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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   27683 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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I never liked the Bare Link Repository, but I'm starting to miss it...

Another batch of documents from Boe v. Marshall shines light on the buried systemic review commissioned by WPATH

Some time after the Cass Review was published, news started going around that WPATH was sitting on a systemic review that they comissioned to back up the SOC8, but refused to have published, because they didn't like the results. The recently released documents reveal the circumstances around it.

The already-unsealed documents paint a troubling picture: WPATH leadership went to great lengths to suppress systematic reviews (SR) commissioned from Johns Hopkins because the reviews’ conclusions did not support the WPATH plans to recommend wide access to hormones and surgeries for all those who desired them. The evidence suppression was achieved via a 2-prong strategy. First, WPATH forced JHU to withdraw the manuscripts that were already submitted for publication as they did not meet the desired conclusions. Next, WPATH instituted a new policy whereby WPATH would have to approve all future publications by JHU.

The new approval policy required that all reviews met a special WPATH checklist, which included items such as whether the review positively contributes to promoting transgender interventions, if it includes transgender people as authors, etc. WPATH required two rounds of approval—first, at the proposal stage, which had to approve the review’s anticipated conclusions, and second, at the final manuscript stage. WPATH reserved the right to alter the content. The new policy also required that final publication carry the disclaimer that WPATH had no influence over the process and that the views are solely by the JHU authors.

Only read the summary so far, and will be making my way through the evidence in the coming days. This is probably the most damning document I've seen so far. I mean, publication bias / burying results you don't like is par for the course for academia, but you have to admire the sheer gall of demanding that unfavorable research be buried, as well as forcing a disclaimer that you had no influence on it.

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