No S*** Sherlock

We knew this but it is nice to see it in a newspaper.

Florida leaders misrepresented research before ban on gender-affirming care
PolitiFact | Experts said Florida mischaracterized a statistic linked to an academic review from 2016.
Tampa Bay Times
By Yacob Reyes PolitiFact
December 11, 2022


Behind Florida’s decision to block clinical services for transgender adolescents is a talking point — repeated by the state’s governor and top medical authorities — that most cases of gender incongruence fade over time.

The Florida Board of Medicine voted Nov. 4 to approve a rule that barred physicians from performing surgical procedures on minors to alter “primary or secondary sexual characteristics” and from prescribing them medication to suppress puberty and hormones. The rule included an exception for patients who were already receiving those treatments.

Two days later, Gov. Ron DeSantis said gender-affirming care is “an example of ideology overtaking the practice of medicine,” touting that he worked with the board to take a stand against it.

“Over 80% of the dysphoria amongst teenagers resolves itself by the time they become older,” DeSantis said during a Nov. 6 campaign event. “So why are you mutilating their body parts?”

Earlier in the year, the Florida Department of Health used the statistic as it advised against medical transitioning for minors. The department’s April memo said, “80% of those seeking clinical care will lose their desire to identify with the non-birth sex.”

This is total Bull S***!

And they know it but preferred to instead.

The 80% figure comes from a 2016 paper published in the “International Review of Psychiatry.”

[…]

Other experts mentioned concerns with the methodology of studies cited in the paper.

Kristin Dayton, a pediatric endocrinologist, said the studies had a small share of children assigned female at birth — and are thus not representative samples of the population. Eight of the 10 studies examined only children assigned male at birth.

At least six of the studies were conducted before the American Psychiatric Association developed a formal diagnosis for gender dysphoria in children. Some of the 10 studies did not include children who were referred to the studies by medical professionals.

A 1987 study, for instance, used advertisements to recruit children. Only 30% of the children examined had “frequently” stated a desire to be a girl. Experts said most of the children in that study wouldn’t have met the current criteria for gender dysphoria.

GIGO, Garbage In, Garbage Out, the study was flawed and everyone knew it but that didn’t stop these conservative doctors from doing a hatchet job on us and to make it even worst these doctors knew their policy will cause live long irrevocable harm to the children. So much for their oaths!

“The 80% statistic, used by the Florida Department of Health and the state’s leadership, is categorically false,” Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, told PolitiFact. “After a close read of the scholarship cited by the state, the state’s conclusion simply cannot be drawn in good faith.”

[…]

McNamara also said that Florida’s reliance on a 2016 paper is a “glaring problem,” because the state neglected to consider about six years of new research.

A study published in July, for instance, sought to develop an estimate of transgender children who later stop identifying with a gender incongruent with their assigned sex.

It evaluated 300 transgender children over five years. To participate in the study, children must have already begun social transitioning, which often involves changing names, haircuts and pronouns.

Researchers from Princeton University’s TransYouth Project followed up with participants in-person and online. At the end of the five years, 94% of participants still identified as transgender.

This is nothing more than a pogrom against the most vulnerable children generated by conservative Republicans for political gains not based on any legitimate research but is nothing more than political hatchet job.