Whenever people do the whole “evidence for transition is poor because it’s not a randomized controlled trial” I know they are basically just using that term mindlessly (or maliciously) and not actually thinking about what it means.
Like, how do you intend to ethically and practically do such a study? Are you going to give people placebo HRT? Placebo surgery?
How is that going to work when these interventions visibly alter the body in a way that is going to be obviously obvious to everyone?
This reads like an attempt to provide cover to sell transphobia to the scientifically uneducated, kind of like when people used to do the whole “evolution is just a theory” dance.
Yeah its that. I mean I think there are over a few million trans people, and THEY say it works and immpretty sure one of them HAS to have a PHD or a degree of any kind (hecc, @catboybiologist is, well, a biologist. And idk if @nyancrimew has anything regarding computer but i feel she would be an excellent “Informatics” teacher) (thats what we call computer studies in italy lol 😅)
Like idk man but im pretty sure thats enough proof of it. Well. Working
I can be pretty US brained sometimes, sorry, so this is the first time I’m hearing about the Cass review, and my first time hearing about Hillary Cass at all. I’ll probs have more to say at some point (which uh OH MY FUCKING GOD 388 PAGES IM A GRAD STUDENT OW MY TIME) but my immediate reaction is a couple of things:
Many, many literature reviews and reports that advise medical already exist to this degree, the most dominant of which are WPATH and UCSF standards of care.
Based on the news about this, it seems that she’s talking more about doctors being “afraid” to speak up bc bias, while failing to accept that her position is already the status quo. Also, general lol @ what she’s saying
The criteria she’s using to discredit studies represent a fundamental misinterpretation of observational vs experimental studies. Again, the “impossible standard” here is trying to treat this as an experimental as opposed to an observational situation. It’s like trying to create a control group of a planet not going through global warming in an ecology study
If I’m reading right (which tbf I’m just skimming [literally TAing a class rn lol] page 51 literally straight up says that they’re excluding any study with “unconcious bias” in their questioning, so uh….
the only studies that would meet their standards of a randomized control would be wildly unethical, and they basically outright state this on page 50? So yes, a literally impossible standard of evidence
Don’t have time to go through each paper rn but literally most of these look fine? And they’re disregarding a shitton more? The fuck is this lit review? I know lots of studies that are fantastic that directly go against the conclusions here.
Just to clarify my background, I don’t have specific expertise here, I have a BS in molecular bio, a MS in bioinformatics (bio+CS), and I’m working on a PhD in molecular bio. And this is my cursory look. So huge disclaimers but yeah ofc this is BS. Disregard it, this is a clear case of the public latching on to the one “expert” that is willing to say what they want in the face of the thousands of others saying something else.
ALT