The Human Cost of the “Brain-Body Mismatch” Theory

Gender clinicians offer confused young people a plausible-sounding explanation for their anguish. They insist that gender-distressed kids were born with a “brain-body mismatch,” and that medical treatment can align kids’ brains with their bodies. Though the theory is unsubstantiated, vulnerable children have nevertheless been medicalized on this basis.

Christina Buttons speaks with Jonni Skinner, a detransitioner who underwent medical treatment for gender dysphoria as a child. Jonni recounts how medical authorities misled him about the causes of his distress. Buttons cites his case as evidence against transgender “essentialism”—the notion that transgender identity has biological underpinnings.

Should the government recruit drug dealers to provide “harm reduction” services to addicts? Should it provide free recreational drugs to addicts? Yes to both, say some Canadian public-health researchers.

Adam Zivo reports on the work of Canadian activist and researcher Gillian Kolla, whose 2020 dissertation studied Toronto’s “harm reduction satellite sites” program, in which drug users were paid to provide needles, crack pipes, and naloxone out of their homes. Kolla’s work was also instrumental in Canada’s experiment with “safer supply” initiatives, in which the government provided addicts with free recreational drugs in order to dissuade them from using riskier substances purchased on the street.

While the harm-reduction satellite sites idea fortunately never went national, “safer supply” did—before news emerged that addicts were selling their government-supplied drugs on the black market and using the proceeds to buy illegal drugs, “flooding communities with diverted opioids and fueling addiction.”

“There is no need for America to repeat Canada’s mistakes, or to embrace its dysfunctional, activist-driven drug ideologies,” writes Zivo.

Last week, as part of the bill to reopen the government, lawmakers closed a loophole that had enabled stores to sell hemp products. It won’t take effect until a year from now, which is “why it’s important that states remain committed to hemp-THC bans over the next year,” Kevin Sabet writes. THC edibles are associated with health risks, from hallucinations to loss of consciousness or even death. “If the new hemp law becomes a model for other drug-policy debates, the nation will be better for it,” Sabet argues.

James D. Watson, the greatest biologist of his generation, died earlier this month at 97. He co-discovered the structure of DNA in 1953, laying the foundation for modern biology and medicine. “From the structure of DNA to the sequence of the human genome marked a half century of extraordinary scientific progress,” Nicholas Wade writes. “To a large extent, it was all shaped by one extraordinary individual.”

Read his remembrance.

In Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu, Tom Freston delivers a captivating journey through his 26-year career in media, building MTV from $75 million in annual sales to $8 billion. “Writing in a self-effacing style, Freston downplays the credit he deserves for having recruited, assembled, and managed strong-willed, talented colleagues,” Judith Miller writes, “many of whom remain his close friends—John Sykes, Bill Flanagan, Judy McGrath, Juli Davidson, Gerry Laybourne, and Carole Robinson.”

Read her review of what she calls “a rollicking, often hilarious romp.”

“Once a symbol of excellence, a college degree from Harvard, or any university for that matter, is losing its meaning.

What’s the point of going to college if you’re going to basically be given a grade that you didn’t earn? For that matter, unless a degree is designed to lead to a marketable profession (doctor, lawyer, accountant etc.), a traditional college education seems as if it’s becoming obsolete.”

Photo credit: Viktoriya Skorikova / Moment via Getty Images