Since Evan boasts about his journalism prowess & ethics you’d think he’d, y’know, investigate what’s going on with the kids rather than make shit up and slander people.
I am curious, do you have any documentary evidence-and perhaps you intend to cover this in the upcoming discussion of the attack helicopter thing-of any really bizarre pronouns from a different time frame, or with anything other than "mushroom"? I ask because since all 3 messages you presented were from the same 2-3 month period in 2022, I believe it's very possible that they are all discussing one individual who was clearly causing some...issues... Throughout the whole of the hospital and not just the gender clinic. And while it certainly indicates that Ms Reed was truthful in her testimony, at the same time one individual does not a trend make, you know? I'm excluding the "it" pronouns from that statement because that actually seems to be a relatively common reference to trans people, by gender ideologists as well as GC folks, and because in my book "it" just isn't as completely ridiculous as "mushroom" or whatever.
Overall, thank you for doing this. I think it's really important to provide fact checks to fact checkers, and it doesn't happen often enough imo. Thanks for taking the time and effort to ensure the real information gets out.
On another note, I'm wondering why anyone is making such a big deal out of an adolescent's preferred name being "traditional" or not, unless they are actually taking steps to apply to change it legally... Gender stuff aside here, first off parents (of all ages) name their kids all kinds of bizarre and probably unwise things all the time. But that's a legal name and much more of a problem imo. But kids, and actually adults too, frequently have strange nicknames. My take on that is, who cares? A nickname can change as a person matures. In my mind that's not where we should be focusing our efforts here. It's pretty harmless, and it's also not going to have all the same psychological effects as a full social transition because almost every child changes their preferred name repeatedly through the years. I repeatedly, and adamantly, adopted different versions of my given name while insisting no one use the one I preferred prior because I was now older and too mature for such a baby name. My own sibling, as a full grown adult in grad school, adopted a nickname that is usually a noun, and not name. She hasn't changed it legally, but used it in her wedding ceremony and even uses it on her work email signature and so on. While our parents were less than pleased about it being used at her wedding, it doesn't seem to have caused her any real problems in life. She's an intelligent person and has no gender concerns nor any other mental health issues, and has a very successful career and is quite high functioning, all while being called something that is just weird to hear as a name, even to me years after she began using it. So it's not a trans-specific phenomenon, and regardless I don't quite get all the consternation over something that, compared to surgeries and drugs and such, seems pretty minor and changeable.
As posted below, there’s lots of serious seeming people posting on social media with gender pronouns like slug/slugself because they feel like their gender is slow. If any of this didn’t come with serious medical use and surgery, it might seem harmless and a joke. But… too many times this comes with serious long term consequences. It’s very different than a nickname. Usually you don’t choose the nickname, a family or friends bestow one on you.
I've certainly seen the social media posts. Does anyone here who knows or personally knows of (ie, they are the relatives of friends) more trans people in real life than I do, have any experience with these "neo-pronouns"? I guess I'm just wondering if that's something that is more common on social media and other online spaces than it is in real life? I have only known a couple people who identified as trans or nonbinary, and all of them used either the gendered pronouns of the opposite sex or they-them. Nothing crazier than that. But, these people were all adults, so maybe that makes a difference, and certainly it's too small a sample size to judge a larger trend. So, does anybody out there personally know or know of someone(s) who uses these "neo" pronouns?
Thinking of myself, my siblings and friends, most of us chose the nicknames we have used at various points in our lives. But I can certainly think of plenty of examples where the names were chosen by others too. However, at least in the areas I've lived, it's quite common for people to choose their own names of reference. I think the bigger distinction here is the one Rachel noted below, which is that unlike most people who use names other than their full legal first name, it seems to be more common than not among trans people to become very, VERY upset or offended when others use anything other than the name they've chosen, even if they name has changed 50 times and most recently changed yesterday. That's pretty disruptive in many circumstances, not to mention it can become a big sticking point in relationships of all kinds. And it seems like it becomes sort of an unhealthy obsession with not being "dead-named" similar to the obsession with "misgendering". It's like these people, especially the younger ones, are being encouraged by their social group to become almost tyrannical in their insistance at how they wish to be addressed. And generally speaking I think it's not a good thing when people get too militant about almost anything in social interactions.
I really agree with most of what you’ve said (especially the first part about whether “mushroom” is one patient causing a ruckus or whether they are indicative of a broader issue). However, I can really understand why teachers and clinicians would get frustrated by an insistence by young people about using nicknames (and young people seriously insisting that those nicknames be used vs “deadnaming” them). Can you imagine being a teacher and having kids constantly changing what they want to be called? I don’t imagine at an ED this trend would be as intense, but I do think at some point, if it became frequent enough, it would elicit a facepalm reaction.
Yes, I definitely agree that the severe reactions to "dead naming" add a whole other component to the nickname issue, but that would be the case whether the new name chosen was something "conventional" like "Alex" or "Susan" or whether it was something, er, unconventional, like "Loser" or "Grocery" or whatever. Absolutely, there is a difference between kids changing their nickname once a year, and changing it twice a month combined with a histrionic response if anyone dares to forget the name of the week. I guess my comment was more specifically aimed at the part of the OP that mentioned considering "drawing a line" when a kid chooses a name that is really out there, and not usually considered a name at all.
I don't doubt Jamie encountered this. There are plenty of examples of people sharing their neopronouns on TikTok like clown, demon, frog/frogself etc. But the more interesting part of this issue is why all the adults in the room think they need to immediately adopt these pronouns, write them in medical charts, change records, etc. I think the nurse nailed it: "When do we stop indulging?" Using a nickname is fine to build rapport but they don't get coded into a person's records.
Trying to figure out which are the appropriate vs inappropriate neopronouns/names is distracting from the point that there are very real pressures on adults in these professional spaces to ignore their common sense in order to "respect" these silly terms in fear of some sort of consequence. That is the real problem IMO.
Since Evan boasts about his journalism prowess & ethics you’d think he’d, y’know, investigate what’s going on with the kids rather than make shit up and slander people.
I am curious, do you have any documentary evidence-and perhaps you intend to cover this in the upcoming discussion of the attack helicopter thing-of any really bizarre pronouns from a different time frame, or with anything other than "mushroom"? I ask because since all 3 messages you presented were from the same 2-3 month period in 2022, I believe it's very possible that they are all discussing one individual who was clearly causing some...issues... Throughout the whole of the hospital and not just the gender clinic. And while it certainly indicates that Ms Reed was truthful in her testimony, at the same time one individual does not a trend make, you know? I'm excluding the "it" pronouns from that statement because that actually seems to be a relatively common reference to trans people, by gender ideologists as well as GC folks, and because in my book "it" just isn't as completely ridiculous as "mushroom" or whatever.
Overall, thank you for doing this. I think it's really important to provide fact checks to fact checkers, and it doesn't happen often enough imo. Thanks for taking the time and effort to ensure the real information gets out.
On another note, I'm wondering why anyone is making such a big deal out of an adolescent's preferred name being "traditional" or not, unless they are actually taking steps to apply to change it legally... Gender stuff aside here, first off parents (of all ages) name their kids all kinds of bizarre and probably unwise things all the time. But that's a legal name and much more of a problem imo. But kids, and actually adults too, frequently have strange nicknames. My take on that is, who cares? A nickname can change as a person matures. In my mind that's not where we should be focusing our efforts here. It's pretty harmless, and it's also not going to have all the same psychological effects as a full social transition because almost every child changes their preferred name repeatedly through the years. I repeatedly, and adamantly, adopted different versions of my given name while insisting no one use the one I preferred prior because I was now older and too mature for such a baby name. My own sibling, as a full grown adult in grad school, adopted a nickname that is usually a noun, and not name. She hasn't changed it legally, but used it in her wedding ceremony and even uses it on her work email signature and so on. While our parents were less than pleased about it being used at her wedding, it doesn't seem to have caused her any real problems in life. She's an intelligent person and has no gender concerns nor any other mental health issues, and has a very successful career and is quite high functioning, all while being called something that is just weird to hear as a name, even to me years after she began using it. So it's not a trans-specific phenomenon, and regardless I don't quite get all the consternation over something that, compared to surgeries and drugs and such, seems pretty minor and changeable.
As posted below, there’s lots of serious seeming people posting on social media with gender pronouns like slug/slugself because they feel like their gender is slow. If any of this didn’t come with serious medical use and surgery, it might seem harmless and a joke. But… too many times this comes with serious long term consequences. It’s very different than a nickname. Usually you don’t choose the nickname, a family or friends bestow one on you.
I've certainly seen the social media posts. Does anyone here who knows or personally knows of (ie, they are the relatives of friends) more trans people in real life than I do, have any experience with these "neo-pronouns"? I guess I'm just wondering if that's something that is more common on social media and other online spaces than it is in real life? I have only known a couple people who identified as trans or nonbinary, and all of them used either the gendered pronouns of the opposite sex or they-them. Nothing crazier than that. But, these people were all adults, so maybe that makes a difference, and certainly it's too small a sample size to judge a larger trend. So, does anybody out there personally know or know of someone(s) who uses these "neo" pronouns?
Thinking of myself, my siblings and friends, most of us chose the nicknames we have used at various points in our lives. But I can certainly think of plenty of examples where the names were chosen by others too. However, at least in the areas I've lived, it's quite common for people to choose their own names of reference. I think the bigger distinction here is the one Rachel noted below, which is that unlike most people who use names other than their full legal first name, it seems to be more common than not among trans people to become very, VERY upset or offended when others use anything other than the name they've chosen, even if they name has changed 50 times and most recently changed yesterday. That's pretty disruptive in many circumstances, not to mention it can become a big sticking point in relationships of all kinds. And it seems like it becomes sort of an unhealthy obsession with not being "dead-named" similar to the obsession with "misgendering". It's like these people, especially the younger ones, are being encouraged by their social group to become almost tyrannical in their insistance at how they wish to be addressed. And generally speaking I think it's not a good thing when people get too militant about almost anything in social interactions.
I really agree with most of what you’ve said (especially the first part about whether “mushroom” is one patient causing a ruckus or whether they are indicative of a broader issue). However, I can really understand why teachers and clinicians would get frustrated by an insistence by young people about using nicknames (and young people seriously insisting that those nicknames be used vs “deadnaming” them). Can you imagine being a teacher and having kids constantly changing what they want to be called? I don’t imagine at an ED this trend would be as intense, but I do think at some point, if it became frequent enough, it would elicit a facepalm reaction.
Yes, I definitely agree that the severe reactions to "dead naming" add a whole other component to the nickname issue, but that would be the case whether the new name chosen was something "conventional" like "Alex" or "Susan" or whether it was something, er, unconventional, like "Loser" or "Grocery" or whatever. Absolutely, there is a difference between kids changing their nickname once a year, and changing it twice a month combined with a histrionic response if anyone dares to forget the name of the week. I guess my comment was more specifically aimed at the part of the OP that mentioned considering "drawing a line" when a kid chooses a name that is really out there, and not usually considered a name at all.
I don't doubt Jamie encountered this. There are plenty of examples of people sharing their neopronouns on TikTok like clown, demon, frog/frogself etc. But the more interesting part of this issue is why all the adults in the room think they need to immediately adopt these pronouns, write them in medical charts, change records, etc. I think the nurse nailed it: "When do we stop indulging?" Using a nickname is fine to build rapport but they don't get coded into a person's records.
Trying to figure out which are the appropriate vs inappropriate neopronouns/names is distracting from the point that there are very real pressures on adults in these professional spaces to ignore their common sense in order to "respect" these silly terms in fear of some sort of consequence. That is the real problem IMO.
Jesse Singal chuckles when discussing poor Evan. Slate magazine is online rag. Debunking a debunker is fine, but consider the source.