GLAAD, the gender ideology activist organization, has taken to protesting outside the headquarters of The New York Times, of all places. GLAAD believes that the Times printing various liberal opinions on the “trans” issue is “questioning trans people’s right to exist.” Yes, it’s getting more “interesting” all the time out there. And this should show us that it is mere disagreement with their religious orthodoxy, not our kindness or lack of, that is the violating offense. These people tolerate no dissent from anyone. In response, GLAAD is publicly asserting “a clear message” that “the science is settled.”

Another organization, Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) want us to know GLAAD’s claim that the “’Science is Settled’ is an outrageous, blatant, Orwellian lie,” adding “GLAAD’s statement could not be further from the truth.” PITT is precisely right.

There are at least two reasons for this.

First, to claim that the “science is settled” on any issue that just cropped up in the last few milliseconds of human history and that no one fully understands is utterly ridiculous. In fact, such a statement is itself desperately unscientific. It misunderstands what science is and does.

Science is the rigorous process of systematic questioning. Constantly testing hypotheses against new data and new theories. Good science not only welcomes challenge, but relies on it. Gender ideologues like GLAAD, by calling for a moratorium on dissent, are actually stifling science.

Good science almost never settles. Yes, the science of gravity or the shape of the earth is settled. But most science is actively seeking new data, new findings, welcoming serious new voices to sharpen and refine what is currently believed, thus coming to smarter conclusions. That is what the scientific method does. It pushes relentlessly, always suspicious there might be something else we can learn to enhance our knowledge about a particular question.

Our friends at the Colson Center explain this in a very helpful way.

In fact, an article just published in the esteemed British Medical Journal explains precisely why GLAAD is wrong, stating in its title “Gender dysphoria in young people is rising – and so is professional disagreement.” They explain the science is indeed not settled “because of a strong lack of evidence” that medical interventions are helpful and healthy.

Second, to wrongly say the “science is settled” on gender issues simply ignores what is going on in the most advanced European countries right now. The trend internationally is decidedly away from what activists deceptively call “gender affirming care.” These countries are now finding this approach both experimental and harmful.

Sweden published a 2022 review of so-called “gender affirming care” commissioned by the Swedish government and is now significantly restricting the practice for Swedish children and adolescents because “the risks of puberty suppressing treatment … and gender-affirming hormonal treatment currently outweigh the possible benefits.”

The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, who reviewed the data for the Swedish government, certainly does not think the science is settled at all. They directly state “the continued lack of reliable scientific evidence concerning the efficacy” of such treatments as well as the marked increase in the “new knowledge that detransition occurs among young adults” urges greater caution.

The U.K. followed an even more dramatic path. After a careful, independent review of the scientific literature on the effectiveness of these procedures, the U.K.’s National Health Service is closing down the world’s largest pediatric gender clinic because its practice was deemed “not a safe or viable long-term option” for young people.

Finland has moved in this direction as well, pushing more psychotherapy for gender confused youth rather than medicalizing them because their own systematic review of the published evidence for that dramatic approach is “inconclusive.”

Just last year, France’s National Academy of Medicine issued a major statement explaining “great medical caution must be taken in children and adolescents, given the vulnerability, particularly psychological, of this population and the many undesirable effects, and even serious complications, that some of the available therapies can cause.” They are speaking of the surgeries and hormonal interventions.

In the United States, caution is also growing. The Florida Department of Health sent a memorandum to medical doctors across the state explaining how careful, peer-reviewed scientific research advises significant caution to physicians in providing social transitionspuberty blockershormone therapy, and removal of health body parts from our children.

This medical memorandum explains,

Systematic reviews on hormonal treatment for young people show a trend of low-quality evidence, small sample sizes, and medium to high risk of bias. A paper published in the International Review of Psychiatry states that 80% of those seeking clinical care will lose their desire to identify with the nonbirth sex. One review concludes that “hormonal treatments for transgender adolescents can achieve their intended physical effects, but evidence regarding their psychosocial and cognitive impact is generally lacking.” (emphasis in original)

The careful and objective Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) explains from their interaction with the scientific literature,

Other countries should learn the lessons from the UK (and from Sweden and Finland). First, there is insufficient evidence to justify the general clinical use of puberty suppression or cross-sex hormone use in youth experiencing gender dysphoria. Second, a treatment regimen that focuses exclusively on gender dysphoria, ignoring co-occurring mental health conditions, will not provide optimal care for young people.

No, the science on gender experimentation is certainly not settled. If anything, it consistently shows wisdom in resisting medicating and surgeries on children and adolescents who are following this social contagion. Such a conclusion is not only demanded by these careful systematic literature reviews, but by a wealth of current science showingevery follow-up study of GD [gender dysphoric] children, without exception, found the same thing: Over puberty, the majority of GD children cease to want to transition” because nature most often just takes its course and brings up to ninety-eight percent of these youth in line with their natural sex.

GLAAD and other gender activist organizations like them are the ones on the wrong side of the science.