(2022-08-06) Lots More Debunking Of The Turban Et Al Study On Gender Dysphoria

Jerry Coyne: Lots more debunking of the Turban et al. study on gender dysphoria. On Thursday I wrote a post about a new paper in the journal Pediatrics by Jack Turban et al., a paper arguing against “rapid onset gender dysphoria” in adolescents and the attendant view that transgender identity is often spread by “social contagion”.

I pointed out problems with all four of these claims, and now, it turns out, people with more knowledge than I have raised these same issues with the paper of Turban et al. (Turban seems to be a tendentious researcher who, says Jesse Singal below, has a tendency to misquote even his own data, and is on a single-minded drive to support “gender affirmative” treatment.)

There are three pieces to read, and I’ve read the first two below. You can access all three by clicking on the links. The first was published on Singal’s Substack site, the second at the City Journal, and the third is on SocArXiv Papers.

All three of these papers take strong issue with the paper of Turban

The main issues raised by Singal and Leor Sapir are similar to those I mentioned, and I’ll summarize them briefly.

1.) Asking children “what is your sex?” conflates biological sex, which is what we want to know, with what sex the interviewee sees themselves to be

That information comes from Michael Biggs, who, says Singal, submitted what’s below as part of a critical comment on the Turban et al. paper, but the comment was rejected by Pediatrics within an hour of submission. How could it have been properly reviewed.

2.) Turban’s claim that there are data showing that asking “what is your sex?” gives reliable information about biological sex is not supported by other studies.

3.) Turban et al.’s claim that gender dysphoria is on the wane is contradicted by multiple sets of data from multiple countries.

4.) Singal notes that Turban et al.’s study has sampling problems

5.) That children who identify as transgender report a higher rate of bullying does not refute the “social contagion” hypothesis

A correlation between identifying as transgender and being bullied says nothing about the absence of social contagion, and may well support it.

Singal in particular has followed Jack Turban’s papers and statements (including on Twitter) for a long time, and his paper is a litany of a scientist who seems tendentious and, well, dishonest about the data in the interests of ideology.

I’ll end with Sapir’s conclusion: In a field known for its weak methodologies and even weaker scientific conclusions, Turban’s study sets a new low.