Thread by @LeorSapir

@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.

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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.

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."

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.

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."

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?

jessesingal.substack.com/p/science-vs-c…

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.

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.

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.

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.

The affirm-or-suicide narrative is deeply controversial and has the potential for being dangerous. It violates CDC guidelines on public discussion surrounding suicide.

realityslaststand.com/p/pediatric-ge…

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.