Coauthor of gender-affirming care reviews says they've been misused to justify bans

"The reviews found the evidence for these treatments had "either low or very low certainty," the site notes. But Guyatt said that's not a reason to ban them. "Low-quality evidence doesn't mean it doesn't work. It means we don't know. And so we try," he told Stat10. "There is, I would say, quite good evidence from the accounts of the individuals who've undergone the therapy that they were really benefited by the therapy.""

"The reviews were funded by the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, which "doesn't explicitly advocate for restrictive policies" but "consistently emphasizes the weakness of the evidence base for gender-affirming care, emboldening those who do call for bans," Stat10 reports. It submitted a friend-of-the-court-brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case on Tennessee's law banning this care for transgender youth, and it "was in support of neither party, but called gender-affirming care 'experimental,' highlighting its 'remarkably weak scientific foundation,'" the outlet explains."

Gordon Guyatt, an epidemiologist and professor at McMaster University, coauthored three reviews on puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and top surgery for children and young adults. A Ph.D. student led the reviews while Guyatt worked to ensure objectivity. The reviews rated the evidence for these interventions as either low or very low certainty. Guyatt emphasized that low-quality evidence does not establish ineffectiveness and that many individuals report substantial benefits. The reviews were funded by the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, which has highlighted weak evidence and participated in legal filings related to bans on care.

Read at Advocate.com