Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Leor Sapir Profile picture
@LeorSapir
Oct 23, 2024 • 11 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
NEW: Azeen Ghorayshi reports in the @nytimes that prominent gender clinician Johanna Olson-Kennedy of @ChildrensLA has refused to publish data from a study on puberty blockers, fearing that the unimpressive results will be "weaponized" by critics of "gender-affirming care." 🧵 Image
Olson-Kennedy told the Times that the kids didn't improve because their mental health was "in really good shape" at the start of the study.

As Ghorayshi notes, this seems to contradict what Olson-Kennedy et al. reported in 2022 about the study's cohort at baseline. Image
Olson-Kennedy fears the study's results could be cited by critics of pediatric sex "change" in court cases. She doesn't seem to think that, as a medical researcher and clinician, her primary responsibility is to her current and future patients.

Doctors as agents of lawfare. Image
Ghorayshi's report is helpful in holding members of the gender Rx industry accountable, but it also has at least three problems.
First, Ghorayshi mentions the reported findings of the Dutch puberty blocking study but not the highly important critique of those findings, nor that systematic reviews (e.g., NICE 2020) have found it to be unreliable due to risk of bias.

More here: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…Image
Second, Ghorayshi mentions the reported findings of the NIH-funded cross-sex hormone study but doesn't mention that the boys showed no improvement while the girls' improvement was very small. Nor does she mention the authors' HARK-ing and goalpost shifting. Critical problems. Image
I discuss these issues re: the NIH study in our recent amicus brief: supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/2…

Jesse Singal has also written about the NIH study at length.

Part 1: jessesingal.substack.com/p/on-scientifi…

Part 2: jessesingal.substack.com/p/the-new-high… Image
Image
Image
Finally, it's disappointing to see the Times continue to refer to the kids given Rx as "transgender adolescents." This isn't a neutral term. Whether these kids "are transgender," or what it means to say such a thing, is half the debate in a nutshell.
Neutral terms for journalists who want to remain independent of the controversy and not (intentionally or unintentionally) put their thumb on the scale:

Adolescents with gender dysphoria.
Adolescents who identify as transgender.
The article in the New York Times: nytimes.com/2024/10/23/sci…
x.com/benryanwriter/… x.com/benryanwriter/…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Leor Sapir

Leor Sapir Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @LeorSapir

Leor Sapir Profile picture
May 6
I'm often asked: “What makes pediatric gender doctors do what they do?"

Good question.

Here are 9 overlooked factors, to add to the obvious one: ideological agreement with the “gender-affirming” outlook.

These are unsystematic observations, so take with a grain of salt. 🧵
1. Lack of experience. Early-career doctors lack clinical experience, a critical corrective mechanism to the abstractions they absorb in the classroom. Also, being young, they typically don’t have kids themselves and therefore have not experienced the ways of developmentally typical children and teens. If a young clinician lacks these experiences but constantly sees trans-identified patients, it's easy to see how s/he would have a skewed understanding of human sexual development.
2. Action bias. Medicine—and, some would argue, most of healing—often consists of not doing anything, counting on the body’s natural tendency to heal itself while watchfully waiting to see if/when intervention is needed. For adolescents in the throes of puberty, time and experience typically build resilience and mitigate distress. It’s tempting for inexperienced healers to want to “do something” and to equate inaction with not helping or even harming.
Read 11 tweets
Leor Sapir Profile picture
Apr 29
Even liberal commentators now realize that the Southern Poverty Law Center is little more than a smear machine.

But it's more than that. It's a vital component in the left-wing policy network encompassing epistemic institutions, media, and parts of the Democratic Party. 🧵
Pediatric gender medicine is an example. A 2023 SPLC report claimed to find that the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), an organization focused on scrutinizing the evidence base for pediatric transition, is a "hate group" and the "hub" of misinformation. Image
Dig into the report and you'll find that the basis of this allegation is the fact that SEGM disagrees with purported medical authorities claiming that "gender-affirming care" is backed by good evidence. (SEGM's position is confirmed by every systematic review to date.)
Read 8 tweets
Leor Sapir Profile picture
Mar 27
BREAKING: The New York Times (@nytimes) has just called out the Chair of the Board of the American Medical Association (@AmerMedicalAssn), Dr. David Aizuss (@lasereyedoc), for misrepresenting his organization's recent media statements on pediatric gender medicine.

Here's what happened🧵Image
On February 3, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (@ASPS_News) published its policy statement acknowledging the low quality of evidence for hormones and surgeries in <19 and recommending that surgeries be deferred to age 19+. Image
The following day, the American Medical Association told National Review (@NRO) and the New York Times (@nytimes) that it agreed with ASPS on surgeries.

Here is what the AMA's communications officer, Joshua Zembik, told the NYT: Image
Read 6 tweets
Leor Sapir Profile picture
Mar 3
Two articles came out today on pediatric gender medicine and its current political context.

Both are worth reading🧵
In @TheAtlantic, @benappel writes about the difficulties growing up as an effeminate boy. He would later discover that so-called "progressives" were now nudging effeminate boys to interpret their feelings of difference as evidence that they are really girls. Image
Appel calls for an honest conversation among liberals of how a regressive outlook, now fueling a medical practice, has managed to pass itself off as progressive. And he calls for greater tolerance for gender nonconformity in boys from liberals and conservatives.

(Link below)
Read 7 tweets
Leor Sapir Profile picture
Feb 24
NEW: “I’ve been covering this controversy for about a decade from a left-of-center perspective, and I’ve found that anyone who questions these treatments, even mildly, is invariably accused of bigotry.”

🧵on @jessesingal’s important new piece in the New York Times this morning. Image
For years, LGBT organizations insisted that the science of youth gender medicine was settled, citing an apparent consensus of medical associations. Image
Now that the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has backed away from gender surgeries in <19, with the American Medical Association endorsing the move, there is no longer a consensus. The ASPS also acknowledged the lack of supportive evidence for hormones. Image
Read 8 tweets
Leor Sapir Profile picture
Feb 18
🚨A group of 106 members of Congress wrote a letter to Secretary of HHS RJK, Jr., criticizing the Department's efforts to roll back what they call "medically necessary, evidence-based care" in the form of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones (but not surgeries). 🧵 Image
With surgeries unmentioned, the authors say that endocrine interventions are supported by "every major medical and mental health association in the U.S." Image
Astoundingly, they claim that "numerous studies and systematic reviews... have confirmed the safety, efficacy, and benefits" of these interventions.

Their only citation is the Utah report, which is not a systematic review.

See, e.g., Section 2.4 here: opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/…Image
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(