An exhaustive study in the medical journal ‘Psychiatry’ 29 March 2021, titled “A Follow-Up Study of Boys With Gender Identity Disorder” found that of the 139 participants, 17 (12.2%) were classified as persisters and the remaining 122 (87.8%) were classified as desisters.
That translates as near 90% of boys presenting with gender dysphoria will ‘grow out of it’ in adolescence.
It would seem that without a crystal ball the question of ‘who to affirm’ is a high-stakes challenge.
Hence the logic of "watchful waiting", although there is uncertainty about the likely desistance rate among today's adolescent-onset cases of gender dysphoria.
Yes--no one has done the desistance studies in this case of adolescents. And social transition and medical intervention are thought to change likelihood of desistance --there is a segm write up of this: https://segm.org/early-social-gender-transition-persistence
For instance, even with the young kids, those on puberty blockers almost always continue to hormones, in studies.
In the case here there is no understanding of what will happen if they are not socially transitioned and not medicalized. No one has checked. The alternative of "no transition".
"GCN does not dispute that gender-affirming clinicians genuinely believe their treatment approach helps vulnerable youth"
This seems like an odd announcement to have to make. Even without strong supporting scientific evidence, the rules of good science were clear enough that all kinds of warning flags should have been flying when the gender activists demanded that troubled children be used as subjects to prove their ideological claims. And now we're supposed to be impressed by the fact that these activists meant well?
And now we hear again and again how the children may have been just a little bit too young to fully understand all that we being done to them? Hello?? There were adults in the room, experts with PhDs and MDs who had every reason to know that this was a terrible idea. Do *not* allow the blame to be shifted to the "vulnerable youth"!
Hello Lee. In Australia we have onerous defamation laws. I don't believe that anything I've written is defamatory. However, there are some articles in which it's sensible to make explicit my presumption that clinicians are attempting to help patients. That doesn't shift blame to the kids (they are, after all, only kids), nor does it exculpate clinicians who do harm with treatments lacking a solid evidence base. They must be held accountable & their own statements that these are vulnerable kids needing help only serve to reinforce that the standard for judgment is the outcome for the kids, not the intention of clinicians.
There is every reason to believe that the 36% who were lost to follow-up were more likely to be regretters than the average clinic patient. Regret was checked by going through records and counting as regretters those who nformed the clinic in a visit that they regretted and asked for a reversal of hormones. The 36% who were lost to follow-up were those who **stopped coming to the clinic for their lifetime treatment** as the authors themselves note. This clinic treated 95% of these patients in the Netherlands at the time.
It is possible that the 36% all decided to stop at this clinic and start somewhere else but the study authors didn't check. Another possibility is that they just stopped and didn't restart. It's unknown how many of those had gonadectomies, the authors do not say.
Their measurement is completely consistent with a 36% regret rate, in fact.
It also dominates the regret study of bustos et al (all included studies have major flaws) because Wiepjea et Al has so many participants.
It is unclear why anyone would quote this as evidence of low regret given that all you know is that 36% stopped lifetime treatment and <1% reversed hormones at the clinic and said they regretted, in a clinic visit .Those who simply told the clinic wouldn't be included. Given that it was also those who had gonadectomy only, even Keira Bell wouldn't have been included. Some who regret can't switch hormones because of what the surgery has done, too, they won't be included.
The authors note these limitations, those quoting them as evidence of low regret do not.
An exhaustive study in the medical journal ‘Psychiatry’ 29 March 2021, titled “A Follow-Up Study of Boys With Gender Identity Disorder” found that of the 139 participants, 17 (12.2%) were classified as persisters and the remaining 122 (87.8%) were classified as desisters.
That translates as near 90% of boys presenting with gender dysphoria will ‘grow out of it’ in adolescence.
It would seem that without a crystal ball the question of ‘who to affirm’ is a high-stakes challenge.
Hence the logic of "watchful waiting", although there is uncertainty about the likely desistance rate among today's adolescent-onset cases of gender dysphoria.
Yes--no one has done the desistance studies in this case of adolescents. And social transition and medical intervention are thought to change likelihood of desistance --there is a segm write up of this: https://segm.org/early-social-gender-transition-persistence
For instance, even with the young kids, those on puberty blockers almost always continue to hormones, in studies.
In the case here there is no understanding of what will happen if they are not socially transitioned and not medicalized. No one has checked. The alternative of "no transition".
"GCN does not dispute that gender-affirming clinicians genuinely believe their treatment approach helps vulnerable youth"
This seems like an odd announcement to have to make. Even without strong supporting scientific evidence, the rules of good science were clear enough that all kinds of warning flags should have been flying when the gender activists demanded that troubled children be used as subjects to prove their ideological claims. And now we're supposed to be impressed by the fact that these activists meant well?
And now we hear again and again how the children may have been just a little bit too young to fully understand all that we being done to them? Hello?? There were adults in the room, experts with PhDs and MDs who had every reason to know that this was a terrible idea. Do *not* allow the blame to be shifted to the "vulnerable youth"!
Hello Lee. In Australia we have onerous defamation laws. I don't believe that anything I've written is defamatory. However, there are some articles in which it's sensible to make explicit my presumption that clinicians are attempting to help patients. That doesn't shift blame to the kids (they are, after all, only kids), nor does it exculpate clinicians who do harm with treatments lacking a solid evidence base. They must be held accountable & their own statements that these are vulnerable kids needing help only serve to reinforce that the standard for judgment is the outcome for the kids, not the intention of clinicians.
That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.
Thank you for this great summary!
There is every reason to believe that the 36% who were lost to follow-up were more likely to be regretters than the average clinic patient. Regret was checked by going through records and counting as regretters those who nformed the clinic in a visit that they regretted and asked for a reversal of hormones. The 36% who were lost to follow-up were those who **stopped coming to the clinic for their lifetime treatment** as the authors themselves note. This clinic treated 95% of these patients in the Netherlands at the time.
It is possible that the 36% all decided to stop at this clinic and start somewhere else but the study authors didn't check. Another possibility is that they just stopped and didn't restart. It's unknown how many of those had gonadectomies, the authors do not say.
Their measurement is completely consistent with a 36% regret rate, in fact.
It also dominates the regret study of bustos et al (all included studies have major flaws) because Wiepjea et Al has so many participants.
It is unclear why anyone would quote this as evidence of low regret given that all you know is that 36% stopped lifetime treatment and <1% reversed hormones at the clinic and said they regretted, in a clinic visit .Those who simply told the clinic wouldn't be included. Given that it was also those who had gonadectomy only, even Keira Bell wouldn't have been included. Some who regret can't switch hormones because of what the surgery has done, too, they won't be included.
The authors note these limitations, those quoting them as evidence of low regret do not.
Yes, how could anyone cite this study without noting the loss to follow-up?
BTW, I just subscribed to this excellent site. Thanks so much for this world class work!
Thanks Lee!