Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 8h

Eric Reinhart @eric-reinhart.com · 15h

New article out this month on how doctors become fascists.

50% of German physicians joined the Nazi Party––twice the proportion of any other profession. US doctors today are arguably the most conservative in the world, and we're heading along a similar path.
drive.google.com/file/d/1CAk9...

2

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 15h

I guess some other time we can talk about the reactionary professional atheists who literally built the secular foundation for today’s anti-DEI arguments

3 27 240

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 1d

Atheist proselytizers are the religious proselytizers I’m most likely to come into contact with and they’re just as annoying as all of the other ones I experience

130 140 1.3K

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 15h

This

Free Łink - Matthew R Francis @bowlerhatscience.org · 15h

not to mention the fucking professional atheist scientists who provide the entire foundation for anti-trans bigotry by saying "science PROVES there are only two sexes!"

May their underpants never be dry again.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 15h

I guess some other time we can talk about the reactionary professional atheists who literally built the secular foundation for today’s anti-DEI arguments

16 150

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 15h

Sunday reading:

I wrote about the aggrieved extremist who is currently firing thousands of federal workers and ravaging state capacity based on conspiratorial nonsense - and about mainstream media’s infuriating tendency to sanitize Russell Vought and the regime he serves.

This week’s piece:

We need to talk about Russell Vought – But Properly

Why certain mainstream outlets insist on sanitizing Vought as a devout “small government” conservative – and what actually animates his war against pluralistic democracy

steady.page

64 1.3K 3K

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 15h

sciencebasedmedicine.org/child-labor-...

Doctors Shouldn’t Legitimize Pro-Tobacco, Child-Labor Advocates

As the adage says: "A man is judged by the company he keeps."

sciencebasedmedicine.org

2 10

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 15h

The child labor and pro tobacco advocates at the Brownstone institute are giving our NIH director a reward.

More…

3 9 25

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Florence Ashley @floralashes.bsky.social · 3d

I love the “if.”

If he wins a Nobel peace prize, then the entire world is a joke.

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 3d

“I’ll declare war on you if you don’t give me the peace prize” is an incredible bit

5 7 66

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

It's worth noting the EXACT same language the court is using to justify siding with ADF is the language Genspect and co used here:

genspect.org/saving-psych...

Saving Psychotherapy from Conversion Therapy Bans

Genspect believes that governments should reject these new expansive conversion therapy bans that make the practice of conventional therapy a crime or leave so much doubt that therapists will avoid wo...

genspect.org

2

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

I must also stress here that the main beneficiaries of a conversion therapy ban overturn will be the reactionary transphobic & homophobic therapists who feared for their licenses when said bans were passed. This is why groups like Genspect and people like Ken Zucker have opposed said bans.

Henry Carnell @hencarnell.bsky.social · 6d

“It is psychologically manipulative."

"A place of constant, albeit quiet, torment.”

“A lot of thoughts [were] placed into my head about how disturbing and gross and creepy people like me were... I internalized a lot of these projections.”

SCOTUS wades back into the war on trans kids—and considers greenlighting conversion therapy

The science is in: The anti-LGBTQ "treatments" are ineffective and dangerous.

www.motherjones.com

1 1 5

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Madison Pauly @msjpauly.bsky.social · 5d

A year and a half ago, @hencarnell.bsky.social and I investigated the movement to resurrect conversion therapy

Now, oral arguments are about to begin in a Supreme Court case, Chiles v. Salazar, that could overturn bans in 23 states.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

4 54 130

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

This is exactly the same scheme that Wakefield used to try to promote his expensive univalent vaccine program.

HELLody SchreiBOO @melodyschreiber.com · 3d

The acting director of the CDC called for new, separate MMR shots. That would be "remarkably complicated, time-consuming, costly, but more importantly unnecessary," @jasonlschwartz.bsky.social told me:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Alarm as CDC calls for separate MMR vaccines despite measles outbreak

Concerns that three separate shots would be more costly and time-consuming, and keep kids from being vaccinated

www.theguardian.com

2 3

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 3d

⚠️ Fascinating new research shows LLMs become misaligned when optimized for audience—even when explicitly instructed to remain truthful

Paper:
arxiv.org/pdf/2510.06105

James Zou
@james_y_zou
Follow
We found a troubling emergent behavior in LLM.
*When LLMs compete for social media likes, they start making things up When they compete for votes, they turn inflammatory/populist
When optimized for audiences, LLMs inadvertently become misaligned—we call this Moloch's Bargain
MOLOCH'S BARGAIN: EMERGENT MISALIGNMENT
WHEN LLMS COMPETE FOR AUDIENCES
Batu El
Stanford University
batuel@stanford.edu
James Zou
Stanford University
jamesz@stanford.edu
ABSTRACt

15 95 230

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

And considering that Paul McHugh rejected the depathologization of gayness, one can imagine exactly where this is going to go if allowed to spread. The transphobic gay folks in Genspect might think the buck will stop at them, but it won't.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R....

Paul R. McHugh - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1 16

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

For that matter, depathologizing being gay was a bitter pill to swallow for many when it happened incrementally through the 70s and 80s; and that effort only happened with aggressive protest as well. I mention this because these folks? They were around for that! They're freakin' old!

1 24

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

De-pathologizing transness was always a bitter pill to swallow for the likes of Ken Zucker, Ray Blanchard, and J Michael Bailey, all of whom retained positions of power and influence within the fields of sexology and psychology. Many Psychiatrists and Psychoanalysts rejected depathologization.

1 7 45

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

The funny thing is the explicitly use those words. It's literally right there in the title of their call: genspect.org/genspect-cal....

I should point out that while Genspect has no actual expertise, they've only gotten as far as they have because of reactionaries who do.

2 14 50

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Viridian Lakes @viridianlakes.bsky.social · 3d

It's funny because I'm reading research on the affirming approach (esp for trans youth) from the early 2010s, based itself on research from the 00s and earlier. Science progressed. Some people, it seems, did not, and want the world to wind back to please them.

Assigned Media @assignedmedia.org · 3d

A fringe group wants the field of psychiatry to regress back to the days when stereotypes and prejudices resulted in mental illness diagnoses for marginalized populations.

In a new reported piece, @evanurquhart.bsky.social examines Genspect's call for the re-psychopathologization of trans identity.

Hate Group Calls for Re-Labeling Transness as Mental Illness — Assigned

A fringe group with no expertise pushes the field of psychiatry to regress to a pre-scientific, prejudice-soaked view of trans people. It coincides with the far-right political agenda.

www.assignedmedia.org

2 17 54

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

And I think that's what cis folks have trouble getting their arms around: they'd like there to be a one-sized-fits-all approach to folks who aren't quite solid or comfortable with their designated gender at birth, because that would at least make us understandable to their eyes.

1

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 3d

I mean, I should also point out that, being non-binary, I occupy a weirder place in this discussion because it's not like I strictly *needed* the same degree of medical assistance either of y'all did. Like to be fair, in some ways it's apples and oranges with us. But then again, it varies.

1 1

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 4d

One thing that needs to be stressed here: the fact that the refs (namely, the news media, dominant political parties, academic institutions, social media platforms) consistently sided with these people is how we got here.

Eli Valley @elivalley.bsky.social · 4d

More history from this Nazi adulated by the Trump team. These are explicit, proud Nazis who scream and cry and call every referee they can find when you quote their Nazism back to them.

Multiple tweets from Nazi Jack Posobiec in 2016 making "jokes" involving the Nazi code "1488."

5 17

Reposted by Q. McLamore

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 4d

Siva Vaidhyanathan on the Trump admin’s proposed “compact” for universities (to give up academic freedom in exchange for favorable treatment by the Trump government): “This ‘compact’ is more like an invitation to borrow money from the mob, with substantial control and future penalties assured.”

Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 4d

And from me:

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

2 26 85

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 4d

You know me, Lexi! I made absolutely zero attempts because bluntly, it was impossible for my community to hate me any more than it already did. Had nothing to lose by pretending otherwise.

2

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 4d

Like to be clear: this isn't a social constructionist blank-slate take here; I'm just saying that even if none of that was true (which it is), not one thing would change, because it would still be immoral and cruel to arbitrarily quash TGE identities.

1

Q. McLamore @ghawinriver.bsky.social · 4d

Oh, to be clear: this is true. Obviously. What I'm pointing out is that even if it provably was not, nothing would change. TGE healthcare would still be a right even so because self-determination is a right. That the best evidence we have also suggests a biological component magnifies this.

1 3