“Using sound methods, no link has been found between peer influence and gender identity development,” LOLOL
Once again, there are some things so stupid only an academic can believe them.
If you don't think your peers affect and help sculpt you and your identity and your desires as you grow up—esp as a teen—then you're either lying or spent your adolescence in a coma.
Also, I thought Gender Theory believed in the Blank Slate and that we're all just indistinguishable meat widgets until culture and oppression inscribe their power-knowledge upon us. Does this mean only parents, teachers and TV influence us but NOT our friends and peers? That is one Blank Slate theory I've never heard.
I almost feel sorry for the Gender dead-enders, they've painted themselves into a corner and can only respond by spraying an inkcloud of lies in every direction—but then I remember how much damage they've caused, both to their patients and to our larger culture, and am excited to see them finally face some consequences.
“Gender dead-enders”. lol. The term has a nice ring to it. I thought the Andrea Chu piece in New York Magazine was the real canary in the coal mine insofar as he just flat out ditched any and all deference to medical science and ethics in favor of letting kids decide their own treatment.
At root the "gender theorist" is usually a deeply miserable, spiritually and physically misshapen person who needs to have their misery and psychosis shared as widely as possible and/or a rhetorical alchemist hoping to transmute their discomfort into something either edgy or normal or radical, depending upon the needs of the person and the moment. (This is why Judith Butler has inflicted the world's worst prose upon us—because of all the people who accidentally called her "Sir"!)
This is also why their arguments are so flimsy and circular and why when all else fails they resort to saying insane things like: a child can decide their own surgical options, who are we to say otherwise? Besides, they can always get their amputated parts sewn back on later if they change their minds...
I so sadly relate to this. There are only fleeting moments of fun, peace, or even just distraction that are not infiltrated with horror and outrage about everything in the cult of gender ideology.
Same, I concluded that 1) it is so straightforward what the logical reality of the situation is that it is a satisfying puzzle. 2) its all around me, I have to navigate being careful of what I say almost every day. 3) its easier to obsess over than other unsolvable issues in my life that I can’t control. 4) I appreciate Jesse’s writing and inclusion of an analogy to Calvin and Hobbs’ Calvinball.
About a quarter of the way in, where there’s a discussion of the impact of social transition, it’d be worth considering one other piece of evidence. The Kristina Olson longitudinal study has shown something close to a 98% rate of persistence in a transgender identity as the kids progressed from early/mid childhood to puberty. My understanding is that these kids mostly resembled those in the Dutch study, insofar as they expressed a cross-gender identity in early childhood. But unlike the Dutch study, these parents seem to have socially transitioned their children prior to meeting with Kristina Olson. My impression is that most parents took this step on their own, without consulting a clinician (but correct me if I’m wrong).
Now, proponents of the unquestioning affirmative model will say that Olson’s findings simply prove that “trans kids know who they are.” I think most of us here would place at least equal weight on the possibility that social transition concretizes an identity. For young kids, parents are the main arbiters of reality.
That's right. These kids socially transitioned at an average age of six and did so before entering the study. They are not representative of the typical minors presenting at gender clinics today: natal girls who first become overtly gender dysphoric after the onset of puberty and who as a group have a high rate of psychiatric comorbidities and autism.
Jesse, it's now 2025 in Australia. Happy New Year and thanks for all your excellent work to promote enlightenment and combat obscurantism on gender medicine.
Why in the world does a law school think they are qualified to weigh in on medical research? Is there any other health condition at ALL where this occurs?
Of COURSE they are going to make a legal, not a scientific or medical or even psychological argument. The question is why anybody would take that seriously unless they were worried about/defending against potential malpractice.
Medical Ethics is a serious field of study. Certain medical disciplines require a few hours of Ethics included in the curriculum to meet accreditation reviews. Not sure where this is tested in the multitude of exams required for an MD. Some medical disciplines also require continuing education credits in ethics. Maybe 2 hours every couple years. Sometimes lawyers teach this in medical schools, maybe a clinician with a bioethics background.
In any case, this review is more about the preposterous discrepancies between what MacNamera et al decree is “high quality” and what they chose to ignore and cover up.
Extremely curious what is in the studies Olsen Kennedy is sitting on. House subcommittee is investigating about her misuse of funds last I heard? By not publishing government funded research.
Why in the world does a law school think they are qualified to weigh in on medical research? Because Yale Law is the Mount Olympus of the American legal educational establishment. The intellectual aristocracy who are admitted are without question the Globally Consequential Future Leaders of Everything that Matters. Just ask that multigenerational nepo baby and Yale Law grad Emily Bazelon.
They're coasting 100% on the Yale brand. And they aren't hiding the fact that they're laundering conflicted bullshit outside of the peer review process in order to influence legal decisions:
"In this section, we post work by Integrity Project founders that falls outside the traditional publication path. (Our formal publications are listed on this site under “Publications”) Because we aim to bring sound scientific information to decisionmakers in fast-moving legislative and judicial processes, our work includes white papers and amicus briefs."
A document written in part by law professors and published by a law school was horribly skewed because it was intended to promote a perspective aligned with a litigation strategy? No freakin’ way!! Just curious, Jesse: did the plaintiffs in US vs. Skrmetti rely on the Yale “white paper”? The timing is curious.
Money quote from Singal: "McNamara and her team write that 'Medications to pause puberty have long been used for central precocious puberty without negative impact on cognitive development.'
It’s amazing that this claim is still floating around. The whole point is that if you put a kid on blockers and then cross-sex hormones, that is a very different development trajectory, because 1) they are usually going on blockers later, and 2) in most cases, they are not simply ceasing blockers so their natal puberty can take over, but rather going through a puberty based on cross-sex hormones. There are all sorts of questions about whether they will subsequently 'catch up.'
Almost nothing from the evidence base for the treatment of precocious puberty can be neatly applied to the debate over youth gender medicine."
I've always struggled with pushing back against this argument from TRAs, but this has succinctly encapsulated how I can going forward.
One easy way to tell that McNamara et al. are full of shit and don't know what they're talking about: they appear to always conjugate the verb for "data" in third-person singular. "Data" is plural! It is never "the data is...", "the data shows...", or "the data says..." but "the data are...", "the data show...", and "the data say...".
I'm a stodgy old grammarian in many ways, but it's long since been accepted use to consider "data" a singular reference to a collection of data (where "data" is really treated as a synonym for "information"). I don't know what style guide is used in this publication, and it would be up to that style guide to determine what is proper usage in this context.
It is also remarkable how many grammatical errors a paper authored by nine "highly credentialed experts" contains. Four errors are evident in the excerpts Jesse included (as noted by "sic erat scriptum"), but there appear to be many more. It makes me wonder how many of the nine authors actually reviewed and/or proofread their own document, as opposed to simply lending their name and credentials in an attempt to bolster the cache of the author list.
I think a lot of terrible responses to the Cass review, including this one, are either true from believers, or from people cynically covering their ass. These can overlap, of course. It is increasingly apparent that the Emperor has no clothes. However, those who insisted that the science was settled, and/or built careers within this field, are in a bind. On a purely career level, a lot of people are going to come out of this looking terrible. The academy tends to protect those who go along with the correct fashionable nonsense, so there will be an attempt to memory hole this whole era. However, it’s so well documented online, and there will be lawsuits, settlements, and investigations. Additionally, it’s probably psychologically easier to believe you were doing the right thing - the alternative is coming to terms with doing lifelong damage to your patients, who were literal children and adolescents. The inventor of the lobotomy spend his later years trying to justify his procedure, tracking down patients and their families.
The author (and others) may not like the comparison, but this sounds very similar to the ongoing debate in both the legal and academic community about capital punishment.
Apart from different belief systems, the truth about the death penalty is denied by many in academia. I have practiced law for 40 years and opponents of the penalty try to write off academic research they don’t agree with.
That, as legal scholars like former Obama advisor Cass Sunstein have written, the use of the death penalty DOES in fact deter murders in the states where it is used and therefore has both a specific (obviously) but also general deterrent effect.
(Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs, 2005)
Mike Pesca recently repeated the old trope that it has no deterrent effect on one of his Gist episodes. It's a matter of faith in liberal circles now. (Apart from deterrence, it's also quite useful in solving cold cases and retrieving bodies, and often an indispensable tool in the latter case.)
Thanks for doing the work, Jesse.
“Using sound methods, no link has been found between peer influence and gender identity development,” LOLOL
Once again, there are some things so stupid only an academic can believe them.
If you don't think your peers affect and help sculpt you and your identity and your desires as you grow up—esp as a teen—then you're either lying or spent your adolescence in a coma.
Also, I thought Gender Theory believed in the Blank Slate and that we're all just indistinguishable meat widgets until culture and oppression inscribe their power-knowledge upon us. Does this mean only parents, teachers and TV influence us but NOT our friends and peers? That is one Blank Slate theory I've never heard.
I almost feel sorry for the Gender dead-enders, they've painted themselves into a corner and can only respond by spraying an inkcloud of lies in every direction—but then I remember how much damage they've caused, both to their patients and to our larger culture, and am excited to see them finally face some consequences.
Thanks to Jesse and Happy New Year.
“Gender dead-enders”. lol. The term has a nice ring to it. I thought the Andrea Chu piece in New York Magazine was the real canary in the coal mine insofar as he just flat out ditched any and all deference to medical science and ethics in favor of letting kids decide their own treatment.
At root the "gender theorist" is usually a deeply miserable, spiritually and physically misshapen person who needs to have their misery and psychosis shared as widely as possible and/or a rhetorical alchemist hoping to transmute their discomfort into something either edgy or normal or radical, depending upon the needs of the person and the moment. (This is why Judith Butler has inflicted the world's worst prose upon us—because of all the people who accidentally called her "Sir"!)
This is also why their arguments are so flimsy and circular and why when all else fails they resort to saying insane things like: a child can decide their own surgical options, who are we to say otherwise? Besides, they can always get their amputated parts sewn back on later if they change their minds...
Or, more simply: Misery loves company.
Why am I reading this on a couch at a NYE party, I am broken
I so sadly relate to this. There are only fleeting moments of fun, peace, or even just distraction that are not infiltrated with horror and outrage about everything in the cult of gender ideology.
Same, I concluded that 1) it is so straightforward what the logical reality of the situation is that it is a satisfying puzzle. 2) its all around me, I have to navigate being careful of what I say almost every day. 3) its easier to obsess over than other unsolvable issues in my life that I can’t control. 4) I appreciate Jesse’s writing and inclusion of an analogy to Calvin and Hobbs’ Calvinball.
About a quarter of the way in, where there’s a discussion of the impact of social transition, it’d be worth considering one other piece of evidence. The Kristina Olson longitudinal study has shown something close to a 98% rate of persistence in a transgender identity as the kids progressed from early/mid childhood to puberty. My understanding is that these kids mostly resembled those in the Dutch study, insofar as they expressed a cross-gender identity in early childhood. But unlike the Dutch study, these parents seem to have socially transitioned their children prior to meeting with Kristina Olson. My impression is that most parents took this step on their own, without consulting a clinician (but correct me if I’m wrong).
Now, proponents of the unquestioning affirmative model will say that Olson’s findings simply prove that “trans kids know who they are.” I think most of us here would place at least equal weight on the possibility that social transition concretizes an identity. For young kids, parents are the main arbiters of reality.
That's right. These kids socially transitioned at an average age of six and did so before entering the study. They are not representative of the typical minors presenting at gender clinics today: natal girls who first become overtly gender dysphoric after the onset of puberty and who as a group have a high rate of psychiatric comorbidities and autism.
Also not sure if they had a gender dysphoria diagnosis..there's a segm analysis:
https://segm.org/early-social-gender-transition-persistence
Jesse, it's now 2025 in Australia. Happy New Year and thanks for all your excellent work to promote enlightenment and combat obscurantism on gender medicine.
Why in the world does a law school think they are qualified to weigh in on medical research? Is there any other health condition at ALL where this occurs?
Of COURSE they are going to make a legal, not a scientific or medical or even psychological argument. The question is why anybody would take that seriously unless they were worried about/defending against potential malpractice.
Medical Ethics is a serious field of study. Certain medical disciplines require a few hours of Ethics included in the curriculum to meet accreditation reviews. Not sure where this is tested in the multitude of exams required for an MD. Some medical disciplines also require continuing education credits in ethics. Maybe 2 hours every couple years. Sometimes lawyers teach this in medical schools, maybe a clinician with a bioethics background.
In any case, this review is more about the preposterous discrepancies between what MacNamera et al decree is “high quality” and what they chose to ignore and cover up.
Extremely curious what is in the studies Olsen Kennedy is sitting on. House subcommittee is investigating about her misuse of funds last I heard? By not publishing government funded research.
Why in the world does a law school think they are qualified to weigh in on medical research? Because Yale Law is the Mount Olympus of the American legal educational establishment. The intellectual aristocracy who are admitted are without question the Globally Consequential Future Leaders of Everything that Matters. Just ask that multigenerational nepo baby and Yale Law grad Emily Bazelon.
And they wonder why people elected buffoons to run the government….
The only two people named on the The Integrity Project's website are McNamara herself and a JD named Anne Alstott: https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/integrity-project/people
They're coasting 100% on the Yale brand. And they aren't hiding the fact that they're laundering conflicted bullshit outside of the peer review process in order to influence legal decisions:
"In this section, we post work by Integrity Project founders that falls outside the traditional publication path. (Our formal publications are listed on this site under “Publications”) Because we aim to bring sound scientific information to decisionmakers in fast-moving legislative and judicial processes, our work includes white papers and amicus briefs."
https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/integrity-project/our-work
So is this a privately funded “project” instead of “center” at a big name University?
I'm not even sure it's funded. But yes, more like a side project by a couple of professors at the school.
A document written in part by law professors and published by a law school was horribly skewed because it was intended to promote a perspective aligned with a litigation strategy? No freakin’ way!! Just curious, Jesse: did the plaintiffs in US vs. Skrmetti rely on the Yale “white paper”? The timing is curious.
Money quote from Singal: "McNamara and her team write that 'Medications to pause puberty have long been used for central precocious puberty without negative impact on cognitive development.'
It’s amazing that this claim is still floating around. The whole point is that if you put a kid on blockers and then cross-sex hormones, that is a very different development trajectory, because 1) they are usually going on blockers later, and 2) in most cases, they are not simply ceasing blockers so their natal puberty can take over, but rather going through a puberty based on cross-sex hormones. There are all sorts of questions about whether they will subsequently 'catch up.'
Almost nothing from the evidence base for the treatment of precocious puberty can be neatly applied to the debate over youth gender medicine."
I've always struggled with pushing back against this argument from TRAs, but this has succinctly encapsulated how I can going forward.
One easy way to tell that McNamara et al. are full of shit and don't know what they're talking about: they appear to always conjugate the verb for "data" in third-person singular. "Data" is plural! It is never "the data is...", "the data shows...", or "the data says..." but "the data are...", "the data show...", and "the data say...".
I'm a stodgy old grammarian in many ways, but it's long since been accepted use to consider "data" a singular reference to a collection of data (where "data" is really treated as a synonym for "information"). I don't know what style guide is used in this publication, and it would be up to that style guide to determine what is proper usage in this context.
It is also remarkable how many grammatical errors a paper authored by nine "highly credentialed experts" contains. Four errors are evident in the excerpts Jesse included (as noted by "sic erat scriptum"), but there appear to be many more. It makes me wonder how many of the nine authors actually reviewed and/or proofread their own document, as opposed to simply lending their name and credentials in an attempt to bolster the cache of the author list.
I also saw “a phenomena”…
🙄
Hang on, I'm confused right off the bat. Why is the Yale school of *law* rebuking what seems like a medical report?
This is a lot of work, Jesse, and we all know what it costs you. Thank you for having the integrity to do this.
I think a lot of terrible responses to the Cass review, including this one, are either true from believers, or from people cynically covering their ass. These can overlap, of course. It is increasingly apparent that the Emperor has no clothes. However, those who insisted that the science was settled, and/or built careers within this field, are in a bind. On a purely career level, a lot of people are going to come out of this looking terrible. The academy tends to protect those who go along with the correct fashionable nonsense, so there will be an attempt to memory hole this whole era. However, it’s so well documented online, and there will be lawsuits, settlements, and investigations. Additionally, it’s probably psychologically easier to believe you were doing the right thing - the alternative is coming to terms with doing lifelong damage to your patients, who were literal children and adolescents. The inventor of the lobotomy spend his later years trying to justify his procedure, tracking down patients and their families.
Another tour de force!
Ah, yes, the "The Return of the King" of this trilogy. How I have looked forward to it. While it was good, I think think I preferred "The Two Towers".
If you're open to suggestions, I think an interview with Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz would be enlightening.
The author (and others) may not like the comparison, but this sounds very similar to the ongoing debate in both the legal and academic community about capital punishment.
Apart from different belief systems, the truth about the death penalty is denied by many in academia. I have practiced law for 40 years and opponents of the penalty try to write off academic research they don’t agree with.
Serious question, what is the truth about the death penalty that is denied by many in academia?
That, as legal scholars like former Obama advisor Cass Sunstein have written, the use of the death penalty DOES in fact deter murders in the states where it is used and therefore has both a specific (obviously) but also general deterrent effect.
(Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs, 2005)
Mike Pesca recently repeated the old trope that it has no deterrent effect on one of his Gist episodes. It's a matter of faith in liberal circles now. (Apart from deterrence, it's also quite useful in solving cold cases and retrieving bodies, and often an indispensable tool in the latter case.)
Happy New Year all!