Twitter must go. It is a threat not only to our democracy, but to whatever sanity our body politic still possesses. The latest instance is that of Dr. Ray Blanchard, one of the world’s leading experts on gender dysphoria. Dr. Blanchard is one of the psychologists responsible for the discussion of gender dysphoria in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard reference work used by psychologists and psychiatrists.
In response to a question from one of his Twitter followers, Dr. Blanchard tweeted some observations on the optimal treatment of transgenderism, the cause du jour of the American left. These expressions of Blanchard’s professional opinions seem not especially controversial. You can see his tweets here. A sample:
(2) Sex change surgery is still the best treatment for carefully screened, adult patients, whose gender dysphoria has proven resistant to other forms of treatment.
— Ray Blanchard (@BlanchardPhD) May 11, 2019
(3) Sex change surgery should not be considered for any patient until that patient has reached the age of 21 years and has lived for at least two years in the desired gender role.
— Ray Blanchard (@BlanchardPhD) May 11, 2019
The other tweets were generally more technical in nature. Nevertheless, Twitter’s leftist legions swung into action with their typical know-nothingism, and suspended Blanchard’s Twitter account. Tyler O’Neil reports at PJ Media:
In the early hours of Sunday morning, an expert Ph.D. psychologist who helped write the official psychological position on transgender identity was blocked on Twitter for expressing his opinion informed by clinical experience. His well-reasoned position was flagged for “hateful conduct.”
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Blanchard explained his clinically-informed opinion that “sex change surgery should not be considered for any patient until that patient has reached the age of 21 years and has lived for at least two years in the desired gender role.”This delay is controversial, as many transgender activists encourage hormonal and surgical treatments for minors, even children. Some researchers have received government grants to try such treatments on 8-year-old children, and a British transgender activist took her 15-year-old son to Thailand to get him castrated.
Advocating that sort of child abuse wouldn’t get you blocked from Twitter, of course.
When a Catholic woman complained about this child abuse on Twitter, U.K. police investigated her for abuse.
God help us.
[S]tudies have shown that the vast majority of children who identify as transgender will revert to their biological sex if they are allowed to go through puberty. For this and other reasons, Blanchard’s position makes sense psychologically.
I agree, but more fundamentally, it is insane for expert commentary like that offered by Dr. Blanchard to be considered “hateful” and blocked by some anonymous, uneducated Twitter minion.
As O’Neil documents, a number of people have weighed in on Blanchard’s behalf, including Helen Joyce of The Economist:
Ray Blanchard served on the gender dysphoria working group and chaired the paraphilia working group for DSM V. He is a world expert in the field. Twitter has just suspended his account for a thread setting out his findings from
A lifetime of research. Unreal pic.twitter.com/vgQCd4OzYs— Helen Joyce (@HJJoyceEcon) May 12, 2019
It may seem unreal, but this is the world of public discourse in which we live. Twitter’s “unreal” decisions to ban or suspend users are effective leftist tools. They always trend, of course, in the same direction.
Maybe conservatives should boycott Twitter and Facebook. Maybe we should start up competing platforms to Twitter and Facebook. Maybe the federal government should commence antitrust enforcement action against Twitter and Facebook. Maybe Congress should enact legislation that would turn platforms like Twitter and Facebook into regulated public utilities. These approaches all have advantages and disadvantages. But one thing conservatives–or, more broadly, normal people–should not do, is accept the status quo.
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