The American College of Pediatricians (doctors who specialize in the health of children) have come out with a report with 8 main points.
Here they are:
- Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder.
- No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.
- A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking.
- Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous.
- According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.
- Children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.
- Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT – affirming countries.
- Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.
So for all y'all who think that kids should get to choose their gender and pick their bathroom, how about we listen to some folks who just might know a bit about childrens health.
H/T Wintery Knight
20 comments:
I don't really want to get in a conversation with you, but just to fill in the missing fact gaps in this story...
Once again, Paul McHugh has used the ever more tarnished name of Johns Hopkins to distort science and spread transphobic misinformation. This time, it comes via a position statement from the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) a tiny offshoot of a real professional organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics. The ACP is a group of less than 200 ultra-conservative, mostly Catholic, people (most of whom aren’t even pediatricians) who oppose letting gay people be parents, the HPV vaccine, marriage equality, birth control and medical care for transgender people. They are in favor of reparative therapy and abstinence-only education, though.
This appears to not be an appeal to actual science, but an attempt to misuse the appearance of science to justify a religious/conservative bias. The appeal WOULD be more convincing if conservative types heeded the research of actual science/scholarly groups like the APA and the AMA, but given the rejection of actual scholarly research when it contradicts with personal religious biases, this is not very convincing. FYI.
To the point of your post, though, I agree. We should look to expert advice. The actual AAP (in operation for decades with 60,000 professional members, as compared to the ~200 members of the ACP) is a more reasonable place to begin a look for expert advice. Consider, if the AMA had 100,000 doctors who recommended against smoking and a pro-smoker group had split off of the AMA and had 100 members who encouraged smoking, which is the group more likely to be giving actual, peer-reviewed advice and research?
Again, not looking for a conversation. I'm just trying to be helpful by pointing out your "experts" aren't.
"Again, not looking for a conversation"
This goes without saying, you haven't been looking for a conversation in quite some time.
As to the post, it seems that you are assuming that the quoted doctors are incapable of reaching an independent conclusion that could be a correct conclusion. If effect you are dismissing the work without actually addressing the substance of their work. You are also, once again, selectively engaging in a logical fallacy. For quite some time you have been extremely critical of any appeal to the preponderance of historical Christian scholarship when said preponderance goes against your unsupported opinion. Yet, when you find it helpful you engage in the same logical fallacy your deride others for engaging in.
So, in light of your desire to once again not have a conversation as well as your selective use of logical fallacy and your cavalier dismissal of the study, I will be quite content to oblige you and not engage in a conversation with you.
It's too bad you aren't looking for a conversation. This seems like one more of those opportunities for you to go through the eight points and demonstrate that they are factually incorrect and actually provide proof instead of simplistic disagreement based on your personal biases.
Dan,
You were quite clear that you are "not looking for a conversation", and while I understand your desire and acknowledge that it is simply a continuation of your unwillingness to engage in a two way conversation over the last few threads, I cannot (in good conscience) allow you to engage in that which you say you do not want. So, since you are "not looking for a conversation", I cannot allow you to simply continue to make comments knowing that all you want is a forum to make unchallenged statements.
So, in the interest of giving you what you want, I will be deleting any comments that continue to demonstrate an unwillingness to converse.
You are welcome.
"...starting out with a religious bias similar to yours."
I will say that I am impressed by how your tactics evolve as things move forward. You continue to demonstrate great creativity when it comes to ways to dismiss those who disagree with you while still avoiding the merits (or lack thereof) of the arguments presented. This new one is quite impressive. It allows you to marginalize and dismiss virtually anyone based on simply your (fallible human) perception of what their "bias" might possibly be. Not only that, but it allows you to appear as if you have no "bias" and that you are driven solely by the evidence. The inherent contradiction in your tactic is that your are exhibiting the exact same sort of bias which you use to dismiss others and you somehow think that your "bias" is somehow justified.
I find it fascinating that there is an appeal to the "serious" scientific research of the APA. At the same time, I've often pleaded for whatever science exists that forms the basis of the APA opinions on all things LGBT. All I've seen thus far are studies that explain the differences between homosexuals and normal people. Those differences do NOT support the very subjective opinion that they are not less normal. It would be no different than providing explanations for why a child might be born with one arm. It doesn't make having one arm a normal thing.
I also find it fascinating that thousands of years of theological scholarship, tradition and understanding isn't enough to trump the very subjective preferences of those who support all things LGBT, yet, we're to ignore the positions of solid pediatricians who oppose the LGBT lobby simply because they are fewer in number than the rest of the pediatric community.
And finally, for now at least, those 200 or so pediatricians that constitute the ACP actually refer to much of the "science" of the APA and the AAP. The difference is that they seem to let the research dictate their opinions, rather than letting their personal bias dictate what the data says. For example,
"According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty."
This suggests that guiding the child to weather its "feelings" as long as possible is most likely to result in the child passing through this phase to live a normal life as the sex the child's body clearly indicates he/she is. The alone shows that the position of the ACP is therefore more logical and clearly based on what the science says about the typical gender confused child. The leftist elements, who are clearly acting out of LGBT activism, would put the child's future at risk by enabling the child's confusion, in order to further the aims of the activist agenda.
One more thing. Once again we see Dan referring to something without actually providing information detailing the source of that "something". The opening line...
"Once again, Paul McHugh has used the ever more tarnished name of Johns Hopkins to distort science and spread transphobic misinformation."
...suggests a pro-LGBT source that cannot be trusted to be objective, as they rarely, if ever, are.
This trend of dismissing anyone who disagrees with him as being driven by "previous bias", while uncritically accepting anything from anyone who agrees with him is a relatively new tactic, but increasingly tiresome.
Don't know that it's particularly new, but definitely tiresome. And frankly, the notion of "bias" is really neither here nor there. Of course a group like the ACP is biased. That's not a problem if the bias has some kind of legitimate basis. For example, to be biased against murderers has a legitimate basis. If one wishes to decry and organization as being biased, one is obliged to speak to that bias and explain why that bias is illegitimate.
Another example is Dan's objection to my citing a source that opposes islam. Right off the bat we can take for granted that any cite that opposes islam is biased against islam. But that's no reason to dismiss it. Better would be to dismiss what they say with some sound, contrary information that renders the site's information as unsound.
Exactly, it is entirely possible to go into something with a bias, but as long as the methodology is sound and the conclusions reflect the results then bias should not be an issue. The problem is the selective use of the bias excuse. Our sources are judged based on a perception of their possible bias without interacting with the method or conclusions, while the bias of other sources are ignored or actively downplayed. The reality is, that by dismissing anything because of a perceived bias it allows one to avoid that actual issues being raised and to maintain ones own preconceived biases.
It's definitely tiresome, it's also one more of the intellectually dishonest tactics folks use to avoid issues.
Dan,
I believe I was quite clear when I said:
"Of course a group like the ACP is biased." Try actually reading the comments that are in response to you.
"If you limit "scholars" and researchers and participants to only those who agree with you, you are not really a research organization, or even basically honest, are you?"
Nonsense to the extreme! You assume honesty is in question because all members share the College’s Mission, Vision and Values. That's idiotic. You also stupidly assume that of those who are members of AAP, all disagree with the College’s Mission, Vision and Values. I doubt you've polled pediatricians to have any clue as to what percentage agrees or disagrees with the ACP.
To reiterate, "bias" isn't a problem. It's expected and mostly beyond one's ability to control. But bias that results from the research is different than bias that colors the research. Based on the self-evident truths inherent in most, if not all of the eight points from the ACP report, truths it doesn't take an "expert" to know intrinsically, the ACP is doubtless a group that lets the science lead them.
Dan,
I'm sorry, but you cannot have it both ways. You can either engage in a conversation or not. If you do not wish to be bothered to invest that energy in a conversation, then don't come in and leave random comments.
Make up your mind.
I can see why building sound policy based on the best available research would concern you, as it undercuts so much of the agenda of those on the left though.
Of course, the notion that bias automatically negates results is an opinion that is unsupported by actual evidence. I have to wonder what it is about the conclusions drawn that is such that the only attacks are on the character of the doctors, not on the content of the research or the validity of their conclusions.
Ad Hom?
Apparently, Craig, there is something seriously wrong with a group of doctors who "cling" to traditional notions of morality, the self-evident benefits of a child being raised by the two who brought it into existence, the sanctity of real marriage and other things of that nature. God bless 'em.
Barbarians, I say.
Now he's saying they're not real experts. To him, peer review is proof of fact.
Post a Comment