-Opens with a claim that they found 216 inaccuracies, that "affect every section." It seems like if that's the case, just neatly list the 216 inaccuracies off. They don't though, and instead the document seems far too short for 216 inaccuracies. The number seems like little more than something meant to make people go "hurrdurr o wow 216, dats uh lot."
Hilariously, they cite that the Files use the Gish Gallop tactic, where they try to overwhelm people with a sheer amount of errors so that they have difficulty responding to everything, while this critique itself is immediately trying to use volume of errors to dismiss the file.
-Critiques that the Files mention a petition against the current methodology of trans treatments as though the petition was composed of 2000 signatures from medical staff. In reality, the petition was open to the public, and most of the signatures seem to be by family members of kids and teens that were treated. However, the critique does nothing to touch on how if the petition were open to the public, then yes, the majority of the public are not employed as medical staff, so it's inevitable that most will not be from medical staff.
Did medical staff sign though...? This is left unanswered. It also approaches the signatures of family members with a dismissive attitude.
Opening the petition myself, I'm immediately met with people marked as psychiatrists, psychologists and pediatricians, right at the top. In that sense, while it's true the petition isn't purely composed of medical staff, it's clear it also includes medical staff and informed individuals who would directly deal with the subject matter on the regular. Psychologists in particular seem supportive of this petition.
The very signatures that the critic screencapped showcase
the only two DJs on the entire petition, with the sceenshot conveniently cutting off just before two trainee Psychotherapists sign it. The critic is very clearly selecting which data to show us for their own benefit, trying to present it as though misinformed DJs and other low-education level professions make up the majority of the petition.
-A lot of the critique boils down to references to studies done before 2012, which the critic addresses as being old or since debunked. To quote:
These citations include a
2004 article from The Guardian, an article from a conservative site called
"The New Atlantis," which self-describes not as an academic journal but as a "public journal of ideas," the
frequently misquoted "Swedish Study" whose author has expressly
corrected misinterpretations by anti-trans organizations, and a
quality of life study that is 15 years old, evaluating surgeries performed 30 years ago, when social discrimination likely significantly influenced the outcomes.
The "frequently misquoted Swedish Study" hilariously links to the critic's own response as a citation. I've honestly never seen this before lol. Is it even considered a sound academic practice to cite yourself...?
At any rate, those links do not contest the abnormally high suicide rate amongst trans individuals, instead only contesting that transgender treatments do not
increase suicide rates. This however begs the question: what happens to the argument that "we need to do this treatment ASAP for the patient's own well-being" if the treatment itself is statistically a wash that neither improves nor diminishes quality of life? We are rushing into these treatments off a false premise that clearly isn't true, and not even this critic provides anything to debunk that.
The quality of life study is dismissed as being old, effectively saying "well it was society's fault they're unhappy." I mean, if I were to mutilate my face and then cry "it's society's fault I'm unhappy and no one will date me," is it really so unorthodox to acknowledge society responses as part of one's own happiness...?
The critic also completely glosses over that the quality-of-life study broke things down into categories. Is it also society's fault that transgender individuals from that study were documented as having
more health problems and more physical limitations than the control group...? The societal discrimination is simply an uncited theory of the critic that doesn't hold up against the actual study's findings, which measured metrics irrelevant to societal influence.
-This is the part I may not be understanding, but the critic lectures the Files for conflating gender and sex. This is where I tap out and say "who fucking cares," though maybe I'm stupid to. However, this same section does try to make a point by showing how outdated the Files' approach is by citing a change in the DSM-V...which I think for most people, backfires spectacularly.
Open the critique and scroll down, you will see a side-by-side of the DSM-V both before and after 2013. The difference...? The pre-2013 version showcases that a
REQUIREMENT of gender identity disorder was that the child feels uncomfortable with their own gender role of their biological gender. Post-2013 however, this is no longer a requirement. The child only needs to
desire to be the other gender while engaging in at least 5 out of 7 other criteria where they make-believe they're the other gender. This is exactly the kind of thing where I feel the critic is out-of-touch. We do not give a shit if the DSM-V's new requirements are the authority, the entire point is people are questioning that criteria.
All the critic is doing is calling for a blind adherence to the authority of the DSM-V, when no, people rightfully want to question why suddenly a little boy who states he wishes he was a girl and wears a dress, plays with dolls, has majority female friends, plays house and doesn't want to play monster trucks (5 criteria met) is suddenly being told he's trans instead of it just being a phase he may be experiencing
because all of his friends are girls and he wants to fit in.
-The conclusion part includes an awkward ad hominem where it claims a certain person helped make this document and they once teased a little girl for being trans. I have no idea if this is even true because their own citation makes no mention of any teasing, nor of the person they named.
