Helen Lewis in the Atlantic - Gender medecine and the suicide lie

Wasn’t HL vilified by trans activists online many years ago? I’ve heard her refer to it since, she references it in her book about feminism and cites it as a reason for her caution in writing about it now. She is certainly hated by TRA’s and on numerous blocklists on Bluesky, as are anyone who follows her (me) for her perceived ‘transphobia’.

I admire her for trying to write dispassionately about something which attracts for too much heat. And as others have said, if it helps provide an off-ramp for people who need to change their minds then it can only be positive.

I understand why you may feel dismayed but I don’t believe your criticism of HL was of a nasty personal nature. You spoke about her writing/speaking, and what you know of her personal philosophy, and the elements of disagreement that you have with those things.

If Helen is reading this thread, I just want to say that I am looking forward to reading the 'Genius Myth'.

Oof, she really doesn't like that Evita. No fence-sitting there... (:

<Waves to Helen>

https://helenlewis.substack.com/p/the-bluestocking-375-evita-skrmetti

Yes, HL gets criticised from all sides, and i think that's why i find her carefulness with words and 'small sips' way of writing so understandable and even appealling. I try to tread the same kind of tightrope... internally i'm ENRAGED by the last ten years, but externally i manage my language and feelings carefully in an attempt to persuade people slowly (not that i don't think there's a very important place for shouting in rage: agree re the overton window).

I think/hope that this is a space where we can hold each other to account in some way but also acknowledge that there are different roles people can play, and with different shades.

The ironic thing is that TRAs have always hated her as much as JKR or any of us. They don’t do it by degrees. She’s as much of a TERF to them as KJK.

Hislop’s reply to Linehan’s over the years casts Hislop as brittle and dismissive to Linehan’s ineloquent frustrated emails but I have never grasped why? Parents of transitioners in close circle ? Hislop was disdainfully uninterested

Thanks everyone, it worked on my laptop!

I've often seem posts like the above, but, touch wood, arch.ph has always worked for me, on my lap-top. Just tried that Washpo link and it worked fine.

I find that the archive collection of sites, .ph, .is, .today, etc, stops working for me from time to time on my laptop. I'm unsure of the cause, sometimes going in via VPN, or not via a VPN, will cure it, other times I have to switch over to my phone. I don't think the cause is my ISP because when I do switch from laptop to phone, with the phone connected over my home wifi, I can find access working on my phone but not on my laptop.

On a slightly different note, Archiv ph has stopped working for me. Is anyone else having the same issue?

From the Washington Post:

"The days of medicalizing same-sex attraction are supposed to be shameful history. The review suggests that the old days are back under the new guise of care for “gender-diverse youth.” Speaking for myself, the progressive embrace of this regressive practice is one of the great ironies of the modern age.

The review is a sober examination of what by any standards are drastic medical interventions for physically healthy minors. It deserves to be read by people of all political leanings. Whether its early critics bothered to do so is unclear."

I needed to find an archived version of the WP article so I thought I'd share the link: https://archive.ph/dZZjx

The NYT and Atlantic articles have been posted before, but I don’t think the Washington Post one has - it’s good, worth a read:

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/26/hhs-review-anonymous-author/

Helen Lewis has been writing similar articles in the Atlantic for a few years.

Interesting article pointing out that Lewis's article is part of a sudden wave of realism and truth telling in US liberal Media. With the admission that Thomas was a cheating man by the Uni of Pennsylvania things really are changing.

Truth-telling time

Well, this is an interesting moment. Three major US media outlets—left-leaning and champions of “gender-affirming care,” by and large—have published solid articles unpicking the dogmas and delusions of extreme trans rights and puberty blockers.

On June 26, The New York Times had the headline “How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized and Lost Its Way.” Meaning, it got badly misdirected by trans-queer ideology. The occasion for the article was the tenth anniversary of a judicial ruling that nationalised same-sex marriage in America, and the author, Andrew Sullivan, was a prime mover in that cause. (The newspaper had prepared the ground for him with a devastating investigative piece the week before by Nicholas Confessore: “How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost”.)

The same day as Mr Sullivan’s guest essay in The Times, The Washington Post published a confessional article by an East Coast liberal philosopher, Alex Byrne, confirming that he was among the anonymous authors of the gender dysphoria review commissioned—and not, it seems, in any way doctored—by the Trump-era US Department of Health and Human Services.

And then, last week, The Atlantic magazine allowed journalist Helen Lewis to utter some uncomfortable home truths in her article “The Liberal Misinformation Bubble About Youth Gender Medicine: How the Left Ended Up Disbelieving the Science.”

https://www.genderclinicnews.com/p/trans-wrongs

This is a good observation. For Signal the ideological positioning is even more explicit and refined: I should be a center left aligned culture and political analyst in good standing; instead have been vilified as alt-right (e.g. suspended on Twiter and almost kicked of Bluesky) by left wing lunatics, and this is emblematic of what's destroying the Democrats and making it impossible to hold the line against real anti-democratic right wing authoritarianism.

The strength of Signal's particular message comes from his own personal demonstrably moderate positions of compromise across major issues that if anything position him to the left of majority popular opinion polling. To maintain the strength and coherence of this augment, Signal can't take a fully GC position even if he had come around to believing it is correct and even though that would still be a popular moderate position, just a centre right one rather than center left.

IMO It's an unfortunate state of affairs because, inherently, it tends toward cynicism and hypocrisy - I have to hold certain views to maintain the journalistic legitimacy of my reporting niche. It also describes the Atlantic's editorial position writ large. It's part of the identity politics driven narrative that's poisoned all national debate. But it's important to realize that it is a prevailing dynamic far larger than any one person or publication and to be effective as journalists Signal and HL must adhere to its premise.

I've understood for a long time that there will be no responsibility taken by these people for what they've done. No reflection. No spologies. As someone upthread said, it'll be all about how the TERFs made the debate too toxic, yadda, yadda. While this sticks in the craw big time, there will be great comfort in the narrative finally shifting all the same.

It's been interesting to watch this play out in real time. Also tragic, but from a more distanced/intellectual curiosity point of view, I've learnt that those ahead of the curve on these issues get no thanks at all for being so. it stacks up - look at how society treats whistle blowers.

It made me think a lot about the Cassandra myth too, but that's another post:

I've been a big fan for years of the idea that there are many different audiences to reach over the insanity of genderism and there are many different ways to get to them. So I definitely see a valuable role for Helen Lewis here. But at the same time I have no problem with people making temperate criticism of her approach over the past 8 years or so. But I've posted enough so I'll leave things there.

This week I have noticed more twitter posters that used to be more aligned with Helen Lewis and using pronouns etc (when not necessary for the publication guidelines) have changed and are now also saying that they now understand the power of those demanded pronouns and now won’t use them.

It is a step by step process for some.

I'm thinking now in the somewhat colder light of day, that although I definitely appreciate the need for articles like this by journalists like Helen Lewis, and the gap they fill for either resistant or oblivious liberals, I am noticing the desperate "at last!" thoughts that I have when reading it. And the resentment and anger I'm feeling that we have grasp gratefully at every crumb of sanity and even the merest hint of responsible fact based reporting from journalists, when that's their fucking job, which they should have been doing in the first place. And if enough of them had done their job properly in the early stages of this epic medical ethics failure and not decided that activism could replace journalism, we probably wouldn't have got so far into this disaster.

I am utterly furious with the liberal media and their culpability for the rise of pediatric gender medicine and their complicity in the cancelling of people with even the most moderate objections.Even if their influence has now largely been eclipsed by social media they played a huge role in shaping the culture of silence and cancellations around this topic.

I think so.

But it will be the Helen Joyce's that allowed her to do it by moving the Overton Window.

Totally agree with this.

Ultimately it will be the Helen Lewis's rather than the Helen Joyce's who win the echo-chambered-left round.

I am a total Helen Joyce fan girl, btw, so no disrespect to her. She plays a different part - her insight on people's behaviour on this issue is unparalleled.