Jesse Singal talks about science

I found the following talk is quite illuminating, especially the first 35 minutes or so, where Singal reads a prepared speech. He chooses his words very carefully, expressing what I think is an eminently rational and empathetic view. He’s not denying anyone’s existence.

If only people were capable of understanding words and sentences instead of imbuing and overlaying them with their own thoughts immediately. Instead of hearing what other people are saying, they end up hearing what they thought they were going to say before they even spoke—and lose opportunities for making alliances with like-minded people.

People are increasingly of the mind that anyone who doesn’t agree with every hair-brained idea they have is the enemy, instead of welcoming a debate that would prove beneficial to all. Everyone who’s not an asshole just wants safe, effective medicine for all—not half-assed studies that hide and manipulate data, but happen to agree with the foregone conclusion. That way lies not only madness, but danger. We can do better.

Jesse Singal on Youth Gender Medicine by Heterodox UCLA (YouTube)

I’ve transcribed certain statements I liked below.

At 00:17:10, he says,

“I’ve been criticized quite harshly for writing and speaking about this the way I do, which is, from my point of view, somewhat biased. I feel like I treat it the way I treat any of the other scientific controversies I’ve written about, including in my book. But in some liberal circles, it’s very difficult to talk about this and to treat it as a scientific controversy.”

At 00:17:40, he says,

“I do want to make one point about empathy and compassion and other touchy-feely stuff. I really vehemently reject the idea that you need to be trans or gender non-conforming to participate in this conversation for all the same reasons I don’t think you need to be black to write about or study racial inequality.

“I don’t think you need to be Israeli or Palestinian or Jewish or Muslim to write about or study that conflict. There’s unfortunately been a lurch toward a very crude form of identitarianism in some liberal intellectual circles and I just don’t think this viewpoint deserves much respect. I think it’s profoundly anti-intellectual.

“We need to judge people on the basis of their ideas, not their identity, partly because […] no one who says listen to people black people or listen to trans people—they don’t mean that. [Instead,] they mean listen to the subset of that group who believes what I believe.”

At 00:20:44, he says,

“This is another argument I just don’t really respect, the argument that we can’t discuss X because people we don’t like might use X to make arguments we disagree with just doesn’t really work if you play it out.

“There are so many examples of why it doesn’t work that I I feel like I shouldn’t need to run through them, but if I criticize Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, do you know who also criticizes Israel? Nazis. Does that mean we can’t? No one here thinks you can’t criticize Israel because Nazis also criticize Israel. Or if I criticize the federal government, you know who else criticizes the federal government? Far-right militias. It just—this doesn’t work—you’re not giving aid and comfort to a group just because you make an argument that happens to align with what some of them say in some circumstances.”

At 00:23:00, he says,

“It’s like, there was a group of folks who lost gay marriage very badly—and this is another issue that sort of brings back that strand of social conservatism, frankly—these are figures who are not in this to get to the bottom of the scientific controversy or to figure out how to best help trans and gender non-conforming kids.

“They’re in this controversy because they despise liberals or they’re genuinely uncomfortable with certain forms of what I think we would view as societal progress, or because they simply sense political opportunity.

“So, if you’re going to write about and discuss this issue, I just think you need to acknowledge the presence of some folks who have different agendas and who are exacerbating the tension and the toxicity with those agendas.”

At 00:33:20, he says,

“In fact, there has been a recent surge of coverage casting totally appropriate, well-founded doubt on a supposed breakthrough treatment for Alzheimer’s. If someone responded to that coverage by saying, well, surely you don’t care about Alzheimer’s sufferers or their families. That, if you did, you wouldn’t have critiqued this new medication, that person would be laughed out of the room because that’s a ridiculous argument.

“Yet, somehow this ridiculous argument is accepted here. If you criticize youth-gender medicine, you must not care about trans kids or you must must want them to die or suffer other horrible outcomes.

“I think the sheer moral force of this argument, and the personal and professional consequences of being labeled a transphobe in the liberal settings that produce most journalism and academic research, has led to a stalling out of a critical conversation in the United States that should be occurring in journalism and academia”