The Medical University of South Carolina initially said it wouldn’t be affected by a law banning use of state funds for treatment “furthering the gender transition” of children under 16. Months later, it cut off that care to all trans minors.

One Saturday morning in September 2022, Terrence Steyer, the dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, placed an urgent call to a student. Just a year prior, the medical student, Thomas Agostini, had won first place at a university-sponsored event for his graduate research on transgender pediatric patients. He also had been featured in a video on MUSC’s website highlighting resources that support the LGBTQ+ community.

Now, Agostini and his once-lauded study had set off a political firestorm. Conservative activists seized on one line in particular in the study’s summary — a parenthetical noting the youngest transgender patient to visit MUSC’s pediatric endocrinology clinic was 4 years old — and inaccurately claimed that children that young were prescribed hormones as part of a gender transition. Elon Musk amplified the false claim, tweeting, “Is it really true that four-year-olds are receiving hormone treatment?” That led federal and state lawmakers to frantically ask top MUSC leaders whether the public hospital was in fact helping young children medically transition. The hospital was not; its pediatric transgender patients did not receive hormone therapy before puberty, nor does it offer surgical options to minors.

  • @[email protected]
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    -231 year ago

    Why does every major medical organization and over a million doctors disagree with you?

    No, not really and I don’t know what you base that on.

    KI, the largest medical research center in Sweden and one of the largest in the world did a systemic study on the research basis of hormone treatment and concluded that treating gender dysphoria in children should only be considered experimental.

    https://news.ki.se/systematic-review-on-outcomes-of-hormonal-treatment-in-youths-with-gender-dysphori

      • @[email protected]
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        -91 year ago

        Complete tinfoil hat but you tell yourself whatever you need to get trough the day.

        I point to research, you point to whatever the fuck that is. I expected more from this community tbh but shit…

    • @webadict
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      121 year ago

      Yes really. Your study suggests doing more studies, not that the effects were negative (because if they were, the conclusion would be no further studies.) At the end of the paper, it also pointed out newer studies not included in the 196 studies out of the 10,000 it pretends to have looked it that found the benefits did exist (nd even then, it really only looked at a couple dozen studies exhaustively).

      The biases that your study shows are known, and fucking obvious to anyone that has talked to a trans person once in their lifetime: There aren’t many long-term studies. This is due to obvious reasons, like discrimination, lack of support, and higher chance of being murdered, which most people don’t want. The study also seemed to show that the bone density issue wasn’t as pronounced as some nay-sayers seem to think, but they bury that in the data analysis and hide behind a more hardline in the synopsis. Additionally, you can’t really do a randomized approach in this case because of fucking ethical concerns! Obviously!!! Randomly giving out hormones seems like a bad idea, both to people that want it and people that don’t!

      But, you don’t really give a shit because you didn’t read the study, and also you hate trans people, and that’s what you actually care about.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        Data on the effects on psychosocial health are lacking but there is some evidence that hormonal treatment may impact on bone maturation. The researchers conclude that hormonal treatment of gender dysphoria in this age group should be regarded as experimental treatment rather than standard procedure.

        It’s the second paragraph, read the damn thing.

        How long did it take you to spell out this nonsense anyway? Probably longer than reading the article…

        Also I don’t hate trans people, that’s just your small-minded assumption you ignorant fuck. I linked an article, that’s it.

        • @webadict
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          51 year ago

          I did read the thing, and explained how they pointed out the bone density in the data, but obviously, you only read the second paragraph.

          But, you’re right, I didn’t read the entire thing, so could you quote section 3.5 under Results for me, since I’m obviously unable to read? It’s the one that might be labeled “Bone health outcomes” if I could read. Assuming that I can’t read, and looking at the studies examined, it appears that the loss of bone density is pretty inconclusive, especially when hormones are taken earlier, but there were two studies that showed a minor decrease in bone density in transwomen when using puberty blockers, by a smaller margin than I had previously thought (you can read studies 21 and 22 so my illiteracy doesn’t affect you.)

          Or would you like to quote the portion about Psychosocial and mental health under section 3.3? What the study shows seems to be that 4 of the 6 studies had some improvement (14, 15, 16, 17), though it should be noted that study 19 was about testing fucking brain activations (no decline in that!) and not about mental health, and study 18 was about initial reduction in symptoms from their first appointment, so really, 4 out of 4 studies showed an improvement.

          Dipshit.

          • @[email protected]
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            -41 year ago

            lmao, dude, you’re just rambling, wtf are you talking about You said:

            Why does every major medical organization and over a million doctors disagree with you?

            I pointed to a comprehensive study that shows that it is clearly not the case.

            • @webadict
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              51 year ago

              I pointed out the studies flaws because you didn’t read it, can’t interpret it yourself, and are not a doctor. Here is a list of actual major medical organizations that suggest gender-affirming care for trans youth:

              American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
              
              American Academy of Dermatology
              
              American Academy of Family Physicians
              
              American Academy of Nursing
              
              American Academy of Pediatrics
              
              American Academy of Physician Assistants
              
              American College Health Association
              
              American College of Nurse-Midwives
              
              American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
              
              American College of Physicians
              
              American Counseling Association
              
              American Heart Association
              
              American Medical Association
              
              American Medical Student Association
              
              American Nurses Association
              
              American Osteopathic Association
              
              American Psychiatric Association
              
              American Psychological Association
              
              American Public Health Association
              
              American Society of Plastic Surgeons
              
              Endocrine Society
              
              Federation of Pediatric Organizations
              
              GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality
              
              National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health
              
              National Association of Social Workers
              
              National Commission on Correctional Health Care
              
              Pediatric Endocrine Society
              
              Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine
              
              World Medical Association
              
              World Professional Association for Transgender Health
              

              And if the WPATH didn’t find actual health benefits that outweighed the actual downsides for puberty blockers and hormonal treatments, then they fucking wouldn’t recommend them. This would be obvious to anyone that knew anything.

              • @[email protected]
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                -11 year ago

                I didn’t write the study. If you think it’s flawed take that up with the researches who did write it.

                • @webadict
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                  21 year ago

                  Typical transphobic coward. You refuse to defend the study, but you won’t admit it’s a bad study.

                  Will you argue you’re not transphobic? Because that would involve admitting that gender-affirming care and all it entails should be administered to any trans person that wants it. Otherwise, you do not care about the outcomes and health of trans people, at best, or want them to suffer, at worst.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    -11 year ago

                    You obviously have some personal issues related to this subject-matter. All I did was refute the bullshit claim you made in the original comment by linking this study.

                    But if you feel so threatened by scientific research that doesn’t align with your world view then you need to get help somehow.

                    I’m not a transphobe.

                    But again all of this seems to me a way for you to manage what amounts to a threat to your world view.

            • @Syrc
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              31 year ago

              Where does it say “Medicalization of trans children is a bad idea”? Because I only read that it’s not researched enough and might have reversible side effects.

              • @[email protected]
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                -11 year ago

                The researchers conclude that hormonal treatment of gender dysphoria in this age group should be regarded as experimental treatment rather than standard procedure.

                They conclude that it shouldn’t be standard practice and only considered experimental. Isn’t that enough?

                • @Syrc
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                  31 year ago

                  It still doesn’t say it’s “a bad idea” like that commenter said, just that we don’t have sufficient proof to conclude that it’s 100% harmless.

                  There’s plenty of treatments we do that are not 100% safe, but we still employ them because the alternative is worse. The article is just encouraging more research, not for the practice to stop (It being considered “experimental” or “standard” barely matters as far as I know, since there’s a lot of assessments and tests to do before allowing someone to undergo hormonal therapy anyway).

                  • @[email protected]
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                    -11 year ago

                    No, it’s rare for a treatment to go from standard practice to experimental, like they suggest. That means a serious misassesment has been made at some point.

                    The researches conclude that the hormone treatment makes irreversible changes to the bone structure but that the positive aspects as a treatment to gender dysphoria have not been sufficiently observed.