Perhaps things might be finally coming to a head? Aside from 4thwave and gendertrender, questions of concern have been steadily cropping up. Of course we may be wrong and end up on the wrong side like incidents past (video games create killers, child abuse cults etc), but for the now the posed question seems appropriate: what evidence do they have to back up their claims?
I have been digging into papers and interviews by Blanchard, Cantor and Zucker in order to understand the topic better, and despite acitivist screaming that they are conservative bigots, they seem far from it. More importantly they can actually back up their assertions, such as the HSTS/AGP classification and that HSTS could be seen as an extreme form of homosexual sex differentiation, based on cohort studies going back decades and across multiple countries.
In the medical field it really seems to be a battle over whose theories are in the right direction and Zucker et al seem to be drawing the short end of the stick as the other side had the (initial) public backing thanks to all those activist orgs. But tables might be turning. (Ill link the interviews in a bit, they are quite interesting)
What does Mermaids have, or to put it more crass institutions such as Tavistock, Karolinska institute and all those informed consent clinics in the US, in order to justify puberty blockers, the cross sex hormones in minors and pushing the age limit down?
Apparently very little from what I can find (Biggs does a lot of research on this, I highly recommend his critical analysis, actually someone in the field of sociology doing something decent) and what is more baffling there is a disconcerting lack of studies being carried out on our current "guinea pig" cohort in order to verify whether it actually helps/harms, leave alone the long term effects.
WPATH also seems to be full of shit, just a large organisation posing with the veneer of a professional convention. Lisa MacRichards has been combing through the guidelines and the references and claims are spurious or blatantly false. Our dear Marci Bowers is also on the board and it is rightly pointed out that most of these people have severe conflicts of interest.
Cantor had a look at the American AAP guideline and to my disbelief he found that there are several instances of them taking positions and referencing a paper that concludes the exact opposite. The entire thing seems to be hellbent on the affirmative approach despite everything.
Also this Swedish Doc in
part I and
part II examines the whole thing with a critical lens, while also presenting several transgender people in a dignified and sympathetic light (some of you really may hate any type of T, but I am sympathetic to their plight).
They showcase a ROGD case, but also a HSTS who has regret; both were just really intent on the treatment in order to fix their problems. Just awful, I really felt bad for them.
We also had a documentary (
for Dutch speaking Kiwis) here about a Dutch HSTS with regret, really tragic and he also initially disappeared from follow-up due to shame. Transition regret really warrants proper research as most people disappear afterwards and therefore not known for certain how they are doing.
The documentary also notes that some very absolute claims are made in bills and guidelines and when pressed on it, the experts and politicians back away by noting that the sentence is "phrased poorly", leaving it up for interpretation if it was a mistake or done by someone with a certain ideological intent (looking at you activist orgs).
It is jaw dropping on how very little this is all being carried out and I start to understand why the
Tavistock personnel back in 2019 up and left over such concerns.
You are probably right that it is just about a internal scandal with Mermaids, but I am being hopeful that these organisations are getting more thoroughly examined on what they do, because well-intentioned as most of these activists may be, they are seemingly pushing for things that are ill conceived with little EBM behind it.
Also I want Penis News and Stonewall to swallow the bullet and eat shit: their blatant stupidity has been grating one me severely.
Glad to see that in the Netherlands we are more cautious, as dismayed as I was to learn that we came up with the puberty blocker idea. :/
(BTW what do you guys use to preserve vids for posterity? I would like to create a collection next to my literature assembly, as I am trying to broach this subject with colleagues and med students at my faculty.)
