Megathread Jesse Singal Derangement Syndrome - jsingal69 vs TroonWorld

[Tard Whisperer]

Jesse Singal is a journalist and podcaster who often covers "youth gender medicine", reading the studies and interviewing many clinicians. While Jesse is critical of the evidence base for "affirmative care," he is hardly some TERF or even a true & honest transphobe. He still defends medical transition for minors, even puberty blockers, believes being trans is a valid identity, and uses preferred pronouns for anyone he writes about or discusses on his podcast. (His podcast was recently featured for covering a story about the tranch, referencing the farms as a source. He and his podcasting partner Katie Herzog also criticized the mainstream coverage of Keffals v KF (Part 1) (Part 2)). His most genocidal posts were his Atlantic cover story about youth gender transition, an article about Kenneth Zucker, and an article about transracialism discourse.

Yet for the crime of covering this topic as a journalist instead of a stenographer for trans activists, he is one of the most frequent targets of their rage and derangement, including death threats, slander, sexual fantasies, and false accusations. They have repeatedly thrown their own reputations and careers under the bus in the process. (Jesse himself is unable to resist a twitter fight, and very willing to request corrections and retractions if he finds their work to be full of errors or harmful to his reputation.)

Not only is the insanity he drives them to very entertaining, it is often a good jumping-off point for our beloved Stinkditch nerds to argue the fine points of troon med- and researchfaggery.

Pedophile-supporter Noah Berlatsky put together a handy guide to Jesse's crimes.

Jesse Singal Resource Page
Jesse Singal is a freelance writer who frequently writes about trans issues and/or about what he sees as left intolerance. He is one of the most prominent voices on trans issues in the mainstream media—which is a problem inasmuch as he is not trans, and frequently uses his platform to attack trans writers and activists, and to advocate for restrictions on trans people's access to health care.
Because trans people often don't have access to large platforms, much of the criticism of and corrections to Singal's writing are fairly scattered around the web. I've tried to provide links to the most important responses to the largest controversies involving him. I'm sure I missed a lot; feel free to tag me on twitter (@nberlat) if you think something else should be included, or leave a comment here.
ALSO, if I have linked something by you and you do not want your piece or post linked, please contact me and I will remove the link.
Note that this page is not paywalled; please feel free to share.
Desistance
Singal has written numerous articles about desisters—people who transition and then change their minds and transition back to the gender they were assigned at birth. Singal's biggest article about this issue (so far) was a lengthy cover story at the Atlantic with a sensational title designed to strike fear into the hearts of parents with trans kids, encouraging them to put the brakes on their children's efforts to transition. Singal suggests that social pressure from trans activists may lead children to transition when they are actually cis; he argues that there need to be more barriers to trans children obtaining puberty blockers or hormones.
Singal's Atlantic article was cited by seven states in their lawsuit to overturn sex discrimination protections for trans people.
Julia Serano has a lengthy discussion of detransition and how it is misused to target trans people by Singal and others.
Grace Lavery has a twitter thread explaining the issues.
Kelley Winters has a shorter article touching on many of the same points—i.e., Singal misrepresents the prevalence of desistance and uses that misrepresentation to advocate against trans children's access to health care.
Zack Ford on how Singal uses junk science, and ignores how access to support for transitioning helps trans kids.
Following the publication sf Singal's Atlantic article, Serano created a page with links to a livetweet of the article and other resources about Singal.
Robyn Kanner on how her detransitioning was the result of social pressure and transphobia,not (as Singal's narrative claims) because she wasn't trans.
Tey Meadow, a sociologist, explains why Singal's use of desistance narratives harms trans kids.
Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints) on how Singal's Atlantic article is based in condescension towards trans people.
Dawn Ennis on her efforts to reach out to the Atlantic before they published Singal's article, and on the Human Rights Campaign's criticism of the article.
Zack Ford explains that Singal's Atlantic essay was a dogwhistle for anti-trans parents. He also notes that Singal interviewed people associated with anti-trans groups, without noting those connections in the article.
Zack Ford talks to researchers about the problems with the science behind Zucker's and Singal's claims about desistance.
Andrea James on the history and dangers of Singal's "trans-suspicious ideology."
Lisa Harney on the clear benefits of early health interventions for trans kids, and how Singal misrepresents them.
Alex Barasch on how Singal uses discussions of detransition to harm trans people, and how his narrative is based in transphobia.
Barry Deutsch examines Singal's shoddy reporting and straw manning. Singal fails to prove that clinicians are pushing children to transition. Singal also claims falsely that some people somewhere claim that desisters don't exist.
Thomas Page McBee argues that the obsession with the experience of cis parents erases the experiences of trans children.
Brynn Tannehill gives the Atlantic tips on how not to publish bigots.
Noah Berlatsky argues that Singal's article is intended to create a moral panic around trans kids, because moral panics drive clicks.
Harron Walker asks "What's Jesse Singal's Fucking Deal?"
Kenneth Zucker Links
Kenneth Zucker is a psychologist and sexologist who was fired from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) because his treatment of trans patients was judged inadequate. Singal has argued repeatedly that Zucker was fired without cause due to a witch hunt by trans activists (this will come up again). Singal has also championed Zucker's research and treatment approach.
Julia Serano explains, contra Singal's article, that Zucker's therapy is meant to prevent cross-gender expression, and is harmful to trans people.
Casey Explosion on how Singal's defense of Zucker is essentially an argument for conversion therapy.
Parker Molloy explains how Singal and Zucker's approach to detransition is a disaster.
Siobhan O'Leary on how Singal creates a false dichotomy between trans people and scientists and then argues that trans people who disagree with him are anti science.
Siobhan O’Leary with more on Zucker and the science against conversion therapy.
Ana Valens on how Singal admitted to misinterpreting a Zucker study, and therefore argued that desistance was far more common than it actually was.
Tuvel Links
Rebecca Tuvel is a philosopher who wrote an essay arguing that "transracial" people should receive the same protections and consideration as transgender people. She was heavily criticized; Singal characterized the criticism as a witch hunt in an article for New York magazine. Below are responses and replies.
Florence Ashley explains why criticism of Tuvel was not a witch hunt.
Noah Berlatsky asks whether Jesse Singal is a bigot. (Julia Serano is interviewed.)
Julia Serano on why using the term "witch hunt" against marginalized people is especially bad.
Siobhan O'Leary on how Singal's defense of Tuvel is characteristic of his liberal transphobia.
Transphobia in Media
A private email group including more than 400 prominent editors and journalists has been reported to be supportive of Singal. The group contains few or no trans journalists.
Harron Walker reports on leaked posts from the email group. Walker shows how Singal's connections allow him to denigrate trans perspectives and undermine trans journalists in the minds of powerful cis people in the media.
Julia Serano has a thread about how Singal in the group chat dismisses her expertise as a biologist and peer-reviewed author on trans issues.
Brynn Tannehill explains why the transphobia expressed in the chat logs is dangerous.
David Perry was accidentally sent an email by journalist Katha Politt smearing a trans journalist and arguing that she should not be invited on the list.
Singal and "Debate"
Josephine Livingstone on how Foucault describes Singal's relationship to knowledge and power.
George Hemington on Jesse Singal's naive and unhelpful engagement with the rationalist subculture.
S.J.S. Hancox-Li on why Singal's efforts to decouple science and politics are ignorant and unworkable.
Singal's Personal Unpleasantness
Singal has been accused by multiple trans women of treating them unprofessionally and disrespectfully in personal interactions.
Katherine Cross on Singal sending her a profanity filled email when she tweeted something he disliked.
Julia Serano on how Jesse Singal misrepresented her, lied about her, and slut-shamed her. (Singal attacked me for linking to this piece and argued that Serano's accusations are obviously laughable and should be ignored. Serano responded here.)
Ana Valens on how Jesse reacts poorly to public criticism.
Miscellaneous Singals
Melissa Gira Grant on Singal's part in anti-trans backlash.
Katherine Cross on Singal's refusal to listen to trans people.
Samantha Hancox-Li on how Singal's failure to listen to trans people is bad science.
Siobhan O'Leary on Singal defending a doctor slurring and insulting trans people.
Kate Griffiths on what the links on this page indicate about Singal's methods, perspective and approach.

He was given his very own call-out page on the GLAAD website (archive history). Part of this callout includes the fact that he has said that sexual trauma can contribute to gender dysphoria.

Andrew James gave him his own lengthy criticism page on the Transgender Map website, complete with a portrait emphasizing his Jewish features:


The Atlantic story got him a hit piece in Jezebel. by Jezebel/Vice tranny John (AKA Harron) Walker: What's Jesse Singal's Fucking Deal? (archive)

Why does he insist on covering these stories for no discernable reason? Seriously! What’s his fucking deal??? [...] Does he feel weird about that? Do his editors at The Atlantic? Why does this keep happening? What’s his fucking deal?
"Harron" published a follow-up (archive) exposing Jesse for being in a listserve for other reporters where he and others scandalously admit they don't think that trans people are born with unimpeachable scientific knowledge of the impacts of transition. Off with their heads!

There should, of course, be more trans writers and artists. But…trans people, like members of any other group, have their own prevalent forms of groupthink. Time and time again my reporting and research has conflicted with what [the biggest-name trans activists have] told me[.] On other issues, of course, I would trust trans people more than anyone else—who better to talk about the humiliation of living in a state with a ‘bathroom’ bill, or the difficulty of getting hormones, or other stuff that only trans people have to deal with? But overall, no, I don’t think trans people are more qualified to write about the tricky science stuff going on here than I am. I’d just be lying if I said otherwise.​

“I think you did a great job with this and from all I can see, you bent over backwards to make sure it was balanced and not anti-trans,” said one member of the group. “I don’t see what else you could have done other than to simply not write about the real issues around deciding when and if young people should have irreversible surgeries that would have been seen as acceptable.”​

Kyle Burns (thread) has taken his fixation furthest. Jesse asked him for an interview, for some stupid reason, and Kyle viewed Jesse asking him interview questions as Jesse sexually harassing him.
"it's uncomfortable to me that strangers know i'm trans"

(archive)


(archive)

Then...

JESSE SINGAL responded to Kyle and called him a liar, said Kyle emailed him after Christmas and said he gained weight because of tweets from Jesse, and used his ebegging money to hire a lawyer to threaten Jesse because Kyle believed Jesse had subtweeted him.

In May 2018, Kyle joins Rewire.News. In June 2018, he makes a new thread about Jesse. He believes their legacies are forever entangled:

JESSE SINGAL! Kyle was "tipped off" about Singal's new article "weeks ago." Kyle acts upset because his "fucking legacy" will be his name being attached to anything Singal writes about trans people and "this shit" will be on Kyle's Wikipedia page if he ever gets one. "I said a cis man made me feel uncomfortable and I ended with an entry on my future wiki page over it."

Kyle also got the Daily Dot to edit an article to delete archives of tweets Kyle made about Singal.

Finally, Jesse complains to Kyle's employer, they investigate the issue and fire Kyle.

(archive)

(archive)


(archive)

Ana Valens chimes in:

(archive)

According to Jake Alley aka Secret Gamer Girl (KF thread):

• "Jesse is a dangerous transphobic bigot"
• "Dozens of trans people have had their lives endangered as a result of talking to him" , and "at LEAST a dozen trans women were all sexually exploited" by him. He "is a really dangerous stalker" who has stalked "at least two dozen trans women"
• He "has a very particular fetish", a "twisted obsession with trans women" and believes "girls who get on puberty blockers early enough don't look "trans enough" as adults to suit his fetish"
• He's also "a dangerous bigot pushing for the revival of conversion therapy", a "violent bigot", and a "block-evading stalker"
• He also "expresses total ignorance about having expressed horrific views".
• Worst of all, he "has a boot on the collective thoat of trans journalists" (archive)
• He should be arrested for targeted harassment (responding to allegations)

(Link in thread) (Thread from Jesse)

Edward Gorcenski (thread) believes Jesse Singal is a stochastic murderer and wants to have a legal battle with him
"Jesse hates that I am a strong, independent trans woman who chooses her voice over his."

"Julia" Serano (author of Whipping Girl) published multiple long screeds about Jesse: "my Jesse Singal story" and "on Jesse Singal, slut-shaming, and calling women "hysterical"". Jesse responded, and 'Julia' issued a statement before deactivating twitter over this.
"he slut-shamed me, lied about me, and whipped up an online mob against me"

Spoiler: statement

Joseph Lavery (thread) issued a wild "Statement After Being Brutally Savaged by the Sharp Tongue of the Renegade Jesse Singal" after Jesse published a criticism (article | twitter thread) of an article “Grace” published in Foreign Policy, which ends with:

Spoiler: full

"You are not going to eliminate an entire generation of trans people."
Foreign Policy ended up making the corrections Jesse requested 2 months later.

Micah Elliott Martin, AKA Gretchen Felker-Martin, rape-fetishist author of Manhunt, wants him dead and fantasizes about him sexually. (article)
"Jesse Singal using the KiwiFarms thing as an excuse to post screenshots of lurid, disgusting threats and anti-trans slurs to his followers. You can practically hear him tugging it."

One particularly bizarre example was when pooner neuroscientist "E. Kale" Edmiston claimed that she had written a sentence in the WPATH SOC 8 chapter on adolescents, so that she could authoritatively state that this sentence did not mean a child's mental health issues should be addressed before transition. This resulted in a member of the WPATH board of directors to clarify on twitter she did, not in fact, write this sentence, and tell Singal that he has 'never heard of that person in my life.' [article]
"As a trans person, it is scary how fast mobs fall for these very common and transparent tropes."

(archive)
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(archive) (archive)

(archive)
Of course, this was all Jesse's masterful puppeteering:
(archive | later deleted)

Most recently, TRAs have called for him to be jailed for the crime of conspiring to commit a HIPAA violation. (HIPAA violation footage not found)

@vkaroly, tweet 1634390280387395589 (archive)


@RebeccaParthos, tweet 1634407579425095683 (archive)


@dogonatinroof, tweet 1634420319325929473 (archive)


@Nyaeko_, tweet 1634438913124192256 (archive)


@CordialWords, tweet 1634442477188030466 (archive)


@epistemophagy, tweet 1634497881926438913 (archive)


@TopMarx420, tweet 1634527854523187200 (archive)


@vexwerewolf, tweet 1634582369309958145 (archive)


@eleum_fuck, tweet 1634596671362592768 (archive)


@DahNewton, tweet 1634624910877421568 (archive)


@AugustJPollak, tweet 1634629334668378113 (archive)


@sam_jail, tweet 1634643036100517888 (archive)


@mike10010100, tweet 1634643797706526724 (archive)


@CordialWords, tweet 1634651480912453633 (archive)


@letsgoayo, tweet 1634652155398201347 (archive)

 

[Sprate Header]

Wait until the troons and RubinRemus find out about @Jesse Singal's account here

 

[Surfin Terf]

Andrew James gave him his own lengthy criticism page on the Transgender Map website, complete with a portrait emphasizing his Jewish features:
View attachment 4805550

Haha, looks like he changed the picture, it used to be way more antisemitic (to the point that it wasn't even recognizable as Jesse Singal)

This got me wondering what Jesse Singal looked like so I did a quick Google Image search.
Here was one of the first results.
View attachment 2493481
The source is Andrea James' creepy website transgendermap.com (x). I've written a post about it before, but it's the place where he posted pictures of sexologist James Bailey's young daughter with the caption "A cock-starved exhibitionist who's especially well suited to prostitution ... or a fetishist who just gets off on the idea of it?".
Anyway, Jesse Singal doesn't really look like that, he looks like this
View attachment 2493500
He looks like a pretty normal middle-aged male from an American city. You can tell that he's got some Middle-Eastern or Jewish (Singal is Jewish) heritage, but he looks nothing like that fucking Daily Stormer drawing that James posted.

Before
View attachment 2493481
After
View attachment 4805550

 

[L. Ron Hubbard's Cat]

Wait until the troons and RubinRemus find out about @Jesse Singal's account here

Jesse Signal isn't the only lefty SJW-type who was driven directly to the Farms by Trans Twitter. In fact, it was his very article about Zucker that started me on the "liberal arts major cool chick" to "radicalized TERF alt-right SJW" pipeline.

Edit: To be clear, the absolutely shocking and disgusting response to that article from people I'd previously respected and trusted (as far as one can trust or respect anyone making a living in any media field, social or otherwise). That was my personal Peak Trans. But I'm neither a particularly useful ally nor particularly dangerous adversary, so like they give a fuck, lol.

 

[FarmVille]

If someone put a gun to your head and demanded you fuck someone featured in this thread or else—what memory do you want to relive before your brains hit the wall?

 

[quackrock]

If this is the thread for all things Jesse, let's not forget his 2021 Joe Rogan appearance: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6iNgd3IPIK0OEXfyEQqZA8

Comments on this clip are pretty good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBqGGqC8shE

He's a true journalist, sniffing out the truth wherever he finds it.

I'd be walking into the office, and be like I smell a story.

When you're in character creation and try to use those sliders to design your character

I'm sold, this guy really nose his stuff!

 

[Bubble Ba'ath]

Great idea for a thread. Signal is (or was, not sure if hes still leaving twitter-if so good for him) one of like four people in the world whose twitter feeds are worth following. Watching people absolutely lose their shit over his pretty even keel and non extremist positions is extremely entertaining. It really goes to show that persecution of heresy is a much bigger fixation for these people than fighting those they regard as their total opposites.

 

[Roast]

The Nerdskull has spoke a bunch about him, but the interaction that comes to mind the most is an ironic twist of him accusing Jesse of being a chaser and providing no evidence (Nerd complains about his allegations even when there is evidence), which actually got Jesse’s attention.

Jesse Singal on Twitter: "@the_nerd_skull Yes, that is definitely a t…

archived 3 Aug 2022 19:09:14 UTC

archive.is

 

[Tard Whisperer]

They have convinced themselves that Jesse's career is over because he deleted his twitter (which he said he was going to do before this controversy even happened)

I'm glad they find it so funny that the child's therapist included this joke about his unstable identity in order to get him on hormones, on which his mental health worsened.

This person is AKA "Transgender Marx" who called into Haz from Infrared's twitter space to pee into the mic

Surely this will show them it's not a fetish

 

[FarmVille]

They have convinced themselves that Jesse's career is over because he deleted his twitter (which he said he was going to do before this controversy even happened)

Deleting his twitter account was a big, huge bitch tits fail and the closest any of those trannies will ever get to experiencing a post SRS orgasm. He will always be Jesse Singal, guy who lost to trannys on the internet, don’t try and pretend otherwise.

 

[Tard Whisperer]

Deleting his twitter account was a big, huge bitch tits fail and the closest any of those trannies will ever get to experiencing a post SRS orgasm. He will always be Jesse Singal, guy who lost to trannys on the internet, don’t try and pretend otherwise.

I guess that could be true if you accept the tranny premise that not being on twitter is a major hit to your professional career

 

[FarmVille]

But he didn’t simply choose not be on Twitter. He basically admitted defeat and now he’s the guy who was sooo wrong about the “attack helicopter” thing he had to close his social media and run away. It was a stupid move.

 

[Tard Whisperer]

But he didn’t simply choose not be on Twitter. He basically admitted defeat and now he’s the guy who was sooo wrong about the “attack helicopter” thing he had to close his social media and run away. It was a stupid move.

I agree it was a stupid move at least, but I don’t think it will be remembered for very long outside of troon twitter

 

[AirdropShitposts]

The Nerdskull has spoke a bunch about him, but the interaction that comes to mind the most is an ironic twist of him accusing Jesse of being a chaser and providing no evidence (Nerd complains about his allegations even when there is evidence), which actually got Jesse’s attention.
View attachment 4812949

Jesse Singal on Twitter: "@the_nerd_skull Yes, that is definitely a t…

archived 3 Aug 2022 19:09:14 UTC

archive.is

This traces back to Brianna Wu who claimed to have that proof and Jesse offered like $5,000 if they were released.

 

[Jonah Bark]

He actually dragged out his leaving by more than a week because he was caught up in the shitstorm. This is no win for the troon mafia — they just think it is. They can go on and on about the attack helicopter distraction and the HIPAA crap — it just adds to the schadenfreude I will enjoy in the future when pediatric gender care blows up in their faces. I will say, however, that it would have been worth the effort to shift the spotlight to the information about the young lady whose atrophied front hole ruptured after fucking and almost bled out.

 

[AMHOLIO]

I forgot how creepy Gretchen Micah is outside of his book. Sometimes his book is tamer than his constant need to project violence and especially SEX on people. I'm terrified that horny is the only emotion he can feel outside of rage and I sadly await the bodies in his crawlspace saga.

They have convinced themselves that Jesse's career is over because he deleted his twitter (which he said he was going to do before this controversy even happened)

Twitter is their entire world, so their own "life" would be over if they ever were banned from twitter (or reddit/discord).

But he didn’t simply choose not be on Twitter. He basically admitted defeat and now he’s the guy who was sooo wrong about the “attack helicopter” thing he had to close his social media and run away. It was a stupid move.

I think Singal can survive. This doesn't include bots and people who don't get news about trans people on twitter (most users are there for shitposting, social media things, updates from popular people, photos of things they like, and porn).


I think it's better for him not to engage in fights and focus more on his job and his passions. There's no point arguing with people who are actively hostile. It's like arguing with a hurricane. Just leave, then it won't destroy you and you can rebuild. He writes for enough places and has a big enough following that he's likely going to be fine.

It's a lost battle but it was a battle he could never win nor should he care. He wins by not playing the game. Trans twitter loses since they now have one less enemy to battle and might have to eat one of their own instead.

Edit: See this image for reference.

 

[MongInTheMirror]

Satisfying as it is/was sometimes to watch Singal dunk on Twitter troons, getting into arguments with them on what is effectively their home turf is the archetypal "playing chess with a pigeon" scenario. They're not going to listen or concede a nanometer, no matter what evidence you provide or how bulletproof your logical reasoning is. They will just shit all over the board and strut around like they won no matter what you do.

The only value in engaging with them at all lies in baiting them into demonstrating their stupidity and narcissistic hysteria to neutral onlookers. It's easily done, but they increasingly drive such people off any platform where they proliferate anyway, and it's not always worth the time or frustration. Singal's career is gonna be just fine - trannies will crow about "winning", but they were going to do that anyway. Chasing him off Twitter is a Pyrrhic victory at best, because no-one else consists it as such or even gives a shit.

 

[murph]

I think Singal can survive.

He and Herzog are doing pretty well, according to outside observers and his own admission.

 

[quackrock]

Jesse decactivating Twitter was a dumb move, if only for the fact that it hides all his previous tweets. I bookmarked a bunch of his threads and quote tweets as sources for breaking down gender bullshit. Now all those bookmarks are broken. He could've left his tweets up and just ignored Twitter notifications, but apparently he lacks that degree of self-control. I get why he did what he did but it's still selfish and annoying.

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

Jesse decactivating Twitter was a dumb move, if only for the fact that it hides all his previous tweets. I bookmarked a bunch of his threads and quote tweets as sources for breaking down gender bullshit. Now all those bookmarks are broken. He could've left his tweets up and just ignored Twitter notifications, but apparently he lacks that degree of self-control. I get why he did what he did but it's still selfish and annoying.

Check archive.today. Somebody might have saved those tweets there.