Thank you for this crucial piece of journalism! I'm currently working on a piece exploring the claim that "every major medical association" supports so-called gender affirming care. Is it ok if I cite this article as a source and direct people here for further reading?
Again, thanks Jenny! I just read your welcome letter and I understand your passion better now. My similar journey started in the 1980s as an occupational medicine physician working at a hospital employee health service where I had a patient with a hand injury who was advised to have a radical hand surgery that I opposed for safety reasons. She blew my advice off, thinking I was being the company doctor… proceeded to have the surgery with a terrible outcome that left her with a fraction of her hand! This experience launched my volunteer career in promoting evidence-based treatment of work-related injuries and diseases in Colorado, as well as fighting opioid pill-mills in cooperation with the University of Colorado, Colorado Medical Society and our state government, particularly the Division of Workers Compensation. We have been successful in many ways, with the notable exception of our drug OD death rates being 3x the national average. So, I think you are launched on a long journey! Good luck!
Thanks, John! It's a pleasure to meet you. As an alumna of CU, I'm glad to hear they're helping you in your important work. I wish you every success as well!
Thank you for your review of what happened with the American Academy of Pediatrics! I have suspected as much, particularly in light of the financial incentives revealed by Gerald Posner that appeared to me to be similar to the Sacklers with OxyContin. This endeavor to promote gender transition will probably ruin far more lives than it helps, while enriching certain clinicians and promoting organizations. I am really sorry to see this happen; it will be difficult to stop!
Thank you for hopping over here to read it and comment! I agree with you about perverse incentives running amok. The genius of the trans activists, apart from the lavish spending, is in how they identify and exploit every tiny vulnerability, whether it's as craven as payola or as guileless as the need to be regarded as 'kind.' I have to think pediatricians as a group are more vulnerable to the latter weakness than the former.
"three acts" -- tragedy and comedy, though much of the latter may consist of gallows humour.
But this comment/quote is rather "problematic":
Jenny: "... spread the good news of childhood medical sex-change"
No one, no human changes sex and that term should be deprecated if not anathematized as an egregious euphemism for the butchering of autistic and dysphoric children, for their chemical or surgical castration, for turning them into sexless eunuchs.
Somewhat apropos of which, you might have some interest in a recent post by a transman who otherwise seems to be an articulate and intelligent pediatrician:
But of particular note in the first five minutes of the included video is "his" more or less coherent, scientifically credible, and useful differentiation between sex and gender -- entirely different kettles of fish. People probably should be entitled to change their attire and even their "secondary sexual characteristics" to those more typical of the other sex -- to change their genders. But if that process of "gender affirmation" entails the removal of gonads then that process is, by standard biological definitions, the change from sexed to sexless.
If adults want to do that to themselves then I guess they're entitled to do so. But to trick dysphoric children into thinking that such "gender affirmation surgeries" also entails a "sex-change" is a medical scandal of the first water, a crime of the century.
Right. I took some creative license to approximate the mindset of Dr. Rafferty, who I don't doubt is a true believer, and hoped readers would intuit that his mindset differs from mine. Never hurts to spell it out, though.
Sorry if I was somewhat asleep at the switch in not noticing what might reasonably be construed as a sarcastic paraphrase of Rafferty's ostensible position 🙂. Though, in my defense, one might suggest that, absent some scare quotes around "sex-change", it's an understandable and common mistake.
So I appreciate your "helps to spell it out", particularly as many others seem unaware of the problematic consequences of the absence of those quotes. For example, you might have some interest in my brief conversation on the topic with Christopher Rufo who is otherwise doing yeoman's work in trying to turn the transloonie tide:
Big part of "the problem" is that too many in the body politic are scientific illiterates and seem to "think" that changing one's sex is just a matter of changing one's genitalia. Part and parcel of corruption and bastardization of the standard biological definitions for the sexes which are foundational to all of biology, and which some have argued are the the only way off the horns of transgender dilemma -- if we can't agree on what words mean then we haven't a hope in hell of resolving the problems that turn on them.
So I hope you might forgive my "grammar Nazism" for anathematizing that absence which basically turns the phrase into a rather odious euphemism. 🙂
Thank you for this crucial piece of journalism! I'm currently working on a piece exploring the claim that "every major medical association" supports so-called gender affirming care. Is it ok if I cite this article as a source and direct people here for further reading?
I'd be delighted, and thank you for the kind words!
Again, thanks Jenny! I just read your welcome letter and I understand your passion better now. My similar journey started in the 1980s as an occupational medicine physician working at a hospital employee health service where I had a patient with a hand injury who was advised to have a radical hand surgery that I opposed for safety reasons. She blew my advice off, thinking I was being the company doctor… proceeded to have the surgery with a terrible outcome that left her with a fraction of her hand! This experience launched my volunteer career in promoting evidence-based treatment of work-related injuries and diseases in Colorado, as well as fighting opioid pill-mills in cooperation with the University of Colorado, Colorado Medical Society and our state government, particularly the Division of Workers Compensation. We have been successful in many ways, with the notable exception of our drug OD death rates being 3x the national average. So, I think you are launched on a long journey! Good luck!
Thanks, John! It's a pleasure to meet you. As an alumna of CU, I'm glad to hear they're helping you in your important work. I wish you every success as well!
Thank you for your review of what happened with the American Academy of Pediatrics! I have suspected as much, particularly in light of the financial incentives revealed by Gerald Posner that appeared to me to be similar to the Sacklers with OxyContin. This endeavor to promote gender transition will probably ruin far more lives than it helps, while enriching certain clinicians and promoting organizations. I am really sorry to see this happen; it will be difficult to stop!
Thank you for hopping over here to read it and comment! I agree with you about perverse incentives running amok. The genius of the trans activists, apart from the lavish spending, is in how they identify and exploit every tiny vulnerability, whether it's as craven as payola or as guileless as the need to be regarded as 'kind.' I have to think pediatricians as a group are more vulnerable to the latter weakness than the former.
A couple of my best physician friends are pediatricians… biggest hearts I know! And vulnerable.
Excellent work! Thanks for adding this to the emerging coverage of pediatric transitioning.
"three acts" -- tragedy and comedy, though much of the latter may consist of gallows humour.
But this comment/quote is rather "problematic":
Jenny: "... spread the good news of childhood medical sex-change"
No one, no human changes sex and that term should be deprecated if not anathematized as an egregious euphemism for the butchering of autistic and dysphoric children, for their chemical or surgical castration, for turning them into sexless eunuchs.
Somewhat apropos of which, you might have some interest in a recent post by a transman who otherwise seems to be an articulate and intelligent pediatrician:
https://lgbtcouragecoalition.substack.com/p/thinking-systems-about-gender-transition?utm_medium=reader2
But of particular note in the first five minutes of the included video is "his" more or less coherent, scientifically credible, and useful differentiation between sex and gender -- entirely different kettles of fish. People probably should be entitled to change their attire and even their "secondary sexual characteristics" to those more typical of the other sex -- to change their genders. But if that process of "gender affirmation" entails the removal of gonads then that process is, by standard biological definitions, the change from sexed to sexless.
If adults want to do that to themselves then I guess they're entitled to do so. But to trick dysphoric children into thinking that such "gender affirmation surgeries" also entails a "sex-change" is a medical scandal of the first water, a crime of the century.
Right. I took some creative license to approximate the mindset of Dr. Rafferty, who I don't doubt is a true believer, and hoped readers would intuit that his mindset differs from mine. Never hurts to spell it out, though.
Sorry if I was somewhat asleep at the switch in not noticing what might reasonably be construed as a sarcastic paraphrase of Rafferty's ostensible position 🙂. Though, in my defense, one might suggest that, absent some scare quotes around "sex-change", it's an understandable and common mistake.
So I appreciate your "helps to spell it out", particularly as many others seem unaware of the problematic consequences of the absence of those quotes. For example, you might have some interest in my brief conversation on the topic with Christopher Rufo who is otherwise doing yeoman's work in trying to turn the transloonie tide:
https://christopherrufo.com/p/house-of-horrors-988/comment/16583265
Big part of "the problem" is that too many in the body politic are scientific illiterates and seem to "think" that changing one's sex is just a matter of changing one's genitalia. Part and parcel of corruption and bastardization of the standard biological definitions for the sexes which are foundational to all of biology, and which some have argued are the the only way off the horns of transgender dilemma -- if we can't agree on what words mean then we haven't a hope in hell of resolving the problems that turn on them.
So I hope you might forgive my "grammar Nazism" for anathematizing that absence which basically turns the phrase into a rather odious euphemism. 🙂