Updates: Transgender Science in the News

Good journalists provide follow-up reports for the sake of letting their readers know how stories have changed over time and after intervening events. I guess I have become a journalist of sorts, there is almost no one else to comment on events from a transgender science point of view. My hairdresser (I just got my hair dyed a warm auburn hue) told me that I was in a unique niche which simultaneously made me feel unique and also lonely.

Many providers and academicians follow the Zeitgeist, the current fashion, and pay obeisance to unscientific notions in their research papers. For example, they still bow down to the idea that prenatal hormones are somehow involved in transgender causation, even though readers of this blog know that the actual evidence refutes this claim. The sex hormone Zeitgeist has been around since the beginning of the last century. Admittedly sex hormones are powerful substances but so is DNA in its own way.

I still follow the same advice from one of my undergraduate psychology professors: read what the researchers did, see what their data looks like, and make up your own damn mind. Commentary before and after the data in many papers is subject to all sorts of unscientific social influences. He also taught me that science is a social institution, subject to the foibles, eccentricities, conformities, and exaggerations of humans. The only way to wring these out is through open discussion.

So here are two follow-ups to some transgender science articles, previously included in this blog.

ROGD Rewrite

There were lots of reactions to the 2018 research study by Lisa Littman, used as scientific proof of “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (ROGD). This was a research paper that concluded that a new phenomenon had been found, in that, “perfectly normal” teenagers were triggered by information on the Internet and from other teenagers, termed “contagion,” to declare that they were transgender, much to the chagrin of their parents.

Dr. Littman

Most of the positive reactions to this article were that it supported criticism of the current affirmative approach to treating transgender children which involves social transition as well as hormone blockers to delay puberty and give the kids time to decide their future. These reactions included accusations that those who used this approach were trying to recruit children to declare that they were transgender and to start/continue affirmative treatment. The article supported the notion that such recruitment could also come from teenage peers and the Internet. The actual facts are that providers are very cautious about starting any kind of treatment in children. A child must demonstrate over time that they are insistent, persistent and consistent in their verbal and overt behavior reflecting their congruent gender in order for providers to start such therapies. A whole team is involved in making such judgements including parents, mental health professionals, medical doctors, endocrinologists and sometimes lawyers.

And, although most transgender people know they are transgender at the ages of 4-7 some do not come out until teenage years or later which is why the average is actually 8-years-old. Providers are well aware that teenagers sometimes emerge as transgender, so Littman’s paper is old news. The claim of Littman that these kids were not transgender in early childhood is unsubstantiated, particularly because the diagnoses were made by parents, using unpublished, simplified criteria from the DSM. The diagnoses were not made by providers. And no one asked these kids when they knew they were transgender; the data was collected only from presumed parents.

The Littman study is also an attempt to undermine the whole idea of being transgender and legitimacy of expression of non-stereotypical gender behavior. Because, if children can be recruited, then it is only one step away to believe that adults can be recruited, as well. This carries the implication that non-stereotypical gender behavior and being transgender are only trendy, learned phenomena triggered by conformity and fetishism. This is the contention of those who support reparative “therapy.” But as readers of this blog know, being transgender is firmly anchored in biology through genetic gender behavior predisposition.

Most of the negative reactions involved criticism that Brown University and the journal had no right to stop promoting the article because these actions infringed on academic freedom. I often think that “academic freedom” is the best example of an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. I was actually told by an academician that my criticism of the Littman article must include a defense of academic freedom to keep important people happy. Of course, I ignored this warning.

The journal that published the paper, PLOS (Public Library of Science) received criticism that it was a “pay for publish” journal with only light peer review which is actually true but not necessarily a bad thing. It was started because the scientific publishing backlog has become so severe that important papers were years away from being published. Peer review is an academic process that determines what will be published in academic journals and what will not. It is one way to exert control over scientific thought and is one way in which academia enforces conformity with the Zeitgeist and what academia “thinks.” PLOS is often criticized for not being a “real” academic journal because peer review is “light” and allows articles to be published that violate academic culture. What is really going on is that the academics work hard to get on other journal editorial boards to support their receiving tenure, career development and income and PLOS is not one of the desirable journals.

Brown University took down their link to the study and the journal, PLOS, sent the article back for “peer” review. The “peer” review team consisted of a statistics expert, good at ferreting out meaning from data. But he had no experience in transgender phenomena. The other member of the team was Lisa Littman, herself.

  A new version of the article, forced by the journal, has just been released. The journal forced a rewrite of parts of the paper. They did not change the design of the study or the data, but they changed the Title, Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion. In my previous blogpost, I concentrated on what the data showed, and criticized precisely the sections that were changed in the rewrite. Some of the changes addressed my criticisms and some did not. My view is that people should publish whatever they want, it is up to us to make up our own “damn minds” and we should be free to do so. That is true freedom in the marketplace of ideas, unconstrained by academic conformity. I do not support making rewrites to salvage “academic freedom” but people are free to do as they please; science is a social institution.

Detransition

Two new papers on transition regret and detransition recently came out from researchers in the U.K., providing better insight into the phenomena of transition regret and detransition. They support previous findings that detransition is a rare event. Detransition involves reverting back to live in ones gender behavior category assigned at birth after transitioning to ones congruent gender category through transition procedures including hormone therapy and surgeries. Previous studies, have shown a range of 3.8% to .5% to 0% of people who detransitioned. The percentages have decreased over time presumably based on improvements in the scientific knowledge base and provider training.

Noted detransitioner Walt Heyer.

Opponents of transgender transition often cite detransitioning as a reason to ban the treatments, making arguments that people were coerced into being transgender by unscrupulous providers. Their arguments are usually predicated on religious, philosophical or political grounds—not on the risk calculation of providing transition services versus allowing transgender people to suffer or even to commit suicide.

The U.K. has some eight clinics that are part of their National Health Service—their version of socialized medicine and the reports came from researcher affiliated with these clinics. The reports not only measured the overall rate of detransition but also the reasons for it and its permanence.

The first paper was by researchers at the Charing Cross and Nottingham gender clinics. Out of a random sample of 303 of the patients that they had treated, they found only one that detransitioned. This person detransitioned and later transitioned back again. They also found two patients who came to their clinics from other clinics who had already socially detransitioned. No revision of medical transition procedures was involved in these three cases. The detransition was purely social. Lack of family acceptance was the primary reason given for detransition.

The second study involved scanning of all electronic records at the Charing Cross gender center (3398), some of which may have been randomly selected in the first study, although this was not reported. This study was presented in the poster session a week ago in Rome at the European Professional Association for Transgender Health Science Conference (I did not go to Rome but my spies sent me copies of the poster and the abstracts are available online). Out of 3398 transitioning transgender people, sixteen cases (.47%) made mention of detransition or regret. Of these 10 considered the detransition to be temporary. Detransition was reported as motivated by social pressure in 12 of the 16 cases. Only two changed their minds about their congruent gender. Only three of the 16 ruled out retransitioning (.09%). There was no report that detransition involved revision of transition medical procedures such as reversing transgender genital plastic surgery (TGPS).

The results of the two studies, taken together, is that we are doing well in terms of identifying transgender people who can successfully transition. The rate of expressed detransition is consistently low across several studies. However, since social problems seem to be the reason for detransition, this fits with the recommendations of all such studies that social problems remain after TGPS, and counseling should be readily available post-TGPS.

Admittedly, transgender transition may not get it right the first time for some, it looks like a very few transitioners revert back to their former gender behavior category temporarily to deal with social pressures and probably to be sure that their initial direction was correct. I know that something like this happened to me. Because I believed my livelihood depended on it, for two hours on Thursdays I pretended to be a man again during transition in order not to offend my military customers. This went on for a couple of years. Turns out, I was wrong, my customers did not care whether I was a wise “grey beard” man with gynecomastia and a ponytail or a, wise grey haired woman with breast implants and a ponytail. All that pretense is gone now. I am now a wise auburn hair woman, sometimes with a ponytail.

Moved to make a comment? Login here and use the comment area below.

Tags: featured, Lisa Littman, science, Transgender, Transition

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Community News