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Why are gender clinicians withholding research?

Researchers are taking an 'affirmation-only' approach. Credit: Getty

October 23, 2024 - 9:15pm

In today’s New York Times, reporter Azeen Ghorayshi investigated a leading gender clinician’s decision not to publish the results of a study into the effects of puberty suppression on the mental health of patients with gender dysphoria.

At the outset of the National Institutes of Health study, principal investigator Johanna Olson-Kennedy, one of the most vocal advocates of “gender-affirming care” in the United States, expected that young patients put on puberty blockers would experience “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-injury, and suicidality” and “increased body esteem and quality of life over time”. But that’s apparently not what the evidence showed. Rather than revise her hypotheses and share her findings with the scientific community, Olson-Kennedy and her team decided to sit on the results. Olson-Kennedy told Ghorayshi that she worried the study’s disappointing findings would be “weaponised” by critics.

Unfortunately, Olson-Kennedy and her team are not alone in taking an “affirmation-only” approach to publishing research findings. Suppressing inconvenient data is a pattern in the field of gender medicine, which has long subordinated scientific research to political expediency. Researchers and clinicians in the field tend to work backwards from their desired conclusions (“gender-affirming care is safe and effective,” “the science is settled”), then tell patients, parents, policymakers, and the public what they think these audiences need to hear in order to fall in line. Forget the ideal of impartial scientific research. What we have here are clinicians and researchers acting as “agents of lawfare,” with one eye on the courts and one eye on their reputations. In the process, they lose sight of their patients.

Researchers and clinicians have decided — in advance — that “gender-affirming care” is safe and effective, no matter what the evidence shows. At the European Professional Association for Transgender Health conference in Killarney, Ireland, in April 2023, researchers presented an array of discouraging findings, bracketed by statements like “as you all know, there are improved mental health outcomes following puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones” — even when the research being presented suggested the opposite.

Because researchers and clinicians perceive the political climate as hostile to the “life-saving” work they do, they appear to feel justified in suppressing research that fails to paint a sufficiently positive picture of their exertions.

Just this summer, documents unsealed in a legal discovery process underway in the state of Alabama revealed that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) “interfered with the production of systematic reviews that it had commissioned from the Johns Hopkins University Evidence-Based Practice Centre.” Ultimately, researchers at Johns Hopkins conducted evidence reviews relating to 13 key questions in the field of transgender health, but published reviews addressing just three questions. The Economist concluded that “research into trans medicine has been manipulated.”

Sometimes, research findings get a glossy makeover before being presented to the public, like a 2022 study that reporter Jesse Singal summarised as thus: “Researchers found puberty blockers and hormones didn’t improve trans’ kids mental health at their clinic. Then they published a study claiming the opposite.”

At times, this approach is made explicit. At the US Professional Association for Transgender Health conference in Denver, Colorado, last year, Kellan Baker dispensed public-relations advice to an audience of clinicians and researchers: don’t tell the public anything that might make them think twice about what they’re being asked to support. Avoid specifics, like the ages of patients and the details of interventions. Baker even advised against using the term “gender-affirming care”. “When [people] hear it,” he said, “they think ‘trans kids in the driver’s seat’”.

In recent years, the field of gender medicine has sustained itself in an increasingly polarised political climate through a systematic campaign of suppressing, obfuscating, and misrepresenting research. This strategy operates behind the scenes, quietly distorting public understanding of the issue at hand. But such an approach cannot survive scrutiny from mainstream media outlets and exposure in court cases. As reporters dig in and legal discovery makes secretive practices public, proponents of “gender-affirming care” will come under increasing pressure. Either advocates will need to make their case to the public, or their claims — that the care they provide is safe, effective, and settled science — will crumble.


Eliza Mondegreen is graduate and researcher.

elizamondegreen

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UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 days ago

Olson-Kennedy is a fanatic and a monster. When she’s not gleefully amputating the breasts of confused 13-year-old girls. who don’t understand the implications of the surgery, she is preaching with her trans identifying female “husband.” When asked about women who had the surgery, detransitioned and were devastated, she glibly said they could get new ones. Oh, is she paying for the reconstruction? Insurance won’t pay for it. It will pay for trans identifying men to get laser hair removal for the face and body (not for trans men!), adams apple shaving, jaw and brow surgery and rhinoplasties (all called facial feminization). Funny about that. Anyway, she is like every other doctor (endocrinologists), surgeon, psychiatrist (and pharmaceutical companies!) They preach the ideology and watch their bank accounts (and stock market shares) swell. It’s all a big racket. Someday it’s all going to implode, and I hope to God they will be charged with child abuse and rot in hell.

Morry Rotenberg
Morry Rotenberg
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

I don’t think that their motivation is entirely financial. I think these Lysenkoist “scientists” actually believe in what they are doing. I’m certain too that these practitioners also believe in anthropogenic global warming and all of the other Leftist shibboleths. Transgenderism is what happens when a mental illness is transformed into a civil rights movement. We can only hope that the plaintiffs bar will put the wooden spike through the heart of this terribly destructive malady.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

“Your ideology is to the contrary of reality, and not only that, you never bother to present any evidence supporting your ideology.”

You also will not and have not presented any evidence for your ideology.

Last edited 1 day ago by Talia Perkins
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

But I have. Olson-Kennedy’s preaching trans ideology influences her approach to surgery. Her glib response about young girls who detransitioned and regret their surgery. They are angry that it was performed when they were too young. In a leaked zoom meeting, a WPATH doctor, he said that teen girls and boys are too young to understand the implications of chemical and physical transitions. You are purposely ignoring the money involved in the United States. Finally, the difference in insurance payments is a fact. Men are covered but women aren’t. Google it. Google is your friend. By the way, I don’t have an ideology.

Last edited 1 day ago by UnHerd Reader
Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

“But I have.”

No you have not, you have exclusively proclaimed your opinion is reality, and on the basis of nothing more than that it is your opinion.

When you cite an actual fact, you do so tendentiously and absent context, lacking associated facts which deny your claimed interpretation.

For example.

“They are angry that it was performed when they were too young” <– And the fraction who say that is consistent with no more than about 1 in 4,500,000 people out of the general population having any such complaints — and — only about 1 in 10000 who transition medically having such complaints.

Your deceit is to imply this is a justification for prohibiting medical transition to the 99 out of 100 who will never so little as regret it who by the WPATH criteria for it merit it.

Money is no more involved in this than it is for any other sort of medicine, neither is the thievery and slavery inherent to socialist medicine in contrast any improvement on the matter.

You never get to the point of citing a fact and connecting any other facts to link the dots towards what you merely claim and imply.

And you can not do it.

“Men are covered but women aren’t.” <– It is not even clear what falsehood you are even attempting here. Gender affirming care has no distinction in availability to transgender men and women, or boys and girls.

“By the way, I don’t have an ideology.” <– Oh yes you do, and I correctly restate it elsewhere in this thread.

Last edited 1 day ago by Talia Perkins
Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

And now in English, please.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Roddy Campbell

Child abusing troll, that is already English — however I can believe you are too ill educated to be fluent in it.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Dear Talia, you are the one who presents nothing.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader
Bret Larson
Bret Larson
1 day ago

You mean playing god?

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
19 hours ago
Reply to  Bret Larson

There is no such thing involved. If you genuinely believe otherwise, of course not to be a hypocrite you must abandon all technology of any sort, including animal’s skins in winter — and live as do the apes in the jungle.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

It is difficult to see any morally difference between what Olson-Kennedy is doing and what the likes of Mengele was doing in Auschwitz

Last edited 1 day ago by Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

I have no doubt, those like you who do not know right from wrong will make the sort of claims you have.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Isn’t the credo of the medical profession, do no harm?

Last edited 1 day ago by Bret Larson
Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
19 hours ago
Reply to  Bret Larson

Colloquially yes, but then surgery of any kind, stitching a wound, chemotherapy — all of these are harm.

So grow up, and realizing reducing suffering in net is how they aim to do no harm.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
16 hours ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Currently I’m an age where I’m growing down. And all of those years of changes scream at me that these sorts of things do hundreds of times more harm then healing.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
15 hours ago
Reply to  Bret Larson

No, child abusing imbecile, your years say nothing at all about this. You are not the measure of all humanity — but thank you for admitting your narcissism in your thinking you are.

Last edited 15 hours ago by Talia Perkins
Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

I can’t wait for the first successful court cases against these monster doctors/surgeons. Once victims get huge compensations for damages done to their lives, I hope this whole nightmare will stop. Can‘t imagine my grief as a parent, if my child would be taken away from me, because I don’t allow these monsters to cause severe damages to his/her psyche and body.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

“I can’t wait … psyche and body.” <– You’ll have to wait forever for your nightmare to stop, since it all only in your own mind. The handful of cases per 100,000 who medically transition do not a backlash make.

Get back to me when you are willing to have youth by lawsuit hold their parents accountable for the torture of a transition forbidden by the parents.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

I have one question for you: do you have children?

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

You have no relevant question, the same as you have no relevant answer — but of course I do, and I have said here before.

To go by pat experience, you will now make some inane claim that the tendency of children to play make believe has something of relevance — it does not.

Again:
“Get back to me when you are willing to have youth by lawsuit hold their parents accountable for the torture of a transition forbidden by the parents.”

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Once more, in English please.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Roddy Campbell

Child abusing troll, that is already English — however I can believe you are too ill educated to be fluent in it.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Oh look, the anonymous fraudulent “doctor” pops up again.

To the terribly limited extent anyone who performs any such surgery on a 13yo is doing so importunely, the lawsuits — few as they are — will correct that.

You have nothing substantive to say to the contrary of that or to justify anything else you said here.

You have the only ideology involved here, which is to justify that monstrous abuse of some children which you favor.

This is what repeatably observable facts limit to be true.

Gender is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the ears.

Sex is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the legs.

The same as the sex in and of itself can develop with incomplete and or indeterminate results in one direction — out of the two of male and female or, in some degree both of the two directions of male and female — there can be such an incomplete or mixed result in and of the gender itself or with respect to the gender vis a vis the sex.

No such indeterminate result is a psychiatric condition.

Your ideology is to the contrary of reality, and not only that, you never bother to present any evidence supporting your ideology.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Sexual dimorphism has been a fact for a billion years. It has nothing to do with your feelings. Sex is biology, not your belief that you can literally change your sex. We are mammals not clown fish. Gender, is not sex. The idea that a woman is an idea, an essence or a feeling is is insulting to women. (Notice that is not a thing for trans men.)Your body was designed to produce sperm, not eggs.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

“Sexual dimorphism has been a fact for a billion years.”

Indeed so, and unlike what you also claim, so have all the range of variances from what is merely typical.

“Gender, is not sex.” <– Correct!

“Sex is biology” <– So is gender. There are no facts to the contrary, that is why you cite none.

“not your belief that you can literally change your sex” <– It is a literal fact sex can be changed. Do you pretend HRT and surgeries do nothing? I know instead they do quite a lot of good in the way of actual change.

Instead, because you desire philosophically and ideologically to adhere to a Platonic ideal of sex which is not real, you insist because the HRT and surgeries do not match that Platonic ideal — which ideal is as real as is Utopia — that they do nothing, which is the literal interpretation of false claim that “sex can not be changed”.

All you can say truthfully is it cannot be changed in a way which suits your sensibilities. So what? It is not even being asked of you to consider it for yourself.

What you additionally — and while you are proud of it, unforgivably — insist is that because it is not good enough for you, it should be prohibited from those who need it. Those who are not you and are not like you.

“The idea that … sperm, not eggs.”

Why yes, it is with you only about your bigoted feelings, and not facts at all. You see in history, some people whose bodies were also not “designed” to produce ova were also thought to be women, and some whose bodies were not “designed” to produce sperm were thought men — or, in many societies, were accorded a third or fourth or fifth status other than “man” or “woman”. As opposed to adhering to nonexistent Platonic ideals, they dealt with reality as they observed it to the degree they could afford to.

With what can now be measured scientifically (repeatably, objectively) to exist, we know there are only two directions which human sexual dimorphism can take, but, that for any given physical aspect of that sexual dimorphism — any direction and degree of completeness even in both directions at once in one individual is possible, and happens at some rate. You are here to represent your gender ideology of denying what is physically measured in favor of your Platonic ideal…

…and while you are at it, you are here to justify your desired abuse of the children you seek to make the victims of your ideology.

Which ideology you are deluded enough to insist you don’t even have.

Last edited 1 day ago by Talia Perkins
Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

I’m not sure what is worse: torture of our intellect by specious arguments, or torture of our literary sensibilities by mangled English. I’d sooner neither.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Roddy Campbell

Child abusing troll, that is already perfectly correct English — however I can believe you are too ill educated to be fluent in it.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Still waiting for your relevant fact filled reply to what I have already written in reply to you.

But then I would need to wait forever, wouldn’t I?

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

In comprehensible English, please.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Roddy Campbell

It already is easily comprehensible English; however, child abusing troll, I can believe you are too ill-educated to be fluent in it.

Nancy Kmaxim
Nancy Kmaxim
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

My experience is that allowing medical overreach is quite pervasive across specialties, especially those where procedures are highly profitable. I follow a bit of medical ethics in retirement (I wasn’t a physician) and have been interested that practitioners with more traditional, circumspect views seem to have evaporated from the picture. I wonder how one finds an oncologist or an ObGyn in the current climate much less someone to treat a child with gender dysphoria.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Nancy Kmaxim

With respect to gender dysphoria, what is traditional is prejudice proven to not be factually founded. At all.

Not for nearly 30 years now has there been any excuse for the aversive/conversion/oppositional treatment model.

Andrew Sweeney
Andrew Sweeney
2 days ago

The replication crisis shows that this is true of most science these days. Since campaigners came up with the “follow the science” mantra and governments their nudge units, most science is pretty much delivered to order to support the paid for narrative.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
2 days ago
Reply to  Andrew Sweeney

We need to stop calling it “science” – since it’s not. It’s propaganda, pure and simple. It’s the reason why people who don’t understand this have qualms about science, instead of understanding the scientific method. It needs calling out on each and every occasion it rears it’s ugly head.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Trouble for you is only your side of things has only propaganda.

This is what repeatably observable facts limit to be true.

Gender is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the ears.

Sex is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the legs.

The same as the sex in and of itself can develop with incomplete and or indeterminate results in one direction — out of the two of male and female or, in some degree both of the two directions of male and female — there can be such an incomplete or mixed result in and of the gender itself or with respect to the gender vis a vis the sex.

No such indeterminate result is a psychiatric condition.

Your ideology is to the contrary of reality, and not only that, you never bother to present any evidence supporting your ideology.

Mike Wylde
Mike Wylde
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

That won’t be true no matter how many times you repeat it.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Mike Wylde

Except it is true were I to say it only once or never say it at all — and — you are able only to deny reality, not show I am incorrect.

Last edited 1 day ago by Talia Perkins
Walter Schimeck
Walter Schimeck
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

I have a question –forgive me if the answer is blindingly obvious, but I’m new at this— and it is this: if gender is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the ears, what would make anyone ever de-transition? (And please don’t tell me it never happens.) Are you suggesting above that the wet stuff in our heads is capable of oscillating back and forth between male and female? If not, then by what mechanism would the change happen?

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

“if gender is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the ears, what would make anyone ever de-transition”

That they were a false positive to begin with. Duh!

The rates of which are at most 1 in 100 as an upper bound of those for whom transition is recommended per WPATH standards of care. Of that 1 in 100, only about 1 in 100 at most claim they were misdiagnosed, and have grounds to sue for improper care.

Last edited 18 hours ago by Talia Perkins
Walter Schimeck
Walter Schimeck
15 hours ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

1 in 100 sounds harmless enough, only, in any other branch of medicine, if 1 in 100 test subjects were experiencing severe and irreversible health problems the treatment would never be approved.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
15 hours ago

Imbecile, where witholding the treatment produced a 40%+ suicidality rate with concomitant rate of death — yes, they would approve it instantaneously.

And those who are rational actors have.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 hours ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

The studies alleging high suicide rates have, like gender treatment study that has been withheld, failed to support that claim. And, tragically, suicide rates among those,who have received “affirming therapy” appear to be at tge least similar to those who are treated with less dramatic interventions.

Adrian Smith
Adrian Smith
1 day ago
Reply to  Andrew Sweeney

This is different to the replication crisis. The replication crisis could be viewed a scientific negligence (a failure to apply robust scientific principles which basically mean nothing is ever “settled”. This and other propaganda driven science is out and out scientific fraud – there is far more wilfulness to the deception.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Adrian Smith

Trouble for you is only your side of things has only propaganda.

This is what repeatably observable facts limit to be true.

Gender is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the ears.

Sex is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the legs.

The same as the sex in and of itself can develop with incomplete and or indeterminate results in one direction — out of the two of male and female or, in some degree both of the two directions of male and female — there can be such an incomplete or mixed result in and of the gender itself or with respect to the gender vis a vis the sex.

No such indeterminate result is a psychiatric condition.

Your ideology is to the contrary of reality, and not only that, you never bother to present any evidence supporting your ideology.

You will not do any better than Lancashire Lad or the fraudulent The Unherd “doctor” in supporting your case with facts.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Talia, is this a new litany or rosary, so to speak?

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
19 hours ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

It is as cogently distilled a statement of known facts about the matter as I have put together so far. Nothing there is new in concept for about 30 years now.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 day ago
Reply to  Andrew Sweeney

“Unfortunately, Olson-Kennedy and her team are not alone in taking an “affirmation-only” approach to publishing research findings. Suppressing inconvenient data is a pattern in the field of gender medicine, which has long subordinated scientific research to political expediency. Researchers and clinicians in the field tend to work backwards from their desired conclusions (“gender-affirming care is safe and effective,” “the science is settled”), then tell patients, parents, policymakers, and the public what they think these audiences need to hear in order to fall in line.”
I was wondering whether the fields of gender research and climate change were related

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
19 hours ago

“Suppressing inconvenient data” <– That’s a lie by implication by Mondgreen, as the data is published and is used to draw conclusions.

What those researchers are doing is not publishing a paper with a conclusion which has a known confounding factor which they will publish when they have controlled for it.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Andrew Sweeney

This has nothing to do with any “replication crisis” but with a delay in publication of an interpretation of the data to account for a known to exist and otherwise potentially confounding factor.

That said, there is already good indication that potential confounding factor can be controlled for by data already collected by others — the skyrocketing rates of suicidality in transgender youth where their proper care is made illegal.

“In Montana, for instance, Dr. Eric Lowe testified on behalf of the state’s ER practitioners against the gender affirming care ban there, stating that Montana’s gender-affirming care ban would cost lives. ” [ linked to portion here ]

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/cdc-one-in-four-trans-kids-have-attempted

& in contrast

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/new-study-trans-youth-satisfied-6

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X23005608

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789423

https://www.inverse.com/article/59830-gender-incongruence-transgender-surgey-survey#%3A~%3Atext%3DThe%20research%2C%20led%20by%20Richard%20Branstrom%2C%20Ph.D.%2C%20and%2Cdiagnosis%20of%20gender%20incongruence%20between%202005%20and%202015.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/mental-health-benefits-associated-with-gender-affirming-surgery/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4771131/

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789423

https://fenwayhealth.org/new-study-shows-transgender-people-who-receive-gender-affirming-surgery-are-significantly-less-likely-to-experience-psychological-distress-or-suicidal-ideation/

transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf

In contrast,the ideology of the “gender critical” never has clinical or research support which withstands scrutiny.

Last edited 18 hours ago by Talia Perkins
laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 day ago
Reply to  Andrew Sweeney

It started more subtly, even before the “follow the science” craze.
Fifteen or twenty years ago the legacy media were suddenly full of a story to the affect that “…all historians agree that slavery was the one single cause of the American Civil War.”
After a lifetime of reading history I can say with confidence that democracies of any sort don’t go to war for a singular reason. In monarchal or totalitarian situations nations could be dragged into war on the whim of one class or even one man. In more modern situations people need a motivation, beyond “the bosses said so”.
Yet ever since then the story has been accepted; despite the simple fact that “all the historians” never agree about anything.
There’s been a society-wide turn toward group-think, in so many diverse fields, almost like a subtle change in our genetics.
Very weird. And potentially dangerous.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

“Fifteen or twenty years ago the legacy media were suddenly full of a story to the affect that “…all historians agree that slavery was the one single cause of the American Civil War.””

Which has no relevance even to the limited extent that is what was reported. What was actually said near universally is that that cause by itself sufficed and no other set of causes in combination absent that would plausibly have produced war.

Reality is always perfectly self-consistent. Correct apprehension of reality will always superficially appear to be “group think”, but that is an artifact of the correct apprehension and the universal self consistency of reality.

For science to be “unsettled”, actual apparently contradictory facts are required.

Last edited 1 day ago by Talia Perkins
laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Well, just for a start, the vast majority of the Rebel dead and wounded had no personal stake in slavery. Hard to imagine so many men taking the risk to defend that institution.
And, of course, I was referring to the mass media presentation of the topic that most people absorbed, not the precise academic verbiage.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

They all had a personal stake in it — their society was organized around it, and if they could not hope to be slave owners, they could hope their children could advance and be so.

“And, of course … precise academic verbiage.” <– Why yes, you are far more concerned about using atmospheric claims which are empty of facts, than you are with having an argument that withstands examination.

Last edited 1 day ago by Talia Perkins
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

If Thalia’s understanding of history is similar to their understanding of the gender obsession, that could explain a lot.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

My understanding is factual, unlike anything you’ve ever had to say here about either topic.

But then, you’ve claimed to be a physician, and plainly you are a fraud.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

You are referring to a different anonymous poster. I have never claimed to be a doctor, nor do I play one on any drama, shows, street theater, internet or otherwise.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
18 hours ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Someone else has your screen name? I doubt that, but then you’ve never produced any reason to believe anything you say.

You could improve matters by having the courage not to be cowardly anonymous.

Susan Grabston
Susan Grabston
2 days ago

As my Irish mum says “money speaks all languages”…

Brett H
Brett H
2 days ago
Reply to  Susan Grabston

As Dylan said; money doesn’t talk, it swears.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 days ago

You can be pretty certain that nobody who actually makes a living in the medical field is going to “follow the science” to a result that abolished his or her own career.

If anything, the people who support transing kids are doing the rest of us a favor by demonstrating how crassly political and money-driven an expert consensus can be. It takes hardly any intelligence or specialized knowledge at all to realize that a “treatment” that not only leaves the patient sterile for life, but possibly unable to have sex at all, isn’t much of a treatment.

Hopefully, this will lead to more people waking up to the way that the medical profession has corrupted itself in other ways that, while they don’t provoke as much visceral disgust, have harmed a lot more people – things like gain-of-function research, or drugging children for ADHD.

I’ve written about these other controversies before on my own substack:

“More Bat Research? or, When Not to Trust the Experts” https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/more-bat-research-or-when-not-to

“The Can We and the Should We of Science” https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/the-can-we-and-the-should-we-of-science

Brett H
Brett H
2 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Do you comment just to promote your substack? Surely this is a place for comments not self promotion.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

There is no data or science to support your opinions as to what careers should be abolished.

You are unable to factually contradict this:

Gender is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the ears.

Sex is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the legs.

The same as the sex in and of itself can develop with incomplete and or indeterminate results in one direction — out of the two of male and female or, in some degree both of the two directions of male and female — there can be such an incomplete or mixed result in and of the gender itself or with respect to the gender vis a vis the sex.

No such indeterminate result is a psychiatric condition.

Your ideology is to the contrary of reality, and not only that, you never bother to present any evidence supporting your ideology.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

So you can list studies showing organic physical changes in brains of dysmorphic sufferers. So further, if I am following your list of “incontrovertible facts”, due to that physical reality, the younger they are medically “altered” the better.
Is that a fair paraphrase of your list?

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
19 hours ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

No liar — and if you are a doctor, you know dysmorphia is not involved, you lied just now — I can list some of the known genetic variants associated with being transgender, and, some of the anatomical results associated with it.

And no, not the younger the better — not until and unless purely technological means of detection are an improvement in accuracy over the current standards of care. Frankly I presume by then lab grown organs will be available for transplant.

Among the reasons any objective person reading this thread would know I am correct and you are obviously not and that you intend to decieve or are yourself deceived is that I provide actual facts supporting my argument and you do not, and, I can restate your argument accurately. You have to or so far at least, have only ever misstated my argument.

A reply I made to you about 20 hours ago, to your claim you have no ideology, is lacking your response. It deserves one, point for point, with you citing facts proving your points. I suspect it will go wanting. The reply I made to Andrew Sweeney is one you should be able to demolish with facts, if any were on your side. They are not.

Last edited 19 hours ago by Talia Perkins
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 hours ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Talia, I asked a few questions in a civil manner to get you to clarify yourself. That does not meet the definition of “lie”. Chill on the anger and bombast. By the way, you have posted no studies backing up what you claim, so it seems you are pushing, with a lot of passion, opinions. I will stay anonymous, thank you.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
2 days ago

TP isn’t going to like this – not at all.

John Murray
John Murray
2 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Well, that would be most uncharacteristic. Normally, he’s such a ray of sunshine. Very stable emotionally as well.

McLovin
McLovin
1 day ago
Reply to  John Murray

Surely you mean she?

Derek Smith
Derek Smith
1 day ago
Reply to  McLovin

We very much doubt that.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Derek Smith

Says the factless gender critical, who pretend they are emotionally stable.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  McLovin

They do not shrink from excuseless child abuse, why would they fear to merely insult?

It is not in contrast insult to refer to the gender critical as evil or stupid — it is merely an accurate, factually supported adjectival statement of fact.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Imbecile, because I understand it, I have no problem with it at all.

See my reply to Andrew Sweeney.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Which reply to Andrew Sweeney “The UnHerd” has hidden from view, because it has links . . .

Of course it does.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
1 day ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

She is like a rash… haha

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
18 hours ago

There is no doubt the gender critical are allergic to reality.

M Mack
M Mack
1 day ago

If recent patterns hold, gender ideology will subside and recede, not implode, and there will be no reckoning or accountability afterwards. The people who insisted that any hint of dissent from “trans women are women” absolutism was hateful bigotry will start saying that it was a very confusing time and everyone was uncertain of what the truth was and they were just trying to do their best. The most fervent advocates of transitions for kids will insist that they were against it the whole time. They will all get away with it.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  M Mack

The “gender critical” have the only ideology involved here, it is yours.

When the additional suicides, depression and misery resulting from what success you have had are totaled, you will never admit to anything.

This is what is factually known to be true.

Gender is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the ears.

Sex is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the legs.

The same as the sex in and of itself can develop with incomplete and or indeterminate results in one direction — out of the two of male and female or, in some degree both of the two directions of male and female — there can be such an incomplete or mixed result in and of the gender itself or with respect to the gender vis a vis the sex.

No such indeterminate result is a psychiatric condition.

You will never have anything factual to say to the contrary, and you also will not admit you are only claiming what you wish and hope were true is true.

But it is not.

Last edited 18 hours ago by Talia Perkins
M Mack
M Mack
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Even if I came in with no prior knowledge of the underlying issues being discussed in this article, your posts alone, blazing as they are with manifest psychopathy and radiating an aggressive disassociation from reality, would be enough to convince me which side is right.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  M Mack

Except because you are wishcasting, you be unable to point out anything written by me here which is, “blazing as they are with manifest psychopathy and radiating an aggressive disassociation from reality”.

M Mack
M Mack
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Q.E.D.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  M Mack

Then prove it, child abusing troll.

Don’t just claim it.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Admission is the first step towards healing, Talia.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

You have much to admit.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  M Mack

Much like the Recovered Memories debacle.

M Mack
M Mack
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

And, much more recently, the “public health” response to Covid.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Except of course unlike “Recovered Memories”, the clinical and empirical evidence in support of gender affirming care is overwhelming — which is why you never have pointed out any facts to the contrary of it.

And you still will not.

John Pade
John Pade
1 day ago

Political power trumps science. Nazi Germany, the USSR. That this is happening under as yet non-dictorial regimes says a lot. As for the mainstream media, I’d better it is no more objective that Pravda or Der Volkischer Beobacter and trending in their direction.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  John Pade

“Political power trumps science.”

That is what anti-transgender laws and policies prove, yes.

Dr. Cass tacitly admits this here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023q2z when she states WPATH standards of care appropriately call for puberty blocker to be administered to youth meeting the criteria for them far more soon than is typical in backwards Britain.

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 day ago

Leftist agitprop tactics in use across the spectrum of Progressive agenda items.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  Daniel Lee

The sole agitprop here is from the gender critical, who never have anything factual to say to the contrary of this:

Gender is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the ears.

Sex is physically sexually dimorphic tissue between the legs.

The same as the sex in and of itself can develop with incomplete and or indeterminate results in one direction — out of the two of male and female or, in some degree both of the two directions of male and female — there can be such an incomplete or mixed result in and of the gender itself or with respect to the gender vis a vis the sex.

No such indeterminate result is a psychiatric condition.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago

The gender cultists take a page from the climate hype playbook, which happily used the Lysenkoism playbook.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
18 hours ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

A lie. This is not surprising from you at all, lies are all you have.

Climate “science” is where data series are selected and adjusted baselessly until they agree with theory. There is no cherry picking here and no adjustment to data here.

Lysenkoism has nothing to do with it at all. That was where changes made to the material form of the plant or animal were presumed to be passed on to offspring (and you thinking the loss of fertility associated with transgender genital surgery is your problem with not torturing transgender people with conversion therapy which does not work?).

Mondegreen’s lie here — and she is lying, deliberately deceiving as to what is going on, and, by those doing the work what is said to be going on. What is going on is one conclusion the researchers believe their work does support has a confounding factor, and they will not publish that paper and that conclusion until they have controlled for that confounding factor. The data has been published, it is not hidden in any way.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago

By the way the photo of thst griining ignoramus holding the sign that pushes the trans falsehood is perfect. It poins out just how insane the trans extremists are.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
19 hours ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

No, it points out people can be glad of the opportunity to politically oppose the abuse of themselves. You have no excuse to claim there is any falsehood to the sign.

Your ideology mandates that you claim those things.

Last edited 19 hours ago by Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

I invite anyone here at The Herd to read the false assertions and implications made by Mondegreen being fact checked.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/fact-check-new-york-times-publishes

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago

They have already said in full why.
https://dnyuz.com/2024/10/23/u-s-study-on-puberty-blockers-goes-unpublished-because-of-politics-doctor-says/
Where is there a factual excuse for you to doubt that?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Just like John Hopkins’ study that was commissioned by WPATH, and it didn’t like the results, so it suppressed the study.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Horseshit, you will no more back up that assertion with probabative provenance more than you do anything else you claim.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Poor Talia, reality bites and the destruction of children by monsters posing care givers inches towards its inevitable termination.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
1 day ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Yes, the enaction of your views will be terminated. You with your inability to say anything true about the topic prove you are the child abusing monster.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 day ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Talia, you are not the arbiter of truth. You are apparently a deeply disturbed victim of the gender cult.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
20 hours ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

“Talia, you are not the arbiter of truth.”

I have never claimed to be, but unlike you I do bother to learn it. You decide what you like and call that truth.

You are in the only gender cult here, the one which denies the existence of gender.

You are a child abusing fraud.

Last edited 16 hours ago by Talia Perkins
Dylan Thwaites
Dylan Thwaites
12 hours ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Talia, it is good to have someone give such a spirited defence to a concept that most people see as child abuse.
I’m struggling to understand your claim that gender can be proven scientifically in the brain. How is this proven?
Also your claim that stopping kids transitioning would result in a 40% plus suicide rate seems wrong? The references you supplied show 25% self reported suicide ideation.
Since the initial article above casts doubt on improved mental health from surgical intervention, surely it is better to take a cautious approach. Even 1/100 losing fertility for life is shocking price to pay.