In May, the medical journal Archives of Disease in Childhood published two systematic reviews performed by researchers at Ontario’s McMaster University. One of them reviewed 10 studies on the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in youth, and the other reviewed 24 studies on “gender affirming hormone therapy” for gender dysphoric individuals under the age of 26.
For those who aren’t familiar, systematic reviews look at past studies to assess the reliability of the evidence that the studies’ authors used to justify their conclusions. For example, if a bunch of studies claim that “eating 10 Double Stuf Oreos causes weight loss,” researchers will analyze their methodology and evidence to see if the authors were really onto something or if perhaps they confused the experimental group with the control group.
As any well-informed individual could’ve guessed, both of the McMaster reviews found all of the evidence supporting the efficacy of these interventions to be “low certainty” or “very low certainty.” Which means that, despite what WPATH, GLAAD, “Rachel” Levine, and all the other worst people on the planet continue to insist: No, puberty blockers are not “life-saving care,” and no, kids aren’t going to kill themselves if they can’t inject synthetic cross-sex hormones into their still-developing bodies.
I’m sure you can guess what happened after McMaster published the reviews. That’s right, trans activists and the suicidally empathic people who love them launched a propaganda campaign against the university, because somehow we’ve arrived at a point where the prospect of not being able to castrate kids makes some people foam at the mouth.
Their main issue? The funding source. The McMaster reviews were funded by the Society for Evidence-Based Medicine (SEGM), an organization that promotes “evidence-based care for gender-dysphoric children, adolescents, and young adults that prioritizes long-term outcomes, is rooted in ethical principles, and is based on fully informed consent.” God forbid!
The funny part about the backlash (and by funny I mean pathetic and sad) is the evidence the activists cite to paint SEGM as “anti-LGBT” (one SEGM advisor is a lesbian who served as a board member of the LA LGBT Bar Association and on GLAAD/LA Women’s Committee, but whatever). In a letter to The BMJ Group, which publishes Archives of Disease in Childhood, Margaret White, a consultant psychiatrist fighting “anti-gender ideology,” wrote that the Southern Poverty Law Center deemed SEGM as an “anti-LGBT hate group,” as if that means anything at all. She added that the coauthor of a BMJ editorial representing SEGM as an authority on trans health had previously “described arguing for gender-affirming care for young trans people as ‘activism based on substandard evidence.’”
Hate to break it to you, Margaret, but that’s exactly what it is. And that’s putting it mildly.
Being that it’s a university and that it’s located in the Orwellian hellscape known as Canada, McMaster predictably caved to the mob. On August 14, the university’s Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact stated on its website:
Members and allies of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities have raised concerns about recent systematic reviews related to gender-affirming care. These concerns center on the funding source, and specifically on the potential for the research to be misused to harm trans youth and to deny gender-affirming care.
Beneath the statement, the department published a letter written by the systematic reviews’ authors. Since they couldn’t take back what their reviews had found, instead they reframed their findings as par for the course when it comes to health care.
“Many of the interventions we offer are based on low certainty evidence, and enlightened individuals often legitimately and wisely choose such interventions,” they wrote.
Enlightened individuals?!
Get the fuck outta here. We’re talking about confused kids asking for sex changes.
And also…WHAT? Parents who allow their kids to undergo medical interventions that are based on low certainty evidence are wise?!
Taking a page right out of the queer theorist’s playbook, the authors added that one of “the principles of evidence-based decision-making” is respect for patient “autonomy.”12 That is, when the evidence is low or very low, “clinicians should work with patients to ensure that care reflects the experience, goals, and priorities of those needing care—that is, their values and preferences.”
In other words, consumer medicine for kids, so that anyone, no matter their age, can achieve their “embodiment goals” by ingesting harmful drugs and undergoing high-risk surgeries. Because, yes, that’s exactly what gay men and lesbian women have been fighting for since the early twentieth century: the right of sex-role nonconforming kids to be castrated, sterilized, and turned into lifelong medical patients.3
The reviews’ author’s concluded their letter by stating that they would never again accept funding from SEGM, and that they had done just as they were told by “community advocates”: They sent money to a “2SLGBTQI” advocacy organization.
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In a March 2024 New York cover story, “Andrea” Long Chu, the last person on the planet who should ever be allowed to have a say in pediatric medicine, wrote: “We will never be able to defend the rights of transgender kids until we understand them purely on their own terms: as full members of society who would like to change their sex. It does not matter where this desire comes from.” (emphasis his)
In 2021, “Jules” Gill-Peterson, the second-to-last person on the planet who should ever have a say in pediatric medicine, tweeted: “give puberty blockers, for free, to young people—without parental consent. the end.” His 2015 Rutgers dissertation, “Queer theory is kid stuff,” “makes the case for critically assessing how [gay and transgender children’s] bodies incorporate the horizon of value invested in children to define human life and its viable futures.”
Sarcasm, obviously.
"Enlightened individuals?!" lolol
What's the term for this argument? Appeal to authority? Appeal to condescension? Divine right? There's a truth higher than scientific empiricism?!
Trans is a gnostic cult, and I'm glad to see them finally admit it.
That “enlightened” and “wise” comment is almost too insane to believe. What a time to be alive.