Violent and Hateful Emails in Response to Gender Care Reporting

My tweets about Jennifer’s reporting on the science behind gender care for minors unleashed a torrent of similarly violent and hateful emails. People falsely accuse both of us of transphobia in what will only prove to be a failed attempt to intimidate us out of doing our jobs. https://t.co/vVKknj7QyD

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) April 18, 2023

My thread on @writingblock’s fair and factual reporting about science: https://t.co/9EFZsFzHst

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) April 18, 2023

Northwestern Journalism prof Stephen Thrasher is also determined to lie about me in an attempt to terrorize me out of doing my job. I suppose there are some people who are afraid of him, but I am not. I find his behavior utterly disgraceful for a man in his academic position. https://t.co/12PGQFlo5m

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) April 18, 2023

Science, above all, should be transparent. The job of science reporters is to help the public better understand science and to take it to task if it does not measure up. And if science journalists fail at their jobs, they should be held to account. But they should not be…

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) April 18, 2023

Here are the latest emails I’ve received from people who do not want me to report about trans medicine: pic.twitter.com/Faecfe7Ofh

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) April 18, 2023

It’s my understanding that women journalists are subjected to a far more vile degree of violent, often rape-centric threats, than men. I don’t get this level of violent threat as Jennifer gets. I do get a lot of people saying they are sorry I did not survive cancer though. https://t.co/skj75fwBI5

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) April 18, 2023

I also want to say that I’ve gotten to know @WritingBlock Jennifer Block recently and have found her to be a brilliant, sensitive and purposeful intellectual. She is none of the heinous things people accuse her of. We all have a lot to learn from her work. I know I have learned a…

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) April 18, 2023

This one that just came in is pretty up there though. Why do these all sound like they were written by the same AI program that was programmed by a group of 14 year old Elon Musk obsessives? pic.twitter.com/r7ty1I7TMQ

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) April 18, 2023