Cass Review findings challenges drumbeat messaging around youth gender treatments

Summarised by Centrist 

When it comes to the media’s take on youth gender medical services “A certain message has been delivered with the repetition of a drumbeat: An informed, compassionate person should support access to youth gender medicine,” writes journalist Jesse Singal. 

In Singal’s analysis of the Cass Review, a comprehensive assessment of youth gender identity services spearheaded by paediatrician Hilary Cass, major revelations about the lack of evidence and misrepresentation regarding this message have emerged. 

The review makes plain the absence of substantial long-term outcome data for medical interventions addressing gender-related distress among youth. 

Yet, media coverage in the US (Editor’s note: and New Zealand), which has often endorsed these treatments without critical evaluation, promotes a consensus that overlooks the review’s conflicting expert opinions.

“On the media side, we don’t appear to be off to a good start: CNN, NPR, CBS News, NBC News, Vox, and Scientific American have almost entirely ignored the Cass Review, hoping it’ll fade away. It won’t,” writes Singal. 

On the media’s reticence to challenge gender identity services for youth, he says “if you asked questions about these treatments, it wasn’t just that you didn’t care about trans youth, it was that you were actively abetting Trumpian Republicans’ evil attempts to literally kill them via the mass suicide that will ensue when they are denied access to blockers or hormones.”

Read more over at The Dispatch