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> Why do you believe that description applies to Singal? His work is well-researched, grounded and reasonable. Perhaps his journalistic output conflicts with yo

> Why do you believe that description applies to Singal? His work is well-researched, grounded and reasonable. Perhaps his journalistic output conflicts with your beliefs, but that's no reason to cast false aspersions on him. Singal's work is not well-researched or reasonable. There have been countless analyses documenting the factual inaccuracies in his work, not to mention the routine and egregious violations of journalistic ethics. Nobody has cast false aspersions on him, least of all the person that you are responding to. On the contrary, your comments on this post suggest to me that your defense of Signal and your description of him as "grounded and reasonable" has more to do with your approval of his beliefs rather than an honest assessment of his work.

LexiMax 1y ago
Could you link to some of those analyses? I'm sure that Hacker News would love to delve into the arguments instead of trying to downvote or flag your posts into non-visibility because they disagree with you.
- TimorousBestie 1y ago
  The most comprehensive “Singal does bad journalism” montages come from the left-wing media outlets and leftist bloggers that he’s targeted over the years. The typical HN commenter is going to immediately gloss those accounts as partisan hyperbole. And why not? It’s purely academic for some of them, and internally worldview-challenging for others. But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wrote a well-researched article for Protean in 2022.
  - mustache_kimono 1y ago
    > But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wrote a well-researched article for Protean in 2022. Wow. I've read that article and if you think that was unbiased or even-handed... There is a tech blogger who I really don't like and this blogger happened upon a comment where I said I really didn't like anything they had written, and happened to ask, "Why?" And my answer was how deeply incurious they were, and how incurious they invited their readers to be. This blogger never acknowledge the potential they might be wrong. Even as a nodding feint to fallibility as something we simply expect of people writing about any complex topic. That's what that article is like to me.
    - TimorousBestie 1y ago
      I explicitly said it and every other example of the genre was biased, so I don’t know why you’re claiming otherwise. Thanks for confirming my priors on HN users. I said it was well-researched, which is true.
  - fellpie 1y ago
    > But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wrote a well-researched article for Protean in 2022. He misrepresents Singal's writing, uses guilt-by-association smears, and focuses more on personal vilification of Singal than substantive critique. For example his claim that Singal's writing "endangers trans lives" is hyperbolic and unsupported. This is nothing more than a hit piece penned to destroy the heretic.
    - TimorousBestie 1y ago
      > For example his claim that Singal's writing "endangers trans lives" is hyperbolic and unsupported. Partially due to Singal’s sensationalist journalism, trans people in the United States are about to lose access to some forms of healthcare—treatments that will remain accessible to cis people, like hormone replacement therapy. So I think history has vindicated this particular claim. I don’t expect you to agree, however. I am honored that you made an account just to respond to this! Welcome to HN.
      - jazzyjackson 1y ago
        That's quite the leap of causation
        TimorousBestie 1y ago
        https://commonslibrary.org/the-anti-trans-movement/ https://commonslibrary.org/the-anti-trans-movement/ Singal is part of the “Disinformation and Conversion” faction, as a promoter of so-called “rapid onset gender dysphoria.”
      - Manuel_D 1y ago
        Couldn't it be possible that chemically altering minors isn't be best course of treatment? The UK, Finland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have all stopped routine prescription of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria on the grounds that their efficacy is not clear but the negative side effects are. It's extremely hard to claim the science is settled at this point. The allegations of harm seem to come from an a priori conclusion that these treatments are beneficial.
  - LexiMax 1y ago
    Thanks. I'm well acquainted with Hacker News' proclivities for mob censorship, but I didn't know a ton about this specific incident.
- chimeracoder 1y ago
  > I'm sure that Hacker News would love to delve into the arguments instead of trying to downvote or flag your posts into non-visibility because they disagree with you. I've been a member of this site for fifteen years. I know that nearly any material - not abstract - defense of transgender rights will get downvoted into invisibility, as will any attempt to name transphobia, no matter how civilly presented or exhaustively-cited. For that same reason, I also know that it's not a worthwhile use of time to delve into substantive "debate" on these topics in this thread, or any place where transphobia is being trafficked openly, for that matter (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45508592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45508592).

LexiMax 1y ago

Could you link to some of those analyses? I'm sure that Hacker News would love to delve into the arguments instead of trying to downvote or flag your posts into non-visibility because they disagree with you.

TimorousBestie 1y ago
The most comprehensive “Singal does bad journalism” montages come from the left-wing media outlets and leftist bloggers that he’s targeted over the years. The typical HN commenter is going to immediately gloss those accounts as partisan hyperbole. And why not? It’s purely academic for some of them, and internally worldview-challenging for others. But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wrote a well-researched article for Protean in 2022.
- mustache_kimono 1y ago
  > But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wrote a well-researched article for Protean in 2022. Wow. I've read that article and if you think that was unbiased or even-handed... There is a tech blogger who I really don't like and this blogger happened upon a comment where I said I really didn't like anything they had written, and happened to ask, "Why?" And my answer was how deeply incurious they were, and how incurious they invited their readers to be. This blogger never acknowledge the potential they might be wrong. Even as a nodding feint to fallibility as something we simply expect of people writing about any complex topic. That's what that article is like to me.
  - TimorousBestie 1y ago
    I explicitly said it and every other example of the genre was biased, so I don’t know why you’re claiming otherwise. Thanks for confirming my priors on HN users. I said it was well-researched, which is true.
- fellpie 1y ago
  > But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wrote a well-researched article for Protean in 2022. He misrepresents Singal's writing, uses guilt-by-association smears, and focuses more on personal vilification of Singal than substantive critique. For example his claim that Singal's writing "endangers trans lives" is hyperbolic and unsupported. This is nothing more than a hit piece penned to destroy the heretic.
  - TimorousBestie 1y ago
    > For example his claim that Singal's writing "endangers trans lives" is hyperbolic and unsupported. Partially due to Singal’s sensationalist journalism, trans people in the United States are about to lose access to some forms of healthcare—treatments that will remain accessible to cis people, like hormone replacement therapy. So I think history has vindicated this particular claim. I don’t expect you to agree, however. I am honored that you made an account just to respond to this! Welcome to HN.
    - jazzyjackson 1y ago
      That's quite the leap of causation
      - TimorousBestie 1y ago
        https://commonslibrary.org/the-anti-trans-movement/ https://commonslibrary.org/the-anti-trans-movement/ Singal is part of the “Disinformation and Conversion” faction, as a promoter of so-called “rapid onset gender dysphoria.”
    - Manuel_D 1y ago
      Couldn't it be possible that chemically altering minors isn't be best course of treatment? The UK, Finland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have all stopped routine prescription of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria on the grounds that their efficacy is not clear but the negative side effects are. It's extremely hard to claim the science is settled at this point. The allegations of harm seem to come from an a priori conclusion that these treatments are beneficial.
- LexiMax 1y ago
  Thanks. I'm well acquainted with Hacker News' proclivities for mob censorship, but I didn't know a ton about this specific incident.
chimeracoder 1y ago
> I'm sure that Hacker News would love to delve into the arguments instead of trying to downvote or flag your posts into non-visibility because they disagree with you. I've been a member of this site for fifteen years. I know that nearly any material - not abstract - defense of transgender rights will get downvoted into invisibility, as will any attempt to name transphobia, no matter how civilly presented or exhaustively-cited. For that same reason, I also know that it's not a worthwhile use of time to delve into substantive "debate" on these topics in this thread, or any place where transphobia is being trafficked openly, for that matter (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45508592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45508592).