Savage Minds

In this episode, “ex-scientist” Andy Lewis discusses his Quackometer, originally an AI-like experiment to see if a machine could recognise pages on the internet that could differentiate between the uncritical acceptance and evidence-based evaluation. Describing his work in advancing scepticism, Lewis details the “trouble” he has created by examining Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, homeopathy and the gender debate. Lewis notes how much of the scientific hokum espoused by various movements means that ideas or treatments are wrapped up with the person (the practitioner) thus becoming part of a larger identity politics usually found within the privileged classes as these “luxury beliefs” are part of business models that thrive on quackery. Lewis also discusses his work in libel law reform, elaborating how lawsuits claiming libel have been historically claimant-friendly in the UK and noting how such threats have resulted in the chilling of public debate even within the organised sceptical world. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Renée Gerlich is a writer and artist based in New Zealand who discusses her political activism around women’s rights and feminist politics today. Detailing the assimilation of the left by liberalism, Gerlich notes how liberal leftism is fundamentally a political vehicle of men who are not served by the right while underscoring how the rise of pornography is not coincidental to the neoliberal project of railroading of women’s voices and bodies. Gerlich notes the “land grab” by the neoliberal left which seeks to control women’s bodies through the medicalisation of gender by Big Pharma and the prostitution and pornography lobby and she criticises the ethos of “individual freedom” that disregards the lives of the collective. Describing internal hierarchies within feminism, she discusses her having been cast out of a feminist group and the changes that she underwent as a result. Gerlich explains how the essence of transgender ideology has taken root through the isolation and punishment of women utilising social censure and corporeal punishment while analysing how this “seed” has taken root within some feminist groups that punish certain women who are not interested in curating the feelings of men and contending that women need to assert their boundaries uncompromisingly. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, columnist and writer Suzanne Moore discusses female desire, the prescriptive nature of gender today and the way in which we are required to submit to ideology that goes against materialist analyses and reality—to include the materiality of the female body. Moore situates the current ideological trend that requires the subject to abandon reason within the larger and theoretical landscape of Prince, Foucault, Freud, and Riviere while vituperating an ideology that was born from theories entirely unhinged from Marxism and historical materialism. Querying Butler’s work on gender, Moore asks, “If gender is a performance, why are we compelled to keep repeating that performance?” Moore also elaborates her departure from The Guardian noting that many writers on the left are finding their journalistic “homes” in more conservative publications due to the ideological drive within the left. Offering glimpses of hope for the future, Moore notes how academia has been recycling the same theorists for decades as it is currently stuck within a discursive aporia while proposing that good journalism venture into difficult places and subjects. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Claire Fox, director of the Academy of Ideas and member of the House of Lords as Baroness Fox of Buckley, discusses her participation in the recent debate in the House of Lords regarding the absence of the word “women” in the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act addressing the double standards and hypocrisy in contemporary politics which is attempting to “nod through” legislation that erases all reference to biological reality. Fox also talks about how public discourse has become so beholden to trans ideology, that local authorities and venues have been cancelling events and branding women with epithets. Analysing how leaders like Corbyn and Biden have not understood the significance of gender identity suggesting that they having been badly advised on this issue, Fox contends that these leaders nodded through some regressive ideas presented to them as “progressive” by those behind the scenes who are “hanging on the coat-tails” of the left while not having to be minimally transparent about their political projects. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Joanna Williams, writer and founder of the think tank Cieo and director of the Freedom, Democracy and Victimhood Project at Civitas, discusses the debate over free speech theorising the roots of the current culture war, the institutional capture of identity politics and the appropriate responses that individuals ought to undertake in pushing back against the present-day bullying atmosphere. Referencing the #Metoo era, BLM and the trans movement, Williams elaborates how identity politics is the result of a major cultural shift over the past fifty years where gaining social status is dependent upon the celebration of victimhood, suffering and vulnerability instead of the veneration of heroes and achievement. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Dr. Lisa Littman, a physician-scientist, discusses her research on “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (also called ROGD), a phenomenon that has been observed from 2012 onward where females exhibiting late-onset gender dysphoria first started to become visible. Here, Littman notes how this new type of presentation, previously absent from the research literature, necessitated further study and she elaborates how her research has been received as well as the reasons behind and the results of her followup study, a side-by-side comparison of her research methods and the methods of articles supporting the gender identity affirming approach. In this discussion, Littman explains the impact of her research on the current debates regarding the medical and psychological establishments that advance the cure of “gender identity” while discussing gender dysphoria, the experiences of people who desist after identifying as transgender, and people who detransition after gender transition. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, co-founders of LGB Fight Back, Carrie Hathorn and Belissa Cohen, speak with Julian Vigo about the longtime corporatisation of lesbian, gay and bisexual lives along with the annexing of sexuality by the transgender lobby which has cannibalised most every gay rights group in the USA over the past two decades. As a result of the trans lobby’s institutional capture, it has been quite successful in convincing many within the gay community to affirm the conversion therapy of its own members to include fast-tracking children into becoming lifetime medical patients, the promotion of gay eugenics and the wider elision of what can only be regarded as gay conversion therapy by professional organisations like the APA (American Psychological Association) which refuse to address the psychological malpractice afoot. Underscoring that “transgender identity” is not “gay adjacent,” Hathorn and Cohen elaborate how our society has been caught up in confirming others’ delusions in the pseudo-political gesture of “kindness” that has paradoxically had a negative effect on the political reality and bodies of gay and bisexual men and women. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Kara Dansky, chair of the Committee on Law and Legislation of the Women's Human Rights Campaign, discusses what is at stake in the fight for women’s and girls rights which are currently being threatened by the enormous legal, public policy and institutional capture by the transgender lobby in the United States. Discussing the collective gaslighting of society through the employment a cult-like tactics which persuade subjects in western societies that “if we do not go along with this, there is something wrong with us,” Dansky compares the transgender lobby’s hold over liberals especially to being in an “abusive relationship.” Dansky also gives a background to several important political events that highlight the necessity for women to reach across the political aisle—even to forget about this “aisle” altogether—in making common cause with a “coherent set of political interests” with other women. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Inaya Folarin Iman, Founder and Director of The Equiano Project, analyses the current discourses of race and anti-racism from the ideological trends to the diversity and inclusion industry which have bolstered a disciplinary regime that re-educates the masses into “correct thinking” while noting that those espousing “wokeness” seem to be shielded from criticism, even to the ends of the “sainthood” of society’s most elite individuals. Observing the shift in the breakdown between the public and private sphere where one’s workplace is now politicised, Iman describes how the capitalist class is now charged with solving society’s ills fully empowered with the mandate of social transformation. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Harry Miller, former police officer and founder of the campaigning group Fair Cop, discusses his court victory against Humberside Constabulary last year and his current legal challenge in the Court of Appeal which questions the lawfulness of provisions within the “Hate Crime Operational Guidance” (HCOG) published by the College of Policing. Specifically, Miller’s appeal challenges how the HCOG mandates the recording of so-called “non-crime hate incidents” where such allegations have been made against 120,000 people in the UK for which there need not be any evidence of hate for the recording of a “hate incident” while the accused’s record is not only blighted by an accusation that need not be proven but such incidents are not made known to the accused. Miller elaborates how this guidance has had a “chilling effect” on free speech. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe