Rebecca WatsonLast year I promoted physicist Sabine Hossenfelder's YouTube channel, so I figured I should probably comment on her video last week, in which she takes the moderate position between both "crazy" sides of the trans "debate." https://skepchick.org/2023/05/physicist-sabine-hossenfelder-screws-up-on-trans-kids-care/
I went through Hossenfelder's video line by line and found it to be a mixed bag: some good and accurate information that sits alongside citation-free assertions, like "doctors in clinics report cases of 'rapid onset of gender dysphoria."
The main issue was false balance: a misleading preliminary survey of transphobes on an internet forum who came up with "rapid onset of gender dysphoria" (eventually corrected by PLOS One along with an apology) is considered equal to a study that found no such thing exists.
There's also the issue of dismissing the huge amount of evidence researchers have found that show that gender-affirming care literally saves lives, and the earlier the better. Here, she dismisses one study for a control group of 7...
...failing to note that they found a reduction in depression and suicidality not just at the end of the study but at the 3 and 6-month marks, when untreated patients numbered 38 & 24 (out of 108 total). Small total sample size? Sure. It's still one more piece of the puzzle.
I don't think Hossenfelder went out of her way to misrepresent the transphobic case. I think that, like the New York Times, she's fallen for the existing false balance framework that transphobes have established, devaluing science to equate it with anecdote & fearmongering.
It's a shame, because I enjoyed the other videos I saw from her. I hope she gets back to the science. https://skepchick.org/2023/05/physicist-sabine-hossenfelder-screws-up-on-trans-kids-care/
Graham Linehan is a basketball hoop set three feet lower than regulation. Yes it's easy, but dunking on him still feels so good
GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)@rebeccawatson Image description:
Social media post by Eye Toldyoosso: Graham Linehan gave us "Father Ted" And "The IT Crowd", and some people ruined his life and stopped / cancelled the "Father Ted" Musical Going ahead, just saying.
Reply by Rebecca Watson: yes "some people” by the name of graham linehan hahahaha
Social media post by Eye Toldyoosso: Graham Linehan gave us "Father Ted" And "The IT Crowd", and some people ruined his life and stopped / cancelled the "Father Ted" Musical Going ahead, just saying.
Reply by Rebecca Watson: yes "some people” by the name of graham linehan hahahaha
McChessers@rebeccawatson But a stage adaptation of a beloved sitcom featuring none of the original cast was BOUND to be gold!
Eat My Wings To Keep Me Tame@rebeccawatson tentacle porn guy strikes again
טליה (לשון את) 
@rebeccawatson
I personally unsubscribed for good. If I can't trust her not to do bad science in a subject I am well-versed in, I definitely can't trust her in subjects I am not well-versed in.
T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen@yuvalne @rebeccawatson You can trust her to do good science in her own field. As a physicist, she is far above average. She just seems to have fallen in the "all other science is just applied physics" trap that so many physicists seem to go into once they gain a platform.
@thriveth
physics is like, a minority of her videos nowadays. Just in the past 3 months she posted videos about sociology, addiction, AI, marijuana, climate science and green energy, and that's not counting her science news videos.
while I am somewhat good at reading papers, I am not well-versed in any of these fields, and therefore cannot tell when she is wrong. which means I cannot trust her.
@rebeccawatson
physics is like, a minority of her videos nowadays. Just in the past 3 months she posted videos about sociology, addiction, AI, marijuana, climate science and green energy, and that's not counting her science news videos.
while I am somewhat good at reading papers, I am not well-versed in any of these fields, and therefore cannot tell when she is wrong. which means I cannot trust her.
@rebeccawatson
Wessel Valkenburg@yuvalne @thriveth @rebeccawatson And that's where Hossenfelder drops the ball: she doesn't acknowledge that she's not well versed in all these fields, yet she relies on her own literature studies without consulting a whole group of actual experts who know the context. If this is science communication, it is poorly done.
@yuvalne @rebeccawatson I completely agree with you there, unfortunately.
BlueWinds@yuvalne @thriveth @rebeccawatson
Exactly. I used to enjoy her physics videos, but she's gone off the deep end a bit, with bad takes and shallow videos on subjects she has no expertise in.
Some of those videos were on subjects I *do* have expertise in, and they were both insultingly incorrect and arrogant about it.
@bluewinds
that's exactly how I felt this time which is how I knew I cannot trust her.
@thriveth @rebeccawatson
that's exactly how I felt this time which is how I knew I cannot trust her.
@thriveth @rebeccawatson
Steve-o Stonebraker@rebeccawatson I agree with your conclusion where you say "labels can be useful but people can be complicated". Sabine unfortunately uses some TERFy talking points while trying to find nuance, but overall she defies simple categorization. (On other issues, too.)
She did a video about trans athletes a year or so back that I was bracing myself to lose respect for her over (in part because of a clickbaity title) but it ended up mostly satisfying me.
It's a shame she bought the ROGD bs. :(
ImerynGreat video but i'm sorry to provide you with a source for a doctor that works with trans kids and believes in that rapid onset theory.
She's a doctor that works at TAYS at youth youth psychiatric clinic in Finland. She also seems to hold other terfy views and from my understanding hangs around in those circles. I would not be surprised if Hossenfelder was referring to her.
This was brought to light when Finland made self-id possible for adults earlier this year and there was big public debate about it.
The way trans kids are treated in Finland is really bad and the fact that people like her work at one of the 2 gender clinics in here means there is only 1 clinic that i would recommend that trans kids go to.
Source behind paywall in Finnish:
https://www.hs.fi/tiede/art-2000009348478.html
Good response to the above also in Finnish:
https://julmaria.wordpress.com/2019/06/06/meidan-pitaa-puhua-laakarista/
Nuoruusiän sukupuoliahdistusta hoitava professori sanoo ei alaikäisten juridisen sukupuolen korjaukselle
Nuoruusiässä identiteetin rakennus on kesken. Aikuisten ei pitäisi ryhtyä vahvistamaan eikä hillitsemään identiteettikokeiluja, jotka kuuluvat kasvuun, sanoo nuorisopsykiatrian professori Riittakerttu Kaltiala.
@rebeccawatson Thanks, Rebecca! I have also liked a lot of Sabines previous videos and was sad to see this both-sidesism regurgitated in that one, so I am happy that you took it on.
חנן כהן • Hanan Cohen@rebeccawatson It's not easy not to fall into the popularity trap. She is not the first or the last youtuber that this happened to.
I am not writing this to reduce her responsibility from what she said, but to suggest an explanation on where she is and where she is heading.
Thommy@rebeccawatson one thing that might not be obvious to a lot of people is that she's basically repeating a lot of talking points that Jesse Singal peddles, like where she interpreted the trans kids' mental health not improving on HRT as a bad outcome (when puberty probably doesn't improve cis kids' mental health either!) She's not simply screwing up doing the work, she's copying someone else's bad work.