Letter from academics concerned about the Cass Review

archive link for the text of Muang’s preprint

archive.is/VZZjm

archive link for Table 1:

archive.is/mVaRz

5 of Muang’s references are by Florence Ashley.

This Florence Ashley…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12969191/amp/Win-DM-com-World-Health-Organization-quietly-removes-transgender-extremist-panel-gender-dysphoria-story.html

It’s consistent with a world view that says your perception of the world is reality, and therefore any other view is based on someone else’s reality and both are equally valid. Except they shout louder so theirs is better. Or something.

Qualities such as objectivity, logic, evidence etc have no place in this world view, it’s all based on feelings and wants. I’m sure there’s probably a philosophical term for this but philosophy makes my head hurt. I like cold hard facts.

Are there many other areas where people fight so hard for less robust medical evidence? It smacks of 'shut up and let us do what we want' rather than 'provide the best possible healthcare, backed by evidence'. Bizarre.

Academics do get a lot of unearned respect
I'd agree with that. I'm a specialist (not an academic but published by a serious press) in a small and arcane area, and the amount of utter bullshit tenured academics write about said area is mind-boggling. Some of it they could double-check via bloody Google.

Once upon a time I had great respect for academics. Now I have respect for those whose work appears to be solid and isn't full of samples of 4, or wild claims based on surveys, or glaring factual inaccuracies.

@KellieJaysLapdog would not say anti-Cass but he works for GenderGP and according to LinkedIn has worked with them for 2 years and 4 months. The paper was submitted last year when he was working for them. I assume he made good use of GenderGP and their knowledge/connections to gather the more affirmative research. He may not have been aware of other research as he is a one man team (unlike Cass team which rigorously considered thousands of sources). So this brings us the strongest evidence.

His publication (assuming published in this form) would be cited and pointed to - so examining and finding out whether it stands up may be a bit of a pre-emptive strike if it does not bear scrutiny. This is the title in case people missed it. Gender Affirming Hormone Treatment for Trans Adolescents: A Four Principles Analysis It tries to show that there is no downside to this treatment and as you can see from that title its looking at research in the same narrow field as Cass has done.

Link to his article (I meant to put that in my longer post) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11673-023-10313-z

BTW I am not sure I have pre-print right. This may be the passed-review-published version. Does anyone know. Its not my field and I have been retired a decade now.

Not all journals do this but I deeply regret that there's no list of reviewers available to see who approved this paper and its assessments.

I have no doubt that Muang will have stiff competition for the crown of Anti-Cass, sadly.

Does this mean the Muang has (rather conveniently) already gifted us the opposite-world version of the Cass Review? Ie used the papers Cass discarded?

If so, a) I’m glad I chucked him into this thread and b) does this make Muang the AntiCass? 😁

(Now off to make sure Muang’s paper is internet archived!)

Gettingmadderallthetime - Thank you for this, it's very helpful.

And it's a clear demonstration of why there is a need for the Cochrane Handbook, so people can read and understand how to assess clinical evidence and why the methods, processes, and tools are standardised.

Even by the standards and comparative laxity of narrative reviews, that's a poor show from Muang. (Sometimes, a narrative review is the only option when there is a negligible evidence literature but this should be acknowledged in the review.)

@SnakesAndArrows in answering your question 'Is it that the alleged signatories do not understand that some studies - maybe ones carried out by my (or indeed Ben Goldacre’s) cat - are just not studies? Or are they saying the grading of the studies is invalid? Or that poor studies should be included and given as much weight as the good ones anyway??'

There is one other reason for academics disregarding/attempting to discredit that comes to mind - seeing the pre-print* from Dr Hane Muang mentioned above (link below) and consider some of the other Gender Critical academics listed, the Cass report will have set aside as unworthy/unreliable/unusable many sources that these researchers have created or cited, and based their own research on. As there seems to be a tenancy of circular citation this affects (I want to say infects) a lot of academic research in this area.

For example there is a table in Muang's paper showing the sources he drew on to justify claims that there was benefit and no overall harm (relative to no treatment) with PB and HRT. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11673-023-10313-z/tables/1 This lists 12 sources. Only five of these are mentioned in the Cass review and only two of that five were used by the York team. This is what the Cass review says about the other three...

Chen, et al. 2023
Prospective cohort study of 315 trans adolescents receiving HRT
15.40 The authors of a paper reporting on psychosocial outcomes of 315 young people treated with masculinising/feminising hormones (Chen et al., 2023) stated that the most common adverse event was suicidal ideation (11
participants [3.5%]) and two participants [0.6%] died by suicide. Suicidality at baseline was one of the exclusion criteria for this study.

'De Vries et al. (2014) is the original study of the Dutch protocol sample, which has marked differences to the population being treated currently, and as discussed had much stricter criteria for treatment.'

Kuper, et al. 2020
Prospective cohort study of 148 trans adolescents receiving PB and HRT
'Kuper et al. (2020) is a study with a one year follow up that showed very modest change. It fell into the group rated by the University of York research team as too low quality to be included in their synthesis of evidence on masculinising/feminising hormones (Taylor et al: M/F hormones).'

Muang's table summarises his very different take on the value of these sources

Chen, et al. 2023
'Trans adolescents who received HRT reported improvements in appearance congruence, affect, and life satisfaction, and decreases in depression and anxiety. HRT likely decreased depression and anxiety symptoms via the psychological mechanism of improving appearance congruence'.

de Vries, et al. 2014
'Trans people who received PB and HRT in adolescence reported improvements in psychological health and social well-being, including decreased depression and anxiety. Trans people who received PB and HRT in adolescence had similar levels of well-being to peers of similar ages from the general population.'

Kuper, et al. 2020
'Trans adolescents who received PB and HRT reported improvements in depression, anxiety, and body dissatisfaction.'

Gender academics researching in this area will not easily be brought to agree their source material and therefore their own research may be sub standard.

*Pre-prints are not accepted for publication yet (my understanding) so although Dr Muang's paper has 2000 views its not out of the woods yet (not fully reviewed). https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/preprint-sharing/16718886

Also, “decades” divided by 97 is really not all that impressive, or what do they mean by “between us”?

That appears to be a premium feature.

OT: I've only just noticed the drop-down option from the 3 dots (desktop) to see posts by a username on that thread. Other matters aside, it's going to make it easier to track particular topic discussion within a thread.

Heather Brunskell-Evans has done her best to argue that Foucault has much to offer and shouldn't be discarded but I remain unconvinced and I'm OK with that even on the basis of being a citizen.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/4248263-Interesting-Heather-Brunskell-Evans-interview

http://www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/philosophy/misunderstanding-michel-foucault/

https://savageminds.substack.com/p/was-foucault-a-paedophile

A a scientist I can only say I hope the pendulum is swinging against that Foucault.

I have a PhD in an arts subject and have met more of these types of people than I care to remember. Sadly, seeing a list of academia-adjacent idiots who think that reading Foucault for a few years means they understand the ins and outs of the medical review process is unsurprising to me.

I loved my studies, they were fascinating and useful, but I wouldn’t start claiming they gave me the medical authority to influence children’s healthcare, because that would be utterly, laughably absurd.

Believe so.

She's one of the central figures in the nasty little cliche in the LDs who have people in key federal positions.

They are influential and 100% will be the reason the LDs are keeping their mouths shut.

I think they were the ones welcoming Amy Chanellor too.

Her name pops up constantly.

I'd assume that academics can almost do what they like because free speech.

Except that when it's women raising the alarm, that doesn't seem to fly...hmmm...

Is she still involved in Autistic Society of Greater Manchester?

Interesting! Thanks!

Here’s the LinkedIn CV again for tidiness purposes.

That's April Preston from the Lib Dems. She has stood for local elections and is an elected member of the LDs federal board. Also of the Lib Dems Radical Association. Also heavily involved in the Natalie Bird affair.
Quell surprise.

I think she was also responsible for targeting a man in an LGB Alliance hat at a Pride type event. The police had to rescue him after he got mobbed.

They have not completed their specialist training as they are not on the specialist register at the GMC. And they don't appear as a member on the RCPsych's register.

They are not so much challenging the Cass review, more like ineffectually flicking an old rubber band in its general direction.

Totally unfounded without any supporting evidence or coherent, systematic analysis of what they hold to be the flaws of the research.

You can tell from the poor quality of the letter, the poor quality of the thought behind it.

I mean poo quality of course.

Does it need to be investigated?

I get the impression that, barring the indignant howling of gender ideologues on Twitter and the worried families of trans identifying children, most people are saying, "well, no shit Sherlock" in response to Cass.