Month: September 2023

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Suicide Shock & Study Correction – (repost)

(Originally posted Sept 5, 2021)

Transgender activists often claim if the “affirmative care model” is not followed the mental health of those suffering from gender dysphoria will worsen and increase the likelihood of suicide.

Parents are shocked into action when told by health professionals that puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, and eventually “gender affirming surgery” may be the only way to prevent their children from committing suicide. Starting them on a medicalized pathway from their “sex assigned at birth” to the sex they now identify with is the most beneficial and humane course of action, parents are instructed.

[Please view this post which rebuts the “assigned at birth” fiction]

DSD’s and Sex “Assignment”

In 2019 one of the few major studies on this issue released its findings. The study analyzed health records of 2,679 Swedes diagnosed with gender dysphoria between 2005 and 2015 to determine whether hormonal or surgical treatments improved their mental health over time.  This was one of the first longitudinal studies done about the efficacy of cross-sex hormonal therapy and sex reassignment surgery. And the largest population study to date. Plus it was done in perhaps the most Trans-friendly country on the planet, Sweden.

The original study conducted by a researcher from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and a researcher from the Yale School of Public Health was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2019. (The Karolinska Institute is the same institute that awards the Nobel Prize in Medicine and in May advised its hospital to stop hormone treatments and surgery for young people under 18!) The study concluded that “Transgender individuals who undergo gender-affirming surgery are significantly less likely to seek mental health treatment for depression and anxiety disorders or attempt suicide in the years following the procedure.”

Still from the perspective of the “affirmers” the results were decidedly mixed.

We learned two things from this study.

The main finding of the study was that hormonal transition showed no signs of mental health improvement for “gender incongruent” patients. This “no improvement” finding was largely ignored by the news media and trans-activists.

Administering cross-sex hormones to gender confused folk did not improve their mental health.

But the 2019 study did show that gender affirming surgery improved the mental health of those in the study. Patients from 2005-2015 who underwent surgical procedures to assist their transition to the opposite sex showed an overall 8 percent improvement.

This was widely reported as evidence that the “affirmative care model” works!

You may think an 8% improvement for those who underwent radical irreversible surgery is not a lot to “hang one’s hat on.” But this result was widely used to denounce Gender Critical viewpoints like mine as anti-science. (read on)

Study Correction

That was then. This is now. (as of August 2020)

After criticism for the study’s flawed methodology, the American Journal of Psychiatry was forced to retract those findings. What was the flawed methodology? For starters: No control group! The researchers looked at a large group of transgender patients over a 10 year period, making it a good longitudinal study. But they failed to compare those results with a control group of transgender patients who had not undergone body altering surgery. Once that was done the rather small 8 percent improvement evaporated. 

“the results [of the reanalysis] demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts” - AJP correction

Surgery did not improve psychological well-being. It did not decrease suicide attempts relative to those transgender patients who went the non-surgical route. (Remember this is a study of Swedish patients in the most trans-friendly country on Earth so blaming unaccepting social factors as a cause for continued distress doesn’t work.)

Hormones & mutilating surgery did not improve outcomes for transgender patients!

Here’s a link to the correction. And here is an assessment by the Society For Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) an international group of over 100 clinicians and researchers. Their assessment is worth your careful attention. For those of you interested in the details of the flawed methodology make sure you click on the “click here for more” link in the section labeled “Vigorous Debate Leads to Correction of Key Finding.”

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So, after the retraction how did the media respond?

Crickets….

Journalists, like scientists can be biased too.

But sadly parents are still being pressured by pediatricians, gender clinics and Trans-activists into accepting a single medicalized pathway if they want to prevent their kids from committing suicide.

In my research this past year I’ve noticed parents and confused young people hear the following statement all the time from social media influencers and medical professionals:

“Do you want a live “son” or a dead daughter?

That will cause any parent to sit up and take notice! But that is a bald assertion with no evidence to support it. Yes, there is a much higher incidence of suicide among this population but that is because they are psychologically troubled to begin with. Social transitioning, hormones and surgery doesn’t change that reality. My recommendation to parents is get non-affirming treatment and “hold your ground.” Your children and teens are confused.

You’ll meet some of those parents in my next post. They are distraught over the advice they and their children have been given by health care providers.

Obviously, it’s hard to know whether the flaws of the above study were just human error or whether the scientists involved desired a preferred outcome. If you read the end of my last post you’ll find one of our top Psychiatrists admitting that when it comes to questions about “Sex and sexual behavior” many scientists who view humans as infinitely malleable would rather not look too hard for empirical evidence to back up their claims. Ideology drives some of them, just like the activists.

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If you’ve just found my blog and are intrigued about this issue, and want to learn more, I highly recommend a book by Abigail Shrier.

Shrier is a graduate of Columbia College who went on to earn a bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and a JD from Yale Law School.  Her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters was named a “best book” by The Economist and The Times of London. [2020, 2021]

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More Than Two Sexes? – (repost)

(Originally posted July 24, 2021)

The video below is well done and the “Sex is a Spectrum” advocate does a great job packing in a lot of important information in just 13 minutes. Although I strongly disagree with his belief that there are more than two sexes, this video is a good primer on current beliefs about Disorders of Sexual Development (DSD’s) which have been misrepresented in the video as “Differences of Sexual Development.”

So as you watch:

Note how many times the words or word groups mutation, syndrome, congenital condition, anomaly, disabilities, sterile, incomplete, ambiguous, recessive, health conditions, and even the dreaded word disorder are mentioned.

I counted over 15.

Also after reading my last post, DSD’s and Sex “Assignment” you should be ready to answer correctly this question: Do these DSD’s sound more like a difference or a disorder? If your answer is disorder, then you know there are only two sexes.

There Are More Than Two Sexes?

MOST IMPORTANT QUOTES:

“Biologists today are saying sex is a spectrum.” (0:35). There are plenty of prominent biologists and other medical professionals who dispute this. I mentioned two in my post, What is Sex?

“…biological features don’t always agree with each other.” (1:27). He’s talking about chromosomes, gonads, hormones & genitals which most would say should agree or you have a disorder.

“It’s estimated that nearly 2% of live births are born with congenital conditions of Atypical Sex Development.” (1:42) Based on everything I’ve read the 2% number used here is extremely high. Nothing I’ve read comes close to 2 percent. Based on my research the actual number is 1 in 5000 births.1This figure is found in Peter A. Lee et al., “Global Disorders of Sex Development Update since 2006: Perceptions, Approach and Care,” Hormone Research in Paediatrics 85 (2016): 159. Not sure where they get this 2 percent number. Unless their definition of “atypical” is an expansive definition not used by most medical professionals and scientists.

“That basically means that something in their chromosomes, hormones, gonads, or genitals is different from what many people expect of a “boy” or a “girl.” (1:52). So these are differences, not disorders. Notice how “boy” and “girl” are in quotes.

“This used to be known as being intersex, but these days, it’s better described as having Differences of Sexual Development, or DSD’s.” (2:01). Most health professionals and scientists still call them “Disorders of Sexual Development.”

“There’s a lot of variation within what we call male or female, and there’s a lot of overlap that’s normal too. Anatomically, someone might look…female on the outside but not have ovaries or a uterus, or have tissue from both overies and testes.” (3:24) How anyone can seriously call this variation or overlap “normal” is part of the problem we face. Because of a well-meaning desire not to stigmatize and also, it must be said, a desire to propagandize an ideology, we are expected to believe these are mere differences, and not disorders.

“Minor Learning Disorders” (4:35). The first and only occurrence of the word “disorders.” Interestingly this disorder has to do with learning. Or the lack, thereof. Hint, hint, for those who haven’t learned the “new” science of sex and gender.

“Did I learn nothing but lies in High School?” (5:29) The way he says this is funny. But he makes a serious mistake in again suggesting that DSD’s like Mosaicism and Chimaerism are just “different” developments. For example, a Genetic Chimera occurs when two different embryos combine early in a pregnancy. Some cells are XX and some cells have XY chromosomes. Fewer than 100 cases documented worldwide. No, you were not lied to in High School. You were told the truth about normal human bodies. Which the advocate tacitly admits in the next quote.

“Depending on the distribution of those cells, mosaicism and chimaeras can result in ambiguous sexual characteristics or both male and female reproductive body parts. (5:54). Nothing normal about that!

From this point forward the words “mutation” and “syndrome” occur frequently. Notice the many times a so-called “difference” in development is mentioned. The advocate is “spinning” the story here to fit his narrative, but by now you should understand these as disorders.

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People born with Disorders of Sexual Development sometimes develop gender-dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria — formerly known as “Gender Identity Disorder” is characterized by a severe and persistent discomfort in one’s biological sex. They need our loving support which also means telling them the truth about their disorder.

On the other hand, the vast majority of young people today who are convinced they have gender-dysphoria do not in fact have it. Classic gender-dysphoria presents early in life, ages 2-4, and until the recent explosion among teenage girls, was almost exclusively experienced by young boys. Today most of those who say they are gender-dysphoric don’t have any DSD’s, for example. Their discomfort is purely psycho-social in nature but they remain convinced they were born in the wrong body. We can blame the Gender Ideology taught in our schools, coupled with “affirming” therapy that largely disregards other co-morbidities like anxiety, autism, depression, and in far too many cases, trauma caused by sexual-abuse. We can also blame the social contagion phenomena spread via social media for the confusion, especially among our girls.

The Irreversible Damage being done to their bodies is heartbreaking.

Is this the world we want to live in?

Companion Post

Intersex Statistics

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The Goal To Strip Parents of Opt-Out Rights

This is a significant breach of trust and parental rights.

KEY POINTS

  • Lisa Shelby, HiTOPS Executive Director: “There’s a mandate for racial justice and inclusivity… sometimes that’s how we get through.”
  • Hannah Wiers, HiTOPS Health Educator: “So … a note would get sent home and say… ‘next week we’re talking about anatomy, or you know, gender identity.’ And a parent could send a form back saying, ‘you have to pull my child.’ And so… I think our real goal would be to make sure that that opt out doesn’t exist.”
  • Hannah Wiers, HiTOPS Health Educator: “They all have school-issued…laptops… which can be nice because then they can send out…a google form. Like, remind me what name you like to be called. Remind me what pronouns you like to use.” Journalist: “So you send it directly… to the student, not the parent.” Wiers: “That’s what we encourage staff to do, yes.”

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