BROADview in Brief
Artificial Vaginas R Us
What a shocking week it’s been, from Hamas’ horrific attack in Israel to the response to that attack by some members of the American progressive left. I think New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg captured the complexities of this moment well in her essay The Massacre in Israel and the Need for a Decent Left. I know I share gender news here, but I can’t ignore the larger context.
A quick look at the headlines from across the United States shows much of the same court battles on transgender healthcare and parental rights, so let’s take a one-week hiatus from those and focus on the broader medical news instead. The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) held its inaugural medical conference this past weekend in New York--invitation-only, but the LGBT Courage Coalition had the first reports from it: Part 1 and Part 2. Check those out for coverage on whether there are transgender brains (no) and whether puberty blockers have reversible impacts on the adolescent brain (probably not). I think if American parents were told that puberty blockers may meaningfully lower their children’s IQ it might be the end of the US transgender puberty blocker market. Or would affirmative parents simply shrug and say why not? Hmm. I know there were a number of journalists at the conference (including Lisa!), so expect more reporting on it over the coming weeks. NOTE: I’m afraid I don’t know the specific IQ references in Dr. Sallie Baxendale’s presentation at SEGM since the studies mentioned weren’t linked. UPDATED NOTE: Lisa has some anonymous attendee notes from the conference on this presentation, so I’m adding them at the bottom of this In Brief.
Unfortunately, many reporters take the WPATH and the American Academy of Pediatrics statements about puberty blockers at face value. Case in point, Amy Schwabe for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/USA Today Network and her article Should Trans Kids Get Puberty Blockers and Hormones. Dig deeper, people!
Speaking of which, Lisa shared journalist Kaja Klapsa’s article for Politico with me: The Real Story on Europe’s Transgender Debate. Klapsa looked at the Republican approach to gender medical legislation and opined that there’s “more nuance” in updated European youth gender care guidelines than Republicans acknowledge because most European countries still allow limited youth medical interventions in a research setting. Lisa noted that the nuance Klapsa missed is that European governments have not needed to legislate youth gender care because their own clinicians recognized there were problems with indiscriminate medicalization and instituted major revisions themselves. American gender clinicians have been completely unable to do this.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science reported on the latest European research showing that while the data on diabetes remains unclear, all trans adults have a higher risk of heart disease. Transwomen in particular (aka trans-identified males) have cardiovascular disease rates that are 93% higher than for other biological males. And Medical Xpress reported that syphilis transmission is higher for transwomen, at least in Chicago.
Meanwhile, in Australia, plastic surgeons are seeking to dramatically expand the number of gender surgeries paid for by their universal healthcare system. According to reporter Bernard Lane in Gender Clinic News, “Almost 50,000 Australians aged 18 and older are expected to undergo transgender surgeries such as double mastectomy or the creation of an artificial vagina in the first year of a radical plan for universal public funding of “gender-affirming” medical interventions.” The Medical Services Advisory Committee is due to review the proposal in December.
And across the Atlantic, Chris Matthews reported for the Daily Mail that in England, “four regional gender clinics are directing teenagers aged 17 and over to support from Gendered Intelligence, a trans charity that rejected elements of the Cass report that was commissioned to investigate the scandal-ridden Tavistock children's gender clinic.” Using the type of terminology that is catnip to a Daily Mail reporter, British psychiatrist Dr. Az Hakeem, called Gendered Intelligence and similar support groups “transing factories.”
I don’t have gender medical news from Canada this week, but Robert, one of our Quebecois subscribers, shared this very civil CBC/Radio Canada debate on teaching gender identity ideology in public schools. It’s in French, but you can set the subtitles to auto-translate into English. There are some amusing glitches like “fears” becoming “creams” at one point, but it works pretty well, and I can only fantasize about that type of back-and-forth being aired on PBS or NPR in the States. I also think we see some culture-specific debate training in play that doesn’t commonly happen in most English-speaking countries. Too often in on-air clashes, Anglophones seem to confuse argument with abuse, as Monty Python might say. What do you think?
Touching on sports news briefly, MSNBC hosted a two-part discussion on transgender youth in athletics. Here’s part 1 and here’s part 2, and yes, the panel members were unanimously in favor of sports by gender identity instead of sex, and yes, the infamous Jack Turban was on the panel. Nevertheless, it’s always helpful to listen.
In running news, a female non-binary athlete taking testosterone was able to get an exemption from the US Anti-Doping Agency so he/they can compete in the non-binary division at US Track and Field-sanctioned events. Cal Calamia only competes in the non-binary division now, so I’m not sure this will ever impact other divisions. However, our subscriber, Sue, shared via Twitter/X that other professional athletes believe normalizing testosterone in sport sets a very bad precedent, and I could imagine that even non-medicalized non-binary females might feel Calamia’s exemption is unfair.
I’ll catch up next week on legal action, pronoun dramas, and Let Women Speak Liverpool. Before I go, I wanted to share the latest episode of the Hidden Brain podcast “How to Spot a Scam,” not just for its excellent advice on recognizing when and how we’re at risk of being cheated, but also for its helpful dive into why we’re so susceptible to misinformation. We certainly see that playing out on multiple levels in gender world. Please share your thoughts in the comments below or through this form, and I hope wherever you are there is some sunshine, some fresh air, and some time for you to enjoy both this weekend.
UPDATE: Notes from the Baxendale Presentation
Commentary: Cognitive, Emotional, and Psychosocial Functioning of Girls Treated with Pharmacological Puberty Blockage for Idiopathic Central Precocious Puberty (Hayes, 2017), “Recent findings that GnRHas increase depression symptoms (Macoveanu et al., 2016) and slow reaction time (Stenbæk et al., 2016) in healthy women,” argues IQ drop also important (within 1 sigma).
Also says "The findings of Wojniusz et al. (2016) can be compared with those of a 2001 study in which 25 children treated for early puberty with triptorelin acetate were tested with the short form Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Mul et al., 2001). In this longitudinal study, children took the IQ test before treatment and again after 2 years of treatment. It was found that their IQ dropped 7 points from 100 to 93. With 25 treated participants, this 7-point drop was significant (p = 0.002).”
Baxendale talked about Mul and Wojniusz etc. She also mentioned: Brain Maturation, Cognition and Voice Pattern in a Gender Dysphoria Case under Pubertal Suppression (Schneider et al., 2017)--from the paper: “During the follow-up, white matter fractional anisotropy did not increase, compared to normal male puberty effects on the brain. After 22 months of pubertal suppression, operational memory dropped 9 points and remained stable after 28 months of follow-up.” “Global performance on the Weschler scale was slightly lower during pubertal suppression compared to baseline, predominantly due to a reduction in operational memory.”
Also talked about Staphorsius et al (2015) which said they didn't see a change compared to controls, but the controls were not IQ-matched.
With deep gratitude for the research assistance of Alejandra Q.
We really need to get those puberty blocker studies linked because if you google "puberty blockers children lower IQ," this is the first study that comes up, which claims the opposite (despite it being a study full of weaknesses as noted by the authors themselves). Anyone who is insistent puberty blockers are harmless and fact checks this will see this come up first and feel convinced they have more "proof" that anything being said by SEGM can't be trusted. Can someone put pressure on SEGM to link those studies ASAP? Otherwise, I think it's doing more harm than good to make that big of a claim without links to the studies to back it up.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9574895/
As another Québécoise, I think the debate was ok, but JF Lisée is perceived as a polemist so he might be discarded beforehand. I would have liked a longer talk and I would have like him to not focus so much on the valorisation of heterosexuality but to ask « why is it that a girl who likes trucks and short hair is necessarily not a girl? ». The gender specialist was limited in her argument, pretending that we need to just focus on gender diversity to achieve equality. I would have like to hear the word confusion a little more. It’s a good start. There will be more, apparently.
I hope my fourth grader doesn’t get the gender unicorn this year. If so, he probably will draw a guitar on it and change it to a Metal music album cover.