Twitter is a Private Company

Paul, please. This is a Twitter thread. If the issue is so important to you, could you please start another thread? Or plop this into the NYT thread?

Thanks. 
i just keep seeing stacks of posts and think things have happened on Twitter, and then I’m disillusioned. 

Suggest younger Big Brother censor this thread by closing it and starting a new one simply called "On Censorship."   

This thread has gotten so stupid even terp stopped posting in it.

joanne said:

Paul, please. This is a Twitter thread. If the issue is so important to you, could you please start another thread? Or plop this into the NYT thread?

Thanks. 
i just keep seeing stacks of posts and think things have happened on Twitter, and then I’m disillusioned. 

It's still a Twitter thread, but it's on a frolic and detour. The thread started with talk about whether Twitter should address the medical misinformation on its site, and lately it's wandered into "wokeness" and some people's definition of it, and that led to the current foolish claim that asking for accurate information to be published is "censorship".

So it's sort of all connected, because today's "Let the anti-trans people speak" claim is yesterday's "Let the vaccine misinformers speak" claim that started the thread.

paulsurovell said:

ml1 said:

I wonder if it would be "censorship" if a group of climate scientists wrote an open letter to a news organization and demanded they stop giving equal time to scientists who go against the settled science and oppose the scientific consensus on climate change and stop "just asking questions" about whether global warming is really occurring.

For some reason, you are still stuck in an illogical exercise of conflating advocacy of censorship with censorship itself.

seriously?

I wonder where I got that idea...

Nice piece on Twitter by Hasan:

DaveSchmidt said:

paulsurovell said:

See above and below.

Now a question for you: Do you see merit to the trashing of Emily Bazelon's eminently professional and fair article https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html by this publication: https://www.sacurrent.com/news/there-is-no-legitimate-debate-over-gender-affirming-healthcare-29429006 ?

You object to the GLAAD campaign. Already noted.

I see merit in The Texas Observer’s writing what it wants to write, and in The San Antonio Current’s reprinting what it wants to reprint.

Did you see merit in what they wrote* about Emily Bazelon's piece?

* trashed

ml1 said:

paulsurovell said:

ml1 said:

I wonder if it would be "censorship" if a group of climate scientists wrote an open letter to a news organization and demanded they stop giving equal time to scientists who go against the settled science and oppose the scientific consensus on climate change and stop "just asking questions" about whether global warming is really occurring.

For some reason, you are still stuck in an illogical exercise of conflating advocacy of censorship with censorship itself.

seriously?

I wonder where I got that idea...

Must have been DaveSchmidt.

paulsurovell said:

Did you see merit in what they wrote* about Emily Bazelon's piece?

* trashed

I gave you my answer.

DaveSchmidt said:

paulsurovell said:

Did you see merit in what they wrote* about Emily Bazelon's piece?

* trashed

I gave you my answer.

Paul keeps using the word "trashed" without any explanation.

[Edited to add] Here are the first two paragraphs of the article -

"On June 15, the New York Times Magazine published 'The Battle Over Gender Therapy,' an investigation into gender-affirming care for young people by staff writer Emily Bazelon. Since its publication, transgender-rights advocates, medical experts and other journalists have condemned the article for inaccurately portraying such care as controversial, misrepresenting scientific research and quoting anti-trans activists without proper context."

"Now, the state of Texas is using it as evidence in an ongoing attempt to investigate trans-supportive healthcare as 'child abuse'."

DaveSchmidt said:

paulsurovell said:

Did you see merit in what they wrote* about Emily Bazelon's piece?

* trashed

I gave you my answer.

Your answer was for a different question.

nohero said:

Paul keeps using the word "trashed" without any explanation.

[Edited to add] Here are the first two paragraphs of the article -

"On June 15, the New York Times Magazine published 'The Battle Over Gender Therapy,' an investigation into gender-affirming care for young people by staff writer Emily Bazelon. Since its publication, transgender-rights advocates, medical experts and other journalists have condemned the article for inaccurately portraying such care as controversial, misrepresenting scientific research and quoting anti-trans activists without proper context."

"Now, the state of Tthree-week battle on a plain near the coal-mining town of Vuhledar in southern Ukraine produced what Ukrainian officials say was the biggest tank battle of the war so far, and a stinging setback for the Russians. an ongoing attempt to investigate trans-supportive healthcare as 'child abuse'."

It will be interesting to compare these false allegations with what Emily Bazelon wrote. Why don't you start by posting what Bazelon wrote that is allegedly inaccurate.

Please leave out whatever you're trying to say about a Ukrainian tank battle.

paulsurovell said:

It will be interesting to compare these false allegations with what Emily Bazelon wrote. Why don't you start by posting what Bazelon wrote that is allegedly inaccurate.

Please leave out whatever you're trying to say about a Ukrainian tank battle.

I didn't put in anything about a Ukrainian tank battle into my post.  It may have been an errant keystroke that pasted that text in there when you quoted me.

paulsurovell said:

It will be interesting to compare these false allegations with what Emily Bazelon wrote. Why don't you start by posting what Bazelon wrote that is allegedly inaccurate.

It's in the article that you claimed "trashed" Bazelon.  Can we assume that you read the article that you say "trashed" her?

paulsurovell said:

It will be interesting to compare these false allegations with what Emily Bazelon wrote. Why don't you start by posting what Bazelon wrote that is allegedly inaccurate.

Seeing as you care so much about it, why don't you do it?

ridski said:

paulsurovell said:

It will be interesting to compare these false allegations with what Emily Bazelon wrote. Why don't you start by posting what Bazelon wrote that is allegedly inaccurate.

Seeing as you care so much about it, why don't you do it?

Glad to do that:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html

A correction was made on June 17, 2022:

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the comprehensive assessment that Grace Lidinsky-Smith said she wished she had received. It was the last Standards of Care endorsed for adults by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, not for adolescents. And the article referred incorrectly to Colt St. Amand’s role at the Mayo Clinic. He is a family medicine physician at Mayo and works as a clinical psychologist in private practice.

A correction was made on June 24, 2022:

An earlier version of this article misstated who leveled the complaints about Ken Zucker’s method in his gender clinic in Toronto that led to the clinic’s closure. It was shut down because of complaints from activists; no parent group complained about his method.

OK, @nohero's turn. Or anyone else who wants to challenge Bazelon's reporting. You?

paulsurovell said:

OK, @nohero's turn. Or anyone else who wants to challenge Bazelon's reporting. You?

You didn’t read the article, yet?

[Edited to add] The two corrections Paul listed weren't facts at issue in the article about Bazelon's reporting.  So they're irrelevant.

Ok. I haven’t followed in depth all the discussion about who wrote what Re being trans/recognising people’s rights to be trans etc, but I do gather there’s enough doubt about the ‘realness of being’ (my term) for people to think it’s a modern, made-up fad.

Check out the experiences of First Nations people prior to European settlement:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-03/the-long-history-of-transgender-people-in-australia-and-beyond/102037662

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-21/sistergirls-and-brotherboys-unite-to-strengthen-spirits/8040928

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/ben-graetz-darwin-drag-queen-miss-ellaneous-rpt/101993206  This is a great interview about Ben discovering who he really is, and what she’s accomplished since. Loved it, and yes, I cried. 

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

OK, @nohero's turn. Or anyone else who wants to challenge Bazelon's reporting. You?

You didn’t read the article, yet?

[Edited to add] The two corrections Paul listed weren't facts at issue in the article about Bazelon's reporting.  So they're irrelevant.

The two corrections were posted as a tongue-in-cheek way to say there were no other inaccuracies in Bazelon's article.

I read the SAC piece. No mention at all of Bazelon's central theme -- the drafting of WPATH's SOC8 guidelines for adolescent gender-affirming care, through the eyes of Scott Liebowitz, a provider of gender-affirming care and a leader of the team that drafted the guidelines.

SAC couldn't address Scott Liebowitz's story, because to do so would undermine its bogus theme that alleges that Bazelon made the case against gender-affirming care per se, in contrast to what Bazelon actually reported on -- the differences of opinion among scientists and practitioners about how gender-affirming care should be implemented and regulated.

In the field of gender-affirming care, there are differences of opinions on screening of candidates, eligible ages for various interventions, waiting periods before giving drugs with irreversible results and when surgery should be performed. And these differences on how and when to implement, not whether to implement, also cross national lines. If Bazelon's accurate reporting on these facts was distorted by the right-wing to make their case to ban gender-affirming care, the response should be to show that Bazelon's reporting actually shows providers of gender affirming-care as committed to "do no harm". And call Scott Liebowitz as the witness to introduce SOC8 as Exhibit A.

The SAC hit job fails.

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

OK, @nohero's turn. Or anyone else who wants to challenge Bazelon's reporting. You?

You didn’t read the article, yet?

[Edited to add] The two corrections Paul listed weren't facts at issue in the article about Bazelon's reporting.  So they're irrelevant.

The two corrections were posted as a tongue-in-cheek way to say there were no other inaccuracies in Bazelon's article.

Your intent wasn't obvious at all. Unless, you mean that every other time you miss the point or push misinformation that those are also "tongue-in-cheek".

[Edited to add] And your criticism of the Texas Observer article ("The SAC hit job fails") is attacking something which isn't what the article is about. Here's what they say in what you call a "hit job".

"For the sake of 'balance' and objectivity, Bazelon elevates a handful of outliers and their discredited theories about trans people to prominence they do not enjoy among the medical community. Deliberately or not, her article echoes right-wing fear-mongering about whether trans kids should be allowed to transition and even suggests their existence could be dangerous to other young people." Emphasis added

Next time, read the article to find out what is in it, instead of looking for what isn't.

[Edited again to add] By the way, this is the second time I had to make the same response to your claim that the Texas Observer article "trashed".  Here's what I wrote earlier -

Paul keeps using the word "trashed" without any explanation.

[Edited to add] Here are the first two paragraphs of the article -

"On June 15, the New York Times Magazine published 'The Battle Over Gender Therapy,' an investigation into gender-affirming care for young people by staff writer Emily Bazelon. Since its publication, transgender-rights advocates, medical experts and other journalists have condemned the article for inaccurately portraying such care as controversial, misrepresenting scientific research and quoting anti-trans activists without proper context."

"Now, the state of Texas is using it as evidence in an ongoing attempt to investigate trans-supportive healthcare as 'child abuse'."

Paul, did you figure out how you managed to put text about a tank battle into your "quote" of my post?

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

It will be interesting to compare these false allegations with what Emily Bazelon wrote. Why don't you start by posting what Bazelon wrote that is allegedly inaccurate.

Please leave out whatever you're trying to say about a Ukrainian tank battle.

I didn't put in anything about a Ukrainian tank battle into my post.  It may have been an errant keystroke that pasted that text in there when you quoted me.

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

OK, @nohero's turn. Or anyone else who wants to challenge Bazelon's reporting. You?

You didn’t read the article, yet?

[Edited to add] The two corrections Paul listed weren't facts at issue in the article about Bazelon's reporting.  So they're irrelevant.

The two corrections were posted as a tongue-in-cheek way to say there were no other inaccuracies in Bazelon's article.

Your intent wasn't obvious at all. Unless, you mean that every other time you miss the point or push misinformation that those are also "tongue-in-cheek".

[Edited to add] And your criticism of the Texas Observer article ("The SAC hit job fails") is attacking something which isn't what the article is about. Here's what they say in what you call a "hit job".

"For the sake of 'balance' and objectivity, Bazelon elevates a handful of outliers and their discredited theories about trans people to prominence they do not enjoy among the medical community. Deliberately or not, her article echoes right-wing fear-mongering about whether trans kids should be allowed to transition and even suggests their existence could be dangerous to other young people." Emphasis added

Next time, read the article to find out what is in it, instead of looking for what isn't.

[Edited again to add] By the way, this is the second time I had to make the same response to your claim that the Texas Observer article "trashed".  Here's what I wrote earlier -

Paul keeps using the word "trashed" without any explanation.

[Edited to add] Here are the first two paragraphs of the article -

"On June 15, the New York Times Magazine published 'The Battle Over Gender Therapy,' an investigation into gender-affirming care for young people by staff writer Emily Bazelon. Since its publication, transgender-rights advocates, medical experts and other journalists have condemned the article for inaccurately portraying such care as controversial, misrepresenting scientific research and quoting anti-trans activists without proper context."

"Now, the state of Texas is using it as evidence in an ongoing attempt to investigate trans-supportive healthcare as 'child abuse'."

With regard to the "corrections," as usual you display an absence of a sense of humor.

With regard to your response to my critique of SAC, you're merely parroting SAC, not verifying that its allegations are accurate.

Bazelon's story line runs through the experience of gender-affirming care provider and leader of the team writing the adolescent chapter of the SOC8 guidelines, Scott Liebowitz. His team's mission is to compile best-practices guidelines that reflect the views of the provider community -- which are not monolithic (i.e. the science is not "settled" -- it never is). Bazelon reports on that diversity of views.

Scott Liebowitz and his team also have to deal with the real-world threat of opposition to any gender-affirming care (total bans) by citizen organizations and state officials. Scott's concerns about his own state of Ohio's efforts to ban all care and developments in other states are a continuous theme of the article.

Reminder -- SAC doesn't acknowledge the existence of Scott Liebowitz and his central role in the article. It's almost like he's been "canceled".

In order to report accurately on the complex dynamic of the diverse views and interests that come into play, it's necessary for a reporter to interview the players -- not to censor the players that one doesn't like, as SAC, GLAAD and you (of course) are advocating. There is a diversity of opinion about this issue and a real reporter reports on that diversity.

This segment from the SAC article that you quote typifies its censorial attitude:

For the sake of 'balance' and objectivity, Bazelon elevates a handful of outliers and their discredited theories about trans people to prominence they do not enjoy among the medical community. Deliberately or not, her article echoes right-wing fear-mongering about whether trans kids should be allowed to transition and even suggests their existence could be dangerous to other young people."

If you're going to defend SAC and not merely regurgitate it, you need to verify its allegations:

-- Who are the "outliers" that Bazelon "elevated to prominence"?

-- And who has "discredited" their theories?

And in general, should reporters refrain from interviewing people who aren't "prominent" because that would "elevate" them?

You also have to justify SAC's subtle demagogic language that Bazelon didn't just "report" on right-wing fear-mongering, she "echoed" right-wing fear-mongering. That's weasel language to distort Bazelon's article and to mislead people who didn't read the article. You sound like one of them.

nohero said:

Paul, did you figure out how you managed to put text about a tank battle into your "quote" of my post?

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

It will be interesting to compare these false allegations with what Emily Bazelon wrote. Why don't you start by posting what Bazelon wrote that is allegedly inaccurate.

Please leave out whatever you're trying to say about a Ukrainian tank battle.

I didn't put in anything about a Ukrainian tank battle into my post.  It may have been an errant keystroke that pasted that text in there when you quoted me.

Could have been an errant keystroke.

wow - you guys should have started a new thread for this!  I still have little idea what you guys are arguing about.

paulsurovell said:

Could have been an errant keystroke.

For the love of God, fix your S, A and C keys so they type T-E-X-A-S O-B-S-E-R-V-E-R, the article’s original publisher.

jamie said:

wow - you guys should have started a new thread for this!  I still have little idea what you guys are arguing about.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html

Whether this is good reporting (me) or dangerous reporting (@nohero).

DaveSchmidt said:

paulsurovell said:

Could have been an errant keystroke.

For the love of God, fix your S, A and C keys so they type T-E-X-A-S O-B-S-E-R-V-E-R, the article’s original publisher.

I think God is OK with SAC.

paulsurovell said:

I think God is OK with SAC.

No, I’m not.

DaveSchmidt said:

No, I’m not.

But you’re not God…. Or are you?

paulsurovell said:

jamie said:

wow - you guys should have started a new thread for this!  I still have little idea what you guys are arguing about.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html

Whether this is good reporting (me) or dangerous reporting (@nohero).

ugh - again - new thread would have been great for this.