Science Spun

Yesterday I was barraged on my commute to work and the ride home by NPR in full attack mode, claiming Governor Ron DeSantis is introducing “anti-trans” legislation in Florida. NPRs premise is that early intervention with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatment, and surgery are all “gender-affirming” care that “saves lives.” To plead their case, they interviewed two mothers of trans children and one female endocrinologist who cited examples of intervention that allowed their trans-kids to “blossom” into their true selves and “thrive” while stating that the science supports gender affirmation treatment with a long history of documented success. Ahem. No, it does not. Granted, with politics creeping insidiously into the scientific literature, I’m sure you can find an article somewhere to support your thesis, no matter how far out of the mainstream it may be. And recall that in the field of psychology, the majority of data from studies in the field cannot be reliably reproduced. The respected journal Nature determined “over half” of the studies could not be reproduced, and NPR themselves reported that only 13 of 21 selected studies showed the ability to have the data duplicated. A large collaborative study found reproducibility in only 39 of 100 studies. In fact, European literature seems to have determined that those that underwent irreversible procedures were, in many cases, more likely to suffer from regret and suicide. And they’ve been at it a lot longer than we have. And whatever happened to the psychiatric community lecturing us about the development of the adolescent brain being incomplete until the age of 23?  So now we will allow children going through puberty, perhaps the most confusing time in their lives, bombarded with mixed messages courtesy of the internet, to make irreversible decisions about their bodies and their development. We don’t even allow those under the age of 18 to get tattoos, yet we are considering letting them make decisions about genital mutilation.  And how do you explain a Missouri fifth-grade grade peer group, where after one member “came out” as transgender, all the other females in the group suddenly decided they were transgender as well?  And then, a Missouri transgender clinic subsequently advised that the school must affirm all of them as transgender. Fifth graders are 11 years old, you idiots. Is there an adult in the room? Or maybe a medical professional without an agenda? It seems that all the professionals weighing in are specialists in the field of gender affirmation treatment or work in a facility that , offers gender reassignment interventions. Rarely do we hear from those who don’t benefit from promoting gender affirmation treatment, and almost always the self-anointed experts, or the parent pleading their case, is female. Why is that?  Is this fad or fashion? Yet another social media driven aberration spiking right along with the parallel increase in mental health issues associated with teenage girls and the rise of Facebook, Instagram and Tik-Tok?  With the proven fallibility of studies in psychiatry, the proven increase in anxiety and depression amongst teenage females, the groupthink cases of trans identity, and suppression of data contrary to the growing gender affirmation industry, perhaps DeSantis is a voice of reason in seeking to prevent knee-jerk reactions to implement irreversible medical procedures to treat a poorly understood phenomenon.