The University of Washington partnered with Seattle Children’s Hospital for a transgender study. They claimed that “gender-affirming care via puberty blockers leads to positive mental health outcomes for transgender teen patients.”
That result is false. The school stopped promoting the study but never provided corrections, especially after the media embraced the study with open arms.
Independent journalist Jesse Singal had questions and published criticisms on his Substack. That’s when internal emails started.
From Jason Rantz at KTTH:
“The article resulting from the inquiry was recently posted on the author’s Substack, and includes some pretty concerning claims. UW Epidemiology/UW SPH/UW News will not be including this article in our media tracking/or otherwise driving traffic to this piece,” East emailed communications colleagues at UW Medicine and Seattle Children’s.UPDATE: Singal believes this email refers to UW staff promoting his Substack, but UW Medicine did not clarify in their statement. If Singal is right, of course, it means staff purposefully kept crucial criticisms of the study from those who would have likely benefited from the information.Though the criticism was concerning enough to stop UW from promoting the study internally, it wasn’t enough to help correct the record.“As there is an overwhelming amount of positive coverage of the study’s findings, I don’t believe there’s a need for a proactive response beyond continuing to monitor, but welcome your ideas for any other actions or messaging with the study team. Happy to jump on a call too, if that’s easier,” East continued.UW Medicine Communications Manager Barbara Clements forwarded the email to Susan Gregg, UW Medicine spokesperson.“FYI, I read through his exceedingly long (very, very long) article, which claimed the research was flawed or, at worst, made up, but given the extremely positive pick up by mainstream media, I would agree and just let this be,” Clements emailed.Clements then wrote back to East to say she agreed and that “we won’t be promoting or responding as well.”Seattle Children’s Hospital was also aware of the concerns. Madison Joseph, a communications specialist, was on an email thread discussing the issue.“If the Seattle Children’s team gets any inquiries on social and/or through our press inbox, we will continue to not engage,” Madison wrote.
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