Great work, ML. I haven't read the HHS report and honestly can't fathom spending the kind of time that would take me (a slow reader), but I'm grateful for your distilling it because I now see elements that suggest it's even more thorough and objective than the Cass review. Would you agree?
It's unfortunate, but unfortunately necessary, in my opinion. If the authors' names were published right away (I heard somewhere that they would be after a peer review of the manuscript), then the critics would have focused all their attention on the messengers rather than the message. And in the absence of the names, the fact that there has been so little vitriol (relatively speaking, of course) speaks volumes. This is a scholarly document, not a political one. Going through the review, I could not find a sentence written to raise the hackles of a baying crowd. Every chapter, every section within a chapter, exists to tell a complicated story. One that involves so many moving parts that it was necessary - vital even - to get it right, without invoking a word of anger. It would have been easy for the critics to quote a polemic sentence or paragraph and damn the entire effort. But they can't because there isn't any.
That the coverage around the report focuses only on the chapter on psychotherapy - and that too misleadingly - and almost nothing on the other thirteen shows that the decision to keep the names of the authors off the document for the time being was the correct one.
The Cass Review was meant for the British population, and in that respect, it has been phenomenally successful in bringing the debate around the issue of PMT (such a scientifically accurate term from the HHS review!) in the UK back to terra firma. Will the HHS review do the same for the United States? I have no idea. All I can say is that the anonymous authors could have hardly written a better document.
I am wondering which parts of the review depend on the identities of the authors? As ML notes, everything is referenced thoroughly, so you can check whether the statements are true yourself.
One can verify what is accurate and what is not, I believe?
Those who don't like what it finds should say where the arguments go wrong (if indeed they do). It's not clear why knowing who wrote the argument one doesn't like tells you whether the argument is wrong or not, which is the important thing--what is correct and what isn't and what is supported and what isn't? The identity might tell you to be wary but those who don't like what the report finds are wary anyhow, so the author identities won't give new information there.
That’s a fair question. I have no wariness toward the authors or the material, and for all I know it’s normal for academic reviews to be published anonymously; but if it’s not normal then I’d much rather know who to thank, and I’d also like to know the authors were unintimidated by the potential response of bad-faith actors. Their visibility might encourage more honest speech, which is my main interest now. Honestly, I wish my name was all over it!
The idea within the Dutch Protocol that it is possible to find a cohort with early-onset gender dysphoria worsening at puberty *but* who are mentally healthy is the contradiction at the heart of the gender religion. It strongly implies that these children really are born in the 'wrong' body, and are not delusional.
Since there is no objective test for this 'wrongness', it must be either a spiritual matter or a biological phenomenon unknown to science. And because there is as yet no predictive test which reliably identifies which children will have gender dysphoria before self-report, it is a matter of faith that this biological difference must exist. So, either way it's a religion.
Great work, ML. I haven't read the HHS report and honestly can't fathom spending the kind of time that would take me (a slow reader), but I'm grateful for your distilling it because I now see elements that suggest it's even more thorough and objective than the Cass review. Would you agree?
Absolutely. It is a document that the United States needed.
Do you have an opinion on the anonymity of the authors?
It's unfortunate, but unfortunately necessary, in my opinion. If the authors' names were published right away (I heard somewhere that they would be after a peer review of the manuscript), then the critics would have focused all their attention on the messengers rather than the message. And in the absence of the names, the fact that there has been so little vitriol (relatively speaking, of course) speaks volumes. This is a scholarly document, not a political one. Going through the review, I could not find a sentence written to raise the hackles of a baying crowd. Every chapter, every section within a chapter, exists to tell a complicated story. One that involves so many moving parts that it was necessary - vital even - to get it right, without invoking a word of anger. It would have been easy for the critics to quote a polemic sentence or paragraph and damn the entire effort. But they can't because there isn't any.
That the coverage around the report focuses only on the chapter on psychotherapy - and that too misleadingly - and almost nothing on the other thirteen shows that the decision to keep the names of the authors off the document for the time being was the correct one.
The Cass Review was meant for the British population, and in that respect, it has been phenomenally successful in bringing the debate around the issue of PMT (such a scientifically accurate term from the HHS review!) in the UK back to terra firma. Will the HHS review do the same for the United States? I have no idea. All I can say is that the anonymous authors could have hardly written a better document.
I am wondering which parts of the review depend on the identities of the authors? As ML notes, everything is referenced thoroughly, so you can check whether the statements are true yourself.
One can verify what is accurate and what is not, I believe?
Those who don't like what it finds should say where the arguments go wrong (if indeed they do). It's not clear why knowing who wrote the argument one doesn't like tells you whether the argument is wrong or not, which is the important thing--what is correct and what isn't and what is supported and what isn't? The identity might tell you to be wary but those who don't like what the report finds are wary anyhow, so the author identities won't give new information there.
That’s a fair question. I have no wariness toward the authors or the material, and for all I know it’s normal for academic reviews to be published anonymously; but if it’s not normal then I’d much rather know who to thank, and I’d also like to know the authors were unintimidated by the potential response of bad-faith actors. Their visibility might encourage more honest speech, which is my main interest now. Honestly, I wish my name was all over it!
The idea within the Dutch Protocol that it is possible to find a cohort with early-onset gender dysphoria worsening at puberty *but* who are mentally healthy is the contradiction at the heart of the gender religion. It strongly implies that these children really are born in the 'wrong' body, and are not delusional.
Since there is no objective test for this 'wrongness', it must be either a spiritual matter or a biological phenomenon unknown to science. And because there is as yet no predictive test which reliably identifies which children will have gender dysphoria before self-report, it is a matter of faith that this biological difference must exist. So, either way it's a religion.