2024: Trans Pendulum in Retrograde (The Study, The Leaks, & The Cass Report)

In this eye-opening discussion, Malcolm Collins and Simone Collins dive deep into three major events that have shaken the foundations of trans activism: the Cass Report, a longitudinal study on gender non-contentedness, and a leak from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). They explore the implications of these studies, which suggest that the majority of gender non-conforming youth will eventually desist in their gender non-contentedness, and that many in the trans community are aware that children cannot fully comprehend the long-term consequences of transitioning. The hosts also discuss the importance of waiting until adulthood to make irreversible decisions, the potential risks associated with hormone therapy, and the need for a more nuanced approach to gender-affirming care.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. It is exciting to be here with you today. You and I have done a number of episodes around trans issues before and trying to get to, what is most likely the truth about this stuff because it is so politically charged.

It is very hard to get accurate readings of what's going on one way or the other if you're the type of person who's really into sexuality research, which we are, we've written a book on the subject.

While I consider those. Episodes pretty comprehensive in terms of our views of the issue.

There have been 3 really big events that have happened since the recording of those episodes. And each of which are really worth diving into and we'll use that episode to do this. The 3 events that I am speaking, of course, are about the cast. Report huge for people who don't know what this is.

This is a report that did a review and it's like now the gold standard that the UK is using to determine how they relate to trans [00:01:00] treatment, particularly in individuals under the age of 18.

And it came out pretty critical of a lot of the stuff going out on the field right now. Another was a big study.

On longitudinally on trans individuals and the trans community was pretty unhappy with the findings that it had with the biggest, from my perspective, being that of gender conforming youth, over 90 percent end up being totally okay with their gender when they're adults. This is obviously a very important thing to know when you're looking at things like affirming gender care.

And then the final 1 was a leak of 1 of the major trans organizations that sets a lot of the policy positions for Canada and the United States and the leak. A lot of people who are really anti trans, or I'd say overly trans skeptical, have taken this leak to be uniquely damning. And I think that there's actually a more nuanced perspective on some of these emails and what's going on with this.[00:02:00]

So I want to go over every one of these in turn with you. And with our audience to try to find out what's really going on here.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: So the 1st thing I wanted to do was to go into the study because to me, this is most interesting. The cast report is more just like a political thing that's happening.

It's not really new information. This study is new information and it's really interesting information. And it's called. Development of gender non contentedness during adolescence and early adulthood, and it came out in February, 2024,

So this is what the study says. We found that gender non contentedness, is most common around the age of 11, and that the prevalence decreases with age. Moreover, we identified three different developmental trajectory types of gender non contentedness throughout adolescent and early adulthood.

One, the majority, 78 percent of the sample, consistently indicated to never experience any gender non contentedness. So [00:03:00] 78 percent of people at around the age of 11 just are totally okay with their gender. All right, to a group reporting gender non contentedness in early adolescence, but not any longer in adulthood.

19 percent of the sample. So this is a population that starts feeling very non contented with their gender and then gets over it as they get older or no longer has these feelings. These are transient feelings to them. And we'll go into this group in a bit more detail in a 2nd, 3, a small group. 2 percent of the sample showing the opposite pattern of increasingly reporting gendered non contentedness with age. We found that female sex and participating in the clinical rather than the population cohort was associated with increasing gendered non contentedness. So this is actually really important what they said there being in the clinical, not the population cohort. So what that means is when this study was conducted, A portion of the [00:04:00] participants that they were using were from the general population.

A portion of the population they were using was from a, clinical transitioning groups. Okay.

All right. So what they're saying here is that this percentage, so if you're taking like a random shotgunning and just in case you haven't done the numbers in your head, this means that of the people who at the age of 11 feel gender non contentedness Over 90 percent this feeling persists in them.

They do not feel this in adults. It's actually mentioned in the studies that of this percent of the cohort, not a single one of them felt gender non content in this by the time they hit their twenties.

Simone Collins: And this harkens back to the research that you had done when writing the pregnancy guide to sexuality, that sort of showed that a lot of people.

Either weren't super married to their birth sex or otherwise, just not like we're okay with playing around

Malcolm Collins: with different printers. Yeah. Now, what gets really interesting here is because this comes from the clinical cohort. It means that actually, in the gender, the general population, more broadly, [00:05:00] these numbers are probably even lower of this group where this feeling increases over time, which means that it's probably lower.

Low like the number of people who have gender non contentedness when they're around 11 that end up not having it when they're adults. This part of the cohort is likely much, much larger than 90%. I might go as far as to say 98 percent given what the data is showing here, which. Is obviously a really devastating point for trans individuals.

So a lot of them have been attacking this study pretty vociferously, but I think that this shows a, but there's also individuals in the trans community who see the study and are quite excited about it because they're like it does show that you have this 2 percent when the problem gets bigger over time.

And this is really interesting, so I'm gonna keep reading some more, because the key question then for the trans community is how do you distinguish between these two groups?

Simone Collins: Yeah. How do you tell when it's like real [00:06:00] trans versus, transient trans?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Transient gender non contentedness that has to do with puberty, which I've said in previous videos, is a common part of childhood is being non content with your gender.

Or the changes that are happening with your body over puberty. That's normal. And so what this study now does is it changes the entire playing field of transness because we're also going to go over it in the context of previous studies because it really is the best of the long term studies in this space.

And it shows very exactly that if a Young adolescent comes to you and says they do not feel content with their gender. Odds are hugely on the side that they're not going to feel like this as they get older, and therefore affirming these feelings is a bad idea.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Ye