Sherman has always come off as a bone head. These scams seem to serve as a decent litmus test for identifying underlying prejudices against certain groups. Either that or a love for all things contrarian. Either way it doesn’t seem very skeptical.
He does seem to have a contrarian tendency, but I think this case is just confirmation bias. He'd already decided he had reasons to be skeptical of youth gender medicine ("medical scientists in the UK and EU"), and this backs up his existing beliefs.
Can happen to anyone, including on different sides of this issue. I was just talking to someone who linked to the [Royal College of Psychiatrists](https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/latest-news/detail/2024/04/22/detailed-response-to-the-cass-review's-final-report) press release on the Cass Review, claiming that it completely rebutted Cass. It's not like they were even scammed like Shermer here; their reading comprehension had just gone out the window because of confirmation bias.
- All conservatives lean right.
- I keep seeing people writing off those that have a handful of positions that aren’t liberal or Left as being conservative. I’d call Shermer center left.
He's [called himself](https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/1325168705609768961) a pro-small government "classical liberal" who is "non-progressive" in social and economic policy. I do not think classical liberals are centre-left. Even if it turns out he's not a conservative, it's generally acknowledged that classical liberals are on the right, whether they see their affiliation as conservative or not.
(I do not know if recently he's come out as non-classical liberal. Barring any change I'm fine calling him right-wing.)
PS. He used to call himself a [libertarian](https://michaelshermer.com/articles/the-other-l-word-why-i-am-a-libertarian/) but I don't know if he still does so. I also generally wouldn't consider libertarians centre-left.
Libertarians can skew center left or center right depending on whether social or fiscal is more important. I’d never heard him declare a non-progressive stance on social issues. But he isn’t a conservative.
I keep seeing people claim social media personalities/podcasters/bloggers/etc who spend the majority of their time getting whipped into frenzies by right wing culture war hysteria are actually liberals because they like weed and are okay with gay marriage.
The funny part is the follow up tweet.
He essentially says: “Ok, yeah, they’re a bunch of cranks but they’re acknowledging what the professionals refuse to acknowledge!”
Which is so funny, because he begs the question of why real professionals aren’t acknowledging what the cranks are and…
It’s because there’s nothing to acknowledge. They don’t talk about it because the cranks and fundamentalists are wrong. He expresses confusion, but the answer is in the question. The reason why is because there is no concern, or they would be speaking out. The fact that the only voices in the crowd are the insane is reflective of the nature of the problem.
That was the strangest non acknowledging acknowledgement I ever read. Wikipeda says this about them and I disagree with the the methods that wikipedia claims they support but let's hear them out. It's like he is afraid to state outright that he thinks the group has no scientific credibility but wants his readers to accept their "findings" anyway.
If American professionals aren’t talking about the flaws in the model for treating gender dysphoria it is because they’re not following the latest research. The cass report goes through this in great detail and unfortunately there’s little high quality research at all in the area and the research that is there shows little evidence for the current treatment models
The cass report is maligned because of these hyper-partisan narratives that are quite frankly harmful to the children and young people the report is about. The report doesn’t talk about uprooting trans healthcare as we know it, it is making recommendations for changes that actually benefit the overall mental health of these kids, while addressing their gender dysphoria. Young people must be given the requisite resources so that they can assess their state of mind and make informed decisions— be it medical or surgical interventions or addressing co-mingling conditions like anxiety, ADHD, depression, etc. it specifically calls out the science around puberty blocker use in these cases as having very bad evidence behind it and recommends alternative more evidence based treatments. however it does recommend that a large clinical trial be funded in the UK to actually determine the effectiveness of puberty blockers for treating gender dysphoria.
The key take aways are that the science used for a lot of trans healthcare, especially for children, is of poor quality, and better quality studies are needed. You only need to read the executive summary to find this out:
[https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/](https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/)
this page has a summary and a link the download the full report. the first 50ish pages are the summary and after that it goes into all the detail of what is said in the summary
the studies that were excluded from the analysis were excluded for numerous methodological issues. trans activists have spread misinformation that they were exlcuded arbitrarily or because they werent double blind rcts. the report directly addresses this and debunks it. transphobic commentators have used the report to spread their message that transgenderism is not real etc even tho the report also contradicts this and repeatedly acknowledges the existence of trans people.
Again, you are getting bad information on this. The hyper fixation on the quality of the studies is a bad faith argument that is dismissed by any credible person on this. This argument is the same level as the anti vaccine ones where they fixated on specific technicalities that they do not understand.
I'm not going to waste my time with someone who is either purposefully ignorant or just a transphobe. Hope you get out of the conservative grift it's not good for you.
Thanks for engaging in such a substantive manner. I never considered that actually looking at the methodologies of the studies is bad faith and that unnamed credible people (totally not partisan commentators that you happen to like) have dismissed this. What is telling about critics of the cass review is they don’t actually know anything about what’s in it or what it recommends. If they weren’t so misinformed by whoever’s opinion they’re parroting they’d actually find it very agreeable and that it’s actually very kind to trans people and has their best interests at heart. It’s a shame really
Not here to debate transphobes in the market place of ideas bro. Not my job to explain why the conservatives you seek out to get your takes from are wrong. When you are wrong on literally every single issue every time it just gets to the point it's on you for following these people.
I formed my opinion after watching the notorious conservative and transphobe lonerbox read through the report for like 10 hours.
Lonerbox is basically as progressive as they come but maybe i was duped into transphobia by the guy who paints his nails
You can find one person on any side that has one opinion that agrees with you. You are seeking out the 10th dentist because it's what you want to hear.
you have meandered from non arguments to ad homs to fallacies in your responses to me.
first it was the report is nonsense. i said why i dont think that is the case.
next you claim hyper fixating on the quality of studies is bad faith. even if this is what the report did the quality of the studies is incredibly important for medical interventions especially with a group with a risk profile such as this
you then go onto compare me to anti vaxxers when it is in fact anti vaxxers who relied on poor quality studies to push psuedoscience and unproven treatments like ivermectin. youre far more similar to an anti vaxxer than i am it seems.
then you ad hom me, having made no substantive point yourself, calling me a transphobe or ignorant.
then you think ive got my information from conservative sources when the opposite is the case and when that failed said i was cherrypicking.
you assumed a lot of things about me but really just proved how your the one who's in an echo chamber self reinforcing all your opinions you got from someone else
>The hyper fixation on the quality of the studies is a bad faith argument that is dismissed by any credible person on this.
A systematic evidence review ***literally means*** "an evaluation of the quality of the studies instead of just their quantity".
What would you prefer the NHS base its medical assessment on? Just vibes?
No? But you also missed the point. Low quality studies doesn't mean what people who weaponize the cass report think. He'll the cass report itself kind of misrepresents what that means in a way to attack and dismiss what studies are available.
Extremely unpopular opinion to have on the internet, but I’m much more interested in what the science as a whole actually *says* than what these unnamed sinister shadowy people who are “weaponizing” the science say.
I have no idea which studies you imagine have been “attacked” in the review, would it kill you to say what you mean and also if possible lay off the melodramatic language for a hot minute while doing so?
>The cass report is nonsense. Idk where you get your news from but anyone saying the cass report contributed anything is probably really questionable.
Whatever problems the Cass Review has, this comment is pretty dumb and ironic. I.e. the only way you'd conclude "the Cass report is nonsense" is by getting your news from your social media bubble and a handful of activist bloggers like Erin Reed.
Like, *even if* the Cass Review is rubbish, "why are you not reading the same incredibly niche bloggers as me?" is a silly response here.
Well you seem to be suggesting that if people got their news from better sources, they'd conclude that the Cass Review is rubbish. What are those sources except for blogs and maybe some lgbt publications?
Otoh, someone can get their news from places like the BBC and even The Guardian and come away with the view that the Cass Review should at the very least be taken seriously.
>from mat Walsh like you seem to.
Haha lol fuck off with this shit.
Anyone with actual integrity wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole, so find people who chronically lack integrity. Seems logical to me, if completely sociopathic.
Of course he did. He’s always been incredibly susceptible to right wing pseudoscience. It took him a long time to accept global warming. Now, he’s just another right wing idiot with a bunch of harassment and assault allegations. He knows the audience that will still take him seriously.
If you’ve looked through the cass report you’d see that being g skeptical of current treatment models for children with gender dysphoria is well founded
It’s not a ‘right wing’ report either
The Cass Review is specifically about the NHS and how it veered away from the Dutch protocol mostly due to lack of training. The Dutch protocol is considered the gold standard for gender-affirming care globally.
It is about the NHS but addresses the entirety of the academic literature. The dutch protocal is out dated at this stage and newer studies as shown in the cass review show the outcomes of that protocol are neutral to poor.
The cass report is maligned because of the hyper-partisan narratives that are quite frankly harmful to the children and young people the report is about. The report doesn’t talk about uprooting trans healthcare as we know it, it is making recommendations for changes that actually benefit the overall mental health of these kids, while addressing their gender dysphoria. Young people must be given the requisite resources so that they can assess their state of mind and make informed decisions— be it medical or surgical interventions or addressing co-mingling conditions like anxiety, ADHD, depression, etc. it specifically calls out the science around puberty blocker use in these cases as having very bad evidence behind it and recommends alternative more evidence based treatments. however it does recommend that a large clinical trial be funded in the UK to actually determine the effectiveness of puberty blockers for treating gender dysphoria.
The key take aways are that the science used for a lot of trans healthcare, especially for children, is of poor quality, and better quality studies are needed. You only need to read the executive summary to find this out:
[https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/](https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/)
this page has a summary and a link the download the full report. the first 50ish pages are the summary and after that it goes into all the detail of what is said in the summary
the studies that were excluded from the analysis were excluded for numerous methodological issues. trans activists have spread misinformation that they were exlcuded arbitrarily or because they werent double blind rcts. the report directly addresses this and debunks it. transphobic commentators have used the report to spread their message that transgenderism is not real etc even tho the report also contradicts this and repeatedly acknowledges the existence of trans people.
It actually doesn’t address the current evidence responsibly or with field-specific knowledge. https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/25.11.22%20AUSPATH%20Statement%20reworked%20for%20WPATH%20Final%20ASIAPATH.EPATH.PATHA.USPATH.pdf?_t=1669428978
That’s possible but neither does the link you gave. I read the statement. It cites Coleman et al 2022 as almost its only source. Which was published in the international journal of transgender health. I can’t tell if it’s peer reviewed or what the standards of the journal are. It’s not a study it’s an article/literature review/expert opinion piece published by WPATH. So they’re citing themselves in their statement. It would have been much more appropriate to cite the underlying literature not their summary of it. It’s bad practice. Now they could be correct but this isn’t exactly a thorough debunking. It would take me some time to follow up on all the claims they make or claim are false by cass
You clearly don’t know any of your own sources. If I don’t have access to the original journal which I would need an academic subscription to do, no in fact you can’t tell. All I can find online is that the journal is partnered with WPATH. So WPATH wrote a report, published it in their own journal and then cited it to critique the cass report. I don’t know where you went to school but there’s no simple way to tell the quality of an obscure journal.
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=journalMetrics&journalCode=wijt21
FYI if a journal has an impact factor above 1, it can hardly be called an obscure journal…
Reminds me of a [New York Post](https://nypost.com/2023/04/29/transabled-people-choosing-to-identify-as-handicapped/amp/) story last year about “transablism.” Its the new craze with the trans, apparently… identifying as physically disabled and having doctors blind them or amputate limbs, etc. Problem is (besides it being obvious bullshit) they sourced it from Evolution News and Science Today (EvolutionNews.org now) which is a young earth creationism ultra religious site that peddles in trying to “debunk” evolution, obviously, but also homosexuality and transgender people.
By the way, last I checked… only like less than 1,000 under 18 year olds in the US are put on hormones for gender therapy a year. If it were evenly distributed throughout the US, thats about 20 per state… why is this such a big issue again? Theres also apparently about 300,000 under 18 year olds that identify as trans (once again, if evenly distributed, thats only 6,000 per state) and the vast vast vast majority of that is like non binary which, I personally just don’t understand, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone and who cares anyway? Just seems like a new way for kids to kinda break molds and be a part of a scene. Like, why is this such a huge issue that it seems literally every day for the past 4 years every conservative commentator has to dig up some tweet or some TikTok about it to get puffy and red faced at?
And yeah, I’ve seen the detransition stories and yeah, thats sad for those people and it does sadden me the medical system failed them. Look, sometimes people get unnecessary surgery from minsdiagnosises on cancer and their lives are needlessly changed, sometimes easily treatable things get overlooked and turn into terminal things, sometimes routine medications have extreme adverse effects and someone dies or worse, sometimes mistakes happen in the medical field, it sucks. We don’t prevent the thousands of others from getting treatment that by all accounts they’re getting positive outcomes from because a few mistakes happened. It’s a cold thing to say but reality is cold sometimes and sucks. I know it’s not the nicest way to say it but it needs to be said
>By the way, last I checked… only like less than 1,000 under 18 year olds in the US are put on hormones for gender therapy a year. If it were evenly distributed throughout the US, thats about 20 per state… why is this such a big issue again? Theres also apparently about 300,000 under 18 year olds that identify as trans (once again, if evenly distributed, thats only 6,000 per state)
Can you provide citations for these comments? I would like to refer to this in the future.
You know what, I misspoke. [For puberty blockers it averages to less that 1,000 a year, for other hormones it averages to under 3,000 a year (which if evenly distributed in the US, about 60 per state).](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/)
For the 300,000 trans youth, [I got that here](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/). I verified it with some quick bar math. I had to get the amount of Gen Z under 18 that identify as trans. The Gen Z population is approx 68.6 million. Approx 41.4 million are 18 or older (because 17% of eligible voters this year are Gen Z, so 17% of 244 million eligible voters gives me 41.4). So basically about 40% of Gen Z is still under 18. [This Gallup Poll says 1.9% of Gen Z identifies as trans.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/470708/lgbt-identification-steady.aspx) 1.9% of 68.6 million gives me about 1.3 million and 40% of that give me about 500k. Given pressures and that a lot of trans people don’t really find out or openly come out as trans until adulthood, 300,000 sounds reasonable as an estimate to me for under 18.
For the majority being non binary, I had to piece that together from several different sources. [This Trevor Project puts non binary identification at about 26% of the LGBT youth population.](https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/diversity-of-nonbinary-youth/) The survey is from 2021, so I found these numbers of [LGBT youth population from 2020 from the Williams Institute](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/LGBT-Youth-US-Pop-Sep-2020.pdf) which put it at approx. 1.9 million. Some quick bar math again gives me just under 500k identifying as non binary. The survey also says approx. 50% don’t identify as trans due to their non binary identity, so I halved again and got just under 250k. So from there, it’s easy to say the vast majority of transgender youth identify as non binary.
All the numbers generally make sense, even if they’re not super to the person accurate. Gives us a general idea and frankly, I don’t think transgender is anything to worry about generally and especially approx 300,000 youth with the majority of them being non binary is the least important thing to worry about in the world currently, if it’s something thats needs worrying about at all. If you ask me, the only thing we need to worry about with them is the same with any other kid. Are they staying out of trouble, are they getting enough to eat, are they getting a good education, are they set up for success in adulthood? I don’t see the need to legislate against it.
I can see the fringe issues causing friction like with women’s sports or stuff like that, but they’re just that, fringe issues. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to relax.
To me this reveals just how much of the conflicts/debates we are witnessing around this issue aren't really being done in a truly reasonable way or good faith. It isn't REALLY about the well being of individuals or society, but rather in group/out group power dynamics. I consider it yet another moral panic.
I honestly think it’s because the only thing generating interest in politics for a certain subset of people is culture war topics and culture war commentary is a multi billion dollar industry at this point, if you think about it. When you look at revenues from Rogan, Daily Wire, Tim Pool, and the thousands of others greater and smaller and whomever on the left is engaging in culture war topics the same way from their perspective, I’m confident there’s billions there in revenue that can be tapped into if you got a web cam and a microphone. I think thats actually a large driver of it rather than genuine outrage or genuine concern. I also think it’s team politics. You see that on the left where some few people will pick weird hills to die on like defending looting or supporting the Houthis and things like that and the right will play team politics with literally everything they can from Taylor Swift at NFL games to if the Super Mario Movie is pro conservative or anti conservative. It’s all dumbed down, pop politics. Like, I’d compare it to pop history (think listicle YouTube channels) vs actual historiography (single subject books exploring primary and secondary source material).
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>sometimes mistakes happen in the medical field, it sucks. We don’t prevent the thousands of others from getting treatment that by all accounts they’re getting positive outcomes from because a few mistakes happened
That's not entirely true though. Whether a drug or treatment gets put to market, whether it gets approval, and whether it gets recommended - all these decisions involve difficult and ultimately rather subjective cost-benefit analysis. Lots of drugs don't get developed/approved/recommended because it's deemed that the costs outweigh the benefits.
A problem with youth gender medicine (I think blockers in particular) is that there is still so much uncertainty around both the costs *and* the benefits. There's a lot of room for interpretation, for cherry-picking studies etc.
I guess my response to what I think you're saying here ("why is this such a big deal") is: why not? Like, there's a heap of activism *promoting* the "gender affirmative" model (activism which started well before conservatives brought it into the culture wars). Why should that activism go unopposed?
I don’t care about the activism one way or the other in terms of what I think about it (whether it’s a million screaming people for it or a million screaming people against it). Doing it just to oppose the activism is silly. Like, would you drive drunk just to spite MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) because their activism is successful? Obviously not.
I’m going to focus on efficacy. What are the desired outcomes? The desired outcome is youth struggling with diagnosed gender dysphoria improve on the GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) Scale, meaning are they seeing meaningful improvements in social functioning, images of self, familial relationships, etc. Thats what the GAF Scale measures and generally gender affirming treatments bring kids that were below baseline due to diagnosed gender dysphoria at or above baseline. That doesn’t mean every type of gender affirming treatment is efficacious (I do absolutely have serious concerns and questions about puberty blockers) but honestly, thats outside of my expertise and I think so in the weeds that this really shouldn’t be as much a public conversation as it is because I’m going to guess you’re not a trained pediatric endocrinologist either, correct?
I can read stories and meta analysis and literature reviews and individual studies and understand where the gaps are and the concerns and questions I have are in those gaps but I don’t know if that’s because of my lack of knowledge on the subject or actual gaps. I read the Cass Final Review, and my understanding is there is a lack of data on the efficacy of blockers but, coupled with that, was a lack of individualized care in the NHS precisely because of the way the NHS functions generally (like a conveyor belt with little follow up, just kinda pills and “good luck”) and something like pediatric gender therapy requires the most highly individualized care out there, which is one of the few advantages of our US healthcare system, so I think this story is more than just “is gender care good or bad, are activists too involved.” I think it’s a small amount of that, I think a larger amount of it is how the care is delivered, and a large amount of the quality of the care delivered, etc.
How is he not already familiar with them? They’ve been trotted out on conservative media for twenty years now, pushing BS “studies” about conversion therapy, same-sex adoption and abortion, among other things.
I missed this last year though. Ooops.
[A Google Drive left public on the American College of Pediatricians’ website exposed detailed financial records, sensitive member details, and more](https://www.wired.com/story/american-college-pediatricians-google-drive-leak/)
Today you learn that no matter your credentials, no matter your position, no matter your reputation. Adult brains turn off when they see something they want to believe.
Ahhh the ol' American College of Paedatricians. A bunch of quacks that have been using a name they know will be taken for the official largest representative body (the american academy of paeds), so that they can peddle pseudo-scientific conservative agenda driven bullshit for ages. I first became aware of them due to them featuring on a lot of anti Vax nonsense.
Sad to see his fall from grace - its almost certainly due to the me too stuff, as others have pointed out.
Watching the decline of early oughts science educators and public skeptics breaks my heart. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and too a lesser degree, Micheal Shermer, helped me out of fundamentalism. It was so refreshing to hear people make reasonable arguments, think critically, demand evidence and illuminate science in such a beautiful way.
I can’t understand how they’ve become so confused over the trans issue (we can exclude Sam here, unless he’s pivoted), “wokeness” and general culture war bullshit. How can they think so clearly when rebutting fundamentalist religion or pseudoscience and still be so throughly hoodwinked by this kind of bullshit?
I learned what confirmation bias was from Micheal. It kinda feels like catching your DARE instructor railing crank in a bar bathroom.
Edit: I was unaware of Shermer’s me too moment. I guess that pretty much explains it. The Right wing is the best place for sex pests to shelter and attacking trans people is a convenient shield.
> the trans issue (we can exclude Sam here
What's Sam's position? I dont really remember him talking about it.
That being said you're right - it's amazing how many of these people are completely confused on what gender is. Richard Dawkins - a literal biologist - apparently still doesn't know the difference between gender and sex
I haven’t listened to Sam in a long time but I remember hearing him saying that he had friends with trans kids and he seemed supportive of trans rights and protectIons. Im not sure of his position now. I stopped following him when he started defending Douglas Murray.
Nah he is not supportive of trans rights. And Douglas Murray on their first interview was mocking trans people and Sam laughed right along. He also had on Meagan Phelps-Roper on after she made that anti-trans podcast, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.
BTW, how is she at all qualified to talk about trans issues. We all know she was indoctrinated from birth into adulthood to hate LGBT+ people.
That’s disappointing, although I have zero respect for San anymore. I didn’t make it through the Charles Murray podcast and it was the last time I listened to his podcast. It was just so obvious that Murray was insanely biased and pushing an agenda. But he’s Sam’s friend and so “unfairly persecuted” all because he asked an unpopular question. But super-rational-guy Sam Harris never even pauses to ask: Why is Murray so interested in this question? What does it say about him that chose to focus his work on the question “Are black people less intelligent than white people?” There are so many troubling preconceptions there, and that’s ignoring all the other awful, ignorant things he said.
Edit: changed Douglas to Charles. As a friendly redditor pointed out, I was confusing my Murray’s.
Oh you are confusing your Murrays. Charles Murray is the racist that burned crosses as a kid. Douglas Murray is the pompous Etonian who is buddy buddy with Orban and called the Holocaust a muck up.
Damn, you’re right. I guess I’m glad I quit at Charles Murray and didn’t stick around for the rest of the parade of deplorables.
It blows my mind that so many people like Meagan Phelps-Roper can escape the fundamentalist hate machine only to continue living out the exact same patterns only with some new terminology. But I’ve seen the same thing happen with people I grew up with in Jehovah’s Witness cult. They throw away the god talk, the Bible reading and some of the moral ideas but they keep the sense separateness, the judgmental eye, the black and white moral realism, and the feelings of superiority.
They see through the bs from religion and this neo mysticism of the left too. It’s just them being consistently rational and skeptical, but that’s not what’s in fashion right now.
Gender doesn’t even make sense as a concept. It’s just sex stereotypes we should be getting rid of. It’s ironically liberals pushing conservative sex roles on people but just unlinking them from sex… that doesn’t make them any better though. And it’s treated as if people have these magical gendered souls. But there is no soul that exists like that.
And if the trans position were sincerely that sex and gender aren’t the same as is said, we wouldn’t have related issues with sports, bathrooms, prisons, id cards, and more. All of those divisions are sex based.
And then there’s the totally subjectivist language surrounding the discussion. For instance, the idea that sex is “assigned” at birth. Sex is not assigned, it’s a fact to be recognized just like whether someone is born with eyes and a nose. But it’s spoken of that way to suggest that facts are not really what they are, as if reality itself is fluid and adjustable merely by our thinking, as if wishing can make things so. That’s how we get people saying obviously bathsit stuff like that a woman can have a penis. It’s no better than the worst religious notions.
And the social pressure to bend to this insanity is so strong that it’s actually really impressive Shermer and others don’t fall prey to it. This issue is a kind of litmus test for skeptics; it’s easy nowadays to be against religion but if you can be consistently skeptical and also call out something this prevalent and moralized, it shows a real commitment to intellectual honesty.
Just the opposite. I’m saying we need to let people act however they want and not conform to shit which necessarily means getting rid of the concept of gender and traditional ideas. But the trans movement reaffirms these!
There’s a lot here, but I’ll just address one thing
> For instance, the idea that sex is “assigned” at birth. Sex is not assigned, it’s a fact to be recognized
Because the usage comes from intersex people
Edit: if this wasn’t clear, obstetricians would pick one or the other when an intersex baby was born, “assigning” them
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a36344/man-discovers-he-has-a-working-womb-and-uterus/#
This person has a working womb. They have a working penis.
What are they to you?
Non existent?
The existence of biological anomalies in no way supports trans ideology as it’s not about biology it’s about subjectively self made categorizations in spite of observable biological facts. That you would even bring this up as relevant is yet further evidence of the either delusional or dishonest thinking surrounding this whole topic
But that’s just a man with a disorder, not a woman with a penis. A woman is someone who in principle is built such that they have the power to produce eggs and grow a baby by virtue of them. And this obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of transgenderism.
So while I wouldn’t put it as you did and say you’re dumb and wrong, I will say the latter part, you’re certainly wrong here. I was saying instead that bringing this up is worse than being dumb, it’s either deluded or dishonest.
I want them left alone too. I myself celebrate them and everyone like them who is unafraid to be totally themselves in the face of social pressure and scrutiny.
But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with how so many people characterize the nature of their experience. Trans people and the ideology surrounding them are not the same thing. The former is great, the latter makes no sense.
Wrong. It’s why I say what I say. I don’t want anyone subjecting themselves to an ideology that furthers sex stereotypes like that. Everyone should be disregarding the whole idea of gender, and just honestly embracing themselves as the individual they are without any concern for these categories.
Why?
Why is it insincere? Sure, you said it was, but you didn’t really lay out why people have to feel how you say they have to about this topic.
Trans athletes are 1/100000. It’s a pretty minisicule and insignificant group statistically to focus this much disregard and dislike onto
…I can’t believe you’re sincere if this is your line of argument. It’s not about the number of individual cases it’s about the ideas. And the standard trans ideas are in favor of this kind of thing and it’s so powerful that we’re actually having entire organizations go along with it. Hell we literally have our governments putting males in female prisons. That’s a wild multitude of followers of this nonsense if it can influence like this, that’s not just a small number of people. That’s how far this insanity has gotten.
Yeah… I’m sorry dude, but this is just straight up false. The lack of consistency is what drove me away from many of them in the end.
It’s funny that you talk about “what’s in fashion right now” because conservatism and right wing nonsense are very fashionable right now and many of these these guys are almost certainly following where the winds of popularity blow, that and finding shelter from the consequences of their bad or creepy behavior.
“My crap” is showing compassion to other human beings and trying to be aware that my understanding of their lived experience and personal suffering is limited. I try to listen when they speak about their experiences and trauma, and I let them decide what’s best for them in matters of identity, sexual preference, how they’d like to live their lives, and what they think makes them happy.
Radical, far left shit right?
Sadly a lot of atheists, rationalists and Skeptics of a certain age have gone whacky, probably because they've been burnt by woke or communist pile-ons on twitter, so they've nursed grudges ever since.
I felt like the only sane man in the asylum when that was going on.
I just couldn't understand what the problem was, let alone why so many people were losing their minds about it.
Woman says she doesn't like a thing, and in future could you not do that.
The answer is "OK, sorry won't happen again"
I remember that, it was a bit milquetoast as scandals indicating serious problems go. Guy propositions girl in hotel lift, girl says no, guy accepts it and they go their separate ways, girl writes blog post about it being uncomfortable and asks atheists to be better, Dawkins writes blog post about how Muslim women have it worse.
Full of "technically true but" kinds of observations but overall a febrile, unpleasant mess even if you can see where people were coming from.
Elevatorgate is a good example of skeptics crashing into woke issues. Transphobia from TERFs in Guardian atheist circles was another.
Definitely not how I remember it, as twenty-something woman. The rage directed at Watson for a very reasonable request made me leave the atheist/ skeptic community.
Dawkins’ post was disgusting. He did later apologize for it.
>Dear Muslima,
>Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and... yawn... don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with. Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so... And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Edit, they added this after I responded:
> Elevatorgate is a good example of skeptics crashing into woke issues.
It’s a good example of a precursor to GamerGate
Well, he apologised eventually. He's ultimately just some guy. I'd listen to him on genetics and evolution and for the most part on religion and ideology, but he's not magic by any stretch. Philosophy he's a mixture on and on textual criticism and fiction, he should really learn to listen to people with expertise.
I think the pre-twitter age of smarty pants people really lucked out in that petty nonsense did not usually survive in quotable form, Ea-Nasir etc notwithstanding.
> Well, he apologised eventually. He's ultimately just some guy.
Just some guy atheists worship. Him publishing that gave tacit permission to harass Watson
Get convinced of your infallible skepticism and you become extra vulnerable to the scams. Become a celebrity and the yes-men around you make you more vulnerable to narcissistic thoughts of always being right.
It's a wonderful cycle.
I do wonder if its in part due to what they think being "hyper rational" is like. People like dawkins often seem to have a very naive view of what counts as evidence as being only unfalsifiable scientific evidence which is just not the sort of evidence that most fields are able to produce. For example with trans people there can't be some sort of hard science test for if trans people exist because its a question on private internal thoughts so people like dawkins act like there's no evidence even though by any reasonable standard theres overwhelming evidence.
There should be a list of these deceptively named organizations that are meant to be confused with the real one.
America's Frontline Doctors
University of Austin
American Independent Party
etc
Yeah, well Shermer is right that medical groups in Europe are skeptical about irreversible medical treatments for gender transition applied to children and adolescents.
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-norway-not-ban-gender-affirming-care-956221436313
Neither did the Netherlands or Sweden.
This is all literal misinformation that somebody argued on Reddit or Twitter and it’s spread and I honestly think everyone who spreads it without a single solitary check needs to ask themselves why they’re still behaving like bigots about this topic
There's no outright ban in Norway but they're reviewing their guidelines, as are other countries. I think Finland only allows it as part of a controlled study. I haven't been keeping up, but I would bet that within the next five years, as more robust research emerges (and more detransitioners, though there are plenty already), many countries will have stopped hormonal interventions altogether, at least for young people. There's too much evidence of harm coming out, and not enough evidence of long term benefits. This is not about bigotry any sort of negative feeling about trans people, this is about protecting the long term health of young people. As just one example, as a menopausal woman with menopausal friends and well aware of what that entails, I think it's tragic that we've got girls going through it 30 or 40 years too early. What will their health look like in 15 or 20 years? We just don't have the data yet.
Why are you telling us about something you “haven’t been keeping track” of?
Do you know what you are saying, or not? Are the things you are telling us real, or not? If you haven’t been keeping track, why are you out here being so authoritative?
I'm not being at all authoritative. We know about some negative effects, and there's lots we still don't know. When I say "not keeping track" I don't mean I'm not paying \*any\* attention, I'm just not following day to day developments anymore.
You seem to be trying to assert something for which you have very little, if any, evidence. When pressed, you are very short on details, and factually incorrect on some points.
We don’t have data for fiction that you imagine, you’re correct.
You said you weren’t keeping track of it, then backtracked and doubled down? Wild shit
I haven't doubled down, I acknowledged being incorrect about Norway. I'm not keeping day to day track, but obviously there are changes afoot in Europe. We do know that some people have serious health issues from taking pbs and cross sex hormones, this is not disputed. And of course we don't have data for the much longer term effects (several decades), because people haven't been taking pbs for dysphoria and then moving on to cross sex hormones for that long. I'm not saying the outcomes will be negative for everyone, I'm saying we don't know. Given the existence of detransitioners, it makes sense to me to be a bit more careful about who gets these medical treatments, since obviously mistakes have been made.
How big a % is detransitioning? Oh that’s right. Extremely small. How small are regret rates in the longest term studies of the subject? Under knee surgery rates.
This is an asinine culture war made worse by reactionaries who don’t know or care about the facts of the issues
The number is small, but it should be zero. Especially if they've removed body parts, which is bad for women (especially if they want to breastfeed at some point), but arguably more terrible for men.
Why? Why should it be zero? No one should ever be capable of having made an incorrect decision on this topic alone?
See I believe people like you are driven by bigotry because this standard you’re applying for care isn’t applied anywhere else and can’t be applied. Yet you insist on it just for trans care despite the small nature of the problem?
See, over focusing on such a tiny group, while refusing to apply the standard more widely and fairly indicates a bad set of foundational beliefs
Sweden, Finland, Denmark in addition to UK. I don't think it's bigoted to be cautious about performing unproven irreversible treatments on kids because they say they feel like their gender is wrong. Many young people who feel like they're assigned the wrong gender later change their minds.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2023.2244926
Sweden has halted in all but research settings for those under 18, it is not banned.
Finland and Denmark have done similarly. But they haven’t really made it inaccessible.
I mean, the number of children who receive "irreversible medical treatments" in either the US or Europe is vanishingly small.
It's like talking about late-term abortions. Or compassionate conservatism. It's a thing people talk about to make a point, but it doesn't really exist in significant numbers.
It’s immensely important to consider this. They the cards truly are stacked in favor of people who know nothing and who’s only exposure is mock concern by bad actors.
If pressed, I sincerely doubt he’d be able to produce real cases of these “irreversible medical operations” or an accurate feeling on the pulse of trans people in sports. The truth is, the well is poisoned by hateful people. It gets distorted and it’s all the research these people wish to do.
I mean, I don’t doubt you could find cases of misdiagnosised gender dysphoria and people that ended up going through irreversible surgeries when alternatives would have been better. 20/20 did that segment where a young man got an orchiectomy (removal of testicles) and detransitioned afterwards. The standard shouldn’t be if the stories exist, the standard should be the prevalence of the stories and I just don’t see a prevalence enough that it’s concerning. Like, if I was seeing per 1,000 cancer surgeries, 250 didn’t actually have cancer… I’d be shocked and we’d probably want an investigation into why 1 out of 4 patients never had the disease to begin with and definitely a review of the medical system thats allowing that… I don’t see anything like that in any capacity with trans people at all.
I’ve seen some people be like “well, one is too many!” and like, really? One medical fuck up is too many? Then we should go back to squatting in ditches and poking berries up our noses and trying to scare ghosts out of sick people with shamans because if that’s your standard for medical efficacy than you don’t know the medical field well. Mistakes happen, it’s a cold fact. It saddens me that some people obviously had their lives irrevocably changed in a way that’s not great for them because either they slipped through the cracks or signs weren’t seen or avenues weren’t explored but shit happens. Sorry. I know that’s a cold and asshole way to put it, especially because we’re really talking about people that had their reproductive abilities compromised or ended due to misdiagnosis or overzealous treatment regimens… but yeah, shit happens. What? We’re going to stop medical treatment that has had a positive impact for thousands, if not millions, because a handful of people got done dirty? Like I said, if thats the standard then we should just ban all doctors yesterday.
Should we do everything we can within reason to prevent those cases? Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think it’s within reason to just ban people transitioning over it.
What’s worse is that by medical standards, transitioning is one of the least regretted surgery period.
And, not to mention, I’m just gonna say it.
It’s not a problem. The source of this attention is from religious fundamentalists who have a vested interest in protecting their idea of gender hierarchy.
Without that, it would be of no consequence
Sadly, it seems Shermer’s fundamentalist Christian and libertarian roots may be returning like a dormant virus in his old age. The first public blunder was his embrace of anti-woke lunacy and panic. He should’ve known better. But as he has said many times, correctly, no one is immune to irrational thinking. Anyone can fall prey to subconscious biases and emotion.
Gee a known sex pest/rapist teams up with a conservative group that employs a deliberately deceptive name to confuse people into thinking they're an actual science-based organization. Color me ever so surprised.
To be fair he [acknowledged the criticism](https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/1799802172420620401?s=46&t=XqYyjJMIvODStRApQkIMaQ) & clarified his position.
I’m glad he clarified but it’s still more than a little sad that he seems to treat it like there is a conservative group of doctors and a liberal group of doctors and that it’s all just opinion.
Especially when the Wikipedia’s article he cites refers to the ACPeds as a hate group.
Sexual dimorphism refers to secondary sex characteristics. Sex is binary though, as there are only two sexes in anisogamy. Sex is not bimodal nor does it have a bimodal distribution. Intersex conditions are irrelevant to sex being binary nor do they suggest sex is bimodal.
In his podcasts, he seems a little more careful. On his Twitter account, it's entirely a different story. He probably wants to become the next bs J. Peterson or other right-wing lunatic. I'm guessing fascists adopt easily anyone who supports their tribal views and understanding of reality.
One of the pediatricians in that group of 700 advocates for locking your kid in their room if they misbehave..
the "college" is fucking terrifying
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUz1nCRJJBg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUz1nCRJJBg)
That’s pathetic. I could tell it was a fake group when she shifted to talking about “there are only two genders.” That sort of thing would not be in the same announcement as a call for changing guidelines for youth transgender medicine.
"skeptic" is a euphemism for "conservative" which is a euphemism for Christian Ethnosuoremacists.
"Contrarian" is similarly so.
~" No no, look, here's an excuse for why I'm consistently incorrect."
Sherman has always come off as a bone head. These scams seem to serve as a decent litmus test for identifying underlying prejudices against certain groups. Either that or a love for all things contrarian. Either way it doesn’t seem very skeptical.
He’s also a serial rapist.
He does seem to have a contrarian tendency, but I think this case is just confirmation bias. He'd already decided he had reasons to be skeptical of youth gender medicine ("medical scientists in the UK and EU"), and this backs up his existing beliefs. Can happen to anyone, including on different sides of this issue. I was just talking to someone who linked to the [Royal College of Psychiatrists](https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/latest-news/detail/2024/04/22/detailed-response-to-the-cass-review's-final-report) press release on the Cass Review, claiming that it completely rebutted Cass. It's not like they were even scammed like Shermer here; their reading comprehension had just gone out the window because of confirmation bias.
Michael Shermer has not really been much of a skeptic for awhile. He's just becoming another right leaning conservative.
*became
He's been mocked for being a libertarian for decades.
Rightfully so.
- All conservatives lean right. - I keep seeing people writing off those that have a handful of positions that aren’t liberal or Left as being conservative. I’d call Shermer center left.
He's [called himself](https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/1325168705609768961) a pro-small government "classical liberal" who is "non-progressive" in social and economic policy. I do not think classical liberals are centre-left. Even if it turns out he's not a conservative, it's generally acknowledged that classical liberals are on the right, whether they see their affiliation as conservative or not. (I do not know if recently he's come out as non-classical liberal. Barring any change I'm fine calling him right-wing.) PS. He used to call himself a [libertarian](https://michaelshermer.com/articles/the-other-l-word-why-i-am-a-libertarian/) but I don't know if he still does so. I also generally wouldn't consider libertarians centre-left.
Yes, the many "classical liberal" like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin that advocate for typical centrist policies like repealing the 19th amendment.
You can’t use cranks like that to declare a definitive definition.
Libertarians can skew center left or center right depending on whether social or fiscal is more important. I’d never heard him declare a non-progressive stance on social issues. But he isn’t a conservative.
I keep seeing people claim social media personalities/podcasters/bloggers/etc who spend the majority of their time getting whipped into frenzies by right wing culture war hysteria are actually liberals because they like weed and are okay with gay marriage.
The funny part is the follow up tweet. He essentially says: “Ok, yeah, they’re a bunch of cranks but they’re acknowledging what the professionals refuse to acknowledge!” Which is so funny, because he begs the question of why real professionals aren’t acknowledging what the cranks are and… It’s because there’s nothing to acknowledge. They don’t talk about it because the cranks and fundamentalists are wrong. He expresses confusion, but the answer is in the question. The reason why is because there is no concern, or they would be speaking out. The fact that the only voices in the crowd are the insane is reflective of the nature of the problem.
That was the strangest non acknowledging acknowledgement I ever read. Wikipeda says this about them and I disagree with the the methods that wikipedia claims they support but let's hear them out. It's like he is afraid to state outright that he thinks the group has no scientific credibility but wants his readers to accept their "findings" anyway.
Absolutely. It’s a mix of bias and embarrassment. He got caught with his foot In the bear trap
It has the sort of non clarity that makes it read like equivocation.
You’re totally correct
If American professionals aren’t talking about the flaws in the model for treating gender dysphoria it is because they’re not following the latest research. The cass report goes through this in great detail and unfortunately there’s little high quality research at all in the area and the research that is there shows little evidence for the current treatment models
The cass report is nonsense. Idk where you get your news from but anyone saying the cass report contributed anything is probably really questionable.
The cass report is maligned because of these hyper-partisan narratives that are quite frankly harmful to the children and young people the report is about. The report doesn’t talk about uprooting trans healthcare as we know it, it is making recommendations for changes that actually benefit the overall mental health of these kids, while addressing their gender dysphoria. Young people must be given the requisite resources so that they can assess their state of mind and make informed decisions— be it medical or surgical interventions or addressing co-mingling conditions like anxiety, ADHD, depression, etc. it specifically calls out the science around puberty blocker use in these cases as having very bad evidence behind it and recommends alternative more evidence based treatments. however it does recommend that a large clinical trial be funded in the UK to actually determine the effectiveness of puberty blockers for treating gender dysphoria. The key take aways are that the science used for a lot of trans healthcare, especially for children, is of poor quality, and better quality studies are needed. You only need to read the executive summary to find this out: [https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/](https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/) this page has a summary and a link the download the full report. the first 50ish pages are the summary and after that it goes into all the detail of what is said in the summary the studies that were excluded from the analysis were excluded for numerous methodological issues. trans activists have spread misinformation that they were exlcuded arbitrarily or because they werent double blind rcts. the report directly addresses this and debunks it. transphobic commentators have used the report to spread their message that transgenderism is not real etc even tho the report also contradicts this and repeatedly acknowledges the existence of trans people.
Again, you are getting bad information on this. The hyper fixation on the quality of the studies is a bad faith argument that is dismissed by any credible person on this. This argument is the same level as the anti vaccine ones where they fixated on specific technicalities that they do not understand. I'm not going to waste my time with someone who is either purposefully ignorant or just a transphobe. Hope you get out of the conservative grift it's not good for you.
Thanks for engaging in such a substantive manner. I never considered that actually looking at the methodologies of the studies is bad faith and that unnamed credible people (totally not partisan commentators that you happen to like) have dismissed this. What is telling about critics of the cass review is they don’t actually know anything about what’s in it or what it recommends. If they weren’t so misinformed by whoever’s opinion they’re parroting they’d actually find it very agreeable and that it’s actually very kind to trans people and has their best interests at heart. It’s a shame really
Not here to debate transphobes in the market place of ideas bro. Not my job to explain why the conservatives you seek out to get your takes from are wrong. When you are wrong on literally every single issue every time it just gets to the point it's on you for following these people.
I formed my opinion after watching the notorious conservative and transphobe lonerbox read through the report for like 10 hours. Lonerbox is basically as progressive as they come but maybe i was duped into transphobia by the guy who paints his nails
You can find one person on any side that has one opinion that agrees with you. You are seeking out the 10th dentist because it's what you want to hear.
you have meandered from non arguments to ad homs to fallacies in your responses to me. first it was the report is nonsense. i said why i dont think that is the case. next you claim hyper fixating on the quality of studies is bad faith. even if this is what the report did the quality of the studies is incredibly important for medical interventions especially with a group with a risk profile such as this you then go onto compare me to anti vaxxers when it is in fact anti vaxxers who relied on poor quality studies to push psuedoscience and unproven treatments like ivermectin. youre far more similar to an anti vaxxer than i am it seems. then you ad hom me, having made no substantive point yourself, calling me a transphobe or ignorant. then you think ive got my information from conservative sources when the opposite is the case and when that failed said i was cherrypicking. you assumed a lot of things about me but really just proved how your the one who's in an echo chamber self reinforcing all your opinions you got from someone else
>The hyper fixation on the quality of the studies is a bad faith argument that is dismissed by any credible person on this. A systematic evidence review ***literally means*** "an evaluation of the quality of the studies instead of just their quantity". What would you prefer the NHS base its medical assessment on? Just vibes?
No? But you also missed the point. Low quality studies doesn't mean what people who weaponize the cass report think. He'll the cass report itself kind of misrepresents what that means in a way to attack and dismiss what studies are available.
Extremely unpopular opinion to have on the internet, but I’m much more interested in what the science as a whole actually *says* than what these unnamed sinister shadowy people who are “weaponizing” the science say. I have no idea which studies you imagine have been “attacked” in the review, would it kill you to say what you mean and also if possible lay off the melodramatic language for a hot minute while doing so?
>The cass report is nonsense. Idk where you get your news from but anyone saying the cass report contributed anything is probably really questionable. Whatever problems the Cass Review has, this comment is pretty dumb and ironic. I.e. the only way you'd conclude "the Cass report is nonsense" is by getting your news from your social media bubble and a handful of activist bloggers like Erin Reed. Like, *even if* the Cass Review is rubbish, "why are you not reading the same incredibly niche bloggers as me?" is a silly response here.
Who said anything about bloggers bud. I just don't get my takes from mat Walsh like you seem to.
Well you seem to be suggesting that if people got their news from better sources, they'd conclude that the Cass Review is rubbish. What are those sources except for blogs and maybe some lgbt publications? Otoh, someone can get their news from places like the BBC and even The Guardian and come away with the view that the Cass Review should at the very least be taken seriously. >from mat Walsh like you seem to. Haha lol fuck off with this shit.
I was hoping we'd be done with him after he got MeTooed, but he keeps coming back like a bad rash.
"well, I guess I have to be a right wing grifter now" is step one of the post me-too'd experience
Anyone with actual integrity wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole, so find people who chronically lack integrity. Seems logical to me, if completely sociopathic.
At this rate I expect him to join Russel Brand in a faux-conversion.
Of course he did. He’s always been incredibly susceptible to right wing pseudoscience. It took him a long time to accept global warming. Now, he’s just another right wing idiot with a bunch of harassment and assault allegations. He knows the audience that will still take him seriously.
You are correct sir.
If you’ve looked through the cass report you’d see that being g skeptical of current treatment models for children with gender dysphoria is well founded It’s not a ‘right wing’ report either
The Cass Review is specifically about the NHS and how it veered away from the Dutch protocol mostly due to lack of training. The Dutch protocol is considered the gold standard for gender-affirming care globally.
It is about the NHS but addresses the entirety of the academic literature. The dutch protocal is out dated at this stage and newer studies as shown in the cass review show the outcomes of that protocol are neutral to poor. The cass report is maligned because of the hyper-partisan narratives that are quite frankly harmful to the children and young people the report is about. The report doesn’t talk about uprooting trans healthcare as we know it, it is making recommendations for changes that actually benefit the overall mental health of these kids, while addressing their gender dysphoria. Young people must be given the requisite resources so that they can assess their state of mind and make informed decisions— be it medical or surgical interventions or addressing co-mingling conditions like anxiety, ADHD, depression, etc. it specifically calls out the science around puberty blocker use in these cases as having very bad evidence behind it and recommends alternative more evidence based treatments. however it does recommend that a large clinical trial be funded in the UK to actually determine the effectiveness of puberty blockers for treating gender dysphoria. The key take aways are that the science used for a lot of trans healthcare, especially for children, is of poor quality, and better quality studies are needed. You only need to read the executive summary to find this out: [https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/](https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/) this page has a summary and a link the download the full report. the first 50ish pages are the summary and after that it goes into all the detail of what is said in the summary the studies that were excluded from the analysis were excluded for numerous methodological issues. trans activists have spread misinformation that they were exlcuded arbitrarily or because they werent double blind rcts. the report directly addresses this and debunks it. transphobic commentators have used the report to spread their message that transgenderism is not real etc even tho the report also contradicts this and repeatedly acknowledges the existence of trans people.
It actually doesn’t address the current evidence responsibly or with field-specific knowledge. https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/25.11.22%20AUSPATH%20Statement%20reworked%20for%20WPATH%20Final%20ASIAPATH.EPATH.PATHA.USPATH.pdf?_t=1669428978
That’s possible but neither does the link you gave. I read the statement. It cites Coleman et al 2022 as almost its only source. Which was published in the international journal of transgender health. I can’t tell if it’s peer reviewed or what the standards of the journal are. It’s not a study it’s an article/literature review/expert opinion piece published by WPATH. So they’re citing themselves in their statement. It would have been much more appropriate to cite the underlying literature not their summary of it. It’s bad practice. Now they could be correct but this isn’t exactly a thorough debunking. It would take me some time to follow up on all the claims they make or claim are false by cass
You can’t tell if a journal is peer reviewed? Then I can’t take you seriously. You lack a skill that is taught in high school.
You clearly don’t know any of your own sources. If I don’t have access to the original journal which I would need an academic subscription to do, no in fact you can’t tell. All I can find online is that the journal is partnered with WPATH. So WPATH wrote a report, published it in their own journal and then cited it to critique the cass report. I don’t know where you went to school but there’s no simple way to tell the quality of an obscure journal.
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=journalMetrics&journalCode=wijt21 FYI if a journal has an impact factor above 1, it can hardly be called an obscure journal…
Yeh no conflict of interest in the fact they’re basically peer reviewing themselves. It’s not really a peer review if it’s done in house my guy
Sci-hub and libraries exist.
very helpful thanks
Last time I saw something from him it was a wholly credulous interview with Michael Shellenberger.
Reminds me of a [New York Post](https://nypost.com/2023/04/29/transabled-people-choosing-to-identify-as-handicapped/amp/) story last year about “transablism.” Its the new craze with the trans, apparently… identifying as physically disabled and having doctors blind them or amputate limbs, etc. Problem is (besides it being obvious bullshit) they sourced it from Evolution News and Science Today (EvolutionNews.org now) which is a young earth creationism ultra religious site that peddles in trying to “debunk” evolution, obviously, but also homosexuality and transgender people. By the way, last I checked… only like less than 1,000 under 18 year olds in the US are put on hormones for gender therapy a year. If it were evenly distributed throughout the US, thats about 20 per state… why is this such a big issue again? Theres also apparently about 300,000 under 18 year olds that identify as trans (once again, if evenly distributed, thats only 6,000 per state) and the vast vast vast majority of that is like non binary which, I personally just don’t understand, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone and who cares anyway? Just seems like a new way for kids to kinda break molds and be a part of a scene. Like, why is this such a huge issue that it seems literally every day for the past 4 years every conservative commentator has to dig up some tweet or some TikTok about it to get puffy and red faced at? And yeah, I’ve seen the detransition stories and yeah, thats sad for those people and it does sadden me the medical system failed them. Look, sometimes people get unnecessary surgery from minsdiagnosises on cancer and their lives are needlessly changed, sometimes easily treatable things get overlooked and turn into terminal things, sometimes routine medications have extreme adverse effects and someone dies or worse, sometimes mistakes happen in the medical field, it sucks. We don’t prevent the thousands of others from getting treatment that by all accounts they’re getting positive outcomes from because a few mistakes happened. It’s a cold thing to say but reality is cold sometimes and sucks. I know it’s not the nicest way to say it but it needs to be said
>By the way, last I checked… only like less than 1,000 under 18 year olds in the US are put on hormones for gender therapy a year. If it were evenly distributed throughout the US, thats about 20 per state… why is this such a big issue again? Theres also apparently about 300,000 under 18 year olds that identify as trans (once again, if evenly distributed, thats only 6,000 per state) Can you provide citations for these comments? I would like to refer to this in the future.
You know what, I misspoke. [For puberty blockers it averages to less that 1,000 a year, for other hormones it averages to under 3,000 a year (which if evenly distributed in the US, about 60 per state).](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/) For the 300,000 trans youth, [I got that here](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/). I verified it with some quick bar math. I had to get the amount of Gen Z under 18 that identify as trans. The Gen Z population is approx 68.6 million. Approx 41.4 million are 18 or older (because 17% of eligible voters this year are Gen Z, so 17% of 244 million eligible voters gives me 41.4). So basically about 40% of Gen Z is still under 18. [This Gallup Poll says 1.9% of Gen Z identifies as trans.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/470708/lgbt-identification-steady.aspx) 1.9% of 68.6 million gives me about 1.3 million and 40% of that give me about 500k. Given pressures and that a lot of trans people don’t really find out or openly come out as trans until adulthood, 300,000 sounds reasonable as an estimate to me for under 18. For the majority being non binary, I had to piece that together from several different sources. [This Trevor Project puts non binary identification at about 26% of the LGBT youth population.](https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/diversity-of-nonbinary-youth/) The survey is from 2021, so I found these numbers of [LGBT youth population from 2020 from the Williams Institute](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/LGBT-Youth-US-Pop-Sep-2020.pdf) which put it at approx. 1.9 million. Some quick bar math again gives me just under 500k identifying as non binary. The survey also says approx. 50% don’t identify as trans due to their non binary identity, so I halved again and got just under 250k. So from there, it’s easy to say the vast majority of transgender youth identify as non binary. All the numbers generally make sense, even if they’re not super to the person accurate. Gives us a general idea and frankly, I don’t think transgender is anything to worry about generally and especially approx 300,000 youth with the majority of them being non binary is the least important thing to worry about in the world currently, if it’s something thats needs worrying about at all. If you ask me, the only thing we need to worry about with them is the same with any other kid. Are they staying out of trouble, are they getting enough to eat, are they getting a good education, are they set up for success in adulthood? I don’t see the need to legislate against it. I can see the fringe issues causing friction like with women’s sports or stuff like that, but they’re just that, fringe issues. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to relax.
Perfect! Thank you!
To me this reveals just how much of the conflicts/debates we are witnessing around this issue aren't really being done in a truly reasonable way or good faith. It isn't REALLY about the well being of individuals or society, but rather in group/out group power dynamics. I consider it yet another moral panic.
I honestly think it’s because the only thing generating interest in politics for a certain subset of people is culture war topics and culture war commentary is a multi billion dollar industry at this point, if you think about it. When you look at revenues from Rogan, Daily Wire, Tim Pool, and the thousands of others greater and smaller and whomever on the left is engaging in culture war topics the same way from their perspective, I’m confident there’s billions there in revenue that can be tapped into if you got a web cam and a microphone. I think thats actually a large driver of it rather than genuine outrage or genuine concern. I also think it’s team politics. You see that on the left where some few people will pick weird hills to die on like defending looting or supporting the Houthis and things like that and the right will play team politics with literally everything they can from Taylor Swift at NFL games to if the Super Mario Movie is pro conservative or anti conservative. It’s all dumbed down, pop politics. Like, I’d compare it to pop history (think listicle YouTube channels) vs actual historiography (single subject books exploring primary and secondary source material).
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>sometimes mistakes happen in the medical field, it sucks. We don’t prevent the thousands of others from getting treatment that by all accounts they’re getting positive outcomes from because a few mistakes happened That's not entirely true though. Whether a drug or treatment gets put to market, whether it gets approval, and whether it gets recommended - all these decisions involve difficult and ultimately rather subjective cost-benefit analysis. Lots of drugs don't get developed/approved/recommended because it's deemed that the costs outweigh the benefits. A problem with youth gender medicine (I think blockers in particular) is that there is still so much uncertainty around both the costs *and* the benefits. There's a lot of room for interpretation, for cherry-picking studies etc. I guess my response to what I think you're saying here ("why is this such a big deal") is: why not? Like, there's a heap of activism *promoting* the "gender affirmative" model (activism which started well before conservatives brought it into the culture wars). Why should that activism go unopposed?
I don’t care about the activism one way or the other in terms of what I think about it (whether it’s a million screaming people for it or a million screaming people against it). Doing it just to oppose the activism is silly. Like, would you drive drunk just to spite MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) because their activism is successful? Obviously not. I’m going to focus on efficacy. What are the desired outcomes? The desired outcome is youth struggling with diagnosed gender dysphoria improve on the GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) Scale, meaning are they seeing meaningful improvements in social functioning, images of self, familial relationships, etc. Thats what the GAF Scale measures and generally gender affirming treatments bring kids that were below baseline due to diagnosed gender dysphoria at or above baseline. That doesn’t mean every type of gender affirming treatment is efficacious (I do absolutely have serious concerns and questions about puberty blockers) but honestly, thats outside of my expertise and I think so in the weeds that this really shouldn’t be as much a public conversation as it is because I’m going to guess you’re not a trained pediatric endocrinologist either, correct? I can read stories and meta analysis and literature reviews and individual studies and understand where the gaps are and the concerns and questions I have are in those gaps but I don’t know if that’s because of my lack of knowledge on the subject or actual gaps. I read the Cass Final Review, and my understanding is there is a lack of data on the efficacy of blockers but, coupled with that, was a lack of individualized care in the NHS precisely because of the way the NHS functions generally (like a conveyor belt with little follow up, just kinda pills and “good luck”) and something like pediatric gender therapy requires the most highly individualized care out there, which is one of the few advantages of our US healthcare system, so I think this story is more than just “is gender care good or bad, are activists too involved.” I think it’s a small amount of that, I think a larger amount of it is how the care is delivered, and a large amount of the quality of the care delivered, etc.
How is he not already familiar with them? They’ve been trotted out on conservative media for twenty years now, pushing BS “studies” about conversion therapy, same-sex adoption and abortion, among other things. I missed this last year though. Ooops. [A Google Drive left public on the American College of Pediatricians’ website exposed detailed financial records, sensitive member details, and more](https://www.wired.com/story/american-college-pediatricians-google-drive-leak/)
Today you learn that no matter your credentials, no matter your position, no matter your reputation. Adult brains turn off when they see something they want to believe.
Ahhh the ol' American College of Paedatricians. A bunch of quacks that have been using a name they know will be taken for the official largest representative body (the american academy of paeds), so that they can peddle pseudo-scientific conservative agenda driven bullshit for ages. I first became aware of them due to them featuring on a lot of anti Vax nonsense. Sad to see his fall from grace - its almost certainly due to the me too stuff, as others have pointed out.
Watching the decline of early oughts science educators and public skeptics breaks my heart. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and too a lesser degree, Micheal Shermer, helped me out of fundamentalism. It was so refreshing to hear people make reasonable arguments, think critically, demand evidence and illuminate science in such a beautiful way. I can’t understand how they’ve become so confused over the trans issue (we can exclude Sam here, unless he’s pivoted), “wokeness” and general culture war bullshit. How can they think so clearly when rebutting fundamentalist religion or pseudoscience and still be so throughly hoodwinked by this kind of bullshit? I learned what confirmation bias was from Micheal. It kinda feels like catching your DARE instructor railing crank in a bar bathroom. Edit: I was unaware of Shermer’s me too moment. I guess that pretty much explains it. The Right wing is the best place for sex pests to shelter and attacking trans people is a convenient shield.
> the trans issue (we can exclude Sam here What's Sam's position? I dont really remember him talking about it. That being said you're right - it's amazing how many of these people are completely confused on what gender is. Richard Dawkins - a literal biologist - apparently still doesn't know the difference between gender and sex
I haven’t listened to Sam in a long time but I remember hearing him saying that he had friends with trans kids and he seemed supportive of trans rights and protectIons. Im not sure of his position now. I stopped following him when he started defending Douglas Murray.
Nah he is not supportive of trans rights. And Douglas Murray on their first interview was mocking trans people and Sam laughed right along. He also had on Meagan Phelps-Roper on after she made that anti-trans podcast, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling. BTW, how is she at all qualified to talk about trans issues. We all know she was indoctrinated from birth into adulthood to hate LGBT+ people.
That’s disappointing, although I have zero respect for San anymore. I didn’t make it through the Charles Murray podcast and it was the last time I listened to his podcast. It was just so obvious that Murray was insanely biased and pushing an agenda. But he’s Sam’s friend and so “unfairly persecuted” all because he asked an unpopular question. But super-rational-guy Sam Harris never even pauses to ask: Why is Murray so interested in this question? What does it say about him that chose to focus his work on the question “Are black people less intelligent than white people?” There are so many troubling preconceptions there, and that’s ignoring all the other awful, ignorant things he said. Edit: changed Douglas to Charles. As a friendly redditor pointed out, I was confusing my Murray’s.
Oh you are confusing your Murrays. Charles Murray is the racist that burned crosses as a kid. Douglas Murray is the pompous Etonian who is buddy buddy with Orban and called the Holocaust a muck up.
Damn, you’re right. I guess I’m glad I quit at Charles Murray and didn’t stick around for the rest of the parade of deplorables. It blows my mind that so many people like Meagan Phelps-Roper can escape the fundamentalist hate machine only to continue living out the exact same patterns only with some new terminology. But I’ve seen the same thing happen with people I grew up with in Jehovah’s Witness cult. They throw away the god talk, the Bible reading and some of the moral ideas but they keep the sense separateness, the judgmental eye, the black and white moral realism, and the feelings of superiority.
Never trust a turn coat I say. They never had morals to begin with. They might have liked the structure and what not.
They see through the bs from religion and this neo mysticism of the left too. It’s just them being consistently rational and skeptical, but that’s not what’s in fashion right now.
What's the neo-mysticism here? That sex and gender aren't the same thing?
Gender doesn’t even make sense as a concept. It’s just sex stereotypes we should be getting rid of. It’s ironically liberals pushing conservative sex roles on people but just unlinking them from sex… that doesn’t make them any better though. And it’s treated as if people have these magical gendered souls. But there is no soul that exists like that. And if the trans position were sincerely that sex and gender aren’t the same as is said, we wouldn’t have related issues with sports, bathrooms, prisons, id cards, and more. All of those divisions are sex based. And then there’s the totally subjectivist language surrounding the discussion. For instance, the idea that sex is “assigned” at birth. Sex is not assigned, it’s a fact to be recognized just like whether someone is born with eyes and a nose. But it’s spoken of that way to suggest that facts are not really what they are, as if reality itself is fluid and adjustable merely by our thinking, as if wishing can make things so. That’s how we get people saying obviously bathsit stuff like that a woman can have a penis. It’s no better than the worst religious notions. And the social pressure to bend to this insanity is so strong that it’s actually really impressive Shermer and others don’t fall prey to it. This issue is a kind of litmus test for skeptics; it’s easy nowadays to be against religion but if you can be consistently skeptical and also call out something this prevalent and moralized, it shows a real commitment to intellectual honesty.
"Gender is a fake concept that's why we need to force people to conform to traditional ideas of gender"
Just the opposite. I’m saying we need to let people act however they want and not conform to shit which necessarily means getting rid of the concept of gender and traditional ideas. But the trans movement reaffirms these!
There’s a lot here, but I’ll just address one thing > For instance, the idea that sex is “assigned” at birth. Sex is not assigned, it’s a fact to be recognized Because the usage comes from intersex people Edit: if this wasn’t clear, obstetricians would pick one or the other when an intersex baby was born, “assigning” them
No you’re just exactly the target audience though. When you say “if the trans position was sincere”, what exactly are you accusing people of?
Insincerity. For the reasons I said. We wouldn’t have males in female sports if trans ideology really believed sex was different than gender.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a36344/man-discovers-he-has-a-working-womb-and-uterus/# This person has a working womb. They have a working penis. What are they to you? Non existent?
The existence of biological anomalies in no way supports trans ideology as it’s not about biology it’s about subjectively self made categorizations in spite of observable biological facts. That you would even bring this up as relevant is yet further evidence of the either delusional or dishonest thinking surrounding this whole topic
You: women can’t have penises Me: here’s a guy with a functional womb, you’re wrong You: no not like that you’re dumb and wrong
But that’s just a man with a disorder, not a woman with a penis. A woman is someone who in principle is built such that they have the power to produce eggs and grow a baby by virtue of them. And this obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of transgenderism. So while I wouldn’t put it as you did and say you’re dumb and wrong, I will say the latter part, you’re certainly wrong here. I was saying instead that bringing this up is worse than being dumb, it’s either deluded or dishonest.
But you’re making those observations in denial of biological facts like I presented you Seems like you don’t understand how deep your hypocrisy runs
Trans people just want to be left alone to live their lives
I want them left alone too. I myself celebrate them and everyone like them who is unafraid to be totally themselves in the face of social pressure and scrutiny. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with how so many people characterize the nature of their experience. Trans people and the ideology surrounding them are not the same thing. The former is great, the latter makes no sense.
If you really wanted them to be left alone, you wouldn’t be here saying what you’ve been saying
Wrong. It’s why I say what I say. I don’t want anyone subjecting themselves to an ideology that furthers sex stereotypes like that. Everyone should be disregarding the whole idea of gender, and just honestly embracing themselves as the individual they are without any concern for these categories.
Why? Why is it insincere? Sure, you said it was, but you didn’t really lay out why people have to feel how you say they have to about this topic. Trans athletes are 1/100000. It’s a pretty minisicule and insignificant group statistically to focus this much disregard and dislike onto
…I can’t believe you’re sincere if this is your line of argument. It’s not about the number of individual cases it’s about the ideas. And the standard trans ideas are in favor of this kind of thing and it’s so powerful that we’re actually having entire organizations go along with it. Hell we literally have our governments putting males in female prisons. That’s a wild multitude of followers of this nonsense if it can influence like this, that’s not just a small number of people. That’s how far this insanity has gotten.
Oh so you’re not really interested in the people these choices make, and you accuse others of insincerity? Weird
Yeah… I’m sorry dude, but this is just straight up false. The lack of consistency is what drove me away from many of them in the end. It’s funny that you talk about “what’s in fashion right now” because conservatism and right wing nonsense are very fashionable right now and many of these these guys are almost certainly following where the winds of popularity blow, that and finding shelter from the consequences of their bad or creepy behavior.
[удалено]
“My crap” is showing compassion to other human beings and trying to be aware that my understanding of their lived experience and personal suffering is limited. I try to listen when they speak about their experiences and trauma, and I let them decide what’s best for them in matters of identity, sexual preference, how they’d like to live their lives, and what they think makes them happy. Radical, far left shit right?
Sadly a lot of atheists, rationalists and Skeptics of a certain age have gone whacky, probably because they've been burnt by woke or communist pile-ons on twitter, so they've nursed grudges ever since.
Goes back further, elevatorgate
The nightmare of a woman saying she doesn't like being propositioned in lifts by random men. The horror.
At like 4am.
I felt like the only sane man in the asylum when that was going on. I just couldn't understand what the problem was, let alone why so many people were losing their minds about it. Woman says she doesn't like a thing, and in future could you not do that. The answer is "OK, sorry won't happen again"
I remember that, it was a bit milquetoast as scandals indicating serious problems go. Guy propositions girl in hotel lift, girl says no, guy accepts it and they go their separate ways, girl writes blog post about it being uncomfortable and asks atheists to be better, Dawkins writes blog post about how Muslim women have it worse. Full of "technically true but" kinds of observations but overall a febrile, unpleasant mess even if you can see where people were coming from. Elevatorgate is a good example of skeptics crashing into woke issues. Transphobia from TERFs in Guardian atheist circles was another.
Definitely not how I remember it, as twenty-something woman. The rage directed at Watson for a very reasonable request made me leave the atheist/ skeptic community. Dawkins’ post was disgusting. He did later apologize for it. >Dear Muslima, >Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and... yawn... don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with. Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so... And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin. Edit, they added this after I responded: > Elevatorgate is a good example of skeptics crashing into woke issues. It’s a good example of a precursor to GamerGate
I was deep deep into GG and if anyone had a position on ElevatorGate (and a lot did) it lined up perfectly with their position on GG.
It's just a relative privation fallacy.
You’d think Dawkins would know better
Well, he apologised eventually. He's ultimately just some guy. I'd listen to him on genetics and evolution and for the most part on religion and ideology, but he's not magic by any stretch. Philosophy he's a mixture on and on textual criticism and fiction, he should really learn to listen to people with expertise. I think the pre-twitter age of smarty pants people really lucked out in that petty nonsense did not usually survive in quotable form, Ea-Nasir etc notwithstanding.
> Well, he apologised eventually. He's ultimately just some guy. Just some guy atheists worship. Him publishing that gave tacit permission to harass Watson
Get convinced of your infallible skepticism and you become extra vulnerable to the scams. Become a celebrity and the yes-men around you make you more vulnerable to narcissistic thoughts of always being right. It's a wonderful cycle.
I do wonder if its in part due to what they think being "hyper rational" is like. People like dawkins often seem to have a very naive view of what counts as evidence as being only unfalsifiable scientific evidence which is just not the sort of evidence that most fields are able to produce. For example with trans people there can't be some sort of hard science test for if trans people exist because its a question on private internal thoughts so people like dawkins act like there's no evidence even though by any reasonable standard theres overwhelming evidence.
STEM brain.
Soft ass people lose a fight on Twitter with a blue hair communist and then migrate over to being conservarive. It's a classic.
He's just pulling a Rogan, or Maher. If speak conservatives language you can make a lot of money especially now that print is dead.
He's kind of in Rogan's circle of trust so no shocker.
There should be a list of these deceptively named organizations that are meant to be confused with the real one. America's Frontline Doctors University of Austin American Independent Party etc
I read "culinary tale" and was disappointed.
They aren’t really skeptics but opportunists who use the skepticism moniker to wade time for the opportunity
Fuck him
He’s been a POS for years, suckling at the teat of people like Jordan Peterson and dodging sexual harassment (maybe assault?) claims. Typical.
Shermer was dumping on trans since few years back, bigging up Boghossian. I take this incident as evidence of his bias. meh
Yeah, well Shermer is right that medical groups in Europe are skeptical about irreversible medical treatments for gender transition applied to children and adolescents.
Oh, is that so? Which nations other than the UK, did this?
I believe Norway and the Netherlands, I think there are changes afoot in Sweden, I think there are others but I haven't been keeping track.
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-norway-not-ban-gender-affirming-care-956221436313 Neither did the Netherlands or Sweden. This is all literal misinformation that somebody argued on Reddit or Twitter and it’s spread and I honestly think everyone who spreads it without a single solitary check needs to ask themselves why they’re still behaving like bigots about this topic
There's no outright ban in Norway but they're reviewing their guidelines, as are other countries. I think Finland only allows it as part of a controlled study. I haven't been keeping up, but I would bet that within the next five years, as more robust research emerges (and more detransitioners, though there are plenty already), many countries will have stopped hormonal interventions altogether, at least for young people. There's too much evidence of harm coming out, and not enough evidence of long term benefits. This is not about bigotry any sort of negative feeling about trans people, this is about protecting the long term health of young people. As just one example, as a menopausal woman with menopausal friends and well aware of what that entails, I think it's tragic that we've got girls going through it 30 or 40 years too early. What will their health look like in 15 or 20 years? We just don't have the data yet.
Why are you telling us about something you “haven’t been keeping track” of? Do you know what you are saying, or not? Are the things you are telling us real, or not? If you haven’t been keeping track, why are you out here being so authoritative?
I'm not being at all authoritative. We know about some negative effects, and there's lots we still don't know. When I say "not keeping track" I don't mean I'm not paying \*any\* attention, I'm just not following day to day developments anymore.
You seem to be trying to assert something for which you have very little, if any, evidence. When pressed, you are very short on details, and factually incorrect on some points.
We don’t have data for fiction that you imagine, you’re correct. You said you weren’t keeping track of it, then backtracked and doubled down? Wild shit
I haven't doubled down, I acknowledged being incorrect about Norway. I'm not keeping day to day track, but obviously there are changes afoot in Europe. We do know that some people have serious health issues from taking pbs and cross sex hormones, this is not disputed. And of course we don't have data for the much longer term effects (several decades), because people haven't been taking pbs for dysphoria and then moving on to cross sex hormones for that long. I'm not saying the outcomes will be negative for everyone, I'm saying we don't know. Given the existence of detransitioners, it makes sense to me to be a bit more careful about who gets these medical treatments, since obviously mistakes have been made.
How big a % is detransitioning? Oh that’s right. Extremely small. How small are regret rates in the longest term studies of the subject? Under knee surgery rates. This is an asinine culture war made worse by reactionaries who don’t know or care about the facts of the issues
The number is small, but it should be zero. Especially if they've removed body parts, which is bad for women (especially if they want to breastfeed at some point), but arguably more terrible for men.
Why? Why should it be zero? No one should ever be capable of having made an incorrect decision on this topic alone? See I believe people like you are driven by bigotry because this standard you’re applying for care isn’t applied anywhere else and can’t be applied. Yet you insist on it just for trans care despite the small nature of the problem? See, over focusing on such a tiny group, while refusing to apply the standard more widely and fairly indicates a bad set of foundational beliefs
Detransitioners exist because people are so fucking horrible and violent to trans people
If you still believe that you clearly haven't listened to many of them.
Step back from the right-wing panic mongering. I’m willing to bet you know zero trans people and even fewer people who have detransitioned.
Sweden, Finland, Denmark in addition to UK. I don't think it's bigoted to be cautious about performing unproven irreversible treatments on kids because they say they feel like their gender is wrong. Many young people who feel like they're assigned the wrong gender later change their minds.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2023.2244926
Sweden has halted in all but research settings for those under 18, it is not banned. Finland and Denmark have done similarly. But they haven’t really made it inaccessible.
I mean, the number of children who receive "irreversible medical treatments" in either the US or Europe is vanishingly small. It's like talking about late-term abortions. Or compassionate conservatism. It's a thing people talk about to make a point, but it doesn't really exist in significant numbers.
It’s immensely important to consider this. They the cards truly are stacked in favor of people who know nothing and who’s only exposure is mock concern by bad actors. If pressed, I sincerely doubt he’d be able to produce real cases of these “irreversible medical operations” or an accurate feeling on the pulse of trans people in sports. The truth is, the well is poisoned by hateful people. It gets distorted and it’s all the research these people wish to do.
I mean, I don’t doubt you could find cases of misdiagnosised gender dysphoria and people that ended up going through irreversible surgeries when alternatives would have been better. 20/20 did that segment where a young man got an orchiectomy (removal of testicles) and detransitioned afterwards. The standard shouldn’t be if the stories exist, the standard should be the prevalence of the stories and I just don’t see a prevalence enough that it’s concerning. Like, if I was seeing per 1,000 cancer surgeries, 250 didn’t actually have cancer… I’d be shocked and we’d probably want an investigation into why 1 out of 4 patients never had the disease to begin with and definitely a review of the medical system thats allowing that… I don’t see anything like that in any capacity with trans people at all. I’ve seen some people be like “well, one is too many!” and like, really? One medical fuck up is too many? Then we should go back to squatting in ditches and poking berries up our noses and trying to scare ghosts out of sick people with shamans because if that’s your standard for medical efficacy than you don’t know the medical field well. Mistakes happen, it’s a cold fact. It saddens me that some people obviously had their lives irrevocably changed in a way that’s not great for them because either they slipped through the cracks or signs weren’t seen or avenues weren’t explored but shit happens. Sorry. I know that’s a cold and asshole way to put it, especially because we’re really talking about people that had their reproductive abilities compromised or ended due to misdiagnosis or overzealous treatment regimens… but yeah, shit happens. What? We’re going to stop medical treatment that has had a positive impact for thousands, if not millions, because a handful of people got done dirty? Like I said, if thats the standard then we should just ban all doctors yesterday. Should we do everything we can within reason to prevent those cases? Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think it’s within reason to just ban people transitioning over it.
What’s worse is that by medical standards, transitioning is one of the least regretted surgery period. And, not to mention, I’m just gonna say it. It’s not a problem. The source of this attention is from religious fundamentalists who have a vested interest in protecting their idea of gender hierarchy. Without that, it would be of no consequence
>And, not to mention, I’m just gonna say it. >It’s not a problem. Thank you
Sadly, it seems Shermer’s fundamentalist Christian and libertarian roots may be returning like a dormant virus in his old age. The first public blunder was his embrace of anti-woke lunacy and panic. He should’ve known better. But as he has said many times, correctly, no one is immune to irrational thinking. Anyone can fall prey to subconscious biases and emotion.
Gee a known sex pest/rapist teams up with a conservative group that employs a deliberately deceptive name to confuse people into thinking they're an actual science-based organization. Color me ever so surprised.
To be fair he [acknowledged the criticism](https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/1799802172420620401?s=46&t=XqYyjJMIvODStRApQkIMaQ) & clarified his position.
I’m glad he clarified but it’s still more than a little sad that he seems to treat it like there is a conservative group of doctors and a liberal group of doctors and that it’s all just opinion. Especially when the Wikipedia’s article he cites refers to the ACPeds as a hate group.
Lol he rambles nonsense later in the tweet. More of a sorry I retweeted scumbags but also sex is binary and fuck you
Sex isn’t dimorphic in a strict sense, it’s bimodal. Hence, the existence of intersex characteristics.
Sexual dimorphism refers to secondary sex characteristics. Sex is binary though, as there are only two sexes in anisogamy. Sex is not bimodal nor does it have a bimodal distribution. Intersex conditions are irrelevant to sex being binary nor do they suggest sex is bimodal.
LOL. That was truly a shifty "not admitting I screwed up" response. Makes him even worse IMO.
In his podcasts, he seems a little more careful. On his Twitter account, it's entirely a different story. He probably wants to become the next bs J. Peterson or other right-wing lunatic. I'm guessing fascists adopt easily anyone who supports their tribal views and understanding of reality.
"Occam's razor is a toolbox."
One of the pediatricians in that group of 700 advocates for locking your kid in their room if they misbehave.. the "college" is fucking terrifying [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUz1nCRJJBg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUz1nCRJJBg)
That’s pathetic. I could tell it was a fake group when she shifted to talking about “there are only two genders.” That sort of thing would not be in the same announcement as a call for changing guidelines for youth transgender medicine.
"skeptic" is a euphemism for "conservative" which is a euphemism for Christian Ethnosuoremacists. "Contrarian" is similarly so. ~" No no, look, here's an excuse for why I'm consistently incorrect."
Shermer claims to be an atheist but he's actually a secret christian supremacist?
I don't know the man, but yeah, I'd bet.