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This is a nice, long, science-based and very detailed post with plenty of references... just the sort of thing that SBM used to publish.

Joking aside, they've published a lot of posts on quackery, which is a good thing because a naturopath treating cancer with turmeric is going to kill people. A lot of their pieces are basically polemics, which is rather defensible when you're writing about stuff like cupping, where there really isn't a good argument for the practice. But polemics don't really work that well when the evidence is not clear-cut, and they often publish polemics where the evidence isn't clear. I've noticed that in some cases, the pieces tend to fall into the category of "destroying" something and then overstate the evidence or insist that there's no ambiguity when there most certainly is. If that's your site's general tone, chances are that your authors will take the same approach for stuff where the science isn't clear, but the author has strong opinions.

It's unfortunate, because overall, it means that people will question the articles on the site that are strongly grounded in science.

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Hrm, saw this elsewhere, not sure if if changes the point but you say "Lovell’s 0.89% rate isn’t found anywhere in the report she links to and I’m not going to try to figure out where she got it." but it seems like the ".89" percent of children abused is pretty clearly on page 2 of that report: "Approximately one-fifth (16.7 percent) of the children investigated were found

to be victims of abuse or neglect—a rate of 8.9 per 1,000 children in the population." https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/canstats.pdf

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Thank you for the work, I've been following your writing for some time but, given the task you've set for yourself with posts like this, finally subscribed today.

One quick note. You state "If not, they should explain how their own views differ and why they think Lovell is wrong". I'm fairly sure you meant Eckert here, since this is in the discussion of the first post from Eckert (near the top of that part).

I'm also hoping for a follow-up on Part 2, but I understand how frustrating this is...

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This was masterful. I admire your tenacity and thoroughness, Jesse. This was a LOT of work on your part and a very good read. The turtle imagery will stay with me, lol.

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I feel so bad for your poor brain sitting upended in that Brooklyn parking lot. I can't imagine how exhausting this was to write.... but thank you for doing it and I hope you tackle Eckhart part 2 as well!!

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Jesse, thank you so much for all this work.

I looked at the latest SBM thing (from today) and I haven't had the energy to read it. I have the sense it's going to be full of distortions and the dreaded "misinformation", judging from the past, but I don't have the knowledge to actually fisk the thing.

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While the question "Why are so many younger people now identifying as trans or nonbinary?" is an interesting one, it contains no moral content. What I do find jarring is the number of credentialed and other observers who have simultaneously decided to undermine their own credibility in spectacular ways.

While a lot of this chaos can be dismissed as performative Twitter art and raw, angry noise, many of the people whose boggling mistakes you're throwing into view here are far from hacks and have worked for many years to build well-earned reputations as trustworthy analysts and critics -- reputations I can't see ultimately withstanding their own drunken anti-science c. 2021 capering once the culture-war dust settles, assuming that dust finds solid ground someplace on which to do so.

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Thank you so much for the work you do on this stuff. One thing that struck me about the second post you're critiquing (Eckert's) is how weird this is going to sound to the average reader of SBM who isn't already steeped in this kind of lingo and way of thinking. Up until this point, their posts have sounded like it's coming from some kind of recognizable scientific perspective. The fact that Eckert states outright that patients don't need an actual diagnosis to access treatment is probably going to surprise a lot of people in ways that Eckert themself doesn't realize. Same with how you're not allowed to mention biology.

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Thenk you for your tirelessly efforts to uncover the facts.

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I just read Helen Joyce's book, "Trans - When Ideality Meets Reality" - I'm wondering who $upports Science-Based Medicine...

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Jesse,

Not sure if this is just a me problem, but wanted to let you know this didn't hit my inbox (subscribed). Only knew about the post because of Twitter.

Had to come directly to your substack page to find it.

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Eckert: "According to Shrier, “before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages 11-21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all”. A review of research studies reveals a 1998 research (1) study on puberty delay in trans adolescents ..."

Singal: "(1) is a Netherlands case report of a natal female (sorry for the defamation) who “came to the gender clinic requesting sex reassignment surgery at age 16. From interviews with her parents it appeared that she had always been a classical tomboy in her play activities and toy and peer preference and that she wished to be a boy from early on.” This is apparent childhood-onset GD, so it doesn’t debunk Shrier’s claim."

I'm a bit confused here. You say that (1) *doesn't* debunk Shrier’s claim, since it refers to childhood-onset GD, but the claim in question is that "there was no scientific literature on girls ages 11-21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all" before 2012, and (1) seems to be precisely that sort of literature. Or are you saying that the onset of GD was before 11 years old?

Also, a typo here: "the name of the condition in question was changed from “gender identity dysphoria” to “gender dysphoria”"

I'm pretty sure that you meant to write "gender identity disorder", not "gender identity dysphoria".

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