Fucking Christ I had the most irritating argument recently.
So Big Joel put out a teaser for his upcoming video on Irreversible Damage. Now, while Cass Eris has covered this ground pretty thoroughly, I’m definitely glad that a bigger leftist YouTuber, and one as insightful as Henry, is taking a shot at it, just like I was glad to see multiple other video essays on the Somerton scandal. Abigail Shrier continues to be a very vocal fearmonger about trans issues.
In the comments of that video someone was like “yeah it’s unfortunate that this book was transphobic, but her new book, Bad Therapy, is incredible.”
Now, Bad Therapy has already gotten two videos from Cass Eris, so I feel qualified to sum it up as like, exactly her previous book but for mental illnesses she thinks are subclinical, rather than for being transmasc. So basically “overreaching doctors and counselors are using unnecessary therapy to make our children think they’re trans mentally ill.” Fun, right? And obviously fertile ground for her to push TERF ideas in a more subtle way without making the transphobia as obvious as she did in Irreversible Damage.
Now, whatever you think of the thesis “iatrogenic mental illness is a common outcome in teens who undergo school-mandated talk therapy” (it’s probably mostly horseshit,) you probably should find someone else to defend that thesis. You know, besides the woman who previously published a bestselling transphobic screed with a large section on how transness in teenagers can be iatrogenic. I would not like to take her word on anything related to psychiatric treatment of children, actually.
(Especially when she seems to have, as her main concern, the future reproductive capabilities of AFAB children. For Christ sakes, the cover of Irreversible Damage shows a picture of a small girl in 50’s clothing with a circle cut out of the picture roughly where the womb would be. Like Christ, I don’t want to hear anything this woman thinks about children!)
But no, when first Big Joel and then I push back, this person wants to argue like “oh but she’s so right in this new book and I wouldn’t read it and endorse if anyone else were talking about it” and shifting the burden onto me to prove that there’s some other person talking about this issue, and a load of shit like that. I think they think they won, too, because I just had to leave.
And the thing is… would you do this for anything else? “Oh this person is a young earth creationist, but we’re talking about embryology, not evolution, so I suppose we can trust them. And who else is talking about embryology? It’s your job to show me someone else talking in this way about the subject and maybe then I’ll consider not endorsing the obvious evangelical Christian grifter.”
No! Fuck no! She’s invested in the idea that parents need to protect their children specifically from devious healthcare providers to protect them from “being convinced they’re trans,” so a second book on the topic of healthcare providers causing mental illness in children is going to be biased at best, even if it doesn’t mention trans issues directly. How are you this dense?
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