Does Jesse Singal still get writing gigs?

He’s a creep.

At least, no publisher ought to commission him to write about trans issues. There’s just so much information damning him as an untrustworthy actor.

This tweet bugs me.

When anyone talks about “biological” sex or “biological” males or “biological” females, it throws up a red flag for me. What does that mean? They don’t say; there are all these unstated assumptions behind it. I have to guess that what they mean is something about penises and vaginas and chromosomes and hormones, but those are all less absolutely deterministic than they imagine. Singal is a guy who writes about sex and gender a lot, so how can he be so casual and sloppy with his words?

And then I learn he’s part of a cabal of cis journalists who coordinate their agenda behind the scenes. Singal, of course is chatting away there.

Singal posted these messages in the discussion forum of a closed listserv he belongs to, hosted on Google Groups. The listserv, per its “About” page, aims to provide an “off-the-record discussion forum for left-of-center journalists, authors, academics and wonks.” It has been around for at least eight years (I found discussion posts dating back as far as 2010), and has just over 400 members (403 at the time of this writing). These members include New York Times best-selling authors, Ivy League academics, magazine editors, and other public intellectuals—in short, a lot of important people who influence public discourse through their written work. They use the listserv’s forum to discuss current events, news from their respective fields, articles they’ve read, articles they’ve written, and other topics of public importance. There are a number of threads about trans stuff, and they read like a greatest hits of the past decade of trans-related cultural anxieties: whether Chelsea Manning would pose a threat in a women’s prison; Janet Mock’s contentious 2014 interview with Piers Morgan and the “Twitter mob” she inspired; Elinor Burkett’s New York Times piece about Caitlyn Jenner and womanhood; comparisons between Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal; erasure of the word “vagina”; saying “pregnant people” vs. “pregnant women”; and a number of Jesse Singal’s articles over the past few years.

None of these discussions brought trans voices to the table because the group has never had any out trans members, at least as far as I can tell. “I really wish we had some trans people on this list, it’s a real void we have,” posted an award-winning investigative journalist in a thread about Singal temporarily leaving Twitter last December. “I’m not interested in sharing this list or any other space with someone who is going to insist on nullifying and erasing my existence and experience as female,” a prominent futurist in progressive news media wrote back. The exchange demonstrates two different means of excluding trans people from the discussion: passive exclusion (empty calls for inclusion that don’t lead to action) and active exclusion (we must keep them out). At the time of this exchange, the listserv had existed for nearly a decade. If the group’s members really wanted to bring trans people to the table, they could have done so at any point. The fact that they never did suggests that the group’s members—400 prominent, influential figures in academia, media, and publishing—would rather keep trans people at a safe, anthropological remove where they can talk about trans people without speaking to trans people directly. A less generous reading of this exclusion would say that they don’t see us as potential intellectual equals and, thus, don’t read our work.

Awww, how sweet — they sure would like to have some trans members, unless they somehow “nullify” cis people’s experience of their sex. I’ve met other men and women, cis and trans, and none of them have ever made me question my identity. Someone needs to get out more!

The final nail in the coffin ought to be this lengthy and thorough deconstruction of Singal’s devious anti-trans history. Here’s just a taste:

One reason we can confidently assert that Singal is distorting the narrative (whether consciously or in accordance with his own biases) is because he did consult people capable of fact-checking him for the article—he simply didn’t use their input. Singal interviewed multiple trans women for the piece, including trans writers Julia Serano and Parker Molloy, but their comments appear to have had little impact on the final draft. After it was published, both writers spoke out about several inaccuracies of fact and framing. They had addressed these points in their interviews and were ignored. Molloy’s response offers a nuanced critique of Singal’s pro-GIC arguments; Serano’s rebuttal contains crucial historical context about “how both ‘gay conversion’ and [Zucker’s style of] ‘gender reparative’ therapies share the exact same strategy of coercing gender non-conforming children to behave in a more normative manner.”

That interview was, it appears, the earliest contact between Singal and Serano, and he did not take her criticisms well. According to her, he lied about her views on transition to outrage his Twitter fan base. This would become an example of an alleged pattern of behavior by Singal. First, he is critiqued by trans people or allies. He misrepresents their positions to incite backlash online, or simply screenshots or quote tweets them to direct harassment their way. Trans writer Emily VanDerWerff said her experience with being misrepresented and harassed included “death threats, rape threats, invitations to commit suicide, [and] constant misgendering.” Singal contacts critics, threatening to sue. He contacts their employers. He sends them abusive emails. When someone reports a fact about him that he finds unflattering or releases a critique he doesn’t like, he frivolously threatens to sue and demands publications issue corrections—then howls about not getting them on Twitter. At this point, it’s a little bit of a joke on trans Twitter that every trans writer or academic, no matter how minor, is eventually subject to a Singal meltdown and volley of threats.

Singal’s behavior is unprofessional, to say the least. Julia Serano, when targeted by Singal, felt she had to temporarily leave social media for her safety. Another one of Singal’s trans targets was fired after he repeatedly contacted her boss. Singal’s habit of consistently and viciously attacking his critics poisons the well; it deflects any chance of real criticism, since it allows him to claim that any given critic simply personally dislikes him. He has, of course, helped ensure that this is the case by treating them poorly. This bad behavior extends beyond minor Twitter slap fights—it’s also a means of warping the conversation, punishing and dismissing dissenting voices before they can even speak. Leveling threats and directing abuse at sources and experts in this way goes beyond mere unprofessionalism—for a journalist, it’s genuinely unethical.

I think it’s clear that anything Singal writes on trans issues is biased, unreliable, and untrustworthy. Yet he still gets published in high-profile magazines! What do you think: do publishers and editors not realize how awful he is on these topics, or they’re all just awful people who share his ugly views?

Whatever shall we do without a few cops around?

The city of Morris, my little town, has disbanded its police force. Yay!

Local leaders in one western Minnesota city have voted to disband the police department, which has dwindled to just two officers, including the chief.

The City of Morris, like other communities across the country, is dealing with changing attitudes about policing and challenges in recruiting and retaining officers.

Morris, with a population of about 5,200 residents, has budgeted for eight full-time officers and an administrative specialist.

The Morris City Council plans to sign a contract for law enforcement services with the Stevens County Sheriff’s Office and shut down a police department that has been around for more than 140 years.

Aww. I don’t think anyone will miss that relic. And yes, the county sheriffs will now take over any necessary peace-keeping duties, or more likely, ticketing traffic violators, which is mainly what they do.

“It’s a sad day. Nobody wants to see that happen,” said Blaine Hill, city manager. “People ask, ‘How in the world could a town the size of Morris not have a police department?’ We live in a different world now.”

Nobody? I wanted to see it happen, so Mr Hill is wrong. Also, again, the police don’t do all that much around here.

Commenters on the Fox News story are predicting dire consequences.

There are several banks in town. I don’t see what the police would do anyway; lounge around outside the buildings waiting for the bad guys to go away? We don’t have much of a crime problem here — there’s some drug trafficking, like everywhere, and occasional vandalism and theft, like everywhere. The police don’t play much of a role in preventing any of it. They’re more likely to take reports after the fact. Or maybe shoot a few bystanders. This isn’t the Roaring Twenties of a century ago, and we don’t have Bonnies and Clydes shooting up banks with tommy guns. It’s so much more profitable and safe to be a Republican and loot towns at your desk, and the police do nothing about that.

Policing is being turned over to the county sheriff’s department, who will serve multiple small towns in the area. I don’t think it will make much difference, except in maybe being more economical.

Then there’s this bizarre comment…

Errm…”Minnesota Nice” is not a good thing — it refers to a flavor of passive-aggressive superficiality. Please, let it die that slow and ugly death. Also, this is not a “large city”, and it wasn’t “spoiled kids” behind this change — it was a decision by the bean counters and our city council, which is packed with old tiring conservatives.

But it’s a Fox News comment section, what else can you expect?

They didn’t even realize how badly they were crushed

This was amusing. A graduate of the Lenski lab got into a conversation with a couple of creationists about — would you believe? — the Lenski experiment. They argued with him about the results of the experiment! Of course, the creationists learned nothing.

Gutsick Gibbon provides some commentary, in particular explaining how creationists don’t even understand the concept of fitness.

Musk is on trial right now!

Now he only wants to buy it to ban photos like this one.

How exciting! The court hearing in which Twitter argues for a fast-track trial, while Musk begs for time to dawdle and make jokes and trash-talk is happening right this minute!

Twitter Inc’s (TWTR.N) showdown with Elon Musk over his $44 billion takeover faces its first test on Tuesday, when a judge will weigh the company’s bid for a fast-tracked trial which it says it needs to ensure deal financing doesn’t come unraveled.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to resolve months of uncertainty for its business as Musk tries to walk away from the deal over what he says are Twitter’s “spam” accounts that he says are fundamental to its value.

Wait, did I say “exciting”? I don’t think that’s the right word for a sense of dread combined with disgust at billionaires. Is there a good word for that? It would be very useful.

I think I want Twitter to win this round, so that the agony isn’t prolonged, and so Musk gets a preliminary slap in the face. But I don’t want Musk to be compelled to buy Twitter, because he’d just wreck it worse than it already is. The ideal ultimate solution would be if eventually Musk is let off the hook but has to pay a tremendous “fuck around and find out” penalty: a few billion to Twitter, and many billions more to public service, like a windfall to public libraries, for instance. Just dreaming here.

@Kolyin is live tweeting the hearing, if you want to follow along.

The hearing is over. The judge essentially decided in favor of Twitter, scheduling the big battle for 5 days in October. Man, I wish the lawsuit against us could have been resolved so speedily (yeah, that’s speedy for a trial.)

Do you want vampires?

Because this is how you get vampires.

Officials were at first bewildered when they came upon a mysterious ghost ship with no captain or crew on board that had washed ashore on a secluded island off the coast of Cambodia during an intense storm this week.

Cambodian vampires are a little different from the European kind, though: they consist of a floating head with the viscera dangling down below. They are supposed to look like a young and beautiful woman, but an isolated head with a bunch of guts hanging from the neck is a little bit offputting.

The grift continues!

Oh boy! They’re making “NFT the Movie”, which I presume is going to be something like the emoji movie, only with lower production values and more obfuscation. For example…

Although the video is titled “What’s an NFT?” they never quite get around to explaining it. It has a couple of crypto bros rattling off bizarre buzzwords, with a narration by Brittany Kaiser, “award winning documentarist/NFT expert”. I had to look her up. She was the former business director for Cambridge Analytica (alarm bells should be ringing). IMDB doesn’t find any documentaries made by Kaiser, but she was a central figure in one of them, The Great Hack. I haven’t seen it, so I’ll have to go by the reviewers’ comments.

Interesting to see how it all works, but my beef with the flick is the one-sided view of one of the main characters in Kaiser.

Plain to see that this is a person with little to no moral compass, that happily did what she did to hobnob and feel important/to make an impact. When it was apparent that the sky was falling, she happily turned “whistleblower” and spilled everything she could on operations. I failed to see her show any remorse for the work she did in setting up the whole infrastructure over 3.5+ years. Yet throughout the film she is portrayed as being free from blame and just a source of information, when she clearly sold her soul to make money and for other purposes known only to her. The film-makers almost portray her as a victim and instead of asking the hard questions, appear to be content to play best friend.

She’s promoting NFTs — lack of moral compass confirmed!

When will people wise up? It doesn’t help that people are making “movies” about this grift, but maybe it’ll help that the movie will be cheesy and incomprehensible, and will bomb.

You don’t need to win elections to destroy the country

Nice library. Shame if something were to happen to it.

Here’s a great example of the chaos the right wing has brought down upon us, local libraries.

Residents of a small Iowa town criticized their library’s LGBTQ staff and their displaying of LGBTQ-related books until most of the staff quit. Now, the town’s library is closed for the foreseeable future.

After having the same library director for 32 years, the Vinton Public Library can’t seem to keep the position filled anymore. Since summer 2021, the Vinton Public Library has gone through two permanent directors and an interim director who has served in that role twice.

Located about 40 miles northwest of Cedar Rapids, the doors of the Vinton Public Library—housed in a brick and stone Carnegie—have been open to the public since 1904, but were shuttered on Friday, July 8, while the Vinton Library Board tries to sort out staffing issues seemingly brought on by local dalliances with the national culture wars.

It comes after a handful of locals whipped up a controversy first over the library displaying books about prominent Democrats, and later about it displaying LGBTQ books and having LGBTQ people on staff.

See? All it takes is a handful of local assholes to deprive an entire community of a valuable resource. Notice that the incident initially prompting this problem was displaying books about Democrats, which, last I heard, was still a legal political party.

I read through quite a few articles on this subject, and noticed a curious thing: while defenders of the library were named, none of the names of the people are brought up. All it is is librarians and others announcing that they can’t take it anymore, that they have to resign and get out of this sick town. At best we see phrases like “a handful of locals”.

Who are they? There has been an effective policy of harassment and abuse that has decimated the staff and made it impossible to keep the library open. GODDAMN IT, NAME THEM. This is asymmetric warfare where the oppressive forces get to thrive in concealment, an anonymity maintained by the media, while they get to assail the civic infrastructure. There is a serious problem flourishing in Vinton, Iowa, and everyone is pretending that the closure just happened passively. No. It was a targeted attack. Somebody organized it. Someone made harassing phone calls, or wrote abusive letters to the editor of the local paper, or denied employees service at the grocery store or pharmacy or whatever.

In the absence of any clarity here, I guess I’m just going to assume it was some vile conservative church. They’re usually the ones trying to impose their will on small towns. Given that Vinton, Iowa has a population of about 5,000, like Morris, and has at least 14 churches, I think that’s a safe bet.

AiG has no shame

I watched a bit of this video from Answers in Genesis, but couldn’t take much of it. Daniel Phelps had more stamina, and watched the hacks at AiG spout their BS about the shiny new space telescope. Danny Faulkner is their pet astronomer who rejects most of astronomy.

Their response was by AiG’s astronomer, Dr. Danny Faulkner, and their “rocket scientist,” Rob Webb. Their discussion was a rather weak critique of the JWST’s findings and funny and sad at the same time. Through most of their simulcast, one couldn’t hear what the NASA people were saying, but this may have been a technical difficulty. About 23 minutes in Dr. Faulkner and Webb bizarrely claim that light year distances don’t necessarily equal long time scales (thus not refuting a 6,000 year old universe). Soon after, Dr. Faulkner states his “theory” (not a scientific theory, but he doesn’t seem to know this) that we can see things billions of light years away in a 6,000 year old universe because of a “miracle.” His position is literally “then a miracle occurred.” This is reminiscent of the famous Sidney Harris cartoon found here:. Dr. Faulkner goes on to say that Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden saw pretty much what we see today when looking at the night sky.

They do know that the Harris cartoon is not a recommendation, right? As soon as you resort to “miracles”, you’ve left science behind.

Not that that would bother AiG.

Not representing computer science well

Dumbass wannabe martyr

This is the time of year many of us are working on our syllabi, and one common feature nowadays is a land acknowledgment. For instance, I mention that UMM is on the original homelands of the Dakota, Lakota and Anishinaabe peoples; no big deal, recognizing our history and the identity of the people who have a legitimate claim on these lands. But what would you think of this peculiar acknowledgement by a computer science instructor at the University of Washington?

I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.

Labor theory of property? What does that have to do the brute fact of the reality of UW’s history? Then denying that fact is simply offensive.

The university asked him to take it down. They even offer a recommended alternative.

The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations.

It’s very silly to oppose a straightforward statement of fact like that, and offensive to post a denial. But Stuart Reges sees an opportunity to leap on the right-wing gravy train.

“University administrators turned me into a pariah on campus because I included a land acknowledgment that wasn’t sufficiently progressive for them,” said Reges in a press release issued Wednesday by FIRE, a nonprofit that supports free speech on campuses and elsewhere. “Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted, even if it lands you in court,” added Reges.

That’s it. The university asked an employee to refrain from offending students, which is entirely reasonable — academic freedom does not mean you can posture abusively and not be criticized. He has a job to do, and a meaningless but unproductive statement does interfere with that.

Of course, he is now suing the university, claiming his civil rights have been violated, which is why he’s partnering up with FIRE. Nothing has happened to him, except that his own actions have generated some adverse publicity; the university has not taken any material action against him. He’s not tenured, so the university is free to not renew his contract. I don’t understand what grounds he has for any kind of lawsuit. He’s just trying desperately to become yet another right-wing martyr, but the university hasn’t bothered to nail him up on any cross.

Of course, now he’s stuck his head up and made it obvious to the administration how stupid he is. He may have effectively screwed himself.

He’s tried this before. Would you believe he he published an article on Quillette, Why Women Don’t Code, in which he says I believe that women are less likely than men to want to major in computer science and less likely to pursue a career as a software engineer and that this difference between men and women accounts for most of the gender gap, and also tried to hoist himself on that cross again:

Saying controversial things that might get me fired is nothing new for me. I’ve been doing it most of my adult life and usually my comments have generated a big yawn. I experienced a notable exception in a 1991 case that received national attention, when I was fired from Stanford University for “violating campus drug policy” as a means of challenging the assumptions of the war on drugs. My attitude in all of these cases has been that I need to speak up and give my honest opinion on controversial issues. Most often nothing comes of it, but if I can be punished for expressing such ideas, then it is even more important to speak up and try to make the injustice plain.

Try and try and try again to provoke your employers so you can land that juicy lawsuit that will please the regressives who hate universities, and fail and fail and fail. That Quillette article did have the effect of getting his three-year contract getting demoted to a one year probationary contract. “Contract”. “Probationary”. That he has been straining to violate the terms of a probationary agreement for years seems to me to provide adequate grounds for letting him go while cancelling out any reason to sue his employers.