I Think That The Jury Is Still Out

I don’t think that there is any definitive evidence that DES causes gender dysphoria.

Women say DES made them transgender
WTSP Ch 10
By Dion Lim
July 05, 2016

Back in May, 10News WTSP did an investigation into a drug called Diethylstilbesterol, also known as DES.  More than 5 million women from the 1930s through early '70s took the hormone to prevent miscarriages and a whole host of female health problems.

Instead, it was discovered to cause vaginal cancer and other serious side effects.  Some in the medical community believe it also manipulates gender identity.

After the initial story aired, hundreds came forward from around the country and around the globe; women who believed DES was what caused them to become transgender.

I do not know if my mother took DES, what I do know is that my mother had a number of miscarriages between when my brother was born and when I was born. Two it was around that time that DES was given to prevent miscarriages, three everyone who would know is now dead including the doctor who treated my mother and four when I asked my mother if she took any medicines while she was pregnant with me she replied that she didn’t  remember which I found to be a strange answer.

The article goes on to write about the stories of a couple of trans women and it has another link to another article on DES,

DES is a complicated drug. Given to 5 million women during the 1940s through early '70s, it was meant to prevent miscarriages.

“Many of these women were being told they were given super vitamins.”

[Dr. Dana]Beyer explains there was often no specific dosage, and women were told to take the drug “as needed."  For some, the dosage resulted in more than 50,000 times the estrogen of today’s birth control pills.
[…]
But according to Beyer, who herself was assigned a male at birth, there is something much bigger.

"It was one of those moments … a faceplate moment where you go, 'Oh my God, it really is so obvious.  But nobody wanted to deal with it."

She believes the drug also makes the sons of DES mothers transgender.

Beyer's DES research happened more than a decade ago.  So why didn’t it get more attention then?   Why was it dismissed by so many doctors, and not recognized by the mainstream medical community today?

The answer is twofold.

“It’s unfortunate. [At that time in America] we couldn't talk about it.  It was too scary.”

But this is America now. The age of Caitlyn Jenner and other high-profile transgender men and women. Then there is the HB2 trans bathroom debate raging in North Carolina.

The second reason, Beyer admits is because the study was flawed.

“We didn't have medical records of those of us in the '50s and '60s. We need money to get research to undersign and come up with good data.”

Without that "good data" researchers today can't call Beyer's study credible.

And there in lays the rub, most of the medical information has been lost and without that information you can’t do research. My mother’s doctor was just a town doctor like you see on a Norman Rockwell painting who practice was just another room in his house. Records, what’s that? They kept their records in their head…”I treated Mrs. Miller’s boy for mumps.” That was how records were kept back then.

I don’t think we will never know, but one thing that I think points against it is that there are still trans children coming out and their mother’s didn’t take DES.

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A little known fact, back in 2007 I was interviewed by a reporter from WTSP when I lobbied for ENDA and the James Bird/Mathew Shepard Hate Crime bill