Falsification of GID prevalence results by the APA [Lynn Conway]

[Hazumu]

Falsification of GID prevalence results by the APA Task Force on Gender Identity and Gender Variance

An Investigative Report by Lynn Conway
28 August 2008 [V 8-29-08]

Summary and Findings: 

The APA Task Force Report on Gender Identity and Gender Variance [APA08] greatly underreports the prevalence of "gender identity disorder" by a factor on the order of 10 to 20.

The underreporting of GID prevalence derives from a misrepresentation of clinical definitions and a failure to mention known calculation errors in sources.

The unreasonably low prevalence numbers are given to three significant figures in the Report, as if they were precisely accurate – while failing to mention well-known sources of estimation error.

The Task Force then dismisses recent work by Olyslager and Conway that had exposed large errors in earlier studies by calling that work a "minority position" – as if a scientific analysis must be certified by a majority vote, rather than judged on its merits.

The Task Force further dismisses the work of Olyslager and Conway by insinuating that citation by "transgender activists" somehow reduces its validity – while failing to cite it themselves.

Finally, the Task Force fails to mention recent scientific studies that report far higher-levels of GID prevalence than does their Report.

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[Keira]

I just don't get how much these people don't understand anything about the scientific method
or reporting numbers with significance. It seems that all psychologists are wholly incompetent
since its obvious that they can't do proper stats in all those prior reports.

Either they are ethically bankrupt and report things they don't believe in, or they are
just incompetent and they shouldn't be involved in what they are involved in.

[SusanK]

Gee, look at the list of authors. But then if you want to control people and express your morality about what and who is "normal", they've proven how to do it, fudge the numbers and dismiss the criticism. Simply ignore the truth and reality and use your professional creditials to ensure you're right. Not hard if you don't want to change your mind and you want to reassure a bunch of old white men (APA) that their worse fears, their definition of normal, isn't in jeopardy, and they can keep calling their morality science and calling others mentally sick.

Remember they're not in business to care for people, but to think they cure people of imaginary diseases. They are ethicially bankrupt and they know it. They know to be important and exercise power and control they have to invent diseases and label people. How or why else would they exist?