Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3756 - Radiohead's Thom Yorke Releases about Israel and the Suffering in Gaza
I don't feel like writing much today.
I had a book review scheduled, but I haven't written it yet.
I have done a lot of writing this week. Personal things, a work thing, some fiction. several grad school things. I need to take a breath.
Plus tomorrow will be about the death of a great writer, and the post will be labor intensive.
However, the Internet always provides. This story popped up in one of those "top stories for you" things in Google Chrome.
I am not surprised that Yorke's view align very closely with my own as I have admired Yorke ever since I discovered Radiohead just before or with the release of Kid A in 2000.
I went made for everything I could get my hands on about the band, which is when I really cemented my love of British music magazines.
I have added a track from Yorke's new album with Mark Pritchard that goes nicely with Yorke's remarks on Gaza, Israel, and Hamas.
Side note, while in a waiting room the other day, someone praised me for the pin clipped to my bag. I had quite forgotten it was there and took me a few seconds to process: "FREE PALESTINE."
Also, Paul Weller put FREE PALESTINE messages in most of his post lately, even those about his birthday.
The American news media seem strangled to even speak the truth about the pursuit of genocide, the starvation, and the agenda of extremist Zionists to exterminate and take over the embattled region so as
Thom Yorke has released a statement about Israel and the war in Gaza. The Radiohead and Smile frontman began his statement by acknowledging the pro-Palestine concertgoer who shouted at him about the war during an Australian show last year. “Some guy shouting at me from the dark last year when I was picking up a guitar to sing the final song alone in front of 9000 people in Melbourne didn’t really seem like the best moment to discuss the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” Yorke shared. “Afterwards I remained in shock that my supposed silence was somehow being taken as complicity, and I struggled to find an adequate way to respond to this and to carry on with the rest of the shows on the tour.”
Yorke continued by stating his opposition to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his government. (Around the time Radiohead last performed in Israel, in 2017, Yorke also made clear his opposition to Netanyahu.) “I think Netanyahu and his crew of extremists are totally out of control and need to be stopped, and that the international community should put all the pressure it can on them to cease,” the musician wrote. “Their excuse of self-defence has long since worn thin and has been replaced by a transparent desire to take control of Gaza and the West Bank permanently.” Additionally, Yorke called the blockade of aid to Gaza “horrific.”
Yorke also condemned Hamas, admonishing the Palestinian Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip for the October 7, 2023, attacks that precipitated the Israeli military’s offensive in the region. “Why did Hamas choose the truly horrific acts of October 7th?” he asked. “The answer seems obvious, and I believe Hamas chooses too to hide behind the suffering of its people, in an equally cynical fashion for their own purposes.”
For much of the rest of his note, Yorke discussed the largely online conversations about Israel and Palestine. “I sympathize completely with the desire to ‘do something’ when we are witnessing such horrific suffering on our devices every day. It completely makes sense,” he said. “But I now think it is a dangerous illusion to believe reposting, or one or two line messages are meaningful, especially if it is to condemn your fellow human beings. There are unintended consequences.”
The musician also made reference to “those i work with,” likely alluding to his Radiohead and Smile bandmate Jonny Greenwood, who has been a subject of interest with regard to the war in Gaza. Greenwood is married to Sharona Katan, an Israeli artist of Egyptian and Iraqi descent, and he has collaborated closely with the Israeli musician Dudu Tassa. The musicians also recently had two UK concerts canceled after pressure from the the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
Some guy shouting at me from the dark last year when I was picking up a guitar to sing the final song alone in front of 9000 people in Melbourne didn’t really seem like the best moment to discuss the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Afterwards I remained in shock that my supposed silence was somehow being taken as complicity, and I struggled to find an adequate way to respond to this and to carry on with the rest of the shows on the tour.
That silence, my attempt to show respect for all those who are suffering and those who have died, and to not trivialize it in a few words, has allowed other opportunistic groups to use intimidation and defamation to fill in the blanks, and I regret giving them this chance. This has had a heavy toll on my mental health.
I would hope that for anyone who has ever listened to a note of the music of my band or any of the music i have created over the years, or looked at the artwork or read any of the lyrics, it would be self-evident that I could not possibly support any form of extremism or dehumanization of others. All i see in a lifetime’s worth of work with my fellow musicians and artists is pushing against such things, trying to create work that goes beyond what it means to be controlled, coerced, threatened, to suffer, to be intimidated .. and instead to encourage critical thinking beyond borders, the commonality of love and experience and free creative expression.
Sounds naff … but true.
For others let me fill in the blanks now, so we’re nice and clear.
I think Netanyahu and his crew of extremists are totally out of control and need to be stopped, and that the international community should put all the pressure it can on them to cease. Their excuse of self-defence has long since worn thin and has been replaced by a transparent desire to take control of Gaza and the West Bank permanently.
I believe this ultra-nationalist administration has hidden itself behind a terrified & grieving people and used them to deflect any criticism, using that fear and grief to further their ultra-nationalist agenda with terrible consequences, as we see now with the horrific blockade of aid to Gaza.
While our lives tick along as normal these endless thousands of innocent human souls are still being expelled from the earth… for what?
At the same time the unquestioning Free Palestine refrain that surrounds us all does not answer the simple question of why the hostages have still not all been returned? For what possible reason?
Why did Hamas choose the truly horrific acts of October 7th? The answer seems obvious, and I believe Hamas chooses too to hide behind the suffering of its people, in an equally cynical fashion for their own purposes.
I also think there is a further and extremely important point to make.
Social media witch-hunts (nothing new) on either side pressurizing artists and whoever they feel like that week to make statements etc do very little except heighten tension, fear and over-simplification of what are complex problems that merit proper face to face debate by people who genuinely wish the killing to stop and an understanding to be found.
This kind of deliberate polarization does not serve our fellow human beings and perpetuates a constant ‘us and them’ mentality. It destroys hope and maintains a sense of isolation, the very things that extremists use to maintain their position. We facilitate their hiding in plain sight if we assume that the extremists and the people they claim to represent are one and the same, indivisible.
If our world is ever able to move on from these dark times and find peace it will only be when we rediscover what we share in common, and the extremists are sent back to sit in the darkness from whence they came.
I sympathize completely with the desire to ‘do something’ when we are witnessing such horrific suffering on our devices every day. It completely makes sense. But I now think it is a dangerous illusion to believe reposting, or one or two line messages are meaningful, especially if it is to condemn your fellow human beings. There are unintended consequences.
It is shouting from the darkness. It is not looking people in the eye when you speak. It is making dangerous assumptions. It is not debate and it is not critical thinking.
Importantly, it is open to online manipulation of all kinds, both mechanistic and political.
What is the alternative? I can’t answer that easily. I do know in communities around the globe this subject is now dangerously toxic and we are in uncharted waters. We need to turn back.
I am sure that, to this point, what I have written here will in no way satisfy those who choose to target myself or those i work with, they will spend time picking holes and looking for reasons to continue, we are an opportunity not to be missed, no doubt, and by either side.
I have written this in the simple hope that i can join with the many millions of others praying for this suffering, isolation and death to stop, praying that we can collectively regain our humanity and dignity and our ability to reach understanding .. that one day soon this darkness will have passed.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2505.31 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3621 days ago & DAD = 275 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3755 - Deadly Danger of Anti-Trans Laws
Two shares from Rebecca Watson about trans people and the attacks from the MAGA wanks.
DEFEND TRANS YOUTH!
DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF TRANS PEOPLE.
Thanks for tuning in.
Hey, content warning: this video is going to deal with suicide. If that’s too much for you, I recommend you give it a skip, or you can skip to the timestamp on the screen at which point I will be talking about something more enjoyable. So, in the past month I’ve heard from many of you who have asked if I could make a video about a recent study in Nature concerning trans care. And I read the study, and it is interesting, but I went back and forth over whether it was worth making a video about. Obviously, you’re watching this, so you know that I eventually decided to go for it. First I’ll talk about the study, and then I’d like to talk a little bit about what made me waffle on discussing it.
Unfortunately, that paper is not available to the average person without institutional access. Fortunately, it is based on data collected by the Trevor Project, who has provided the results of those surveys from 2022, 2021 and 2020 on their website.
If you’re not aware, the Trevor Project was formed in 1998 because some filmmakers made a short dramedy called Trevor, about a thirteen year old boy who is rejected by his peers after coming out as gay, and so he then attempts suicide. The filmmakers wanted to end the movie with a shout out to a resource to help young people facing the same problem as Trevor, but there wasn’t any. So, they made their own by creating a 24-hour LGBTQ suicide prevention helpline called the Trevor Lifeline, and over the next few decades they grew into a huge organization that is now employing trained researchers. They’ve been putting out reports on their findings for the past few years, and several of those have been published in peer-reviewed journals like this latest one.
In line with the Trevor Project’s entire mission statement, this study is about trans youth and suicide. Across their annual surveys, Trevor Project polled more than 35,000 transgender and nonbinary youth between the ages of 13 and 24, asking them questions about whether they had attempted suicide in the past year and whether they had considered suicide in the past year, and if so how seriously they had considered it. They then compared the responses between states that had introduced anti-trans laws that targeted kids, like restricting their medical care or banning them from playing sports, with states that didn’t have those laws. They found that in the first year after a state introduced anti-trans laws, the number of teens between 13 and 17 attempting suicide jumped significantly compared to other states. In the second year after the introduction of the law, the number of suicide attempts significantly increased for all respondents up to the age of 24. The increase was anywhere from 7 to 72% depending on the time period and age of participants.
That would be damning enough, but the researchers took things a step further by demonstrating not just a correlation between anti-trans laws and suicidality, but direct causality. Often causality can be demonstrated in studies by doing things like randomized controlled trials, but you can’t just randomly assign trans and nonbinary kids to live in various states. So in this case, the researchers controlled for aspects like suicide rates in the year prior to the introduction of these laws, federal policies, and each state’s suicide preventions efforts. The results were so clear that one co-author told NBC News, “State-level anti-transgender laws caused — so, not associated with, not linked to — we can say very confidently, they caused up to a 72% increase in number of past-year suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary young people,” as well as a 49% increase in the percent of trans and nonbinary young people who made at least one attempt in the past year.”
Despite that confidence, there were some limitations: they were comparing surveys between individuals instead of following subjects over those years and seeing how they themselves change. They also didn’t consider the different effects different laws might have–for instance, it’s possible that fully banning puberty blockers may have more negative effects than setting up roadblocks to accessing them, or preventing kids from using their correct gender’s bathroom.
But as more and more states consider more and more of these anti-trans laws, it is important to know the inevitable damage they’re doing, just as it’s important to know that enacting anti-abortion measures leads to more women, fetuses, and babies dying.
So why did I hesitate to make this video? Well, for the same reason I hesitate whenever I make a video about the inevitable damage of abortion restrictions: because the people who want these laws do not see this result as a negative. When it comes to lawmakers enacting legislation on abortion, their goal isn’t to “save babies.” It’s to control and punish women, and get a bunch of money from the Christian fundamentalist lobby while they’re at it.
When it comes to preventing trans and nonbinary kids from accessing gender affirming care, the goal isn’t to “protect kids.” It’s to control and punish kids who challenge heteronormativity. Imagine a transphobe has a little 3-year old boy who asks for a Barbie for Christmas. The transphobe spanks him and says she’s going to get him a toy gun and if she ever catches her son playing with dolls in the future he’ll get another spanking. A child psychologist tells her “hey, that’s going to fuck up your son’s mental health now and in the future.” The transphobe will reply, “GOOD. Because I’d rather have a fucked up son who conforms than a well-adjusted kid who makes the neighbors look at me funny and wonder what’s wrong with my family. We want to be NORMAL, not HAPPY.”
There’s so much psychological research out there showing how humans strive to conform that we’d be here all month if I were to cite it all, but the classic experiment is the Asch paradigm: in the 1950s, Solomon Ashe at Swarthmore conducted a series of experiments in which he used peer pressure to get people to answer obvious questions wrong just so they’d fit in. Decades of research have built upon that, showing that people will choose to fit in even if it means giving up on rewards, like saying they prefer a song they don’t like and therefore not getting a free album with the song they DO like. We are social animals and that shows in the way our brains are wired.
If pressed on the issue, I’m sure no parent would say they would rather their nonconforming child be dead, but I am sure that they will lie to themselves that the child will be happier once they realize the benefits of fitting in.
With that in mind, I’m making this video in the hope of at least reaching the family, friends, teachers, and carers of nonconforming kids: by rejecting them, or punishing them to try to get them to fit in, you are not helping them. You are INCREASING the chances that they will kill themselves.
And with THAT in mind, I will end on a positive note. Here are some findings from the 2024 Trevor Project survey:
LGBTQ youth who felt high social support from their family reported attempting suicide at less than half the rate of those who felt low or moderate social support.
LGBTQ+ young people who reported living in very accepting communities attempted suicide at less than half the rate of those who reported living in very unaccepting communities.
LGBTQ+ young people who had access to LGBTQ+-affirming spaces, and transgender and nonbinary youth who had access to gender-affirming spaces, reported lower rates of attempting suicide compared to those who did not.
Transgender and nonbinary young people who had access to gender-affirming clothing, gender-neutral bathrooms at school, and had their pronouns respected by the people they live with had lower rates of attempting suicide compared to those who did not.
Most LGBTQ+ young people who attend school (78%) reported having at least one adult at school who is supportive and affirming of their LGBTQ+ identity.
Finally, for allies who want to help, here are ten ways LGBTQ+ young people said would make them feel more accepted:
Trusting that I know who I am
88%
Standing up for me
81%
Not supporting politicians that advocate for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation
77%
Looking up things about LGBTQ+ identities on their own to better understand
62%
Respecting my pronouns
59%
Showing support for how I express my gender
57%
Asking questions about LGBTQ+ identities to better understand
56%
Accepting my partner(s)
55%
Showing support on social media
44%
Having or displaying pride flags
43%
And of course, don’t just “not support” anti-trans politicians but please “Vote out the bigots who are enacting these deadly anti-trans laws.” To all my trans, nonbinary, and otherwise nonconforming friends, I love you and hope you keep being yourselves.
Like, you already know from the headline that this is gonna be some bullshit, right? Ten New York Times writers want to tell me what mattered? Meaning that they also want to tell me what didn’t matter?
I mean, look, Trump and Elon Musk spent their first month in power completely flooding the world with as much awful bullshit as possible, in an attempt to overwhelm the average person and make them feel like it’s hopeless to do anything but comply. And so all anti-fascist communicators have a duty right now to help the general public by breaking down individual actions, explaining them, and helping to brainstorm potential responses. That is not what this is. This is one of the most respected newspapers in the country using a fun scatter plot meme to let some of the dumbest men on the planet tell you that trans people don’t matter. They included a few women, too, but my god, the men are so dumb they should be studied by science, in another country where science still exists.
Just to give you an idea, before I get to the meat of this, Daniel McCarthy, “editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review,” and Matthew Schmitz, editor of Compact magazine, both think that a child who goes by “Big Balls” has had a large and very positive impact on US when he stole a bunch of data and fired a bunch of people critical to the health and safety of Americans.
And on the topic of Trump planning to genocide immigrants, Adolf Twinkler and The Thumb are joined by Walking Bad Take Machine Ross Douthat in agreeing that that’s good and impactful.
And so finally, when it comes to agreeing that trans people really SHOULD be punished, those three smooth-brains are joined by David French, a rightwing loser who sucks so much his own church told him to pound sand and then he cried about it in the New York Times.
Let me be clear: everyone sucks here, including the usually on-point Tressie McMillan Cottom. As Alex P. pointed out with this excellent notated graphic on BlueSky, the only morally correct position here is that Trump’s abuse of trans people is as negative as possible, and as consequential as possible. Yes, even if you, yourself, are not transgender.
On January 20th, Trump signed an executive order “declaring that the federal government will no longer recognize transgender people by defining sex as strictly male or female based on characteristics at birth. The order requires federal agencies to remove references to gender identity from policies, mandates that government IDs reflect only sex assigned at birth, and eliminates accommodations for transgender individuals in federally-funded spaces like schools, shelters, and workplaces. It directs prisons to house transgender women with men, rescinds federal funding for gender-affirming healthcare, and eliminates federal protections against discrimination based on gender identity, including under Title IX.”
Three days later, Marco Rubio froze all passport applications requesting the “X” gender or asking for a change of gender. Trans actress Hunter Schaeffer reported on TikTok that she needed a replacement passport, not one that needed to be changed at all, and it arrived marked as “male.”
On the 27th, Trump banned trans people from the military.
The following day, he signed an order stating that federal funds could no longer go towards trans care for people under the age of 19, meaning they could no longer use Medicaid to cover treatment. The order also “targets hospitals and universities receiving federal funds that provide gender-affirming care, directs the Department of Justice to pursue litigation against the practice, and encourages Congress to pass laws allowing people who received care (or their parents) to sue providers. It also calls for investigating states that protect access to gender-affirming care and those that shelter patients traveling from states where it's banned.”
The day after that, Trump signed an executive order banning trans people from all public schools, forcing them to use the bathrooms, sports teams, and names that align with the gender they were assigned at birth.
On January 31st, the Trump administration began removing all reference to gender from all government websites, deleting resources like CDC pages set up to help trans and nonbinary youth and State Department advice on traveling abroad while trans or nonbinary.
The same day, the Social Security Administration halted all sex ID changes.
And on February 5th, Trump signed an executive order stopping trans girls and women from competing in sports.
Four of the ten brainiacs the New York Times platformed think that’s all just great. Another three think that it’s NOT great, but it’s inconsequential. Megan K. Stack “can’t say it’s exactly consequential, since so few lives are materially affected.” Like, okay, sure, the sports thing really stuck it to that one girl in Utah who wanted to play softball, but according to a Pew Research Poll, trans and nonbinary people make up at least 1.6% of the population, and that number may be higher due to how few people feel comfortable coming out as trans considering, you know, everything I just mentioned, which explains why that poll also found that 5% of young people said say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth. But sure, let’s just go with 1.6%.
Guess how many people in Germany were Jewish in January of 1933? Less than .8%. Half as many. Were their lives inconsequential? And did the Nazis stop with them? Did no one at the New York Times learn the poem that starts, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist”?
Survivors told us to never forget, and to never let it happen again. We have all the information. When the first fascists started Sieg Heiling, everyone else couldn’t immediately know “Oh, yep, that’s a fascist.” But we know it. They’re Nazis. Elon even went out and got himself what we used to call the “Hitler Youth” haircut, to really make it clear. I assume he’s been toying with new facial hair styles, too, standing in the bathroom looking at the mirror and trying to convincingly say it’s all just a comedy act.
In 1962, Kurt Vonnegut published Mother Night, a fictional memoir of an American spy who infiltrated the Nazi’s propaganda organization, working his way up to the top in order to broadcast radio shows in which he would hide coded messages to the US. Years after the end of the war, he’s captured and put on trial for war crimes, and his contact in the US War Department says that he’s on his way to testify that he was a double agent the entire time. But instead of waiting for exoneration, the spy hangs himself for “crimes against (him)self.”
In the introduction to the book, Vonnegut wrote, “This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don’t think it’s a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Think about it: would you pretend to be a Nazi, for any reason at all? Even professional actors wrestle with it, with many German and Austrian actors stating unequivocally that they will never play a Nazi, or placing certain limitations on what their character does. And they’re paid, to make art. Who goes out on a public stage and acts like a Nazi, for free, with no costars, no director, no script, and no comeuppance?
Simple: a Nazi. And with all of the bullshit executive orders and government ransacking Trump and Musk have done, much of it resembles what the Nazis did, but two areas are so precisely what the Nazis did, and are so precisely the most dangerous thing they did, that it cannot be ignored: the threat to immigrants and the threat to transgender and nonbinary people. We MUST reject the New York Times’ framing them as inconsequential and we MUST stand with them, because it’s the right thing to do. But if it matters, just know that if Trump and Musk are successful, they’re going to come for the rest of us eventually.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2505.30 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3620 days ago & DAD = 274 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
