Sisters, some of you may lack experience evaluating scientific evidence, yet are confronted with TRAs saying “science proves trans people exist!” and providing links to scientific studies claiming to have found a biological basis for trans identity, or proof that transition is beneficial to trans people.
I’d like to outline a few concepts that may help you understand the problems with the science that has been conducted on the subject of trans people. I am not a scientist, so I’d much appreciate any feedback or corrections.
1. Begging the question
Here are some of the studies being held up as proof that trans people are “valid”:
You’ve heard it before, I’m sure. Are you ready to learn why these studies were giant wastes of time? And no, it’s not even because of the obvious problem right off the bat (How did they know there were no closted trans people in the “cis” groups? How could they be sure there were no future detransitioners in the trans groups?).
It’s because, if you want to do science, you cannot start by assuming what you are trying to prove. This is known as the fallacy of “begging the question.” They relied on the self-reports of trans people to sort them in a group apart from cis people. In attempting to prove the biological basis for the category “trans”, they assumed the category “trans” had a biological basis. This is what pseudoscientists do.
This fallacy comes up a lot in arguments with the devoutly religious: “The human eye is too complex to have evolved, it must have been designed. Therefore, God exists.” Sir, no…. you cannot assume that the eye is too complex to have evolved that way. You must prove that to me.
What they should have done, right from the start, is study the brains of self-identified trans people, and from there predict the future detransitioners. Or they could have studied the brains of self-identified non-trans people, and predicted which ones were closted trans people. That would have been real science.
“I am not convinced. After all, they found something that looks “female” in the brains of the trans women! Maybe their methods are flawed but they must have found something!”
Not necessarily. I think what may be going on is known as:
2. P-hacking
When I was a young child, I saw a History Channel Special that claimed to prove that the Bible predicted the JFK assassination. I think the letters of a certain translation were arranged in grid form, and certain words related to the JFK assassination were grouped in close proximity. Stupid, right?
But I was just a kid, so I told my dad “Dad! Did you know the bible predicted the JFK assassination?” And my father recognized that as an excellent opportunity to teach me about p-hacking.
“No,” he said, “those are just coincidences.”
“Dad, are you blind? What are the odds that those exact words would be found together like that?”
“Not very high. But don’t forget… they weren’t looking for evidence that the bible predicted the JFK assassination. They were looking for evidence that the Bible predicted anything, in the history of ever. It’s actually quite unlikely, using their methods, that you’d find NO uncanny predictions of anything that’s ever happened in human history. And you’d probably find a few uncanny predictions in the Harry Potter books, using this method.”
These researchers in the second study cited did not set out to find whether trans men had similar fractional anistropy levels in posterior part of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus to cis men. They were looking at whether the white matter patterns of trans men had any similarity to cis men (of course, in doing so they flagrantly beg the question, but I digress).
The brain is highly complex. When you conduct an MRI scan, you generate mountains of data. And if you set out to prove that a similarity exists somewhere in this mile-deep well of data you have generated for these individuals, you are going to find something that appears statistically significant. It’s actually unlikely that you will find no similarities between any two groups of people who have their brains scanned. And, if you are engaged in anti-scientific motivated reasoning, you will take this and claim to have found evidence for a biological basis for trans identification.
“Perhaps there is faulty science going on but you can’t argue with the results! Transition saves lives! Studies have shown that it makes people feel so much better!”
Well, there’s a problem with that, too.
3. The placebo effect
The neurological basis of the placebo effect has been extensively studied. We know, for example, that it can be augmented or dampened by certain drugs. We know that it exists even when you know you are being given a placebo. And we know that the more elaborate a placebo is, the more effective it is: so a surgery will be more effective than an injection, which will be better than a pill.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Have you ever heard of a more elaborate treatment than gender transition: surgery, hormones, clothing, hair, name, pronouns, every aspect of your life can change.
But transition has not been proven to be any more effective at treating gender dysphoria than some kind of equally elaborate placebo. That’s the piece that’s missing, that would usually be accounted for when studying any sort of medical treatment.
“But there are a lot of health benefits to placebos. If they help people, then they help people.”
This is true. There’s a problem, though. Transition is not tumeric pills or reiki or like… journaling frequently. In fact, it comes with risks of absolutely nightmarish consequences. Trans women are walking around, right now, with colostomy bags because of botched vaginoplasties. Trans men are stuck with chronic kidney infections from phalloplasties, as well as the risk of gangrene and lifelong weakness in their donor sites, as well as phantom pain and progressive tightening and sclerosing from their mastectomies. Puberty blockers disrupt brain development and put a child at risk of osteoporosis, sterility, and sexual dysfunction. Hormones cause powerful and systemic changes that have not been fully studied, but consider this: what happens when the cartilagenous valves on a male-sized heart become thinner and more flexbile under the influence of estrogen? What happens when the cartilage structures in a female sized brain become larger and tougher in response to testosterone? Do you know?
You don’t, because nobody knows. We aren’t studying these treatments. We are experimenting on human beings, just like they did in the Nazi camps, and for what: treatments that have not been proven to be better than a placebo, that are based on faulty science, and that don’t even hold up to common sense. Why would you amputate a healthy young woman’s breasts? Because she begged you to? Is that how medicine works?
“But why does the trans rights movement need to lean on junk science? Why don’t they do real science instead?”
Because it is a religion. That’s it, that’s the only explanation left. They believe that they have gender identities, that are at odds with their physical bodies. Theses gender identities have not been demonstrated to exist. These gender identities seem to want things of trans people, and they seem to be placated with certain rites (going to the beach after top surgery, standing to pee after phalloplasty) and certain prayers (compelled pronoun usage). Gender identities act similarly to the members of any polytheistic pantheon.
I have no problem with anyone’s religion. But it is time the scientific establishment, and the government, understand that in “affirming” trans people, while defacing the scientific method, logic and common sense, they are in fact respecting an establishment of religion. They do this to the ultimate detriment of trans people, who have come to them for help, for answers, and are made a mockery.
“Why do you care so much about trans people?”
Because they’re human beings and they deserve better than this horseshit. Because I used to be one. Because if not me, then who?
so on one hand, you have homosexuality and bisexuality, which appear in every human culture and have appeared in every period of human history, and also appear in many pair bonding animals. they are biological phenomena that predate language, culture, and the species homo sapiens.
homosexuality and bisexuality are also instantly recognizable. they look the same everywhere, and will until the end of time. and they are immutable: we all know that “ex-gay” means the person is still gay.
on the other hand, trans is a self-identification. it is extremely culturally specific: ask any trans rights activist if a white person can identify as two-spirit. it takes strikingly different forms in different times and places, and even in the same time and place: on the same block there may be trans people who desperately want to transition, who don’t want to transition, who feel crippling dysphoria, who feel no dysphoria, who go to great lengths to pass for the opposite sex, who make no effort to alter their appearence, who acknowledge that they are not literally changing their sex, who insist that they have always been the opposite sex, and everything in between. there is no cohesion, and there’s in fact a lot of squabbling over the finer points of the dogma right now. (are trans people under the nonbinary umbrella, or are nonbinary people under the trans unbrella? do you need dysphoria to be trans? and furthermore, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?)
it is also religious: it posits a “gender identity” that has not been shown to have material existence and does not occur anywhere else in the animal kingdom (the few isolated attempts to find transgenderism in animals have been laughable). “gender identity” has a lot of similarities to the “thetan” of scientology and the “soul” of christianity.
it has been given a veneer of scientific legitimacy as some papers have come out attempting to prove that trans people are “valid”, usually by claiming to show some neural similarity between trans men and men, and between trans women and women. but there’s a problem… in attempting to prove that the biological category “trans people” exists, they have assumed that the category “trans people” exists. they have “begged the question.” they have looked at the brains of trans women and women and found similarities. that looks like science to people who don’t know better, but it’s actually pseudoscience. let me know when they can look at trans peoples’ brains and predict who will DEtransition… who’s really “cis”. THAT would be real science.
trans identification is also very subject to change, much like moods are (dysphoria literally means “bad mood”). detransitioners will testify how sincere their trans-identification was, and many of them will have to live with permanent medical disabilities as they try to rebuild their lives. this does not stop those still in the community from slandering them as “never trans”, treating them how all religious zealots treat apostates.
so why is it the lgb”t” community? what do we have in common? what political goals do we share? what do we, as homosexuals and bisexuals, gain by hitching our wagons to the trans rights crowd? the trans rights movement has too many internal inconsistencies and contradictions to last much longer. their ship will sink… i don’t think we need to go down with it.
tiktok is such an awful app, it’s almost designed to feed you misinformation and expose you to insane discourse. unlike beloved tumblr, the app that feeds me misinformation and exposes me to insane discourse
No, no, no, you see on tiktok an algorithm feeds you misinformation. On Tumblr I feed myself misinformation from my charcuterie board of hand-selected unhinged mutuals.
None of that mass market junk. Only artisanal, small batch, sustainably cultivated, fair trade horseshit.
