Outstanding reporting in this flawed study. You break it down brilliantly. Let's hope that other media and medical associations share your view and/or confirm your analysis.
Why dafuq do pedo billionaires keep funding fake ass studies to try and prove we don’t exist when we clearly have been around for millennia? Do they think the internet will forget?
Okay, I gotta be honest. I got as far as the percentages (the 9.8% before vs. 60.7% after) and a vibrantly bright red flag started flying.
Phrased rather more coherently than my initial response, it was "Wait - they're comparing the mental health of folks who got and didn't get GAC based on psychiatric visits after an initial one? But if someone was at that initial visit to obtain GAC, getting additional counseling would be a pretty normal part of the process of transitioning. Of course they'd have more visits than the general population!"
And that was before learning that they might have years of visits before they could even start actual medical transitioning (i.e. GAHT) - not to mention the history of the study author.
For what it's worth, Acta Paediatrica (where the study was published) says it is a peer-reviewed journal. It has a 25% acceptance rate and an impact score ranging from 1.01 to 4.8, depending on the source - meaning it is moderately picky about what it accepts for publication but is cited relatively rarely.
Details about the peer reviews of any given article in pretty much any journal are generally confidential with the idea that reviewers then will feel less constricted in expressing their honest judgments.
I suspect Acta Paediatrica is suffering from a form of bias. It is the same platform that published gender-critical fascist Sallie Baxendale's methodologically flawed literature study into GnRH-analogs/agonists.
That study made her draw conclusions on the "harm of puberty blockers" by looking at 16 papers on the use of those drugs.
Biggest problems of her review is that 11 of those studies looked at the use of them in animals like sheep.
2 studies focused on the use of puberty blockers in **adopted** children experiencing precocious puberty, 3 were about trans children.
The adopted children experiencing precocious puberty were explicitly described by the researchers as experiencing a common response when coming from an area where malnutrition is common.
Of the 3 remaining studies, all of them focused on trans children. But more concerningly: Baxendale complained about low sample sizes and lacking RCT's (the favorite passtime of psuedoscientists), but included a study in her review that had only 1 (!!!) participant. Worse: the researchers mentioned how that made ANY evaluation of the findings impossible and that their paper was more anecdotal than statistically useful.
Involving the children experiencing precocious puberty, the researchers (and not Baxendale) found a slight drop in IQ. Even when leaving out the discriminatory, flawed nature of IQ tests, the researchers readily admitted that this was to be expected.
Because they literally mentioned that the age at which this drop was observed was typically an age at which most children start to gain a better understanding of the world around them, and adopted children can start to experience daily questions and thoughts about why they were put up for adoption, who their parents are and that kind of thing, obviously capable of impacting any kind of development.
Next to that, one of the simplest causes for this drop was also given: merely having to endure repeated painful injections and thus a doctor visit...
Even though the conclusions were not drawn from the data on trans children, Baxendale used the IQ points decrease regardless and put the warning solely on trans children. 1 Paper on trans children did see a slight drop as well.
But that finding prompted a similar type of response by the researchers as well and I will cite freely: "It is expected that minority stress and the period in which the desired puberty is delayed by not being able to start with HRT plays a role in a slight decrease of IQ just as well."
So yea, I'd say Acta Paeditrica is suffering from a form of institutional bias against trans people.
And well, what do you know, Baxendale is SEGM affiliated ...
Thank you for this. I hadn't known about the Baxendale study you examined, but I did note that it pursued the same logic that anti-trans studies of the literature often do: Studies producing what I'll call pro-trans results (defined as "not producing results useful to anti-trans ideologues") are dismissed for not having RCTs and/or for having a small sample while neither of those standards are required for those that produce anti-trans results.
I hope it was clear that in my original comment I wasn't defending the study in question; someone asked about what standards for publication the study had met, so I described the publication.
Without being more familiar with the journal, I don't know if Acta Paediatrica has a bias on the topic but if it has a bias, I rather suspect it lies in the "moderately picky about what it accepts" and "cited relatively rarely" parts. "Sure, we'll take it. Got pages to fill."
For people so obsessed with definitions, anti-trans scum don’t seem to understand the definitions of “study” or “science.”
Performing such deliberately poor research for the sake of harming people you don’t like should be criminalized. Anti-trans fanatics are so sick and so incredibly dangerous.
Furthermore, when it is discovered that what they are trying to publish is unscientific and biased I feel like they should have their license to practice medicine taken away. She should have all of her credentials stripped away
Any reliable medical journal would never have published this poorly done, biased "research" unless the editorial board was biased themselves, incompetent, wished to simply publish a "hot" topic or passed a paper because of who wrote it. And yes it is a problem because anti-trans groups and politicians use this pseudoscience to justify their hate and what is essentially child abuse like they have with the debunked Cass Report.
Acta Paediatrica also published Sallie Baxendale's methodologically flawed literature study into GnRH-analogs/agonists, after several other science platforms denied publication.
Something Baxendale cried about for claiming "gender ideology has caused institutional capture among scientists and you are not allowed to be critical anymore."
The article in which she claimed that was the case was full of signs that her research was drenched in hateful, personal bias. You know, something you should know as a scientists to try and put aside as much as possible...
Sounds like Kaltiala operates in the same “transphobic/pseudo/dubious science” space as Jacky Davis (a vocal BMA “representative”).
Perhaps we need a list… of all the transphobic/pseudoscience dudes (such as Kaltiala) out there - a sort of “rogues gallery” to keep their messaging front and centre… and our responses primed…
Credit to you Erin, for the work you do in reading and critiquing these dire articles it’s a lot of work. Thank you
I wonder too where their funding comes from… I see a trend…
www.transgendermap.com << This is basically as comprehensive as such a list get's and is made by Andrea James. It details remarks made, and on what side someone is on. For more "neutral" figures that perpetuate harmful ideas the language can sometimes be hard to interpret as harmful.
Even though by prior standards (DSM4) they got it wrong at least 5X* as often as there is error now, she prefers the older standard where psychiatrists did the "identifying" instead of self id. Of course, those older treatment approaches were all aversive/oppositional/conversion therapy intending the "cure" the transgender person, and only those they could not talk out of/torture into no longer saying they wanted transition were ever to be endorsed for medical assistance in transition. It was the whole 1 yr minimum real life test before HRT, present strictly in a binary manner, had to "pass", etc.
When transmeds claim things were better before, that is what they were claiming is better.
And I mean that in using the term, she is expressing disapproval of self id as opposed to id by psychiatrist. They do not believe gender identity is biological in origin, but is taught, and that only a psychiatrist can find those whose identity is "hopelessly" not matching up to their visible sex -- those by devotion to fetish or mental illness are refractory to being "properly" retaught their gender.
Exactly. And despite Wakefield losing his ability to practice medicine he is still quoted by the current US HHS secretary... just as MAGA still quotes the 2011 Dhejne study and Lisa Littman's incoherent ROGD twaddle.
It isn't a very large number of practitioners and researchers responsible for anti-Trans pseudo-science, it's actual anti-Trans ideologues seeking justification for the bigoted opinions they ALREADY HAVE. Scientists and science are largely upon the side of empiricism which favors US. But empiricism, the scientific method, and expertise and erudition themselves are increasingly unpopular in an increasingly post literate America.
Kaltiala is the Finnish Cass. She already wrote a Cass-like report around 2012, which is how Finland became the ultraconservative player in this field to begin with. Kaltiala noted that "a surprising number of trans boys was dealing with gender incongruence, while in the past only trans girls were seeking treatment" (change of language is fully mine, I will not use her hate-driven, conscious misgendering and derogatory description of trans boys).
Kaltiala even exposed herself as one of the "experts" on the working group for Hilary Cass' Final Review.
How is Finland allowing this center to continue operating? Finns are smart people so I don't get it. How can we stop these bogus studies that are just propaganda for the anti trans right? Great job Erin!
Simple: design a total lack of attention in the media for the actual harm it is causing, and praise someone like Kaltiala for "protecting children from harmful gender ideology" whenever the subject does come up, and people who are typically stupidly ill-informed about this subject will be none the wiser about the excessively cruel and invasive nature of Kaltiala's "treatment".
We see a similar thing in The Netherlands: anti-trans activist Jilles Smids is a medical ethics researcher whose speciality is to research the balance between healthcare insurance coverage for new, expensive cancer medication and when not to provide coverage.
Differently put: someone without ANY expertise.
But who does the media call when transgender children's healthcare comes up as a subject? Right: Jilles Smids.
And when Jilles Smids is the co-organizer of an anti-trans hateconference in de Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam where Hilary Cass, Mikael Landén and Rittakerttu Kaltiala all are allowed to explain how you can destroy the lives of trans children by lying about the suggested ineffectiveness and lack of safety of the drugs involved?
Then the media chooses Smids' side mostly. Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant even went so far as to give the press spokesperson of the group of demonstrators 1 single line, to portray all of us as extremists, and further only spoke to Smids. Smids gaslit the protestors by having the journalist write up a line stating "Smids is earlier than usual, but scared that "something will happen" is not on his mind".
The headline of the article was also disgusting: "Trans people are silencing scientists".
All while the conference inside had nothing to do with actual science but especially: was not cancelled!
It was even worse because all protesters were described as trans people. But among the protesters were also a couple of academic employees of the university, appalled at this psuedoscientific, hate-driven gathering and who protested by leaving the building and joining us under the hypocritically waiving Pride-flag at the entrance of the building.
There was a time when I truly believe this sort of thing would't have happened in the scientific literature. Scientists and their journals had integrity and exercised the greatest care when considering the merits of a study.
But nowadays, it all seems to be bullshit - echoing the journalistic standards of once-great media giants like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CBS news. It breaks my heart.
Erin, you did an impressive job picking apart the problems of this study!
The new Finnish study being circulated to attack transgender youth care is not a breakthrough in science — it is a deeply misleading piece of research being weaponized to justify political agendas. Its conclusions are being exaggerated far beyond what the data actually shows, while critical methodological flaws are conveniently ignored.
The study does not prove that gender-affirming care harms trans youth or fails to improve mental health. Even critics reviewing the paper note that it relies on indirect measures — such as psychiatric service usage — rather than actual patient well-being, making sweeping conclusions scientifically irresponsible. Researchers also failed to account for the reality that transgender youth often enter care already facing higher levels of mental health distress caused by stigma, discrimination, and delayed access to treatment.
What’s being presented as neutral science instead reflects selective interpretation and questionable framing. Experts have pointed out serious flaws, including methodological weaknesses and conclusions that do not logically follow from the evidence itself. The study is already being amplified by ideological actors to spread fear rather than improve healthcare outcomes.
Major medical organizations worldwide continue to support evidence-based, gender-affirming care because research consistently shows that affirming treatment improves mental health and psychosocial outcomes for many transgender young people when delivered responsibly. Attempts to cherry-pick single studies while ignoring the broader medical consensus are not science — they are misinformation dressed up as research.
Trans youth deserve rigorous science, compassionate care, and honest public discussion — not distorted findings used to undermine their dignity, autonomy, and access to medically supported treatment.
Thank you for dissecting this junk "study" that no doubt will be parroted by anti trans lawmakers and figures.
The fact that the "study" came from someone who runs such an awful clinic in the first place should be enough for any self respecting professional to disregard it.
Unfortunately, there are those out there looking for any form of ammunition to wield against our community, which is why countering such misinformation is of the upmost importance.
I find it mostly disgusting that Kaltiala is basically able to do a "OMG look at how bad the mental health of young trans people is in this country!", blames that on gender-affirming care instead of simply stating "Haha, yea, and I am the sole reason for that bad outcome because I virulently hate trans people and hope to kill as much as possible of them this way!"
Outstanding reporting in this flawed study. You break it down brilliantly. Let's hope that other media and medical associations share your view and/or confirm your analysis.
Keep up the great work!
Why dafuq do pedo billionaires keep funding fake ass studies to try and prove we don’t exist when we clearly have been around for millennia? Do they think the internet will forget?
Or do they WANT the blood of trans kids on their hands?
I believe so, seriously. Nazi leaders were not hesitant to claim responsibility for their actions against Jews, Roma, and LGBTQ+ people
Yes. Scapegoats are a required component of fascist maximalism.
They know that if they can't keep the masses distracted with culture war bullshit, we're one good recession away from guillotines.
Okay, I gotta be honest. I got as far as the percentages (the 9.8% before vs. 60.7% after) and a vibrantly bright red flag started flying.
Phrased rather more coherently than my initial response, it was "Wait - they're comparing the mental health of folks who got and didn't get GAC based on psychiatric visits after an initial one? But if someone was at that initial visit to obtain GAC, getting additional counseling would be a pretty normal part of the process of transitioning. Of course they'd have more visits than the general population!"
And that was before learning that they might have years of visits before they could even start actual medical transitioning (i.e. GAHT) - not to mention the history of the study author.
And this tripe got published? Just wow.
Indeed, I'm curious as to what sort of peer review the Kaltiala study received or claimed before being adopted by SEGM.
For what it's worth, Acta Paediatrica (where the study was published) says it is a peer-reviewed journal. It has a 25% acceptance rate and an impact score ranging from 1.01 to 4.8, depending on the source - meaning it is moderately picky about what it accepts for publication but is cited relatively rarely.
Details about the peer reviews of any given article in pretty much any journal are generally confidential with the idea that reviewers then will feel less constricted in expressing their honest judgments.
I suspect Acta Paediatrica is suffering from a form of bias. It is the same platform that published gender-critical fascist Sallie Baxendale's methodologically flawed literature study into GnRH-analogs/agonists.
That study made her draw conclusions on the "harm of puberty blockers" by looking at 16 papers on the use of those drugs.
Biggest problems of her review is that 11 of those studies looked at the use of them in animals like sheep.
2 studies focused on the use of puberty blockers in **adopted** children experiencing precocious puberty, 3 were about trans children.
The adopted children experiencing precocious puberty were explicitly described by the researchers as experiencing a common response when coming from an area where malnutrition is common.
Of the 3 remaining studies, all of them focused on trans children. But more concerningly: Baxendale complained about low sample sizes and lacking RCT's (the favorite passtime of psuedoscientists), but included a study in her review that had only 1 (!!!) participant. Worse: the researchers mentioned how that made ANY evaluation of the findings impossible and that their paper was more anecdotal than statistically useful.
Involving the children experiencing precocious puberty, the researchers (and not Baxendale) found a slight drop in IQ. Even when leaving out the discriminatory, flawed nature of IQ tests, the researchers readily admitted that this was to be expected.
Because they literally mentioned that the age at which this drop was observed was typically an age at which most children start to gain a better understanding of the world around them, and adopted children can start to experience daily questions and thoughts about why they were put up for adoption, who their parents are and that kind of thing, obviously capable of impacting any kind of development.
Next to that, one of the simplest causes for this drop was also given: merely having to endure repeated painful injections and thus a doctor visit...
Even though the conclusions were not drawn from the data on trans children, Baxendale used the IQ points decrease regardless and put the warning solely on trans children. 1 Paper on trans children did see a slight drop as well.
But that finding prompted a similar type of response by the researchers as well and I will cite freely: "It is expected that minority stress and the period in which the desired puberty is delayed by not being able to start with HRT plays a role in a slight decrease of IQ just as well."
So yea, I'd say Acta Paeditrica is suffering from a form of institutional bias against trans people.
And well, what do you know, Baxendale is SEGM affiliated ...
Thank you for this. I hadn't known about the Baxendale study you examined, but I did note that it pursued the same logic that anti-trans studies of the literature often do: Studies producing what I'll call pro-trans results (defined as "not producing results useful to anti-trans ideologues") are dismissed for not having RCTs and/or for having a small sample while neither of those standards are required for those that produce anti-trans results.
I hope it was clear that in my original comment I wasn't defending the study in question; someone asked about what standards for publication the study had met, so I described the publication.
Without being more familiar with the journal, I don't know if Acta Paediatrica has a bias on the topic but if it has a bias, I rather suspect it lies in the "moderately picky about what it accepts" and "cited relatively rarely" parts. "Sure, we'll take it. Got pages to fill."
For people so obsessed with definitions, anti-trans scum don’t seem to understand the definitions of “study” or “science.”
Performing such deliberately poor research for the sake of harming people you don’t like should be criminalized. Anti-trans fanatics are so sick and so incredibly dangerous.
Furthermore, when it is discovered that what they are trying to publish is unscientific and biased I feel like they should have their license to practice medicine taken away. She should have all of her credentials stripped away
What's this- a new steaming pile of transphobic propaganda masquerading as science? Thanks, I hate it.
Any reliable medical journal would never have published this poorly done, biased "research" unless the editorial board was biased themselves, incompetent, wished to simply publish a "hot" topic or passed a paper because of who wrote it. And yes it is a problem because anti-trans groups and politicians use this pseudoscience to justify their hate and what is essentially child abuse like they have with the debunked Cass Report.
Acta Paediatrica also published Sallie Baxendale's methodologically flawed literature study into GnRH-analogs/agonists, after several other science platforms denied publication.
Something Baxendale cried about for claiming "gender ideology has caused institutional capture among scientists and you are not allowed to be critical anymore."
The article in which she claimed that was the case was full of signs that her research was drenched in hateful, personal bias. You know, something you should know as a scientists to try and put aside as much as possible...
Sounds like Kaltiala operates in the same “transphobic/pseudo/dubious science” space as Jacky Davis (a vocal BMA “representative”).
Perhaps we need a list… of all the transphobic/pseudoscience dudes (such as Kaltiala) out there - a sort of “rogues gallery” to keep their messaging front and centre… and our responses primed…
Credit to you Erin, for the work you do in reading and critiquing these dire articles it’s a lot of work. Thank you
I wonder too where their funding comes from… I see a trend…
www.transgendermap.com << This is basically as comprehensive as such a list get's and is made by Andrea James. It details remarks made, and on what side someone is on. For more "neutral" figures that perpetuate harmful ideas the language can sometimes be hard to interpret as harmful.
She slipped a little “transgender identifying” in there… they’re not hiding it anymore.
Even though by prior standards (DSM4) they got it wrong at least 5X* as often as there is error now, she prefers the older standard where psychiatrists did the "identifying" instead of self id. Of course, those older treatment approaches were all aversive/oppositional/conversion therapy intending the "cure" the transgender person, and only those they could not talk out of/torture into no longer saying they wanted transition were ever to be endorsed for medical assistance in transition. It was the whole 1 yr minimum real life test before HRT, present strictly in a binary manner, had to "pass", etc.
When transmeds claim things were better before, that is what they were claiming is better.
*to go by regret rate.
No, I mean that in the paper, the author slipped a TERF “transgender identifying”
And I mean that in using the term, she is expressing disapproval of self id as opposed to id by psychiatrist. They do not believe gender identity is biological in origin, but is taught, and that only a psychiatrist can find those whose identity is "hopelessly" not matching up to their visible sex -- those by devotion to fetish or mental illness are refractory to being "properly" retaught their gender.
We need to write to the journal’s editors to have it retracted, otherwise it will keep being cited with malicious intent as “evidence”.
It will be anyway- just look at how antivaxxers are still citing Wakefield, even though the study was pulled 𝘢𝘯𝘥 its author lost his license.
Exactly. And despite Wakefield losing his ability to practice medicine he is still quoted by the current US HHS secretary... just as MAGA still quotes the 2011 Dhejne study and Lisa Littman's incoherent ROGD twaddle.
What is wrong with these so-called scientists. They need to walk in other’s shoes. Anything to publish. Whether it’s bullshit or not.
It isn't a very large number of practitioners and researchers responsible for anti-Trans pseudo-science, it's actual anti-Trans ideologues seeking justification for the bigoted opinions they ALREADY HAVE. Scientists and science are largely upon the side of empiricism which favors US. But empiricism, the scientific method, and expertise and erudition themselves are increasingly unpopular in an increasingly post literate America.
Oh, whoopie. Another Cass “report,” only now in Finnish. Yay.
Kaltiala is the Finnish Cass. She already wrote a Cass-like report around 2012, which is how Finland became the ultraconservative player in this field to begin with. Kaltiala noted that "a surprising number of trans boys was dealing with gender incongruence, while in the past only trans girls were seeking treatment" (change of language is fully mine, I will not use her hate-driven, conscious misgendering and derogatory description of trans boys).
Kaltiala even exposed herself as one of the "experts" on the working group for Hilary Cass' Final Review.
How is Finland allowing this center to continue operating? Finns are smart people so I don't get it. How can we stop these bogus studies that are just propaganda for the anti trans right? Great job Erin!
Simple: design a total lack of attention in the media for the actual harm it is causing, and praise someone like Kaltiala for "protecting children from harmful gender ideology" whenever the subject does come up, and people who are typically stupidly ill-informed about this subject will be none the wiser about the excessively cruel and invasive nature of Kaltiala's "treatment".
We see a similar thing in The Netherlands: anti-trans activist Jilles Smids is a medical ethics researcher whose speciality is to research the balance between healthcare insurance coverage for new, expensive cancer medication and when not to provide coverage.
Differently put: someone without ANY expertise.
But who does the media call when transgender children's healthcare comes up as a subject? Right: Jilles Smids.
And when Jilles Smids is the co-organizer of an anti-trans hateconference in de Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam where Hilary Cass, Mikael Landén and Rittakerttu Kaltiala all are allowed to explain how you can destroy the lives of trans children by lying about the suggested ineffectiveness and lack of safety of the drugs involved?
Then the media chooses Smids' side mostly. Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant even went so far as to give the press spokesperson of the group of demonstrators 1 single line, to portray all of us as extremists, and further only spoke to Smids. Smids gaslit the protestors by having the journalist write up a line stating "Smids is earlier than usual, but scared that "something will happen" is not on his mind".
The headline of the article was also disgusting: "Trans people are silencing scientists".
All while the conference inside had nothing to do with actual science but especially: was not cancelled!
It was even worse because all protesters were described as trans people. But among the protesters were also a couple of academic employees of the university, appalled at this psuedoscientific, hate-driven gathering and who protested by leaving the building and joining us under the hypocritically waiving Pride-flag at the entrance of the building.
There was a time when I truly believe this sort of thing would't have happened in the scientific literature. Scientists and their journals had integrity and exercised the greatest care when considering the merits of a study.
But nowadays, it all seems to be bullshit - echoing the journalistic standards of once-great media giants like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CBS news. It breaks my heart.
Erin, you did an impressive job picking apart the problems of this study!
The new Finnish study being circulated to attack transgender youth care is not a breakthrough in science — it is a deeply misleading piece of research being weaponized to justify political agendas. Its conclusions are being exaggerated far beyond what the data actually shows, while critical methodological flaws are conveniently ignored.
The study does not prove that gender-affirming care harms trans youth or fails to improve mental health. Even critics reviewing the paper note that it relies on indirect measures — such as psychiatric service usage — rather than actual patient well-being, making sweeping conclusions scientifically irresponsible. Researchers also failed to account for the reality that transgender youth often enter care already facing higher levels of mental health distress caused by stigma, discrimination, and delayed access to treatment.
What’s being presented as neutral science instead reflects selective interpretation and questionable framing. Experts have pointed out serious flaws, including methodological weaknesses and conclusions that do not logically follow from the evidence itself. The study is already being amplified by ideological actors to spread fear rather than improve healthcare outcomes.
Major medical organizations worldwide continue to support evidence-based, gender-affirming care because research consistently shows that affirming treatment improves mental health and psychosocial outcomes for many transgender young people when delivered responsibly. Attempts to cherry-pick single studies while ignoring the broader medical consensus are not science — they are misinformation dressed up as research.
Trans youth deserve rigorous science, compassionate care, and honest public discussion — not distorted findings used to undermine their dignity, autonomy, and access to medically supported treatment.
Wow! Whodathunkit ? A 'phobe lies !
So, does anyone think the "flaws" in this study are honest error? Or is it part of their plan?
TY, Erin.
Thank you for dissecting this junk "study" that no doubt will be parroted by anti trans lawmakers and figures.
The fact that the "study" came from someone who runs such an awful clinic in the first place should be enough for any self respecting professional to disregard it.
Unfortunately, there are those out there looking for any form of ammunition to wield against our community, which is why countering such misinformation is of the upmost importance.
I find it mostly disgusting that Kaltiala is basically able to do a "OMG look at how bad the mental health of young trans people is in this country!", blames that on gender-affirming care instead of simply stating "Haha, yea, and I am the sole reason for that bad outcome because I virulently hate trans people and hope to kill as much as possible of them this way!"