In this episode of Agree to Disagree About Gender, I speak with epidemiologist Dr. Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, also known as Health Nerd, about pediatric gender medicine, medical transition for young people with gender dysphoria, and what the evidence can and cannot tell us.

The quality of evidence around pediatric medical transition remains highly contested. Some argue that the existing research is too weak to determine whether these interventions improve outcomes for young people, make outcomes worse for some, or help certain groups while harming others. Others argue that continued access is necessary despite uncertainty, especially given the distress experienced by many adolescents with gender dysphoria.

Dr. Meyerowitz-Katz is an epidemiologist and science communicator who writes about evidence, public health, and how to interpret data. His Substack, Health Nerd, has more than 33,000 subscribers, and he has written extensively about pediatric gender medicine, including arguments in favour of continued access to care despite the limitations of the current evidence base.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why the evidence base for pediatric medical transition is so difficult to interpret

• What randomized trials, observational studies, and systematic reviews can and cannot answer

• Whether better data could resolve the debate

• How researchers should think about benefit, harm, regret, and uncertainty

• Why pediatric gender medicine has become so politically polarized

• Why data alone often fails to persuade people on either side of the issue

This is a conversation about evidence, uncertainty, values, and the limits of epidemiology in one of the most contested areas of medicine.

Guest: Dr. Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz / Health Nerd

Show: Agree to Disagree About Gender

#PediatricGenderMedicine #GenderDysphoria #MedicalTransition #HealthNerd #Epidemiology #GenderMedicine #EvidenceBasedMedicine #AgreeToDisagreeAboutGender

Maia Poet joins us for Part 2 of our conversation about her theories of the interface between autism in natal females, the drive to transition and detransition, and how it informs her advocacy. We also discuss the evolution of her thinking on trans people, and her transition from a more adversarial to a more curious and collaborative approach Also, please check out Part 1 of our interview on our channel!

Maia Poet spent 12 years of her adolescence and early adulthood believing she had a male brain in a female body, and eventually went on to live in the male social role amongst Orthodox Jews, Palestinian Muslims and secular Israelis for five years. It took living through two wars in the Middle East for Maia to begin the journey of questioning the conclusion she came to as a 12 year old, and eventually to divest from it entirely.

Almost three years later, she is now a public speaker and writer who reflects extensively on Substack about her experiences of transition, desistance and detransition with a focus on exploring the overlap of conditions like ADHD, autism and gender dysphoria at the intersection of research and lived experience. She hopes to bring awareness to the ways in which the systematic overlooking of autistic traits and experiences in girls early in life, leaves them uniquely unequipped to navigate the psycho-social and sensory challenges of puberty, and therefore more vulnerable to developing conditions like sex or gender dysphoria and eating disorders around adolescence.

Maia sits down with Laura and Yvette about the impact of autism and neurodiversity on the experience of living with gender dysphoria. Her perspective is imformed by her own experience of growing up autistic before it was commonly recognized in natal females, her relationship to her body and how she developed gender dysphoria, and how she came to live in a male role as an adolescent and young adult in Israel

Karleigh Webb is a woman who wears a lot of hats on the field and off. She is a sports journalist with 33 years experience as a television sports reporter/anchor, producer and now as a contributing sportswriter to Outsports.com. She is also the a training coordinator and peer support operator for Trans Lifeline. Karleigh is also an avid cycling, runner, triathlete/duathlete and is in her fourth season of women's football playing for the Connecticut Ambush of the American Women's Football League. Karleigh joins us to make her case about why trans women belong in women's sports at all levels. We discuss the implications of trans women's participation in contact vs. noncontact sports, competitive vs. recreational, and on the role sports can play in creating a sense of belonging for trans women Needless to say, this becomes a source of vigorous debate for Laura and especially Yvette who is firmly protective of women's sports being for biological women. This discussion gets lively and contentious, but remains civil throughout, as we continue to model how to have impactful conversations about controversies in the world of gender

Sasha Ayad is a license therapist who provides counselling to families where a child is transitioning or is experiencing gender distress. Her focus is on how parents can continue to be part of their child's life and avoid estrangement and promote reconcilement, even when they are not supportive of medical transition She joins Yvette and Laura on Agree to Disagree About Gender to have a heartfelt discussion on these issues Sasha became interested in the sharp rise in teenagers who declare they are trans for the first time during adolescence. She questions the practice of medical transition for minors, and her clinical work focuses on developmentally appropriate, least-invasive-first talk therapy. Seeing a great need to help parents, Sasha began running parent groups in 2019 both online and through in-person retreats. She is the co-author of the book When Kids Say They’re Trans, and writes regularly on Substack. She recently launched a new project called The Metaphor of Gender: on this YouTube Channel, identity goes beyond the literal. She uses radical curiosity and surprising insights to help adolescents and young adults better understand themselves and skillfully navigate the real world.

In Part 2 of our conversation with Jonni Skinner, we focus on life after detransition: the challenges of re-integrating back into the male gender role after living for 8 years as a woman, staying positive despite facing hardships, his motivations to become an advocate for restricting access to medical interventions for minors, and on what his future might hold. Please take a moment to watch Part 1 if you haven't already

Jonni Skinner is a young man who spent 8 years of his adolescence and young adulthood living as a girl and young woman, before deciding to reclaim his identity as an effeminate gay man. He details how he came to believe that transition would be a better fit for his personality, his struggles with medicalization as a young person, and how he intends to face his future in his birth sex. Yvette and Laura touch upon why he tried to "trans away the gay", if he is now trying to "gay away the trans", and his advocacy for banning access to the type of care he beleives has left him permanently damaged.. We also discuss the intersection between identity and embodiment, what he envisions his life will be like going forward, and why he still has affection for the trans community. This is the first of 2 episodes, -please stay tuned for Part 2 next week

Jamie Paul is a writer based in Greater Philadelphia, founder of American Dreaming, managing editor at Queer Majority, and contributing editor at Bi.org. His work has appeared in outlets including Quillette, Persuasion, Areo Magazine, and Gazeta do Povo. His recent focus has been on documenting what he perceives as the excesses of "wokism", and on how these excesses have undermined the status and well-being of the populations who they were ostensibly advocating for. These can be found on his series "The Memory Hole Archives"" In his thesis, trans advocacy was no exception; trans activists once in control of influence within academia, government, the civil service, and in left-leaning society promoted a set of policies without the broader consent of the public leading to a backlash that threatens the ability of trans people to access the accommodations and concessions that once allowed many of them to flourish. Jamie joins Yvette and Laura to discuss his thesis in more detail, not out of hatred or contempt for trans people, but to act as the blue print on how trans advocacy can move forward in a more measured and pragmatic fashion