Agree with MtlNoK. Wish I could share in Genspect's optimism, but RFK Jr as our Dr Hilary Cass? In 90 days, not three and a half years? After the Cass Review itself has been sneeringly dismissed as institutionalized bigotry, when not completely ignored. Remember the uproar ignited all over the US by the WPATH Files?! Yeah, me neither.
Plus, Genspect's got to stop treating this as purely an issue of medical malpractice or even medical missteps. As if, faced with the sudden and appalling explosion of gender dysphoria among our young, we must simply come up with better ways of treating this inevitable scourge--which somehow untold generations before us managed to avoid just fine--not cure, not treat, just not have altogether. Because it wasn't being drilled into them in classrooms and school assemblies and by well-meaning teachers and counselors and librarians and through TikTok videos and on Tumblr. So if a steady stream of cars keeps crashing near the corner of 10th and Main, I don't just want to keep building up my hospital doctors' ability to handle car crash victims. I want public works involved and whoever else can work to reduce the number of car crashes to begin with. Likewise, work to stop the flow of gender confused kids, who in the main are just confused kids (as always) who (as never before on such a wide scale) have been encouraged to forget about trying to work through their feelings of confusion and doubt and rejection and focus entirely on the opinions of those around them for their self-esteem and their very identity. Yes, medicalizing that scandal is itself a scandal, but we can be multipronged in confronting harm.
All of this is correct. How long did Dr. Cass spend? Two years, or closer to three? Subpoena the Johns Hopkins reviews and release them to the public.
In addition, the administration has announced it will launch research on detransitioners, and the language used will rob the study of all credibility, as it's clear the outcomes are predetermined. Now, I do think detransition is a real, important, and growing phenomenon. Precisely because of this, I want to see research that is credible! Instead, this effort was framed in a way that makes even me skeptical. It's not quite as bad as hiring a notorious quack to "prove" that the MMR vaccine causes autism, which is also happening - the guy has only a bachelor's degree and has gotten in trouble already for practicing medicine without a license. The same clown show applied to detransition will only harden the polarization and increase the mental distress of trans-identified youth.
There can and will be more research done on desistors and detransitioners and what they need. The April 28 deadline is not going to be the end of research, but rather the beginning of a new era of govt and non-govt research.
The USA systematic review can piggyback off of those already done in the UK, Nordic and other countries. It would be foolish if that did not happen. Also, it is not RFK that is overseeing this. The executive order directing that it be done was no doubt drafted by May Mailman, formerly Legal Director of Independent Women's Forum, who drafted the executive order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism.
The insurance companies that currently cover "gender affirming care" do so under the compulsion of the laws in states like Oregon, Washington and California which require all medical insurers, including Medicaid, to do so. In order to stop such coverage and override the state statutes, the Trump administration would need to do what it is doing in other areas: withhold federal funding from govt and non-govt entities which continue to provide such services. I have no doubt that the Trump administration will use such a stick and so it will be up to each govt and non-govt entity to decide how much funding it is willing to lose in order to maintain "gender affirming care".
Once again its clear that the administration had some subject matter experts drafting this executive order and picking up how the issues have unfolded overseas. As there are many reviews that already attest to the poverty of the evidence it would be quite legitimate to work from those. The proposed next steps here are definitely needed. Often I wonder if anorexia cases and other social contagions have fallen as trans-identification has risen for example. Does that research exist. Similarly for the counselling approaches that address gender distress. I've heard that getting to the issues underlying a wrong-sex identification is a straightforward way to desistance. Affirmation is kept in place only by bullying practitioner organisations.
Yes! The USA systematic review will no doubt piggyback off of those already done in the UK, Nordic and other countries. It would be foolish if that did not happen. Also, it is not RFK that is overseeing this. The executive order directing that it be done was no doubt at least partially drafted by May Mailman, formerly Legal Director of Independent Women's Forum (IWF), who drafted the executive order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism. The IWF has for several years been active in opposing the medicalization and social affirmation of minors confused about sex and gender. Although "independent" is part of its name, it is actually an organization of conservative women. https://www.iwf.org/issues/sex-and-gender/ (I am not a conservative and not a member of IWF, but IMO they have been doing excellent work.)
People who have gender dysphoria are often not very amenable to psychotherapy. The adults who sought therapists during the Nineties mostly wanted letters of approval forwarding them to hormones and surgeries, and many of them voiced resentment about this requirement.
Adolescents can be more oppositional towards therapy in any situation than are adults, because the treatment referral is often initiated by parents or other authority figures. The resistance to treatment is likely to be even worse for adolescents with gender dysphoria, as they receive a huge amount of favorable attention from peers and adults for transitioning. Some of these same factors interfered with successful treatment of adolescents with eating disorders, but in the case of "trans" the parents and teachers of the child are more likely to be actively supporting transitions.
Psychotherapy should certainly be recommended to everyone with gender dysphoria, but we do not have data to clarify how effective therapy can be with adolescents presenting this disorder. And we will not have that data through a review of existing studies within the next 3 months, because we don't have high quality research that compares effectiveness of psychotherapy to "gender affirmative care" or other interventions. Successful treatment for most of the affected kids may require years, and beyond that, a cessation of the massive amount of positive attention currently be directed at people who claim to be "trans."
The problem has not been that young people confused about sex and gender are difficult to treat with psychotherapy, but rather that they are not being offered actual psychotherapy and instead being put on the gender affirming conveyor belt by therapists who apparently do think that they have been "born in the wrong body" and that their confusion can only be resolved by social affirmation and medicalization. At the same time, these young people are also being encouraged to "transition" socially and medically by school staff and online social media and peers caught up in this social contagion. There are therapists like Dr. Miriam Grossman who have experience counselling gender confused young people through the conventional exploratory therapy that therapists typically use for all young people, but which has been off limits for so-called gender dysphoric young people. The wheel does not have to be reinvented when it comes to helping young people now presenting with confusion about sex, gender and sexual orientation.
"The problem has not been that young people confused about sex and gender are difficult to treat with psychotherapy, but rather that they are not being offered actual psychotherapy..."
We actually do not know if this statement is accurate, because we do not have the research to support it. We also do not have enough information about the clinical experiences of therapists who have tried to use unbiased, neutral methodologies to treat gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults.
I am a clinical psychologist and of course I think that everyone with gender dysphoria should be encouraged to try psychotherapy. My point was that adolescents who are in therapy "against their will," which many of them are, as well as adolescents who have certain disorders, are more resistant to treatment than are patients who present less complex clinical problems. We know from decades of clinical experience, including my own, that adolescent females with eating disorders are relatively difficult to treat successfully. We are being told by clinicians and clinic administrators in the UK, Finland and elsewhere in Europe that the kids being seen in gender clinics tend to have multiple mental disorders, including eating disorders in many cases, as well as neurodevelopmental disorders. So I am speculating that the kids in gender clinics are among the more difficult to treat adolescents.
I am grateful, this is a massive move forward. There are a ton of stories, studies, evidence, articles, interviews, podcasts, etc etc debunking this. They just need the right ATTENTION, the correct ears to hear & the $$ supporting it to cease. That’s the best to hope for from the politicians & lawfare. And from us In the meantime we must continue to work on erasing the cultural & ideological capture. 🙏🙏🤞
It will not be surprising if the highly credentialed polemicists who put together the hit piece "An Evidence-Based Critique of the Cass Report on Gender Affirming Care for Adolescent Gender Dysphoria" mount a similar attack on the Section 3(a)(ii) review of literature and best practices. As before, they will make it seem as if the work has the imprimatur of Yale Law School, which is second only to God almighty in unassailability and prestige.
They will of course do so, but the Republican majority in Congress is not likely to be dissuaded from following the recommendations of the April 28 and subsequent Trump administration HHS reports.
my gut tells me that in order for physicians, clinics, etc to be able to "practice" the medical interventions, there is a push to "find these patients" where ever they can. Essentially, I believe anyone who provides guidance and encouragement to minors are basically grooming them like any other sex offender grooms potential victims. To be clear, if you are someone 25-30 years old and over, if you want to have these medical interventions, then you should be able to make this decision for yourself. Anyone younger should not be allowed to make these life changing irreversible procedures. Independent therapists should be heavily involved to counsel anyone who thinks that transitioning about all the challenges, physical and psychological pain that comes with transition. I also think there should be a waiting period before transitioning begins, for everyone before any medical or surgical interventions begin.
Although I do agree a certain segment of people will dismiss this and the time period seems short for a credible systematic review, I am always grateful for any step towards putting the world back on the right track. It seems like they could just say they are adopting the stance of the Cass review, and subpoena the Johns Hopkins review
Given that Democratic politicians support the gender activists with lockstep conformity, I doubt if any Republican supported review will affect what goes on in this country. Lawsuits are the only way to get rapid change from the health care system in the U.S.
The GOP controls Congress. Its "support" of the recommendations of this review will be more than lip service. Laws will no doubt be passed implementing various aspects of the relevant executive orders, including provisions of appropriation bills. Lawsuits will be important, but they are not the only way to change the health care system that is currently enabling the agenda of transgender activists. There are conservatives like May Mailman, former Legal Director of the Independent Women's Forum and author of the executive order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and of other relevant executive orders who have been preparing for this opportunity to stop the irreparable harm that is being done to young people. Also, lawsuits take a lot of time to get through the appeals process, and are rarely a way to bring about "rapid change" of anything!
I agree with what you are saying here, but I think you are underestimating the effect on health care providers of even a rumor that certain patients MIGHT be more likely than others to sue them. Cosmetic surgeons in particular have been targeted by dissatisfied consumers of their services, and I strongly suspect that is the main reason why the plastic surgeons are starting to pull back on their support for gender surgeries.
People can dismiss the upcoming report all they want, but they cannot stop the GOP controlled Congress or the agencies of the Trump administration from going full steam ahead to use all the resources and powers of the federal govt to implement the recommendations of the upcoming report.
Not optimistic.
1) How can a systematic review be done in 90 days?
2) As written below, people will dismiss it because the HHS is headed by RFK.
3) Why not dig into the Johns Hopkins systematic reviews that the WPATH had buried? That would be more convincing and would prove WPATH’s bad faith.
Agree with MtlNoK. Wish I could share in Genspect's optimism, but RFK Jr as our Dr Hilary Cass? In 90 days, not three and a half years? After the Cass Review itself has been sneeringly dismissed as institutionalized bigotry, when not completely ignored. Remember the uproar ignited all over the US by the WPATH Files?! Yeah, me neither.
Plus, Genspect's got to stop treating this as purely an issue of medical malpractice or even medical missteps. As if, faced with the sudden and appalling explosion of gender dysphoria among our young, we must simply come up with better ways of treating this inevitable scourge--which somehow untold generations before us managed to avoid just fine--not cure, not treat, just not have altogether. Because it wasn't being drilled into them in classrooms and school assemblies and by well-meaning teachers and counselors and librarians and through TikTok videos and on Tumblr. So if a steady stream of cars keeps crashing near the corner of 10th and Main, I don't just want to keep building up my hospital doctors' ability to handle car crash victims. I want public works involved and whoever else can work to reduce the number of car crashes to begin with. Likewise, work to stop the flow of gender confused kids, who in the main are just confused kids (as always) who (as never before on such a wide scale) have been encouraged to forget about trying to work through their feelings of confusion and doubt and rejection and focus entirely on the opinions of those around them for their self-esteem and their very identity. Yes, medicalizing that scandal is itself a scandal, but we can be multipronged in confronting harm.
All of this is correct. How long did Dr. Cass spend? Two years, or closer to three? Subpoena the Johns Hopkins reviews and release them to the public.
In addition, the administration has announced it will launch research on detransitioners, and the language used will rob the study of all credibility, as it's clear the outcomes are predetermined. Now, I do think detransition is a real, important, and growing phenomenon. Precisely because of this, I want to see research that is credible! Instead, this effort was framed in a way that makes even me skeptical. It's not quite as bad as hiring a notorious quack to "prove" that the MMR vaccine causes autism, which is also happening - the guy has only a bachelor's degree and has gotten in trouble already for practicing medicine without a license. The same clown show applied to detransition will only harden the polarization and increase the mental distress of trans-identified youth.
Exactly right, unfortunately.
There can and will be more research done on desistors and detransitioners and what they need. The April 28 deadline is not going to be the end of research, but rather the beginning of a new era of govt and non-govt research.
The USA systematic review can piggyback off of those already done in the UK, Nordic and other countries. It would be foolish if that did not happen. Also, it is not RFK that is overseeing this. The executive order directing that it be done was no doubt drafted by May Mailman, formerly Legal Director of Independent Women's Forum, who drafted the executive order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism.
Completely agree!
May insurance companies stop paying for this. May it not be called medically necessary!
The insurance companies that currently cover "gender affirming care" do so under the compulsion of the laws in states like Oregon, Washington and California which require all medical insurers, including Medicaid, to do so. In order to stop such coverage and override the state statutes, the Trump administration would need to do what it is doing in other areas: withhold federal funding from govt and non-govt entities which continue to provide such services. I have no doubt that the Trump administration will use such a stick and so it will be up to each govt and non-govt entity to decide how much funding it is willing to lose in order to maintain "gender affirming care".
Once again its clear that the administration had some subject matter experts drafting this executive order and picking up how the issues have unfolded overseas. As there are many reviews that already attest to the poverty of the evidence it would be quite legitimate to work from those. The proposed next steps here are definitely needed. Often I wonder if anorexia cases and other social contagions have fallen as trans-identification has risen for example. Does that research exist. Similarly for the counselling approaches that address gender distress. I've heard that getting to the issues underlying a wrong-sex identification is a straightforward way to desistance. Affirmation is kept in place only by bullying practitioner organisations.
Yes! The USA systematic review will no doubt piggyback off of those already done in the UK, Nordic and other countries. It would be foolish if that did not happen. Also, it is not RFK that is overseeing this. The executive order directing that it be done was no doubt at least partially drafted by May Mailman, formerly Legal Director of Independent Women's Forum (IWF), who drafted the executive order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism. The IWF has for several years been active in opposing the medicalization and social affirmation of minors confused about sex and gender. Although "independent" is part of its name, it is actually an organization of conservative women. https://www.iwf.org/issues/sex-and-gender/ (I am not a conservative and not a member of IWF, but IMO they have been doing excellent work.)
People who have gender dysphoria are often not very amenable to psychotherapy. The adults who sought therapists during the Nineties mostly wanted letters of approval forwarding them to hormones and surgeries, and many of them voiced resentment about this requirement.
Adolescents can be more oppositional towards therapy in any situation than are adults, because the treatment referral is often initiated by parents or other authority figures. The resistance to treatment is likely to be even worse for adolescents with gender dysphoria, as they receive a huge amount of favorable attention from peers and adults for transitioning. Some of these same factors interfered with successful treatment of adolescents with eating disorders, but in the case of "trans" the parents and teachers of the child are more likely to be actively supporting transitions.
Psychotherapy should certainly be recommended to everyone with gender dysphoria, but we do not have data to clarify how effective therapy can be with adolescents presenting this disorder. And we will not have that data through a review of existing studies within the next 3 months, because we don't have high quality research that compares effectiveness of psychotherapy to "gender affirmative care" or other interventions. Successful treatment for most of the affected kids may require years, and beyond that, a cessation of the massive amount of positive attention currently be directed at people who claim to be "trans."
The problem has not been that young people confused about sex and gender are difficult to treat with psychotherapy, but rather that they are not being offered actual psychotherapy and instead being put on the gender affirming conveyor belt by therapists who apparently do think that they have been "born in the wrong body" and that their confusion can only be resolved by social affirmation and medicalization. At the same time, these young people are also being encouraged to "transition" socially and medically by school staff and online social media and peers caught up in this social contagion. There are therapists like Dr. Miriam Grossman who have experience counselling gender confused young people through the conventional exploratory therapy that therapists typically use for all young people, but which has been off limits for so-called gender dysphoric young people. The wheel does not have to be reinvented when it comes to helping young people now presenting with confusion about sex, gender and sexual orientation.
"The problem has not been that young people confused about sex and gender are difficult to treat with psychotherapy, but rather that they are not being offered actual psychotherapy..."
We actually do not know if this statement is accurate, because we do not have the research to support it. We also do not have enough information about the clinical experiences of therapists who have tried to use unbiased, neutral methodologies to treat gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults.
I am a clinical psychologist and of course I think that everyone with gender dysphoria should be encouraged to try psychotherapy. My point was that adolescents who are in therapy "against their will," which many of them are, as well as adolescents who have certain disorders, are more resistant to treatment than are patients who present less complex clinical problems. We know from decades of clinical experience, including my own, that adolescent females with eating disorders are relatively difficult to treat successfully. We are being told by clinicians and clinic administrators in the UK, Finland and elsewhere in Europe that the kids being seen in gender clinics tend to have multiple mental disorders, including eating disorders in many cases, as well as neurodevelopmental disorders. So I am speculating that the kids in gender clinics are among the more difficult to treat adolescents.
Another important step is having Levine, Bowers, and other WPATH goons in front of Congress for public hearings.
I am grateful, this is a massive move forward. There are a ton of stories, studies, evidence, articles, interviews, podcasts, etc etc debunking this. They just need the right ATTENTION, the correct ears to hear & the $$ supporting it to cease. That’s the best to hope for from the politicians & lawfare. And from us In the meantime we must continue to work on erasing the cultural & ideological capture. 🙏🙏🤞
Powerful and important article
It will not be surprising if the highly credentialed polemicists who put together the hit piece "An Evidence-Based Critique of the Cass Report on Gender Affirming Care for Adolescent Gender Dysphoria" mount a similar attack on the Section 3(a)(ii) review of literature and best practices. As before, they will make it seem as if the work has the imprimatur of Yale Law School, which is second only to God almighty in unassailability and prestige.
They will of course do so, but the Republican majority in Congress is not likely to be dissuaded from following the recommendations of the April 28 and subsequent Trump administration HHS reports.
my gut tells me that in order for physicians, clinics, etc to be able to "practice" the medical interventions, there is a push to "find these patients" where ever they can. Essentially, I believe anyone who provides guidance and encouragement to minors are basically grooming them like any other sex offender grooms potential victims. To be clear, if you are someone 25-30 years old and over, if you want to have these medical interventions, then you should be able to make this decision for yourself. Anyone younger should not be allowed to make these life changing irreversible procedures. Independent therapists should be heavily involved to counsel anyone who thinks that transitioning about all the challenges, physical and psychological pain that comes with transition. I also think there should be a waiting period before transitioning begins, for everyone before any medical or surgical interventions begin.
This panel on hormones for non-binary people states that the goal is "quality, not quantity of life"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nHjCMU4yaM
Great to know this is in existence.
My hope is in short supply. But I will hold on and patiently wait...
Although I do agree a certain segment of people will dismiss this and the time period seems short for a credible systematic review, I am always grateful for any step towards putting the world back on the right track. It seems like they could just say they are adopting the stance of the Cass review, and subpoena the Johns Hopkins review
Given that Democratic politicians support the gender activists with lockstep conformity, I doubt if any Republican supported review will affect what goes on in this country. Lawsuits are the only way to get rapid change from the health care system in the U.S.
The GOP controls Congress. Its "support" of the recommendations of this review will be more than lip service. Laws will no doubt be passed implementing various aspects of the relevant executive orders, including provisions of appropriation bills. Lawsuits will be important, but they are not the only way to change the health care system that is currently enabling the agenda of transgender activists. There are conservatives like May Mailman, former Legal Director of the Independent Women's Forum and author of the executive order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and of other relevant executive orders who have been preparing for this opportunity to stop the irreparable harm that is being done to young people. Also, lawsuits take a lot of time to get through the appeals process, and are rarely a way to bring about "rapid change" of anything!
I agree with what you are saying here, but I think you are underestimating the effect on health care providers of even a rumor that certain patients MIGHT be more likely than others to sue them. Cosmetic surgeons in particular have been targeted by dissatisfied consumers of their services, and I strongly suspect that is the main reason why the plastic surgeons are starting to pull back on their support for gender surgeries.
I see this a lot: "many people will dismiss it's relevance because it's tied to Trump".
People can dismiss the upcoming report all they want, but they cannot stop the GOP controlled Congress or the agencies of the Trump administration from going full steam ahead to use all the resources and powers of the federal govt to implement the recommendations of the upcoming report.
Those people need to grow up.
I agree.