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In a revealing glimpse behind the curtain, commentator Andrew Doyle recently highlighted how certain narratives are tightly controlled within major media organizations. According to Doyle, the BBC has an “LGBT desk” that effectively acts as a gatekeeper, making sure all stories related to sexuality or gender must align with a particular viewpoint before they get the green light.
This revelation sheds light on how media outlets can become ideologically captured, turning into echo chambers rather than platforms for open dialogue. While there are undoubtedly excellent journalists at the BBC, Doyle’s insight reveals a systemic issue: when certain desks have the power of veto over stories, it raises questions about whose voices are being heard and whose are being filtered out.
In a time when free speech and diverse perspectives are more important than ever, understanding how these behind-the-scenes dynamics work is crucial. After all, a truly free press should aim to present a range of viewpoints rather than enforcing a single narrative.
The CBC seems utterly transfixed (ha!) on erasing women from the public sphere. The CBC news headline from cbc.ca.
“YWCA Regina stands by trans woman giving keynote speech at [a Woman’s] award event amid backlash”
We are going to go through the article and highlight what the YWCA aka the Young Women’s Christian Association is saying in an attempt to normalize the notion that males who ‘identify’ as women are actually women as per the definition of women: Adult Human Females. Spoiler: The YWCA’s rationalization will go poorly if you happen to value truth and reality. Let’s dig in and enjoy what happens when organizations become ideologically captured by the cult of gender.
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“YWCA says feminist movement cannot evolve without inclusion of trans women”
Well, well, well.
It is nice they start off with the bullshit right off the top. What they have said here is that the feminist movement cannot evolve with the inclusion of adult human males. Isn’t obvious by now that females simply cannot have or run a movement without including men? It’s about time we evolved feminism by including and centring males within it. Nothing could go wrong…
“YWCA Regina is doubling down on its support of the transgender woman it chose to give the keynote speech at the 2023 Nutrien Women of Distinction Awards on May 6.
This comes after the speaker, Fae Johnstone, received significant backlash, transphobic remarks and threats after her attendance at the event was announced on April 21.”
Well of course they are ‘doubling down’. Dealing with recalcitrant females that object to a male colonizing and thus erasing females from society is definitely a clarion call to strengthen your resolve. For the benefit of the casual reader “transphobic remarks” encompass anything a gender ideologue doesn’t agree with.
“The announcement even resulted in calls from far right media to fire Johnstone, who is a high-profile trans activist and a YWCA Canada board member.”
According to most transactivists these days the far right includes anyone who doesn’t believe in their mystical beliefs. A quick quiz – can humans change their sex? If you answer “No”, the answer that comports with material reality we all share – welcome to the far right, you bigot.
“But Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen, CEO of YWCA Regina, said the organization supports Johnstone wholeheartedly.
“She’s an incredible community leader in our country [and] has done a huge amount of work with the federal government on gender and sexually diverse policy and framework,” Coomber-Bendsten said.
“YWCA Regina chose Fae as our keynote speaker because I think that given the current climate that we’re under, it was so important to have the perspective of trans women be given and be shared with our community and Regina.”
The gender cult makes the inroads it does because it manages to manipulate women into somehow believing that men who call themselves women actually are women. Usually the angle used is ‘gosh these poor gender confused males are obviously the most marginalized people to have ever existed, let’s shit on all feminism and centre these poor men in our movement’. It is a fucking sad state of affairs when it becomes okay to erase females and their accomplishments in society in the name of a ‘diverse and shared’ community.
“Johnstone said she wasn’t surprised by the attacks she received, but is still saddened”.
Good. Get used to it buddy. Women are fighting back against transgender ideology and female erasure in our society.
“The far right will zero in on us. They’ll talk about how we’re a threat to women and children. But feminist organizations all across Canada, every major feminist organization in this country, recognizes that there is no gender equity without trans women,” Johnstone said.”
No. People who comport with reality and respect female rights, boundaries, and safety will oppose what you are doing and what you support. People like WRN Canada.
Yeah, so again, its the guilt association. Disagreeing with male gender fantasy pretty much automatically makes you “far right”. By this definition, most of Canada is ‘far right’.
Also, I’m not really sure how including gender-confused men in female spaces, services, and sports leads to “gender equity”. What it actually leads to is males taking female spots in society and making actual females feel unsafe in formally single sex spaces. So no, lets take a large pass on any notion of ‘gender equity’ from this individual.
“Coomber-Bendsten said the transphobic reaction to Johnstone giving the keynote speech originally came from outside Regina, but was quickly picked up inside the community through social media, phone calls, emails and even people delivering handwritten letters to the YWCA.”
Women speaking about how inappropriate it is to have a man giving the keynote address at a female awards show is apparently ‘transphobic’. People calling you on your bullshit is what happens in a free society, and let me assure you, the bullshit is flowing hard and fast at the YWCA.
“She said many far right organizations believe trans women are detrimental to the feminist movement. But the YWCA and Johnstone disagree.”
The far right are certainly a powerful entity in Canadian society… (do keep in mind if you like to comport with reality and science this makes you irrecoverably ‘far right-wing’) or maybe just a fantastical construction designed to frighten people into silence about the gender cult. Because the gender cultists do not have arguments. Instead they have to threaten, bully, and intimidate those who would dare question their toxic ideology.
“Trans women experience significant gender inequity. We are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to experience hate, harassment and violence in our lives,” Johnstone said.”
Those with serious mental issues when it comes to dealing with reality and clinging delusions about themselves almost always have serious issues with state of and their place in society. We as a society should seek to get people with gender delusions the rational evidence based therapeutic help they need.
“So a feminist movement that is truly imagining a better world for everybody, one in which we have eradicated gender norms … it has to include transgender, diverse people because we often bear the brunt or significant volume of the hate.”
The misuse of feminist critique is off the charts here. Gender norms (aka gender) are a sets of ‘expected’ behaviours and norms that members of the respective sexes are supposed to follow to be a ‘normal’ male or female in society. These sex stereotypes hurt both women and men in society and their role in society should be diminished. Males and females should not face strictures for operating outside of the perceived gender norms.
Transgender ideology is the polar opposite of this notion. If your male child plays with dolls and is nurturing then by this ideology he needs to be ‘transitioned (put on off-label puberty blockers/cross-sex hormones/surgically mutilated and rendered infertile)’ into a woman. Transgender ideology and the cult of gender is actually reactionary as it seeks to codify the gender stereotypes of what being a male or female is.
Whereas, second wave feminists and many rational people would say people should adopt whichever stereotypes/behaviours they are comfortable with and be done with it. For example, if you are male and want to rock a dress or skirt, that all good. You are a male who likes wearing typically female clothing. All good. You be you, bro! What dress wearing doesn’t do, in any tangible way, is make you female.
“YWCA Regina serves two-spirit peoples, trans women, gender diverse and sexually diverse women in its shelters, programs, outreach and harm reduction work. Coomber-Bendsten said the staff is also diverse and includes transgender women.”
It’s okay to help other people out. It isn’t okay if you get sucked into their reality denying cult.
“We feel a big responsibility to make sure that we are answering that call to action to create an inclusive space in a more safe space. We’ve done a lot of work but, you know, acknowledging that we still have lots of work to do,” said Coomber-Bendtsen.
Bullshit. This is how Woke-Speak works. I will bet millions of dollars that their ‘inclusive space” does not include gender critical women (aka TERFS). The inclusion and safety comes to abrupt halt when you disagree with their gender magic and want to deal with material reality and evidence based arguments. Be aware of the double meanings when activists speak, because what they say and what they mean are almost always two different things.
“Johnstone said there is no way to advance feminism without recognizing that there is not just one definition of a woman and that women won’t always share the same experiences.”
Feminism has been doing just fine with centring females in its movements and actions in society. The only definition needed is this one: Woman = Adult human female.
“”I don’t have everything in common with women who aren’t trans, just like I, as a white woman, have a different experience of womanhood than a Black or Indigenous woman might. It’s not about a universal understanding of womanhood, it’s about dismantling the structures of violence and inequity that harm all of us,” said Johnstone.”
You have nothing in common with adult human females, as you are a man. Socialized as a man and raised as one. You can’t know what its like to be a woman because you are not one.
“While Johnstone is excited to give the keynote speech at the awards, she said she’s tired of the transphobic hate she receives. She said she has been targeted seven times in seven months by far right groups. Johnstone has received death threats and been encouraged to end her life.
“Trans people aren’t asking for much. We’re asking for human rights, dignity and equality,” said Johnstone.”
Trans human rights, dignity and equality is code for this:
A little more on Johnstone’s activism. His words speak for themselves –
Why not fund the Vancouver Rape Relief Shelter? It is exclusively a single sex shelter. Sorry raped women, your sanctuary just isn’t “inclusive” enough for Johnstone.
Johnstone’s “inclusivity” ends quite abruptly when when women start speaking about their rights, boundaries, and safety.
“Coomber-Bendtsen said many people believe that when people focus on including trans women and other marginalized communities, it takes away from their own needs.
“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” she said.
Coomber-Bendsten said that a lack of knowledge or understanding in the country does lead to a lack of empathy.
“It is that collective move forward with empathy and knowledge that is really going to bring change in our community.”
While there was vitriol and online attacks following the keynote announcement, YWCA Regina said it also received calls from people that wanted tickets to the event so they could understand more about trans women.”
What is actually stunning is the complete ideological capture of the YMCA. There is a stunning lack of empathy for women whose rights, boundaries, and safety have all been jeopardized and put at risk because of the inane desire to put males into female spaces. Empathy is not required in this situation. Just a large dose of commonsense and a return to respecting females in Canadian society.
Look at how the international YWCA versus the Canadian Branch defines itself. Guess which one retains the focus on females and their needs and which one has been corrupted by gender ideology.
– The Young Women’s Christian Association ( YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries. The World office is currently based in Geneva, Switzerland, and the nonprofit is headquartered in Washington, DC.
– YWCA (Canada) – Canada is a leading voice for women, girls, Two-Spirit and gender diverse people. For 150 years, we’ve been at the forefront of a movement: to fight gender-based violence, build affordable housing and advocate for workplace equity.
I digress, but it is hard to miss when it is out in plain sight. Let’s finish the article.
“The 2023 Nutrien Women of Distinction Award will be held on May 6 at the GT Lounge. For the first time, this year’s event sold out within two days.
The YWCA said since receiving transphobic backlash, sponsors of the awards event have voiced their continued support.”
The 2023 Nutrien Women of Distinction Award will be distinct for a entirely different set of reasons than those intended. The distinction is highlighting the colonization of female spaces in society by gender confused males and erasure of females in Canadian society.
There has been much controversy over lately at Science Based Medicine as they seem to have been institutionally captured by gender ideology and turning away from the foundations SBM was founded on. When gender woo-magic takes precedent of science based facts the lambasting by those who keep their scientific integrity intact is inevitable, hence this letter by Emeritus Editor Kimball Atwood to Steve Novella about his decent into gender-woo.
Thank you for Jessie Singal for posting the letter.
Harriet has told me that you stated that her article “dragged SBM into a raging controversy.” She feels, and I agree, that it was your retracting that article and replacing it by very bad articles written by advocates of “gender affirmation” that dragged SBM into a raging controversy. I’ve attempted to explain why previously, but here I’ll mention a couple of the most obvious reasons.
You claimed that Harriet’s article was below SBM’s minimal standard for “high quality scientific evidence and reasoning to inform medical issues.” Yet you replaced it with articles stating things such as the following:
- “Biology is a binary and differences of sex development (DSDs) are vanishingly rare”. False. DSDs are as common as 1 in 5,000 births, and increase to 1 in 200 or 1 in 300 if you include hypospadias and cryptorchidism. Biology is very, very well known to be a spectrum.
[Lovell attributes the sentence in quotes to Shrier; I’ve been unable to find it in her book]
Do you, Steve, think that sex is a spectrum? Yes, I know Lovell wrote “biology is a spectrum,” but that is an incoherent claim. Her implication is that sex is a spectrum. If that were true, it would upend all that we know about sex in mammals and many other life forms, including sexual dimorphism, reproduction, and selection. Do you think that Lovell’s statement constitutes “high quality scientific evidence and reasoning”? OMG, apparently you do. What’s happened to you?
Do you think that hypospadias and cryptorchism are DSDs? They are not, and to suggest that they are does not meet SBM’s minimal standard for reasoning about medical issues.
The citation is to a paper that discusses real DSDs, not cryptorchism or hypospadias, and makes no claims about a “spectrum.” It supports the very statement that Lovell claims to be false (even though Shrier seems never to have made that statement). Where was the editor here?
According to Eckert,
- Throughout her book, Shrier refers to her subjects as “biological girls,” a term that conflates sex with gender and mischaracterizes Shrier’s subjects. The reason is that a person’s sex refers to the identity assigned by doctors, parents, and medical professionals at birth, most often based on external anatomy (genitals).
Do you, Steve, think that Shrier’s subjects were not biological girls? Do you think that this characterization conflates sex with gender? Do you think that sex is an “identity assigned by doctors,” rather than a fact noted by everyone in the delivery room in almost every case? Do you think that “human” is also an identity assigned by doctors? How does such an absurd passage meet SBM’s minimal standard for scientific evidence and reasoning? Do you really think that “this is good scientific practice—not political correctness”? How can you be so naive?
Finally, I’ll remind you of a previous objection that you haven’t answered, which refutes the crux of Lovell’s claim about “gender affirmation” for biological girls “lead(ing) to improved psychological outcomes”:
“Lastly, as clearly noted in the American Academy of Pediatrics statement, complete with many citations of their own, we use affirmation, pubertal suppression, and hormone therapy in youth because it leads to improved psychological outcomes. The literature is abundant and clear on this topic.”
The “abundant” link is not to several studies or a review of several studies, as the adjective implies, but to a single study that is irrelevant to Shrier’s thesis because it looks at a group of pre-pubescent, transgender children (age 3-12) undergoing only social transition, not at adolescent girls. It’s also not a good study because it controls its cohort with a cohort of non-transgender children, rather than with the appropriate control group (transgender children not undergoing social transition).
The “clear” link is to a paper that does not reveal whether its subjects were gender dysphoric (GD) in childhood or not, but whose abstract states:
“Implications for impact: This study suggests that gender-affirming hormones are a helpful medical intervention for transgender youth. Gender-affirming hormones were found to be associated with decreases in suicidality and improvements in general well-being.”
That is all most SBM readers will read, if they even bother to click on the link. But in the discussion (behind a paywall; I got it on ResearchGate) we see this:
“Hypothesis 3 (i.e., those assigned female at birth will experience greater improvements in general well-being and larger decreases in suicidality) was not supported.” (My italics; parenthetical phrase in the original)
Need I mention (again) that this is the only outcome of the study that is relevant to Shrier’s book? Where was the editor here?
Speaking of editors, it appears that there have been none at SBM other than the original five. Of those, two ruled to retract Harriet’s review, two (Harriet and I) would have kept it, and one is dead. I knew Wally well enough to feel confident that he would have voted to keep the review, and that he would have been shocked, probably to the point of resigning, when you published the embarrassments by Lovell and Eckert and when you banned Andy Lewis from commenting.
No, it was not Harriet who dragged SBM into a raging controversy. It was you and David, because of some very poor choices, made worse by your doubling down after every reasonable objection by Jesse Singal, Andy Lewis, Michael Shermer, Jerry Coyne, Abigail Shrier, me, and several others.
Sincerely Yours,
Kimball
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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