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+--- Thread: Malcolm Gladwell admits being scared to go against trans activists (sports) (/thread-18712.html)
Malcolm Gladwell admits being scared to go against trans activists (sports) - C C - Sep 4, 2025
MEGYN KELLY
https://youtu.be/HkRg6D-LUAs
VIDEO EXCERPTS: So Malcolm Gladwell moderates the panel. And there's a moment where Joanna Harper says: "I would say that if we let trans women compete in women's sport, then we have to let them win. Not win disproportionately, but win at least some of the time." [...]
GLADWELL: If we did a replay of that exact panel at the Sloan conference this coming March, it runs in exactly the opposite direction. And it would be, I suspect, near unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in the female [sports] category. ... I'm ashamed of my performance at that panel because I share your position 100%, and I was cowed.
KELLY: "I was cowed." An extraordinary admission. Good for him for making it. Glad he's no longer feeling that way. But that's what happens when the bullies get in your head, and it's one of the main goals of the woke and certainly the transgender movement activists. Your thoughts on it, Greg?
LUKIANOFF: Yeah. I mean, we all saw it happen. And the intensity with which over the course of about 10 years we went from -- "of course biological men and women are different" to that kind of thing.
Also, like in first amendment circles, how quickly people started making the argument that -- yes, it could be potentially harassment if you don't call someone by their chosen pronoun. Or if -- there was a law in Colorado that we opposed, for example -- that was saying that you could potentially have your kids taken away if you don't use the new chosen name [of a trans or non-binary person].
And I'm like, so you're telling me here that someone could lose their kids if they call them their legal name. And there was so much pressure around this issue.
I'm honestly, to this day, kind of embarrassed on behalf of a lot of First Amendment activists who were more or less saying or supporting such things.
I feel like what people were just afraid to admit was -- and it's good that Malcolm put it this way -- is that they were just terrified of the trans rights activists. And then started rationalizing why they agreed with them, instead of admitting that they actually were cowed.
I think we're waking up from this to a degree.
But what we're seeing in England, you know, with the Graham Linehan case -- is far from over.
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RELATED (scivillage): Farage exploits Graham Linehan arrest ("UK a censorship hellhole?")
Gladwell admits being scared to go against trans activists ... https://youtu.be/HkRg6D-LUAs
RE: Malcolm Gladwell admits being scared to go against trans activists (sports) - Syne - Sep 4, 2025
Related: https://www.scivillage.com/thread-17333-post-75644.html#pid75644