Does the Transgender community have a problem with well evidenced science? Does the community only ever accept favourable reports, AKA confirmation bias, or is it something deeper?

[HydraDominatus]

Every piece of science or news thats not entirely supportive is buried under accusations of transphobia or bias

Why is this a political debate rather than a mental and physical health issue?

Cancer care isn't bias and politicised, trans health care shouldn't be either. Surely it's all about properly designed and researched programmes, with the outcome not predetermined, that we should be entirely standing behind?

Would the community ever stand behind rigorous, transparent, and ethically conducted research into transgender health care that did not align with its previous, deeply held views? If not, isn't that a problem?

tl;dr Is the Transgender community bias to it's own detriment?

(inspired by recent UK changes which do seem to be well researched, evidenced and guided by true support for people with genuine issues, it just does not line up with existing trans community narrative)

It's not even science, it's basic things like being able to name one thing that makes a man different from a woman. The concepts of man and woman seem to be incredibly important yet utterly indistinguishable.

I thought at one point it was shorthand for "masculine" and "feminine" but I don't even think it's that now.

Does the gender critical community have a problem with well evidenced science? Does the community only ever accept favourable reports, AKA confirmation bias, or is it something deeper?

In the red corner, the APA, the largest scientific psychological body in the world, with an evidence-based support of gender affirming care.
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2024/02/policy-supporting-transgender-nonbinary

In the blue corner, the Pope:
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253845/pope-francis-gender-ideology-is-one-of-the-most-dangerous-ideological-colonizations-today

Do you agree with the Pope or the APA?

APA based everything off the now discredited WPATH organisation.

The Dr Cass review in the UK however appears to be entirely well researched and evidenced, but has not been well received.

Quite why you'd be so dismissive of people who have different beliefs to you (The Pope) I have no idea. I'm a Buddhist, beliefs don't come into this, only good evidence.

Have a look at current issue Scientific American.

@DadJoke - also you have quite clearly cherry picked examples, accidentally highlighting the exact behaviour I am talking about. Confirmation bias.

I do wonder if individuals like yourself are wilfully ignorant (won't look), self deceiving (know but practice double think) or just don;t have the faculties for self analysis.

Which is it?

I think a lot of special interest groups have just thrown the scientific method out of the window. For many it is new religion/cult. No questioning or debate allowed, and certainly not any 'evidence' that goes against whatever holy book they subscribe to.

That link to the article about the pope was an eye-opener. I don't usually pay much attention to what the pope says, but when I read:

He said that they “do not distinguish what is respect for sexual diversity or diverse sexual preferences from what is already an anthropology of gender, which is extremely dangerous because it eliminates differences, and that erases humanity, the richness of humanity, both personal, cultural, and social, the diversities and the tensions between differences.”

• I thought he made a lot of sense. Thanks for the link, DadJoke!

There are a lot of different forces - social, political and medical, national and international - and they've all come together in one perfect storm. So I've seen people blame all sorts of things and there's a bit of truth in most of them. I've listened to many explanations of how these ideas were embedded in different healthcare systems and different education systems and social welfare systems. They all feed into each other. There isn't a single over-arching explanation. Sociologists will be mining this one for decades to come.

But about a year ago Helen Joyce identified the medicalisation of "trans" children as the issue that would bring the edifice down. And so far she's right.

"Do you agree with the pope or the APA" is exactly the level of TRA engagement with the nuances and realities of science that OP is talking about, so it's good to have that so very clearly demonstrated so early in the thread.

Science works hard to answer questions.

Most TRAs I've seen work hard to stop you asking questions, or they deliberately answer a different question from the one asked.

All this.

This. But also… team Pope here 😅

FAOD I also agree with the pope that the grass is green.

Do you accept that pretty much every reputable scientific, medical and psychological body of any repute in the entire world uses "gender identity" to mean an innate sense a person's innate sense of their own gender, and not a "belief"?

If you don't believe in the validity gender identity, and consider being transgender as a belief, you will oppose any efforts to allow people to transition, and believe in RODG, despite is being thoroughly discredited. Your beliefs lead you to bad science and bad allies.

Some of you would even prefer that transgender should be reduced in number, that they are all problems in a sane world, happy or not. Would you ever say a gay person is a "problem in a sane world" or that every one is a difficulty because they require "special accommodation." Can't you see how chilling that is?

Joyce isn't a scientist. comes up with insane theories about fan fiction turning you trans, and yet she is a poster child for the GV movement. Why would you believe her expect for confirmation bias?

Helen Joyce: In the meantime, while we're trying to get through to the decision makers, we have to try to limit the harm, and that means reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition.
And that's for two reasons. One of them is that every one of those people is a person who's been damaged. But the second one is every one of those people is basically, you know, a huge problem to a sane world.
Like if you've got people that, and whether they're transitioned, whether they're happily transitioned, whether they're unhappily transitioned, whether they've detransitioned. If you've got people who've dissociated from their sex in some way, every one of those people is someone who needs special accommodation in a sane world where we re-acknowledge the truth of sex.
And I mean the people who’ve been damaged by it – the children who’ve been put through this – those people deserve every accommodation we can possibly make, but every one of them is a difficulty.

@DadJoke does our work for us every time.

Do you accept that pretty much every reputable scientific, medical and psychological body of any repute in the entire world uses "gender identity" to mean an innate sense a person's innate sense of their own gender,

Do you know the difference between inner and innate?

They might mostly agree to use "gender identity" to mean "a person's inner sense of their own gender" but no agreement on whether it's innate.

That's the contentious bit.

And of course something that's inner is pretty much untestable, unless it manifests itself consistently on the outside. Which "gender identity" doesn't.

@DadJoke you are perilously easy to poke holes in.

I don't think belief comes into the discussion, I think evidence and facts do. My question is would the transgender community accept any well researched and evidenced findings that went against their truly held beliefs?

I think we know your answer is "no", but I am paraphrasing, perhaps you could tell us, with a single, and I mean single word - would you accept rigorous research that showed a finding that does not align with transgender or transgender ally beliefs?

You conflate many things, like homosexuality and transgenderism. They have nothing to do with each other, other than sharing an acronym, it's not relevant.

You also make very sweeping statements and assumptions about what I believe or do not, based on no evidence at all.

Again - showing your true colours and perhaps the colours of the entire transgender movement, jump the gun, make assumptions, start shouting and then as soon as anyone stands up and says you have no clothes on - shout TRANSPHOBE!

You are possibly the most perfect example of poor critical thinking, idealogical capture and basic idiocy I could find. It's almost as if you are too perfect, too suitable for holding this argument up for discourse.

Remember... one single word please...

Do you accept that pretty much every reputable scientific, medical and psychological body of any repute in the entire world uses "gender identity" to mean an innate sense a person's innate sense of their own gender

I'll only accept this if someone can define "gender" as used above.

Some of you would even prefer that transgender should be reduced in number, that they are all problems in a sane world, happy or not. Would you ever say a gay person is a "problem in a sane world" or that every one is a difficulty because they require "special accommodation." Can't you see how chilling that is?

Firstly, no woman with her eyes open thinks this is a "sane world".

Secondly, leaving aside chancers and abusive opportunists, show me a trans person whose transition isn't rooted in experiences of sexism and homophobia, sometimes abuse?

Yes in an ideal world there'd be no reason to transition, because everyone would be safe to express their personality how they wished. This is no different to me hoping for no women with PTSD in the future, despite acknowledging our existence and advocating for us now.

Thirdly can you explain why you have conflated any of this with gay people? Why would your idea of a "sane world" not include gay people being, well, gay? Do you not view being gay as natural?

@HydraDominatus if you don't accepet a central tennet of science in the field you are discussing - of course belief comes into it! If you think gender identity is a belief, you will never accept the science and evidence surrounding it, and always oppose science, no matter how well evidenced, which suggests that transitioning helps people.

You can't discuss the evidence for the best ways to mitigate climate change with people who don't believe in climate change.

Once you've accepted that being transgender is not a "belief" perhaps you will be able to look at the science with less bias.

@DadJoke failed at the first hurdle, basic comprehension. Try again. One word remember.

"would you accept rigorous research that showed a finding that does not align with transgender or transgender ally beliefs?"

Yes/No - no other answers or it means you can't read.

Do you accept that pretty much every reputable scientific, medical and psychological body of any repute in the entire world uses "gender identity" to mean an innate sense a person's innate sense of their own gender, and not a "belief"?

No 🤷‍♀️

This is why the TRAs are so disingenuous. They could say "a person's inner feeling of whether they are a man or woman is of course dictated by stereotypes and external beliefs of what characteristics are commonly associated with each sex - what else, realistically, could it be informed by? - but these people have made a decision that that's what they believe to be true, or believe it to be not worth fighting against, and we can try and respect that on occasions where sex is not particularly relevant".

They don't though - they simultaneously pretend that being a man/woman is literally indefinable but definitely not stereotypes, but also that children know this about themselves, and remember it's not stereotypes at all, not anything to do with masculinity or femininity, it's both completely divorced from biological sex yet for some reason they call a trans woman having surgery to make them more physically female as "confirming the gender" as if they do, actually, go together after all.

Secondly, leaving aside chancers and abusive opportunists, show me a trans person whose transition isn't rooted in sexism and homophobia, sometimes abuse?

@Cauliflowery this is exactly why you can't accept the science. Instead of accepting the reality of gender identity, you've made up reasons why most people transition, without evidence and in a way that promulgates transphobic myths.

The vast majority of people transition because their gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth. The fact you don't believe this, when every single major scientific, medical and psychological body in the world does, means the onus is on you to demonstrate the science is wrong.
^^

their gender identity

DadJoke, there can be no "science" (or logic) to support your position if you can't say what "gender" means here.

Can you?