Marcus Evans - psychiatry sits on a knife edge

Robin, you say 'For me its about the quality of the science.'

Whereas for me it's about the sadness and pain and despair felt by all these scores and scores of (mostly) young women who are left devastated by the permanent changes this 'science' has allowed them, encouraged them, to make to their developing bodies.

You only have to spend ten minutes on the Reddit detrans sub (currently 15.2k members) to see how many people feel they got swept along as teenagers by the thought that transitioning was the right path for them, the only path. And how many of them now bitterly regret it.

They may not specifically cite ROGD but that's possibly in part because everyone on that sub now has to be ultra careful with their wording, for fear they (or indeed the whole sub) will be banned.

I am quite sure that Turban knows he's dissembling in that article, by the way.
The aim of these articles is to create just enough controversy and doubt that you can confuse people into thinking this stuff is too complicated to understand - that way they'll default to believing in
whatever orthodoxies hold in their social environment, instead of seeing the massive medical scandal unfolding in front of their eyes.

More comments on the Turban paper.

Turban writes of Evans's paper:
The paper also states that most kids with gender dysphoria "desist" in their transgender identity if not treated with gender-affirming medical interventions. The author again cites papers that examined prepubertal children. Since medical interventions are not offered until puberty, the relevant question is how common "desistence" is after pubertal onset.

One of the papers cited is this one: Wallien, MSC, Cohen-Kettenis, PT. Psychosexual outcome of gender-dysphoric children.

This is a small study of 77 children who were aged between 5 and 12 at the start of the study and were all aged at least 16 by the end of the study, so Turban is incorrect that the papers cited by Evans only examine prepubertal children.

You will not be surprised to learn that the original source that No Less a Publication than Psychology Today links to directly confirms that social transition locks kids in, rather than refuting it.

A quote: One previous study examined the relation between early social transitions and later transgender identity (Steensma et al., 2013). All four children in that study who had socially transitioned in childhood identified as transgender in adolescence, while only 35% of the 123 children who did not completely socially transition (i.e., children who did not change pronouns) in childhood identified as transgender later.

(The sleight of hand is that the study NLAPTPT linked does not test whether early social transition leads to children persisting - it just tests some nonsensical faff about "gender identity" which is only meaningful to people who believe gender identity is a valid construct. But the "previous study" it references has got data relevant to the actual point at issue. )

I chose one link that was referenced in the Psychology Today article linked upthread. (Hilariously, I saw TRAs on Twitter gloating that "no less a publication than Psychology Today" (exact wording) had refuted the article, and mocking JKR's knowledge of science. )

The link I checked was this one - because I couldn't figure out where the lie was at first glance.

First of all, existing research suggests that early social transition does not make youth identify more strongly as transgender.

This seems to contract everything the GIDs clinicians observed about social transition locking kids into their medicalised path.

In what way is the Turban paper 'poorly written and researched'?

It will take some time to get through all the problems with it, but thanks to Neurotrash for posting the link to twitter, where Marcus Evans himself as well as a few other people have commented on some of them.

I think there was a typo in Marcus Evans's tweet - I think it's actually a 4000% rise in children being referred to gender clinics over the last 10 years, and the vast majority of those aged 11-17 are girls, when previously boys had outnumbered girls at all ages.

gids.nhs.uk/number-referrals

These data only go back to 2015, but you can still see a doubling in that time period. The numbers and the switch in the majority of those who are referred from boys to girls needs an explanation. One such explanation is ROGD with a component of social contagion.

Jack Turban challenges the 'rapid onset' component of of ROGD, but he doesn't offer any explanation for the enormous increase in the numbers of teenage girls identifying as transgender, with a much smaller increase in teenage boys. In older age groups it is mainly men who transition, with only a minuscule number of older women identifying as transgender. If these teenage girls represented a true picture of people who are genuinely transgender (whatever that might mean), then one would expect to see similarly large numbers of older women 'realising' in middle age that they were transgender. Where are these older women?

There is evidence of the social contagion aspect in the observation that groups of girls suddenly all identify as transgender within a friendship group or within a school. He doesn't offer any alternative explanation for this phenomenon.

In what way is the Turban paper 'poorly written and researched'?

Place marking to watch later

I agree that the paper you've linked to is poorly written and researched, Robin, but it's not written by Marcus Evans, it's by someone called Jack Turban, who appears to be a TRA.

I finally got it to work (weird, I never have issues with YouTube videos).

Gosh. Thanks for posting this Neuro.
I didn't realise Sue Evans first raised her concerns 15 years ago.
Marcus Evans speaks with such clarity. What a contrast to Polly Carmichael's woeful performance on Newsnight. I know it's not a fair comparison, but the director of GIDS should be able to explain clearly and confidently what they are doing and why!

The problem with all this is the quality of Marcus Evans’ writing on trans youth issues:

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/political-minds/202007/jk-rowling-and-the-chamber-trans-youth-misinformation?fbclid=IwAR07KGTHXOdZyHg2Uj4O__F_xVWyoik28Hb8-lROcQluBH09bZnomsBM_5I

This is very useful and clarifies so much.

I forgot to say thanks for sharing it, Neurotrash. I've forwarded it on to friends, family, even my son's girlfriend (who is 'disappointed' with J K Rowling ).

Marcus talks about the new cohort of transitioners - the many young girls who seem drawn to this. One of my sons is in year 8, and two of the girls from his class at primary (whom we've known since nursery school days) are now identifying as boys. Not sure how the school will be dealing with it come September, but I can't help but think there must be a huge element of social influence (if not contagion). Two out of 30 girls in the school year seems high.

It is an excellent interview. He talks so much sense and it’s quite unbelievable that it’s not treated like any other body dysphoria.

I'm just placemarking to watch later, thanks for posting.

Problems viewing could be down to your wifi or YouTube settings. Parental controls can accidentally filter all kinds of stuff out.

I'm placemarking to watch later. Thanks for posting

Just bumping this in case anyone missed it at the weekend. Such an important interview. Marcus Evans is so honest and rational.

Sorry, Marcus, not Malcolm.