"How can official orthodoxies persist for so long even when few people believe them?"

Megan McArdle asks, in "The transgender orthodoxy is cracking/Malpractice suit and shifting clinical guidelines show cracks in transgender orthodoxy" (WaPo)(referencing the book "Private Truths, Public Lies" by political scientist Timur Kuran).

Public orthodoxies that diverge from private opinion may be surprisingly stable, but they can also prove remarkably unstable, because they depend on private thoughts to stay private, giving doubters the illusion that they are lone deviants rather than members of a silent majority....

Why is this surprising? It's the familiar story of "The Emperor's New Clothes," which everyone has always easily understood.  

Starting around 2015, an orthodoxy on transgender issues crystallized, seemingly out of nowhere....

Once you've said "2015," you've got your answer staring you in the face! Why don't you see it? That was the year gay people won their great victory, a right to marry, in Obergefell v. Hodges. McArdle has "an orthodoxy... crystalliz[ing]" — as if a mysterious disembodied force emerged out of nothing — ex nihilo!

But real human beings were involved and their incentive to acquire a new cause is obvious. The activists had won, but they still needed to work, they still needed contributions, they still needed to push conventional people to move forward into challenging new territory. They couldn't just allow people to become decently accepting and empathetic to the gay people who, after all, are human beings who sometimes love each other and want a home and a family. Remember that moment?

That made too much sense. Ordinary people relaxed. Got comfortable.

By the time I went to the Ivy League swimming championships in 2022 to cover the controversy over a trans swimmer, people I talked to evinced a wariness that seemed more appropriate to a Cold War spy novel than to citizens of a free republic....

What happened?

"A jury on Jan. 30 found a psychologist and surgeon liable for malpractice after they supported and performed breast removal surgery..."

"... on a 16-year-old girl who at the time identified as transgender. Fox Varian, now 22 and no longer identifying as transgender, was awarded $2 million in damages.... The jury found that in many respects the surgeon and psychologist had skipped important steps when evaluating whether she should go forward with the surgery and had not adequately communicated with each other. These missteps were a 'departure from the standard of care,' they decided."

National Review reports.

ADDED: Benjamin Ryan writes, at X: "I was the only reporter to attend the entire 3-week, historic trial.... The entire case file was put under seal when the trial started (although I obtained all those documents before they was sealed), and all the transcripts from the trial are also under seal. The riveting trial was sparsely attended and there was only one other reporter at the trial; and he only attended for part of it and, as I observed, took few notes. So my own hundreds of pages of notes from the trial will likely remain the only way for the public to learn about the all finer details of what transpired, possibly ever (or until an appeal, should that happen)...."

"... writhing in the throes of transphobia—expressed as homophilia..."

A striking phrase, found in Nell Zink's "Sister Europe: A Novel" (commission earned).

A bit of context: "He felt an unexamined, eminently absurd pity for the lonely royal. In parallel (the two trains of thought never crossed), he felt that additional exposure to him would be good for Demian, who was writhing in the throes of transphobia—expressed as homophilia—and clearly hoped Nicole would emerge from her gaudy chrysalis as just another twink in golf duds."

"Live Updates: Transgender Athletes Ask Supreme Court to Overturn State Bans."

Here's a gift link to the New York Times, which has been providing a lot of clips and quotes and summaries.

I listened to a big segment of the oral argument, which has already been going on for more than 2 hours, but it's not over yet, so drop in over here if you want to get a sense of how it is going.

I'll just make one observation, about something I was hearing for the first time, which is the idea that male-bodied persons who take puberty blockers might be disadvantaged in sports because they have larger bones but these bones are not powered by the strength and drive that the testosterone of puberty would have provided. By taking puberty blockers, they are choosing to go forward with underpowered bodies. That is, in this way, these children not only don't have an advantage if they play in girls' sports, they have a disadvantage!

ADDED: An interesting comment by Adam Liptak over in the NYT live updates: "The question before the court is whether states may exclude transgender athletes from women’s sports. Questions from Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan raise an issue not directly before the court: must states exclude them?"

AND: You can listen to the entire argument here, at YouTube.

ALSO: Here's that argument that struck me. From the transcript, page 112, Kathleen R. Hartnett, for the respondents: 

"But I think the point is that sometimes counter-intuitively it's like having a larger frame but not having the muscle and the testosterone to drive it could actually put the person in a worse position. And that's a study that was commissioned by the Olympic Committee -- it's Footnote 6 of our brief -- indicates that actually it could be actually put the transgender woman at a disadvantage if they happen to have larger bones and less testosterone or muscle to drive those bones."

"My implicit equation of attention is: Curiosity plus conflict equals attention."

Says Ezra Klein, in his podcast, which is titled "Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left?" (NYT).

Talarico is on the podcast because, as Klein puts it, he "was breaking through on TikTok, Instagram and viral videos" and "ended up on Joe Rogan’s podcast — the first significant Democrat that Rogan seemed interested in, in a very long time."

And now "Talarico is running for Senate in Texas. He’s running in a primary with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett...." There's no other mention of Crockett in the article. Why not? Talarico was never invited to speak against her, but this podcast is clearly boosting him, which is inherently against her. I presume hardcore Democrats, focused on winning the Texas Senate seat, don't want Crockett to win the primary.

The question isn't really Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left? It's Can James Talarico Seize the Nomination from Crockett?

Ezra Klein says: "The biggest concern I hear about you in Texas is that you’re sort of a liberal’s idea of what a Christian politician should be."

Ricky Gervais "would like to thank God and the trans community."

Says Wanda Sykes accepting the Golden Globe for the absent Ricky:

Wanda Sykes calls out Ricky Gervais' transphobia while accepting the Golden Globe for Best Stand-Up Comedy Performance on his behalf: "He would like to thank God and the trans community."
byu/voguediaries inFauxmoi

ADDED: I did not interpret Sykes's statement as "call[ing] out Ricky Gervais' transphobia" any more than I thought she was calling out his atheism. I didn't notice the text when I chose the Reddit clip. Reading it now, I just think it's wrong. It doesn't match what I thought when I first read it. I was just looking for a clip to embed and that Reddit presentation popped up. My immediate interpretation: I thought she was tweaking the over-eager defenders of trans people for going after her fellow comedian. 

Trump would like to be even more effusive in his female impersonation.

Strip away the context and it's fun for all:

"The federal government on Thursday acted to put an end to gender-related care for minors across the nation, threatening to pull federal funding from any hospital that offered such treatment...."

"The administration’s action is not just a regulatory shift but the latest signal that the federal government does not recognize even the existence of people whose gender identity does not align with their sex at birth. If finalized, the proposed new rules, announced by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a news conference Thursday morning, would effectively shut down hospitals that failed to comply.... The new rules come one day after a divided House of Representatives voted to approve legislation that would criminalize gender transition treatments for minors.... Another [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] rule would prevent Medicaid from paying for the treatments for minors. And the Food and Drug Administration announced that it was issuing warning letters to 12 manufacturers of breast binders, tight garments used to flatten and masculinize chest appearance under clothing, for 'illegal marketing' of the products to children as a treatment for gender dysphoria.... Mr. Kennedy cited [an HHS report] to argue that the treatments do not meet professionally recognized standards for medical care...."

From "Trump Moves to Prevent Access to Gender-Related Care for Minors/Proposed new rules would pull all federal financing from hospitals that continue to provide gender treatments for adolescents" (NYT).

The NYT expresses worries about denying "the existence of people whose gender identity does not align with their sex at birth," but recognizing the existence of transgender persons does not dictate the belief that they require medical treatment or that the currently proffered treatments are ethical. There are many phenomena that are recognized but not treated. That's the basis of the old credo "First, do no harm." 

Jeffree Star demonstrates how it's done.

On TikTok:

"He describes how — in his view — his ex-wife weaponised gender medicine to cut him out of his daughter’s life..."

"... how his daughter went from being sectioned for anorexia to being affirmed in her trans identity by all the adults in her life except him, how she was given a prescription for testosterone after one online session with a counsellor, and how this was injected by her local NHS GP with no blood tests or clinical evaluation.... J was diagnosed with autism aged 13. At 14 she was sectioned because she had become severely malnourished.... Before she was sectioned, J had told her parents that she was a lesbian, and then she and her best friend said that they were in fact boys in a gay relationship. 'These are two autistic girls who were ostracised in school,' says [the father]. After J came out of hospital, she ate nothing for a week. Then her mother made a deal with her: if you start eating, I will let you take the gender drugs.... He remembers the last time he saw her.... 'When she said goodbye, her smile was the same girly shy smile she had as a little girl. Somewhere in there is my daughter.'"

From "Father’s anger at girl’s potentially fatal testosterone dose/The child, who was 15 at the time, was given the prescription by the private GenderGP clinic after one online counselling session" (London Times).

To be "sectioned" is to be forced into hospitalization.

"They’re trying to turn it into something scary, something sinister. But folks, it’s not really about anything that’s all that complicated."

"At its core, it’s about giving every American an opportunity to be treated with the basic decency, dignity and respect they all deserve."

Said ex-President Joe Biden, about transgender rights, quoted in "Biden Slams Republicans for Using L.G.B.T.Q. Identity as ‘Political Football’/The former president defended his support for transgender rights, a stance that has provoked second-guessing among some Democrats" (NYT).

So it's all very simple and anyone who says otherwise is sinister, and to boil it down to that isn't politicizing anything. It's the other side that's doing the politicizing, those bad people over there. 

I remember when Democrats liked to portray themselves as sophisticated, seeing all the complexity and nuance. Now, they're pushing the idea it's all quite simple. It's black and white. So... binary.

The top-rated comment over there is interesting. Jose writes:

"We should be facilitators and enablers."

“They had a patient coming in saying, ‘I want to look like Frank-N-Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ ”@LeorSapir spent over 100 hours going through footage of gender conferences.

In the videos obtained exclusively by The Free Press, gender doctors acknowledge they… pic.twitter.com/Jm00RUKFhh

— The Free Press (@TheFP) December 3, 2025

Here's the article: "'We’re All Just Winging It': What the Gender Doctors Say in Private In footage obtained exclusively by The Free Press, gender doctors acknowledge they perform life-altering procedures on vulnerable youth with no supportive evidence—and they are proud of it."

"I do not find the complainant was as alarmed and distressed as they portrayed themselves to be."

Said District Judge Briony Clarke, quoted in "Graham Linehan cleared of harassing trans campaigner/The Father Ted co-creator was found guilty of criminal damage after smashing the phone of activist Sophia Brooks" (London Times).

The comedy writer, 57, was appearing at Westminster magistrates’ over allegations he had waged a social media campaign against [transgender campaigner Sophia] Brooks between October 11 and October 27, 2024. He posted about her more than 20 times on the social media platform X in which he used terms such as “sociopath”, “psycho”, “domestic terrorist” and “groomer”, the court heard. 

Linehan's reaction: "There are a group of dangerous men who are determined to bully women and girls, and to misuse the courts and police in furtherance of a misogynistic agenda. I’m proud to have stood up to them and I will continue to do so."

I wanted to blog this using a tweet from Lineham, but he tweets so much that I gave up scrolling looking for something from yesterday. Here's a search of his feed limited to the name "Sophia Brooks." To select one thing:

This was all very polite legal speak for “Brooks is a liar”. But as I said during the trial, people who are capable of lying about their sex will lie about anything https://t.co/Fz29yir4fG

— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) November 25, 2025

I became interested in Lineham's legal ordeal when he appeared on Joe Rogan's show, blogged here, with embedded video of the whole show.

It's a good question, but it's easy to answer.

Good question pic.twitter.com/cgdRX8TW01

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) November 23, 2025

I think the answer is in this logic:

Identity is in your feelings.

From that 1967 Clairol ad: "Why don't you try saying this out loud: 'If I've only one life, let me live it as a blonde.' If you get a surge when you say the words, you're a blonde at heart." And you are free to bleach your hair blonde so it affirms your inner feelings.

And by the way, the blondest blondes in American culture — Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Debbie Harry — had to bleach their way to blondeness, and some classy writers have argued that they are more truly blonde — whatever that means! — than the natural blondes. 

"I'm alarmed enough when I see a woman with her dangling boobies. If I saw a penis in the ladies rocker room, I would freak out too."

"This is nothing against trans anybody. What it's saying is if I turn around and I see a pee pee — a penis — in front of me inside of the room, I would probably go to management and say, 'Wait a minute. Why is there somebody a naked man in this room?' Because... just from a safety standpoint and just from a, you know, from a privacy standpoint, I would so I can see why she would have gone and reported to management. There's a man naked in the — now, if they clarified and they said, 'Well, trans, okay,' but I think they should take her concerns also seriously because if she's uncomfortable, does she not have the right to be at least uncomfortable with this situation is what I'm saying...."

Said Joy Reid on her Reid This Reid That podcast:

I only quoted part of what's at that clip. Joy Reid goes on and on about nakedness and extensively details what's wrong with "dangling boobies." Nor is she a fan of the "flat ass." Jacque Reid joins in. Both women assert that they are not transphobic... as they go on and on saying what has been getting people called transphobic. It's quite amusing (and, to some, I presume, enraging).

Here's the NY Post article about it: "Joy Reid joins outrage at trans members in locker rooms: 'If I saw a penis … I would freak out, too.'"

"What is novel about Against the Machine is Kingsnorth’s account of what is at stake in the 21st century: what he calls the 'unmaking of humanity.'"

"Human biology, as he sees it, is rooted in a few basic facts: We are born to sexed bodies on a planet with finite resources, endowed with minds capable of exercising creativity and seeking wisdom, and then we die. His book attempts to demonstrate that much of today’s scientific, economic, technological, and cultural activity is predicated on an effort, sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit, to overcome these realities. He offers several examples of ideas and innovations that he believes are part of this effort: biotech for billionaires seeking immortality; state-assisted suicide for the suffering; IVF and other results of 'the technologisation of sex'; hormone therapy that allows children to change their gender; plans to geoengineer the planet and to abandon it and colonize Mars; robot 'priests' that can preside over funerals.... Kingsnorth’s most contentious claims concern his insistence that technoculture and its products—large language models, genetic engineering, and so on—share a great deal in common with progressive ideas about sex, sexuality, and gender. They all, in his telling, attempt to use technology to overcome what were once hard natural limits.... [H]e rejects assertions that 'biology is a problem to be overcome' and that the 'body is a form of oppression.'..."

I'm reading "What a Cranky New Book About Progress Gets Right/Paul Kingsnorth argues that much of today’s culture is intent on eroding what it means to be human" (The Atlantic, gift link).

"If it was mentioned that ‘identity’ is aware of this or ‘identity’ say they’re looking at it — that was enough to stop anybody else going anywhere near it."

Said Cath Leng, quoted in "'I was forced out of BBC News over gender critical views'/Cath Leng claims younger LGBT reporters acted as ‘gatekeepers’ on trans stories and gender critical coverage was censored" (London Times).

"Identity" refers to the "learning and identity" desk, which acted as "gatekeepers" on trans stories according to Leng, who said "These people were treated as experts simply because they were believers in the idea of gender identity. The reason they were considered to have expertise is of course because nobody else understands it. So they’re allowed to spout this gobbledegook and they’re treated as experts when it comes to which language to use."

When one of her gender critical pitches was accepted at a news meeting because it was a “great story”, Leng said that fellow journalists were so fearful they could only express support in secret. She said: “Somebody who was present slipped me a card as we were all leaving this session. It just said on the back, ‘you’re right, keep going’. She felt she couldn’t tell me directly. It was like a secret, masonic handshake.”..

In other BBC news: "BBC in crisis: why did Tim Davie and Deborah Turness resign? Director general and head of news quit amid accusations of bias over Trump and trans issues at broadcaster" (The Guardian).

"As for the Government’s suggestion that the President is harmed by not being able to impose a uniform definition of sex across various regulatory schemes..."

"... that assertion is just another species of the far-fetched contention that the President must be injured whenever he is prevented from doing as he wishes.... The Government also fails to explain why it needs a uniform definition of sex, much less why such a uniform definition needs to be imposed now such that it cannot await the outcome of this litigation...."

Writes Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — joined by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor — dissenting in Trump v. Orr, which granted a stay of a district court’s preliminary injunction against a new Executive Branch policy that required all new passports to show the individual's "biological sex" (AKA "sex assigned at birth").

Unless they nuke the filibuster, "it will be impossible for Republicans to get Common Sense Policies done." The "Crazed Democrat Lunatics" will "block everything."

"FOR THREE YEARS, NOTHING WILL BE PASSED, AND REPUBLICANS WILL BE BLAMED. Elections, including the Midterms, will be rightfully brutal. If we do terminate the Filibuster, we will get EVERYTHING approved, like no Congress in History. We will have FAIR, FREE, and SAFE Elections, No Men in Women’s Sports or Transgender for Everybody, Strong Borders, Major Tax and Energy Cuts, and will secure our Second Amendment, which the Democrats will also terminate, IMMEDIATELY."

Wrote Trump, on Truth Social this Morning.

He's all about winning: "[The Democrats] have much less chance of WINNING if we have Great Policy Wins after Wins after Wins. IN FACT, THEY WILL LOSE BIG, AND FOR A VERY LONG TIME. TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER NOW, END THE RIDICULOUS SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATELY, AND THEN, MOST IMPORTANTLY, PASS EVERY WONDERFUL REPUBLICAN POLICY THAT WE HAVE DREAMT OF, FOR YEARS, BUT NEVER GOTTEN. WE WILL BE THE PARTY THAT CANNOT BE BEATEN - THE SMART PARTY!!!"

"As a 'very, very effeminate boy' growing up in Baltimore, Ben Appel was teased mercilessly. At school, where he was regularly bullied, the other kids called him 'Bengay.'..."

"But when Appel later enrolled at Columbia University, eager to learn about the theories behind his activism, the rhetoric he encountered felt more like dogma than inquiry. 'According to queer theory, if you're a man who behaves in "unmasculine" ways or wears eyeliner you must be a woman inside, which I thought was regressive.... Saying that those superficial attributes are what make women women, and that any variation on the rough he-man stereotype means you're not a man, reinforces these rigid sex roles, and I thought we were supposed to be against those.' In his book 'Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic' [commission earned] which comes out next week, Appel argues that gender ideology is 'illiberal, regressive and anti-gay'...."

Writes Pamela Paul, in "The Growing Divide in the Rainbow Coalition/More gay people are speaking out against the gender ideology of trans and queer activists" (Wall Street Journal).

As the headline indicates, there's much more at the link than Appel's story. To quote just a bit: