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Josh on Trump on Gender · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas.
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It has been a big start to the Trump administration, a flurry of extremely aggressive and proactive
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executive orders.
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It's kind of headspinning and it's a little difficult to understand and to contextualize.
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So I thought that I would try to assist by identifying ways, one specific way in fact,
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in which the legacy media could be doing a better job of helping us to understand the context
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of what's happening and helping us to have uncomfortable conversations instead of sitting
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comfortably in our pre-existing interpretation and expectations of who Trump is and what
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he's up to.
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My worry is that the coverage of Trump's initial flurry of actions makes it more difficult,
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the coverage by the legacy media that is and by podcast to stand in fact, makes it more
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difficult to understand what's really going on and in the case of the legacy media that
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is partly caused because on a few central issues journalism and newsrooms have been
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captured by interest groups, activist groups and I want to look in particular at the coverage
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of Trump's policies on trans people and biological sex as a case study of how damaging it can
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be to a healthy national conversation when journalists do activism and when you start
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assigning stories and beats to people on the basis of their identity and their activist
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interest rather than on their ability to integrate information across a wide range of
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different interests in a way that will resonate with people who don't have a pre-existing
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preconception about that particular identity group or activist cause because what's happened
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is that some of the coverage on hot button social justice issues and sensitive issues has
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understandably in recent years become us being assigned to people who have a particular
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interest in that so LGBT issues will be covered by LGBT people and race issues will be covered
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by racial minorities. It's understandable instinct but it can also actually make it harder for
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the average citizen to understand these issues because they're only hearing about them through
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a particular lens that seems frankly alien to the mainstream. Even if you oppose Trump and
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what Trump is doing I think this sort of coverage makes it harder to oppose him because it's harder
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to understand what he's actually doing what he thinks he's doing and what his supporters are
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supporting him to do and it makes it harder to argue against it in a coherent way that will persuade
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anyone who isn't already on your side. So let's take a look at what Trump did and then how it's
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covered in the legacy media and how a healthy conversation might want to cover it instead.
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I'm going to focus specifically on the main headline about Trump's gender policies in the main
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national public broadcaster in Australia the ABC a cherished institution and one that does a lot
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of great work but on this particular issue as its own ombudsman at media watch the television show
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has covered several times. On this particular issue there is a really harmful capture of the
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news division by ideologues. The headline on the main page one of the most red articles of the week
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is entitled quote cruel and inhuman queer community reacts to Trump's order on gender.
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That's the clickbait and when you click through the headline says Donald Trump's executive order
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on gender is quote unquote cruel US queer community says. I should have this is not a follow-up
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addendum to a larger piece that explains what the executive order is and speaks to people who
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defend it. This is the piece. This is the coverage. So the man who won a majority of votes in the
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United States is implementing a broadly popular policy about biological sex and the only
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coverage that we're getting from the national broadcaster is not and I'm not saying that this is
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a good thing. I'm just saying the only if you want to understand the world around you you're
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going to have to hear presumably from people who understand and cannot articulate the rationale
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behind the policies that you disagree with but the main article about this is the first words
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of the link that you click on are cruel and inhuman and then you click through and it says again
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that it's cruel according to the US queer community. Let me quote the article begins president
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Donald Trump's decision to recognize only two sexes male and female has sparked growing concern
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and confusion among the LGBTQIA plus community in the United States. Mr. Trump signed an executive
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order recognizing only male and female sexes the article says and declaring they cannot be
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changed shortly after being sworn in as president. He also revoked orders from the Biden
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administration and preventing discrimination based on gender identity or sexual discrimination
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and just this week the article goes on he signed an executive order to end federal funding for
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gender affirming care for children under 19 across the US. Okay let's just note
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immediately right off the bat before we even get into this lengthy piece that it is using language
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of the activist gender community already and again I'm not having a go at where people's
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hearts are on this or you know whether or not it is legitimate to criticize a policy that I
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personally regard as model headed and harsh and uncaring whether or not that policy would have
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been brought into existence were it not for the overreach of gender and queer activists in the
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first place is a conversation we can have later but the policy in and of itself like much that
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Donald Trump does is too brutal and too blunt but set that aside for a moment this is a news
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organization and this is an article that is not an opinion piece it is supposed to inform the
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Australian public about what the president of the United States is doing and the charter of the
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national public broadcaster is that it will speak to all Australians and reflect the diversity of
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the Australian community and that word diversity has become interpreted to mean that we will
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cherry pick individuals from minority groups to articulate the most extreme activist positions
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on those issues and smuggle it in as if it was objective news instead of what I regard diversity
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what I think diversity should mean and what I think the average person in the street
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commonsensically understands diversity to mean which is we will reflect the full range of viewpoints
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of valid viewpoints that are expressed by the Australian community including potentially ones
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that the social justice university educated elite might find distasteful so already at the
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beginning of this article which again is entitled cruel and inhuman queer community reacts to
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Trump's order on gender already in the first few paragraphs just teeing up what's happened
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it says that Trump signed an executive order to end federal funding for gender affirming
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care gender affirming care used to be called gender transition care or gender transition
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operations before that it was called sex change operations or you know it may not be an operation
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but sex change healthcare affirming was a rhetorical and linguistic switch that the trans community
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pushed for because it was a way of saying we're not transitioning the gender we are rather
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affirming the gender that actually the person is underneath their skin and has been all along
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so if a 12 year old girl on the autism spectrum who has no friends and suffers from anxiety and
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depression and exists inside a social clique where several of her friends are transitioning
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especially if she comes from a fairly homophobic environment where there is a social penalty for
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coming out as a butch lesbian if she wants to declare that she is now a he then the medical assistance
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that she or he or they might receive used to be called gender transition now it's called gender
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affirmation because you're affirming the fact that this girl is actually a male deep inside
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now there may be very good reasons for going along with that but it is not the place of an objective
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news article in the national public broadcaster to be putting its thumb on the scale in the very first
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few paragraphs trying to explain to people to help them understand what a new American
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administration is doing by calling it gender affirming care frankly I would use more neutral
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language even though I know that's not the formal policy because a lot of these news organizations
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have transitioned pardon the pun transitioned they've been affirmed in recent years from using
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more colloquial language into using activist language in order to get scored well by activist
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LGBT groups which go around pronouncing whether or not
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a particular organization is sufficiently friendly to queer people and you have to sort of
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implement the changes that they want you to and in my opinion contaminate journalistic integrity
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by following a particular script that may or may not be confusing or may or may not be
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enlightening to the readers in order to get a good score amongst the activist class so let's
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just continue here there's then a subtitle a subheading in the article that says what is the
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executive order on gender and I think to myself oh goody we're going to get some facts here
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the article says the order declares there are only two sexes male and female it says it defines
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the sexes in an unconventional way based on the reproductive cells large cells in females
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or small ones in males the order also suggests that humans have those cells at conception
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rejecting that people can transition from one gender to another or be considered anything
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other than male or female this essentially means the article says people who identify as non-binary
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aren't considered anymore okay um this is not well written
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what does it mean to say that people who identify as non-binary aren't considered
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anymore are considered for what are considered by whom does it mean they're not allowed to exist
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does it mean that it's against the law to call yourself non-binary no it doesn't mean any of that
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aren't considered I mean what you yeah it's that's appalling that's sort of appalling writing
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and should have been edited um but let's just start from the top the order declares that there
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are only two sexes male and female that defines the sexes in an unconventional way I mean that's
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an extraordinary claim it defines the sexes in an unconventional way based on the reproductive cells
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it is unconventional to define the sexes based on reproductive cells
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because three seconds ago in historical and cultural time everyone was bullied by activists into
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sort of pretending that biology isn't what it is again this is not at all to say that trans people
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shouldn't have every right or anyone should have every right to identify however they want to
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but if we're talking about biology which this article now is it's making a claim that it is
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unconventional to assert that the sexes are defined by reproductive cells I mean this is one of
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the most basic principles of all not just human life not just mammalian life not just animal life
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but life on earth I mean the way in which evolution produces genetic variance is by having one half
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of a population of the species of one category and another of another and yes there'll be minorities
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in between who are you know differently functioning in some way they'll be into sex individuals and
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so on but the vast vast vast vast vast vast majority of individual living creatures fall into
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or fall on one side of a binary there are very few things in nature that are binary most things are
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shades of gray sexuality is clearly shades of gray night and day a shades of gray witness and dryness
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a shades of gray sex really is one of those rare things in nature where there are chromosomal
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toggles where it's an on switch or an off switch there's an xx or an xy there are
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types of animals that have large stationary reproductive cells like female eggs and then the other
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half will have small mobile reproductive cells like sperm and again this is not to say that people
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with small mobile reproductive cells can't feel like they're women and dress as women and that
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they shouldn't be accorded all of the rights of to define themselves however they want to and it's
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not to say that some people are x x y or x y y or intersex or have unusual gametes or have you
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both types of reproductive parts that all exist but it is wild for the most credible and august
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and respected news organization in the country to write a sentence like the Trump order defines
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the sex as in an unconventional way this has been a basic principle of science biology and culture
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for I mean thousands of years culturally and centuries scientifically and then in the past
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decade or so we've changed our minds about this and said that because people who don't fit the
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binary are deserving of respect and have been traditionally disenfranchised and abused and victims
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of hate crime we should all be a lot nicer towards them and the way in which we should be a lot
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nicer to them is by pretending that what has been very very conventional in our understanding of
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biology is now as the ABC news website puts it unconventional. The article as I just read goes
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on to say the order also suggests that humans have those cells at conception.
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Well I mean we yeah so at conception you obviously don't have your sex cells fully fledged
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but it is not the case that cells at conception do not have sex remember we're talking about biological
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sex here we're not talking about gender we're not talking about how the blastocyst feels inside
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whether it wants to play with dolls or whether it wants to play with trucks we're talking about
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whether or not the blastocyst how whether there is predictive power in like can you take a biopsy
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of a five day old blastocyst and with near certainty figure out whether or not that is going to be a
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male of the species or a female of the species when it is born of course you can I did it with my
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children before they were born when they were five day old blastocysts they were biopsy to check
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for genetic diseases because we were using IVF and that was something that we could avail ourselves
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of in the United States just to make sure that they were okay and as part of that their sex was
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listed on the sheet again does that mean that it's inevitable that they will not be trans and
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they will be cis of course not but this article is making it sound like it's a bizarre unscientific
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thing for the Trump administration to issue an executive order that suggests that humans can be male
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or female at the moment of conception it says that it rejects that people can transition from one
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gender to another will be considered anything other than male or female this is another point of
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very poor writing and poor thinking which serves Australians very poorly in under helping to
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understand this issue there is an evasion throughout this article and throughout so much of the
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coverage from the progressive legacy media of the difference between sex and gender the article says
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the order declares there are only two sexes and it says it defines the sexes in an unconventional way
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now I'm not sure if the journalists writing this are even aware of the fact that they're conflating
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biological sex with the cultural notion of gender or if they're doing it intentionally it's quite
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possible that the act they're just so imbued in the activist circles that they're not even aware
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that there's a difference but they transition from saying there are only two sexes and it defines
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the sexes in an unconventional way it doesn't define the sexes in an unconventional way it might
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define gender in an unconventional way by suggesting that gender is innate at the moment of
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conception but that's perfectly conventional understanding of biological sex and the vast
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majority of scientists would agree with that the vast majority of cultures around the world would
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agree with it except for socially progressive social justice activists in western countries in the
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past five or ten years but then so then you'll notice that the word gets changed from sex to gender
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in the following paragraph the order also suggests that humans have those kinds of conception
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rejecting that people can transition from one gender to another rejecting that people can
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transition from one gender to another well hang on that's a bit of a bait and switch
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is that a little magic trick we've just quietly dispensed with the word sex and we've introduced
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the word gender it says so it is a different claim to say that people can transition from one
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gender to another than to say that people can transition from one sex to another and then we get
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we get to the sentence that says this essentially means people who identify as non-binary
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aren't considered anymore the article then goes on to articulate perhaps what it means by
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that claim that it's unconventional to interpret sex as being binary and that
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humans don't really have sex cells at conception it says the position conflicts with what the American
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Medical Association and other mainstream medical groups say that extensive scientific research
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suggests sex and gender are better understood as a spectrum now I know that mainstream medical
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associations have been co-opted and sort of brow beaten into making claims look a lot of this
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is very worthy and very worthwhile which is why I know that I get a lot of shit for saying all this
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stuff I don't mean to diminish or demean the importance of understanding the risks that exist
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for the trans community and for gender queer people like a lot of the time in the past five or
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ten years I think very well-meaning people in places like the American Medical Association
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and the Australian Medical Association have felt that it is a noble lie to talk about sex being
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non-binary because the medical hazard of abuse and injustice and persecution against trans people
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is sufficiently severe that anything we can do to give a scientific impromarter on
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sort of progressive causes that will elevate at the safety of trans people is worth it.
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It might be a little bit I suspect like the claim during COVID that anti-racist protests in 2020
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are okay even if they transmit coronavirus because the risk of racist violence is greater than
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the risk of the virus itself might be sort of this assumption that the risk of anti-trans
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hate acts is worse than the risk of a little white lie about the nature of biological sex
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as a spectrum rather than as a as a binary now I would quibble even with that claim because I think
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that lying or misleading or equivocating about the nature of scientific fact actually in the long
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run is more harmful to trans people because you end up with reactionary movements like like the
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Trump movement you end up with executive orders like this one which in large part I don't think
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would have the fuel behind them if there wasn't a general sense of the the public being fed up
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with nonsense on the left it's a self reinforcing ratcheting up of extremism on both sides
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but set that aside for the moment I got curious about with the American Medical Association
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actually said because I thought that sounds odd I would be absolutely certain that the AMA
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claims that gender is a spectrum but I'd be surprised if even the AMA had gone so far
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as to say that sex was a spectrum and I'd be even more surprised if they if they claimed that
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there was extensive scientific research which this article again a news article not an opinion article
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a news article a supposedly objective news article is stating that the American Medical Association
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and other mainstream medical groups say that extensive scientific research suggests sex not
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just gender is better understood as a spectrum so I went to chat GPT which I'm a premium user of
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and I use a lot and I've been using it an enormous amount over the past six months and I have never
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received an error message that says hmm something seems to have gone wrong but I typed into chat GPT
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don't worry this I don't regard it as as flawless I always follow up with some other investigation
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but as an initial insight it's usually reasonably good and I asked it does the American Medical
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Association say that extensive scientific research suggests sex and gender are better understood
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as a spectrum and chat GPT said hmm something seems to have gone wrong and I said try again and it
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said hmm something seems to have gone wrong and I said are you not permitted to discuss this and it
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said hmm something seems to have gone wrong so good on the the coders of chat GPT for not allowing
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it to wait into that territory forgive me for being suspicious but I think they're they're
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probably wise to try to avoid the the social media hounding that they would get if they accidentally
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told the truth about this so I went to the AMA's website and I looked up their actual policy
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the head the policy headline says affirming the medical spectrum of gender it doesn't say
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affirming the medical spectrum of gender and sex but it does say this is their announcement about
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the change in policy on gender and sex from a few years ago the AMA will oppose efforts to deny
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individuals right to determine their stated sex marker or gender identity the new policy comes just
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weeks after a memo circulated within the Trump administration this is Trump 1.0 I think I believe
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this policy change came in 2017 in response to Trump's first term the new policy comes after a
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memo circulated in the administration proposed narrowly defining sex as a person's status as male
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or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth so this was Trump's
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first bite at the apple the first time around he tried to do this and the AMA board member who's
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quoted here says sex and gender are more complex than previously assumed it is essential to
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acknowledge that an individual's gender identity may not align with the sex assigned to them at
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birth and this board member goes on to say a narrow limit on the definition of sex would have
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public health consequences for the transgender population and individuals born with differences
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in sexual differentiation also known as intersex traits then it says the AMA will work to preserve
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access to quality healthcare by educating state and federal policymakers to ensure they have a
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fundamental understanding of the scientific nature of a person's sex that reads to me like the AMA
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doing what I articulated before which is sensing that it's important for them not to take a stand
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on sex but it's important for them to be seen to be on the side of transgender people because they
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don't want to be condoning the brutalization of a traditionally disenfranchised minority group
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that does not sound to me like what the ABC News article claims which is that the American Medical
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Association and mainstream medical groups say that extensive scientific research suggests that sex
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and gender are better understood as a spectrum I can't find any evidence of the American Medical
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Association or mainstream medical groups publishing extensive scientific research that suggests that
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biological sex is a spectrum the article goes on to say mr. Trump's order also stated it aimed to
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protect women's spaces from those who quote unquote self-identify as women the bulk of the rest of
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the article is interviews with gender non-binary and gender queer people in the United States who are
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basically expressing their fears and saying that they're concerned one of them is Sarah Kate Smigel
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who identifies as non-binary and queer and the journalists have obviously reached out to her
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she's a content creator so they presumably follow her on Instagram and they've hit her up and
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interviewed her now she sorry I should say they I assume because if they're non-binary then they
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probably go by they now this person looks there's a photo looks very much like a female okay but they
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identify as non-binary and queer and they are quoted as saying the following quote I need to be
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careful not to get pulled over I still have f for female on my driver's license so if they saw
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that meaning the police and a government official doesn't believe I fit into that category my
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license can be taken away as well they said well I don't want to diminish people's fear but firstly
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there's nothing in the executive order that says that your license can be taken away or that an
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existing piece of government documentation can be taken away from you if it was lawfully issued
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because it is different from your biological gender and secondly this is a person who presents
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as female was presumably born as female although I'm guessing but they look female and their name
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is Sarah Kate and their license says that they're female so unless they start picking a fight
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with a government official by insisting that they're not female and that they want to be called
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non-binary even though it says female on their license I don't understand what this fear
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is from and then this person is quoted as saying the article says Sarah Kate said some people have
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had their documentation confiscated because of the ex marker the ex marker was introduced some
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years ago during the Biden administration I believe in a capitulation to trans activists where
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now you can have an American passport or driver's license that is not male or female but ex you know
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which is sort of neither and Sarah Kate says some people have had their documentation confiscated
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now the journalists don't seem to have done any follow-up on that there's no paragraph about how
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they have asked the law enforcement in the United States whether or not people are having
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their documents confiscated there's no paragraph about how they followed up with an LGBT activist
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group to ask whether or not they could put them in touch with anyone who has had their passport
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or driver's license confiscated because of the ex marker there's no follow-up paragraph about
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anyone who they've spoken to who they've found online or on social media who claims to have
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their document confiscated again this is a news article in the national public broadcaster
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and it is reporting hearsay with no follow-up from someone who has a vested interest in presenting
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a certain angle on the president's actions and there is no questioning of this claim that this
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person is saying quite making quite a serious allegation it would be quite serious if within
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the first couple of weeks of the Trump administration police and government officials were
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confiscating the passports or the driver's licenses of people that were lawfully issued to people
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because they had you know the wrong gender that would be it unconstitutional that would be a crime
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that would surely be against the 14th amendment of for equal protection because you're not
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treating the person with the ex on their passport the same way that you treat a male or a female
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I mean that would be thrown out by the courts um so there's an allegation just may just throw
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an out there in a news article with no follow-up and no verification sericate just set it so it
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gets reported another person whose experience as a quoted in this article is a Canadian author and
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advocate Gemma Hickey who flew to Seattle Washington a few days after the executive order on gender
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was signed this is a in a section of the article about how what the impact might be on foreigners
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like Australians who who travel to the United States and there's a photo of Gemma and Gemma has a
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beard Gemma presents as traditionally male a large impressive beard it doesn't say anything um
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understandably about what the sort of biological background of Gemma's experience is but it does say
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that Gemma said they were asked more questions than normal at the airport including questions
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around their name in comparison to how they looked by the American airline they describe this
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process as quote a mini interrogation and said quote these microaggressions were real okay there's
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a tell in that description which is that it's the it was the airline that was doing this not
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the state department or US customs and border enforcement at the airport the airline's job
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is not to enforce the Trump administration's rules about gender those rules apply to federal
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government employees and federal agencies only they cannot apply beyond the purview of the
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United States federal government you can't compel a private company to enforce some kind of
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gender policy that it disagrees with it has the right under the First Amendment to say whatever
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it wants to about gender and it has the and its employees have the right to do so as well so
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there's an airline whose job it is when they're checking you in for an international flight
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to make sure that you're the person who you say you are this is a security issue this is a
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counterterrorism issue if you show up to border plane and you hand them a passport where your name
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is jammer and you have a beard it is understandable that they would want to verify that you're the
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person who booked the ticket and you're the person whose passport they're looking at is it
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worse now does this kind of executive order create a climate of suspicion does it give a sort of
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a pass to people who might be mini Nazis who want to interrogate everyone and throw their weight
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around I'm sure it does I'm sure it does I'm sure it's no fun walking through the world presenting
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as a sex that is different from the one that's on your ID I'm sure that is incredibly annoying
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and frustrating and it may be the case that it becomes more annoying and frustrating as a result
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of this order but to say that it's a mini interrogation or that there's something illegitimate about it
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or even to link it back formally to this executive order is sloppy journalism what was the airline
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what was the context of this so-called mini interrogation the article goes on to say
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Gemma said they're delayed plane meant they were put up in a Vancouver hotel overnight but when they
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arrived at the airport the next day there were also issues quote it seemed like the same sort of
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thing another mini interrogation more photographs and then I was asked to say my name out loud he
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did a double take of me and my ID because I look masculine then he asked me to scan my passport
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and this is the first time this ever happened but my passport did not read did not scan I never had
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that problem before how does the passport scanner magically know that you look male
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Gemma said they were eventually let on the flight and the agent said well you can go on sir
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or whatever there was just this lack of disregard for my identity and people were really rude
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okay it should be noted that the article ends before we get to a single quote from a single person
35:44
who is interviewed about why this is taking place about why there is support for this executive order
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there is no quoting from the order itself
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so I think perhaps we should do so here's the executive order
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presidential actions white house docked of defending women from gender ideology extremism
36:12
and restoring biological truth to the federal government executive order
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section one purpose across the country ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex
36:25
have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as
36:32
women and gain access to intimate single sex spaces and activities designed for women from women's
36:39
domestic abuse shelters to women's workplace showers I'm skipping ahead a little this unhealthy
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road it continues is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and
36:51
long-standing use and understanding of biological and scientific terms replacing the
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immutable biological reality of sex with an internal fluid and subjective sense of self
37:03
unmoored from biological facts the white house order continues invalidating the true and biological
37:10
category of women improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based
37:17
opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them replacing long-standing cherished
37:23
legal rights and values with an identity-based in co-ate social concept accordingly it goes on
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to list the five things the five basic things that it wants to happen in this executive order a
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sex shall refer to an individual's immutable biological classification as either male or female
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sex is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of gender identity be women or woman
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and girls or girl shall mean adult and juvenile human females respectively see men or man
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and boys or boy shall mean adult and juvenile human males respectively d female means a person
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belonging at conception to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell e male means a
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person belonging at conception to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell
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and then it basically goes on to say the context in which it wants this to be upheld
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it's basically saying that when you're writing an official if you work for the federal government
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and you're writing an official federal document then you should use the term sex in the way that
38:45
it's prescribed and you should use the word gender in the way it's described you should not use
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the word gender as a synonym for sex in applicable federal policies and documents and then it says
38:55
that government issued identity identification documents like passports visas and global entry cards
39:00
should reflect the holders sex and that agencies will remove all statements policies regulations forms
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communications that inculcate gender ideology and confused sex with gender now that may all be
39:18
overkill it may be brutalizing to a minority community it may be harsh it may be uncaring it may
39:27
open the door to more prejudice and all of that would be a very interesting thing for the national
39:34
public broadcaster the most trusted news site newsroom in Australia to grapple with it would be
39:44
interesting to hear people who defend that to hear from activists who can address those real
39:51
concerns about why we should be conflating who can argue for why we should be conflating
39:57
sex with gender and the principal article that is written describing this policy change in the
40:07
United States to an Australian audience should really be just the facts man it should be down
40:15
the straight and narrow it should not begin by using activist language like sex affirmation
40:22
care it should not go on to then claim that the executive order is unconventional and
40:31
controversial scientifically in ways that it's really not it should not mislead people about the
40:37
position of mainstream medical establishments and the American Medical Association by conflating
40:43
sex and gender and claiming that those establishments say that sex is a spectrum when really their
40:49
focus is about how gender is a spectrum and they merely nod to sex as an inclusion in order to
40:56
ensure that trans people are not discriminated against it should provide in other words context
41:01
and it should speak in a way that people who aren't inside this debate who haven't drunk the
41:07
coolate on one side or another can understand and can appreciate again if you want to defeat ideas
41:14
you need to understand them from the perspective of the people who advocate them not just from the
41:19
people who hate them you know if you don't understand your opponents position then you don't
41:24
understand your own and the article certainly shouldn't then go on to simply cherry pick a few
41:31
social media content creators who these journalists follow presumably and ask them for anecdotes about
41:40
how afraid they feel on the basis of third hand hearsay about what may or may not have happened
41:48
to other people that the journalists then don't follow up they don't follow up with the airline
41:54
that supposedly interrogated Gemma they don't presumably follow up with anyone who
42:03
Sarah has heard from who has had their documentation confiscated and if they did follow up
42:09
and they found nothing then say that there's a bigger issue here it has to do with our understanding
42:19
of diversity in newsrooms I don't blame these journalists I don't think they know what they don't
42:31
know we can't know what we don't know we increasingly live in an information ecosystem where we
42:40
inhabit echo chambers if I had to bet I would assume that these journalists are in their 20s or
42:47
30s I would assume that they're very online I would assume that they are members of the LGBTQIA
42:52
plus community that they maybe genderqueer themselves and that they consume a lot of content on
42:57
Instagram rails from that community if I'm wrong I'll be really surprised and very
43:05
impressed that they're not from that community and also baffled about how they could write
43:10
an article with such glaring blind spots because the way we've conceived of diversity in newsrooms
43:20
is mistaken diversity is terrific when it can provide fresh perspectives on issues
43:29
and you get that when you assign stories to minority journalists to a diverse community of
43:36
reporters which they have no specific expertise in and which they need to come to with a fresh lens
43:44
I'm all in favor of making newsrooms less white-stale middle-aged male straight and cis
43:53
they should there should be a diversity of backgrounds but there should also be a diversity of
43:58
political opinions and there should also be a diversity of economic backgrounds there should
44:02
also be a diversity of class and there should also be a diversity of people who come from outside
44:08
the social justice activist bubble and then you should assign stories to those people
44:16
almost at random yeah you should have the queer person of color covering a corporate story
44:25
just as much as you have them covering a racial or a gender story because the trouble we're
44:29
running into here I suppose can be summarized as the problem of the own voices thesis
44:37
own voices is a movement that says that we should empower the voices from inside a community
44:44
by not speaking on their behalf you know you might be familiar with this in the sense that gay actors
44:50
should play gay roles you shouldn't have straight people playing those roles you should have you know
44:55
a Latino character should be played by a Latino you shouldn't have a Filipino you know
45:00
past trying to pass as a Latino in a you know movie trans people should play trans people
45:07
and you shouldn't for example write a novel from the perspective of you know what was that novel
45:12
an American dirt I think a great novel about the plight of a Mexican refugee family I believe
45:19
but it turned out that it was written by someone who is not a Mexican and they got into all kinds of
45:24
hot water the idea is that we should be empowering people's own voices rather than permitting people
45:32
to comment on or inhabit the identity of communities to which they don't belong when you do that
45:38
in a newsroom what it means is that only members from a specific community are regarded as having
45:46
standing to discuss issues relevant to that community this leads to a lack of diversity because
45:53
each echo chamber is just reciting the slogans and catechisms and cherished beliefs of its own
45:59
group we need to fundamentally reassess whether it's true that members of a group are best equipped
46:07
to report on that group by all means hire young genderqueer very online reporters if they're good
46:16
at writing if they're interested in things if they have an expansive view of the world if they're
46:22
deeply curious if they're articulate if they're a bit cheeky if they're contrarian if they have
46:29
a questioning mind and then assign them stories from all over the map and allow their curiosity
46:36
to probe where it will do not hire them to cover stories where you know you could jot on the back
46:45
of a napkin before they even start writing it what the perspective and slant of that story is
46:50
going to be and then expect to retain your audience as the national public broadcaster whose charter
46:56
insists that it must speak on behalf of all Australians because you're not doing that anymore
47:02
you're preaching to bubbles I mean is it think about it this way is it really that different to
47:10
assign all LGBT reporting to people in the LGBT community then to assign all reporting on the
47:19
mining industry to people in the mining industry you would immediately recognize that that's a
47:24
conflict of interest it's not true that people from the mining industry are necessarily best equipped
47:31
to report on the mining industry like you want to have some basic level of understanding about
47:37
industry but you also want people who are free from any hang ups and any biases who don't
47:42
necessarily have any skin in the game to interrogate properly as good investigative journalists
47:48
and that piece that I've just read out portions of is an appalling piece of reporting it is a
47:54
perfectly adequate piece of activism and an appalling piece of reporting and a non-existent piece
48:00
of investigative journalism it leaves nobody any wiser about what Trump is doing why he's doing it
48:08
why he has support for doing it and what the contours of the debate are for Americans who oppose
48:14
what he's doing it's just fear mongering and generalizing with the very broadest of brush strokes
48:23
I'm out of time for this rant otherwise I would also get to coverage of Facebook's change
48:30
about free speech which I don't have time to do properly but allow me to read the way that
48:36
the Australian public broadcaster reported on Metters change when Mark Zuckerberg said that
48:43
it would no longer be so aggressive about policing hate speech or rather it would have a more
48:51
limited definition of what hate speech is this is what it said what the ABC released on
48:57
Instagram meta will allow LGBTQ plus people to be described as quote unquote mentally ill and women
49:05
as quote unquote household objects scroll to the next tile in the carousel changes to meta's
49:12
hateful conduct policy could lead to increased hate speech and real world safety concerns
49:17
according to a Queensland social media expert social media giant meta will now allow allegations
49:22
of mental illness or abnormality based on gender or sexual orientation on Facebook Instagram
49:28
and threads and then in bold it also will now allow women to be referred to as household objects
49:34
and for content arguing in favor of gender based limitations of military law enforcement and
49:38
teaching jobs and the third page in the carousel gives a quick quote of a statement from meta
49:51
the fourth page in the carousel quotes a social media researcher at the Queensland University of
49:55
Technology who says marginalized people like those in the LGBTQ plus community need more protection
50:01
not less then the fifth page in the carousel is a picture of a transgender woman and it says
50:11
transgender woman Chelsea Morgan said they were not surprised by the changes which come after the
50:15
removal of multiple LGBTQ plus Facebook groups that were flagged as at risk for cybersecurity
50:20
breaches and a regional Queensland group being completely removed from the platform last year
50:25
meta release a statement saying a technical error was to blame I don't know what that has to do
50:33
with this this global change and then the last tile in the carousel says growing up in regional
50:40
Queensland the local rockhampton artists said they had received multiple death threats both in
50:44
person and online related to their gender and identity which left them fearing for their safety
50:49
I've read the changes to meta's hate speech policy and death threats online are absolutely
50:58
still forbidden on meta so I don't know what relevance that necessarily has it's basically a
51:04
hodgepodge of activist worries and feelings it's not really news I'm sorry it's not it's not
51:16
even news analysis because good news analysis would articulate the position of Facebook of meta
51:24
which is a free speech position nowhere in this sort of Gen Z screen against meta is there a hint
51:35
that by implementing these changes it does not mean that meta is endorsing those opinions
51:42
there is nowhere a kind of a Volterian understanding of I detest what you say but I will defend
51:50
to the death you're right to say it there's no suggestion when they write things about how women
51:56
can be described as household objects or gay people can be described as being mentally ill that
52:02
there might be a deeper broader defense of free speech that does not condone those specific
52:10
claims but simply takes a neutral stance and says that in the grand landscape of human opinion
52:17
it's important for people to be able to flesh out ideas in ways that other people might find
52:20
defensive so it even fails the decent smart analysis test anyway I hope that case study is in
52:31
some way constructive I will have more to say about this I hope you have a fabulous weekend
52:37
hang in there Trump is throwing a lot at us and it's important for us to be diligent in the way
52:41
that we think about how we interpret them and how we maintain our capacity to have uncomfortable