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Today, Jesse Singal wrote an opinion for the New York Times where he argued that Trump defunding youth gender research was a bad thing, despite the terrible research coming out of that part of science. He thinks that reform is in order, not slash-and-burn practices. In my opinion, there is definitely enough research out there by now that you can confidently release something like a Cass Report without anything new. Certainly, funding bad actors makes no sense, but to me, reform is little gain, and even a good new study must follow around minors that have gone through the unethical transgender science grinder.
It reminds me of an (unpopular) opinion Trace shared the other day on Twitter regarding the axing of funds for museums and libraries. Even if anthropology is 99% leftist, well, the institutions belong to those who show up, so right wingers just need to get in there and fix it themselves. While I appreciated that stance as it related to conservative law organizations, and as it related to Twitter when left-wingers were leaving the site en masse, I find it pretty distasteful to give up anthropology to positive feedback loops, and let our history become a mockery when it is within one's power to just raze it.
Deus Ex took a look at this perspective. Spoilers for Deus Ex:General Carter, after the UNATCO plot is exposed, decides to stay within the organization, because institutions are only as good as the people that comprise them. Later in the game, you see him in the Vandenburg compound. He has given up on his idea of reform and joined the resistance.
I'm going to guess most of this forum disagrees with Trace and Jesse on this matter in pretty much the same way that I do. Can you name any areas in government or other organizations where you do agree with them?
It's not a wonder you don't care about reforming the science to have evidence based results on if trans healthcare for minors has positive or negative results for patients if you've already made up your mind that it's unethical off other grounds.
Science should not be
Step 1: Have a view established off something else Step 2: Only accept evidence, research, and experts that agrees with the pre-established view and not the ones that disagree. Step 3: Declare the issue done with and stop further research.
Running these experiments is itself a violation of the ethics of human experimentation because, as detransitioners would be able to tell you, it can't be opted out of.
I think that there are plenty of medical interventions which can not be opted out after the fact.
A tonsillectomy can not be opted out after the fact, and yet it is regularly performed.
Generally, it is fine to study such interventions -- even randomized -- if you keep within the overton window of standard practices or have good reason to believe that your treatment will lead to a better outcome for patients. Nobody suggests rounding up kids and then randomly assigning them to the control or the puberty blocker / tonsillectomy group without any medical indication.
Also, a non-intervention can have just as severe consequences, and as a utilitarian, I do not believe that there is a fundamental moral difference between an act and an omission. Puberty blockers have permanent side effects, but so has going to puberty. In a world where the blockers exist, a doctor who withholds them is taking the responsibility for letting puberty happen -- just as a doctor who withholds antibiotics to let an infection kill a MAID patient is not very different from one who uses barbiturates instead.
Both puberty blockers and puberty have failure modes such as suicides. If and when they can be used to gain QALYs is an empirical question. Presumably, the path of expected best outcome depends a lot on the individual in question. A kid in 1980 whose reaction to growing breasts was to try to cut them off, and who attempted suicide over not being a boy might be different than a kid in 2025 who decided that they are non-binary after five others in their class already came out as non-cis.
Sure. No one is saying you cannot do irreversible medical procedures, just that their effects have to be justified by the effects on the patient's health, and that the patient has to be aware of their irreversibility, and the effects. None of these conditions are met for puberty blockers. Their use was so far justified by their supposed reversibility, and sold as "buying time to think".
I don't think "overton window" is a valid argument, it just means a bunch of people agreed it's a good idea. In my opinion they should have good reasons to think something is a good idea, so that leaves us only with the last criterion you cited, which currently is unfulfilled.
The difference here is that in the case of an infection, you're dealing with an unhealthy body, one that is veritably under assault by foreign organisms. In the case of puberty blockers you're intervening in a perfectly healthy body, hoping to achieve purely psychological benefits. I don't think we do that very often in medicine, especially for minors.
I don't think puberty causes suicide, and I'm pretty sure neither do puberty blockers for that matter.
It was in this case as well, but somehow the doctor had his license suspended. None of the defenders of trans medicine were bothered, some even actively campaigned for it.
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