies on the left when she appeared on Tucker Carlson's program to discuss the book. Why preach to the choir when the costs to the gender critical movement in terms of loss of support within its natural constituency are potentially so high?
Now, it appears that the SPLC's connection with fact-based reality may be as tenuous as Trump's and his supporters. Not much can be done to prevent a bad-faith actor from penning a baseless hit piece against an adversary. Still, opponents of gender identity ideology should not invite attacks from the left by being seen in the company of individuals who are widely thought to be hostile to our liberal constitutional democracy and its values.
[1] https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-191-a-man-in-a-dress-in-a#details
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Heying
Your post rubs me the wrong way, so please consider some pushback:
You seem to be arguing that the last things needed are "polarizing figures" at Genspect, because that just pushes the gender extremists, and the persuadable middle, away. Do I have that correct?
And Jesse and Katie (and you) are the arbiters of who is and isn't an asshole, so case closed on that. Right?
Quoting Wikipedia as a source of truth is where your post lost any whiff of credibility.
Anyone who thinks that speaking with Tucker Carlson (or Chris Hayes) nullifies the speaker's credibility is not exercising wise judgment. Do you really think there was any chance that Schrier would have been listened to by the gender extremists if she hadn't spoken to Carlson?
Anyone who was persuadable, but we lost because Schrier spoke to Carlson, is not someone I'm interested in having on my side anyway. I don't think coddling the extremist, unscientific views of the far left gender movement by avoiding Carlson or people with heretical Covid opinions brings the far left gender movement any closer to reasonable discourse.
I don't live neck-deep in this world, and was not at Genspect to observe directly. I am not an expert like Eliza or perhaps you. I am not aware of an example where a Vishy approach has worked against a militant, religious movement and I have seen no evidence that it is effective here. Yeah, Carlson and Rufo and Heying and Lindsay piss off the gender extremists. But guess what? They were pissed off long before these 4 people joined the battle.
The thing that I most strongly reacted to in your post was calling Rufo and Heying and Lindsay "hostile to our liberal constitutional democracy and values". That was a low blow and an unsubstantiated hostile characterization. One of our liberal constitutional democratic values is that people can have different opinions—and approaches—than you, Jesse, and Katie. You can disagree with Rufo/Heying/Lindsay, but you can't back up your insult that they are not supporters of liberal constitutional democracy and values. They, in fact, epitomize those values, even if you disagree with their viewpoints and tactics.
Enemy of my enemy indeed.
One of your crowning achievements is in being able to distill, down to cask-strength potency, complex and multifaceted dynamics, in such a way that the interested (but perhaps as-yet-unfamiliar-with-the-nightmare) reader can take the merest sip and come to grips immediately with the issue without mistaking the complexity.
Hats off.
SPLC is flat out insane.