New Figures on Kids Seeking Gender-Transition Care:
🧵A new study analyzing insurance-claims data found that in 2023, there were at least 42,136 minors who were "seeking gender-affirming care."

This does not necessarily mean these children were all receiving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, but that insurance codes indicated they had a “cross-gender identification” and thus were seeking some form of gender-transition treatment (I suppose it's possible some such claims could be for mental-health treatment only and not for blockers and hormones), or a “personal history of sex reassignment.” A separate, recent analysis found:
At Least 14,000 U.S. Minors Have Received Gender-Transition Treatment or Surgeries In 5 Years, With Docs Billing $120 million
This is a conservative estimate from a new, comprehensive analysis of insurance-claims data by the advocacy nonprofit Do No Harm, which opposes such treatment for minors. benryan.substack.com/p/at-least-140…

SCOOP: ‘Shocking’ and ‘Reckless’—Top Gender Clinic Assesses Kids For Gender-Transition Treatments in Just 2 Hours
🧵I report for @NewYorkSun: @BostonChildrens slashed the time slated for psychologists to assess and write a report on kids seeking gender-transition treatment from 20 hours to 2.5 hours, alarming experts. 🧵LINK: ‘Shocking’ and ‘Reckless’: Top Gender Clinic Assesses Children for Gender-Altering Medical Treatments in Just 2 Hours, Lawsuit Lays Bare, I report for The @NewYorkSun.
nysun.com/article/shocki…

Because Harvard Law School clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ can't defend the falsehoods she utters when I fact check them, she instead resorts to ad hominem attacks. Her go-to smears of me are that I am creepy, obsessive and a pervert. These are not the claims of a serious person. The reason I fact check Harvard Law School clinical instructor and activist Alejandra Caraballo is because she has a wide platform and the falsehoods she tells about pediatric gender medicine have an impact. She was centrally responsible for spreading the false claim that the Cass Review discarded all non-randomized controlled trials. Hilary Cass later denounced the misinformation that she and Mallory Moore spread and said it was harming children.

The use of puberty blockers for precocious puberty was not sold by the medical establishment as having a mental health benefit.

The drugs' use for pediatric gender dysphoria was sold as having a mental health benefit. This pitch helped spawn an entire global medical field. This is the 2011 Dutch study that helped spawn the global pediatric gender medicine field, given its findings that puberty blockers for gender dysphoric minors were tied to mental health benefits: "Behavioral and emotional problems and depressive symptoms decreased, while general functioning improved significantly during puberty suppression."
It found: "pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20646177/

The Global Pediatric Medicine Field Has a Clear Habit Of Hiding—And Discouraging—Inconvenient Research Findings
🧵I report: What NYT reported about Johanna Olson-Kennedy sitting on her null findings on puberty blockers is but one such story in a field in which many researchers prioritize the mission over honest science. LINK: The Global Pediatric Medicine Field Has a Clear Habit Of Hiding—And Discouraging—Inconvenient Research Findings
benryan.substack.com/p/the-global-p…

NEWS: U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because of Politics, Doctor Says
The leader of the long-running study said that the drugs did not improve mental health in children with gender distress and that the finding might be weaponized by opponents of the care.

An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment.

The doctor, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, began the study in 2015 as part of a broader, multimillion-dollar federal project on transgender youth. She and colleagues recruited 95 children from across the country and gave them puberty blockers, which sthttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/science/puberty-blockers-olson-kennedy.htmlave off the permanent physical changes — like breasts or a deepening voice — that could exacerbate their gender distress, known as dysphoria.

The researchers followed the children for two years to see if the treatments improved their mental health. An older Dutch study had found that puberty blockers improved well-being, results that inspired clinics around the world to regularly prescribe the medications as part of what is now called gender-affirming care.

But the American trial did not find a similar trend, Dr. Olson-Kennedy said in a wide-ranging interview. Puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements, she said, most likely because the children were already doing well when the study began. nytimes.com/2024/10/23/sci…

Pain, confusion and compassion: How the US has reached a trans ‘tipping point’
I report for @NYPost. See the🧵⬇️ LINK: Pain, confusion and compassion: How the US has reached a trans ‘tipping point’
I report for @NYPost: 🧵⬇️
nypost.com/2024/10/19/us-…

BREAKING: The State of Texas has sued Dr. May C Lau, a pediatrician at UT Southwestern for allegedly prescribing testosterone to at least 21 natal girls under the age of 18 contrary to state law.

🧵The stage alleges Dr. Lau "has engaged in deceptive trade practices, including by misleading pharmacies, insurance providers, and/or patients by falsifying medical records, prescriptions, and billing records to represent that her testosterone prescriptions are for something other than transitioning a child’s biological sex or affirming a child’s belief that their gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex."
The state of Texas alleges that since the state's ban of pediatric gender-transition treatment went into effect, Dr. May C. Lau, "has violated the law by providing, prescribing, administering, or dispensing testosterone to minor patients for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex or affirming their belief that their gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex."

Dr. Lau is a pediatrician at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (“UT Southwestern”) in Dallas, Texas, who holds hospital privileges at Childrens Medical Center Dallas and Children’s Medical Center Plano.
texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/…

🧵Minors cannot consent to receiving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, which pose the risk of rendering them infertile and with lifelong sexual dysfunction. They are too young to be able to predict their future fertility desires or even to know how an orgasm feels and to be able to weigh those future needs against their desire to treat their current gender dysphoria. Only their parents or guardians may consent on their behalf. Therefore adults must decide on behalf of children whether the presumed benefits of this treatment outweigh the risks, known and unknown. These decisions must be made even with an evidence base that can provide no clear conclusions as to the actual benefits of treatment, according to a half-dozen systematic literature reviews—the gold standard of scientific evidence. Also, the one study that directly assessed whether these treatments were tied to a difference in the suicide death rate found they were not. Therefore the claim that the treatments are a matter of life and death is not evidence-based. @KristopherWells makes such a claim despite being an academic who is well versed in evidence-based-medicine principles. @tylerblack32 Here is Marci Bowers, the president of @WPATH, describing how natal males with gender dysphoria who under go pubertal suppression and estrogen treatment have no sexual function whatsoever. This child was going in for a vaginoplasty and didn’t even know what an orgasm was. alabamaag.gov/wp-content/upl…

The summary of the argument in the Alabama attorney general’s scathing amicus brief to the Supreme Court regarding the case over Tennessee’s pediatric gender-transition treatment. The document rakes @WPATH over the coals. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/2…

🚨Fact Check🚨
Activist-blogger Erin Reed has made a series of *false claims* about pediatric gender-transition surgeries.
Here are the actual facts:
▶️Only 2 states had no such surgeries from 2019-2023: Alaska and Wyoming, per @DoNoHarm.
▶️At least 5,747 minors had such surgeries during this time in the U.S., per DNH.
▶️Kentucky had 25 such surgeries.
▶️26 states have recently banned such surgeries, which is the only reason why by 2023 most weren’t performing them, including KY.
▶️@LeorSapir estimates that from 2017-2023, 5,288 to 6,294 minor natal girls got double mastectomies for gender dysphoria-related diagnoses.

Therefore, these surgeries are absolutely not “extremely rare,” as @ErinInTheMorn claims, in particular considering that Do No Harm and Sapir’s estimates are each very conservative. The true figures are likely quite a bit higher.

The only reason why such surgeries are “not a thing” in Kentucky is because the state banned them and the law ended such surgeries only last year. open.substack.com/pub/benryan/p/…

This is from a Canadian senator. Sallie Baxendale’s review paper on puberty blockers found that much remains unknown about their neuropsychiatric impacts. And while blockers do not sterilize, starting them at puberty’s immediate onset and then starting cross-sex hormones raises the risk of infertility, in particular for natal males. Without a male puberty, their testicles might never produce viable sperm. This introduces an ethical dilemma, because puberty can start for natal males as young as 11 or 12. Is such a child ready to make this decision? And would the puberty blocker prevent the cognitive advancement of puberty that would lend them the maturity to be able to decide? telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/1…

The AAP Files: Inside Feud Within American Academy of Pediatrics, Torn Over Transgender Issues, About Group’s Decision To Hold Meeting in ‘Anti-LGBTQ’ Florida of Ron DeSantis
🧵My investigation for @NewYorkSun, based on hundreds of internal @AmerAcadPeds emails obtained via public-records requests: "By contrast, the AAP has tapped Biden health official Rachel Levine as a keynote speaker, even after revelations that they both meddled in the drafting of another organization’s transgender-care guidelines." PAYWALL-FREE LINK:
The AAP Files: Inside Feud Within American Academy of Pediatrics, Torn Over Transgender Issues, About Group’s Decision To Hold Meeting in ‘Anti-LGBTQ’ Florida of Ron DeSantis
Rachel Levine is the keynote speaker.
nysun.com/article/the-aa…

NEWS: 20 Republican State Attorneys General Send Aggressive and Probing Letter to the American Academy of Pediatrics Regarding Its Policies on Pediatric Gender Transition Treatment
The letter suggests that the the @AmerAcadPeds may not be in compliance with state consumer protection laws due to claims made in its 2018 policy statement on the gender-affirming care method, written by Brown University's Dr. Jason Rafferty.

The letter poses 14 questions to the AAP and suggests that the AGs may ultimately sue the organization. In particular, it calls the AAP's claim that puberty blockers are reversible "misleading and deceptive."

Dr. Rafferty and the AAP have already been sued by a detransitioner who alleges that they engaged in a conspiracy to craft the 2018 policy document while using her, her suit alleges, essentially as a guinea pig. The suit alleges that the policy document, which has been subjected to a scathing critique by Canadian psychologist James Cantor, is not evidence based. Source:
scribd.com/document/77256…

New Evidence Challenges Institutionalized Belief That Transgender Teens Become Transgender Adults, Undermining Core Defense of Medical Gender Transitions for Minors

🧵New from me for @NewYorkSun:
A pair of analyses of insurance-claims data each found that the majority of youths diagnosed with gender-related distress saw that diagnosis vanish from their medical chart within six years. LINK:

New Evidence Challenges Institutionalized Belief That Transgender Teens Become Transgender Adults, Undermining Core Defense of Medical Gender Transitions for Minors

nysun.com/article/new-ev…

This @STATNews piece includes copious criticism for Michael Bailey @profjmb for publishing a paper on possible rapid-onset gender dysphoria that didn't survey trans people, and yet fails to mention that Bailey just launched a new study to do just that.
statnews.com/2024/09/18/tra… Here is the very important context that @STATNews failed to mention:
Controversial Gender Researchers Launch Long-Term Study of Gender Dysphoric Youth and Their Parents
benryan.substack.com/p/controversia…

Controversial Gender Researchers Launch Long-Term Study of Gender Dysphoric Youth and Their Parents
I report 🧵⬇️:Branded as gender heretics by the pediatric gender-medicine establishment and transgender-rights activists, Michael Bailey @profjmb, Dr. Lisa Littman @LisaLittman1, and Kenneth Zucker say they "won't be intimidated." LINK:
Controversial Gender Researchers Launch Long-Term Study of Gender Dysphoric Youth and Their Parents
benryan.substack.com/p/controversia…

The Association of Health Care Journalists Has Published a Highly Misleading Primer on Covering Trans Issues
One would hope that this leader in promoting fine health and science journalism would do better. See the 🧵for 🚨fact checks🚨. ⬇️⬇️ LINK:
The Association of Health Care Journalists Has Published a Highly Misleading Primer on Covering Transgender Medicine
One would hope that this leader in promoting fine health and science journalism would do better.
open.substack.com/pub/benryan/p/…

This is the Chinese professor who seriously violated ethical norms when he covertly edited the genomes of two babies to provide them with a natural resistance to HIV in their immune cells. This despite the fact that these children would not likely ever be exposed to the virus and thus had no practical use for this genetic mutation, which is found in about 1% of those of exclusively Northern European ancestry. Dr. He was sentenced to 3 years in jail. Now he is apparently trying to play hardball with the medical publishing world: I covered Dr. He's research for @POZMagazine: poz.com/article/chines…

NEWS: Adolescent Gender Dysphoria Is a Temporary Diagnosis for Most Teens
🧵: @LeorSapir of @ManhattanInst reports: The rate of persistence of the gender dysphoria diagnosis for youth over 7 years is 42%-50%, with the trend line suggesting likely future declines. Sapir argues that a GD diagnosis in adolescence is an unreliable basis for medical interventions. city-journal.org/article/adoles…

How Harvard Teed Up the False Claim That the 'Vast Majority of Minors Getting Gender-Affirming Surgeries Are C-s Kids'
🧵: I report: An opaquely written @Harvard press release prompted false reporting that gynecomastia surgeries for boys are vastly more common than gender-affirming surgeries for trans kids. How Harvard Teed Up the False Claim That the 'Vast Majority of Minors Getting Gender-Affirming Surgeries Are C-s Kids'
benryan.substack.com/p/how-harvard-…