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Benjamin Ryan

@benryanwriter

Jul 10, 2024 • 23 tweets • 9 min read • Read on X

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‘Damning’ Information About Trans Medical Group Expected To Reach Supreme Court, as Justices Consider Challenge to Ban on Gender Treatments for Minors
🧵⬇️I report for the @NewYorkSun: Unsealed internal communications from the trans medical organization @WPATH will likely undermine pediatric gender-transition treatment in litigation, including a Supreme Court case.

‘Damning’ Information About Trans Medical Group Expected To Reach Supreme Court, as Justices Consider Challenge to Ban on Gender Treatments for Minors
nysun.com/article/damnin…

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health is tasked with promoting and defending access to gender-transition treatment for minors. Amid a storm of litigation over these practices @WPATH’s leaders now find that their own words threaten to undermine this mission.

Last month, a federal court began unsealing an abundance of subpoenaed internal communications among top @WPATH members. The docs concern Wpath’s recent revision of the chapters in its trans-medical-care guidelines concerning pediatrics, or medical care for children and teens.

Wpath’s once-secret maneuverings, now laid bare, have only just begun to backfire. The explosive contents of the unsealed communications are expected to impact the litigation that will determine the future of pediatric gender medicine , including a SCOTUS ruling next term.

Erica Anderson, a psychologist, transgender woman, and former head of Wpath’s American branch, characterized the recent disclosures as “damaging” to @WPATH. @eanderh nysun.com/article/damnin…

Why did @WPATH remove all the age limits on pediatric gender-transition treatment in its 2022 revision on its treatment guidelines? Internal comms unsealed in an AL court case suggest HHS official Rachel Levine, the @AmerAcadPeds and @Trevor_Project all pressured WPATH to do so.

Even as she pressured @WPATH to remove age limits on pediatric gender-transition treatment for political reasons, Rachel Levine touted WPATH as the go-to source for evidence-based guide to such care and said that laws banning such treatment were all politically based.

WPATH published its new transgender treatment guidelines on Sept. 10, 2022, and later that same day removed the age limits on pediatric gender-transition treatment. This was in the immediate wake of the @AmerAcadPeds and the @Trevor_Project pressuring them to do so.

The documents unsealed in the Alabama court case that have so damaged @WPATH's credibility as a science-based organization removed from politics have already started to show up in litigation.
nysun.com/article/damnin…

In private, at least some @WPATH members have acknowledged that the evidence behind some of their treatment recommendations is wanting. But in public the organization has said the opposite. nysun.com/article/damnin…

Eli Coleman, who headed up @WPATH's revision of its treatment guidelines, issued a full-throated denial of the suggestions of a trove of internal communications from the organization that were recently unsealed. nysun.com/article/damnin…

How might the unsealed @WPATH communications impact the Supreme Court case about Tennessee's pediatric gender-transition ban next term? I spoke with TN's attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, for the @NewYorkSun: nysun.com/article/damnin…

The internal @WPATH documents are also expected to aid the plaintiffs in the approximately 20 medical-malpractice lawsuits waged by detransitioners against their former care providers.

The unsealed @WPATH communications are expected to aid in the conspiracy suit against the @AmerAcadPeds. One WPATH member was particularly scornful of the AAP's 2018 policy statement on the gender-affirming care method. nysun.com/article/damnin…

Roger Brooks of the Alliance Defending Freedom said he expected the Alabama documents would have an even greater impact on future detransitioner lawsuits, by undermining physicians’ arguments that they were acting in good faith by following WPATH’s guidelines.

Psychologist Erica Anderson, who positioned herself as WPATH’s Cassandra some years ago, having sought to warn her colleagues that they were steering the organization in a perilous direction, reflected over what it has meant to have, as she sees it, been proved right.

“Many who know of my historic efforts to stem the tide of ideology have proclaimed that I should feel vindicated, but I cannot be consoled,” Dr. Anderson said.

“I am heartsick.”
nysun.com/article/damnin…

The internal @WPATH communications in the Alabama suit over the state's pediatric gender-transition treatment ban also suggested that WPATH coordinated on the drafting of its 2022 trans-care guidelines update with the @ACLU, which is behind many of the lawsuits seeking to overturn the bans of the treatment that WPATH recommended in those guidelines. nysun.com/article/damnin…

nysun.com/article/damnin…

Here is my coverage for the @NewYorkSun about the detransitioner lawsuit against the @AmerAcadPeds: nysun.com/article/lawsui…

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1806753484114481646

@NewYorkSun @AmerAcadPeds

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1806753484114481646

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1806257503966994654

@NewYorkSun @AmerAcadPeds

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1806257503966994654

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1805440452729995398

@NewYorkSun @AmerAcadPeds

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1805440452729995398

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More from @benryanwriter

Benjamin Ryan

@benryanwriter

Apr 28

Taylor Lorenz publishes effective advertorial

In @TaylorLorenz’s new Substack, she used Panagram to detect how many top Substackers are using AI to produce their articles, in an apparent effort to criticize their ethics.

Panagram sponsored Lorenz’s Substack, revealing that it is effectively an advertorial. She doesn’t make a note of this sponsorship until the very end of her article.

This comes after Lorenz was widely criticized for posting a free ad for The Bark Phone, which is parental-control software for a children’s smartphone. In the ad, Lorenz touted smartphones as good for kids because they help kids express themselves.

Should a tech journalist such as @TaylorLorenz weave sponsorship of tech products into her reporting thanks to receiving payments from tech companies? That’s what Lorenz did here with Panagram:
usermag.co/p/how-much-of-…

@TaylorLorenz When magazines run advertorials, they typically change the layout to make abundantly clear that this is sponsored content. The disclaimer about it being sponsored content is typically at the top of the text, not buried at the very end, as Lorenz has done.

Read 7 tweets

Benjamin Ryan

@benryanwriter

Apr 26

In Erin Reed’s chat group, people debate whether it would be better to attend this Sunday conference panel of four skeptics of pediatric gender medicine and ask pointed questions, boycott it, or disrupt it with boos. Frank Dowling, who refers to the group as “frauds”, was among the AMA members whose LGBTQ message board posts I quoted from in my reporting for @thefp about how members reacted to the organization coming out against youth gender surgeries: thefp.com/p/the-medical-…

Same guy: thefp.com/p/the-medical-…

Psychiatrist Frank Dowling advocates disrupting Sunday’s conference panel from the pediatric gender medicine skeptics:

Read 6 tweets

Benjamin Ryan

@benryanwriter

Apr 24

Controversial Pediatric Gender Panel Draws Trans-Activist Push for Cancellation
benryan.substack.com/p/transgender-…
Trans-activist Substacker Erin Reed has prompted an uproar over a panel of skeptics of pediatric gender medicine slated for Sunday at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Boston.

Transgender activists and their allies are in an uproar over an upcoming medical-conference panel concerning pediatric gender medicine that features skeptics of this field whom activists accuse of being anti-trans.

Since the prominent trans-activist Substacker Erin Reed published an article about the panel on Tuesday, conference organizers have apparently been inundated with tens of thousands of emails demanding it cancel the panel, in particular due to the panelists’ connections to a small nonprofit known as the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, or @SEGM_EBM.

This burgeoning deplatforming campaign raises questions about the place that the free exercise of scientific ideas has within a medical field as peerlessly politicized as pediatric gender medicine. As transgender activists seek to shut down what they argue are toxic fringe positions akin to climate-change deniers, a relatively small but determined collection of scientific and medical experts have remained committed to publicly scrutinizing this field and defending themselves against what they say are baseless accusations that their perspectives are rooted in bigotry and animus.

Many of you will be surprised to learn that Erin Reed has a habit of publishing claims about her adversaries that are not firmly nestled in a bed of truth. open.substack.com/pub/benryan/p/…

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/2048518723720343782

Update:

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/2048518723720343782

Read 4 tweets

Benjamin Ryan

@benryanwriter

Apr 9

https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/2041856288234025373

About Health Nerd's take-down of the Finnish study on mental health outcomes among youth attending gender clinics
🧵👇
The study isn't perfect by any means. There are fair reasons to criticize it. But Health Nerd's central thesis falls apart upon the simplest examination.

I find it very disappointing when people leverage their academic credentials to supposedly bust bad science or misinformation but only wind up spreading more misinformation in the process. Where are we these days if we can't trust people to use their credentials wisely and inspire trust in those with advanced degrees?

I've tried explaining to Health Nerd what he got wrong, to no avail. It was like arguing with a character in a Lewis Caroll poem.

See the thread below.

https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/2041856288234025373

Health Nerd's argument depends on redefining the study’s outcome variable as “how many times kids saw a psychiatrist for any problem.” No, that's not what the paper measures. It measures contacts with specialist-level psychiatric treatment. In Finland, that is referral-based care generally reserved for more serious mental illness. Milder mental health problems are handled in primary care. gidmk.substack.com/p/does-gender-…

That distinction between primary-care services and specialist psych care matters. It's the reason the authors use this variable in the first place. It's not a measure of casual or routine mental health visits.

Read 14 tweets

Benjamin Ryan

@benryanwriter

Apr 3

Queer editor James Ball declares Bluesky a “dying social network,” blaming aggressive censoriousness by Blueskyites of perceived ideological enemies:

“There's a large cadre that basically cheers on chasing off any lib/centrist/academic who's the punchbag of the day. There's a culture of saying ‘fuck off back to X, then.’ And the anti- bedtime leftists set too much of the culture.

“I don't know if it's fixable, especially as I think quite a lot of the people here don't *want* to fix it. But at the rate users are quitting they'll run out of targets soon enough, and the rest of us will lose what is – for a fair few of us I suspect – the last fun/useful social network. Sigh.”

More from James about Bluesky’s demise:

The grim Bluesky stats. Turns out echo chambers are not big business.

Read 8 tweets

Benjamin Ryan

@benryanwriter

Apr 1

HOW GENDER MEDICINE SET ITSELF UP FOR DISASTER

For @CompactMag, I report on what the 100s of WPATH conference videos I obtained tell us about this troubled field: compactmag.com/article/how-ge…

👉I 'll be publishing the conference videos on my Substack: benryan.substack.com/p/i-obtained-1…

As I write for Compact magazine:

This catalogue, which the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, fought to keep shielded, provides a rich account of how leading figures in pediatric gender medicine approached scientific research, drove the evolution of medical practices, and strategized politically during a critical turning point in this field’s brief and tortured history. The two years following Chase Strangio’s 2021 address were a period in which statehouse Republicans escalated their attacks on this field. The WPATH conference presenters largely responded to the political siege by doubling down. Rather than engage in soul searching over whether their methods in pediatrics were ethically sound and whether any criticisms had merit, they overwhelmingly stuck to their guns.

Presenters frequently downplayed fundamental hazards about irrevocably altering adolescents’ bodies. Meanwhile, a parade of systematic reviews—the gold standard of scientific evidence—was concluding that the evidencebacking pediatric gender medicine is weak and inconclusive. These findings have led health authorities in a number of European nations, concerned about risks such as infertility, to reverse course. They reclassified pediatric gender-transition interventions as experimental and sharply restricted minors’ access.

Not WPATH. The organization remained on an inexorable trajectory in the opposite direction, toward its eventual head-on collision with the second Trump administration.

For highlight clips, see the 🧵👇

Kellan Baker counseled against saying “gender-affirming care.” Messaging research indicated that when people hear it, he said, “they think ‘trans kids in the driver’s seat.’” But he said this was an accurate assessment. “I think we all support trans kids in the driver’s seat because it’s their bodies, it’s their lives,” he said.

“But when you think about folks who don’t know trans people, they are very scared by the idea that young people are making irreversible decisions and that no one else has any oversight over those decisions.”

To read my article in @CompactMag about the 100s of videos I obtained from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and its US offshoot, USPATH: compactmag.com/article/how-ge…

I will be publishing the most notable conference videos on my Subsack: benryan.substack.com/p/i-obtained-1…

Johanna Olson-Kennedy: “I think that a lot of this conversation...gets talked about through a lens of ‘How can we make sure people are really trans,’ right? And ‘They’re not going to regret their decision later?’” But “that’s actually not the discussion that I’m interested in participating in," she said. "I’m interested in discussing and having a conversation about giving the very best possible care to trans young people—the care that they need and deserve.”

To read my article in @CompactMag about the 100s of videos I obtained from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and its US offshoot, USPATH: compactmag.com/article/how-ge…

I will be publishing the most notable conference videos on my Subsack: benryan.substack.com/p/i-obtained-1…