Scientific American "Trans girls belong on girls' sports teams"

Interesting, thanks for the link. Jesse Singal is always good on this stuff.

I wish articles would state who the reviewers were. That way you could see if you have a little circuit okaying each others' bullshit, and to know who to blame for not spotting egregious errors.

If you want to hear an account of current day academic rigour, have a listen to this very recent report from Jesse Singal on Blocked and Reported:

www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-143-how-bidens-rogue-deputy

The report of interest starts at 23.55. It is an astonishing listen of how, for some, ideology has to trump reality, and of how ideologues have no qualms at all about spreading misrepresentation and lies to achieve ideologically pure ends.

The Grievance Studies hoax was brilliant - kudos to Peter Boghossian, James A. Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose. As a result of the hoaxes Boghossian was the subject of a research misconduct investigation by his employer, Portland State University (PSU), on the basis that he had violated the ethical guidelines by conducting research on human subjects without approval (namely the. unwitting journal editors who stupidly published the hoax articles). He left PSU shortly afterwards, saying in his resignation letter that the university was a "Social Justice factory", that he faced harassment and retaliation for speaking out, and that the university was creating a culture where students are "afraid to speak openly and honestly", training students to "mimic the moral certainty of ideologues", and "[driving] intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions".

Wikipedia says:
Included among the articles that were published were arguments that dogs engage in rape culture and that men could reduce their transphobia by anally penetrating themselves with sex toys, as well as Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf rewritten in feminist language.[2][4] The first of these had won special recognition from the journal that published it.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair

The paper about dogs was titled "Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon". (Of course it was Portland, Oregon! My woke sister lives nearby...)

Leor Sapir (City Journal) (www.city-journal.org/major-flaws-in-new-study-on-pediatric-gender-transition):

In a field known for its weak methodologies and even weaker scientific conclusions, Turban’s study sets a new low. Even trans activists in the academy who detest the ROGD hypothesis wrote a letter in which they take Turban to task. While the Turban study’s intentions are “admirable,” these authors write, its “results were overinterpreted and . . . the theoretical and methodological shortcomings of the article run the risk of being more harmful than supportive.”

That a study like this can pass the peer-review process unscathed, especially at a time when European countries are shutting down or putting severe restrictions on pediatric transition, is a sorry statement about the quality of knowledge gatekeeping in the medical research community. American journalists tout its findings without giving readers relevant information about its flaws, while left-of-center journalists in Britain have been busy blowing the whistle on the pediatric gender-medicine scandal. The U.S. has a long way to go to bring medical practice in line with scientific knowledge and common sense.

Jesse Signal deep dive (with lots of other links):

jessesingal.substack.com/p/the-new-study-on-rapid-onset-gender

Turban may be peer reviewed, but (wish I could find it!), but here's something around a small group of activist researchers - like Turban- all self referencing' writing prolifically, and giving the false impression of quality peer review. He seems very connected with the questionable Diane Ehrensaft for example.
im not an academic s someone else might be able to explain better.
It's like the recent (critical) submission to the interim NHS spec posted on MN from someone quoting multiple reasearch sources from their own work And from Turban and Ehrensaft interestingly)

It's as if they are just taking a 'flood the field' approach. Quantity over quality.

All I know is, I take anything quoting his research with a giant pinch of salt.

waterwitch

Unfortunately peer review is no longer an indicator of academic rigor. Three academics did an experiment a few years ago where they wrote several made up papers in academic fields they had no expertise in and submitted them to well respected peer reviewed journals in order to find out just how far the rot had gone. Some of the papers were accepted and published, including one where they claimed to have inspected the genitals of 10,000 dogs in a dog park whilst questioning the owners about their sexual orientation!

Generally known as "The Grievance Studies" affair it cased quite a stir. You might think I would have been a wake up call for academia but it was the author's of the paper who were demonised.

Maud, is Turban’s research peer reviewed or not? Might need to make a list of academics who will happily ignore reality for this religion!

Another

www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-distortions-in-jack-turbans-psychology

Various journalists and scientists have done deep dives on Jack Turban's prolific and seemingly very dubious output.
Michael Biggs, Jesse Signal, and Leor Sapir.
Turban recently put out research supposedly disproving ROGD that Michael Biggs tore to shreds. Even scientists on sympathetic to Turban's own stance criticized his poor methodology apparently.
Haven't got all the links but should be easy to find.
Did a quick looksy and just have this for now:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1555597985379221505.html

Well, as he's not an expert in biology he has no say in the matter.
Biology trumps "feelings".
Every.
Single.
Time.

This is so depressing. Science magazines serve such a valuable purpose as others have said, and there’s no science here- only wishy washy bullshit that throws girls under the bus.

www.realityslaststand.com/p/jack-turbans-research-is-incapable

Andyoldlabour yep, absolutely re testosterone. Shoulder and pelvic geometry is different between men and women. Transwomen cannot simply identify out of the physical advantages which that gives them - on top of the list you have given

She is back on twitter. Her very first tweet upon return was the original one that got her banned.

Created by the satirical website Butterflies and Wheels: www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2022/at-a-library-near-you/

Other than the testosterone issue which I still can't get my head around (I keep reading conflicting things) this really is just "sport is good for their mental health, please let them do it".

And yet, still, no consideration for trans boys...

Follow the money the old man cried

A great poem to make this point. Thanks, Notoutjustyet

It's much more important to make male children happy by giving them all the choices than treating female children as equally human. While using language that creates the illusion that there is no sex, and acting in a totally sexist, sex based way.

We live in insane times. Where its really bad luck to have been born female.

I've just been trying to find news articles on something completely unrelated, the ongoing situation in Mozambique. The first two items that came up were from the BBC and CNN and I didn't click on them because I no longer trust their impartiality or intelligence. (I went with Reuters, in the hope of plain old news-gathering.) The trans issue has opened my eyes to the agenda of so many organisations and institutions. They'd have to do a lot of work to get me back.

Incidentally, when I was looking at Reuters, there is a story about a mass-stabbing in a Canadian library in which a woman was killed. I wanted to see if Meghan Murphy had any comment or information on this but, of course, she is banned from Twitter. Information is getting to be such a massive problem for feminists.

This article would be much clearer if they used language which correctly describes the sex of the children involved. Here are the first three paragraphs with this change made.

In February 2020, the families of three girls filed a federal lawsuit against the Connecticut Association of Schools, the nonprofit Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and several boards of education in the state. The families were upset that boys were competing against the girls in high school track leagues. They argued that boys have an unfair advantage in high school sports and should be forced to play on boys’ teams.

Conservatives around the country have jumped on the question. Attorney General Merrick Garland was pressed on the issue during his confirmation hearing last month. State legislators around the country are pushing bills that would force boys to compete on boys’ teams. In describing the Connecticut case in the Wall Street Journal, opinion writer Abigail Shrier expressed a representative argument: when boys compete on girls’ sports teams, she wrote, “girls can’t win.”

The opinion piece left out the fact that two days after the Connecticut lawsuit was filed by the girls’ families, one of those girls beat one of the boys named in the lawsuit in a Connecticut state championship. It turns out that when boys play on girls’ sports teams, girls can win. In fact, the vast majority of female athletes are cisgender, as are the vast majority of winners. There is no epidemic of boys dominating female sports. Attempts to force boys to play on the boys’ teams are unconscionable attacks on already marginalized transgender children, and they don’t address a real problem. They’re unscientific, and they would cause serious mental health damage to both cisgender and transgender youth.

This makes it clearer that Turban appears to be arguing for all sports to be mixed sex. Also, Turban is a psychiatrist, not an endocrinologist or a sports scientist, so hardly an expert in this area. This is just an opinion piece with no scientific substance.

What's worst IMO is that for many, these are seen as reliable guides to the science for laypeople.

Yes. There was an excellent article a while back on how complex and especially scientific subjects are often ones we have little hope of understanding unless we are experts - therefore we almost always defer to those with convincing credentials. I can't remember where I read it, now ...

I'm afraid Scientific American has been shit for a while, as has National Geographic. Their articles on gender are indicative of a larger problem.

What's worst IMO is that for many, these are seen as reliable guides to the science for laypeople.