Maybe science
Wo, this is a big step.
This at a blog called “Science-based Medicine.”
So let’s take a look.
Very science-based title.
Editor’s note: This is the second guest post discussing Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters solicited from experts in transgender medical care. In this post, Dr. A.J. Eckert describes the many errors, misrepresentations, and misunderstandings of science in Shrier’s book, doing so in more detail than was done in our recent guest post by Dr. Rose Lovell, who provided an excellent overview of the problems with the book. Dr. Eckert plans a second part to this discussion, which they are currently working on. We look forward to its completion.
Dr. Eckert is “non-binary.”
Does that make Dr. Eckert part of “the trans community”? Or no?
Clearly the mandated answer is yes, but the reality is that that’s absurd, because the very idea of being “trans” relies on the binary, so claiming to be some of each and to be “part of the trans community” is having it both ways, i.e. ignoring a contradiction.
Dr. Eckert starts with some poison.
Over the last couple of weeks, Abigail Shrier’s controversial 2020 book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters has enjoyed a renewed surge of interest and controversy on the Internet. On June 15, Dr. Harriet Hall, retired family physician and longtime contributor to the Science-Based Medicine blog, posted a favorable review of Shrier’s book on SBM.
The physicians behind SBM characterize their blog as one “dedicated to evaluating medical treatments and products of interest to the public in a scientific light and promoting the highest standards and traditions of science in health care”. SBM is widely regarded in its dedication to evidence-based medicine. Hall’s review was pulled from the SBM blog less than two days later for review, having been found not to meet the standards of SBM. Shrier sees this move as bullying.
So do I, and you know what else I see as bullying? This intro. This spiteful nasty intro.
Ms. Shrier, Lisa Littman, whose 2018 study proposed the diagnosis of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD), and now apparently Dr. Hall see themselves as victims of a “woke” activist movement trying to censor science.
Gee, why would they think that.
In contrast to claims of Shrier having been “silenced,” her book has garnered praise and support, with several sites taking up her cause in the past week alone. Before Dr. Hall’s review, Shrier had previously appeared at a high-profile Senate hearing. She still has a platform as a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and has expressed her views on several podcasts, including Joe Rogan’s massively popular one. Meanwhile, in part due to Shrier’s enthusiastic promotion, Littman’s made-up diagnosis of ROGD has enjoyed a renewed interest, spread widely, and is accepted by many as a real medical diagnosis.
Bad science, however, remains bad science, and personal opinions based in confirmation bias and politicized beliefs are bad science.
Says non-binary Dr. Eckert who is clearly not at all influenced by personal opinions or politicized beliefs.
Throughout her book, Shrier refers to her subjects as “biological girls,” a term that conflates sex with gender and mischaracterizes Shrier’s subjects. The reason is that a person’s sex refers to the identity assigned by doctors, parents, and medical professionals at birth, most often based on external anatomy (genitals).
That’s not right.
More accurately, Shrier’s subjects are “AFAB”, or “assigned female at birth“, because no one gets to choose what sex they’re assigned at birth.
That’s not more accurate. At all.
It’s breathtaking that they’re doing this.
More later, maybe, or maybe I’ll just leave it to fester.
The answer is both yes and no, and also purple. And also none of those. And also all of those at the same time time (including “none of those”). Why must we be so binary in answering the question??
Rapid Onset Trans Takeover Every Discussion, or ROTTED.
I fail to see any “science-based” anything in what you excerpted. It’s just name calling and bullying. Where is the science?
We know they can’t provide the science. They don’t have it to provide.
“Biological girl” makes explicit that she is referring to young humans whose sex is female, as opposed to those who call themselves girls as an ‘identity’ they have claimed. That’s the exact opposite of conflation.
Blog rename suggestion: Feelings-Based Medicine.
I object on behalf of the English language.
There is no general rule that says that the statement “Person A is Category X” implies that Person A chose to be X. I didn’t choose to be white, or blue-eyed, or even human, but if I went around declaring that I was “assigned human at birth,” people would back away slowly and look for an escape route.
There are, of course, some types of X where there arguably is (or should be) an implication of choice. I’m thinking of Richard Dawkins’s complaint about referring to “Christian children” or “Muslim children” as being as ridiculous as a “monetarist child.”
But then, that’s just it, isn’t it? The underlying belief is that there is no biological sex at all, only gender, which is a choice. Except when it isn’t, of course. It’s a choice when protesting that “you can’t say I’m female, because I didn’t choose to be female.” but it’s not a choice when complaining that “I can’t just choose to be female, that’s not who I am.”
I sent an email to Dr Steven Novella at the time of the original article retraction. He was kind enough to reply, and I won’t share many details of the discussion, as it is private correspondence. But I think he would be OK with me saying that he stressed that the science was the only important matter, and that the site would address the science in detail shortly. Obviously I am paraphrasing, but that seems like a fair paraphrase of his words.
As we can see, what that means in practice is that they explicitly say the science is not important, and the ideology is all that matters, in almost as many words. And the experts they have brought in are all from one side of the debate, and as you point out make ad hominem attacks on their ‘opponents’.
In the initial SBM response they defend the existing research, with slight criticisms, even though the Kiera Bell case, the NICE review of puberty blockers, the Swedish study whose name I have forgotten,have all raised serious questions about the current research, and therefore the treatment regimen it points to. None of these have been answered adequately.
The fact that they have not, and almost certainly will not, mention any of these actual controversies where specialists in the subject disagree with one another, and a world renowned clinic cannot defend their own treatment regimen in court against a claim made by a 24-year-old woman with no medical training whatsoever is damning evidence of their ideological capture in my opinion.
I am not surprised at all about the actions of Dr Gorski. I am a little shocked about Dr Novella, I listened to his podcast for many years, and generally felt that he was capable of at least trying to cover controversial topics without obviously taking a side. I no longer think that about him, quite the opposite.
I can’t square what I am seeing with what I thought I knew about him. But if I can’t trust him on this subject then I can’t trust him on any subject, frankly. Credibility is hard to gain, easy to lose and almost impossible to gain back.
http://ideologybasedmedicine.org/ is an available domain, perhaps someone could take it and point it to sciencebasedmedicine.org ?
[…] a comment by Screechy Monkey at Maybe […]
I’ve barely started on this new essay (part 1) when I’m brought up short by this definition of “gender:”
How can anyone read this and not be overcome with an impending feeling that there might be … that is, it could seem like … well, it sounds a little bit … sexist, maybe?
Sex is an identity that is assigned by others at birth. It remains a complete mystery how wild animals manage to reproduce, with no one around to assign them a sex.
We’re the ones conflating sex with gender? Also, it’s not an assignment because the obstetrician doesn’t get to choose, either.
Holms:
Ah, the very thing PZ blocked me for: explaining that people were forced to use the term “biological women” because the term “women” had been hijacked. He knew that already, of course, and was pretending that GCs claim there are some women who are not made of biology. And making it clear in the process that he was willing to conflate anything with everything if it meant people didn’t examine his argument too closely. And blocking people who called it bullshit.
You’re right: “biological girls” is the opposite of conflation. It’s an attempt to stamp out the conflation. It’s infuriating that we have to coin new terms to refer to the entities formerly known as women so that people don’t dishonestly misrepresent our arguments, but here we are. And even that is not enough for these Liars For Gender, they’ll still pretend not to understand what we mean.
My suggestions are a lot less polite.
Everybody knows that sex is observed, not assigned, and for that matter, it’s observed months before birth, by ultrasound or amniocentesis. So when I hear “assigned male at birth” (or the other one), I already know that whatever verbiage follows is going to be biased and untrustworthy.
Now “assigned human at birth” — I might just start using that!
Reason #369 that “Gender Reveal Parties” are just stupid excuses to blow stuff up so the guys will come to the baby shower, right. Why are they called Gender Reveal Parties? A sonogram doesn’t display any preference for toys trucks or dolls, or a preference for sexual submission or domination. They display penises or lack thereof.
When a gender ideologist says GC’s are conflating sex with gender, as someone posted to me after I specifically spelled out the ways that gender and sex are not the same, all that I am left with is “you’re not even wrong. You’re wronger than a string theorist.”
So, that’s me unsubscribing from the “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe,” then, and anyting that Novella promotes or is involved in. Done. Fed up.
I object to being assigned 1960 at birth. If I feel like I was born in 1992, who is anyone to tell me I’m wrong? (Other than my son, who was already 10 by then). I demand to be treated like a 28 year old, and to be validated in being 28.
I agree iknklast, I’d like to be able to identify my way into having my 50+ old sense of empathy and financial security, my 29 year old body and my 44 year old sense of worth, confidence and drive. Sadly, I just have to accept what I’ve got and get on with what I can manage.
iknklast: “Great” minds think alike! I have been telling all my friends recently (they probably consider me tiresome) that I am “trans-chronological” and am really 19. When I don’t get carded at a bar or supermarket checkout line, I feel that I have been STABBED IN THE STOMACH WITH A KNIFE. The trans-chronological are the most oppressed huperson beings in history, no?
Feelings based, yes. Not so much to do with medicine, though.