Et tu Brown?
More from the Annals of Shut Up:
An Ivy League college is embroiled in a row with trans activists over an article which suggested gender dysphoria was spreading among children.
Brown University has removed research from its website which hypothesised that teenagers who came out as transgender were more likely to have friends who were transitioning and were influenced by YouTube videos and social media.
Academics accused the university of bowing to pressure from activists after it removed a news article and link to Lisa Littman’s research. A tweet promoting the paper has also been deleted.
The research concluded “social and peer contagion” was a plausible explanation for “cluster outbreaks” and a high number of cases where the majority of children in a friendship group became “transgender-identified”.
A statement from Bess H. Marcus, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said that concerns over methodology had prompted the removal, adding that members of the university had also complained.
“The School of Public Health has heard from Brown community members expressing concerns that the conclusions of the study could be used to discredit efforts to support transgender youth and invalidate the perspectives of members of the transgender community,” she added.
Since when is public health research or any other scientific research require to “validate the perspectives” of anyone? Perspectives are personal and subjective, and validation of them is not mandatory anywhere but especially not in evidence-based disciplines.
Also – seriously? Are they seriously trying to claim that it’s up in the air whether or not transing is at all influenced by social contagion? They’ve got to be kidding. When many trans activists seem to spend their entire waking lives promoting the joys of being trans and bullying anyone who isn’t entirely sure about the joys part?
Academics and researchers criticised the decision to remove the study.
James Caspian, a psychotherapist who specialised in gender identity for over a decade, and who is fundraising for a legal case against Bath Spa University for blocking his research into people who decide to de-transition last year, said: “In a way mine was censored in anticipation of being criticised, it would appear that this has been attacked after it’s been done, by people whose agenda it doesn’t suit.”
Bath Spa has previously said it rejected his research on methodological, not ideological grounds.
In a statement posted alongside Dr Littman’s article, the journal said: “We take all concerns raised about publications in the journal very seriously, and are following up on these per our policy and COPE guidelines.
“As part of our follow up we will seek further expert assessment on the study’s methodology and analyses. We will provide a further update once we have completed our assessment and discussions.”
In other words…academics, don’t do research on this subject if you value your careers and reputations and freedom from bullying.
I mean, putting aside the potential issues of contagion and methodology for a minute; there are people who are morbidly obese, or smokers, or alcohol drinkers, or drug users, who feel aggrieved at health and medical advice becoming part of public policy and discussion. They feel their lifestyle choices are negatively highlighted (not necessarily saying that being trans is a lifestyle choice). Tough shit. There is sound evidence that it’s so and sound reasons for said medical advice and public policy. You might be happy as fat person, a drinker or a smoker. That doesn’t mean that there are not negative social outcomes or that certain facts are in play. Why should an emerging social issue go unresearched, just because some people dislike the results of research. If there is a problem with the methodology of the research, the correct scientific response is to critique and improve the method, then repeat the research. not to suppress the original research. Plenty of the original research in many fields is initially shallow and not best practice. Often this is because there is poor funding or support. Sometimes it is through lack of knowledge in an emerging field. poor methodology alone does not also mean that the conclusion reached is wrong or has not raised useful questions for further study.
They also spend a great deal of effort promoting the idea that any boy or girl that does not do stereotyped boy or girl things – be it clothing, hobby, hairstyle, choice of tv show etc – is ipso facto not fully boy or girl. And so any impressionable boy or girl confronted with this could easily find examples within their own behaviour that do not match the stereotype… and conclude that they must therefore be gender fluid / non-binary, or trans.
And all the time, the obvious explanation – that the stereotypes are cultural baggage that ought to be discarded – is ignored, and anyone espousing it becomes a pariah.
May be I am getting oversensitive with this subject but I have a big problem with labeling some youth as transgender. Young people are confused about a lot of things. A lot of them experiment with homosexual behaviour, that doesn’t mean they will grow up being homosexual. But there seems to be a segment of the transactivists that as soon as they see young people experimenting with gender roles, are quick to label those young people as trans and are advocating for starting medical procedure as soon as possible.
I am for supporting our young people in their confusing quest finding out who they are. But real support doesn’t mean slapping a label on them and then proceeding in ways that support that label. Real supports is allowing them to be confused and giving them the time to figure things out for themselves and trying to be accepting, however that turns out. Not rushing them to a particular destination at the least pretext.
In that, they are in agreement with my mother, who was not supportive of the idea of trans. Her answer to that is to try to force offending daughter (that would be me) to be what a “woman” should be…she failed. But at least she never tried to force me to be a son, when all I wanted is to be me (woman, dressed in comfortable clothes without make up, doing science, and not having tons of babies…yuck. Babies. Not my thing).
It’s funny the way the whole ‘gender role’ thing is in a greement with the most conservative elements of the population, and is the very thing feminism has opposed since donkeys years…
Holms, what is even funnier is that they claim they are the ones who are non-binary!
[…] a comment by Rob on Et tu […]
Here’s the thing–even if one accepts trans ideology, this shouldn’t be a controversial notion. The whole POINT of pride movements, particularly for things dealing with sex and sexuality, is that exposure lets folks know that:
1: They may know someone in a particular sub-group without realizing it, and;
2: If they are in that group themselves, they absolutely are not alone.
That second one will often lead to others being more willing to be introspective, and thus able to consider the idea that they might be gay or bisexual (as the primary example), and to be willing to come out as such. The notion that it wouldn’t work the same way for sexual identity issues is, if anything, a claim in need of supporting evidence.