The hot-headed host of the progressive YouTube political punditry show has a history of indignant speeches on this controversial subject that betray his shaky knowledge of the relevant science.
The idea that one child in 1,000 would be rare is astounding to me. During most of the 20th century, rates of diagnosed transsexualism in the *adult* population ranged between roughly one in 10,000 to one in 50,000 depending on the country. (Ben, I actually have a chart of these numbers in a 1999 doctoral thesis on the subject that I could share with you.)
The rate of childhood leukemia is 4.8 per 100,000 per year, which if we multiply that by 18 years (the number of years a person would count as a minor) is 86.4 per 100,000 and thus 0.864 per 1,000. This is the most common type of cancer in children and I’ve never heard it talked about as a super rare non-issue. And now we’re talking about a condition that zero children were treated for thirty years ago.
I was looking at it from this perspective. But this is what a liberal friend on FB posted, "Republicans in a dozen states have introduced laws against trans teens getting puberty blockers and hormones but only a tiny tiny number of kids do. Why? 1. Create an imaginary enemy 2. Once the law says hormones for kids are dangerous it’s a hop skip and a jump to banning hormonal birth control for the same reason."
1. gop didnt create this issue. dems did when they fell for a scam that robs women of their right to safety/title ix protections and robs kids and ppl with psych issues of their right to life long health and evidenced based care. policies based on quack gender beliefs rob the rights of half a doz vulnerable groups to benefit white males and the medical industry, two groups that arent marginalized in any way.
2. in 2021, 42000 US kids reported gender dysphoria. and this # is growing exponentially each year. dems support policies that severely harm this group of kids pushing them into quack gender "care" which has zero evidence of benefit and causes severe harm.
for a long time it was thought that republicans would stay away from gender policy issues. it was a rather taboo subject that was opposed by a tiny group of mostly liberals, unknown by almost all conservatives and promoted via a massive misinformation campaign to progressives, who fell for this fraud lock, stock and barrel (first time using that phrase). its only been in the past few years conservatives have raised a peep about this issue.
I guess you could make the argument that if such procedures are so rare, What difference does it make if they are banned. Especially now that Chase Strangio has admitted in front of the US Supreme Court that suicides are almost unheard of.........
I think many people honestly have a hard time grasping numbers that are "extreme" (low or high) compared to most everyday experiences. One in a thousand sounds rare, but there are about 800 students in an average high school (though typically many more in urban/suburban areas). If you're looking at hot spots like, say, Davis, California, there may be a dozen students in the school district that are either medicalized, or on that pathway. Many more have adopted trans identities, but are not taking hormones.
The same people who are calling this rare also typically claim that "intersex" conditions (DSDs) are common. But most of these conditions are actually extremely rare. The kinds of conditions where an infant's sex is rendered unclear at birth sum to around 1 in 5,500.
Yes, good points all. On your point about trans-identifying kids, I have seen statistics to the effect that 10% of teenagers (high school) are trans-identified.(unfortunately can’t recall the source). Perhaps these kids are socially transitioned ( along w with non pharmacological interventions like binding). My sense is that a lot of these kids go on to medicalize in college. Back to the numbers— It seems like the percent of kids (minors) who are medicalized in the US might be roughly as in the UK, or other European countries? I don’t know what those numbers are.
I would guess that the rates are lower in my part of the world (Sweden), though both puberty blockers and hormones are still being prescribed for minors*. One statistic I looked at recently indicated that one out of every 200 girls ages 15-17 (I'd have to double check the exact age range) had a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
*) Most people assume that Sweden has banned puberty blockers when the new recommendations simply stated that they could only be prescribed under exceptional circumstances and preferably under a research protocol. However, since most, if not all, doctors active in this field are true believers (associated with WPATH) they apparently consider all cases exceptional. The fact that this treatment is no longer embraced by the wider medical community in Sweden (to the extent it ever was), and that the official guidelines have been revised, does not mean that the number of patients on blockers has dropped. For this to happen, the guidelines would have to be even stricter.
The GD diagnosis rate for girls is shocking! It would be interesting to know the GD diagnosis rates here (perhaps already published somewhere). That’s the ‘pipeline’ and as we noted earlier anecdotal indications are it’s significant
I'm in the US and as you know, we’re behind Sweden in pushing back on this. I’m sorry (shocked?!) to hear that the banning of PBs hasn’t stopped the scourge. I can’t fathom a doc who doesn’t respect the Cass Report. It seems like we have to rake WPATH down completely. Good to chat, keep fighting!
I’m absolutely shocked that the counter argument to the European and conservative trend of “were not sure these interventions actually help this population” is “well it doesn’t matter because it’s only 1 in 1000 kids!” To me, the rate simply doesn’t matter. The question is (1) does this benefit them in the long term, and if so, (2) do the benefits outweigh the risk? If it’s 1 in 100 or 1 in 100000, the question is still the same! I want kids to have the best possible medical care for their conditions with the least potential downside. That’s what we strive for in all other conditions. That’s what we should strive for here too. There’s about 1 in 1000 rate of juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Just because it’s a rare disease doesn’t mean rheumatologists should just leave evidence to the wayside. They trial new treatment options carefully with the goal of best possible function into adulthood.
I noticed right away that this "news" gave numbers wildly less than the research paper from Reuters about two years ago.
<<In 2021, about 42,000 children and teens across the United States received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, nearly triple the number in 2017, according to data Komodo compiled for Reuters.>>
As for the cancer drugs used off-label as puberty blockers,
<<Over the last five years, there were at least 4,780 adolescents who started on puberty blockers and had a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis.
This tally and others in the Komodo analysis are likely an undercount because they didn’t include treatment that wasn’t covered by insurance and were limited to pediatric patients with a gender dysphoria diagnosis.>>
Keep in mind none of the studies can determine numbers of diagnoses or prescriptions for Lupron and such or wrong sex hormones were paid for out of pocket or where the insurance or Medicaid claims were falsified as being for "endocrine disorder not specified" or some such formula.
When the trans ideologues minimize the number of kids being poisoned with experimental drugs, I can't help but ask what these oh so kind people would respond to a news story headlined something along the lines of "Only 4,000 unarmed Black men were shot dead by police".
Yes, have read that in the past. This shows much higher numbers of minors receiving treatment and utilizes a much larger set of data, correct? Not certain I am comparing the 2 fairly.
The idea that one child in 1,000 would be rare is astounding to me. During most of the 20th century, rates of diagnosed transsexualism in the *adult* population ranged between roughly one in 10,000 to one in 50,000 depending on the country. (Ben, I actually have a chart of these numbers in a 1999 doctoral thesis on the subject that I could share with you.)
The rate of childhood leukemia is 4.8 per 100,000 per year, which if we multiply that by 18 years (the number of years a person would count as a minor) is 86.4 per 100,000 and thus 0.864 per 1,000. This is the most common type of cancer in children and I’ve never heard it talked about as a super rare non-issue. And now we’re talking about a condition that zero children were treated for thirty years ago.
Sure, send me that thesis, that would be interesting.
I was looking at it from this perspective. But this is what a liberal friend on FB posted, "Republicans in a dozen states have introduced laws against trans teens getting puberty blockers and hormones but only a tiny tiny number of kids do. Why? 1. Create an imaginary enemy 2. Once the law says hormones for kids are dangerous it’s a hop skip and a jump to banning hormonal birth control for the same reason."
1. gop didnt create this issue. dems did when they fell for a scam that robs women of their right to safety/title ix protections and robs kids and ppl with psych issues of their right to life long health and evidenced based care. policies based on quack gender beliefs rob the rights of half a doz vulnerable groups to benefit white males and the medical industry, two groups that arent marginalized in any way.
2. in 2021, 42000 US kids reported gender dysphoria. and this # is growing exponentially each year. dems support policies that severely harm this group of kids pushing them into quack gender "care" which has zero evidence of benefit and causes severe harm.
for a long time it was thought that republicans would stay away from gender policy issues. it was a rather taboo subject that was opposed by a tiny group of mostly liberals, unknown by almost all conservatives and promoted via a massive misinformation campaign to progressives, who fell for this fraud lock, stock and barrel (first time using that phrase). its only been in the past few years conservatives have raised a peep about this issue.
Wow. Apologies to your friend, but that’s a ridiculous leap.
It’s like saying the argument, “the government cracked down on opioid prescription, and it’s just a hop skip and a jump to banning Tylenol!”
And I have since been unfriended!
Innumerate policy wonks with influence drive me crazy
Great word.
I guess you could make the argument that if such procedures are so rare, What difference does it make if they are banned. Especially now that Chase Strangio has admitted in front of the US Supreme Court that suicides are almost unheard of.........
Christine- good point, this degree of ‘rarity’ must be true of many diseases. It doesn’t mean that we don’t find them terrible.
I think many people honestly have a hard time grasping numbers that are "extreme" (low or high) compared to most everyday experiences. One in a thousand sounds rare, but there are about 800 students in an average high school (though typically many more in urban/suburban areas). If you're looking at hot spots like, say, Davis, California, there may be a dozen students in the school district that are either medicalized, or on that pathway. Many more have adopted trans identities, but are not taking hormones.
The same people who are calling this rare also typically claim that "intersex" conditions (DSDs) are common. But most of these conditions are actually extremely rare. The kinds of conditions where an infant's sex is rendered unclear at birth sum to around 1 in 5,500.
Yes, good points all. On your point about trans-identifying kids, I have seen statistics to the effect that 10% of teenagers (high school) are trans-identified.(unfortunately can’t recall the source). Perhaps these kids are socially transitioned ( along w with non pharmacological interventions like binding). My sense is that a lot of these kids go on to medicalize in college. Back to the numbers— It seems like the percent of kids (minors) who are medicalized in the US might be roughly as in the UK, or other European countries? I don’t know what those numbers are.
I would guess that the rates are lower in my part of the world (Sweden), though both puberty blockers and hormones are still being prescribed for minors*. One statistic I looked at recently indicated that one out of every 200 girls ages 15-17 (I'd have to double check the exact age range) had a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
*) Most people assume that Sweden has banned puberty blockers when the new recommendations simply stated that they could only be prescribed under exceptional circumstances and preferably under a research protocol. However, since most, if not all, doctors active in this field are true believers (associated with WPATH) they apparently consider all cases exceptional. The fact that this treatment is no longer embraced by the wider medical community in Sweden (to the extent it ever was), and that the official guidelines have been revised, does not mean that the number of patients on blockers has dropped. For this to happen, the guidelines would have to be even stricter.
The GD diagnosis rate for girls is shocking! It would be interesting to know the GD diagnosis rates here (perhaps already published somewhere). That’s the ‘pipeline’ and as we noted earlier anecdotal indications are it’s significant
I'm in the US and as you know, we’re behind Sweden in pushing back on this. I’m sorry (shocked?!) to hear that the banning of PBs hasn’t stopped the scourge. I can’t fathom a doc who doesn’t respect the Cass Report. It seems like we have to rake WPATH down completely. Good to chat, keep fighting!
I’m absolutely shocked that the counter argument to the European and conservative trend of “were not sure these interventions actually help this population” is “well it doesn’t matter because it’s only 1 in 1000 kids!” To me, the rate simply doesn’t matter. The question is (1) does this benefit them in the long term, and if so, (2) do the benefits outweigh the risk? If it’s 1 in 100 or 1 in 100000, the question is still the same! I want kids to have the best possible medical care for their conditions with the least potential downside. That’s what we strive for in all other conditions. That’s what we should strive for here too. There’s about 1 in 1000 rate of juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Just because it’s a rare disease doesn’t mean rheumatologists should just leave evidence to the wayside. They trial new treatment options carefully with the goal of best possible function into adulthood.
How cleverly they use numbers to make things "sound" small when it's actually a high rate (for a "rare" condition).
Brings to mind that famous saying, "Lies, damn lies, and statistics"!
I noticed right away that this "news" gave numbers wildly less than the research paper from Reuters about two years ago.
<<In 2021, about 42,000 children and teens across the United States received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, nearly triple the number in 2017, according to data Komodo compiled for Reuters.>>
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/
As for the cancer drugs used off-label as puberty blockers,
<<Over the last five years, there were at least 4,780 adolescents who started on puberty blockers and had a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis.
This tally and others in the Komodo analysis are likely an undercount because they didn’t include treatment that wasn’t covered by insurance and were limited to pediatric patients with a gender dysphoria diagnosis.>>
Keep in mind none of the studies can determine numbers of diagnoses or prescriptions for Lupron and such or wrong sex hormones were paid for out of pocket or where the insurance or Medicaid claims were falsified as being for "endocrine disorder not specified" or some such formula.
When the trans ideologues minimize the number of kids being poisoned with experimental drugs, I can't help but ask what these oh so kind people would respond to a news story headlined something along the lines of "Only 4,000 unarmed Black men were shot dead by police".
Also, how does compare with the Reuters/Komodo data? I would sooner trust that data set.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/
Yes, have read that in the past. This shows much higher numbers of minors receiving treatment and utilizes a much larger set of data, correct? Not certain I am comparing the 2 fairly.