On Thursday evening I ran across an audio book form of the New Atlantis Report on Sexuality and Gender. I decided to give it a unbiased and objective review of what I thought and if it is as horrible as some have said it is. First of all I want to quote from the preface of the report about whom the lead author is for this report. This will help to clarify and set at rest the idea it was written by an ex-gay movement bigot.
Readers wondering about this report’s synthesis of research from so many different fields may wish to know a little about its lead author. I am a full-time academic involved in all aspects of teaching, research, and professional service. I am a biostatistician and epidemiologist who focuses on the design, analysis, and interpretation of experimental and observational data in public health and medicine, particularly when the data are complex in terms of underlying scientific issues. I am a research physician, having trained in medicine and psychiatry in the U.K. and received the British equivalent (M.B.) to the American M.D. I have never practiced medicine (including psychiatry) in the United States or abroad. I have testified in dozens of federal and state legal proceedings and regulatory hearings, in most cases reviewing scientific literature to clarify the issues under examination. I strongly support equality and oppose discrimination for the LGBT community, and I have testified on their behalf as a statistical expert.
An undertaking as ambitious as this report would not be possible without the counsel and advice of many gifted scholars and editors. I am grateful for the generous help of Laura E. Harrington, M.D., M.S., a psychiatrist with extensive training in internal medicine and neuroimmunology, whose clinical practice focuses on women in life transition, including affirmative treatment and therapy for the LGBT community. She contributed to the entire report, particularly lending her expertise to the sections on endocrinology and brain research. I am indebted also to Bentley J. Hanish, B.S., a young geneticist who expects to graduate medical school in 2021 with an M.D./Ph.D. in psychiatric epidemiology. He contributed to the entire report, particularly to those sections that concern genetics.
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dedicate my work on this report, first, to the LGBT community, which bears a disproportionate rate of mental health problems compared to the population as a whole. We must find ways to relieve their suffering.
The lead author of the report is one Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D.; who's credentials and acceptance/support of the LGBT community is written about in the preface quoted above. Since he was being misunderstood he took the time to write a FAQ about his report which says the following.
Does the report argue that being gay or transgender is a choice?No. The report explicitly states that “sexual orientation is not a choice,” but demonstrates that, according to currently available scientific research, “biological factors cannot provide a complete explanation” for sexual orientation and argues that “environmental and experiential factors may also play an important role.”
Does the report argue that sexual orientation or gender identity can be changed through therapy?No. The report argues that “sexual orientation may be quite fluid over the life course for some people” and observes that “only a minority of children who experience cross-gender identification will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.” The report does not advocate trying to change — or confirm — a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through therapy. The report’s authors are especially wary of medical interventions directed at children.The report argues strongly for better addressing the mental health problems (anxiety, depression, suicide) and behavioral and social problems (substance abuse, intimate partner violence) that non-heterosexual and transgender populations experience at much higher rates than the general population.
So much for the report being some sort of clandestine undercover ex-gay pushing investigation. Not once throughout the 5 hours it took to listen to the report in full did it support therapy to convert people. Not once in the 5 hours did it support any sort of hypothesis of the ex-gay community. In fact, it said they were incorrect for considering orientation to be a chosen lifestyle choice or somehow being volitional. Not a single study that was vetted for the report was connected to the ex-gay movement in anyway. All 500 plus citations are from mainstream scientific studies and not from any form of therapy group that supported therapeutic conversion.
While the report does actually acknowledge that evidence is on the side of orientation being mutable and changing within people it never says it can be done through therapy and willpower, It instead represents the studies it cites correctly by considering it a natural change overtime in the populations studied. The statement it makes in the summary that 80% of the population in the studies they cited were heterosexual by a certain Wave/Age of study is correct. That is what the cited studies they have in the linked citations in the report says it found. It is simply reporting honestly what these Longitudinal Studies showed.
In fact, out and proud Lesbian Psychologist with the American Psychological Association Lisa Diamond has this same information in her contributions to the APA's LGBTQ Handbook for working with the LGBTQ population. Similarly, also Out and Proud Gay Psychologist also contributing to the research on LGBTQ peoples and the handbook Ritch Savin-Williams said as much as well. There was no disputing that there was more movement in the studies of the population towards an opposite sex attraction being present. I think if people knew that their sources were studies cited by LBGTQ people themselves the accusations that this was an Ex-Gay based report would have never taken off.
In fact, the idea that orientation is a combination of factors is in fact the official statement of the American Psychological Association.
There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.
In other words exactly what The New Atlantis stated in their summary of their findings when they said that it appeared to be a mixture of different factors which affected ones orientation and identity of themselves sexually. However, when The New Atlantis said the research we have supports this view and not the easily digestible have a gay gene be gay narrative people went nuts. Unfortunately, due to the role of the ex-gay movement with trying to squash gay rights by dismissing gay gene hypothesis anyone whom ever says there is more to it than your genes will be mistaken for being on their side.
It is also in the APA Handbook on LGBTQ issues that cross-gender identifying children will indeed the majority of the time not be trans and be identifying with their biological sex by the time they have been through puberty. In order to be considered Trans or gender dysphoric you need to be having it long term and not just as a little child, but, an ongoing issue with your gender of your body./ The New Atlantis is not differing from mainstream psychology or science in this regard either. They correctly articulate the studies they have present in their list of hundreds of citations they used.
A little boy playing with Barbies or even wearing a dress is not determined or destined to be a trans person. Or to have gender dysphoria or to take hormones nor to transition with surgery. Many little kids can play fantasy without really being the sex they are playing as based on their dress or other traits. After all we do not say that all butch, tomboyesque little girls are boys in girls bodies. Cross-sex fantasies and play does not equal being gender dysphoric and needing to be transitioned to the opposite sex. Kids are kids and let kids be kids. They should not be pushed or indoctrinated into thinking that just because they might have differences from others of their sex that means they are trapped in the wrong body.
On the issue of Gender Identity I fully concur with The New Atlantis lead author that we should not be placing labels on kids and assuming they are trans based on their traits alone. The idea that children as young as 2 years old whom cannot even fully reason what the truth of the world is yet are being seriously considered to be not their right sex by their parents is insane. It is not OK to take a young person whom is not yet capable of fully reasoning and confusing them by talking about gender dysphoria or transgender to them. That should be left until they have developed the mental capacity to be able to reason for themselves about such matters. They are more than likely to be just engaging in harmless childhood flights of fancy and not showing signs of gender identity in-congruence. In some instances they might turn out to be LGBQ, but, more than likely not T.
Gender Dysphoria or the state of being Transgender is not something that is likely to be the case for most children that people have. It is a very, very small minority of the overall population. One should not be jumping on the idea that ones kid is this way just based on their habits, or toy preferences, or other interests or the like. Nor should our kids be put into a list for hormones to stop them from going through puberty simply based on these things either. The introduction of hormone blockers in ever growing younger children is an issue for me as well. The vast majority of cross-identifying children if allowed to go through puberty will be identifying with their biological sex once puberty has been allowed to occur. Most of them will not be someone that should ever have been on the blockers in the first place.
If you are an older person and you are not a child. If you want to go on hormones and it has been deemed safe it is your body. However, children are a special case and they are not consenting of age adults. They can be pressured or hell even completely brainwashed by batshit crazy militant parents whom want to push the Trans label onto their non-conforming kids. Young people are susceptible to suggestion and parents whom are pushing their own agenda could easily manipulate a gender atypical child into thinking they are in the wrong body and then say, "see he or she is saying they are not what they were assigned at birth." This is why I recommend that kids be at an age where they have better cognitive capacity before they learn about sexuality and gender identity. It is too easy for them too be confused or downright manipulated by parents that are teaching to push an identity not teach acceptance.
In the end I found upon looking at their citations that The New Atlantis report is far from ex-gay propaganda. Indeed it does an excellent job of giving a summary of the current state of sexuality and gender identity based sciences. I, in fact will link the report at the bottom of this review, so, you can look at it or listen to it for yourselves. However do not just be second handed and believe me nor the report dogmatically like sheep as opposed to humans. Go to all of their citations and read them as well. Then see if it matches the reality of the science articles cited in their 500+ citations. Use your own mind and your own reason. Be objective!
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20160819_TNA50SexualityandGender.pdf
