‘Nakedly political’: US attempts to link trans support to authoritarianism in new HHS report — HHS releases report linking ‘gender ideology’ to political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report linking “gender ideology” to leftwing authoritarianism and political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted and “nakedly political”, likely leading to greater politicization of science and health.
It follows attempts by the administration to limit access to gender-affirming care – including, on Friday, an agreement reached between the Department of Justice and a New York hospital to no longer offer pediatric gender-affirming care. Dozens of hospitals stopped offering gender-affirming care after the Trump administration began investigating them for offering the standard of care.
Patients on Medicaid and government insurance plans have also been blocked from accessing care, and a proposed rule would block any health system offering gender-affirming care from receiving federal funding.
The new report, which was not published by a scientific journal and did not undergo peer review, takes aim at medical organizations offering guidelines on gender-affirming care. It also links those who say they support trans individuals with supporting authoritarianism and political violence.
“It was a very poorly done piece of research,” said Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist from the University of Sydney, who highlighted several methodological failings. “It was nakedly political. I think this is probably the most obviously political study that I’ve come across.”
The report is “quite an abnormal document with a number of oddities,” said Daniel Aaron, an associate professor at the University of Utah’s SJ Quinney College of Law.
“It likely also violates federal law because it’s not peer-reviewed, and it’s essentially quite an influential dissemination of information,” which could mean it violates the Information Quality Bulletin, a federal regulation that requires peer review for influential scientific information from the US government, he said.
The HHS did not respond by press time to the Guardian’s questions about whether this report was commissioned by the agency and if it violated federal regulations.
Aaron believes the report would not survive peer review and wondered why a political science report was published by HHS.
“It’s actually not even health-related, so I don’t understand why this is related to HHS’s mission,” Aaron said.
Craig Konnoth, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who coauthored with Aaron a perspective on gender-affirming care policy for the New England Journal of Medicine, agreed. He sees the report as an attempt to undermine mainstream health and science organizations such as the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, all named in the report.
“By that standard, any medical recommendation becomes ‘authoritarian’. Any standard set by any licensing board becomes ‘authoritarian’,” Konnoth said. “What we’re seeing is this broadside attack on the scientific establishment more generally, and trans rights are being used as the vehicle to do this.”
Colin Wright, an author of the report and a fellow at the conservative thinktank Manhattan Institute, said he believes the study was published by HHS quickly because a draft had been leaked to the public. He said the researchers are planning to release more information, including the numbers from the survey, and they are planning to submit the study to an unnamed journal for publication.
“It was kind of a surprise to us that it dropped when it did, and so we didn’t have plans beforehand,” Wright said. “We probably could have tightened the language a little bit more.”