Who is telling the truth about the data?

It’s a “private matter” between parent and child that’s becoming “more political.” Thus the typically upbeat Sunday morning show described the multistate initiative to ban gender transition therapies and procedures for children. The segment featured familiar factors among mainstream media outlets covering the matter, including a compassionate family attempting to care for their gender-dysphoric child; an informed medical professional defending the necessity of early intervention to prevent mental health crises; an assessment of the “anti-trans” legislation advancing throughout the country; and a conservative Christian activist, portrayed as intransigent at best, intolerant at worst.

One factor conspicuously absent in these all-too-familiar discussions on transgender therapy: the data. Specifically, data on the efficacy of puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. And then there is the data on the connection between social influence and sudden gender dysphoria; and data on the number of studies that defy the prevailing social narrative.

Consider the October 2019 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry on mental health treatments among trans people who underwent transgender surgeries. The study, by Richard Bränström and John E. Pachankis, was celebrated as validating gender transition surgeries to reduce depression and suicidality among gender dysphoric persons. By August 2020, the Journal issued a retraction of its conclusion after a dozen professionals—including child and adolescent psychiatrist Miriam Grossman, endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, Johns Hopkins professor of psychiatry Paul McHugh, and family physician Dr. Andre Van Mol—expressed their criticism of the study’s interpretation and presentation of data. Within the August 2020 correction, the study’s authors acknowledged that, upon reanalysis, “the results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care.” The Journal waited ten months to publish any letters about the consequent correction.

Or, consider the data published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2022, in conjunction with the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital. The study, titled “Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Nonbinary Youths Receiving Gender-Affirming Care,” claimed hormone altering medications dramatically lowered rates of depression and suicidality among transgender and nonbinary youth. Critics of the research noted flaws in the study’s portrayal of its findings and called for revision in how it was publicized. In fact, the study demonstrated “no statistical improvement” among gender dysphoric youth who received hormones. Were it not for a leaked email by a University of Washington media relations manager, who preferred not to acknowledge the study’s flaws due to “extremely positive pick up by mainstream media,” we might never have known the research university actively suppressed the facts to maintain a prescribed narrative.

The prescribed narrative not only protects research that is flawed. It imputes flaws onto research that is otherwise sound.

Last March, psychologist and Northwestern University professor J. Michael Bailey co-wrote a study on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) among adolescent and young adults, examining a sizable group of parents whose children professed a trans or nonbinary identity despite no history of gender dysphoria. “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” published in Archives of Sexual Behavior by Springer Nature, identified the connection between sudden gender dysphoria and social influence from the perspective of parents. The average age of gender dysphoric children was 14 years old. Parents were more likely to claim their child’s social transition worsened his or her mental health condition than to cite improvement, and to claim their own relationship with their child declined.

The social transitioned youth were overwhelmingly female, 74 percent of whom had a history of mental health issues. The majority of youths had peers who came out as trans around the time they came out as well. Among that majority, biological females were disproportionately represented, further demonstrating the connection between peer contagion and ROGD among teen girls. Social media consumption was also prevalent among trans-identifying youths.

In short, the study confirmed Lisa Littman’s 2018 findings six-fold. Like Littman, Bailey is hardly a social conservative. He is best known for research claiming a genetic basis for homosexuality. He’s also no stranger to controversy: In 2011, he was the subject of scandal following an after-class, Kinsey-esque demonstration on human sexuality.

Yet, despite his progressive bona fides, Bailey’s research committed the unpardonable sin in gender-related research: It defied the social narrative.

Shortly after Bailey’s publication, critics searched for disqualifying fault. They found what they were looking for. And it wasn’t in the process of research and data acquisition. Nor was it in the presentation of the study’s findings. Instead, it was a matter of procedure. Bailey and his co-author had neglected obtaining written consent from his survey’s participants, a standard practice in the field’s research. Weeks after its publication, the journal retracted the article (but left it online). Never mind that Springer published some 19 other papers that also failed to meet its standard of written consent from survey participants.

Suppressing facts. Squashing dissent. Shaming nonconformists. The medical community is progressively exchanging altruism for autocracy.

By and large, parents can be forgiven for ushering their children into life-altering treatments and procedures; they are often just as manipulated and misled by the medical professionals entrusted with their child’s care. Those who vowed to “do no harm,” are not only telling patients they can choose their gender. They’re telling patients they can choose their own facts.