NY: GC Author Misleads Readers on Trans Science

Selin Davis, from her website

in the New York Post, a right-leaning tabloid newspaper.

Lisa Selin Davis fights just enough room to write that there isn’t enough evidence to treat gender dysphoria in youth around an absolutely gigantic, screen-scrolling size ad for her book.

This article strikes a reasonable tone, but it leaves out information necessary to understand the issues at play. Davis’ primary focus is the lack of evidence behind treatments for gender dysphoria in youth in light of the recently published update to WPATH guidelines for transgender medical care. However, she fails to compare evidence for treatments for gender dysphoria with evidence for youth medicine in other areas.

Due to ethical issues with medical testing on kids, most child and adolescent treatments have less evidence that medicine for adults. And, in fact, there’s much more evidence behind treatments for gender dysphoria than for most common treatments for this age group.

Davis goes on to quote a conversion therapist who proposes alternative treatments, but here any discussion of evidence falls away. Davis does not mention whether there’s evidence that the conversion practices she approves of work better than the mainstream medical treatments she says lack evidence.

In fact, conversion practices are known to be ineffective or harmful.