1.
“The Right to Change Sex,” March 11–24
For New York’s latest cover story, critic Andrea Long Chu laid out the moral case for letting trans kids change their bodies. Family Abolition author M. E. O’Brien said she “found this essay profoundly invigorating and refreshing. The universal right to change our sex is fundamental to trans flourishing, a decent world, and a politics worth fighting for.” @JinkiesJerrica called it “unequivocally the best expository piece on trans rights and the culture war that I have read in the last 15 years. Medical transition is less about sex or gender, and more about freedom of choice and bodily autonomy. This is what our community should argue.” “This is the classic example of a good article by Andrea Long Chu, that makes good points, and which I nonetheless disagree with in some fundamental ways,” attorney Dilan Esper said. “Fundamentally, my disagreement is that I don’t think you can really articulate a freedom of young people to choose any body modification they want without parental approval or medical gatekeeping.” For Longreads, Seyward Darby wrote it was “a characteristically provocative essay that skewers the anti-trans movement, including people she calls trans-agnostic reactionary liberals, or tarls.” Many of those figures responded publicly: Matthew Yglesias said he found it “a compelling (re)statement of the basic principles of freedom and individualism that underscore the core case for trans rights and human liberty writ large. But it doesn’t offer compelling answers on several key flashpoints.” Helen Lewis wrote in The Atlantic, “For skeptics of puberty blockers like me … Chu’s case for unlimited agency for teenagers is refreshing. She said everything out loud, and her argument is logical, coherent, and forcefully delivered. You just won’t hear it made very often, because it’s about as popular as the case for letting 9-year-olds get nose jobs.” Jesse Singal, whose Atlantic cover story on children transitioning was discussed, responded on Substack, calling it “an act of high-profile trolling … You’d think that at some point Chu would actually provide an argument for why we should adopt her stated set of principles.’ ” Katie Herzog, who co-hosts a podcast with Singal, wrote, “This is at least a different take on the ethics of transition. Rather than argue that sex-changes for kids are life-saving, Chu argues for youth transition because kids own their own bodies. It’s very libertarian.” Addressing this point, Compact’s Geoff Shullenberger said, “The tension in Chu’s argument (not atypical of today’s left) is its fusion of maximal libertarianism — including a de-medicalization of transition — with a demand for socialization of costs … On the other hand, I think the article is right to frame the question around freedom.” And in a column for Intelligencer, Jonathan Chait praised Chu’s essay for its honesty but said he doesn’t “accept the notion that to value empiricism and universal rights, even for our political enemies, is tantamount to a lack of concern about trans rights or the rights of any other oppressed group. Liberalism may not offer final permanent solutions to all our moral dilemmas. That is often frustrating, but there is nothing insidious about it.” Others were less measured. On Substack, Matt Taibbi called it the “dumbest cover story ever,” saying the essay “perfectly captures the lunatic nihilism American academics have fanned into a mass movement.” On X, psychologist-podcaster Jordan Peterson, who has compared being trans to “satanic ritual abuse,” wrote, “There is no ‘moral’ case for butchering children,” going on to add, “DIE @NYMag scumrats. The sooner the better. Bring back the Nuremberg trials!” “It’s worth reading the whole thing,” wrote Ari Drennen of Media Matters. “Don’t settle for whatever bits the eliminationist crowd grabs out of context.”
2.
“The Squatters of Beverly Hills”
In “The Squatters of Beverly Hills,” Bridget Read chronicled how an enterprising group of Burners, DJs, and actors took over a fugitive doctor’s mansion in a tony part of L.A. “The details in this story keep going and going,” said music producer Nick Catchdubs. “When I first started reading this piece, I wasn’t sure whether to be appalled or amazed,” Longreads editor Krista Stevens wrote, describing it as “a cinematic story of deception and
intrigue worthy of a blockbuster movie.” Journalist Josie Duffy Rice, who covers criminal justice, called out “one paragraph that is making me nuts”: a description of how some neighbors blame progressive L.A. County district attorney George Gascón for rising crime. “Gascón has nothing at all to do with this!!! This is just reciting crime propaganda without refuting it at all.”
Commenter detachmentparenting added, “I can’t find anyone in this story to root for.”
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