Back in 2012, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who runs the busiest child gender clinic in the US, went on national TV to spread the lie that middle schoolers must medically transition, else suicide. Ethical journalists & clinicians have a duty to challenge this pernicious falsehood. 
2. This, more than anything, is why so many terrified parents medically transition their kids. You see their fear in every puff piece about a trans kid. You see it in the ongoing lies in the MSM, where reporters can't be bothered to fact check assertions. A very recent example:
3. Just yesterday, @NBCNews (same outlet that allowed Olson-Kennedy to spread suicide fears in 2012, w/no fact checking) published this article with a blatant falsehood, misusing the oft-quoted 41% Williams Institute survey. How is it a falsehood? Read on:
nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…
nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…
4. The survey authors THEMSELVES cautioned that the 41% did not control for ideation vs. actual suicide attempts. Now look again at the above quote from yesterday's NBC news article, which contains the exact opposite of what the survey authors said.
williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/upl…
williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/upl…
5. Read the survey itself (which has been misused since released in 2014), which contains many other cautions--including that mental health issues were not controlled for & are ALWAYS the key factor in suicidality. Most importantly, the survey is of ADULTS not middle schoolers.
6. The constant refrain that children (sometimes as young as toddlerhood) will kill themselves if not "affirmed" is completely unsubstantiated. Why do reporters refuse to ever ask where this assertion is coming from?
7. If this is a medical emergency, whereby children must be puberty blocked and on cross-sex hormones STAT to prevent suicide, why is there no record of this epidemic before pediatric transition was even possible?
8. The other big name in US pediatric transition is Diane Ehrensaft, who said on British national TV that future regret/false positives are a non-issue, because at least the kids would be alive to regret.
9. We've been reporting on this for years. Paid journos at a major outlet like @NBCNews need to do their jobs & stop leaving it to citizen journalists to do the heavy lifting. If ppl have to lie about something as serious as suicide to get their way, something is wrong. /End
Link to 2012 episode of @NBCNews Dateline where the screen grab (18:43) of Olson-Kennedy's suicide claims came from in the above ⬆️thread.
A Johns Hopkins pediatrician and bioethicist named Dr. Margaret Moon raised questions about child transition in the same Dateline episode. One wonders what Moon is doing now.
bioethicsbulletin.org/archive/jhu-bi…
bioethicsbulletin.org/archive/jhu-bi…
