The fact that we are even discussing whether or not men and women should be in separate categories for sports is sadly beyond belief.
We know why we have separate categories for sports. Because of the differences in biological realities between men and women.
It is beyond belief that this is up for discussion and that biological women have to compete against humans that have gone through a male puberty.
This controversy is going to hurt trans people. I am a humanist. I am not against trans people or people who want to take cross sex hormones and look more like the opposite sex for whatever reason. If you are an adult this is your choice.
But there is something called reality as well. and sports competitions are only fair if men and women are separated based on their biology and not based on how they feel.
This is obvious.
Why are we forced to make these ridiculously obvious arguments for reality?
We all know that it was not fair for Lia Thomas to compete against biological women.
Why did the University of Pennsylvania put their female swimmers through that charade?
I am finished with my rant.
And as I mentioned before this is not good for trans people.
It is bringing attention to a marginalized group of people that just want to live in peace for the most part.
Agree with on the point that it's sad that this is even a controversial (to some) observation: men in general have a physical advantage. I mean, if they didn't ... then why are sports segregated by gender in the first place?
This isn't unique to medicine. Anyone can lose their job for running afoul of the woke agenda. Or the Covid Narrative. It's remarkable (in a bad way) that our country has reached a point where the crazed minority is able to control the speech and actions of everyone.
The sad truth is that Mike joiner said nothing controversial and everybody knows he’s 100% correct on the issue at hand.
To put this in perspective, like vinay and mandrill I’m an avid cyclist. While I don’t race I have competed in the Wintergreen time trial ( close to Charlottesville Virginia) several times. This is a climbing time trial where the grade ranges from 10 to 20% over the last 4 miles, and Greg lemond described this as one of the most difficult climbs he’d done. Every time I competed I placed at the 50th percentile in my age group (50s) for men, yet every single time I was faster than the 20 something cat 1 semi-pro women cyclists. That just goes to show one just how big a difference there is in terms of power to weight ratio.
That’s the same reason that lia (aka bill) Thomas could smash every single female swimming record by a massive margin after transitioning, while being a mediocre athlete as a male the year before.
Excellent essay. This is a perfect example of science getting all mushed together with politics. We’ve got these tribes now, and they behave in a tribal manner. If they can’t admit they’re wrong when it’s so obvious, well, what now?
Covid sadly made a lot of organizations “fall in line” and the fact that healthcare systems are doing this is jaw dropping. But not surprising. Thank goodness for social media / which I think VERY few CEO’s understand - that being said, public health’s trust has been blown up - now hospital systems will show their true colors and take some hits, too. But likely not enough to make a difference. Man oh man.
I'm glad to see that colleges are starting to create academic freedom guidelines to curb the silencing of real scientific research. But it is indeed scary if hospitals refuse to do the same - how is anyone supposed to be properly treated if we can't talk about physical differences between women, and men (and women and men who've been on hormones which is different still)?
I feel like there's something more to this - did this doctor have a discussion with a colleague that the colleague got him fired over? Would love to know what it was.
A couple of years later, Johns Hopkins publishes their RCT for convalescent plasma. If I remember correctly, they could not get any funding from the federal government to do an RCT, so they had to raise their own funds. They find an 80% reduction in hospitalization if a patient is given high tighter, convalescent plasma within five days of diagnosis:
There would be many suspensions at most universities if everyone who got something wrong during this pandemic was disciplined for that reason.
Mayo Clinic used to be a very trusted name, but like the FDA, CDC, and NIH, our eyes are now opened. They have agendas that are in direct conflict with their public health service.
Thank you, Dr. Prasad for continuing to defend freedom of speech. It is an essential practice for full understanding of any topic.
Dr Joyner supported a common sense conclusion that most physicians would affirm. Mayo Clinic should be ashamed and Joyner needs to sue them to the hilt. His suspension has nothing to do with his service to patients at the Clinic. Vinay is correct: this is a First Amendment issue. Shame on Mayo.
Mayo director needs to resign for engaging in censorship of employees. If Mayo’s concern that “Joiner did harm” were legitimate, then Mayo needs to engage in discussion with Joiner by (1) Quoting harmful sentence. (2) Explaining how harmful sentence causes harm.
Mayo HR Director needs to resign for to maintain fair employee conduct standards.
Likewise, Director at SF DPH and HR Director at SFGOV need to resign for ignoring, censoring and punishing “Witch Hepworth” in arguing that public health defund position was illogical. I have to go now. I need to go buy a new broom.
Thanks for covering this. I was actually surprised to learn that academic freedom was something that Mayo (supposedly) recognizes. And then I looked at the documents on FIRE's webpage and discovered the cause of my previous assumptions--a copy of Mayo's policy on academic freedom. Partway through, it states, "MCCMS may restrict expression that violates the law or that is otherwise directly incompatible with Mayo Clinic values and policies", and later, in case it wasn't clear the first time, "Nothing in this policy prevents MCCMS from regulating speech or activity as allowed by law". So they're essentially saying, "Yeah, we won't punish you for your speech....unless we don't like what you're saying (because what you're saying will or could have an impact on our bottom line, in which case we'll punish you however we see fit". It's disgusting.
I live just over one-hour driving time from the Mayo Clinic's headquarters in Rochester, I am also a patient of that organization, and I happen to be a medical doctor licensed now for nearly 50 years. You need to understand that the Mayo Clinic is NOT a "university". It has its own medical school, yes. It runs a nursing school, yes. It trains physical therapists, yes. The dispute here involving the doctor who has filed his lawsuit [in my view] has *nothing* to do with some alleged abuse of Academic Freedom. How so? It is a fact that the Mayo Clinic is a BUSINESS, and a very big business indeed. Any business operation can generate rules as it wishes regarding how all of its employees should optimally interact with the media. If an employee blatantly disregards such rules there is nothing that says she/he cannot be fired or otherwise disciplined if some malbehavior continues. P.S. I agree that he screwed up badly by not doing a proper RCT to test the hypothesis of convalescent plasma having efficacy in COVID.
The fact that we are even discussing whether or not men and women should be in separate categories for sports is sadly beyond belief.
We know why we have separate categories for sports. Because of the differences in biological realities between men and women.
It is beyond belief that this is up for discussion and that biological women have to compete against humans that have gone through a male puberty.
This controversy is going to hurt trans people. I am a humanist. I am not against trans people or people who want to take cross sex hormones and look more like the opposite sex for whatever reason. If you are an adult this is your choice.
But there is something called reality as well. and sports competitions are only fair if men and women are separated based on their biology and not based on how they feel.
This is obvious.
Why are we forced to make these ridiculously obvious arguments for reality?
We all know that it was not fair for Lia Thomas to compete against biological women.
Why did the University of Pennsylvania put their female swimmers through that charade?
I am finished with my rant.
And as I mentioned before this is not good for trans people.
It is bringing attention to a marginalized group of people that just want to live in peace for the most part.
Agree with on the point that it's sad that this is even a controversial (to some) observation: men in general have a physical advantage. I mean, if they didn't ... then why are sports segregated by gender in the first place?
This isn't unique to medicine. Anyone can lose their job for running afoul of the woke agenda. Or the Covid Narrative. It's remarkable (in a bad way) that our country has reached a point where the crazed minority is able to control the speech and actions of everyone.
Fear has taken over
The sad truth is that Mike joiner said nothing controversial and everybody knows he’s 100% correct on the issue at hand.
To put this in perspective, like vinay and mandrill I’m an avid cyclist. While I don’t race I have competed in the Wintergreen time trial ( close to Charlottesville Virginia) several times. This is a climbing time trial where the grade ranges from 10 to 20% over the last 4 miles, and Greg lemond described this as one of the most difficult climbs he’d done. Every time I competed I placed at the 50th percentile in my age group (50s) for men, yet every single time I was faster than the 20 something cat 1 semi-pro women cyclists. That just goes to show one just how big a difference there is in terms of power to weight ratio.
That’s the same reason that lia (aka bill) Thomas could smash every single female swimming record by a massive margin after transitioning, while being a mediocre athlete as a male the year before.
Freedom of speech is the essential nervous system of democracy. The restriction of such a freedom is the antithesis of democracy.
I actually read this in FIRE yesterday (never heard of FIRE before that). It’s outrageous! Thank you for writing about it!
FIRE is what the ACLU used to be.
Excellent essay. This is a perfect example of science getting all mushed together with politics. We’ve got these tribes now, and they behave in a tribal manner. If they can’t admit they’re wrong when it’s so obvious, well, what now?
Covid sadly made a lot of organizations “fall in line” and the fact that healthcare systems are doing this is jaw dropping. But not surprising. Thank goodness for social media / which I think VERY few CEO’s understand - that being said, public health’s trust has been blown up - now hospital systems will show their true colors and take some hits, too. But likely not enough to make a difference. Man oh man.
100000%
I'm glad to see that colleges are starting to create academic freedom guidelines to curb the silencing of real scientific research. But it is indeed scary if hospitals refuse to do the same - how is anyone supposed to be properly treated if we can't talk about physical differences between women, and men (and women and men who've been on hormones which is different still)?
I feel like there's something more to this - did this doctor have a discussion with a colleague that the colleague got him fired over? Would love to know what it was.
This is September 2020–pre-vaccine. Joyner worked hand in hand with the FDA. https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/88863
A couple of years later, Johns Hopkins publishes their RCT for convalescent plasma. If I remember correctly, they could not get any funding from the federal government to do an RCT, so they had to raise their own funds. They find an 80% reduction in hospitalization if a patient is given high tighter, convalescent plasma within five days of diagnosis:
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/johns-hopkins-led-study-finds-convalescent-plasma-can-be-effective-early-covid-19-therapy
There would be many suspensions at most universities if everyone who got something wrong during this pandemic was disciplined for that reason.
Mayo Clinic used to be a very trusted name, but like the FDA, CDC, and NIH, our eyes are now opened. They have agendas that are in direct conflict with their public health service.
Thank you, Dr. Prasad for continuing to defend freedom of speech. It is an essential practice for full understanding of any topic.
Dr Joyner supported a common sense conclusion that most physicians would affirm. Mayo Clinic should be ashamed and Joyner needs to sue them to the hilt. His suspension has nothing to do with his service to patients at the Clinic. Vinay is correct: this is a First Amendment issue. Shame on Mayo.
Mayo director needs to resign for engaging in censorship of employees. If Mayo’s concern that “Joiner did harm” were legitimate, then Mayo needs to engage in discussion with Joiner by (1) Quoting harmful sentence. (2) Explaining how harmful sentence causes harm.
Mayo HR Director needs to resign for to maintain fair employee conduct standards.
Likewise, Director at SF DPH and HR Director at SFGOV need to resign for ignoring, censoring and punishing “Witch Hepworth” in arguing that public health defund position was illogical. I have to go now. I need to go buy a new broom.
How and when did the open exchange of ideas become the problem?
Thanks for covering this. I was actually surprised to learn that academic freedom was something that Mayo (supposedly) recognizes. And then I looked at the documents on FIRE's webpage and discovered the cause of my previous assumptions--a copy of Mayo's policy on academic freedom. Partway through, it states, "MCCMS may restrict expression that violates the law or that is otherwise directly incompatible with Mayo Clinic values and policies", and later, in case it wasn't clear the first time, "Nothing in this policy prevents MCCMS from regulating speech or activity as allowed by law". So they're essentially saying, "Yeah, we won't punish you for your speech....unless we don't like what you're saying (because what you're saying will or could have an impact on our bottom line, in which case we'll punish you however we see fit". It's disgusting.
Also, I'd be curious to know 2 things:
1. How much pressure to do something did Mayo actually even receive?
2. Did Mayo's gender clinic come up in discussions on how to deal with this
Duh...the fact that you have to point this out just shows how far gone we've become.
I live just over one-hour driving time from the Mayo Clinic's headquarters in Rochester, I am also a patient of that organization, and I happen to be a medical doctor licensed now for nearly 50 years. You need to understand that the Mayo Clinic is NOT a "university". It has its own medical school, yes. It runs a nursing school, yes. It trains physical therapists, yes. The dispute here involving the doctor who has filed his lawsuit [in my view] has *nothing* to do with some alleged abuse of Academic Freedom. How so? It is a fact that the Mayo Clinic is a BUSINESS, and a very big business indeed. Any business operation can generate rules as it wishes regarding how all of its employees should optimally interact with the media. If an employee blatantly disregards such rules there is nothing that says she/he cannot be fired or otherwise disciplined if some malbehavior continues. P.S. I agree that he screwed up badly by not doing a proper RCT to test the hypothesis of convalescent plasma having efficacy in COVID.