Benjamin Ryan Profile picture
Apr 26 20 tweets 6 min read Read on X
It’s part of the journalist’s job to fact check errors stated by public figures about matters of importance. That is what I have done with regard to the falsehoods spread about the Cass Review by Erin Reed and Alejandra Caraballo in particular. There’s nothing “weird” about this. Image
Fact checking errors stated by public figures about matters of importance is not “complaining.” Image
These types of defamatory claims are nonsense. Image
Notice how none of these individuals stated that I have falsely claimed that Caraballo and Reed have uttered falsehoods about the Cass Review. Instead, they’ve resorted to ad hominem attacks and innuendo about me.
After I've spent much of the past two weeks fact checking the falsehoods that Alejandra Caraballo and Erin Reed have spread about the Cass Review, they have turned to spreading innuendo about me, saying I am being "creepy," and that it is I who spreads falsehoods. Image
Not once has Erin Reed or Alejandra Caraballo parried any of the fact checks I've made of the many falsehoods they've uttered about the Cass Review. Instead, they've deflected and doubled down. And now Reed is projecting, falsely claiming I am telling untruths. Image
Dr. Hilary Cass herself excoriated what she referred to as online "influencers" for spreading what she characterized as "disinformation about" the Cass Review. I was the one who identified Alejandra Caraballo, Erin Reed and Mallory Moore as the central figures in this campaign. Image
In her final essay about the Cass Review, Dr. Hilary Cass debunks much of the misinformation spread about the report by Alejandra Caraballo, Erin Reed and Mallory Moore:
Mallory Moore deflected and denied my fact checks of her. Here are the facts:
Here is my detailed fact check of the fusillade of falsehoods activist-blogger Erin Reed has spread about the Cass Review and pediatric gender-transition treatment:
Activist and Harvard Law School instructor Alejandra Caraballo has never admitted to her role in spreading what Dr. Hilary Cass denounced as "disinformation" about the Cass Review:
Debunking podcaster Michael Hobbes has also spread a considerable amount of misinformation about the Cass Review and pediatric gender medicine:
Freelance reporter Katelyn Burns sought to make light of Dr. Hilary Cass reporting that due to threats against her, she no longer takes public transport:
There are more falsehoods from Michael Hobbes about pediatric gender medicine:
In this thread, I identify how Mallory Moore and Alejandra Caraballo shared responsibility for starting the cloud of misinformation about the Cass Review that Dr. Cass would denounce:
Alejandra Caraballo only doubled down when called out for telling falsehoods about the Cass Review:
In this interview, Dr. Hilary Cass pushed back against the misinformation told about the Cass Review:
Here was my first major essay fact checking misinformation about the Cass Review.
You can find my fact checks about the Cass Review misinformation on my Subs--k: benryan.substack.com
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What @JesseSingal said: Image

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More from @benryanwriter

Apr 27
Gillian Branstetter is a communications strategist for the ACLU. Here, she seeks to intimidate me out of doing my job as a science reporter as I've fact checked the falsehoods spread by activists about the Cass Review & pediatric gender medicine. She dismisses this as "arguing". Image
Update: She deleted the tweet about 2 minutes after she posted it. Image
My fact checks of the falsehoods spread by activists about the Cass Review are an important form of protected free speech and represent one of the most vital purposes of the free press: to identify and publicize the truth.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 27
The lead author of the new paper finding low gender-transition treatment regret is Dr. Katy Gast, a gender-affirming surgeon at UWHealth. She has been sued by a detransitioner accusing her of not properly obtaining informed consent before a double mastectomy at 21.

The patient also received a hysterectomy from a different surgeon at 19. The woman was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in her late teens.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports: "The suit alleges malpractice and failure to obtain informed consent by both doctors, negligence by the hospital, discrimination under the Affordable Care Act against the doctors and the hospital, and the denial of benefits and care that would have been provided to a non-transgender woman, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, which first reported the lawsuit."

The paper:
Dr. Gast's info:
An article about the suit: americanjournalofsurgery.com/article/S0002-…
witranshealth.org/providers/kath…
jsonline.com/story/news/hea…Image
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I asked Dr. Gast for a PDF copy of the study. She declined to provide it, saying she'd agreed with the publisher not to do so. She directed me to the web site where I'd have to pay for it.

I have never in my career had a study author refuse me a PDF.
americanjournalofsurgery.com/article/S0002-…
I emailed Dr. Gast again and asked her this: "You did not grade the quality of the evidence, and yet you call this a systematic literature review. That seems to be a conflict. Can you reconcile this for me?"

She has not replied. Image
Read 10 tweets
Apr 27
Why have I tweeted a lot about Alejandra Caraballo and Erin Reed over the past 2 weeks:
1. The Cass Review came out and became a monumental global news story.
2. Caraballo and Reed, who have massive platforms, told many falsehoods about it.
3. As I did with monkeypox misinformation, I fact checked their many, many false claims.
4. They deflected, doubled down and kept making false claims.
5. Accordingly, I fact checked them more.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 a few times.

This is the job of a journalist, to separate fact from fiction about important topics and communicate them to the public.

So now I see it’s time for Reed and Caraballo to get everyone together to malign me personally.
I remember when I fact checked hard on Lisa Iannattone, the Canadian dermatologist, for fear mongering about monkeypox. She baselessly insisted healthcare workers were at risk and should get the vax 1st. Then she unleashed her furious followers on me. It was when I was very ill from chemo at the time—I mean, just other-worldly sick—and my head nearly exploded. And can I just say that I remained right about the health care workers being at very, very little risk?
What Alejandra Caraballo falsely describes as my being “unhinged,” I call dogged fact checking of someone who would not stop telling falsehoods about the Cass Review, even when fact checked by Hilary Cass herself. Image
Read 9 tweets
Apr 26
The British trans charity Mermaids was exposed as having put undue pressure on the GIDS pediatric gender clinic. Now @Mermaids_Gender responds to Cass Review: Instead of calling out the misinformation about activists attacking the report, Mermaids complains of misinformation going in the other direction.
mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/mermaids-…Image
Mermaids accuses the 388-page Cass Review of not being written in accessible language or of being clear enough: "We are deeply frustrated with the lack of clarity throughout the report, which has enabled wilful misinterpretation and the spread of harmful misinformation. Clear and accessible language is vital, especially when services are operating in a context where there is significant hostility to and misconceptions about trans people, particularly in the media." mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/mermaids-…Image
Mermaids says of the Cass Review: "As well as this lack of clarity, young people have told us that they are frustrated by the report’s desire to pinpoint a “cause” for trans young people to be open about who they are and are worried that it may be interpreted to limit social transition, particularly in schools."Image
Read 6 tweets
Apr 26
Dr. Hilary Cass issues her likely last essay on the Cass Review website, in which she chastises "assertions being made on social media, and occasionally on mainstream broadcast media, which misrepresent the report and its findings, whether willfully or otherwise. Whilst some commentators have tried to debunk these misrepresentations, we live in a world where misinformation, when left unchallenged, becomes part of an accepted narrative regardless of its validity."
cass.independent-review.uk/entry-10-post-…Image
I have myself worked hard to debunk the many false assertions made by activists such as Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_, Erin Reed @ErinInTheMorn and Mallory Moore @Chican3ry.
Thanks to those of you who have helped in setting the record straight that, no, neither the systematic literature reviews nor the Cass Review simply "disregarded," "discarded" or "threw out" most of the available research about pediatric gender-transition treatment.
Read 21 tweets
Apr 26
Whereas Michael Hobbes and @JesseSingal are arguing whether 7 clinic visits is fast or slow before referring a gender-distressed child to an endocrinologist for puberty blockers, transfeminine jurist Florence Ashley thinks children should proceed to the endo with no assessment.
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@jessesingal According to a recent review paper by UCL neuropsychologist Sallie Baxendale, the neuropsychiatric impacts of puberty blockers when used to delay puberty past its natural point among gender distressed children remain unknown. The Cass Review seconded this.
"Critical questions remain unanswered regarding the nature, extent and permanence of any arrested development of cognitive function associated with puberty blockers. The impact of puberal suppression on measures of neuropsychological function is an urgent research priority."
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38334046/Image
Read 4 tweets

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