I came across this paper on Twitter: Making Black Women Scientists under White Empiricism: The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics (credit to @RealPeerReview).

In it the author states that General Relativity is undermined by "white empiricism". She claims that general relativity states that "there's no single objective frame of reference", making "all observers equally competent", but that that is undermined by the low number of female physicists, particularly black females.

She claims that studying string theory is a form of white supremacy, since according to her it's a discipline in which "wild speculative claims" by "white scientists" are taken more seriously than "the idea that Black women are competent observers of their own experiences". Also, apparently, the failure of string theory rests not on the exponential number of solutions or its lack of background independence, but that physicists studying it are "too homogenously white".

She also uses this opportunity to posit that particle physics (in particular high-energy physics) don't take into account important social history event like the Transatlantic slave trade, citing Sharon Traweek's Beamtimes and lifetimes (itself worthy of a BadScience post).

I came across this video a while back when I was curious about the controversy surrounding the gender pay gap. The video is broken up into 6 different segments, each of which is devoted to refuting a "myth" that people who deny the existence of a pay gap purportedly believe. I am going to divide my analysis in the same way, going through each segment one by one with time stamps for each one. So, let's begin:

Only 61% of men believe men make more than women for doing the same job. But the reality is, U.S. women working full-time earned just 80 cents for every dollar men earned in 2016. 0:09

Before even starting the myth-busting, the video starts making mistakes. Here, they try to disprove the statement that men and women make the same money for the same job by saying that there is a large wage gap between men and women working full-time. The very obvious flaw in this argument is that men and women tend to work different jobs. When controlled for occupation and qualifications, a 2019 Payscale study showed that women earned 98 cents for every dollar earned by men¹. So, there is a gap between men and women working the same job, but it is much smaller than what the video purports.

Myth 1: women leave the workforce to have children. 0:31

The evidence that many women leave the workforce after having children is fairly solid, a 2014 KFF/NYT poll showed that 61% of unemployed women said that family responsibilities was the major cause for unemployment². The video doesn’t actually dispute this, however it does argue that women are forced to leave the workforce and that they do not do so voluntarily. They cite literature that shows that mothers are discriminated against, getting lower wages even though they have the same qualifications³. As far as I can tell, their study is legitimate and robust. I tend to agree with the video that there is discrimination in this respect. However, they fail to justify the assumption that discrimination is the main driver for women leaving the workplace after having kids. In fact, most studies tend to support the most obvious answer why mothers leave the workforce: childcare becomes a large responsibility that women have to juggle, and so many leave the workforce to focus on childcare⁴. In the same KFF/NYT poll mentioned earlier, only 15% of non-employed homemakers say that discrimination is a reason for not working.

Myth 2: Men simply work harder and work longer hours. 1:06

This is, in my opinion, the second to worst argument of the entire video and the one that basically caused the youtube comment section to explode. Men tend to work more paid hours than women⁵, and the video does not deny that. However, the video says that women work more unpaid hours (household chores, childcare, etc) than men, and that this somehow destroys the myth. The disconnect here is that women working more unpaid hours does not “bust the myth” that men work more paid hours, which partially contributes to the income gap.

Myth 3: Men are educated than women 1:31

This is a strawman. I have never heard of a person argue that the pay gap does not exist because men are more educated than women, and I don’t believe any prominent right-wing figure believes that. However, this point still has glaring flaws.The video argues that when you compare men and women with the same level of education, the pay gap is even larger, and that this proves “men are awarded disproportionately for earning the same credentials as women”. However, this neglects to mention the different choices in majors between men and women, with men tending to study in more lucrative fields. An American Association of University Women report states this: “One year after graduation, the average full-time-employed female social science major earned just 66 percent of what the average full-time-employed female engineering or engineering technology major earned. Men who majored in a social science field, likewise, earned just 70 percent of what men who majored in engineering or engineering technology earned”⁶. To say that men make more than women with the same level of education is technically true, but ignores significant reasons for the difference that are not due to discrimination.

Myth 4: Women do not know how to negotiate 1:59

This is their strongest argument of the video. They admit that women tend to negotiate less than men and that this could be a reason women’s wages are lower than men’s. However, they point to research that shows that women who initiated negotiation received systematically worse evaluations from male evaluators⁷. The video then says that this stigma against women could be a key driver for the propensity of women to negotiate less. The study that they point to seems by all accounts to be well done, and others who study the wage gap (such as Marianne Bertrande and Francine D. Blau) agree with the study’s findings^8,9. The only possible nitpick that I might have is that the video portrays the research as a done deal, when more work needs to be done to fully determine the causes for differences in negotiation behavior between men and women.

Myth 5: Men pursue higher paying careers 2:20

This is another point that they don’t dispute even though it’s supposed to be a “myth”, but they argue that higher-paying careers going to men is another form of discrimination. They say that when women enter a field, the employers see the jobs as less valuable or prestigious and so the wages in that field decrease¹⁰. This idea is called the Devaluation Hypothesis, and the video makes a very contentious theory sound like scientific truth. Multiple studies have poked holes in the theory, with one finding that "there is only slight evidence that the feminization of occupations lowers their wages"¹¹. Another 2013 study showed that “Percent F (percent female) explains a very small portion of the occupational-level variance in wages”¹². Indeed, there are multiple competing theories, such as crowding theory, where women entering an occupation can increase labor supply and therefore depress wages¹³. This becomes relevant later, as the video points to various statistics that show wages dropping after women enter a field. However, the study the video uses does not take into account labor supply, which could explain the decrease in wages observed.

Myth 6: It’s just 20 cents, and that barely makes a difference 2:45

This is the worst argument of the video, for the simple reason that it is a blatant strawman. There are plenty of wage-gap deniers on youtube, reddit, and other social media. I have never known a single one that says that a 20% difference in wages is insignificant. For a video that purports to bust widespread myths, it seems to present many that no one believes.

This video is the exact kind of ammunition that the alt-right wants. The video misrepresents science, has serious logical flaws, and completely fails to disprove many of the myths it brings up. It’s the exact thing that people can use to point to feminists as delusional or devoid of facts. What is more, there is something that cannot be shown in this post but can be seen in the video: the presenters have a maddeningly condescending attitude, acting like anyone who disagrees with them are complete idiots. As I have shown, there are smatterings of good points in their video in particular their points in Myth 4. However, their demeanor makes it so hard for me to agree with them on anything, and I can only guess that this is one reason why the like-to-dislike ratio of the video is so lopsided.

I believe that the gender pay gap is real, and that discrimination is a large cause of it. However, it is also immensely complex and does not lend itself to hot-takes or simple yes or no answers. Videos like this only serve to hinder real progress. If anyone wants to know the current state of the scientific study of the wage gap, I highly recommend this 2016 working paper. My views also happen to adhere very closely with this paper’s.

EDIT: /u/thetasigma4 pointed to a misinterpretation I had regarding Reference 11. I have made the necessary changes to my post.

References:

[1] “Gender Pay Gap Ratios, Stats and Infographics 2019.” PayScale, PayScale, www.payscale.com/data/gender-pay-gap.

[2] Hamel, Liz, et al. “Kaiser Family Foundation/New York Times/CBS News Non-Employed Poll.” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, KFF, 11 Dec. 2014, www.kff.org/other/poll-finding/kaiser-family-foundationnew-york-timescbs-news-non-employed-poll/.

[3] Correll, Shelley J., et al. “Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 112, no. 5, 2007, pp. 1297–1339., doi:10.1086/511799.

[4] Miles, Patti Collett. "Why Do Educated, Successful Women Leave The Workforce?." American International Journal of Social Science 2.2 (2013): 1-12.

[5] Press Office. “AMERICAN TIME USE SURVEY —2018 RESULTS.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 19 June 2019, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf.

[6] Corbett, Christianne, and Catherine Hill. Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year after College Graduation. American Association of University Women. 1111 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036, 2012.

[7] Bowles, Hannah Riley, et al. “Social Incentives for Gender Differences in the Propensity to Initiate Negotiations: Sometimes It Does Hurt to Ask.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 103, no. 1, 2007, pp. 84–103., doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.09.001.

[8] Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. "The gender wage gap: Extent, trends, and explanations." Journal of Economic Literature 55.3 (2017): 789-865.

[9] Marianne, Bertrand. "New perspectives on gender." Handbook of labor economics. Vol. 4. Elsevier, 2011. 1543-1590.

[10] Bowles, Hannah Riley, Linda Babcock, and Lei Lai. "Social incentives for gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask." Organizational Behavior and human decision Processes 103.1 (2007): 84-103.

[11] England, Paula, et al. “Does Bad Pay Cause Occupations to Feminize, Does Feminization Reduce Pay, and How Can We Tell with Longitudinal Data?” Social Science Research, vol. 36, no. 3, 2007, pp. 1237–1256., doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2006.08.003.

[12] Grönlund, Anne, and Charlotta Magnusson. “Devaluation, Crowding or Skill Specificity? Exploring the Mechanisms behind the Lower Wages in Female Professions.” Social Science Research, vol. 42, no. 4, 2013, pp. 1006–1017., doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.03.001.

[13] Cozzi, Marissa. “The Gender Wage Gap: Does It Pay to Follow the Crowd?” The Park Place Economist, vol. 25, 2017.

From here:

This level of smug pseudo-intellectual idiocy requires a fisking. In order to reduce repetitiveness, it should be noted that there are abnormal cases of non “XX” or “XY” chormosome pairings (e.g. XO, XXY), or of a body developing in utero contra to chomosomes, but those are rare and not indicative of a “social norm” of recognizing that the vast majority of people are indeed women or men, a fact confirmed by not only our entire history as a species, but of practically every other mammalian species in existance.

Further, it will reduce repetitiveness to point out basic biological reality: A “Y” chromosome in lieu of a second “X” chromosome is like a fork in the road that instructs the biological program (i.e. DNA) to develop the body and mind along that of a woman (when no “Y” chromosome is present), or that of a man (when there is a “Y” chromosome). Men and women are physically and physiologically distinct from each other on a clear statistical basis. There is not gradual spectrum. You have two distinct averages with outliers that at the extremes can overlap, like two Gaussian curves. Outside of the previously mentioned biological abnormalities, this holds true, and does so for the vast majority of the population. There is no moral or sociological implications from this statement of biological facts per se.

The idea that different categories make up a spectrum is very different from insisting that they exist along a single gradient. Spectrum categories might be discrete; they might be related or overlapping in various ways. For example, they may be defined by a mosaic of different characteristics that can vary independently — think of an HSV or CMYK model of color space (perhaps quantized, if you want to think of a model without continuous variability in those characteristics). Or the category structure might be more complex, best understood through a more sophisticated model of classification.

And, given this, we can see that chromosome type doesn’t magically define sex and allow us to classify everyone as male or female accordingly.

The term “social construct” seems to be a general negation of objective reality. What a society does or does not believe to be true or accept isn’t even necessarily a “social construct” as the term itself suggests that all social norms and elements are purposefully created wholecloth from some intentional will of society rather than be a product of societal evolution. But even then, that refers to opinion and not of objective scientific reality.

A man that has an “XY” chromosome set who knows he’s a man who likes women, and women that have an “XX” chromosome set who know they are women to like men, are the norms not because of “social constructs” but because they are indeed the norm for the species, if not for mammals in general.

Conveniently ignorning that homosexuals exist. Or XX Males/XY Females. Already we see Chromosome don/'t determine gender let alone sex

This is what happens when you have scientifically illiterate idjits go off about “science.” The “differences in male and female brain structure” was used previously as “proof” that homosexuality was biologically based, and thus eligible for civil rights protection. Now that that is a fait accompli, it is tossed aside! The “article” on how chromosomes have totes nothing to do with one’s biological sex is laughable at best, with atypical examples being the “proof” to assert insanity by the manichean reasoning noted above.

I think he ignores the biology

In multiple ways.

Medicine is based on objective biological reality. You either have a male body or a female body, with reactions from treatment or drugs at times being very important. A woman will never have prostate cancer because women do not have prostates. Further, stating that a man is a man is not caused by eeevil social constructs, but on the acceptance of reality.

No they do have one.

Here is some more of the same.

One more:

The following was obtained from Mother Nature via the smoke-induced haze of charred hippies after being sacrificed by Ents who can’t stand whiny hippies.

It would seem that there are some social “scientists” trying to fool me, Mother Nature; you shouldn’t try to fool mother nature. ‘Twould seem that they are shocked that nature would take its course and that boys and girls together would have babies… even if those boys and girls don’t think they like girls and boys, respectively.

Funny how young people who struggle with “mental health, homelessness, substance abuse and sexual violence” and claim to only like the same sex sexually, nonetheless are quite adept at breeding like rabbits with those of the opposite sex!

Nature finds a way!

Also, that had better be real butter!

And guess what, discrimination is to blame: https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/14269?autologincheck=redirected

Nice try asshole.

Also:

“A few years ago Daniel’s mother, Kerry, came across then-three-year-old Master McFadyen attempting to cut his own genitals off with a pair of scissors ‘so he could be a girl.’ Appropriately concerned, the parents of this young man took their son to a medical doctor, who diagnosed the boy with ‘gender dysphoria,’ which Daniel—now six years old—describes as ‘[having] a girl’s head and a boy’s body.’

“Daniel’s parents plan to give him hormone blockers when he starts puberty, ‘until she [sic] is truly old enough to decide whether she [sic] wants to transition aged 16.’

“The doctors told the family ‘it would help to let Daniel live as a girl, so long as he knew he could change his mind.’ This would strike any reasonable person as a demonstrably insane ‘medical’ opinion, and one wonders why Daniel’s parents did not seek a second or a third opinion, or a fiftieth one, if that’s what it took.

“But they did no such thing. Apparently they simply went with it. ‘My daughter is so happy now,’ Kerry McFadyen says, ‘and a completely different child.’ These are objectively false statements. Mrs. McFadyen has a son, one who has been approximated to resemble a daughter but who nonetheless remains male. Daniel’s treatment represents little more than an abandonment of both medical and ultimately parental responsibility. He is, by any reasonable metric, a victim.”

The major problem is that the drugs alter who he is so that he doesn’t grow-up as he would naturally, and he necessarily can’t be “born that way”. That he would be permanently mutilated, with no chance of going back, can endanger the child, as it has endangered others, and lethally so.

Fallacy alert!

Likewise it isn't mutilation!

And:

Of course, some parents want to have it both ways when it comes to their own gender:

“Three weeks ago the Huffington Post published an article detailing the distress of transgendered parents who breastfeed, ‘The Troubling Erasure of Trans Parents Who Breastfeed.’

“The article describes the way gendered pronouns and attitudes are excluding men who nurse, and the legalities associated with challenging the heretofore female-centric endeavor of breastfeeding.

“In particular, women who have had chest surgery and now identify as men, described how they are made to feel unwelcome in breastfeeding circles.”

Make up your mind! Do you want to be a mother who breast feeds or a father who biologically don’t have breasts that do not lactate (outside of rare medical conditions)?

"Men don't lactate unless they do, but it is an exemption, so please ignore that."

And:

But no one if forcing you to live like the opposite biological sex… unless you are a Christian:

“Married minister, father and makeup artist Barry Jones has filed suit against cosmetic powerhouse M.A.C. Cosmetics in a federal religious discrimination lawsuit. Jones ‘alleges that M.A.C. required him to wear makeup if he wanted to obtain certification to become a full-time makeup artist with the company.'”

The purported reason is to make the make-up artists understand how it feels to wear make-up. However:

“Jones wanted to become a M.A.C. trainer, but the makeup issue got in the way. He recalled telling his managers: ‘I don’t want to be pretty. I just want to be a handsome man, do my job and leave.'”

Right, because men never wore makeup and were considered women because of it.

This is what we mean by "Gender". The idea that being a man/woman means acting or having certain things.

And finally:

Or we could just use English gender pronouns according to English grammar.

Like 'they'?

Funny how everything about a persons biological sex is a “social construct” except sexual attraction, in which case it must always be immutable to the point where it is the only immutable characteristics of human beings? But acknowledging that for at least some people, there are preferences regarding sexuality or that a persons sexuality can be shaped? But to even entertain such a possibility would contradict the proffered truth that must not be questioned.

Gender is the social construct not sex. It's complicated.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32223-2/fulltext

The health of transgender children is addressed with imprecise language and overplayed empirical evidence in new Australian guidelines1 and in an Editorial (June 30, p 2576).2 Sex has a biological basis, whereas gender is fundamentally a social expression. Thus, sex is not assigned—chromosomal sex is determined at conception and immutable. A newborn's phenotypic sex, established in utero, merely becomes apparent after birth, with intersex being a rare exception.

But what about the brains? http://overthebrainbow.com/blog/2017/1/7/wired-this-way-sexual-orientation-and-gender-in-the-brain

And why is intersex an exception? https://medium.com/aeon-magazine/people-born-intersex-have-a-right-to-genital-integrity

I don't think Jenna gets enough flack. 13 going on 30 takes place in 2004. There's no way Jenna was able to live in New York City in 2004 and not hear about 9/11. I can only conclude that Jenna Rink is the greatest villain of all time.

chrisiousity's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKdKst4yV2w

Joan C Chrisler's "journal article" https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21604851.2017.1360668

There's a whole host of issues with Chrisiousity's absurdities in her vid - from what I remember she made two comments in that video which were true. That's it. 2 correct statements in a 25 minute long video.

The host of issues with Chrisiousity's video stems from her not reading the "journal articles" that she shows. For instance chrisiousity said that she worked in medicine before. And yet she propped up Joan C. Chrisler as an expert on health and psychology. Lo and behold, if you read the "journal article" that Chrisler wrote up (which was shown in Chrisiousty's video), the "journal article" is filled to the brim with staunchly anti-medicine rhetoric. Chrisler assserts in that journal article that she teaches her students the "obesity paradox" - which is not an accepted hypothesis and has been harshly criticised because the obesitry paradox arose from observational biases and the fact that they didn't take into account smokers. Smokers tend to be leaner, and of course, obesity is a much more likely to occur with people who have severe weight issues.

Chrisler has also supported some really dangerous, anti-medicine rhetoric. According to Chrisler, the HAES movement is a better method of treatment than actual surgery and dieting. Chrisler actually says that medicalization of obesity is unwarranted because there are no safe and effective treatments.

I could go on - there's tonnes and tonnes of issues with Chrisiousity's video - but that is the worst example I came across by far. Someone who worked in medicine before straight up endorsing a "professor" who's staunchly anti-medicine

Look here:

One could argue, on etiquette grounds, that it was rude for Shrier to have referred to Tree’s biological sex — in the vast majority of settings there is no reason to refer to a trans person’s biological sex unless they bring it up. But in three of these four quotes, Shrier is simply using “biological girl” to refer to someone’s biological sex in a setting where it matters a great deal. For Science-Based Medicine to argue that this is inappropriate is surprising.

Or, more accurately, it would have surprised me not too long ago. But SBM is now given over entirely to the activist understanding of this issue, and in that understanding you are not supposed to talk about anyone’s “biological sex,” because biological sex is just too fuzzy a phenomenon to understand or easily categorize — as opposed to gender identity, which despite being a patient’s subjective report of an inherently fuzzy concept, is treated in this model as objectively true in the way we used to view someone’s biological maleness or femaleness as objectively true.

As you can see, Shrier isn’t allowed to use “natal female” or “born female” either, because these are ‘defamatory.’ How is it ‘defamatory’ — that is, “damaging the good reputation of someone; slanderous or libelous” — to call someone a “natal (fe)male”? If you click the link provided in this Science-Based Medicine article, it will take you to what appears to be a basic Word document hosted by New York-Presbyterian hospital and titled “LGBTQ+ Terminology / Vocabulary Primer.” That document simply repeats Eckert’s claim without explaining it at all.

What could this possibly mean? Science-Based Medicine appears to be promoting the view that if a 14-year-old natal female announces they are a trans boy, they are no longer biologically female — after all, it can’t be “considered defamatory and inaccurate” to refer to them as such if the claim is true. If this isn’t what Eckert is saying, what are they saying? This is disturbing, coming from a gender clinician tasked with guiding kids and their families through decisions that can only be made in a truly informed manner if everyone involved has a sophisticated, realistic understanding of biological development and the limits of what puberty blockers and hormones can do. More specifically, you can’t give a child competent care unless they understand they are biologically (fe)male and that this means certain things with regard to what transition will look like, what will happen during puberty if they don’t or de-transition, and so on. (This is an issue the Dutch clinicians mention explicitly in their rundown of their approach.)

Except they don't use the term "biologically female".

Less important but still worth noting, if you actually try to plug the AFAB terminology into Shrier’s claims, it’s readily apparent why it doesn’t work: “If an assigned female at birth teenager regrets her decision and stops taking testosterone, her extra body and facial hair will likely remain, as will her clitoral engorgement, deepened voice, and possibly even the masculinization of her facial features.” This is stilted phrasing that doesn’t really make sense. Those physical changes would set her apart not because she was assigned anything at birth, but because natal females — a class she is a member of regardless of what a doctor says, or her own thoughts on the matter — tend to have much less testosterone, less body and facial hair, and so on. If a doctor had messed up and ‘assigned’ her an M rather than an F, this person would still, in the absence of medical intervention, develop female secondary sex characteristics, menstruate, and so on. There’s nothing ‘assigned’ about any of this. It’s almost like the whole point of these ever-stricter language rules is to make it impossible for any of us to talk about biological realities. But those realities are quite important.

It is also alarming that Science-Based Medicine is not only endorsing but enthusiastically disseminating the view that “a person’s sex refers to the identity assigned by doctors, parents, and medical professionals at birth,” rather than a stable set of physical characteristics that are unambiguous something like more than 99% of the time. Do David Gorski and Steven Novella, longtime critics of bunk scientific claims, themselves endorse this view of what biological sex is? Do they endorse the view that we cannot talk about “biological girls” or “biological females”? If so, they should consider the ramifications this will have for medicine, particularly for women’s healthcare. If not, they should explain how their own views differ and why they think Eckert is wrong. The question of whether or not it is proper, on a website about medical research, to refer to ‘biological’ or ‘natal’ sex, isn’t something that can be tabled — it’s fairly urgent. (Fixed. This paragraph initially read “why they think Lovell is wrong.”)

They won’t explain any of this, of course. Their whole goal here is to keep their heads down, mouth the right pseudoscientific platitudes, and not get in any more of the sort of trouble they got into when they ran a positive review of Irreversible Damage. That’s why they published this series.

This is intellectually dishonest. First off he doesn't consider that "biological sex" is a tautology in this case.

Among humans, there is a huge diversity of sexual development. Sex and gender are complicated; many elements go into their making. The following pieces are all needed in the development/construction of complete femaleness or maleness:

Sex chromosomes – xx for a female, xy for a male Primary sex characteristics – vagina, ovaries and uterus for a female, penis and testes for a male Brain Sex – not masculinized for a female, masculinized for a male Gender Identity – “woman” for a female, “man” for a male Gender Expression – “feminine” for a female, “masculine” for a male Hormones and secondary sexual characteristics – high estrogen and progesterone for a female, high testosterone for a male

At any point in the development process, one of these elements might swerve from the norm. A difference at any of these levels creates some form of “gender variance.” This applies to sexualities as well which are separate from gender.

Also, for each of these different sexually dimorphic traits, some people’s anatomies will fall “in between” or “outside of” what most people consider to be standard for female or male.

Second puberty blockers are very safe

Finally there is no danger from discontinuing transitioning.

According to Shrier, “before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages 11-21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all”. A review of research studies reveals a 1998 research (1) study on puberty delay in trans adolescents, an (2) Introduction to Transmasculine Studies from 2005, 2011 (3) medical guidelines for (4) treatment of transgender youth, and those (5) specific to transmasculine young people, and much more; there is a robust base of scientific literature on AFAB trans youth. One wonders if Shrier knows how to use Google and PubMed, given that these references are not difficult to find. [numbers added by me].

Shrier’s argument is that later-onset youth GD for natal females is a new and lesser-understood phenomenon, whereas researchers have known about both boys and (less often) girls who develop gender dysphoria in earlier childhood for a long time. I think she leaves herself open to criticism with the very bold phrasing here: There was no scientific literature on any kids having developed GD in this age range? It just seems unlikely on its face.

Eckert is certainly skeptical, throwing out not one but five studies supposedly rebutting this claim and then snarkily taking aim at Shrier’s inability to do the most elementary research. Let’s look at these citations one by one:

(1) is a Netherlands case report of a natal female (sorry for the defamation) who “came to the gender clinic requesting sex reassignment surgery at age 16. From interviews with her parents it appeared that she had always been a classical tomboy in her play activities and toy and peer preference and that she wished to be a boy from early on.” This is apparent childhood-onset GD, so it doesn’t debunk Shrier’s claim.

Um...it sorta dies by your own definition. If anything it shows that Shier lied about no research!

(2) is a paper entitled “The Middle Men: An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities” that doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the question at hand (“I illuminate the varied experiences of transmasculine individuals by organizing the plethora of defining FTM labels into three broad categories: Woodworkers, Transmen, and Genderqueers”), so it doesn’t appear to debunk Shrier’s claim, either. I do not have it in me to read this 23-page article in its entirety at the moment because my brain already feels like a turtle stranded on its back at noon on a sunny August day in a Brooklyn parking lot, but it is clearly not a scientific report about youth gender dysphoria. If I am wrong and this contains scientific evidence (rather than anecdote) pertaining to natal females developing GD in the 11-21 age range, I will post a correction. I feel like I’m on safe ground here.

I had to get through a paywall but

The more conservative Genderqueers could also be found at the True Spirit Conference. They were seated around tables, outside of the rowdier, colorful crowd. They also tended to be younger (teens to 20s) and were probably not taking testosterone. They were dressed in khakis, sweaters, and oxford shirts. And, again, you would most likely perceive them as masculine women or teenage boys. Indeed, those among this group identify not as men, but as“bois” or “guys.” Within this more conservative segment, just as in the “punk” group, there are different types: those who have made the decision not to take hormones (a.k.a.“No-Hos,” for “no hormones”), those who are taking low doses of testosterone (a.k.a. “Lo-Hos”), and those who may still be deciding.

Once again, Jessie lies.

(3) is medical guidelines which read, at their very beginning, “Based on the work of Cohen-Kettenis et al in Amsterdam, it is recommended that children with persistent GID and worsening gender dysphoria begin pubertal suppression at Tanner stage 2 after thorough evaluation by a mental health professional that excludes any psychological disorder causing a gender disorder.” The authors also note that “although 80% to 90% of childhood GID desists by adulthood, GID rarely desists after the onset of pubertal development.” These are all references to childhood GID/GD and its persistence/desistance, so nothing here debunks Shrier’s claim.

That claim being "before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages 11-21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all” so it probably has girls who developed GD...

In fact let's read the whole abstract

Over the past 20 years, research studies have established the appropriate age for gender change in adolescents and young adults with persistent gender identity disorder (GID). Based on the work of Cohen-Kettenis et al in Amsterdam, it is recommended that children with persistent GID and worsening gender dysphoria begin pubertal suppression at Tanner stage after thorough evaluation by a mental health professional that excludes any psychological disorder causing a gender disorder. This recommendation is part of the Clinical Practice Guideline for the Endocrine Treatment of Transsexual Persons, developed and published by the Endocrine Society and co-sponsored by the European Society of Endocrinology, the European Society of Pediatric Endocrinology, Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

(4) is a paper on “Management of the Transgender Adolescent” lead-authored by Johanna Olson (now Olson-Kennedy) that barely touches on this specific issue. It does note that “most adolescents and adults with GID report that they experienced cross-gender behavior and identity as children, and many teenagers diagnosed as having GID do have persistence of GID into adulthood. [citations removed].” So while the language of ‘most’ rather than ‘all’ nods to the possibility of later-onset youth GD (including among natal females), this paper offers no information on this population, nor specific references to it. So it doesn’t debunk Shrier’s claim, either.

Other than talking about it?

Most Children aged 5 to 12 years diagnosed as having GID...

It's almost as if he doesn't read them himself...

(5), finally, is a general overview for the assessment and treatment of “Female-to-Male Transgender Adolescents” that, like (4), includes language implicitly nodding at the possibility of later-onset natally female GD youth, but which offers no specific insights or explicit mentions of research on this population. So again, no dice.

...how is he even defining youth here?!?!?

For those keeping score, that’s five references to papers supposedly debunking a supposedly laughable scientific claim, none of which actually does debunk that claim. Keeping in mind that the average reader only rarely clicks on links and only super rarely can fully access paywalled research, compare the actual content of these papers to the feeling a paragraph with five links and that snarky remark likely givse to the reader: “Boy, is this woman full of it!” And note how long it can take to debunk false claims, versus how swift a task it must have been for Eckert to lard this paragraph with citations that seemed to be about the question at hand, but which weren’t.

Unless Eckert can point to research suggesting otherwise, Science-Based Medicine should retract its claim that Shrier was wrong to suggest that prior to 2012, there had been on research specific to later-onset youth GD in natal females.

She wasn't talking about "later-onset youths" you quack!

From here:

According to a professor at Duke Law School, this legislation, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, would have disastrous consequences for women’s sports.

In April oral testimony in front of the House, professor Doriane Lambelet Coleman used simple science to explain why the tearing down of gender differentiation could spell the end of female athletics.

“Those of us who were athletes know that segregation on the basis of sex or at least of sex-linked traits is necessary to achieve equality in this space,” she said. “That’s why, even though we’ve integrated almost all other spaces and opportunities, we are still committed to girls- and women’s-only sport.”

A law professor probably doesn't know the science.

“The argument is that because some males identify as women, some women have testes,” she said. “From this, it follows that sex and sex-linked traits can’t be the grounds for distinctions ‘on the basis of sex’ because this excludes women with testes. Thus, gender identity is the only legitimate basis for classifying someone into and out of, for example, girls’- and women’s-only spaces and opportunities.”

Strawman alert!

So I have been reading up on the controversial subject of race and intelligence and the heritability argument by "race realists" seems pretty convincing.

Studies seem to have shown that parts of a person his IQ is heritable, giving in to the policy implication that interventions to improve education/jobs for low-IQ people wouldn't do that much.

Am I misinterpreting something? Are socio-economic, educational and nutritional influences on IQ contradictory with high heritability?

(Sorry Mods, I know this isn't really fitting to the point of this sub but you guys seem well-read on this subject)