#radical candor

[james-the-lass]

I struggle with how other people, by and large, either haven’t learned that open and direct communication without judgement is the most effective way to communicate or refuse to engage in it. To say it is frustrating is the understatement of the year. It disregulates me in a way I can’t describe and I know it’s a feeling every neurodivergent person experiences. iykyfk.

How his character is written in-game has inspired several fics where this attribute is extended further, encompassing more than just conversations with Tav. Fic writers seem to have collectively agreed that someone with his gravitas would meet someone where they *are* as easily as breathing, even if they are deliberately refusing to engage in candid conversations.

It’s reframed the way I think about my frustration and how I handle it. Maybe I sound ridiculous if I say that a video game character is serving as a role model for me, but there it is.

Halsin is so fucking well-written though? Like, he keeps on surprising me with his balanced responses. You can actually feel every single one of the years he's lived and experienced. He isn't just good-aligned or wise, he is so fucking reflected?! His speech, while ✨elegant✨ is always super precise and deliberate. He does not see need for shame in natural activities or personal failures. He knows that communicating clearly and openly is the easiest way to resolution, be it in his favour or not. I understand why he was archdruid. Very autistic-coded.

Martel, I love him.

[ossie50]

Balance empathy and competence

Jake is a divisional manager in an overseas subsidiary of a corporate. Having come through the ranks, he is obviously highly competent in his field of expertise. He understands the business and how it works, knows products and customers. All of this is well and good, but when asked his people describe him in negative terms. You see, Jake is highly competent except for ‘people…

[neesonl602]

In this episode of "Peace at the Water Cooler," join us as we unravel the transformative concept of "Radical Candor" with renowned author Kim Scott.

Drawing from her rich experiences at Google, Apple, Qaltrics, Dropbox, and Twitter, Kim imparts practical wisdom on leadership, feedback, and cultivating a healthy workplace culture.

Through amusing anecdotes and humorous examples, including encounters with the infamous "Bob," Kim explores the delicate balance of caring personally and challenging directly.

Discover the art of balancing praise and criticism, and learn actionable steps to foster a workplace grounded in fundamental human decency. Don't miss the sneak peek into Kim's upcoming book, set for release in May 2024!

For more podcasts related to workplace, please visit segalconflictsolutions.com.au

[remenar]

[SAŽETAK] Radical Candor - Kim Malone Scott

Radical Candor, na hrvatskom Radikalna Iskrenost, nije ono što sam očekivao. Očekivao sam, po naslovu i opisu knjige, da će autorica obraditi temu davanja konstruktivnih povratnih informacija na radikalno iskren način. Savjete kako navedeno svakodnevno provoditi. Međutim, knjiga se svodi na savjete kako voditi tim. Ali, to ovu knjigu ne čini lošom. Štoviše, sasvim solidno je obrađena tematika vođenja tima. Pisana je pitko, a savjeti su konkretni. Samo naslov ne odgovara tematici knjige. Nema veze. Primjenjiva je i drago mi je da sam ju pročitao te da s vama mogu podijeliti ovaj sažetak i svoj osvrt.

Introduction

"It's brutally hard to tell people when they are screwing up"

Part I - A New Management Philosophy

"Every time I feel I have something more 'important' to do than listen to people, I remember Leslie's words: 'It is your job!'" "People dread feedback - both the praise, which can feel patronizing, and especially the criticism" "Guidance, team, and results: these are the responsibility of any boss" "Your ability to build trusting, human connection with the people who report directly to you will determine the quality of everything that follows" "There are few things more damaging to human relationships than a sense of superiority" "You have to accept that sometimes people on your team will be mad at you" "Don't personalize" "It's not mean, it's clear" "When you criticise someone without taking even two seconds to show you care, your guidance feel obnoxiously aggressive to the recipient" "Manipulative insincere guidance happens when you don't care enough about a person to challenge directly" "Start by asking for criticism, not by giving it" "Worry about praise, less about criticism - but above all be sincere" "The boss needs to explain why; that is; be invested in helping the person improve" "Be humble, helpful, offer guidance in person and immediately, praise in public, criticise in private, and don't personalize" "Rock stars are just as importan to a team's performance as superstars. Stability is just as important as growth" "Your role is to focus on them to make sure they are getting everything they need to continue doing great work" "Part of building a cohesive team is to create a culture that recognises and rewards to rock stars" "The best way to keep superstars happy is to challenge them and make sure they are constantly learning" "Don't let your focus on results get in the way of caring about the people you work with" "Than create a culture in which everyone listens to each other, so that all the burden of listening doesn't fall on you" "Once you've created a culture of listening, the next step is to push yourself and your direct reports to understand and convey thoughts and ideas more clearly" "Be clear to others. Make thoughts and ideas drop-dead easy for others to comprehend" "You need to push them to communicate with such precision and clarity that it's impossible not to grasp their argument" "But you've got to make sure that they happen, and that there is a culture of debate on your team" "This is why kick-ass bosses often do not decide themselves, but rather create a clear decision-making process that empowers people closest to the facts to make as many decisions as possible" "But if you fail to take into account your listener's emotions, too, you won't be persuasive" "Be humble and invoke 'we not an I' whenever possible" "Here are the three things I've learned about getting this balance right: Don't waste your team's time; Keep the 'dirt under your fingernails'; and block time to execute" "If you get too far away from the work your team is doing, you won't understand their ideas well enough to help them clarify"

Part II - Tools and Techniques

"If you can't give a damn about others if you don't take care of yourself" "Put the things you need to do for yourself on your calendar, just as you would an important meeting" "For the most part, it's better to use the time after work to keep yourself centered than to socialize with work colleagues" "A radically candid relationship start with the basic respect and common decency that every human being owes each other, regardless of worldview" "Acknowledge emotions" "Adding your guild to other people's difficult emotions doesn't make them feel better" "Telling other people how to feel will backfire" "If you really can't handle emotional outbursts, forgive yourself" "In order to build a culture of Radically Candid guidance you need to get, give, and encourage both praise and criticism" "Here are some tips/techniques I've seen work to get the conversation flowing: - You are the exception to the 'criticise in private' rule of thumb - Have a go-to question - Embrace the discomfort - Listen with the intent to understand, not to respond - Reward criticism to get more of it - Gauge the guidance you get" "The first conversation is designed to learn what motivates each person who reports directly to you" "The second conversation moves from understanding what motivates people to understanding the persons dreams" "Last, Rust thought managers to get people to begin asking themselves the following question: ' What do I need to learn in order to move in the direction of my dreams? How should I prioritize things I need to learn? Whom can I learn from?'" "Yes, by all means, praise in public. But think carefully about what you are praising. Praise the things you want more of: high-quality work, mind-boggling innovation, amazing efficiency, selfless teamwork, and so on" "The most important of these meetings is the 1:1 with each of your direct reports" "The purpose of a 1:1 meeting is to listen and clarify - to understand what direction each person working for you want to head in, and what is blocking them" "An effective staff meeting has three goals: it reviews how things have goon the previous week, allows people to share important updates, and forces the team to clarify the most important decisions and debates for the coming week" "Measuring activities and visualizing workflows will push you and your team to make sure you really understand how what you all do drive success - or doesn't" "Schedule an hour a week of walking-around time" "A team's culture has an enormous impact of it's results, and a leader's personality has a huge impact on a team's culture" "When you pay attention to seemingly small details, it can have a big impact of persuading people that your culture is worth understanding and adapting to" "When you're the boss and shit happens, it's your responsibility to learn from it and make a change"

Dodatne poveznice

Goodreads: Radical Candor Amazon: Radical Candor Blackwell's: Radical Candor

Video materijali

  Preuzimanje sažetka

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[silverskyy]

[ID: a simple drawing of a person holding a piece of paper and saying "Wow. I'm so normal about this." They then shove the paper in their mouth, surrounded by "oommmf". /end ID]

when i get art of my ocs

[a-d-nox]

More on human design ya-hoo!

human design: the throat

the throat is an energetic hot spot - a motor center for quite a few people. it's the center where creation happens, manifestation occurs, and expression takes place. this is our voice. this where are dream occur and where we determine if we are going to take action to make them happen. this is the place where teaching, leadership, education, and knowledge are at a forefront.

defined: speaking your mind, expressing your emotions, conveying your emotions with ease and sincerity, active, creative, communicative, consistent, confident, making things happen, storytelling, opinionated, good listener, etc.

undefined: chatterbox, struggling to get the point across, dominating a conversation, interrupting others, inconsistent, speech impediments, anxious, silence is power, etc.

gates

8 - contributing: involved, inspiring to others, promoting ideas, honest, constantly wanting to help or have something to add, dislike for being on the sidelines, needing to be in the action, wanting to make a difference, taking charge, directing others, human glue, loyal, respected, etc.

12 - stillness: cautious, shy, concerned, unsure of your own feelings, warning others, wariness, dreamer, idealistic, seeking evolution, procrastinating, moving others, etc.

16 - selectiveness: has foresight, seeing potential, enthusiastic, withdraws, hypercritical of all things, thinks collectively, enthusiastic, a chaser, etc.

20 - grounded: is in the now, thinks about the present moment, limited to no regrets, resents very little, no stress regarding the past, lets go of high expectations, hopeful for the future, watchful, contemplative, etc.

23 - assimilating: bringing dramatic change to the world, shakes life up, seeks new perspectives in all things, radicalism, new approaches, straight to the point, authoritative, sounds knowledgeable/factual, direct, blunt, has profound insight, truthful, etc.

31 - influential: has authority, is hard to ignore, is a leader, reliable, logical, future thinking, gifted director, organized, encourages others, etc.

33 - escapist: storyteller, reflective, succinct, straightforward, meant to experience a lot in this life time, mulls over the past, sharp mind, great memory, chronically fatigued, etc.

35 - progressive: every last drop, opportunistic, a tempest, volatile at times, impatient, expansive, dislikes boredom, seeks experience, love of learning, fears regret, "what if", restless, glass half full, easily frustrated, feeling drained, etc.

45 - together: regal, astute, wealthy, wanting the best for the whole, penny pincher, etc.

56 - wanderer: traveler, wants to broaden their horizons, storyteller, fascinating, constantly feels lost in life, seeks reassurance where they can, dramatic embellishments, human bs detector, stimulated by all things, etc.

62 - detailed: conscientious, broad understanding of all things, hard to be misunderstood, preceptive, factual, logical, thorough, authoritative, compelling, convincing, detached, objective, etc.

no gates: expressive, understanding of all things, can do anything they put their mind to, getting caught up in everyone else's stuff, etc.

channels that connect from the throat to the mind

channels that connect from the throat to the self

8 -> 1 - inspiring: creative, influential, leader, guide, takes charge, has a strong sense of self, trustworthy, motivational, makes things happen, product of their environment, empowering others, etc.

20 -> 10 - aware: has a strong sense of self, loves life, sees beauty in all things, empowers others, shares candor with others, dreams of the world becoming a better place, etc.

31 -> 7 - leader: born leader, know they have purpose despite uncertainty, stands out, recognizable, logical, authoritative, radical, positive change, etc.

31 -> 13 - trustworthy: lead witness, enduring, experiences many things, natural reporter, wise, great listener, talkative, confidante to many, magnetic, the shoulder to cry on, seeks reassurance in many things, nostalgic, sentimental, can read people easily, perceptive, empathetic, etc.

channels that connect from the throat to the heart

45 -> 21 - rich: capable of attracting wealth, comfortable in the material world, likely to be in a position of power, prestigious, freedom, autonomous, etc.

channels that connect from the throat to the spleen

16 -> 48 - talented: creative, masterful, diligent, "everything is just so", perfectionist, wants to get it right the first time, "body electric" by lana del rey, etc.

20 -> 57 - impulsive: intuitive, expressive, one step ahead of everyone else, perceptive, twitchy, thinks on their toes, intrusive thoughts, interrupting others, talking over others, anxious, worried, etc.

channels that connect from the throat to the emotions

12 -> 22 - openness: emotional, has character depth, empowering, vulnerable, unpredictable, makes great things happen, "i took the path less traveled", innovative, calm, self assured, passionate, understanding, mood swings, wants to succeed more than anything, etc.

35 -> 36 - versatility: wants to experience everything, transient person, everything is short lived, has an urgency for living, jack of all trades, master of none, passionate, thrill seeker, makes drama for entertainment, wanderer, etc.

channels that connect from the throat to the sacral

20 -> 34 - bees: active, happiest at work, gets fully immersed in everything they do, unstoppable, capable, charismatic, energetic, to-do lists, empowers others, etc.

like what you read? leave a tip and state what post it is for! please use my “suggest a post topic” button if you want to see a specific post or design related post next!

click here for the masterlist 

click here for more human design posts

© a-d-nox 2024 all rights reserved

[kaibacorpintern]

[jokes that are funny only to people who spend a lot of time on linkedin] do you think kaiba has a growth mindset. does he lead kaibacorp as his authentic self. has he read radical candor and become a kick-ass boss without losing his humanity

[neathyingenue]

OC reference sheet - Silvia Salcedo, the Radical Sonneteer

Gender: Woman (she/they pronouns)

Sexuality: Lesbian

Age: 23

Titles: Citizen, Ms, Comrade

Ambition: Heart's Desire

Occupation: Author, editor of The Prodigal Plebian [sic]

Main Skills: Persuasive, Watchful, Zeefaring, Glasswork

Main Quirks: Steadfast, Magnanimous, Melancholy

Closest to: Urchins

Personality

Homeschooler: knows she has little life experience, so tends to assume people know more than her.

Philosophical: Why deal with a problem when you could overintellectualize it?

Optimist and idealist: Really, really, really tries to assume the best. Assumes everyone else does, too.

Romantic: Wants to be swept off her feet and utterly devoted to another person. Would rather be in a shitty relationship than be single.

Escapist: Art, fiction, fashion, anything to escape The Horrors!!

Indecisive and fearful: Incapable of premeditated bravery; if she’s gonna have guts, they’ll have to come from adrenaline.

Strong emotions: An all-or-nothing type of gal. Loves friends. Hates cops and capitalists.

Honest and open: Trusting, unless you give her a reason not to. When she lies, she really just tells selective truths. Uses candor to disarm people. [NOTE: the latest attempt on her life has left her a bit warier.]

More about Silvia

Timeline

Romance chart

More detail on Silvia's ethnic/national identities and how they influence her goals

Overanalysis of Parabola reflection

[strangeite]

[ID: An illustration of two characters, Candor a tiefling and Izz a changeling, sitting next to each other with Candor's arm around Izz's shoulder. Candor has goldenrod skin, maroon hair, red eyes with a gold ring around the irises, and two sets of horns, as well as a tail that is curled around Izz. Izz has light grey skin, white hair and eyes with a gold ring around the irises, and dark markings on the end of their double pointed ears and around their eyes like a masquerade mask. A pendant in the shape of a lion cradling a rose hangs around their neck. Candor and Izz are looking at each other with soft, caring expressions. /end ID]

Art Commission for @silverskyy

✨ Commission Form | Ko-fi | Twitter | Instagram ✨

[denimbex1986]

'When the companies behind Ira Sachs’ new drama about the shifting currents of intimacy in a troubled love triangle submitted Passages to the Motion Picture Association ratings board, they probably anticipated an R.

But the MPA came back with an NC-17 rating, forcing the distributor to release the film (which premiered at Sundance earlier this year) unrated rather than risk commercial marginalization or impose cuts that would diminish its intensity...

Let’s be clear: Passages — which Mubi opened Aug. 4 in Los Angeles and New York before expanding to other cities in the weeks to come — is a movie with a generous amount of sex, both gay and straight. But it’s neither particularly explicit nor remotely gratuitous, even if it’s frequently quite hot.

The sex is, above all, integral to the movie’s emotional texture, to the way the characters navigate their volatile relationships, the way they express their feelings and explore their connections through their bodies as they come together and pull apart. In other words, the film’s candor in depicting sex and nudity nudges it closer to European cinema than American.

The ratings controversy around Sachs’ movie comes just as Oppenheimer has been generating talk on social media and in the press about being the first Christopher Nolan movie to feature sex scenes. The trysts between Cillian Murphy as scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and Florence Pugh as his lover both before and during the former’s marriage earned the release an R rating, which is standard given the glimpses of sweaty flesh on view.

But the fact that people are talking about it at all — and no one has been talking about it louder than Nolan himself — just underlines how squeamish American movies are about sex and sensuality.

The sex scenes in both those movies serve a clear narrative purpose. In Nolan’s film, they convey the magnetism of Oppenheimer and its ultimately devastating effect on a woman who, while not really on screen long enough to acquire much complexity, is defined by her intellectual curiosity, political radicalism and carnal desire.

The actual intercourse — once during the affair and once years later, as a haunting specter conjured in a security hearing — is brief and somewhat mechanical, while a long post-coital discussion has Murphy and Pugh sitting naked in armchairs on opposite sides of a room, carefully positioned and framed to keep crotches out of sight. The scene looks like an interview for an admin job at a nudist colony. It’s anything but erotic.

The scene in the Paris-set Passages that evidently had the MPA clutching their pearls, by contrast, is erotically and emotionally charged, raunchy and tender. It takes place after narcissistic German filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) has strayed outside his marriage to English print-maker Martin (Ben Whishaw) with Agathe (Adèle Exarchapoulos), a French schoolteacher he met at the wrap party for his latest feature.

Back in bed with Martin again, Tomas more or less offers himself up, resulting in sex that could be a bid for forgiveness, a reconciliation, a sad acknowledgment of enduring feelings or a manipulative attempt by Tomas to keep a hold on his husband while continuing to explore a new relationship. Or it could be all of those things.

Like the movie’s other sex scenes, it’s dramatically loaded, and although it’s shot in a single take with no artful draping of the sheets, it’s hardly graphic...

The prim attitude toward sex in American movies goes beyond MPA rulings to Hollywood itself. Sex and unapologetic sensuality have been all but banished from the mainstream since the heyday of erotic thrillers in the 1980s and early ‘90s — films like Dressed to Kill, American Gigolo, Body Heat, Basic Instinct, 9½ Weeks, The Last Seduction, Color of Night and Sliver. People onscreen were getting laid and loving it back then.

What happened to make American movies so desexualized? As the holdover artistic spirit of the emancipated ‘70s faded further into the distance, studios became increasingly corporate and less creative in their thinking. In order to be profitable, movies had to play not only across the U.S. — including conservative Red states and Bible Belt regions — but internationally, where many countries have rigidly imposed codes concerning sex and nudity.

The ascendance of the superhero movie has been another nail in the coffin of sensuality. In the Superman films of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, there was most definitely something cooking between Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. But in the more recent wave of comic book-inspired action fare, the protagonists are so sexless they might as well be genital-free Kens and Barbies...

Where, in film, is the supposed sex-positive movement that has become part of the cultural conversation? Cable and streaming platforms have stepped into the breach with shows that don’t hold back on steamy content — think Girls, Insecure, P-Valley, Bridgerton, Game of Thrones, Euphoria and The White Lotus.

So is the dearth of grownup attitudes toward sex and sensuality on big screens a stagnant situation or a step backwards? Many would argue convincingly that it’s been that way since the late ‘90s. But it’s also conceivable that we’re in a unique perfect-storm moment, where far-right conservatism has converged with post-MeToo liberal timidity. On social media, some Gen-Z filmgoers have even questioned whether sex scenes have a place in movies. Seriously, kids, you need to get out more.

The presence of intimacy coordinators on set has no doubt helped to ensure an environment of increased safety and trust for actors, establishing essential boundaries of body autonomy. But unlike so many uninhibited European screen stars, the majority of major-name American performers remain shy about stripping down and going at it.

Witness Penn Badgley declaring his dislike of filming intimate scenes and his insistence on less sex and skin for his character in season 4 of Netflix’s You out of respect for his marriage. “That aspect of Hollywood has always been very disturbing to me,” said the actor in a Variety interview. But many of us who bemoan the shortage of full-blooded sensuality at the multiplex might wonder which Hollywood he’s talking about.'

[brostateexam]

Whenever Donaldson analyzes his own trajectory on YouTube, he self-mythologizes around his own expertise, and how it allows him to game the platform. He’s described spending countless hours obsessing over every detail, down to the optimal brightness of a YouTube thumbnail. He knows the first 10 seconds of a video are the most important for retention, which is why his videos start with a barrage of all the wild things that will unfold in its run time. And that signature MrBeast editing style that’s fast, frantic, and omnipresent on YouTube is a relentless gambit for your attention. “I can get 100 million views on a video for less than 10 grand if I wanted to,” Donaldson boasted on the Colin and Samir podcast.

When asked to describe his own channel, Donaldson says that he’s so laser-focused on achieving virality that he will not upload a video unless he thinks it’ll go big. Later on in the same podcast, he muses that if he fed all the information about his MrBeast videos to an AI and prompted it to tell him what to make next, the output would be what he’s already making.

The key is to always be improving. Donaldson has mused that his dominion over YouTube is the product of radical candor within a team of like-minded creators with similar perfectionist standards. To this day, Donaldson claims to get on daily calls with other creators in the hopes of learning something new that will help him stay at the top. He claims that if a creator’s circle of friends doesn’t spot room for improvement in the videos — even if they’re already viral — then the creator is doomed to stagnate on the platform. Critique can only improve your output, he suggested at the time. But clearly he didn’t feel the same about McLoughlin’s comments, even if his YouTuber contemporary was on to something.

In reviewing dozens of MrBeast videos from over the years, Donaldson has nearly erased himself as a person from his episodic output. If viewers don’t really see him having fun, that’s by design. Donaldson has outright said he sees “personality” as a limitation for growth, once noting in a podcast that hinging your content on who you are as a person means risking not being liked. And if someone doesn’t like a creator as a person, they may not give the videos a chance.

[ossie50]

It's now called 'feed-forward'

I recently came across this term in an article in the Wall Street Journal. Apparently it has entered common usage as a result of many people feeling anxious about receiving feedback. Both terms are being replaced in many organisations it seems, with the label ‘connect meeting’. I am reminded of the old saying about lipstick on a pig. No matter how much you apply, it is still a pig. My…

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Leor Sapir

Published: Mar 21, 2024

Both critics and supporters of so-called “gender-affirming care” appreciated the candor of transgender activist and author Andrea Long Chu’s recent cover story for New York magazine.

Chu’s piece, titled “Freedom of Sex: The Moral Case for Letting Trans Kids Change Their Bodies,” makes a principled case for letting children dictate their own hormonal and surgical treatments. Chu believes that “trans kids” shouldn’t have to get a mental-health assessment before initiating hormones, and that, “in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history.” Remarkably, Chu does not deny that biological sex is binary and determined at conception but argues that humans have no ethical obligation to come to terms with reality, calling this purported duty “a fine definition of nihilism.”

While trans activists often pretend that only “right-wing reactionaries” and “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” (“TERFs”) oppose their claims, Chu refreshingly observes that this isn’t true. The most “insidious” pushback, Chu says, has come from “TARLs,” or “trans-agnostic reactionary liberals.” Indeed, polling has shown that Americans with liberal views largely reject such policies as schools keeping students’ gender “transition” secret from their parents and allowing trans-identified males to compete in female sports.

Chu’s essay went viral, prompting New York staff writer Jonathan Chait to pen a “Liberal Response.” Chait has a history of opposing trans activists’ censoriousness, particularly about medical transition for youth. Last December, for example, he responded to transgender advocacy groups’ fury that the New York Times had acknowledged the ongoing scientific debate over how best to treat gender-distressed minors, which they claimed had abetted state-level Republican efforts to ban pediatric transition. Chait called for “carefully following the evidence,” and observed that “the whole reason leftists try to associate reporters at the Times with Republican-backed laws is precisely that their targets do not agree with the conservative position on transgender care.”

Chait’s December piece correctly identified the tribalist logic informing elite discussions of gender medicine in the United States, and progressive journalists’ efforts to banish from the liberal tribe those who raise questions about this controversial area of medicine. His response to Chu’s essay, however, fails to extend to conservatives the charity he expects trans activists to extend to liberals like himself. If Chait is worried about tribalism obscuring the pursuit of truth, he might consider how his own writing may contribute to this problem.

Consider his characterization of the debate over “trans rights.” Chait claims that “[c]onservatives dismiss trans rights altogether, while liberals completely support trans rights as it pertains to employment, housing, public spaces, and other adult matters, disagreeing mainly in how it is applied to children (as well as, in limited cases, addressing the problems raised by trans female athletes competing in women’s sports).”

Whether this is true, of course, depends entirely on what Chait means by “trans rights.” “Rights talk,” to borrow Mary Ann Glendon’s term, obscures the hard trade-offs and real-world costs that unavoidably confront those entrusted to make policy choices. Chait should have spelled out what “trans rights” mean in practice, but he doesn’t. His failure is especially puzzling considering two claims he makes in his essay. Chait claims, first, that “Trans-rights activists and their allies have relentlessly presented their entire agenda as a take-it-or-leave-it block, attacking anybody who criticizes any piece of it as a transphobe.” Second, he argues that rights claims generally render empirical questions irrelevant. As Chait puts it, “if, say, you consider firearm ownership an absolute right, then no evidence about how many lives any particular gun-control reform is likely to save is going to make you support it.”

Whatever Chait means by “trans rights,” the notion that all liberals support permissive trans policies outside the pediatric medicine and athletic contexts is unfounded, according to the data. Partisan affiliations are not a perfect proxy for voter ideology, but it’s telling that a 2022 PRRI poll found 31 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Independents favor laws that require people to use bathrooms that accord with their biological sex. A more recent YouGov poll found that 26 percent of surveyed Democrats backed such laws, with 22 percent unsure.

Assuming the “liberal” position on public accommodations is that people should be legally allowed to use bathrooms that accord with their subjective definition of being male or female (and many liberals would dispute that this is in fact a liberal position), and if the “conservative” position is that no such law should exist or even that laws should require bathroom access based on sex, then almost half of Democratic Party voters appear to hold views about bathroom access that could qualify as “conservative” under Chait’s scheme.

Liberal opinion similarly divides on the issue of trans-identifying inmates’ prison placements. According to the same YouGov poll, most Democratic voters either supported (35 percent) or weren’t sure about (33 percent) laws requiring prisons to house inmates according to their biological sex. In this case, support for “trans rights,” here defined as a legally protected right to be housed according to “gender identity,” appears to be a minority position within the Democratic Party.

Has Chait accurately characterized the conservative position in this debate? Despite his claim that “[c]onservatives dismiss trans rights altogether,” there’s no evidence that the standard “conservative” position on, say, employment is to allow adverse action against trans-identified people tout court. The YouGov poll found that 44 percent of Republican respondents said they support “banning employers from firing employees on the basis of their transgender identity.” Fifty-seven percent of Independents, which presumably includes some conservatives, answered the same way. Recalling the abstract nature of “rights talk,” what is framed as “employment non-discrimination” often comes down to policy questions about how employers should treat trans-identified employees or candidates in circumstances where sex presumably matters, for instance access to workplace bathrooms.

When asked whether there should be specific provisions for “transgender people in hate crime laws,” 42 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of Independents agreed that transgender status merits special protection, while 24 percent and 27 percent, respectively, said they weren’t sure.

In short, it is highly misleading to say that liberals support trans rights while conservatives do not. When the abstraction “trans rights” is broken down into concrete policy questions, as inevitably it must be, many liberals seem to disagree with policies favored by trans rights activists while many conservatives agree with them. Chait himself recognizes the uselessness of abstract rights talk when he turns his attention to Chu’s argument for “freedom of sex.”

Chait’s response to Chu’s arguments about pediatric medical “transitions” admirably makes the case that “empiricism” must be part of the liberal position on trans rights. However, his commitment to political “rights” seems to constrain his commitment to empiricism and evidence in crucial ways.

First, Chait notes that the supposed consensus that “gender-affirming care” is “settled science” is the result of “a power struggle between advocates of unmediated gender-affirming care and their more cautious colleagues,” but he doesn’t really explain what makes these colleagues “cautious” or whether there are divides within the “cautious” group. By this point he must know that there are three main positions in the debate: those, like Chu and parts of the gender medicine industry, who support unrestricted access to hormones and surgeries; those who support medical transition but call for rigorous mental health assessments; and those who believe that “gender-affirming” hormones and surgeries are inappropriate for minors regardless of circumstances. Those, like myself, who belong to the third group make evidence-based arguments. We regard members of the second group, many of whom are well intentioned, as cautious compared with the first group but overall misguided in their support for harmful practices.

While Chait mentions systematic evidence reviews from Europe and Canada, he fails to disclose that these reviews found no credible evidence of benefits for any pediatric cohort, including those treated under the “gold standard” and more “cautious” Dutch approach, which Chait notes involves “extensive evaluation and screening for mental health.” Left unstated is his apparent hope that after “extensive evaluation and screening,” some kids will benefit from early medicalization.

If liberals like Chait are truly committed to empirical medicine, they must at some point read and respond to the most important scholarly paper on pediatric gender medicine in recent years: “The Myth of ‘Reliable Research’ in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch studies—and research that has followed,” published last year. It’s hard to read this paper and come away with any impression other than that this entire medical field is based on fraud.

More fundamentally, Chait needs to grapple with a problem that runs deeper than the empirical questions discussed in clinical studies. Empirical debates about medical evidence generally presuppose a coherent conceptual framework of health and disease. We can debate, for example, whether a new drug for treating cancer is “safe and effective” because we agree that there is a condition to be treated (cancer), that it constitutes illness, and that doctors have an objective diagnosis to confirm its presence in humans.

Gender medicine, by contrast, lacks a coherent conceptual framework. The discipline is riddled with deep and abiding contradictions. Advocates argue that “gender incongruence” is not a pathology but a normal variation of human development, but they also insist that this phenomenon is a potentially life-threatening medical condition that requires “medically necessary” hormonal or surgical interventions. Advocates argue that “gender identity”—a term whose definition is either circular or reliant on stereotypes—is fixed, immutable, and infallibly knowable from early childhood, but they also say that “gender identity” is fluid and a “journey.”

Above all, thoughtful discussion of youth gender transition is not possible unless one is willing to interrogate the very notion of the “transgender child.” And this, I think, is still a bridge too far for liberals like Chait. What does it mean to say that a child “is transgender”? That she was “born in the wrong body”? That’s metaphysical talk, and absurd. It’s also dangerous to suggest such a thing to vulnerable teenagers who are going through the throes of puberty. Nor is there evidence for the transgender brain hypothesis—and even if there were, gender clinicians (even the “cautious”) ones are not calling for, and most would actively oppose, brain scans as part of the diagnostic process.

Liberal journalists who continue to use the term “trans kids,” as if it’s obvious what this means, without trying to define the term and defend it against rational, good faith criticism, are not truly interested in an empirical debate about youth gender medicine. They care about evidence and research, but only within limits.

A final note on Chait’s piece. He mentions the National Health Service of England’s recent decision to decommission puberty blockers as routine care for gender dysphoric youth. Chait should keep in mind that the Dutch first proposed using puberty blockers as part of the diagnostic process—halting puberty to create a window of time for the adolescent to sort out his feelings and decide whether to proceed with transition. We now know that these drugs do not provide neutral “time to think” (the title of a book about the Tavistock clinic) but more likely lock in a child’s incongruent gender feelings and make further “transition” all but a foregone conclusion. Chait seems to have read the Tavistock book and should at least be open to the possibility that the NHS’s decision is a step toward an eventual full national ban on medical transition for minors—similar to the restrictions enacted in two dozen Republican states that Chait presumably believes are extreme.

To his credit, Chait recognizes the potential for golden mean fallacies in the debate over youth gender medicine. He argues that we should not assume that “ideas located at the extreme at any given moment are always wrong.” I agree. But Chait should acknowledge the possibility that empirically minded, principled liberals like himself are still getting pediatric gender medicine wrong. He should be open to the possibility that one day in the not-too-distant future, he will find himself among the “conservatives.”

==

"Sex is real… But the belief that we have a moral duty to accept reality just because it is real is, I think, a fine definition of nihilism." -- Andrea Long Chu, 2024

"The facts may tell you one thing. But, God is not limited by the facts. Choose faith in spite of the facts." -- Joel Osteen, 2014

Same thing.

[kharrisdawndancer]

IC from Fio for Tinn: "I appreciate your candor and trust in me; some would consider those fairly radical choices where I'm concerned, but it's a kindness I'll pay back tenfold." IC from Pyra for K: "You're one of the most vibrant people I know in every sense of the word, I hope you'll be my best friend forever!"

OOC: You've always been so community minded, between running Cakes for over fifteen years, helping with the writing challenges and maintaining Team Shuffles. You've made homes for people in an online space, and it's one of the things I will always remember as your 'super power'. You're the best.

[aulel-process]

Jay Steffy, Interior, Circa 1980

I can't find much on Jay Steffy's design philosophy but I read his 1980s interior as postmodern.

"Postmodernism had begun as a radical fringe movement in the 1970s, but became the dominant look of the 1980s, the 'designer decade'. Vivid colour, theatricality and exaggeration: everything was a style statement. Whether surfaces were glossy, faked or deliberately distressed, they reflected the desire to combine subversive statements with commercial appeal. Magazines and music were important mediums for disseminating this new phase of Postmodernism. The work of Italian designers – especially the groups Studio Alchymia and Memphis – was promoted across the world through publications like Domus. Meanwhile, the energy of post-punk subculture was broadcast far and wide through music videos and cutting-edge graphics. This was the moment of the New Wave: a few thrilling years when image was everything." ( 1 )

"The postmodern outlook is characterized by self-referentiality, epistemological relativism, moral relativism, pluralism, irony, irreverence, and eclecticism; it rejects the "universal validity" of binary oppositions, stable identity, hierarchy, and categorization." ( 2 )

Piazza D'Italia, Charles Moore and August Perez III, 1978

Robert A. M. Stern: Residence and Pool House Llewelyn Park, New Jersey, 1982

M2 building, Kengo Kuma, Japan, 1991

"Less is More" "Less is a Bore" LOL:

"If the Modernist movement could be epitomized in a single phrase, many would choose Mies van der Rohe’s succinct utterance, “less is more.” Three authoritative words, three stern syllables: The slogan came to embody the very architectural language it engendered, spawning a whole generation of architects who sought to strip back buildings to their bare essentials.

Mies and many of his Modernist peers advocated the abolition of the superfluous, arguing that ornamentation was a distraction from the beauty of structural rationality, or — worse still — an unethical symbol of extravagance.

Of course, as with any ideological action, there is a reaction, and this is where American architect Robert Venturi came in. Together with his wife Denise Scott Brown, the late Robert Venturi strove to rewrite the book (sometimes quite literally) on modern architectural design, challenging the principles of the Modernist movement with experimentation and witty provocation.

Venturi pinpointed Mies’ sound bite as a key source of influence and countered with his own, simultaneously playful and cutting in its candor: “Less is a bore.”

Venturi’s instantly memorable quote — its fame perhaps only surpassed by Mies’ oxymoronic original — became the mantra for an entire architectural movement. Postmodernism ushered in an age of warmer architecture, buildings full of character that displayed a greater sensitivity toward context, urban landscapes ingrained with more humor and humility than the earnest monuments of 20th-century Modernism.

... For [Venturi], this was the architecture of gentle anarchy, of free-spirited optimism, of unbridled joy." ( 3 )