Evan Urquhart

Yeah, we could have a good old convo about the desistance numbers (spoiler alert- I've directly interviewed Steensma), but I was just talking about adults, here.

I was making reference to your addressing "trans kids" and sports in your article. If most of them do not become trans adults, it's not honest to label them that. "Confused kids likely fixated on something they'll grow out of..."

Most important word in this tweet is "if". Like I said, I've personally interviewed Steensma. He agreed that desistance numbers have been going steadily downward as diagnostic criteria have improved, and really downplayed the difference between his method and affirming methods.

He believes approaches should be individualized and blockers etc can be good tools in the right context, but you have to look at what's best for the individual child & family.

And, he's the desistance guy. He might be a bit more conservative in his watchful waiting approach but it's not the complete different paradigm it's made out to be.

He heavily implied that sometimes transition shouldn't be pursued solely to prevent youth being abused by their families. If that's your evidence... idk, I understood his point but I think it means you have to work towards trans youth not being aused by their families.

I understood other studies also showed many kids changing their minds. There's also the evidence around social contagion and also the link to autism in kids. In today's environment, I imagine clarifying studies that could be done are not because of political pressures.

While I welcome a discussion with anyone, this is my area of expertise as a journalist so I'm pretty confident in my data, and my opinions were heavily informed by that data.