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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   29762 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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The Saga of Jaime Reed continues

For those who haven't followed it:

  • Part one was Jaime Reed blowing the whistle on the St. Louis Children's Hospital by submitting an affidavit, and Bari Weiss' Free Press publishing an article about it.

  • Part two was the aftermath, Missouri Independent's and the St.Louis Post Dispatch doing an investigation that contradicted Reed's statements, summed up by @PmMeClassicMemes, focusing in no small part on the ridiculousness of the claim that one of the patients identified as an attack helicopter.

  • Part three was Jesse Singal doing an investigation of his own, pointing out the statements contradicting Reed were made by members of a group called TransParents, some of who actually co-founded the clinic in question. He also got documentation from her about the attack helicopter kid. I summarized it here.

Now the New York Times has also investigated the issue. As someone following trans issues for a while I found it to be a bit of a slog, but it could be interesting to someone out of the loop. The short of it is they've corroborated many of Jaime Reed's claims, though they claim to have contradicted one of them:

It’s clear the St. Louis clinic benefited many adolescents: Eighteen patients and parents said that their experiences there were overwhelmingly positive, and they refuted Ms. Reed’s depiction of it. For example, her affidavit claimed that the clinic’s doctors did not inform parents or children of the serious side effects of puberty blockers and hormones. But emails show that Ms. Reed herself provided parents with fliers outlining possible risks.

For what it's worth Reed responded to it on Twitter:

I provided parents fliers, no disputing that. And I emailed these. I also made many of them (I am not a doctor). Getting a flier emailed does not equal informed consent. Getting a copy of a flier handed by a doctor also does not equal informed consent.

The question of NYT's bias is an interesting one. A lot of people from the "anti-trans" side of the issue are praising the article as very nuanced. I'm also firmly on that side, and personally I feel like they're pulling a lot of their punches, if an "anti-trans" version Cade Metz wrote that article they'd have many opportunities to go wild on this particular subject, to the point that the article on Scott would appear like a fluff piece. On the other hand I do recognize they're constrained by their audience, and even writing the article in it's present form is probably about as much as they can get away with at the moment.

Indeed, GLAAD got maad, and unleashed The Truck. This is actually the second time they did this, the first was after NYT published a profile on detransitioners. I think this might a strategic mistake on their part. The first time they protested the NYT, their action carried some energy, even if it didn't result in anything. The problem is that doing the same thing again after their original protest had no effect, makes this one feel rather impotent. With responses turned off it's hard to gauge people's reactions, but it feels like they aren't having it anymore, at least on this particular issue.

At the beginning of the year I made a prediction that something's up with the trans issue. The debate rages on, and we're probably still years away from a resolution, but I'm growing increasingly confident that this year is a turning point.

Also she probably was told sometime on the way, that trans kid is better than dead kid, and if there's any questioning of the program would be happening on the way, it's a direct way to the kid committing suicide. So given that, would you dare to criticize anything about what is happening? Like telling "hey kid, we thought it would fix you but turns out you're screwed for life, not only once, but twice" - to a supposedly suicidal kid? What parent would do anything like that? Of course they'd say everything is peachy and going great and we are supper happy and those idiot relatives could please just shut up before they make my kid suicidal again?!

This seems like excellent evidence for exactly what Reed described: a climate where the beneficence and effectiveness and necessity of these treatments was just assumed, no matter what happened.

I don't think it was just assumed. I think somebody worked hard at impressing on the mother that if she assumes something else, the potential deadly consequences are on her.

Also, when Wash U investigated itself, it reported zero adverse effects.

That would be a huge achievement if they could have a medicine that literally overhauls the whole body's biochemistry, against how it naturally supposed to work, and had not little, not insignificant - but zero adverse effects. Either they are superbly lucky geniuses or they are liars. But I guess it gives the usual suspects the base to say that the science is settled, and anybody who pushes it further is a bigoted conspiracy terrorist.

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