American psychiatrist Jack Turban, an advocate of gender-affirmation, has co-authored a (free) journal paper in which the authors claim that there has been no sudden increase in the number of females identifying as males (in the US), and therefore that there is no evidence for the rapid-onset gender dysphoria or social contagion hypotheses. They conclude that, "The sex assigned at birth ratio of TGD adolescents in the United States does not appear to favor AFAB adolescents and should not be used to argue against the provision of gender-affirming medical care for TGD adolescents".
Their paper is here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35918512/
University of Chicago professor (emeritus) Jerry Coyne has now published an analysis of the journal paper, identifying several weaknesses in it (as do many of the commenters below his post). Coyne's area of expertise is evolutionary biology, but he has posted often on the scientific method more generally. He can't be dismissed as a voice for the right-wing; he's a lifelong Democrat voter, although he is also critical of the excesses, as he sees them, of the "progressive" wing of the party. His analysis is here: whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/08/04/new-paper-purports-to-refute-social-contagion-hypothesis-for-transgender-adolescents
In the past, Turban has been criticised by Jesse Singal and professor Michael Biggs:
jessesingal.substack.com/p/science-vs-cited-seven-studies-to
journals.plos.org/plosone/article/comment?id=10.1371/annotation/dcc6a58e-592a-49d4-9b65-ff65df2aa8f6
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
New journal paper by gender-affirmation advocate Jack Turban claims to disprove the existence of rapid-onset gender dysphoria and the social contagion hypothesis - what could possibly be wrong with it?
TheBiologyStupid · 05/08/2022 17:16
MrGHardy · 05/08/2022 18:53
"In other words, biological females suffer more seriously from the dysphoria. And that neither supports nor contradicts the “social contagion hypothesis”. As for the rise over time, it could be explained either by the social contagion hypothesis or a rapid de-stigmatization of transgender people."
I find that very hard to believe. That should then also imply older people should see such a drastic increase, too. Additionally, this should also then result in lower suicide rates due to this massive de-stigmatization, or if not then one of two things is true 1. there is no massive de-stigmatization and/or 2. there are no massive number of suicides if blind affirmation isn't given.
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