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."
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 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.
Here is the email in which Dr. Katy Gast refused to provide me a PDF of her paper finding low regret rates following gender-transition treatment. This is an unheard of refusal for me as a science reporter.
The title of Dr. Gast’s paper is:
“A Systematic Review of Patient Regret After Surgery- A Common Phenomenon in Many Specialties but Rare Within Gender-Affirmation Surgery”
Here @LeorSapir critiques the new paper reporting low regret rates following gender-transition surgery. A major problem with such studies is loss to follow-up. The investigators do not capture the full numerator.
To read my reporting on detransitioner lawsuits against medical providers and the @AmerAcadPeds for the @NewYorkSun see: benryan.net/the-new-york-s…
@AmerAcadPeds @NewYorkSun Psychologist @JamesCantorPhD says that the very title of this paper, specifically the fact that it calls itself a systematic literature review, is an error warranting not just a correction but a retraction by the journal.
For those just joining the thread, here is the paper that @JamesCantorPhD said is not a systematic literature review.
A Systematic Review of Patient Regret After Surgery- A Common Phenomenon in Many Specialties but Rare Within Gender-Affirmation Surgery americanjournalofsurgery.com/article/S0002-…
@AmerAcadPeds @NewYorkSun @JamesCantorPhD Here is another critique of the paper about post-gender transition regret, by @JLCederblom, who does not mince words or pull punches. JL accuses the authors of not reading some of the literature they analyzed, given their apparent misinterpretations. medium.com/@JLCederblom/a…
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The Cass Effect
A landmark report properly emphasises the application of science, not slogans, in establishing treatment protocols for trans-identified children, by the @Quillette editorial board.
"The need for an authoritative and objective assessment of medical practices in this area has been obvious for years, notwithstanding oft-repeated reassurances that therapists and doctors have no higher duty than to simply “affirm” the asserted identities of trans-identified children. Doing otherwise, we’ve been instructed by professional organisations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), would endanger the emotional health of gender dysphoric children, and possibly even drive them to suicide. But, as Dr Cass shows, this morbid rhetoric doesn’t accurately reflect the available evidence. And her analysis should serve to inform policy-reform efforts all over the world."
The @Quillette editorial board writes of the Cass Review:
"The need for an authoritative and objective assessment of medical practices in this area has been obvious for years, notwithstanding oft-repeated reassurances that therapists and doctors have no higher duty than to simply “affirm” the asserted identities of trans-identified children. Doing otherwise, we’ve been instructed by professional organisations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), would endanger the emotional health of gender dysphoric children, and possibly even drive them to suicide. But, as Dr Cass shows, this morbid rhetoric doesn’t accurately reflect the available evidence. And her analysis should serve to inform policy-reform efforts all over the world." quillette.com/2024/04/29/dr-…
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".
Update: She deleted the tweet about 2 minutes after she posted it.
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.
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.
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.
Fact checking errors stated by public figures about matters of importance is not “complaining.”
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-…
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-…
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."
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-…
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.