The precocious puberty thing is the part that always gets me. If we've learned anything from mishaps in medical science, it's that generalizing the effects of something on an ill population to a healthy population is rife with potential problems (using "healthy" here for GD youth since there does not appear to be, so far as I'm aware, anything wrong with their endocrine systems). Children with precocious puberty have a specific dysfunction that puberty blockers appear to treat successfully; that does not mean all uses of puberty blockers are safe (adult women are sometimes given lupron for endometriosis, but it's only supposed to be used short-term due to potential complications, for example). And honestly, some of the side effects in GD kids that are coming out are even more horrific than sexual dysfunction or fertility loss--the lack of bone density growth in adolescence could be very, very bad when these kids hit middle age or older.
It’s extremely disappointing to see Foreign Policy (!) succumbing you the journalists-turned-activists craze that is damaging the credibility of mainstream media and threatens to remove the appeal to truth and objectivity from the sphere of journalism.
While this is not an isolated American occurrence, it is certainly a much bigger problem in the US than elsewhere (I’m also aware of problematic tendencies in Canada and the U.K., where I live). In the U.K., the Guardian has suffered from it the most, as evidenced by the Suzanne Moore fiasco which you covered in a Blocked and Reported episode from a few weeks ago. A big contributor to this turn at the Guardian has been the US contingent at the newspaper; interestingly, most of the nuanced, reasoned analysis of the Bell vs. Tavistock case and the wider context has been found in either centre-right mainstream outlets (The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph) or small upstarts (Unherd). The American media landscape is more polarised - I worry that this is leading to an increasing retreat of reason to individual voices like yourself, while the mainstream media keeps on waging a never-ending culture war.
“I could run a full-time newsletter devoted solely to critiquing scientifically illiterate, ideologically driven coverage of this subject, but that wouldn’t be much fun at all.”
Fun for whom? Maybe not you, but I expect someone gets their jollies from your writing on this subject!
A Response To Foreign Policy's Deeply Misleading Article, "A High Court Decision in Britain Puts Trans People Everywhere at Risk" (Updated)
The precocious puberty thing is the part that always gets me. If we've learned anything from mishaps in medical science, it's that generalizing the effects of something on an ill population to a healthy population is rife with potential problems (using "healthy" here for GD youth since there does not appear to be, so far as I'm aware, anything wrong with their endocrine systems). Children with precocious puberty have a specific dysfunction that puberty blockers appear to treat successfully; that does not mean all uses of puberty blockers are safe (adult women are sometimes given lupron for endometriosis, but it's only supposed to be used short-term due to potential complications, for example). And honestly, some of the side effects in GD kids that are coming out are even more horrific than sexual dysfunction or fertility loss--the lack of bone density growth in adolescence could be very, very bad when these kids hit middle age or older.
I love these long form technical takedowns of arguments! Please keep them coming!
It’s extremely disappointing to see Foreign Policy (!) succumbing you the journalists-turned-activists craze that is damaging the credibility of mainstream media and threatens to remove the appeal to truth and objectivity from the sphere of journalism.
While this is not an isolated American occurrence, it is certainly a much bigger problem in the US than elsewhere (I’m also aware of problematic tendencies in Canada and the U.K., where I live). In the U.K., the Guardian has suffered from it the most, as evidenced by the Suzanne Moore fiasco which you covered in a Blocked and Reported episode from a few weeks ago. A big contributor to this turn at the Guardian has been the US contingent at the newspaper; interestingly, most of the nuanced, reasoned analysis of the Bell vs. Tavistock case and the wider context has been found in either centre-right mainstream outlets (The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph) or small upstarts (Unherd). The American media landscape is more polarised - I worry that this is leading to an increasing retreat of reason to individual voices like yourself, while the mainstream media keeps on waging a never-ending culture war.
“I could run a full-time newsletter devoted solely to critiquing scientifically illiterate, ideologically driven coverage of this subject, but that wouldn’t be much fun at all.”
Fun for whom? Maybe not you, but I expect someone gets their jollies from your writing on this subject!