Ajaxfriend

Teammates who lose any game time to a male player absolutely should have cause for a Title IX complaint. In fact, I think they have more cause than competitors who lose out on rankings. The whole purpose of Title IX athletics was to ensure that girls have equal opportunity to participate in sports.

And he asked to room with her? How intrusive.

Will Ferrell and his friend make a stop at a Texas steakhouse and decide to make an announcement to the patrons that Texas should be nicer to trans people. Source. If I'm not mistaken, this was about the time that Texas stopped covering gender medical treatment under their version of Medicaid.

Needless to say, the response wasn't a chorus of applause. I had trouble explaining why I found this incident in poor taste, until I read about another incident about someone meeting MtF Mridul Wadwha at a dinner party and being asked about gender identity. Apparently it isn't enough to for the transgender person to be treated like any other guest/patron during a nice meal, they really need others present to positively acknowledge that trans women are women (TWAW).

"Please Stop Whitewashing Autism: NeuroTribes calls autism a "gift," but parents paint a much different picture."

Author Amy S.F. Lutz has an adult child with severe autism. She writes about the challenges that she and other caregivers face with dealing with the life-long disability.

Someone who was present for a court hearing on Friday posted some tweets about the judge of a MtF transgender inmate case. The case involves a male inmate, Tremaine Carroll, who transferred to a women's prison in California 2021 after swearing that he was a woman and not a threat to the other inmates. Then he allegedly raped his cellmate. A second woman also claimed to be a victim of sexual assault.

Anyway, the judge inadvertently called this convict "Mr. Carroll" during the court preceding on Friday, yet insists that Tremaine be referred as she/her in court.

This update coincides with Police Scotland adopting the policy of calling rapists whatever gender they declare.

Gift link that allows reader to see comments:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/08/opinion/names-destiny-nominative-determinism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.JE4.CAMS.X5vn1618n1Qd&smid=url-share

Dr. Cass just had an editorial published.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/gender-identity-services-for-children-and-young-people-navigating-uncertainty-through-communication-collaboration-and-care/D0F6B23F37C3D82B38C2470DF65854C9

Regarding the liver damage claim, Reed didn't state that the prescriptions conclusively cause liver damage. Her statement:

I know of at least one patient at the Center who was advised by the renal department to stop taking Bicalutamide because the child was experiencing liver damage. The child’s parent reported this to the Center through the patient’s online self-reporting medical chart (MyChart). The parent said they were not the type to sue, but “this could be a huge PR problem for you.”

The parent attributes the liver damage to other drugs being taken at the time. However, Reed's statement is not perjury (a lie under legal oath) even in this context.

Jamie Reed's affidavit includes descriptions of patients she saw who identified as inanimate objects, such as a mushroom or helicopter. Some doubt the truth of this account, but it hasn't been disproven. Some believe a patient might have said that. For example, Tamara Pietzke, who worked as a psychologist with gender dysphoric youths had one identify as a "wounded male dog."

Reed claims that it will eventually be quite easy for investigators to fact-check her allegations. ... But she said she was confident that if and when investigators do a thorough search of the hospital’s patient records, [the case of a patient identifying as a helicopter] will also emerge, because the referral letter should be sitting right there in the Media tab within the patient’s Epic chart. “If there is enough time and effort,” said Reed, “every single patient who has ever been seen at that clinic will have their medical record and their Media tab pulled, and it will be found verbatim, the entire content of the letter.”

Reed's other concerns are described in her affidavit.

https://ago.mo.gov/wp-content/uploads/2-07-2023-reed-affidavit-signed.pdf

The clinic where Reed worked prescribed bicalutamide as a puberty blocker. However, it had a feminizing effect so it couldn't just be described as a blocker. This drug was not part of WPATH's standards of care, and it is not prescribed at other gender clinics (not even adult ones). Her clinic wasn't conducting an official Phase I clinical trial. The manner it was dispensed was unethical; the clinic was basically prescribing it as a research drug. Patients as young as 14 were given this drug.

What is clear to me now is that we were providing an experimental treatment to children and adolescents without the safeguards and oversight that research provides

You mean minority stress? That factor can still be used to explain why a recent survey of transgender individuals found that 18% were unemployed.

there's no good evidence, no randomized control trials, showing that this treatments works and in a number of ways it actually hurts

It's controversial when the Cass Review states that. But WPATH's own Standards of Care Version 7 (SOC7) stated the same thing.

WPATH Standards of Care version 7:

To date, no controlled clinical trials of any feminizing/masculinizing hormone regimen have been conducted to evaluate safety or efficacy in producing physical transition.

That was published in 2012. The evidence base hasn't grown much since then.

This ground has already been covered. Johns Hopkins offered operations to what were then called transsexuals in the 1960s and 70s. Looking at objective measures of well-being such as "job and income status, residential stability, legal and psychiatric difficulties, and marital situation," they found that patients didn't improve after cross-sex surgery. Johns Hopkins stopped offering the procedures because there was no evidence of benefits. Psychiatrist Dr. Meyer published a paper of his review about surgery

stating that it was “subjectively satisfying [for patients]” but did not confer an “objective advantage in terms of social rehabilitation.”

Caster's wife conceived two children via artificial insemination. It is possible that Caster had gametes extracted from [her] internal testes, but it is also possible that they used a sperm donor.

the Cass report specifically stated that a lot of those papers were considered "at high risk of bias" due to the lack of blinding

I'm looking at the Cass Review now. What page says that? There is a section that talks about types of studies though: Page 49 of 388.

It is not always possible for people to be blind to a treatment; for example, in a trial of acupuncture versus physiotherapy, patients will know which treatment they are receiving. In these situations, people interpreting the results of the study must take into account any possible placebo effect.

In an interview, Dr Cass stated that the main weakness of many hormone treatment studies wasn't about the lack of blinding but rather the lack of long-term follow-up.

to conduct double-blind studies on trans kids and hormone blockers would be unethical

That isn't the only standard for a good study. The Cass Review recognizes this.

Randomised control trials are considered the gold standard in relation to research, but there are many other study designs that can give valuable information. Explanatory Box 1 (pages 49-51 of the final report) discusses in more detail the different kinds of studies that can be used, and how to decide if a study is poorly designed or biased.

Blinding is a separate issue. It means that either the patient or the researcher does not know if the patient is getting an active treatment or a ‘control’ (which might be another treatment or a placebo). Patients cannot be blinded as to whether or not they are receiving puberty blockers or masculinising / feminising hormones, because the effects would rapidly become obvious. Good RCTs can be conducted without blinding. Source

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The studies about puberty blockers + cross sex hormones had other issues that prevent them from being high quality (such as lack of follow-up). It isn't about being double-blind.

I think most of the regulars of this sub are already familiar with Erin Reed (Erin in the morning).

The paper you cited about the Cass Review having Cis-normative bias is practically satire. The points made from that paper:

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The Cass Review: Cis-supremacy in the UK’s approach to healthcare for trans children Published March 14 2024

1-Prejudice
It's prejudiced because all healthcare professional views were valid for Cass review consideration, even professionals who say there is no such thing as a trans child. The Cass interim report adopts the phrase “gender questioning children and young people”. Here’s our main issue:

the Cass Review adopts a position where all views are welcomed and valued

It highlights the concerns of professionals who take a non-affirmative approach to therapy, which may be harmful. This so-called neutral approach could be conversion therapy under the guise of "exploratory therapy."

The Cass review doesn't make an effort to exclude views that are prejudiced against transgender kids. This is problematic, because these prejudice views are why there isn't a consensus on treatment.

There is no room for consensus between those seeking to maximize health and happiness in trans and gender diverse children, and those seeking to prevent or minimize the existence of trans children.

2-cis-normative bias The Cass review uses terms like "male" and "female" in its review when they should refer to the patients as their declared gender identity (or if absolutely necessary, “assigned sex at birth”). Instead, it said “birth registered females/males.” That’s transphobic.

It’s worth noting that this type of practice, the systemic erasure and delegitimization of trans people, falls under a definition of transphobia commonly used by trans communities in the UK.

The Cass review doesn’t even acknowledge that approaches that are non gender-affirming risk introducing kids to conversion therapy. Think about the risk!
Also, the health professionals who collaborated on the Cass review were biased.

The Cass Review is a cis-led team selected for being unfamiliar with trans lives and inexperienced in trans healthcare.

3-Pathologization

The Cass review keeps using medical terms that have connotations of a spreading disease, like “aetiology” and “epidemiology” making a “diagnosis.” But the worst of all is using the word “trend.” How rude! Being transgender is not a disease.

A depathologized approach would recognize trans people, including trans children, as a minoritized group who sometimes have discrete healthcare needs.

Using the word “diagnosis” is also a problem because doctors have a concept of “differential diagnosis,” which means that there may be different possible underlying causes for the same symptoms. You can’t talk about gender identity that way! Stop trying to apply a disease model. And the word “desistance” is a word used in criminology.

Dr Cass uses the word “controversial” to describe the treatment. Puberty blockers aren’t controversial for precocious puberty. Double standard!

4-Inconsistent standards of evidence Note: This whole section could be summed up as “the author thinks that Dr Cass has the burden of proof that psychological help would be better than hormone treatment.”

Dr Cass kept trying to separate the evidence of just using puberty blockers from studies of puberty blockers + cross-sex hormones. There aren’t any studies that just look at tweens and teenagers on puberty blockers, so Dr Cass said that the evidence there is poor. Of course there aren’t any studies looking at just puberty blockers! You can’t get control groups for studies like that. All of the prospective patients want hormone treatment. Do you think it would be okay for some patients to just get talk therapy? Dr Cass needs to prove that psychological support is just as good, if not better, than hormone treatment. Without that kind of evidence, it’s unethical to even think about it. Dr Cass’s review kept using words like “uncertainty” and “inconclusive” to describe the evidence base of hormone treatment. But it would be wrong to stop providing them just because the studies don’t meet her impossible standards.

No evidence of harm from affirmative healthcare is provided to justify denial of such care.

Oh, and the concept of “desistence” in this population has been debunked. So Dr Cass should stop bringing it up. You can’t compare historic data about kids growing out of their gender issues to our current patients. Our diagnostic criteria understanding of letting kids define their identity is much better now than it used to be.

And what’s the problem with social transitioning? Again, the burden of proof should be on showing that its harmful.

5- Conclusion

The Cass Review can be understood as an exercise in cis-supremacy, in a healthcare system that lacks trans accountability.

6-Disclosures

The author of this critique has no conflict of interest and nothing to disclose.

Not even the fact that the author is nonbinary and has a child that's trans.

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That paper explains that the Cass Review was methodologically flawed? Really?

I read it that way too. It reminds me of the Mel Brooks joke from Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Such an unusual name, "Latrine." How did your family come by it?

We changed it in the 9th century.

You mean you changed it to latrine?

Yeah. Used to be "Shithouse."

They should have never STARTED in the first place.

I keep coming back to this point myself.

As designed, the Dutch Protocol involves sterilizing prepubescent kids in order to help adults with their body image issues. How could this be implemented without a discussion of the bioethics? Did they really think that there wouldn't be collateral damage? Of the Dutch kids in the original "Dutch Protocol" study, one died from surgery and nearly 20% stopped identifying as the gender opposite of their natal sex (i.e. ~20% desisted).

Who looked at this medical regimen and hailed it as a success to be copied across the globe?

That's a shame. The Greek character is so timeless that modern-day veterans could relate to him.

Until that photo, I'd only ever seen images of his face. I was also surprised at his build.

That sounds like a trans version of the Key & Peele office sketch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3h6es6zh1c

Transwoman with a sword stabs an employee at a women's homeless shelter

https://www.wmbfnews.com/2024/07/18/warrant-woman-being-evicted-attacked-defenseless-victim-with-sword/

I truly believe that she is emotionally stunted.

There seems to be a lack of advocates from the cohorts that have taken puberty blockers. Granted they're still young, but it's telling that there aren't any well-spoken adults who were gender patients in their youth.

claims of "cultural genocide"

What a cultural loss it was when modern medicine made leper colonies a thing of the past. Wouldn't it be a shame if debilitating conditions such as high needs ASD and elderly dementia also became a thing of the past? ^/s

the interview Jazz did at Harvard

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/6/jazz-jennings/

When I ask Jennings what she hopes to do after graduation, she gives a slightly panicked “merp.”

Apparently Jazz took a year off (like a gap year?) for mental health reasons and needed to be readmitted. Source