Jesse Singal on the furore over Systematic Reviews of Gender Medicine

[Mermoose]

Let me know if there's already a thread on this, I can't see one. Jesse Singal has a very good two part Substack on the fiasco at McMaster.

SEGM funded five systematic reviews of different aspects of gender affirmative treatments. The research team included Gordon Guyatt, the man who in 1991 coined the term "evidence based medicine". The SRs found (unsurprisingly) that the evidence was very poor.

The research team and the university were both targeted by trans activists. SEGM have been branded a hate group, and Guyatt and colleagues have been denounced for working with "a hate group".

The researchers (not all, but this includes Guyatt) have variously scuppered the publication of some of the reviews; added notices on how the SRs should affect policy (eg that they should not be used to support bans on puberty blockers) and have given apology money to a trans charity that disseminates false information on these treatments.

https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/the-disaster-at-mcmaster-part-1

https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/the-disaster-at-mcmaster-part-2-my

Very true and I like your idea that They want to atone for their part in this history but instead of returning land, say, they focus on the gender oppression stuff.

And ironically, the so-called progressive idea that Indigenous people didn't have a binary view on sex is very much treating them as if they were one homogeneous group rather than recognising the cultural differences between different Indigenous groups. But in the progressive mindset it's more important to propagate the idea that they were all pure and unsullied by horrible European sex binaries until the colonisers arrived.

https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2016/10/13/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes/

It's a wilful misunderstanding by activists that different cultures didn't understand sex is real and important simply because they had particular groups within their culture who had varied gender expressions (as people would describe it now - I'm wary of imposing modern ideas onto pre-modern societies but hopefully that makes sense). They still knew which type of people were the only ones who would get pregnant!

They still knew which type of people were the only ones who would get pregnant! and they still knew who would do the hard work of cooking, making clothes etc. There were, as there were in every society, those who refused to adhere to gendered norms and these were seemingly accommodated but the label ‘two spirits’ was coined at a conference in the 90’s.

There’s a similar article from an indigenous Australian researcher from about the same time period, saying much the same thing - don’t appropriate indigenous terms and concepts (which you have misinterpreted or simplified beyond recognition) to explain or justify modern concepts. I’ll see if I can find it.

I'm really shocked and upset by this. McMaster University and Gordon Guyatt really are considered leading experts in systematic reviews and evidence-based medicine.

Here's an article about the situation by Amy Hamm (the Canadian nurse taken to court over her GC views):

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/father-of-evidence-based-medicine-turns-his-back-on-science

I can see almost nothing in the mainstream media about this, so thanks for this thread.

Here's another article:

https://www.city-journal.org/article/mcmaster-university-gender-medicine-research

Thanks for this - it gives some of the background I was wondering about (how the researchers ended up being persuaded to do the studies in the first place). Also, although the NP is considered a right wing paper, it is still main stream press.

I am also shocked and upset by this - Mac has not been without its DEI-related controversies, but this is egregious. I do wonder, though, if this furore, and the fact that it is being spoken about outside the university, means that there are more people like us who are saying, hold on, just what is going on here. I hope this peaks a lot of people.

There's no way this started in 2016 for Canada.
Kenneth Zucker was forced out of his job as head of the youth gender clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto in 2015. He was accused of practising conversion therapy - because he advocated watchful waiting. He wasn't even against childhood transition in all cases - he just didn't think immediate affirmation was ever appropriate.
Jesse Singal has covered Zucker's dismissal, too, although would have been pre-Substack so I don't know where the articles are. It was an activist-led hack job, in time Zucker recieved a large pay out, and, of course, no evidence was ever presented anywhere, by anyone, to show that Zucker's treatment methods led to worse outcomes for patients.

I believe Kenneth Zucker was also criticised for saying there was a crossover between trans identification and autism in young people - a finding that most sensible people would accept to be true now

Zucker's dismissal was one of the things that first alerted me as to what was going on here in Canada. I know one of the people involved in the report which had him fired and I was really just agog at the whole thing. At the time so little was known about much of the gender ideology elements that it still seemed possible to think there could be some real medical issues involved, but what happened to Zucker seemed an obvious witch-hunt, and it opened up a lot of the lies that were being peddled in this branch of "medicine."

I don't really think this stuff at McMaster will make much differences the public view, it's not known by many.But it may reach a lot of people in the sciences.

Thank you @Cassandrasuncapturedcastle , that was a very interesting article you posted up thread.

I was intrigued to see that Two Spirit is a recent, generic coinage not specific to one particular culture; and that the two Ojibwa terms translate as "One who endeavours to be like a woman/man".

So like the Fa'afafine of Samoa ("in the manner of a woman"), there's the open recognition of being a separate category. None of the forced teaming of "trans women are women"; and perhaps, therefore, less unhealthy obsession with "passing" , "stealth" and being "outed"?

Ps great username!

Gender ideology has been a long term project everywhere. What I am objecting to is the increasingly lazy, knee-jerk “Oh it’s woke Canada, ” sentiment I’m increasingly seeing here. It’s as though you’re completely unaware of how institutional capture has worked in the Western world.

What Canada does have is a horror of is American cultural dominance and not aping the US evangelical extremists of the 80s and 90s, plus a small political class. That has been a huge tool for forcing compliance with genderism.

It’s similar to Scotland and the North of England that way. But I rarely see MNers dismissing all Scotland or all of the North - probably because they’re less sympathetic to MAGA propaganda when it’s aimed at the U.K.

Canadian here - I am not just talking out of my ass. Yes, gender ideology capture has been widespread in many Western cultures, however it is well-known that it is particularly deep, with little popular pushback (compared to that seen in the UK) in Australia and in Canada - thus the latter’s nickname “Tranada” (and the UK’s nickname “Terf Island”).

I’m sure that there are many, multifaceted underlying reasons for this, not least a Canadian desire to be as un-American as possible (though note that the Biden administration was fully and enthusiastically on board with trans ideology, as was, somewhat less loudly, the Obama administration) and a small and insular political class.

And yes, Trump issuing executive orders to rein in the worst of the gender ideology in the US will indeed make Canada dig in and entrench that ideology deeper, just so it’s clear it is standing up to Trump and his (overall) insanity.

And I’m genuinely sorry that you have interpreted my remark that “This is Canada” as offensive - it was, in fact, a reply correcting a PP who interpreted the events at Mac as having happened in the US.

I love my country. I also do not think it’s useful to pretend not to see that it has gone farther down the gender ideology path than many countries - how can anyone stop the crazy if one can’t recognise it is happening?

What I am objecting to is the increasingly lazy, knee-jerk “Oh it’s woke Canada, ” sentiment I’m increasingly seeing here. It’s as though you’re completely unaware of how institutional capture has worked in the Western world.

Most posters on FWR are really quite aware of how institutional capture works and has done so for far longer than most (I consider myself relatively late to the party). As someone who knows Canada well, it, like other more liberal, progressive countries, has been particularly susceptible to genderism precisely because it is a more liberal progressive nation.

But if you have another view of Canada, it’d be interesting to hear it.

And who came up with “Tranada?” I suspect it wasn’t a rural Canadian. If you’re going to try to organise some grassroots pushback, maybe try not to fall into the US culture war trap. (Bet it probably feels quite satisfying for you - like you’re in a safe space here in TERF island, without pausing to work out that our resistance has been successful because we set out to NOT hook ourselves to the idea that gender ideology was somehow intrinsically British.)

By all means, fall into the American trap of getting nothing done but stir up more polarisation. Look at how well they’re doing.

Yes, I was quite early to the party but still routinely get lectured on how I’m not being enough of an anti-woke purist here because I resist being a lazy culture warrior. You may understand why that’s irritating.

I don't know what tree you think you are barking up, but no one here is saying every person in Canada thinks the same way. The fact of the matter is though that politically in Canada and institutionally there is almost no push-back, and compared to the UK and even the US, there is remarkably little push-back in the general population. Mainly imo because the media class has been massively successful at making sure the people who might be concerned here absolutly nothing to make them pay attention.

You aren't the only Canadian here and berating people for not having the same perspective on their own country as you do is a little over the top.

Mainly imo because the media class has been massively successful at making sure the people who might be concerned here absolutely nothing to make them pay attention.

A few feminist friends seem completely unaware of Canada’s reputation as transada so I suspect that the media just does not report any ‘anti trans’ stories. Even friends who live in Vancouver knew nothing about the VRRC being sued / having its municipal funding withdrawn after a campaign by a TW who wasn’t accepted to be a rape counsellor. Men hate being told no.

Almost all the mainstream media in Canada are captured. The National Post is an exception. Retired CBC broadcaster Peter Mansbridge does a podcast on politics with a couple of other familiar face journalists. During the last election Mansbridge asked one of them whether the trans thing would be an issue. The answer was "no it wouldn't". Well, of course it wasn't an issue because these very same journalists are actively involved in NOT reporting on it.

On a more hopeful note, Pierre Poilievre, the federal opposition leader, seems to have found his spine. His party sent out an email to Conservative Party members criticizing the BC College of Nurses judgment and $94,000 fine against Amy Hamm.

There's a good article on Unherd here:

https://unherd.com/2025/09/the-taming-of-a-gender-researcher/

Still can't find much about it in the mainstream media.

The latest on this is 🤯

I have to go to work but check out Mia Hughes interview on this

https://x.com/_crymiariver/status/1965155081038561553?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

I'm really shocked at these bunch of clowns.

They were all asleep at the wheel, while admonishing the rest of us for paying attention.

This exchange should be seen far and wide.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and a whole stable of little donkeys. He signed that statement without looking at it???!!!

Dear gods. Thank you Mia and your receipts.

Jesse Singal has been really excellent on this. He understands the science and the methodology. His interview with Guywatt is great.

Is Singal’s interview before, or after the one with Mia and Stella? (And/or before or after the statement Guyatt signed, which he apparently didn’t read?)