Institutional Racism

This entire section is credited to Rose Wrist, a former guest of the stream. (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3rSgPl8_RLMBHHsjaY7VAA, https://www.instagram.com/left__ty/)

They are near-entirely responsible for the collection of this data. Seriously, I just ripped most of this from their document - with their permission, of course. I’m only broadcasting their incredible work with my much larger audience.

  • Extensive document on racial biases in our criminal justice system.
  • Studies seem to indicate about 61-80% of black overrepresentation in prisons can be explained by higher black crime rates, with the unexplained portion largely attributable to racial bias.
  • Remember - the factors which lead to disproportionate criminality amongst black Americans are also in large part a product of racial bias. Underfunded public programs, redlining, generational poverty, bad schooling, and myriad other factors which influence criminality can also be traced to racial bias.

  • Between 2012 and 2014, black people in Ferguson accounted for 85 percent of vehicle stops, 90 percent of citations and 93 percent of arrests, despite comprising 67 percent of the population.
  • Blacks were more than twice as likely as whites to be searched after traffic stops even after controlling for related variables, though they proved to be 26 percent less likely to be in possession of illegal drugs or weapons.
  • Between 2011 and 2013, blacks also received 95 percent of jaywalking tickets and 94 percent of tickets for “failure to comply.” The Justice Department also found that the racial discrepancy for speeding tickets increased dramatically when researchers looked at tickets based on only an officer’s word vs. tickets based on objective evidence, such as a radar.
  • Black people facing similar low-level charges as white people were 68 percent less likely to see those charges dismissed in court. More than 90 percent of the arrest warrants stemming from failure to pay/failure to appear were issued for black people.

Biases in Stops, Searches & Arrests

  • While White & Black Americans admit to using and selling illicit drugs at similar rates, Black Americans are VASTLY more likely to go to prison for a drug offense.
  • In 2002, Black Americans were incarcerated for drug offenses at TEN TIMES the rate of White Americans.
  • Today, Blacks are 3.7x as likely to be arrested for a marijuana offense as Whites, despite similar usage.
  • 97% of “large-population counties” have racial biases in their drug offense incarceration.

  • Police militarization does not lead to a decrease in crimes committed or officer injuries, may actually increase both.
  • Police militarization (including the adoption of SWAT teams) decreases public trust in police, which may contribute to increases in crime.
  • Militarized police are disproportionately deployed in African American communities, even when accounting for crime rates.

  • This ACLU report reviews 5 months’ of data from DC police stops & searches by race and outcome.
  • The black population of DC is 25% greater than the white population, but black people were 410% more likely to be stopped by the police than white people
  • This disparity increases to 1465% for stops which led to no warning, ticket or arrest and 3695% for searches which led to no warning, ticket or arrest.
  • This data indicates the disproportionate stopping and searching of blacks in the DC area extended massively beyond any disproportionate rate of criminality.

  • Analysis of 4.5 million traffic stops in North Carolina shows blacks and latinos were more likely to be searched than whites (5.4 percent, 4.1 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively).
  • Despite this, searches of white motorists were the most likely to reveal contraband (32% of whites, 29% of blacks, 19% of latinos).

  • Between 2011 and 2015, black drivers in Nashville’s Davidson County were pulled over at a rate of 1,122 stops per 1,000 drivers — so on average, more than once per black driver.
  • Black drivers were also searched at twice the rate of white drivers, though — as in other jurisdictions — searches of white drivers were more likely to turn up contraband.

  • Enormous study of nearly 100,000,000 traffic stops conducted across America.
  • Analysis finds the bar for searching black and hispanic drivers’ cars is significantly lower than the bar for white drivers.
  • Additionally, black drivers are less likely to be pulled over after sunset, when “a ‘veil of darkness’ masks ones’ race”.

Biases by Judges, Juries & Prosecutors

  • Extensive multivariate regression analysis indicates black male offenders receive 19.1% longer federal sentences than similarly-situated white male offenders (white male offenders with similar past offenses, socioeconomic background, etc.)
  • This disparity seems to stem mostly from black males being 21.2% less likely to receive non-government sponsored downward departures or variances.
  • Non-government sponsored departures and variances refer to deviations from standard sentencing guidelines due to judicial discretion.
  • Black males who do receive non government-sponsored departures and variations still serve 16.8% longer sentences than white males on average.
  • In contrast, when sentencing length follows standard guidelines, that disparity is only 7.9%, and a substantial assistance departure for both groups nullifies that disparity.
  • IN SUMMARY - much of the sentencing disparity between similarly situated black males and white males comes down to judicial discretion to deviate from standard sentencing guidelines.
  • BONUS - regression analysis suggests violence in a criminal’s history does NOT explain sentencing disparities between black males and similarly situated white males - the effect of that factor seems to be statistically insignificant.
  • ADDENDUM - Some have asked me to clarify a sentence at the end of this report, where its authors write it cannot be used to prove discrimination on the part of judges. First, that disclaimer warns against inferring active discrimination as opposed to implicit bias - the disclaimer does not say the report cannot be used to prove implicit bias. Second, researchers are often quick to point out their research cannot prove a point, especially regarding intent. It can only strongly suggest a point -  natural limitation of multivariate regression analysis.

  • Examination of federal data indicates Black Americans spend about 10% more time in prison when compared to comparable Whites who commit the same crimes.
  • Additionally, Black arrestees are 75% more likely to be charged with a crime carrying a mandatory minimum sentence.
  • Prosecutors contribute massively to this undeniable racial bias.???

  • Between 1990 and 2010, state prosecutors struck about 53% of black people eligible for juries in criminal cases, as opposed to 26% of white people. The study’s authors testified the odds of this taking place in a race-neutral context were around 1 in 10 trillion.
  • After accounting for factors prosecutors select for which tend to correlate with race, black people were still struck twice as often.
  • North Carolina’s state legislator had previously passed a law stating death penalty defendants who could demonstrate racial bias in their jury selection could have their sentences changed to life without parole. The legislature later repealed that law.

  • In this study, two groups of mock jurors were given a collection of race-neutral evidence from an armed robbery, with one group’s alleged perpetrator being shown to be light-skinned and the other dark-skinned.
  • Jurors were significantly more likely to evaluate ambiguous, race-neutral evidence against the dark-skinned suspect as incriminating and more likely to find the dark-skinned suspect guilty.

  • Government aggregate of data on plea and charge bargaining.
  • “Studies that assess the effects of race find that blacks are less likely to receive a reduced charge compared with whites.”
  • “Studies have generally found a relationship between race and whether or not a defendant receives a reduced charge.”
  • “The majority of research on race and sentencing outcomes shows that blacks are less likely than whites to receive reduced pleas.“
  • In short, collected data strongly indicates a racial bias against blacks with regards to sentencing and plea bargains.

  • Black men are twice as likely to have charges which carry mandatory minimum sentences filed against them than similarly-situated white men.
  • This article recommends against the tightening of judicial discretion, arguing that process has historically led to greater racial sentencing disparities.

  • Black defendants with multiple prior convictions are 28% more likely to be charged as “habitual offenders” than similarly-situated white defendants.
  • “Assessments of dangerousness and culpability are linked to race and ethnicity, even after offense seriousness and prior record are controlled.”

  • A study of first-time felons in Georgia found black men received sentences of on average 270 days longer than similarly-situated white males.
  • However, when black males were differentiated by skin tone, it was found light-skinned black men saw virtually no disparity in their sentencing while dark-skinned black men actually saw a disparity of around 400 days in prison.

  • A study of bail in 5 large counties found blacks received significantly higher bail than whites who had committed similar crimes.
  • The bail was $7,000 higher for violent crimes, $13,000 higher for drug crimes and $10,000 higher for crimes related to public order.

  • The Urban Institute analyzed the histories of four probation offices and found black people were 18-39% more likely than similarly-situated white people to have their probation revoked.

Biases in Death Penalty Sentencing

  • Analysis of 33 years of data from Washington State to determine which characteristics best predict the decision to implement a death sentence.
  • Black defendants are 4.5 times as likely to receive a death sentence as similarly-situated whites.
  • Other factors (presence of aggravating circumstances, involvement of sex crimes, hostage-taking, etc.) explain only a small fraction of the disparity in prosecutors’ and juries’ decision to invoke the death penalty against black defendents.
  • Race was by far the most influential statistical factor.

  • Analysis of the relationship between racial stereotyping and death sentence convictions.
  • Black defendants who possessed darker skin and more “stereotypically black” features were twice as likely to be given the death penalty when accused of murdering a white person, as compared to lighter-skinned blacks with less “stereotypically black” features.
  • This disparity disappears completely when the murder victim is black.

Implicit Bias

  • Photos of capital inmates shown to entry-level criminal justice students for them to evaluate the trustworthiness of the faces.
  • Students rated pictures of light-skinned inmates as more trustworthy when they preceded pictures of dark-skinned inmates.
  • Most study participants (79.9%) were white, but the study predicted that this wasn’t a major factor - “When controlling for race, no statistically significant result was found. This suggests that each race, White and non-White, were consistent in their rating outcomes. Prior research has found similar results, where Whites and light-skinned Blacks are likely to share similar attitudes towards darker-skinned Blacks”

  • Students and police officers participated in tests to determine levels of racial bias and perception of innocence.
  • Black boys as young as 10 are more likely to be considered criminal or untrustworthy, and more likely to face police violence.
  • Police officers were tested on dehumanization of blacks by comparing people of different races to animal groups. Police who engaged in higher levels of dehumanization were more likely to use violence against black children.

  • Results from three separate studies on perception and racial bias show people have a tendency to perceive black men as larger and more threatening than similarly sized white men.
  • Participants also believed the black men were more capable of causing harm in a hypothetical altercation and police would be more justified in using force to subdue them, even if the men were unarmed.

LGBTQ Issues

Transgender People are Valid

  • Forward - an incomplete list of the reputable scientific & social organizations which affirm the validity of transgender people (that transness is not an illness, that trans people are deseving of respect and equal rights, etc). This also serves as a list of the institutions which recognize the difference between sex and gender.
  • American Psychological Association
  • American Medical Association
  • American Psychoanalytic Association
  • Human Rights Campaign
  • American Academy of Pediatrics
  • American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians
  • United Nations
  • United Kingdom’s National Health Service
  • American Psychological Association pamphlet on transgender issues
  • Affirms psychological consensus - that transgender people are valid, have existed throughout history, are subject to discrimination, and that transness is not a mental disorder.
  • A 2008 Gender Identity Resolution by the American Psychological Association which expands upon the premises listed in the annotation above and supports total equality for transgender people - affirmation of the institutional legitimacy of transness in psychology.
  • Identical to the above, essentially, except pertaining to trans and gender-nonconforming youth.
  • Booklet on LGBTQ issues from the American Psychological Association, outlining their policy and attitudes towards aforementioned communities.
  • Expressly positive.
  • Human Rights Campaign document published with the American Academy of Pediatrics & the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians which affirms the validity of transgender youth, encourages appropriate care and respect for their transness and provides resouces on how to do so.
  • The UK’s National Health Service report on gender dysphoria, which affirms the validity of trans people and discusses ways in which gender dysphoria can be alleviated, the best of which is said to often be social and physical transition.
  • The American Psychoanalytic Association’s statement on gender identity, in which transness is validated, social stigma against transgender people is cited as a serious cause of harm and ‘reparative therapy’ - attempts to suppress one’s transness and force them to live as the gender they were assigned at birth - is medically invalid.
  • The World Health Organization recently stopped classifying transness as a mental disorder.
  • Multilateral condemnation of ‘conversion therapy’ from essentially every medical institution in the United Kingdom, with reasons provided.
  • Transphobia? The United Nations says no.

Gender Transition has a Positive Effect on Trans People

  • ENORMOUS meta-meta-analysis on transgender people and the effect gender transition has on their mental health
  • Of 56 studies, 52 indicated transitioning has a positive effect on the mental health of transgender people and 4 indicated it had mixed or no results.
  • ZERO studies indicated gender transitioning has negative results
  • This pretty much ends the argument right here.
  • Longitudinal study on the effectiveness of puberty suppression & sex reassignment surgery on trans individuals in improving mental outcomes
  • Unambiguously positive results - results indicate puberty suppression, support of medical professionals & SRS have markedly beneficial outcomes to trans individuals’ mental health and productivity.
  • Meta-analysis of studies concerning individuals who underwent sex reassignment surgery
  • 80% of individuals reported significant improvement in dysphoria
  • 78% of individuals reported significant improvement in psychological symptoms
  • 72% of individuals reported significant improvement in sexual function
  • Children who socially transition report levels of depression and anxiety which closely match levels reported by cisgender children, indicating social transition massively decreases the risk factor of both.
  • “A new study has confirmed that transgender youth often have mental health problems and that their depression and anxiety improve greatly with recognition and treatment of gender dysphoria”
  • Longitudinal study which indicates transgender people have a lower quality of life than the general population.
  • However, that quality of life raises dramatically with ‘Gender Affirming Treatment’, the nature of which is detailed extensively in-text.
  • Extensive and incredibly interesting document on the standards of care for transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals.
  • A good read, but won’t win you any arguments.

Trans People in Sports

  • Meta-analysis covering prior research on trans individuals’ performance in sports and preexisting sports policies concerning trans people
  • Findings show there is no consistent or direct research indicating transgender women have an unfair athletic advantage at any stage of their transition.
  • Additional findings show most sports policies are not evidence-based and trans individuals experience substantial discrimination from sports institutions.

Sex is Complicated and not a Binary

  • Scientific American graphic describing the many characteristics which factor into one's sexual identity.
  • Helpful in indicating the ambiguous and bimodal nature of sex/responding to people who believes it’s as simple as XX/XY
  • NY Times Op-Ed from a professor of biology & gender studies
  • Explains the biological complexity of sex and the ways in which the Trump Administration’s attempts to legislate that complexity of of existence is both immoral and unscientific.
  • Description of modern scientific attitudes towards human sex.
  • “The view that the world’s population can be separated into a clearly defined dyadic unit of male and female is defunct; not only clinical observations, but molecular biology has established that sexual identity is on a continuum, with an enormous potential for variance”

Queer People are Still Oppressed (and that’s why their suicide rate is higher)

  • 2018 LGBTQ Youth Report
  • HUGE collection of data concerning difficulties LGBTQ people face
  • 67% of LGBTQ youth hear their parents make negative statements about LGBTQ people - rises to 78% if child is in closet.
  • 48% of LGBTQ youth say their family makes them feel bad for their identity
  • This pretty much ends the argument right here.
  • Broad international study of trans suicide rate (it’s quite high).
  • “Gender-based victimization, discrimination, bullying, violence, being rejected by the family, friends, and community; harassment by intimate partner, family members, police and public; discrimination and ill treatment at health-care system are the major risk factors that influence the suicidal behavior among transgender persons”.
  • Massive demographic analysis which codifies the many social & institutional factors which contribute to trans suicide rates
  • Surprise surprise, discrimination & abuse play a huge role. Read the summary.
  • Analysis of the ways in which parental support affect elements of disadvantage experienced by transgender youth.
  • Most notably, strong parental support decreases the likelihood of a suicide attempt within the past year from 57% to just 4%.
  • Analysis of crime & privacy violations as they relate to concerns raised by those who advocate for ‘trans bathroom bills’
  • Analysis indicates there is no empirical evidence to support these concerns; such crimes & privacy violations are exceptionally rare. Calls for trans bathroom bills are fearmongering, plain and simple.
  • Interesting (and long) qualitative analysis on the depiction of transgender people in Sports Illustrated over past decades.
  • Finds disproportionately negative depictions (of course).
  • Worth reading; probably not going to win you an argument.
  • 16 countries in Europe & Central Asia still require sterilization before transgender peoples’ gender identity can be legally recognized
  • News article - June 2019
  • Trump Administration rejecting requests from US embassies to fly the rainbow pride flag on embassies’ main banner during Pride Month
  • LGBTQ youth are 120% (2.2x) as likely to experience homelessness as cisgender and heterosexual youth.
  • Up to 40% of the homeless youth population is LGBTQ
  • Cited possibility for this discrepancy being LGBTQ youth getting kicked out of the home by unwelcoming/openly hostile family.
  • LGBTQ employment discrimination is still far from a settled issue.
  • A point of note - in 2017, the Trump Administration used the Department of Justice to revoke an Obama-era Title VII policy which protected transgender employees from discrimination.

Immigration

Immigration Doesn’t Really Hurt Wages

  • National Bureau of Economic Research paper on the effects immigration has on wages in the United States
  • Study contends previous analyses on the relationship between immigration and wages falsely assumed perfect labor substitutability between immigrants and native workers of similar education levels, distorting results
  • Research shows average American wage RISES due to immigration, both short-term and long-term
  • Only native demographic whose wages drop are High School dropouts who suffer a decrease in wages of approximately ~2% short-term, alleviating to ~1.1% over time.
  • Study finds new immigration does severely impact wages of prior immigrants, suggesting lack of substitutability with *natives.
  • Overall, vast majority of American workers’ wages increase from immigration, High School dropouts (<10% of population) experience a slight decrease which alleviates with time (and there is evidence that immigration may increase native High School graduation rates, too).

  • Similar research to the above paper, except conducted on the French labor market.
  • Findings are near-identical; immigration leads to across-the-board wage increases for all except a small minority of low-education native workers.
  • Reaffirms conclusion that there is low substitutability between native workers and immigrant workers.
  • Famous research on the Mariel Boatlift and the impact of a wave of Cuban immigrants (mostly low-skilled) on the economy of Miami.
  • Research found essentially no impact on native wages, even for low-skilled workers, despite the Mariel Boatlift increasing
  • Even former Cuban immigrants didn’t seem to be affected.

Immigration Is Just Good in General

  • Extensive summary on the effects immigration has on the US economy, with sources
  • “While some policymakers have blamed immigration for slowing U.S. wage growth since the 1970s, most academic research finds little long run effect on Americans’ wages”.
  • “The available evidence suggests that immigration leads to more innovation, a better educated workforce, greater occupational specialization, better matching of skills with jobs, and higher overall economic productivity”.
  • “Immigration also has a net positive effect on combined federal, state, and local budgets”.
  • “Economists generally agree that the effects of immigration on the U.S. economy are broadly positive”.

Diversity Doesn’t Hurt Social Cohesion

White supremacists will often argue racial diversity leads to less social cohesion than racial homogeneity. The data disagrees. Credit to Mouthy Infidel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTqctWuiqMJBehe1BH0JKtg) for this research.

  • Enormous meta-analysis of 90 cross-sectional studies analyzing relationship between diversity & social cohesion.
  • Vast majority of studies on the subject fail to prove the relationship between two variables.
  • In fact, study finds positive relationship between inter-ethnic contact & trust in ethnically heterogeneous communities.
  • Only contrary data shows small-scale (intra-neighborhood) trust suffers with ethnic heterogeneity in some circumstances, and even then only in America.
  • Plurality of data does not support - and largely contradicts - assertion that diversity hurts social cohesion.
  • Study examining a range of experiments meant to gauge the relationship between diversity and social cohesion.
  • Study finds all of the experiments found a positive relationship between diversity and social cohesion. 
  • Proposed mechanism is that diversity causes people to identify more broadly with humanity, increasing sociability.
  • Longitudinal study comparing the change in social cohesion over time in an area which experienced a large increase in diversity with a comparative control which didn’t.
  • The two areas did not differ significantly in how their levels of social cohesion changed over time, suggesting the increased level of diversity had no statistically significant impact on social cohesion.
  • Another longitudinal study analyzing changes in trust in 22 European countries between the years 2002 and 2010.
  • Study suggests immigration often leads to decrease in social trust, but results were heavily affected by ethnic polarization & economic stability.
  • With low polarization and a good economy, immigration was shown to actually increase social trust.
  • Results suggest it isn’t the diversity of immigrants which lessens trust, but rather the economic and political context in which they arrive.

Holocaust Denial

        There is an enormous body of historical research concerning the Holocaust, none of which holocaust deniers care to engage with. They are conspiracists, regurgitating already-debunked talking points which “question the official narrative” but do not engage with existing research. This is because, no matter how tenacious they are in their ignorance, their talking points are very easy to disprove. Here are a few rebuttals to those talking points, though not all unsubstantiated denier claims warranted an academic paper in response.

        The Liberal Sanity Project, who helped with this document, has a good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_YFgugVhns&t=1s

“The estimated number of Jewish deaths in the Holocaust is wildly overinflated.”

  • This extensive and well-sourced post explains how modern historians arrived at their estimation of Jewish Holocaust deaths (5.4 - 6.2 million).
  • There is lively academic debate within that range (Nazis kept poor records so we will never have a completely accurate answer) but no serious historian believes in any figure which deviates significantly from that range.
  • A passage from Denying History - Historians are the ones who should be described as revisionists. To receive a Ph.D. and become a professional historian, one must write an original work with research based on primary documents and new sources, reexamining or reinterpreting some historical event—in other words, revising knowledge about that event only. This is not to say, however, that revision is done for revision’s sake; it is done when new evidence or new interpretations call for a revision.

Historians have revised and continue to revise what we know about the Holocaust. But their revision entails refinement of detailed knowledge about events, rarely complete denial of the events themselves, and certainly not denial of the cumulation of events known as the Holocaust.

Holocaust deniers claim that there is a force field of dogma around the Holocaust—set up and run by the Jews themselves—shielding it from any change. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether or not the public is aware of the academic debates that take place in any field of study, Holocaust scholars discuss and argue over any number of points as research continues. Deniers do know this.

“Zyklon B is just a delousing agent, it can’t kill people! It was used to clean clothes! Also, even if it was lethal, why do some “gas chambers” lack the blue stain Zyklon B leaves on walls?”

  • First of all, Zyklon B can absolutely be used to kill. Just Wikipedia it.
  • Secondly, Zyklon B must be used in higher concentrations to kill lice than it need be to kill humans. It’s more economical to use less gas, so the blue gas residue wouldn’t form as easily in gas chambers.
  • Third, Zyklon B residue can be easily cleaned from walls, and Nazis made every effort to destroy evidence of the Holocaust as Soviet soldiers marched in.
  • Fourth, even this stupid image acknowledges there are traces of (again, easily-cleanable) Zyklon B in the gas chamber.

“The Auschwitz memorial plaque death figure suddenly CHANGED from 4 million dead to 1.5 million dead. What are they hiding?”

  • The 4 million figure was initially published by the Soviet State Commission in 1945, long before any reliable estimates were available.
  • As new information is made available, historians revise general knowledge of the subject. This is how the field of history works.

“The “gas chamber” doors were made from WOOD. They clearly weren’t meant to contain people.”

  • The wooden doors presented in these images led to delousing rooms, not gas chambers. These are literally just pictures of wooden doors. It is not known what the original gas chamber doors looked like because Nazis destroyed those facilities before Soviet soldiers arrived.
  • This door, however, was found in the building yard of Auschwitz and is believed to be the kind used in their gas chambers.
  • The doors may have been destroyed, but the receipts for those doors were not. This receipt calls for an order “on 6/3/1943 concerning the delivery of a gas tight door 100 x 192 cm for cellar I of Krematorium III, to be produced to the identical pattern and dimensions as the cellar door of Krematorium II which is situated opposite, with peephole of double 8 mm glass, with rubber sealing strip and frame.”

“The camp crematoriums could not have handled that many bodies! It takes 4-8 hours to cremate a body.”

  • It takes 1-5 hours to cremate a civilian body at a professional service. It takes far less time to cremate a body in an industrial furnace when speed takes priority over cleanliness and decency.
  • Also, Holocaust victims were not cremated one at a time. Toph and Sons (the makers of the Auschwitz crematoriums) claimed their units could handle 4-6 bodies an hour.
  • The bodies were ". . . sorted according to their combustibility: for the bodies of the well-nourished were to help burn the emaciated. Under the direction of the Kapos, the bearers began sorting the dead into four stacks. The largest consisted mainly of strong men, the next in size of women, then came children, and lastly a stack of dead Mussulmans, emaciated and nothing but skin and bones. This technique was called 'express work,' a designation thought up by the Kommandoführers and originating from experiments carried out in crematorium 5 in the autumn of 1943. The purpose of these experiments was to find a way of saving coke. . . . Thus the bodies of two Mussulmans were cremated together with those of two children or the bodies of two well-nourished men together with that of an emaciated woman, each load consisting of three, or sometimes, four bodies." Filip Müller, Sonderkommando - Filip Müller
  • When crematoriums failed, they used burning pits.

“The Red Cross visited a “death camp” and found that it wasn’t inhumane!”

  • The Red Cross inspectors were not allowed to visit the parts of the camp intended for genocide and the had Nazis prepared their camp for scrutiny, deporting the near-dead and sanitizing the presented facilities.
  • "I repeatedly witnessed guided tours of civilians and also of commissions of the Red Cross and other parties within the camp, and I was able to ascertain that the camp leadership arranged it masterfully to conduct these guided tours in such a way that the people being guided around did not see a*hing about inhuman treatment. The main camp was shown only and in this main camp there were so-called show blocks, particularly block 13, that were especially prepared for such guided tours and that were equipped like a normal soldier's barracks with beds that had sheets on them, and well-functioning washrooms." - SS-Untersturmführer Hans Münch
  • Additionally, that letter tallying camp deaths is attributable to the International Tracing Service, not the Red Cross. They tally estimates, not records, and are not historically relevant.

“The prisoners at Auschwitz had a swimming pool! And a band! And a brothel! And a goddamn soccer team! And a dentist! Some prison, huh?”

  • All these amenities were present at Auschwitz I - the main camp, which held POWs, not Holocaust victims. The infamous extermination camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau. Also, the band and “pool” were for the guards exclusively. The “pool’s” main purpose was actually that of a backup water reservoir.
  • Even if these amenities were present at Auschwitz-Birkenau, it wouldn’t disprove anything concerning the Holocaust.

Miscellaneous

  • ENORMOUS meta-meta-analysis on the wellbeing of children with same-sex parents.
  • 75 of 79 studies affirmed children of same-sex couples fare no worse than children of opposite-sex couples.
  • The few dissenting studies acknowledge social prejudice may explain worse outcomes.
  • OVERWHELMING academic consensus from three decades of study.

  • Contrary to common belief, Generation Z is more left-leaning than any prior generation of Americans.
  • Generation Z people are most likely to - know a person who uses they/them pronouns, recognize the systematic mistreatment of black people, believe the government should play a role in addressing social issues, acknowledge humans’ role in climate change, champion racial/ethnic diversity, and support same-sex/interracial marriage.

https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3660&context=faculty_scholarship

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408.pdf

https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4200

https://users.nber.org/~sewp/events/2005.01.14/Bios+Links/Good-rec2-Steele_&_Aronson_95.pdf

https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/journals/MQ-Frost_1468-0009.12080.pdf

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.915.9087&rep=rep1&type=pdf

https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pops.12670

https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/journals/MQ-Frost_1468-0009.12080.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com./news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/03/16/the-campus-free-speech-crisis-is-a-myth-here-are-the-facts/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550620916071

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-1453-2

https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3660&context=faculty_scholarship

Studies to Watch Out For

  • Commonly cited by transphobes to indicate sexual reassignment surgery HARMS trans people, increases risk of suicide.
  • BAD DATA. Control group for post-transition trans individuals was CISGENDER people - post-SRS trans participants weren’t compared to pre-SRS trans participants, they were compared to cis paticipants. Methodology DOES NOT PROVE intended point.
  • Commonly cited by transphobes to indicate transness spreads socially, that exposure to trans material might encourage youth to be trans. “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria”.
  • BAD DATA. This study polled PARENTS, not the actual children, and those polls were taken online, and those sites were biased by nature - ‘4thwavenow, transgendertrend, y*ls’.
  • Horrendously, pathetically inept data collection. Anyone who cites this should be laughed at.

The Transgender Culture War

Fascist revivalism is almost always built on the scapegoating of widespread social and economic issues, and the anxieties surrounding them, onto an already-vulnerable demographic. The purpose of this scapegoating is to draw attention away from real issues, to build a strong base of support through in-group/out-group distinctions, and to draw political fervor through disgust and outrage. Today, in America and much of the world, trans people are that already-vulnerable demographic.

Trans People Have Always Existed

Regret And Detransition Are Incredibly Rare

        In a free society, people will sometimes make decisions - medical or otherwise - that they later come to regret. This is an unavoidable fact of life, and the regret of former patients is not in itself a mark against any medical procedure. If it was, we wouldn’t be able to practice any medicine at all. Still, with that in mind, surveys have consistently found gender-affirming medical care to have ridiculously low regret rates.

Regret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence

  • Meta-analysis of 27 studies on patient regret rates following gender-affirming surgery.
  • With a total number of 7,928 patients surveyed, only 77 (~1%) reported regret.

Guiding the conversation—types of regret after gender-affirming surgery and their associated etiologies

  • Anonymous surveys were sent to 154 surgeons registered to the 2016 World Professional Association for Transgender Health conference, 30% of which responded.
  • Cumulatively, these respondents treated between 18,125 and 27,325 individuals.
  • The reported number of patients who expressed regret was 62, or ~0.2-0.3%.

Regret after Gender Affirming Surgery – A Multidisciplinary Approach to a Multifaceted Patient Experience

  • A multidisciplinary workgroup recorded incidents of gender-affirming surgery (GAS) and regret among their patients from 2016 to 2021.
  • Of 1,989 individuals who underwent GAS, only 6 (~0.3%) requested reversal surgery or detransitioned back to their birth sex.

        Compare these gender-affirming care regret rates to other, commonplace medical procedures. One study found regret after primary knee and hip replacement surgery was either 17.1% or 4.8%, dependi*ng on the procedure method. An enormous meta-analysis on 889 studies concerning regret in surgical decision making found that on average, in procedures ranging from trivial to life-saving, the average rate of self-reported decision regret was one in seven. One in seven! About 14%! Gender-affirming care doesn’t even come close to that rate!

        What’s more, many people who detransition do so for reasons other than regret. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey Report found that of those who had at one point detransitioned, 62% then later re-transitioned in some capacity. This was because the reasons for detransition were often social (lack of parental support, social shaming) or financial (too expensive, change in medical plan) rather than regret. A 2021 study of 237 detransitioners found the same, that the most common reasons for detransition were not regret. A 2022 study found that of 2,242 detransitioners, only 15.9% reported an internal driving factor in that decision, such as doubts about their gender identity.

Gender-Affirming Care Helps

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  • Data point summary, bolded for emphasis.

Detransition Is Rare And Often Involuntary

Hysteria Over Trans People In Sports

“Social Contagion”

Rebutting this point is more of a rhetorical exercise than a data-driven one. The “social contagion” anti-trans argument is essentially that transness is socially influenced; that being exposed to trans people and pro-trans ideas makes people more likely to be trans. This effect is likened to a disease, usually alongside the implication that there will be some dire social consequence to not controlling the disease’s spread.

        Let’s first acknowledge that “exposure to this idea makes you more likely to accept or identify with it” puts transness in the same category as one’s political opinions, social views, religious orientation, food preferences, ethical biases, preferred sports team, national allegiances, perspectives on war and pacifism, and preference towards slotting your toilet paper roll in the correct way or the incorrect way. Put simply, almost everything about a person’s identity is at least somewhat influenced by exposure to ideas surrounding that identity. This is often brought up in the context of left-handedness, where its frequency in the population appeared to sharply rise then level off as religious bigotry against left-handedness dissipated, or in homosexuality, where countries with extremely punitive anti-gay laws and media censorship seem to mysteriously have no gay people (in census data, at least).

        Leaving even all that aside, the conservative “trans social contagion” argument is inherently self-defeating. Consider: they argue against an increased proportion of trans representation in media and education because the exposure appears to create more transgender people, and want a greater (read:total) proportion of cisgender representation so fewer people will be transgender. Are they not, then, treating cisgenderism as its own social contagion? Their push for less trans representation is an endorsement of the very same “exposure creates identity” logic they claim is exclusive to transness, a logic which is in fact almost universally applicable to all elements of our identity. The onus is on them to justify their arbitrary preference for one “contagion” over another, and they cannot.

        “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” is essentially just a pseudo-medicalized expression of the same “social contagion” panic. It was coined in this extremely bad study, and even a brief glance at its methodology reveals how meaningless its conclusions really are. Essentially, the researchers surveyed the parents of trans youth and created a term to describe the parents’ opinion on how their children came to be trans. Where were these parents found? Anti-trans websites. This was analogous to creating a term to legitimize the opinions you’ve gathered on racial IQ differences after polling people from white nationalist websites. Absolutely ridiculous.