The group embraces anti-LGBTQ ideologies by describing almost all expressions of LGBTQ+ identity as âsexualizedâ and potentially harmful to young people. GAG also racializes transphobia by insinuating trans identity is a threat specifically to white children and is promoted by groups like Black Lives Matter. The groupâs leaders have also adapted a rhetorical and political strategy from the anti-LGBTQ+ movement intended to use trans rights as a wedge within LGBTQ+ communities. The strategy involves claiming civil rights are a zero-sum game between gay people, on the one hand, and trans or gender-nonconforming people on the other. The group regularly spreads vicious anti-trans disinformation, pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, and has attacked anti-racist and LGBTQ+ inclusive education practices. The group also supports censoring LGBTQ+ people, topics and images such as Pride flags in schools.
Over the weekend, several far-right accounts falsely claimed that a new study showed gender reassignment surgery significantly increases depression, anxiety, and suicidality among transgender people. The study in question, conducted by researchers at Texas A&M University, does not support these claims in any way. Instead, it examines differences between transgender people who desire and obtain surgery versus those who do not obtain surgery, regardless of if they desire it. Crucially, the study does not measure the impact of surgery on an individual's mental healthâthere is no pre- and post-surgery comparison. Any assertion that the study links surgery to worsened mental health contradicts both its actual methods and the broader body of research demonstrating the positive effects of gender-affirming surgery for those who need it.
The study went viral after the far-right Twitter account AFPost (America First Post) falsely claimed, "A recent study published in Oxfordâs Journal of Sexual Medicine sampling 107,583 patients found that sex-change surgery doubles depression rates among gender dysphoric individuals rather than reducing them." While the study does show that transgender people who have undergone surgery report higher rates of depression than those who have not, AFPost and its followers misrepresent its findings. The study itself explicitly states that it does not compare transgender people who desire but cannot access surgery to those who have received it. Instead, it examines two groups with vastly different characteristicsâa fundamental flaw known as selection bias.
It is possibleâand likelyâthat transgender people who desire surgery experience higher levels of gender dysphoria to begin with, which itself is strongly linked to depression and anxiety. It is also possibleâand likely, given other studiesâ that surgery alleviates depression for those who need it, yet the studyâs findings would remain the same. Crucially, the study does not analyze causation; it does not measure the impact of surgery on an individualâs mental health over time. In contrast, studies that do evaluate this impact consistently show that gender-affirming surgery improves mental health outcomes for those who seek it.
Think of two groups of students preparing for a major math exam. One group obtains tutoring sessions, while the other does not. The students who choose tutoring are often those who already feel behind or find certain topics more challenging. By test day, these âtutoredâ students might still score lower on averageâjust because they started at a greater disadvantage. This doesnât mean the tutoring caused them to do worse; rather, itâs a classic example of selection bias: the group that seeks out additional help is already different from the group that doesnât need it.
The study itself acknowledges another significant selection bias in its data: transgender people who seek surgery are far more likely to have extensive exposure to medical and mental healthcare systems. The financial and logistical hurdles of obtaining surgery, along with the mandatory mental health evaluations, mean that these individuals are much more likely to receive a formal diagnosis both before and after surgery. If this is the case, the difference in reported rates of depression and anxiety may reflect increased access to medical care rather than an actual disparity in mental health outcomes.
Extensive research has examined the impact of gender-affirming care on transgender peopleâs mental health, consistently showing that it leads to improvement, as expected. One study of 3,134 patients found that SSRI and SNRI use declined after surgery, alongside reductions in depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Another study comparing transgender people who obtained surgery to those who desired it but were unable to access it found that those who underwent surgery experienced lower psychological distress, reduced smoking rates, and decreased suicidal ideation. Studies that focus specifically on the mental health outcomes of transgender people who seek surgeryârather than lumping together all transgender individuals, many of whom do not want surgeryâconsistently show significant improvements in mental health.
Despite the glaring issue of selection bias, right-wing figures are already weaponizing this study to justify attacks on transgender people. Within days of its publication, it was cited in the Montana House Judiciary Committee to promote anti-trans legislation. Those pushing this narrative consistently ignore the overwhelming body of research demonstrating the benefits of gender-affirming care and gender-affirming surgery on those who desire it. They do not engage with science in good faithâinstead, they cherry-pick and distort data to fit their ideological agenda, using the very research they otherwise dismiss to manufacture justifications for further discrimination.
This is who youâre taking the word from?All you do is spread lies and misinformation from hate groups.
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Gays Against Groomers
Gays Against Groomers is a chapter-based organization that amplifies dehumanizing anti-trans rhetoric, perpetuates anti-LGBTQ+ stereotypes by falsely claiming that LGBTQ+ supporters of trans rights are dangerous to society â including equating gender-affirming health care with pedophilia and...www.splcenter.org
As far as that study, they're - surprise - lying.
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Debunked: No, New Study Does Not Show Transgender Surgeries Double Depression
The study, which has been paraded around right-wing media sources, does not evaluate the impact of surgery on transgender depression rates.www.erininthemorning.com
Yes, intellectually honest people who make fact-based arguments. The research consistently shows that gender-affirming care improves the well-being of transgender people. Discrediting the person presenting this information doesn't change that.dumbshyt talk
GAG members have also attempted to use their gay identities to claim space to criticize other civil rights movements and attack democracy â often positioning themselves as legitimate victims and others, such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters, as responsible for their own oppression.
David Leatherwood, for example, has previously claimed white privilege is a âracist lie,â shared posts calling BLM a âterrorist organization,â âviolent,â and âdangerous,â and bragged about âfighting backâ on Jan. 6, 2021. Michell has referred to George Floyd, whose murder by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sparked an international interest in the BLM movement, as âFentanyl Floydâ in online commentary. In 2020, GAG New York chapter leader Marky Hutt (Mark-David Hutt), who also founded the LGBTrump Facebook group, was arrested twice in one weekend for defacing a Black Lives Matter mural. In a tweet about the vandalism, he wrote, âWe need to STAND UP and take our country backâ from the anti-racist movement.
Michell has also been accused of trafficking in âgreat replacementâ rhetoric and Nazi symbolism, and GAG North Carolina leader Brian Talbert â who founded Deplorable Pride â threatened to kill âevery singleâ Muslim in a post citing a claimed threat against Christians in Trinidad and Tobago and used other derogatory anti-Muslim language in online comments.
The racist remarks and attacks on BLM are accompanied by GAGâs insinuations that BLM illicitly funds gender-affirming health care and that trans identity is a threat to white cis-supremacy. Calling all expressions of LGBTQ+ identity âsexualizedâ and thus inappropriate for certain audiences is a convenient vehicle for censoring information and controlling the lives and bodies of students as well as the medical treatment options for parents of trans children. However, GAG has also explicitly linked their false claims to racialized fears that âtransingâ is targeting white children, specifically.
Connecting the groupâs anti-inclusive education ideology â which motivates their opposition to LGBTQ+ subjects in public schools â with racialized fear on behalf of white children, GAG ambassador Sara Higdon, who is also sometimes listed as the communications director for Trans Against Groomers, has specifically claimed trans identity is most likely to develop among âupper middle class white kids of progressive parentsâ (even though trans people are more likely to identify as Latinx). Higdon claims âcritical theoryâ in schools has âconditionedâ these white children to believe they are an âoppressorâ and the only way to âescapeâ their oppressed status is to âjoin an oppressed classâ by identifying as trans.
GAG Washington leader Alex Chrostowski continues this line of thought, claiming, âThere seems to be a perverse race to the bottomâ in which students seek to âprove their own claims about how âdisadvantagedâ they areâ by feigning mental illness and displaying âincreasingly disruptive attitudes or behaviors in class.â These behaviors are brought about, Chrostowski claims, by access to information and a permissive social climate that âcelebrates any divergence from the norm, ie white, straight, cisgenderâ and treats whiteness and heterosexuality as âif they are to be barely tolerated.â
I have been proven right, yet again![]()
Yes, intellectually honest people who make fact-based arguments. The research consistently shows that gender-affirming care improves the well-being of transgender people. Discrediting the person presenting this information doesn't change that.
Whatâs fascist about trans activists who donât pass the visual test being told to hit the urinal?What did I tell you earlier? "Scratch a Liberal and you'll find a fascist"? Well, you keep living up to that.
Oh great, the best chance the democrats have in 2028 is getting hung up on a non-issue while Trump burns the country to the ground
Donât cry that MSNBC ignored this study
Over the weekend, several far-right accounts falsely claimed that a new study showed gender reassignment surgery significantly increases depression, anxiety, and suicidality among transgender people. The study in question, conducted by researchers at Texas A&M University, does not support these claims in any way. Instead, it examines differences between transgender people who desire and obtain surgery versus those who do not obtain surgery, regardless of if they desire it. Crucially, the study does not measure the impact of surgery on an individual's mental healthâthere is no pre- and post-surgery comparison. Any assertion that the study links surgery to worsened mental health contradicts both its actual methods and the broader body of research demonstrating the positive effects of gender-affirming surgery for those who need it.
Whatâs fascist about trans activists who donât pass the visual test being told to hit the urinal?