started reading the cass review because i'm apparently just Like That and i want everybody crowing about how this proves sooooo much about how terfs are right and trans people are wrong to like. take a scientific literacy class or something. or even just read the occasional study besides the one you're currently trying to prove a point with. not even necessarily pro-trans studies just learn how to know what studies actually found as opposed to what people trying to spoonfeed you an agenda claim they found.
to use just one infuriating example:
Several studies from that period (Green et al., 1987; Zucker, 1985) suggested that in a minority (approximately 15%) of pre-pubertal children presenting with gender incongruence, this persisted into adulthood. The majority of these children became same-sex attracted, cisgender adults. These early studies were criticised on the basis that not all the children had a formal diagnosis of gender incongruence or gender dysphoria, but a review of the literature (Ristori & Steensma, 2016) noted that later studies (Drummond et al., 2008; Steensma & Cohen-Kettenis, 2015; Wallien et al., 2008) also found persistence rates of 10-33% in cohorts who had met formal diagnostic criteria at initial assessment, and had longer follow-up periods.
if you recognize the names Zucker and Steensma you are probably already going feral but tldr:
There are… many problems with Zucker's studies, "not all children had a formal diagnosis" is so far down the list this is literally the first i've heard of it. The closest i usually hear is the old DSM criteria for gender identity disorder was totally different from the current DSM criteria for gender dysphoria and/or how most people currently define "transgender"; notably it did not require the patient to identify as a different gender and overall better fits what we currently call "gender-non-comforming". Whether the kids had a formal diagnosis of "maybe trans, maybe just has different hobbies than expected, but either way their parents want them back in their neat little societal boxes" is absolutely not the main issue.
This would be a problem even if Zucker was pro-trans (spoiler: He Is Not, and people who are immediately suspicious of pro-trans studies because "they're probably funded by big pharma or someone else who profits from transitioning" should apply at least a little of that suspicion to the guy who made a living running a conversion clinic); sometimes "formal" criteria change as we learn more about what's common, what's uncommon, what's uncommon but irrelevant, etc, and when the criteria changes drastically enough it doesn't make sense to pretend the old studies perfectly apply to the new criteria. If you found a study defining "sex" specifically and exclusively as penetration with a dick which says gay men have as much sex as straight men but lesbians don't, it's not necessarily wrong as far as it goes but if THAT'S your prime citation for "gay men have more sex than lesbians", especially if you keep trying to apply it in contexts which obviously use a broader definition, there are gonna be a lot of people disagreeing with you and it won't be because they're stubbornly unscientific.
Also Zucker is pro conversion therapy. Yes, pro converting trans people to cis people, but also pro converting gay people to straight people. That doesn't necessarily affect his results, i just find it funny how many people enthusiastically support his findings as evidence transitioning is… basically anti-gay conversion therapy? (even though plenty of trans people transition to gay? including T4T people so even the "that's actually just how straight people try to get with gay people" rationale for gay trans people is incredibly weak? and also HRT has a relatively low but non-zero chance of changing sexual orientation so it wouldn't even be reliable as a means of "becoming straight"? but a guy who couldn't reliably tell the difference between a tomboy and a trans boy figured out the former is more common than the latter + in one whole country where being trans is legal but being gay is not, sometimes cis gay people transition, so OBVIOUSLY that means sexism and homophobia are the driving factors even in countries with significant transphobia. or something.) anyway i hope zucker knows and hates how many gay people and allies are using his own study to trash-talk any attempts to be Less Gay. ideally nobody would take his nonsense seriously at all but it doesn't seem we'll be spared from that any time soon so i will take my schadenfreude where i can.
Steensma's studies have the exact same problem re: irrelevant criteria so "well someone ELSE had the same results!" is not exactly convincing. This is not "oh trans people are refusing to pay attention to these studies because they disagree with them regardless of scientific rigor", it's "one biased guy using outdated criteria found exactly the numbers everyone would expect based on that criteria, i can't imagine why trans people are treating those numbers as relevant to the past criteria but not present definitions, let's find a SECOND guy using outdated criteria. Why do people keep saying the outdated criteria is not relevant to the current state of trans healthcare. Don't we all know it's quantity over quality with scientific studies. (Please don't ask what the quantity of studies disagreeing with me is.)"
Steensma also counted patients as 'not persisting as transgender' if they ghosted him on follow-up which counted for a third of his study's "detransitioners" and a fifth of the total subjects and. look. i'm not saying none of them detransitioned, or assuming they all didn't would be notably more accurate, but i think we can safely treat twenty percent of subjects as a bit high for making a default assumption, especially when some of them might have simply not been interested in a study on whether or not they still know who they are. Fuck knows i've seen pro-trans studies which didn't make assumptions about the people who didn't respond still get prodded by anti-trans people insisting "the number of people claiming they don't regret transitioning can't possibly be so high, some of the people who responded must have been lying. (Scientific rigor means thinking studies which disagree with me are wrong even if the only explanation is the subjects lying and studies which agree with me are right even if we need to make assumptions about a lot of subjects to get there.)"
and this is not new information. not the issues with zucker, not the issues with steensma, not any of the issues because this is not a new study, it's a review of older studies, which in itself doesn't mean "bad" or "useless" -- sometimes that allows connecting some previously-unconnected dots -- but the idea this is going to absolutely blow apart the Woke Media, vindicate Rowling and Lineham, and "save" ""gay"" children from """being forcibly transed""" is bullshit. At most it'll get dragged around and eagerly cited by all the people looking for anything vaguely scientific-sounding to justify their beliefs, and maybe even people who only read headlines and sound bites will buy it, but the people who really believe it will be people who already agreed with all its "findings" and have already been dragging around the existing studies and are just excited to have a shiny new citation for it.
the response from people who've been really reading research on transgender people all along is going to be more along the lines of "……yeah. yeah, i already knew about that. do you need a three-page essay on why i don't think it means what you think it means? because i don't have time for that homework right now but maybe i can pencil it in for next semester if you haven't learned how to check your own sources by then."
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UTEV Drabble - Brand New Star
The day had been chaotic, even by Sans’ standards. It wasn’t everyday that your small town got treated to a fight between two inter-dimensional… deities? Spirits? Whatever they were, they looked like skeleton monsters, albeit very strange ones. The taller of the two, an angelic skeleton of some sort, had briefly introduced himself as Dawn before heralding off to do battle with his brother(?) in the distance.
A battle between positivity and negativity is what it was called. How strange. Of course, those two hadn’t been the only two that had come through. There had been a collection of other skeletons that looked eerily similar to him! Even if they seemed to take his lazy brother’s approach to clothing (he hoped they didn’t also leave socks lying around, what a nightmare!) they still looked and spoke just like him.
The same could not be said for the short paint covered skeleton standing beside him spouting exposition.
“So yeah! In a nutshell, that’s how the Multiverse works. Technically you don’t have a creator overseeing your AU since your world isn’t original, but that’s why I’m here and-”
“LOOK,” Sans said as patiently as he could, cutting off the confusing tirade he had honestly tuned out about twenty minutes ago, “AS MUCH AS I APPRECIATE THE EXPLANATION, THAT’S NOT REALLY ANSWERING MY QUESTION HERE.”
He fiddled with the first aid kit in his hands as he spoke, hoping he didn’t come off as rude, “I NEED TO FIND THOSE PEOPLE THAT WENT OFF WITH YOUR FRIEND, HIS NAME WAS DAWN RIGHT? EVERYONE ELSE IS HEALED, BUT THEY STILL HAVEN’T COME BACK.”
“Oh, right!” the painted skeleton who still had not yet introduced himself shouted, before he laughed, “They’re not coming back, so don’t worry about them!”
Sans blinked, “THEY’RE NOT? WHY NOT? WHERE HAVE THEY GONE?”
“Oh, Dawn’s taking care of them, that’s all. Something about their intentions- Oooooh, is that a echo flower variation?” the skeleton veered from the topic, despite Sans’ flustered attempts to keep their attention.
“WAIT -! OH STARS THEY’RE GONE…” Sans sighed to himself. What a day this was, and now he had even more questions!
He had been warned, when helping the strange skeleton named Dawn evacuate people, that his main goal was to keep 'Dusk' from harming people or kidnapping them. The people who had vanished had been some of the first ones he’d evacuated, not having been anywhere near the strange goopy skeleton and his posse of doppelgangers. Sure, Sans hadn’t appreciated when they had shoved him in the way of a dangerous blast in an attempt to use him as a shield while escaping, but Dawn had gotten in the way before he was harmed so he figured he shouldn’t complain.
That being said… it was odd. Dawn had moved faster than he did at any other point of the fight at that moment. It had been a significant speed change. Even stranger still… None of the injuries he had treated had come from the opposition. He had expected to find knife wounds or patches of that strange blackened substance, but the majority of the wounds he treated were purely environmental. Otherwise, it was mostly burn wounds…
Sans shook his head, something just wasn’t lining up.
“Well well well, don’t you look lost in thought!” a voice came from right behind him, causing Sans to jump almost comidically off the ground.
“Whoa now, don’t fall!” the voice continued, a gloved hand on his shoulder steadying him enough to turn around and face the other, “goodness, you’re not too shell shocked are you? I know that blast was rough but I didn’t think it had reached you…” Dawn hummed as he checked Sans over, seemingly looking for wounds with that star-like gaze.
“WHERE ARE THE TWO MONSTERS THAT WERE WITH YOU?” Sans asked immediately, ignoring the other’s concern and brushing the hand off of his shoulder, “YOUR FRIEND SAID YOU TOOK THEM.”
“Ah? Two monsters? Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Dawn shrugged his shoulders a bit too casually, hand now on his hip bone, “You shouldn’t listen to Acrylic too much anyways, they don't always have the best perception of things-”
“I KNOW SOMETHING HAD TO HAVE BEEN DONE, THEY WERE THE FIRST ONES I GOT OUT OF THE CROSSFIRE! WHERE ARE THEY? I HAVEN’T TREATED THEM YET," Sans interrupted. It was rude, he knew! But he was nothing if not a dedicated healer, and he wouldn’t be distracted with idle chit chat.
Dawn gave him a look up and down, eyes boring into his soul, “Hmm. Observant, aren’t you?” the winged skeleton answered with a smirk, “They don’t need any treatment anymore, don’t worry about them.”
“WHAT? THAT ISN’T HOW THIS WORKS, ANYONE WHO IS IN THAT FIGHT NEEDS AT LEAST A PHYSICAL CHECK UP, WHO KNOWS IF THERE’S SOMETHING UNDERLYING INJURY THAT WASN’T NOTICED WITH ALL THE ADRENALIN-”
“I said don’t worry about them,” Dawn cut him off, smile still fixed upon his face but now far too sharp and predatory, “focus on your other patients.”
Sans hesitated a moment, staring up at this clearly very powerful creature. Sans had never been a good fighter, working his best to be Snowdin’s go to healer for the Royal Guard rather than joining the group himself (speaking of which, both strange entities had looked surprised at that notion, he’d have to ask why-). Even if he wasn’t stuck with a single hit point of health, it was clear Dawn could crush him in a heartbeat if he so wanted. In fact, he could’ve crushed all of those strange doppelgangers too now that he thought about it...
Sans crossed his arms in front of him, back straight as he glared up at Dawn’s towering figure, “NOT A CHANCE! I WOULDN’T HAVE SO MANY PATIENTS IF YOU HADN’T BEEN SO RECKLESS WITH YOUR FIRE ANYWAYS,” he scolded, hoping he came across as more confident than he felt.
“Are you accusing me of something?” sweet malice was dripping from his words like honey, barely hidden behind the other’s uncanny smile.
“WELL I DIDN’T TREAT ANY WOUNDS FROM THAT BROTHER OF YOURS IF THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE ASKING!” Sans reiterated, jutting his chin out as he tried not to falter at the dangerous heat radiating from Dawn, “IN FACT, I DIDN’T NOTICE HIM DOING ANYTHING WRONG OF THE SORT!”
Dawn froze at his the mention of his brother, and Sans wasn’t sure if that was really a good thing or not. The angelic skeleton took a step closer to him, circling him like a bird of prey as he looked Sans up and down. The manic grin on his face widened a tad.
“Is that so~?” Dawn practically purred.
“YES, IT IS SO! NOW TELL ME WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING ON, BECAUSE I’M NOT PUTTING ANYONE IN DANGER FOR YOU!”
“Ooooh, I like you!”
“I- WHAT?”
“Yes, you’ll do nicely I think, plenty observant, good healing capabilities, a good amount of patience and bravery, though those aren’t in your soul traits-”
“WAIT HOLD ON- WHAT ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT!? I STILL NEED THOSE TWO- HEY-!!! HEY PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT!!!!” Sans didn’t even have time to react before Dawn scooped him up over his shoulder, medical bag abandoned on the ground behind him.
“Dusk is going to be so excited~! Come along then, you’re mine now~” Dawn sing-songed as he opened up a portal, a place he didn’t recognize at all.
“WAIT- WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME- I DIDN’T AGREE TO THIS!! PAPYRUS!” Sans shouted as he struggled, kicking at the skeleton to no avail as he was dragged through the portal like a sack of potatoes.
The portal snapped shut, leaving Sans to stare out over… a surprisingly idyllic countryside. He didn’t have any time to process the change in scenery before Dawn slipped him off his shoulder and back onto the ground, facing-
“Another one? Dawn, we talked about this,” the goopy skeleton Sans had been helping evacuate people from drawled on monotonously in front of him. No longer was he shrouded in black, or even as goopy as Sans remembered.
“I found us a new healer! He’ll do great I’m su-”
“I’M SORRY YOU WANT ME TO BE WHAT?”
In the future, Star would suppose there are worse ways to be introduced to your best friend and his brother. He certainly got a great clinic office out of it.
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