If you want to know who killed the Cass Review in the US, look to Erin Reed. She's considered an extremely trustworthy source by many who are in the trans community and/or working in the field of gender medicine despite that she's an activist, not a traditionally trained journalist. In fact, recently she posted on Twitter/X about the effort she and others made to kill the Cass Report. She's proud of it.
Erin has been challenged multiple times by multiple journalists because she regularly posts misinformation, but she doesn't correct it or even refrain from repeating the misinformation in the future; she's more invested in a narrative than in the truth. Unfortunately no amount of evidence or logic has been able to convince my loved ones that she is an unreliable source. 'Frustrating' doesn't begin to describe my experience with this.
It also doesn't help that we have multiple previously respectable organizations (eg ACLU) whose leaders spread the misinformation. And because the legislation efforts around banning care have left people in a state of fear and defensiveness, even the reasonable ones are less willing to challenge the narrative. They don't trust most sources because so many are being used to limit or ban the care they believe they or their patients desperately need. This is an extremely human response to feeling threatened and I'm not sure how to counteract it other than not trying to get the government involved in medical care decisions.
Erin Reed spews misinformation because if he doesn't his house of cards falls apart. He has to believe all the lies to make sense of his decisions and relationship with Zoey Zephyr. I have a family member fully entrenched in everything "Erin Reed"
Why would the us media look to a blogger rather than reading the information themselves? It's ironic. I am left wing and kept trying to get people who were right wing to read things that showed why I thought what I thought and they would just say those were anti Trump and refuse to look. Now on the left, people claim things are anti trans and refuse to look.
Both ad hominem arguments (latin for "I don't have an argument" as I saw James cantor note).
Why would HHS' listen to a blogger? But indeed wpath did praise reed!! What was that!
I think it is also because a small dedicated group of MDs set the policy here before anyone was looking and ever since it's just been defended rather than evaluated. There was an assumption that surely you wouldn't do all these interventions if you didn't have reliable differential diagnosis and positive outcomes.
Of course with the WPATH files we can hear them saying they presume the kids live happily ever after
To some degree, I think a lot of these movements are fulfilling needs similar to the ones religion fulfills... especially the need for community. We need community like we need food and water, yet we can't stand being in a room together and many have little to no shared identity on the local, regional, or national levels. I really think healing some of this requires figuring out how to build healthy communities that support one another.
The trans issue has now been absorbed into the greater divide over values between elites and the working class. This makes it more difficult to look at the issue clearly because elites and progressives are loathe to align themselves with people they regard as cruel and uninformed. In this view progress marches on. It doesn't lurch forward and then self-correct. In one progressive forum that I monitor the focus is always on GOP bad faith and not on the physical harm that takes place. The doubts they may harbor are subordinated to the desire to hold the sword of righteousness aloft.
Though I have no proof of this I suspect that many people in the chattering classes now have trans kids, nieces, nephews, and are reluctant to look at the facts if they feel it will alienate them from friends and family. Under these circumstances "I made a mistake," is still the most difficult thing to admit.
Lisa, thanks for keeping this going, and hope Alejandra is doing something really nice! I thought, if anyone doesn't know about this already, I'd offer links of a recent Congressional hearing in which a judge candidate, Sarah Netburn, is grilled on a prison case.
As Bev Jackson, co-founder of the LGB Alliance put it: "It us a terrible sign of what has gone wrong with US politics that it is left to the otherwise obnoxious Ted Cruz to articulate the searing truth about the cruelty to women prisoners of placing male sex offenders in women’s jails.
Great comment as usual Susan! Thanks for sharing that clip of Kathleen Stock. So grateful for her ferocious intelligence and relentless willingness to fight for women's rights.
I have a pile of as yet unread Scientific American magazines. My old employer very sweetly gave my son a subscription years ago and it keeps going. I thank you because I now know I can recycle the whole pile, and we won't miss a thing!
As a young, 20-something year old lesbian, it’s hard to even imagine what a dedicated lesbian space would look like. it’s nice to hear your stories of lesbian bars and groups, but it almost feels like a historical fantasy at this point. i don’t know if i’ll ever find myself in that room where everyone around me is a lesbian woman. i’m hoping to meet older lesbians at women’s festivals, but what will be left when they’ve all passed on?
I hope that in time, the winds will change and it will be easier to gather exclusively as women who love women. till then i’ll be listening!
I have 4 daughters, my youngest who are identical twins almost 15 & one has come out as lesbian (tho when she came out a couple of years ago said non binary & liked girls so I did my research & have been lesbian! Lesbian! Lesbian! Lesbian positive so now she’s sick of me 😉) but she is now saying she is lesbian (& luckily my maternal aunt was lesbian & married her long term gf on her 70th bday before she passed away) & I worry for her in the future as well - especially as in Australia you can be called a bigot or a transphobe if you don’t want to date a “male lesbian” 🙄 I’ve been telling her that she is not & how would her great Aunty have reacted to this? (She could be a bit cranky & I can tell you not very well) & if anyone ever dares to tell her this she can tell them to f*ck right off. The Queer thing also annoys me - it seems to me there’s a lot of straight people announcing that they’re “queer” in order to seem more interesting. It worries me she could be led on some day. Well I will keep reading & keep building up her confidence & I must say she is very confident already
if it helps, i too had a ‘non-binary’ phase 😵💫.it’s a very younger generation thing. when nearly all the other lesbians you see online identify as non-binary/transmasc it just seems like something you should do to.
Therapist-in-training turned investigative reporter James Esses has a good piece on a gender identity "training" he attended for school governors in the UK (he was tipped off by one of the governors). I do not know how he puts himself through these grueling trainings:
Being letter #6 and push notification was really irritating apparently.
“ Importantly, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ response was not given the same kind of “breaking news” coverage that Dr. Cass’s interview received. For example, after publishing the interview with Dr. Cass, The New York Times sent out a push notification to at least some readers.”
Face it, The Cass Study is BIG BREAKING NEWS!!!
“The New York Times has come under criticism in recent years for its poor coverage of transgender issues.”
Yes, there is crit of NYT bc they have ignored the toll that trans agenda takes on women and children.
“people who oppose transgender individuals.”
I know that’s what u think but its BS. Your self-indulgence is messing w other ppls lives.
“Banning evidence-based medical care based on misinformation takes away the ability of parents and patients to make informed decisions.”
Making my head spin… who’s “evidence”?
Cass seems OK to me.
What “misinformation”? Entire Cass report?
That’s ***seven independently conducted systematic literature reviews***
Methinks leaving things out in talks w pt (CHILD) and parents can also impact decision making. (Psst- “DEtransitioners”)
RE sited article by Benjamin Ryan, gay man, (“anti-trans” according to Erin ) sounds reasonable to me: “GLAAD has gone so far as to insist that the science is settled regarding pediatric gender transition. It is not. In fact, the field of pediatric gender medicine is woefully compromised by a critical lack of quality research. Evidence-based-medicine experts insist that we simply do not know whether gender-transition treatment is safe and effective for minors.”
BEN writes that upcoming APA meeting American Psychiatrists (u know, the one where they are inundated w latest psych rx propaganda) “the pressing question facing [APA] is how best to treat children who are distressed about their gender.”
OK but what abt all the AGP mental illnesses? What abt treatment of those delusional abt their gender and fkg w other ppls lives???
If you want to know who killed the Cass Review in the US, look to Erin Reed. She's considered an extremely trustworthy source by many who are in the trans community and/or working in the field of gender medicine despite that she's an activist, not a traditionally trained journalist. In fact, recently she posted on Twitter/X about the effort she and others made to kill the Cass Report. She's proud of it.
Erin has been challenged multiple times by multiple journalists because she regularly posts misinformation, but she doesn't correct it or even refrain from repeating the misinformation in the future; she's more invested in a narrative than in the truth. Unfortunately no amount of evidence or logic has been able to convince my loved ones that she is an unreliable source. 'Frustrating' doesn't begin to describe my experience with this.
It also doesn't help that we have multiple previously respectable organizations (eg ACLU) whose leaders spread the misinformation. And because the legislation efforts around banning care have left people in a state of fear and defensiveness, even the reasonable ones are less willing to challenge the narrative. They don't trust most sources because so many are being used to limit or ban the care they believe they or their patients desperately need. This is an extremely human response to feeling threatened and I'm not sure how to counteract it other than not trying to get the government involved in medical care decisions.
Erin Reed spews misinformation because if he doesn't his house of cards falls apart. He has to believe all the lies to make sense of his decisions and relationship with Zoey Zephyr. I have a family member fully entrenched in everything "Erin Reed"
Why would the us media look to a blogger rather than reading the information themselves? It's ironic. I am left wing and kept trying to get people who were right wing to read things that showed why I thought what I thought and they would just say those were anti Trump and refuse to look. Now on the left, people claim things are anti trans and refuse to look.
Both ad hominem arguments (latin for "I don't have an argument" as I saw James cantor note).
Why would HHS' listen to a blogger? But indeed wpath did praise reed!! What was that!
I think it is also because a small dedicated group of MDs set the policy here before anyone was looking and ever since it's just been defended rather than evaluated. There was an assumption that surely you wouldn't do all these interventions if you didn't have reliable differential diagnosis and positive outcomes.
Of course with the WPATH files we can hear them saying they presume the kids live happily ever after
If only logic could break through the veil!
To some degree, I think a lot of these movements are fulfilling needs similar to the ones religion fulfills... especially the need for community. We need community like we need food and water, yet we can't stand being in a room together and many have little to no shared identity on the local, regional, or national levels. I really think healing some of this requires figuring out how to build healthy communities that support one another.
The trans issue has now been absorbed into the greater divide over values between elites and the working class. This makes it more difficult to look at the issue clearly because elites and progressives are loathe to align themselves with people they regard as cruel and uninformed. In this view progress marches on. It doesn't lurch forward and then self-correct. In one progressive forum that I monitor the focus is always on GOP bad faith and not on the physical harm that takes place. The doubts they may harbor are subordinated to the desire to hold the sword of righteousness aloft.
Though I have no proof of this I suspect that many people in the chattering classes now have trans kids, nieces, nephews, and are reluctant to look at the facts if they feel it will alienate them from friends and family. Under these circumstances "I made a mistake," is still the most difficult thing to admit.
Astute observation.
" ....surely you wouldn't do all these interventions if you didn't have reliable differential diagnosis and positive outcomes."
And sometimes diagnoses can be fudged if there's big $.
https://x.com/aimeeterese/status/1641800309830983680
I read Erin w large grain of salt bc I think it's good to be aware of what they are up to and/or whining abt this week.
Lisa, thanks for keeping this going, and hope Alejandra is doing something really nice! I thought, if anyone doesn't know about this already, I'd offer links of a recent Congressional hearing in which a judge candidate, Sarah Netburn, is grilled on a prison case.
The case involved a trans-identified male convicted of rape and child sexual abuse who was transferred to a women’s federal prison after launching a lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons claiming “discrimination.” Sarah Netburn is the one who initially determined the transfer was appropriate. ReDuxx has a good background article on the matter here: https://reduxx.info/rapist-pedophile-transferred-to-womens-federal-prison-in-texas-after-claiming-his-rights-were-being-violated/
In this clip, Netburn is grilled by Ted Cruz, then given a chance to respond: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1793341685981749249/pu/vid/avc1/960x540/F2vixeIvQ9Md91mD.mp4?tag=12
As Bev Jackson, co-founder of the LGB Alliance put it: "It us a terrible sign of what has gone wrong with US politics that it is left to the otherwise obnoxious Ted Cruz to articulate the searing truth about the cruelty to women prisoners of placing male sex offenders in women’s jails.
Democrats - how have you let this happen?"
Related, there is a good clip of a conversation at Cornell University between Kathleen Stock and Rebecca Tuval on the general topic of men in women's prisons. I have to say, I don't know how Stock manages to keep her cool with this one: https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1793280644023484416/vid/avc1/1280x720/OvNAp_o2V8xD0kX5.mp4?tag=14
Great comment as usual Susan! Thanks for sharing that clip of Kathleen Stock. So grateful for her ferocious intelligence and relentless willingness to fight for women's rights.
I have a pile of as yet unread Scientific American magazines. My old employer very sweetly gave my son a subscription years ago and it keeps going. I thank you because I now know I can recycle the whole pile, and we won't miss a thing!
As a young, 20-something year old lesbian, it’s hard to even imagine what a dedicated lesbian space would look like. it’s nice to hear your stories of lesbian bars and groups, but it almost feels like a historical fantasy at this point. i don’t know if i’ll ever find myself in that room where everyone around me is a lesbian woman. i’m hoping to meet older lesbians at women’s festivals, but what will be left when they’ve all passed on?
I hope that in time, the winds will change and it will be easier to gather exclusively as women who love women. till then i’ll be listening!
I have 4 daughters, my youngest who are identical twins almost 15 & one has come out as lesbian (tho when she came out a couple of years ago said non binary & liked girls so I did my research & have been lesbian! Lesbian! Lesbian! Lesbian positive so now she’s sick of me 😉) but she is now saying she is lesbian (& luckily my maternal aunt was lesbian & married her long term gf on her 70th bday before she passed away) & I worry for her in the future as well - especially as in Australia you can be called a bigot or a transphobe if you don’t want to date a “male lesbian” 🙄 I’ve been telling her that she is not & how would her great Aunty have reacted to this? (She could be a bit cranky & I can tell you not very well) & if anyone ever dares to tell her this she can tell them to f*ck right off. The Queer thing also annoys me - it seems to me there’s a lot of straight people announcing that they’re “queer” in order to seem more interesting. It worries me she could be led on some day. Well I will keep reading & keep building up her confidence & I must say she is very confident already
if it helps, i too had a ‘non-binary’ phase 😵💫.it’s a very younger generation thing. when nearly all the other lesbians you see online identify as non-binary/transmasc it just seems like something you should do to.
Therapist-in-training turned investigative reporter James Esses has a good piece on a gender identity "training" he attended for school governors in the UK (he was tipped off by one of the governors). I do not know how he puts himself through these grueling trainings:
https://www.jamesesses.com/p/i-is-for-ideology-the-indoctrination.
As the mother of a TI daughter in a CA school that is deeply captured by gender ideology, I'd love to see more reporting on such trainings over here.
Here's a study about contagion of mental illness via social networks
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2818735
North America is always a year or two behind Europe. Our day of reckoning is coming, just not soon enough.
Thanks Lisa, especially for linking the Jennifer Block BMJ article. It is brilliant.
Thanks!
re insur and transy surg—-
“State health care plans can't exclude gender-affirming surgeries”
Can I stipulate what my taxes pay for?
Mastectomies NO, hysterecto NO.
AApple removal NO, facial implants for womanface NO.
Penisectomy SURE.
Where’s line btw plastic elective surgery and nebulous gender care surgery for nebulous gender concerns?
So as long as transy has a state health plan, it’s surgery-o-rama but private insurance companies can say hellno?
It’ll be easier to get transy surgery than to get dental or hearing care in some states!
Isn’t it strange that there’s so many trans ppl who need state heath insurance to pay for their cuttings, it goes to U.S. Court of Appeals?
Oh right, they are discriminated against so they can’t get jobs.
Double rudeness: Does this mean that an illegal alien who wanted penisectomy could have it pd for?
Would like readers' opinion on this column by Erin Reed:
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/nyt-sends-push-review-for-anti-trans
RE Erin/NYT:
Being letter #6 and push notification was really irritating apparently.
“ Importantly, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ response was not given the same kind of “breaking news” coverage that Dr. Cass’s interview received. For example, after publishing the interview with Dr. Cass, The New York Times sent out a push notification to at least some readers.”
Face it, The Cass Study is BIG BREAKING NEWS!!!
“The New York Times has come under criticism in recent years for its poor coverage of transgender issues.”
Yes, there is crit of NYT bc they have ignored the toll that trans agenda takes on women and children.
“people who oppose transgender individuals.”
I know that’s what u think but its BS. Your self-indulgence is messing w other ppls lives.
“Banning evidence-based medical care based on misinformation takes away the ability of parents and patients to make informed decisions.”
Making my head spin… who’s “evidence”?
Cass seems OK to me.
What “misinformation”? Entire Cass report?
That’s ***seven independently conducted systematic literature reviews***
Methinks leaving things out in talks w pt (CHILD) and parents can also impact decision making. (Psst- “DEtransitioners”)
RE sited article by Benjamin Ryan, gay man, (“anti-trans” according to Erin ) sounds reasonable to me: “GLAAD has gone so far as to insist that the science is settled regarding pediatric gender transition. It is not. In fact, the field of pediatric gender medicine is woefully compromised by a critical lack of quality research. Evidence-based-medicine experts insist that we simply do not know whether gender-transition treatment is safe and effective for minors.”
BEN writes that upcoming APA meeting American Psychiatrists (u know, the one where they are inundated w latest psych rx propaganda) “the pressing question facing [APA] is how best to treat children who are distressed about their gender.”
OK but what abt all the AGP mental illnesses? What abt treatment of those delusional abt their gender and fkg w other ppls lives???
NOTE: I’m not on board w all Ben sez…
He also gave a great interview to Meghan Daum on her Unspeakable pod.
Thanks, I was planning to look him up.
No Twixt for me til tomorrow...
have great weekend.