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[–]Ethereal[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

This is the article expressing criticism. There were a few main issues Jesse pointed out. This isn't even all of them

  1. People were conflating depression going down with depression failing to go up. These sound similar, but it's like the difference between cancer not getting worse and curing/reducing cancer. They're both good things, but fundamentally different claims.

  2. The number of people in the study went from 7 people on hormones/blockers vs. 92 not on blockers to 57 on blockers vs. 6 (!!!) not on blockers over 12 months. So the study lost 36 participants over the course of it. Studies lose participants, but the non-blocker group went down to 6, a very small sample size.

  3. The number and distribution of the dropouts calls the results into question, as the people who dropped out may have done so because they got better or because they didn't feel the clinic was helping.

  4. Just as the survey doesn't ask why people left the survey, the survey doesn't ask why the 6 people stayed in contact but didn't go on blockers. They could easily be extreme cases, where they weren't eligible for blockers due to existing issues. The small sample size means these issues can become a big deal for results.

  5. They had participants fill out a survey that scored people's depression from 0 (completely healthy) to 27 (imminent suicide risk). Yet it largely compressed the results into binaries such as whether the score was higher or lower than 10. This means that someone could go from upper 20's to lower 10's and be counted as no change, or have only a tiny change but they were right at the line between the two.

  6. There's a lot of data they didn't reveal, which could answer some of these questions.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Certainly doesn't seem like a very conclusive study as it stands.

[–]Ethereal[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Right, but the bigger issue here is that UW was made aware of the issue with the study, and even agreed with at least point 1. They updated the wording in the study itself, but did not tell anyone who previously reported on it that it had changed. Internal emails show that because the original claims got positive coverage, they didn't want to draw attention to anything that might detract from it.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah definitely seems like they are trying to misrepresent the study and aren't being very transparent.

I think about the only way you could possibly try to research these kinds of things would be to essentially compare results between four groups.

One group you give hormones too and let them socially transition.

One group you give no hormones too and let them socially transition.

One group you give no hormones too and give them non-gender affirming counseling to identify better with their birth sex.

One group you give hormones too and give them non-gender affirming counseling to identify better with their birth sex.

Then finally you have a control group you just give a placebo and no counseling.

Now granted this would be a very unethical experiment to run since it's playing with people's lives. And it would be basically impossible to source participants ethically now since this is now largely a political issue I suspect everyone coming in already has their preferred treatment that they want and won't accept anything other than that.

I guess about the only thing we'll be able to do going forward is just compare suicide rates for trans people to the general population and historical rates. I suspect the rates will generally be much higher than the general population regardless of transition but I think it will be very difficult to compare the suicide rates of those who suffer from gender disphoria and choose not to transition since they'll likely not choose treatment and won't show up in the statistics.