Tag Archives: Trans

News

Controversial study on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and transgenderism re-published

2 Comments

I blogged before about a study out of Brown University, which concluded that transgender behavior in children developed rapidly as a result of factors like peer pressures, social media, mental disorders, trauma, etc. I.e. – it’s not genetic. Brown University retracted it because some people complained. Well, it’s now been republished. Let’s see if there were any mistakes found.

Here’s how the study was first reported by Science Daily:

This month, a Brown University researcher published the first study to empirically describe teens and young adults who did not have symptoms of gender dysphoria during childhood but who were observed by their parents to rapidly develop gender dysphoria symptoms over days, weeks or months during or after puberty.

[…]The study was published on Aug. 16 in PLOS ONE.

Peer pressure / The Internet:

The pattern of clusters of teens in friend groups becoming transgender-identified, the group dynamics of these friend groups and the types of advice viewed online led her to the hypothesis that friends and online sources could spread certain beliefs.

[….]”Of the parents who provided information about their child’s friendship group, about a third responded that more than half of the kids in the friendship group became transgender-identified,” Littman said. “A group with 50 percent of its members becoming transgender-identified represents a rate that is more 70 times the expected prevalence for young adults.”

Mental disorders / traumatic events:

Additionally, 62 percent of parents reported their teen or young adult had one or more diagnoses of a psychiatric disorder or neurodevelopmental disability before the onset of gender dysphoria. Forty-eight percent reported that their child had experienced a traumatic or stressful event prior to the onset of their gender dysphoria, including being bullied, sexually assaulted or having their parents get divorced.

This article at The Federalist had a few examples to illustrate the conclusion of the study. I’ll pick two.

The study includes other eye-opening information, such as case studies of several children’s stories.

  • “A 14-year-old natal female and three of her natal female friends were taking group lessons together with a very popular coach. The coach came out as transgender, and, within one year, all four students announced they were also transgender.”

  • “A 14-year-old natal female and three of her natal female friends are part of a larger friend group that spends much of their time talking about gender and sexuality. The three natal female friends all announced they were trans boys and chose similar masculine names. After spending time with these three friends, the 14-year-old natal female announced that she was also a trans boy.”

I thought this quote from that article was interesting as well, given the culture’s obsession with “bullying”, which is a nebulous term that can mean actual bullying, or mere disagreement.

The study also may indicate that school “anti-bullying” programs typically created by LGBT activist organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign may help accelerate children identifying as transgender by pushing peers and authority figures to profusely express their support.

Coming out as transgender means instant fame and popularity, because you’re a victim, and everyone has to be nice to you… or else:

“Great increase in popularity among the student body at large. Being trans is a gold star in the eyes of other teens,” wrote one parent on the study response form. Another wrote, “not so much ‘popularity’ increasing as ‘status’ … also she became untouchable in terms of bullying in school as teachers who ignored homophobic bullying …are now all at pains to be hot on the heels of any trans bullying.”

Well, we’ve had a delay of 6 months for Littman to answer her critics and submit her work to even more extensive peer-review. And now the study has been re-published in PLOS One. So were there any mistakes in it? Does it still reach the same conclusions?

The College Fix reports:

Here’s what actually changed, according to PLOS One:

Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article.

So, the results didn’t change, and that means that the conclusions stand. So what was the problem originally? The problem originally was that the research didn’t confirm the biased politically correct views of the secular leftists.

She lost her consulting job anyway

However, that’s not the whole story. I looked up her interview from this week on Quillette, and she got to tell her side of the story.

Two parts stood out to me.

This part, where she contrasted the favoral response of research scientists and clinical scientists with the angry outbursts of a social worker:

The third presentation was the smallest and least research-oriented audience of the three. In contrast to the other presentations, the vast majority of the comments were made by one person who I later learned was a social worker. Again, I tried to answer politely with comments such as “Actually, the scientific literature says the following…”; “Actually, social media can be both a positive and a negative influence, not just positive…”; “Actually, this method of data collection has been used in many studies…” But because her interruptions were so frequent and argumentative in nature, it quickly created a tense and adversarial tone in the room.

This part, where she explains the mob that contacted her employers and got her fired:

The worst outcome for me personally was losing my consulting job over this issue. Shortly after my paper came out, some local clinicians who are opposed to my research wrote a letter of complaint about the work and demanded that I be fired immediately. It was an interesting demand, as my consulting work was unrelated to gender dysphoria. Nonetheless, I was called in to several meetings to answer questions about my research… After the meetings, the leadership explained to me that their decision not to renew my contract was not related to the quality of my work but rather that they, as an agency, needed to remain neutral and not take sides regarding the issues raised in the letter.

Do you know what this whole episode reminded me of? It reminded me of the stories of scientists who publish work critical of Darwinian evolution, and work critical of the man-made catastophic global warming hypothesis. It seems as if the viewpoints of secular leftists are decide by emotions, and then defended with rage, coercion and harassment. What does it say about secular leftism that they respond to scientific progress with rage and censorship?

News

Controversial study on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and transgenderism re-published

2 Comments
What's the best explanation of this data? Genetics or cultural pressure?
What’s the best explanation of this transgenderism data? Genetics or cultural pressure?

I blogged before about a study out of Brown University, which concluded that transgender behavior in children developed rapidly as a result of factors like peer pressures, social media, mental disorders, trauma, etc. I.e. – it’s not genetic. Brown University retracted it because some people complained. Well, it’s now been republished. Let’s see if there were any mistakes found.

Here’s how the study was first reported by Science Daily:

This month, a Brown University researcher published the first study to empirically describe teens and young adults who did not have symptoms of gender dysphoria during childhood but who were observed by their parents to rapidly develop gender dysphoria symptoms over days, weeks or months during or after puberty.

[…]The study was published on Aug. 16 in PLOS ONE.

Peer pressure / The Internet:

The pattern of clusters of teens in friend groups becoming transgender-identified, the group dynamics of these friend groups and the types of advice viewed online led her to the hypothesis that friends and online sources could spread certain beliefs.

[….]”Of the parents who provided information about their child’s friendship group, about a third responded that more than half of the kids in the friendship group became transgender-identified,” Littman said. “A group with 50 percent of its members becoming transgender-identified represents a rate that is more 70 times the expected prevalence for young adults.”

Mental disorders / traumatic events:

Additionally, 62 percent of parents reported their teen or young adult had one or more diagnoses of a psychiatric disorder or neurodevelopmental disability before the onset of gender dysphoria. Forty-eight percent reported that their child had experienced a traumatic or stressful event prior to the onset of their gender dysphoria, including being bullied, sexually assaulted or having their parents get divorced.

This article at The Federalist had a few examples to illustrate the conclusion of the study. I’ll pick two.

The study includes other eye-opening information, such as case studies of several children’s stories.

  • “A 14-year-old natal female and three of her natal female friends were taking group lessons together with a very popular coach. The coach came out as transgender, and, within one year, all four students announced they were also transgender.”

  • “A 14-year-old natal female and three of her natal female friends are part of a larger friend group that spends much of their time talking about gender and sexuality. The three natal female friends all announced they were trans boys and chose similar masculine names. After spending time with these three friends, the 14-year-old natal female announced that she was also a trans boy.”

I thought this quote from that article was interesting as well, given the culture’s obsession with “bullying”, which is a nebulous term that can mean actual bullying, or mere disagreement.

The study also may indicate that school “anti-bullying” programs typically created by LGBT activist organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign may help accelerate children identifying as transgender by pushing peers and authority figures to profusely express their support.

Coming out as transgender means instant fame and popularity, because you’re a victim, and everyone has to be nice to you… or else:

“Great increase in popularity among the student body at large. Being trans is a gold star in the eyes of other teens,” wrote one parent on the study response form. Another wrote, “not so much ‘popularity’ increasing as ‘status’ … also she became untouchable in terms of bullying in school as teachers who ignored homophobic bullying …are now all at pains to be hot on the heels of any trans bullying.”

Well, we’ve had a delay of 6 months for Littman to answer her critics and submit her work to even more extensive peer-review. And now the study has been re-published in PLOS One. So were there any mistakes in it? Does it still reach the same conclusions?

The College Fix reports:

Here’s what actually changed, according to PLOS One:

Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article.

So, the results didn’t change, and that means that the conclusions stand. So what was the problem originally? The problem originally was that the research didn’t confirm the biased politically correct views of the secular leftists.

She lost her consulting job anyway

However, that’s not the whole story. I looked up her interview from this week on Quillette, and she got to tell her side of the story.

Two parts stood out to me.

This part, where she contrasted the favoral response of research scientists and clinical scientists with the angry outbursts of a social worker:

The third presentation was the smallest and least research-oriented audience of the three. In contrast to the other presentations, the vast majority of the comments were made by one person who I later learned was a social worker. Again, I tried to answer politely with comments such as “Actually, the scientific literature says the following…”; “Actually, social media can be both a positive and a negative influence, not just positive…”; “Actually, this method of data collection has been used in many studies…” But because her interruptions were so frequent and argumentative in nature, it quickly created a tense and adversarial tone in the room.

This part, where she explains the mob that contacted her employers and got her fired:

The worst outcome for me personally was losing my consulting job over this issue. Shortly after my paper came out, some local clinicians who are opposed to my research wrote a letter of complaint about the work and demanded that I be fired immediately. It was an interesting demand, as my consulting work was unrelated to gender dysphoria. Nonetheless, I was called in to several meetings to answer questions about my research… After the meetings, the leadership explained to me that their decision not to renew my contract was not related to the quality of my work but rather that they, as an agency, needed to remain neutral and not take sides regarding the issues raised in the letter.

Do you know what this whole episode reminded me of? It reminded me of the stories of scientists who publish work critical of Darwinian evolution, and work critical of the man-made catastophic global warming hypothesis. It seems as if the viewpoints of secular leftists are decide by emotions, and then defended with rage, coercion and harassment. What does it say about secular leftism that they respond to scientific progress with rage and censorship?

News

Hundreds of young transgender people seeking help to return to original sex

3 Comments
Thinking about transgenderism
Thinking about transgenderism

I know that in my office, the people on the left are very adamant about gay rights. And they basically equate disagreement with gay marriage and transgenderism with racism. But what if some people who are in those lifestyles aren’t happy with their choices, and are looking for someone to talk to about getting out of it?

Here’s a story from UK Sky News about transgender people with regrets:

Hundreds of young transgender people are seeking help to return to their original sex, a woman who is setting up a charity has told Sky News.

Charlie Evans, 28, was born female but identified as male for nearly 10 years before detransitioning.

The number of young people seeking gender transition is at an all-time high but we hear very little, if anything, about those who may come to regret their decision.

[…]Charlie detransitioned and went public with her story last year – and said she was stunned by the number of people she discovered in a similar position.

“I’m in communication with 19 and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved, they don’t feel better for it,” she says.

[…]Charlie says she has been contacted by “hundreds” of people seeking help – 30 people alone in her area of Newcastle.

That story from Sky News didn’t really drill into any details, but I found a good case study at the Daily Signal:

Two years ago, I was a healthy, beautiful girl heading toward high school graduation. Before long, I turned into an overweight, pre-diabetic nightmare of a transgender man.

I won’t place the full blame on health care providers, because I should have known better. But they sure helped me do a lot of harm to myself—and they made a hefty buck doing it.

[…]The first step was to find a therapist who would write me a letter to start me on male hormones.

I soon found a therapist who said she would help me, and I told her I wanted to start the hormones on my 19th birthday, which was only five weeks off. She required only a one-hour appointment each week.

That’s hardly enough time to get to know someone. Yet those five hours got me an official letter that unlocked the doors for me to get hormone therapy and become a “man.”

[…]But by this time, I’d seen the promotional videos. I was convinced that my gender is what was “off,” and the therapist guided me along and made me feel like a sex change is what I needed.

By this point, my friends were also encouraging me to transition… Others were too afraid to say anything against it, because after all, it was 2017. I never got pushback from anyone.

In reality, of course, I was not a boy, and hearing otherwise was the last thing I needed. I was simply insecure about being tomboyish and a lesbian in public.

My therapist never once tried to sit down with me and figure that out.

[…]Not once did she tap the brakes to keep me from gender transition.

The doctor prescribed testosterone injections:

The injections of male hormones started to have their effect, but not in the way I expected. I started gaining more and more weight. My skin started to get more and more puffy and discolored. My blood started to thicken.

The doctor’s office was running bloodwork for me every three months, and it actually said I was now pre-diabetic—something that was totally new for me.

My gender-transition doctor said not to worry, but I decided to see another doctor for a second opinion. He said my thickening blood put me at risk for a heart attack or stroke.

I did this to myself for almost a year. During that time, I gained 50 pounds and was miserable.

This part was the most interesting to me:

I started feeling regret.

Unfortunately, I was stuck: I had already declared to everyone that this was who I was. I had changed my gender, and I had forced people to play along with it and call me by a new name: Jaxson. At work, men had to be OK with their former female co-worker now using the same restroom as them.

Everyone was walking on eggshells around me—and people fell in line for fear of what might happen if they objected. (Employers are already being sued over this kind of thing, after all.)

Indeed. People are losing their jobs when they disagree with transgenderism these days:

But the Department for Work and Pensions panel ruled that Mackereth’s biblical view of gender conflicts with fundamental rights:

Irrespective of our determinations above, all three heads, belief in Genesis 1:27, lack of belief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism in our judgment are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the fundamental rights of others, specifically here, transgender individuals.

“Without intellectual and moral integrity, medicine cannot function and my 30 years as a doctor are now considered irrelevant compared to the risk that someone else might be offended,” Mackareth said.

Having Christian convictions about male and female is no defense to being terminated in the UK. The Democrats have already passed the “Equality Act” in the House, and that would bring this level of persecution of dissenters to America.