This study promotes the irreversible genital mutilation of impressionable children and suggests that it might alleviate their depression. Media coverage of this study could influence parents to seek out these procedures for their children, and it convinces medical professionals to keep their concerns private. This sets up patients for possible failure, prevents honest inquiry into what the data says, and can unduly influence laws under debate. The inaccurate press release has real-world consequences.

Amid contentious debates over gender identity, the University of Washington Medicine, or UW Medicine, proudly and eagerly alerted the press of a study in mid-March indicating that transgender teen patients saw rates of depression “plummet” because of so-called “gender-affirming care.”
The study earned nationwide praise. As Texas and Idaho were debating bans on allowing children to receive cross-sex hormones, this was the perfect research to show the heartlessness of conservative lawmakers and pundits who declared puberty blockers and surgical intervention as a dangerous and potentially irreversible gamble.

Most dramatically, after tracking the mental health of 104 transgender-identifying patients aged 13 to 20 for a year at Seattle Children’s Hospital, “gender-affirming care was associated with a 60% reduction in depression and a 73% drop in harmful or suicidal thoughts among the participants.”

But the study didn’t actually say what was initially claimed. Some voices now accuse the researchers of purposefully misinterpreting data to promote the irreversible.
UW Medicine’s communications department seemingly unintentionally misinterpreted the study. But their unwillingness to proactively correct the record was part of a concerted effort to downplay their errors because they had already received positive press, according to emails I uncovered through a public disclosure request.
The original press release was sent on March 11 and claimed that “gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary adolescents caused rates of depression to plummet.”

By April 8, UW Medicine communications staff dramatically changed the claims.

Independent journalist Jesse Singal started posing questions about the study to UW Communications staff, and one of the study’s authors, who agreed to speak on background, confirmed that some of the data the researchers presented, along with their claims, did not add up.
“Among the kids who went on hormones, there isn’t genuine statistical improvement here from baseline to the final wave of data collection,” Singal wrote on his Substack. “At baseline, 59% of the treatment-naive kids experienced moderate to severe depression. Twelve months later, 56% of the kids on GAM [gender-affirming medicine] experienced moderate to severe depression. At baseline, 45% of the treatment-naive kids experienced self-harm or suicidal thoughts. Twelve months later, 37% of the kids on GAM did.”
In other words, there was no statistically significant improvement. At best, the authors could argue that wrong-sex hormones and trans surgeries did not make these children’s depression worse than it already was.

Laura East, Department of Epidemiology spokeswoman, emailed colleagues that Singal posted “some pretty concerning claims.” However, she wrote that UW Medicine should not respond.

Read More
Related Posts:

Since we don’t live in Mayberry any longer, parents need to reject the wisdom of this age and the foolish counsel from state officials. Instead, the way of wisdom, maturity, and love calls for parental engagement, which sometimes means telling our kids, “Wait…trust me…[while we] try to keep temptation away” for your present good and everlasting joy.

In a 1961 episode of Andy Griffith, a drifter who was hanging around Andy’s hometown of Mayberry had exerted some influence over Andy’s son, Opie. The drifter, while being confronted by Andy, told Andy that he should let Opie make his own decisions about life and how Opie wants to live.
Andy’s reply is a display of parenting wisdom.
You can’t let a youngun’ decide for himself. He’ll grab at the first flashy-with-shiny-ribbons-on-it-thing he sees. It’s difficult for him to tell the difference between right and wrong. When he finds out there’s a hook in it, it’s too late. The wrong kinds of things come packaged in so much glitter, it’s hard to convince him that the other thing might be better in the long run. All a parent can do is say, “Wait…trust me”…and try to keep temptation away.
Fast forward to 2023 and this type of wisdom is in short supply in our culture.
Instead, many in our culture believe we need to let our kids make their own decisions, without any input, challenge, or correction from the adults…parents included! Listen to Minnesota Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan: “When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them…That’s what it means to be a good parent.”[1] According to this elected official, a good parent merely listens and believes all children. There is no nuance in this statement, and it reflects the increasingly common ideology of unquestioned expressive individualism. That is, every individual, no matter their age, should define their own reality, including something like their gender.[2] And parents, have no authority or permission to offer a corrective.
If a girl thinks she’s a boy, though genetically a girl, then the parent is slave to the child. They must do what she wants. And if, under the counsel or coercion of a teacher, physician, or YouTube influencer, that child wants to have top surgery, bottom surgery, or some combination of the two, the revolutionaries of our day tell parents they have no authority to challenge the child.
The problems are readily apparent, particularly in reference to children. What parent hasn’t dealt with a child who simply is not thinking clearly about a situation? Perhaps a girl thinks she is fat, so she makes herself vomit on a regular basis. Do we simply affirm her belief that though she weighs 80lbs, she is obese? If someone identifies as a worthless human being who is better off dead, do we affirm their self-hatred and usher them towards suicide?
Is it not a common thing for kids, and their wild imaginations, to dream about all sorts of fantastical realities? Are we not aware of how fickle the feelings of immature children can be?
Read More
Related Posts:

Disney made its bed. They picked a side. Now, Chapek and every other CEO choosing politics over parents will have to live with it. In the meantime, Harding insisted, Americans can’t let up. “[The Left has made] Disney, which is in every home in America… part of their arm of influence. If we do not make this the last stand — [if we] do not make this a turning point, I believe it could be too late to recover from it.”

Apparently, Disney isn’t planning to make nice with parents anytime soon. Thanks to bombshell video, leaked Tuesday, Americans are starting to understand just what kind of Fantasyland the company is. Corporate President Karey Burke painted a horrifying picture of the company’s future projects, insisting on an employee Zoom call that she wants a “minimum of 50 percent of its characters to be LGBTQIA” and other minorities. “I’m here as the mother of two queer children,” Burke said, “one transgender child and one pansexual child.” And “going forward,” she insisted, those are the stories Disney should be telling.
The video, which had almost two million views in less than 24 hours, was the latest crack in what’s quickly becoming an irreparable split with America. Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who’s tried to overcorrect for his silence on the Florida parental rights bill, has managed — in four short weeks — to turn the company from a moderately woke entertainment giant into public enemy number one. Now, as more trickles out about what’s really going on behind the scenes, most parents are saying they want no part of the empire Walt built.
As pathetic as Chapek’s public groveling has been to witness, it’s the internal activism that’s truly concerning. Apart from Burke, Disney’s television animation executive producer, Latoya Raveneau, spent portions of that same meeting bragging about her indoctrination tactics. “Our leadership over there has been so welcoming to my not-so-secret gay agenda,” she gushed. “Wherever I could I was adding queerness. No one would stop me and no one was trying to stop me.”
When they aren’t busy turning princes into princesses (or banning the words “boys and girls” at theme parks), Disney is vowing to take on Florida’s Parental Rights in Education policy. In its latest “huh?” moment, the company issued a formal statement pledging to fight a law that — ironically — Disney never opposed until it passed. “Our goal as a company is for the law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.”
Good luck, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) fired back. Our state, he insisted, is not run by “California corporate executives.” “We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, health care and well-being of their children. We will not move from that. I don’t care what corporate media outlets say. I don’t care what Hollywood says. I don’t care what big corporations say. Here I stand. I’m not backing down.”
Later Tuesday, after insisting that Disney’s threats had “crossed a line,” DeSantis pointed to the company’s hypocrisy. “They actually do Disney cruise to the nation of Dominica, which criminalizes homosexuality. So they’re fine doing that and lining their pockets.” Same with the Chinese Communist Party, where they do tens of billions of dollars in business. “Maybe,” he joked, instead of banning K-3rd grade lessons about sex and gender, Florida should have done a bill outlawing “talk on the Uyghur abuse in China. Disney would have supported that legislation, because they don’t want to say a word about that.”
In the meantime, let’s hope Chapek’s job was worth the price Disney is paying. Christopher Rufo, the conservative journalist who posted the company’s Zoom call, said he’s been inundated with comments from mom groups and other consumers who are cutting the cord with Disney over its ideological hostage-taking. Florida Rep. Joe Harding (R) is just one of the leaders who can’t believe the company is willing to alienate so many people to placate an angry few. “What it tells you,” he warned on “Washington Watch,” “is that right now, their intent is not even necessarily political wins. I mean, there’s been polling that’s shown that the majority of Democratic primary voters actually agree with this bill. So the way the Left has doubled down is even more alarming, because I believe they are willing to die on this hill. They are [very] dug in on indoctrinating our children.”
The goal is to cut parents out completely, so the Left can lead children down this dangerous path. But unfortunately for them, there’s no appetite for the outrageous brand of extremism they’re pushing. Part of that is thanks to DeSantis, who’s simply refused to back down in the face of the mob. “Our governor, he’s a lion,” Harding agreed. “On these conservative issues, we’ve never had a governor in any state that’s this bold and this fearless.” And because of that, we see an outpouring of parents across the country demanding more bills like this one.
Read More