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Benjamin Ryan Profile picture
@benryanwriter
Feb 23, 2023 • 41 tweets • 33 min read • Read on X
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A bombshell article by @writingblock challenges claims by activists that the science supporting the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors is "settled" and that the use of puberty blockers and hormones in transgender kids is "evidence based." 🧵⬇️
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
Many argue that giving puberty blockers and hormones to trans minors is uncontroversial & backed by high-quality science. Block's reporting disputes this. Swedish health authorities, for example, say the risks "currently outweigh the possible benefits". 2/
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
@glaad, in its recent protest before the @nytimes building, echoed a common refrain: that "the science is settled" regarding giving puberty blockers and hormones to trans-identifying minors. @writingblock's peer-reviewed reporting challenges this claim. 3/ press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
Trans kids has been a minefield topic, w/ activists like @Esqueer_ & lefty pundits like @RottenInDenmark battling heterodox writers @jessesingal @bariweiss @sullydish @LeorSapir & @AbigailShrier & w/ @MattWalshBlog throwing bombs. @JoyceCarolOates has lent her support to kids. 4/ ImageImageImageImage
The prescription of hormones to trans-identifying minors is often framed as a choice of life on meds vs death by suicide. But researchers have not actually shown that hormonal treatment for gender dysphoria impacts death by suicide. 5/
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
@HRC said in a press release today that "ALL gender-affirming care is age appropriate and medically necessary." But in the UK, health experts found there's "scarce & inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision-making" for kids with dysphoria. 6/
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
Mark Helfand of Oregon Health & Science University criticized @wpath's recommendations for treating #transgender minors, including a lack of grading system to assess the quality of scientific evidence backing the guidelines. #trans 7/
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
At an October meeting of the AAP, @writingblock reports, @DrScottHadland of Harvard Med said, "Ten thousand pediatricians stand in solidarity for trans and gender diverse kids & their families to receive evidence-based, lifesaving, individualized care." 8/
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
Gordon Guyatt (@GuyattGH) of McMaster University found "serious problems" with the Endocrine Society's guidelines for treating #trans kids, such as making strong recommendations based on weak evidence--meaning they should not be called "evidence based". 9/
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… ImageImage
In contrast to @DrScottHadland, @GuyattGH said, "When there's been a rigorous systematic review of the evidence" about treating #trans kids "and the bottom line is 'we don't know,' anybody who then claims they *do* know is not being evidence based." 10/
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… ImageImage
While myriad medical organizations in the US back prescribing puberty blockers & hormones to trans-identifying minors, standards abroad are very different. Sweden did systematic reviews in '15 and '22, found evidence was "insufficient and inconclusive."11/
press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… ImageImage
The Endocrine Society (@TheEndoSociety) commissioned 2 systematic reviews for its clinical practice guideline for treating #trans adolescents with sex steroids and found the quality of the evidence regarding health risks was "low" or "very low". 12/ press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
In sum, @writingblock's reporting suggests that @wpath and @TheEndoSociety's guidelines for treating #trans adolescents are not truly "evidence based", nor uncontroversial, nor do they balance the known and potential risks v benefits of such treatment. 13/ press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… Image
@MattWalshBlog, who doesn't so much debate the science behind care for trans minors as douse the field with gasoline & set it on fire, has made the topic so combustible in Tennessee, he teed up the politicization of #HIV prevention there, I reported:
14/ nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-ou…
@writingblock reviews the history of gender medicine in @bmj_latest. Note that her article was peer reviewed.
15/
 press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/t… ImageImage
@writingblock's assessment of the evidence backing standards of care for treating gender dysphoria in #trans minors comes a week after activists (eg: @glaad) and writers have pressured @nytimes to refrain from the type of reporting she has done. 16/ glaad.org/new-york-times…
Other articles finding a lack of high-quality science backing the treatment of trans minors have been published by @nytimes & Reuters, by @emilybazelon @mega2e @chadterhune @RobinRespaut @michelleconlin. 17/
nytimes.com/2022/06/15/mag…
nytimes.com/2022/11/14/hea…
reuters.com/investigates/s…
Myriad writers have criticized @nytimes reporting on #transgender issues, such as @_WrittenByHanna and @jackmirkinson in @thenation: 18/ thenation.com/article/societ…
thenation.com/article/societ…
Scores of @nytimes writers have pushed back against the charge by the paper's guild that its reporting on trans issues caused a hostile work environment, including @GiniaNYT @mattfleg @tripgabriel @apoorva_nyc @powellnyt @jimrutenberg @charlie_savage. 19/
@PressSec of @POTUS weighs in on the onslaught of bills introduced to statehouses this year that target #LGBTQ people:
20/
@ryanlcooper and @RottenInDenmark’s take on @assignedmedia:
@writingblock’s thread:
@jack_turban, MD, who treats trans kids, says there’s a lot of misinformation going around:
21/
@Esqueer_ responds to this thread: Image
The emailed responses to this thread are starting to come in. This is new: now I'm a Nazi and have autism to boot. Image
More charming exchanges with the readers of this tweet thread. Have a good one, @zunetopia. Image
Kindly do not come to this thread disrespectfully. I will not tolerate malicious statements toward anyone and the misgendering of transgender people.
Also, for anyone coming to this thread who thinks they know who I am, what I think or believe or what I'm about, do take note that I do not share my personal opinions about many issues on Twitter. I invite you to read my reporting on LGBTQ issues: benryan.net/lgbtq.html
@HRC will fly an airplane banner down the Hudson River protesting @nytimes coverage of #transgender issues today: Image
@Esqueer_ claims @writingblock can’t count, but the figure she cited in her BMJ article is the total number of minors receiving hormones and puberty blockers during that period, whereas the chart refers only to puberty blockers. Image
On the political front: cbsnews.com/news/texas-bil…
I get a lot of venomous emails, but I’d say this one regarding my tweet thread about the strength of the science behind the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors is one of the most heinous. Sadly for this person’s hopes, I was cured of cancer and have a 5% recurrence chance. Image
Also: it sucks for that person, but no one dies of testicular cancer anymore.
@meetzow wants me to die because I am engaging in science reporting and have illuminated the weakness of the science backing the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors.
Image
Also, gay people on Twitter get hit with a lot of tweets like this in the Musk era: @UIgliori Image
People tweet this to suggest that reduced stigma is the sole reason for the apparent tripling in trans identification between older adults & youths. But I think we can agree that gender identity is far more complex and driven by more complex factors than left vs right-handedness. Image
@CISCHASER hopes I die of the cancer I had: Image
If only this @ryanlcooper @TheProspect podcast had brought on academic experts to discuss youth gender care science. Instead, @RottenInDenmark provides a misleading overview that, for example, fails to note Finland & Sweden disagree with the US on this. 1/
prospect.org/podcasts/02-20…
@RyanCooper claims that what @jessesingal says about youth gender care science "makes no sense scientifically." Except Singal knows the science better than just about anyone, as he assiduously demonstrates. And his coverage is way more nuanced than Hobbes claims. 2/
My favorite is @ryanlcooper saying the best thing for science journos to do is: "You go into the studies to talk to the scientists, you don't talk to individual people, who may and probably do have an ax to grind," as he interviews two individual non-scientists about science. 3/
Hobbes himself is extraordinarily ideological, meanwhile. 4/

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More from @benryanwriter

Benjamin Ryan Profile picture
Oct 31
The Growing Divide in the Rainbow Coalition

More gay people are speaking out against the gender ideology of trans and queer activists, by Pamela Paul for @WSJ. Image
Gift link: wsj.com/us-news/the-gr…
As a “very, very effeminate boy” growing up in Baltimore, Ben Appel @benappel was teased mercilessly. At school, where he was regularly bullied, the other kids called him “Bengay.” 

“It was awful,” Appel, now 42 and married to another man, recalled. “I realized I wasn’t going to survive, so I made it my full-time job to defeminize myself as a form of self-protection.” In his 20s, Appel lobbied for gay marriage, and in 2017 he interned at @Glaad, an LGBTQ advocacy group, determined to fight on behalf of kids like him. 

But when Appel later enrolled at @Columbia University, eager to learn about the theories behind his activism, the rhetoric he encountered felt more like dogma than inquiry. “According to queer theory, if you’re a man who behaves in ‘unmasculine’ ways or wears eyeliner you must be a woman inside, which I thought was regressive,” Appel, who graduated in 2020, recalled. “Saying that those superficial attributes are what make women women, and that any variation on the rough he-man stereotype means you’re not a man, reinforces these rigid sex roles, and I thought we were supposed to be against those.”

In his book “Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic,” which comes out next week, Appel argues that gender ideology is “illiberal, regressive and anti-gay”—as much a cult as Lambs of God, the fundamentalist sect in which Appel was raised—and one that he and an increasingly vocal group of gay men, lesbians and bisexual people reject.Image
Image
Read 11 tweets
Benjamin Ryan Profile picture
Oct 24
Update: The Texas doctor sued by Ken Paxton for allegedly prescribing gender-transition drugs to minors after the state’s ban went into effect has surrendered her medical license. She had written the prescriptions under the diagnosis “endocrine disorder not otherwise specified.” Image
From Oct 2024: open.substack.com/pub/benryan/p/…
This is Ken Paxton’s press release about the case:

texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/…
Read 6 tweets
Benjamin Ryan Profile picture
Oct 20
NEWS: Trans and nonbinary identities are indeed in free-fall in college age Americans.

Prof. Jean Twenge @jean_twenge found new survey data that supports @epkaufm's much disputed claim from last week.

Twenge also found data indicating that trans identity increased exponentially by birth year until those born after about 2002. These identities have plummeted in those born more recently—who are now 20 to 23 years old.

The problem with Kaufman's data is it didn't distinguish between trans and nonbinary identities. The data that Twenge found does.

The decline in such identities in younger Americans raises important questions about the future of the field of pediatric gender medicine and the question of whether these identities are at least partially driven by social influences, as opposed to immutable, inborn traits.Image
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@jean_twenge @epkaufm Check out @Jean_Twenge's blog: generationtechblog.com/p/trans-identi…
@jean_twenge @epkaufm This 2024 paper found an exponential increase in trans identity with younger Americans. But the data that @jean_twenge found indicates that this graph represented the peak at the youngest end. With successive years, the rate declined.
link.springer.com/article/10.100…Image
Read 8 tweets
Benjamin Ryan Profile picture
Oct 8
Pressured by Transgender Activists, Star Academic Backs Out Of His Own Research

I report for @NewYorkSun: By imperiling a paper on gender-transition interventions for youths, evidence-based medicine expert Dr. Gordon Guyatt joins a wider suppressive trend seen in academic publishing in pediatric gender medicine.Image
LINK: Pressured by Transgender Activists, Star Academic Backs Out Of His Own Research

By imperilling a paper on gender-transition interventions for youths, evidence-based medicine expert Dr. Gordon Guyatt joins a wider suppressive trend seen in academic publishing in pediatric gender medicine.nysun.com/article/pressu…Image
A renowned Canadian researcher has bowed to a pressure campaign by transgender activists who have sought to blunt the impact of research they consider a threat to minors’ access to medical gender treatments. The scholar, evidence-based medicine expert Dr. Gordon Guyatt, led his junior academic colleagues in collectively jumping ship as coauthors, in a leading medical journal, of a pending paper on this controversial subject.

According to emails obtained by the Sun, this withdrawal left the much-anticipated paper in pre-publication limbo. Such suppression — or at least effective suppression — of research findings is in keeping with a broader trend seen in recent years within the controversial field of pediatric gender medicine. Prominent figures in the field have either delayed or blocked publication of papers that yielded inconvenient findings.
nysun.com/article/pressu…Image
Read 13 tweets
Benjamin Ryan Profile picture
Sep 17
NEWS: ABC Pulls ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ Indefinitely After Host’s Charlie Kirk Comments

Disney’s ABC said it would take Jimmy Kimmel‘s popular late-night show off its schedule “indefinitely” after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the U.S., Nexstar Media, said it would pre-empt airings of the program following remarks the host made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

In his monologue Monday night , Kimmel said that the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points off Kirk’s murder. Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, was shot and killed Sept. 10 at a debate at Utah Valley University. Three days later, authorities announced they had arrested the suspected shooter.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said.

Nexstar said Wednesday that its “owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network will preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for the foreseeable future, beginning with tonight’s show.” The company said it  “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”Image
variety.com/2025/tv/news/n…
nytimes.com/2025/09/17/bus…
Read 9 tweets
Benjamin Ryan Profile picture
Sep 13
Update: Now The Guardian has cut from this article about Tyler Robinson the quote from the unnamed high school friend about his being “leftist”. Image
I would very much like to know whether the unnamed source got cold feet and demanded a retraction of his quote (and if so, why), or if his words and his capacity to recall a time from about six or seven years ago were somehow misrepresented in the first place.
WaPo reports:

Xander Luke, another high school classmate, said he remembers Tyler Robinson being smart, funny and active online, trafficking in silly memes and jokes.

They would talk politics, Luke said, and discuss their “frustration with the system,” particularly feeling let down by the two major political parties. Robinson did not appear to like “hateful people” and “people who would talk down” to others, said Luke, 22.Image
Read 4 tweets

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