". . . may frame the argument against gender procedures on kids as merely part of a culture war."
Bingo!
I don't for a minute believe that the NYT will do justice to this topic. I've been a subscriber for many years but have grown increasingly disgusted at the NYT's coverage of "trans" everything and even more at its censorship of critical reader comments.
As I've written several times here on Substack, I have more screenshots than I count of gender-critical comments that were allowed to post and then deleted because "trans activists" flagged them into oblivion, and also of attempted comments that were never allowed to post at all.
Although I knew it was pointless to bring this to the editors' and moderators' attention, I did it anyway, several times, with proof. But they don't care.
So again, no, I don't hae confidence that they'll produce an honest assessment in this podcast.
And yet you carry on, thankfully, Lisa — it’s not pointless, but rather akin to watching mountains erode in real time: the slow action of water as both a solvent and a source of microfracturing is imperceptible, but ecosystems downstream taste those solutes, and eventually microfractures lead to rockslides.
You are that water.
We are all that water.
Somedays that’s all we get, despite our best efforts — but some days the cliff face shears.
Even if all we can muster is a single drip, it makes a difference.
And sometimes even a tidal wave doesn’t make a meaningful dent.
Time will win, as will reality. They always do.
The only question is how many more must suffer needlessly in the interim …. and how we can best bring about that end & mitigate against further pain until then.
The evidence was already there from John’s Hopkins and from longitudinal Swedish studies that so-called gender reassignment *in adults* did not improve mental health outcomes(and in fact worsened them). Why anyone would think it would work better for teens snd children (aside from better “passing” as if that was the main issue) is really puzzling. No one was asking many questions at all, it seems.
Will they talk about how the Dutch pioneers never even bothered to investigate the potential negative physiological effects of blocking natural puberty beginning so early and lasting for so long, despite the existing red flags on that issue from research on the impact of short-term use of blockers for premature puberty?
How they focused exclusively on potential mental health benefits?
How their reliance exclusively on the kids’ own subjective biased responses to mental health assessment surveys instead of objective criteria like documented suicide attempts, documented hospitalizations, documented outpatient treatment, clinical diagnoses, psych med usage, etc., produced low quality evidence?
How it’s only now we’re finding out about the negative physiological effects like the males never developing the ability to orgasm, like the females developing pelvic floor dysfunction and premature menopause symptoms as teens, like the seriousness of the bone demineralization, like the lack of cognitive/emotional development?
>Rosin also describes Ewards-Leeper as a part-time psychologist who did 4 hour assessments but in “emergencies” (when families contacted the clinic too close to impending puberty) skipped them altogether.
… How is “too close” measured? Is this attributed to long wait list times at the clinic?
Puberty as emergency is an interesting analogy, though. It is an “emergence,” but not necessarily a cause for alarm.
It's a cause for alarm if you've been lied to about your sex by adults
Even the Dutch said you shouldn't tell these kids they are the other sex, but that if they want to look/live that way that there is a very complicated process to do. If the patient did not react well to that reality, that was a diagnostic tool too.
"recalibrating its voice, potentially at the expense of intellectual diversity,” "
I'm worried about their commitment to the truth. The biggest problem for those pushing these interventions is the truth.
Diverse viewpoints are a good way to challenge ideas to determine which ones are true, but in this, not a way to look for a happy medium. These are questions about reality, not social questions that can be, often should be, compromised.
Factual questions that should be answered:
what is the natural history of this condition?
What happens to rats and other animals on these drugs (if you think that's cruel.....?!)
Is there anyone for whom long term benefits outweigh harms? How would one find them?
What do we know so far? What can we learn from what appear to be tens of thousands of minors on the US already started on these drugs and the thousands who had surgeries a minors and not yet mature adults?
I appreciate Jaime’s involvement and support getting her voice out to a larger audience. Beyond that, I would be surprised if this was anything other than the usual drivel that the NYT puts out on this topic.
Sending Jamie gratitude and admiration for her unwavering work. Her voice and arguments are so clear in the "Whistleblower" episode - both in the face of challenging (almost to the point of rude, in my opinion) questions from Azeen Ghorayshi (whom Jamie then thanks for her challenging questions) and when confronted by a mother from the WashU clinic. As I understood it, Jamie's portion was recorded in 2023. In my opinion her arguments have just become stronger and more thoughtful over time. Thanks, LBG Courage Coalition.
Why do so many people still care what the NYT publishes? The "loyalty" or "trust" or whatever it is that causes followers of that media company to keep hanging on is part of the problem in our society.
I remember doing a double take when I read Norman Spack's comment, as reported in the NY Times, that he was "salivating" when he heard about putting children on puberty blockers. A very revealing, and curious comment, from a doctor treating children.
It reminded me of another comment made years ago, by an adult transsexual patient of Donald Laub of Stanford's Gender Identity Program, who referred to Dr. Laub as, "a date". (Implying he was very chummy with his MTF patients.)
In an interview, transsexual Aleshia Brevard was remembering Dr. Harry Benjamin, author of "The Transsexual Phenomenon" and said of herself and the other MTF patents he would take out to lunch, "We were his girls."
It appears some doctors drawn to work with transsexuals are motivated by something personal.
I hope Jamie's contribution will be treated fairly, though I have little confidence in that hope. One thing, though: stop stressing "infertility" over harms to neurological and bone development, among other incapacitating effects of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, even the capacity for orgasm. For most people these are the greater harms.
". . . may frame the argument against gender procedures on kids as merely part of a culture war."
Bingo!
I don't for a minute believe that the NYT will do justice to this topic. I've been a subscriber for many years but have grown increasingly disgusted at the NYT's coverage of "trans" everything and even more at its censorship of critical reader comments.
As I've written several times here on Substack, I have more screenshots than I count of gender-critical comments that were allowed to post and then deleted because "trans activists" flagged them into oblivion, and also of attempted comments that were never allowed to post at all.
Although I knew it was pointless to bring this to the editors' and moderators' attention, I did it anyway, several times, with proof. But they don't care.
So again, no, I don't hae confidence that they'll produce an honest assessment in this podcast.
And yet you carry on, thankfully, Lisa — it’s not pointless, but rather akin to watching mountains erode in real time: the slow action of water as both a solvent and a source of microfracturing is imperceptible, but ecosystems downstream taste those solutes, and eventually microfractures lead to rockslides.
You are that water.
We are all that water.
Somedays that’s all we get, despite our best efforts — but some days the cliff face shears.
Keep your elbows up & sharp 🙏
💪💪🇨🇦
"We are all that water", it's the very least we can be, drip, and drip, and never stop dripping, for my child, and yours, drip, drip, drip
Thank you, Mark 🙏
Even if all we can muster is a single drip, it makes a difference.
And sometimes even a tidal wave doesn’t make a meaningful dent.
Time will win, as will reality. They always do.
The only question is how many more must suffer needlessly in the interim …. and how we can best bring about that end & mitigate against further pain until then.
The evidence was already there from John’s Hopkins and from longitudinal Swedish studies that so-called gender reassignment *in adults* did not improve mental health outcomes(and in fact worsened them). Why anyone would think it would work better for teens snd children (aside from better “passing” as if that was the main issue) is really puzzling. No one was asking many questions at all, it seems.
Only ones they wanted to hear reflexive answers to, and also tuning out and suppressing answers to those that they did ask.
Yes, thank you!
Will they talk about how the Dutch pioneers never even bothered to investigate the potential negative physiological effects of blocking natural puberty beginning so early and lasting for so long, despite the existing red flags on that issue from research on the impact of short-term use of blockers for premature puberty?
How they focused exclusively on potential mental health benefits?
How their reliance exclusively on the kids’ own subjective biased responses to mental health assessment surveys instead of objective criteria like documented suicide attempts, documented hospitalizations, documented outpatient treatment, clinical diagnoses, psych med usage, etc., produced low quality evidence?
How it’s only now we’re finding out about the negative physiological effects like the males never developing the ability to orgasm, like the females developing pelvic floor dysfunction and premature menopause symptoms as teens, like the seriousness of the bone demineralization, like the lack of cognitive/emotional development?
>Rosin also describes Ewards-Leeper as a part-time psychologist who did 4 hour assessments but in “emergencies” (when families contacted the clinic too close to impending puberty) skipped them altogether.
… How is “too close” measured? Is this attributed to long wait list times at the clinic?
Puberty as emergency is an interesting analogy, though. It is an “emergence,” but not necessarily a cause for alarm.
It's a cause for alarm if you've been lied to about your sex by adults
Even the Dutch said you shouldn't tell these kids they are the other sex, but that if they want to look/live that way that there is a very complicated process to do. If the patient did not react well to that reality, that was a diagnostic tool too.
Yes. It’s disastrously irresponsible of the adults involved.
"recalibrating its voice, potentially at the expense of intellectual diversity,” "
I'm worried about their commitment to the truth. The biggest problem for those pushing these interventions is the truth.
Diverse viewpoints are a good way to challenge ideas to determine which ones are true, but in this, not a way to look for a happy medium. These are questions about reality, not social questions that can be, often should be, compromised.
Factual questions that should be answered:
what is the natural history of this condition?
What happens to rats and other animals on these drugs (if you think that's cruel.....?!)
Is there anyone for whom long term benefits outweigh harms? How would one find them?
What do we know so far? What can we learn from what appear to be tens of thousands of minors on the US already started on these drugs and the thousands who had surgeries a minors and not yet mature adults?
I appreciate Jaime’s involvement and support getting her voice out to a larger audience. Beyond that, I would be surprised if this was anything other than the usual drivel that the NYT puts out on this topic.
Does anyone know what time podcasts usually are released from the NYT? I would have thought early in the day but it doesn't appear anywhere yet 🤔
Sending Jamie gratitude and admiration for her unwavering work. Her voice and arguments are so clear in the "Whistleblower" episode - both in the face of challenging (almost to the point of rude, in my opinion) questions from Azeen Ghorayshi (whom Jamie then thanks for her challenging questions) and when confronted by a mother from the WashU clinic. As I understood it, Jamie's portion was recorded in 2023. In my opinion her arguments have just become stronger and more thoughtful over time. Thanks, LBG Courage Coalition.
Why do so many people still care what the NYT publishes? The "loyalty" or "trust" or whatever it is that causes followers of that media company to keep hanging on is part of the problem in our society.
I remember doing a double take when I read Norman Spack's comment, as reported in the NY Times, that he was "salivating" when he heard about putting children on puberty blockers. A very revealing, and curious comment, from a doctor treating children.
It reminded me of another comment made years ago, by an adult transsexual patient of Donald Laub of Stanford's Gender Identity Program, who referred to Dr. Laub as, "a date". (Implying he was very chummy with his MTF patients.)
In an interview, transsexual Aleshia Brevard was remembering Dr. Harry Benjamin, author of "The Transsexual Phenomenon" and said of herself and the other MTF patents he would take out to lunch, "We were his girls."
It appears some doctors drawn to work with transsexuals are motivated by something personal.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-protocol/id1817731112
I hope Jamie's contribution will be treated fairly, though I have little confidence in that hope. One thing, though: stop stressing "infertility" over harms to neurological and bone development, among other incapacitating effects of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, even the capacity for orgasm. For most people these are the greater harms.
I'm listening - about halfway through. It's...devastating.
Once you listen, they're soliciting comments at theprotocol.nytimes.com