As Twitchy pointed out last week, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) put out one of those tweets where you just keep repeating something until it becomes true.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.— GLAD (@GLADLaw) July 13, 2022
We went through the replies and would say 99.9 percent of them were negative. Most touching were a handful of people tweeting how gender-affirming care ruined their lives. But the LGBTQ community and its allies have assured us that young people are more likely to kill themselves if they don’t get the gender-affirming care they require … why do you want trans kids committing suicide?
The connection between the two is dubious, and WIRED has a new piece out on how gender-affirming care can save lives.
“Keeping someone safe is the bare minimum.”
https://t.co/EFyQlu3T9m— WIRED (@WIRED) July 19, 2022
Grace Huckins writes:
In the midst of a slew of anti-trans legislation proposed earlier this year, Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, made an impassioned plea to his state’s legislature as he tried to veto a bill that would bar trans youth from competing in girls’ sports. “I want them to live,” he wrote of the trans athletes in his state, in reference to the astronomical rates of suicide attempts among the trans community. Multiple surveys have estimated that about 40 percent of trans people may attempt suicide in their lifetimes; among the general public, this figure is around 5 percent.
But despite the governor’s veto attempt, the Utah bill passed, as have a few across the country that ban gender-affirming medical care for kids and teens. Many other such bills are currently in the works. These treatments—principally drugs that delay the onset of puberty, and hormone treatments such as testosterone and estrogen—help trans people achieve the bodies and appearances that feel right to them. Experts worry that the bans will have catastrophic effects. “Youth will die,” says Dallas Ducar, CEO of Transhealth Northampton, a medical center in Western Massachusetts that provides gender-affirming health care services.
Recommended
Youth will die.
If you want to be a serious science magazine, then you should be more careful with the science. The study you base this upon was retracted by the authors and there is a lot of other stuff out there (Sweden?) to show it’s nonsense.
— John McMullan (@john_mcmullan) July 20, 2022
Dude, ask Sweden. Stop playing with yourselves.
— SoOverIt (@anypigslft2) July 20, 2022
You have regurgitated biased lobbyist lies without fact checking. Long term studies show that transition reduces the likelihood of leading a happy life. It is irresponsible to print such dangerous lies. Take down the article.
— Jin Chilterns (@ChilternsJane) July 20, 2022
Manhattan Institute Fellow Leor Sapir calls this a case study in bad journalism. This thread is long, but stick with it:
@grace_huckins at @WIRED has a new piece out called "Gender-Affirming Care Improves Mental Health–and May Save Lives." This is a case study in poor journalism.
🧵
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
To her credit, Huckins acknowledges some of the main methodological weaknesses of studies purporting to find that hormonal interventions are life-saving. However, she also mischaracterizes some of the research, omits important context, and ignores criticisms.
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
Here is an example of Huckins mischaracterizing research. She writes: "A Finnish study that looked back at the medical charts of 52 adolescents also found significant reductions in suicidality after hormone treatment."
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
The study in question explicitly says: "Medical gender reassignment is not enough to improve functioning and relieve psychiatric comorbidities among adolescents with gender dysphoria."
I asked the author, Riittakerttu Kaltiala, if the WIRED piece mischaracterized her research.
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
In her own words: "It is a total mischaracterization of our research! We said practically the opposite: gender affirming hormones did not reduce psychiatric problems or improve the adolescents’ functional level."
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
Huckins then goes on to quote Jack Turban at length, despite the flaws in his studies (and others like them) and Turban's own failure to adequately qualify his research when talking about it publicly.
Has Huckins read @jessesingal's review? https://t.co/tTKVUWVj0s
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
Huckins correctly observes that puberty blockers have not gone through randomized controlled trials (RCT) for gender dysphoria, and that this is because their effects are ASSUMED to be beneficial, which would make withholding them (and giving placebos) harmful.
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
But this is where she should have given the reader some context: the weaker the studies purporting to show reduced suicide from blockers (and make no mistake, they are VERY weak), the stronger the case for RCTs and the weaker the ethical objections to placebos.
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
Ultimately, Huckins adopts–perhaps without knowing it–the IDEOLOGICAL assumption of trans activism in medicine, which is that allowing puberty to occur naturally should have no special weight in deciding on courses of treatment.
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
In other words, medical professionals should never treat satisfaction with one's bodily sex ("cisgenderism") as the preferred treatment outcome. This is not a scientific assumption but an ideological one, and a highly dubious one at that. Opposition to RCTs rests on this premise.
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
It’s gender-affirming care, just like abortions are women’s reproductive health care? Who’s sick in that equation — the abortionist just knows that abortion makes the woman “better.”
The affirm-or-suicide narrative is deeply controversial and has the potential for being dangerous. It violates CDC guidelines on public discussion surrounding suicide. https://t.co/AEohtfyH3z
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
WIRED could have done a much better job at fact-checking and providing crucial context for an argument that is currently fueling an entire industry of pediatric "transitions" and potentially one of the worst medical scandals in recent memory.
— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) July 20, 2022
If by poor journalism you mean agenda driven propaganda, yes.
— Ryan (@ryan__5420) July 20, 2022
@grace_huckins and @WIRED didn’t consult with Dr. Laura E.Leeper quoted on Meghan Daum podcast 10/6/21 As far as I know there are no studies that say that if we don’t start these kids immediately on hormones when they say they want them that they are going to commit suicide. 1/
— Mamabear 🦏 (@Mamabea02597983) July 20, 2022
Dr Leeper
there’s a lot of studies that show that they are not understood and when they’re not supported by their parents that can lead to worse mental health outcomes.But it’s not always clear what support means. Support is not always operationalized as medical intervention.2/— Mamabear 🦏 (@Mamabea02597983) July 20, 2022
But the Biden administration itself is anxious to provide young people with gender-affirming care, whether it be puberty blockers or surgery. It’s health care, and treatment certainly can’t wait because the person is a minor.
Related:
Not everyone agrees with GLAD’s assertion that gender-affirming care saves lives https://t.co/t4kHOk8k2x
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 15, 2022
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