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Declaring a scientific consensus before serious research has even begun renders the word "science" meaningless. Scientists haven't developed a test for transgen

Declaring a scientific consensus before serious research has even begun renders the word "science" meaningless. Scientists haven't developed a test for transgenderism, or even identified a measurable difference, and what little research has been done comes from the politicized and not-at-all-rigorous "social sciences" whose reliability is questionable at best. There won't be an evidence-based scientific consensus (as opposed to an artificial consensus enforced by excluding anyone who disagrees with the party line) about transgenderism any time soon.

tfehring 8y ago
> Scientists haven't developed a test for transgenderism Transgenderism is a broader term and is often characterized by gender dysphoria. Aside from that, this is false. The American Psychiatric Association defines diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria in the DSM-5, and they're listed on Wikipedia [0]. It isn't currently (and may never be) diagnosable by, say, a blood test or MRI in the same way that physical ailments often are, but the same is true of psychiatric diagnoses for many other well-established conditions. > or even identified a measurable difference It's well-established that a significant number of people meet the diagnostic criteria in [0], and that hormone therapy frequently results in substantial positive outcomes for those people [1] [2]. There's some evidence that the same is true of sex reassignment surgery [3], though the consensus naturally isn't as strong because sample sizes are smaller and double-blind trials aren't viable. > what little research has been done comes from the politicized and not-at-all-rigorous "social sciences" whose reliability is questionable at best If the research is that unreliable, a well-funded, properly motivated organization like the Heritage Foundation should be able to identify methodological weaknesses or other flaws in the literature, instead of sponsoring unscientific drivel from people with PhDs in fields like "political philosophy." > There won't be an evidence-based scientific consensus (as opposed to an artificial consensus enforced by excluding anyone who disagrees with the party line) about transgenderism any time soon. Can you cite up-to-date, peer-reviewed scientific research that disputes the existence of gender dysphoria or the effectiveness of hormone therapy in treating it? Or even a single researcher with relevant scientific expertise who disputes those points? If not, I'd ask how else you could reasonably define an "evidence-based scientific consensus about transgenderism." Keep in mind that scientific consensus isn't necessarily uncontroversial among laypeople - see, e.g., global warming [4] and the theory of evolution [5]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Diagnosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Diagnosis [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21937168 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21937168 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23574768 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23574768 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24344788 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24344788 [4] https://news.gallup.com/poll/248027/americans-concerned-ever-global-warming.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/248027/americans-concerned-ever... [5] https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-...
- leereeves 8y ago
  The first version of the DSM listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. The second version listed "sexual orientation disturbance" and encouraged conversion therapy. The third version initially included "ego-dystonic homosexuality". That said, the fifth version of the DSM does include gender dysphoria and list diagnostic criteria, but those criteria are the best proof available of the nascent state of research related to this topic. They are simply things transgender people desire or believe: A strong desire to be of a gender other than one's assigned gender A strong desire to be treated as a gender other than one's assigned gender A significant incongruence between one's experienced or expressed gender and one's sexual characteristics A strong desire for the sexual characteristics of a gender other than one's assigned gender A strong desire to be rid of one's sexual characteristics due to incongruence with one's experienced or expressed gender A strong conviction that one has the typical reactions and feelings of a gender other than one's assigned gender That last one deserves to be repeated: "the typical reactions and feelings of a gender". What's that supposed to mean? > Can you cite... I could cite several, if they weren't suppressed by political opposition. https://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/08/31/brown-university-transgender-study-removal https://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/08/31/brown-university-trans... https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/uwa-cancels-talk-by-controversial-academic-transgender-views/10132400 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/uwa-cancels-talk-by-c... http://www.jpands.org/vol21no2/cretella.pdf http://www.jpands.org/vol21no2/cretella.pdf The fact that a few people are still willing to speak out in the face of such organized opposition is extraordinary. And no doubt I've missed many; that's just my limited knowledge of the field as an outsider with no particular interest in the topic except to ensure evidence-based scientific discussion isn't forbidden by political interest groups.
  - jauer 8y ago
    The ones you cite are hardly reputable journals, and are disregarded because they are junk science, not because of politics. In "Brown", the paper was misrepresented as a study on trans people, when it was actually a survey of parents that participated in forums for parents that were upset that their children were transitioning. In "UWA Cancels talk", that was someone from acpeds, > Dr Van Meter is president of the American College of Paediatricians (ACP), a small conservative group known for its opposition to gay marriage, gender reassignment, abortion and premarital sex. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is noted in wikipedia for some rather interesting views: > The association is generally recognized as politically conservative or ultra-conservative, and its publication advocates a range of scientifically discredited hypotheses, including the belief that HIV does not cause AIDS, that being gay reduces life expectancy, that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer, and that there is a causal relationship between vaccines and autism.
tsimionescu 8y ago
The only science we have at the moment whose area of expertise covers this issue relevantly is the somewhat dubious social science, which has been researching the issue and has some amount of consensus on it. Is true that the social sciences are relatively weak compared to things like physics and even biology. But that doesn't mean we should wait for the physics community to reach a consensus on transgenderism, any more than we should wait for the biology or neuroscience communities. It's a separate area of knowledge that we just don't understand yet enough to have the amount of rigour about that we expect from physics. That doesn't mean that our attempts in this direction don't qualify as science,or that the consensus of the social science community can't be called scientific consensus.
jauer 8y ago
That's a pretty misleading representation of the state of research, unless journals like nature, endocrine society, neuroendocronology etc are now politicized social sciences.
- leereeves 8y ago
  Terrible examples. A Google Scholar search found only one article in Neuroendrocrinology related to transgender individuals. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C3&as_vis=1&q=neuroendocrinology+transgender&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C3&as_vis... That article's abstract begins by saying: "To date, research findings are inconsistent about whether the neuroanatomy in transgender persons resembles that of their natal sex or their gender identity." https://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/448787 https://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/448787 The Endocrine Society is a political organization for doctors, like the AMA, not a research journal. The foremost journal they publish is called Endocrinology, but I can't find any articles there: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,39&q=endocrinology+transgender https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,39&q=endoc... And Nature is the most heavily politicized journal on the planet. Their editorial board routinely takes sides in political issues.

tfehring 8y ago

> Scientists haven't developed a test for transgenderism Transgenderism is a broader term and is often characterized by gender dysphoria. Aside from that, this is false. The American Psychiatric Association defines diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria in the DSM-5, and they're listed on Wikipedia [0]. It isn't currently (and may never be) diagnosable by, say, a blood test or MRI in the same way that physical ailments often are, but the same is true of psychiatric diagnoses for many other well-established conditions. > or even identified a measurable difference It's well-established that a significant number of people meet the diagnostic criteria in [0], and that hormone therapy frequently results in substantial positive outcomes for those people [1] [2]. There's some evidence that the same is true of sex reassignment surgery [3], though the consensus naturally isn't as strong because sample sizes are smaller and double-blind trials aren't viable. > what little research has been done comes from the politicized and not-at-all-rigorous "social sciences" whose reliability is questionable at best If the research is that unreliable, a well-funded, properly motivated organization like the Heritage Foundation should be able to identify methodological weaknesses or other flaws in the literature, instead of sponsoring unscientific drivel from people with PhDs in fields like "political philosophy." > There won't be an evidence-based scientific consensus (as opposed to an artificial consensus enforced by excluding anyone who disagrees with the party line) about transgenderism any time soon. Can you cite up-to-date, peer-reviewed scientific research that disputes the existence of gender dysphoria or the effectiveness of hormone therapy in treating it? Or even a single researcher with relevant scientific expertise who disputes those points? If not, I'd ask how else you could reasonably define an "evidence-based scientific consensus about transgenderism." Keep in mind that scientific consensus isn't necessarily uncontroversial among laypeople - see, e.g., global warming [4] and the theory of evolution [5]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Diagnosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria#Diagnosis [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21937168 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21937168 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23574768 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23574768 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24344788 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24344788 [4] https://news.gallup.com/poll/248027/americans-concerned-ever-global-warming.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/248027/americans-concerned-ever... [5] https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-...

leereeves 8y ago
The first version of the DSM listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. The second version listed "sexual orientation disturbance" and encouraged conversion therapy. The third version initially included "ego-dystonic homosexuality". That said, the fifth version of the DSM does include gender dysphoria and list diagnostic criteria, but those criteria are the best proof available of the nascent state of research related to this topic. They are simply things transgender people desire or believe: A strong desire to be of a gender other than one's assigned gender A strong desire to be treated as a gender other than one's assigned gender A significant incongruence between one's experienced or expressed gender and one's sexual characteristics A strong desire for the sexual characteristics of a gender other than one's assigned gender A strong desire to be rid of one's sexual characteristics due to incongruence with one's experienced or expressed gender A strong conviction that one has the typical reactions and feelings of a gender other than one's assigned gender That last one deserves to be repeated: "the typical reactions and feelings of a gender". What's that supposed to mean? > Can you cite... I could cite several, if they weren't suppressed by political opposition. https://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/08/31/brown-university-transgender-study-removal https://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/08/31/brown-university-trans... https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/uwa-cancels-talk-by-controversial-academic-transgender-views/10132400 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/uwa-cancels-talk-by-c... http://www.jpands.org/vol21no2/cretella.pdf http://www.jpands.org/vol21no2/cretella.pdf The fact that a few people are still willing to speak out in the face of such organized opposition is extraordinary. And no doubt I've missed many; that's just my limited knowledge of the field as an outsider with no particular interest in the topic except to ensure evidence-based scientific discussion isn't forbidden by political interest groups.
- jauer 8y ago
  The ones you cite are hardly reputable journals, and are disregarded because they are junk science, not because of politics. In "Brown", the paper was misrepresented as a study on trans people, when it was actually a survey of parents that participated in forums for parents that were upset that their children were transitioning. In "UWA Cancels talk", that was someone from acpeds, > Dr Van Meter is president of the American College of Paediatricians (ACP), a small conservative group known for its opposition to gay marriage, gender reassignment, abortion and premarital sex. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is noted in wikipedia for some rather interesting views: > The association is generally recognized as politically conservative or ultra-conservative, and its publication advocates a range of scientifically discredited hypotheses, including the belief that HIV does not cause AIDS, that being gay reduces life expectancy, that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer, and that there is a causal relationship between vaccines and autism.

tsimionescu 8y ago

The only science we have at the moment whose area of expertise covers this issue relevantly is the somewhat dubious social science, which has been researching the issue and has some amount of consensus on it. Is true that the social sciences are relatively weak compared to things like physics and even biology. But that doesn't mean we should wait for the physics community to reach a consensus on transgenderism, any more than we should wait for the biology or neuroscience communities. It's a separate area of knowledge that we just don't understand yet enough to have the amount of rigour about that we expect from physics. That doesn't mean that our attempts in this direction don't qualify as science,or that the consensus of the social science community can't be called scientific consensus.

jauer 8y ago

That's a pretty misleading representation of the state of research, unless journals like nature, endocrine society, neuroendocronology etc are now politicized social sciences.

leereeves 8y ago
Terrible examples. A Google Scholar search found only one article in Neuroendrocrinology related to transgender individuals. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C3&as_vis=1&q=neuroendocrinology+transgender&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C3&as_vis... That article's abstract begins by saying: "To date, research findings are inconsistent about whether the neuroanatomy in transgender persons resembles that of their natal sex or their gender identity." https://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/448787 https://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/448787 The Endocrine Society is a political organization for doctors, like the AMA, not a research journal. The foremost journal they publish is called Endocrinology, but I can't find any articles there: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,39&q=endocrinology+transgender https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,39&q=endoc... And Nature is the most heavily politicized journal on the planet. Their editorial board routinely takes sides in political issues.