'Gender affirmation' - a crisis in published medical research

[ArabeIIaScott]

https://twitter.com/MikeNayna/status/1698639970007716244

I know there's a thread on the Australian Channel 7 documentary, but this thread is really interesting and I thought worth focussing on.

"What this issue has revealed is a crisis in the published medical research"

'Activist researchers are essentially laundering political opinions as established facts through the peer review process. The problem is a new form of epistemological (how we know what we know) activism that contorts knowledge resources from the source - academic journals'

Worth looking at the 'Grievance Studies' project, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair

This is a really interesting topic Arabella. As you say, Dr Jillian Spencer said it in the Channel 7 investigative report aired in Australia on Sunday night. And we have seen this particularly around the issue of gender identity treatments.

What also became apparent from when I then watched an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) investigative report from July 2023, that the Westmead Gender clinic in Sydney has been raising the alarm about the failures of current gender identity treatments but that ideologically driven clinicians have then sought to discredit the papers. Westmead seem to be one of the gender clinics in the world that actually started to track changes in patient groups and track outcomes, yet other Australian clinic heads have completely disregarded the latest report due to a lack of explanation of the researchers into 'desistance'. Rather than seek further explanation, their immediate reaction was to seek to discredit completely. (Note: when the Tavistock did start looking into their treatment successes hid the report !)

And also it become hugely apparent that one of the research subject's family from a previous study done by Westmead, felt 'betrayed' by the research and that this has been used to attempt to discredit that piece of very important research as well. That a supposedly balanced investigative piece by a program that has huge respect for doing 'balanced' reports in the past (ABC) instead amplified the family's emotionally driven response that never once considered that there might be some truth to the report, and did not actually go through the report in context is a consequence of what you describe here.

The ABC producers sourced all their information from the group who sought to discredit any research that the Westmead team did and that was evident in their report. It is very concerning but it really does mean that everyone has to do their own critical analysis of what they read.