Anti-trans 'Economist' article on 'manipulation'

The Economist, the place whence Helen Joyce, came out with an anti-trans story a couple weeks ago.

In the first few paragraphs, above the paywall, the Economist says that WPATH "interfered with the production of systematic reviews that it had commissioned from the Johns Hopkins University Evidence-Based Practice Centre (epc) in 2018." It's basing this on documents that were "recently released as part of the discovery process in a case involving youth gender medicine in Alabama."

One criticism I saw of this Economist article ("Research into trans medicine has been manipulated," June 27, 2024) is that, if you read the actual documents they're talking about, WPATH was asking to approve the use of non-academic/research articles (not academic/research ones) and anyway the people on the email discussion never agreed to the proposed language (so the issue should be moot?).

Though I haven't gotten behind the Economist paywall, I've seen someone quote the final paragraph:

"Another document recently unsealed shows that Rachel Levine, a transwoman who is [U.S.] assistant secretary for health, succeeded in pressing WPATH to remove minimum ages for the treatment of children from its 2022 standards of care. Dr Levine’s office has not commented. Questions remain unanswered, but none of this helps WPATH’s claim to be an organisation that bases its recommendations on science."

Actually, for an international organization to refrain from placing age requirements on treatment (which might be politically motivated) in fact does encourage science-based decision making.

i mean the thing is that the *Economist* in particular is basically the newspaper for the British elite class the British elite class currently hate trans-people for a variety of reasons (see, Rowling, J. K)

— Sharon Kuruvilla (@sharonk.bsky.social) Jun 27, 2024 at 2:47 PM

I did read the thing (didn't pay, lol). Not only are they using "transwoman" instead of "trans woman", they are using one case where WPATH asked some studies about trans people to not be published without their consent as basis to say "everything is rigged".

— 🌻 SamⒶntha 🌻 🏳️‍⚧️ (@samanthak.bsky.social) Jul 10, 2024 at 10:04 PM

Basically, WPATH asked "hey, don't be transphobic when you publish those"; and The Economist is acting like they're controlling the narrative.

— 🌻 SamⒶntha 🌻 🏳️‍⚧️ (@samanthak.bsky.social) Jul 10, 2024 at 10:07 PM