The Yale Integrity Project (YIP) report was released in July 2024 by the Yale Law School in response to the Cass review which described “gender affirming care” as based on “wholly inadequate evidence”:
The YIP report has multiple problems and this is Article 2 in a series of articles that we are publishing in order to explain some of them.
The YIP report uses refuted studies to back up claims that “gender affirming care is beneficial”
In order to claim that there is benefit to “gender affirming care” for children and adolescents the YIP report references two studies: Chen et al. (2023) and Tordoff et al. (2022)
The conclusions made by Tordoff et al. (2022) have been highlighted as problematic due to the 80% drop out rate in the control group, selection bias, refusal of the authors to share their data, and problems with their statistical method among others.
As highlighted by Leor Sapir:
“A careful look at the study’s data shows that the kids who received hormonal interventions did no better by the end of the study than at the beginning. The researchers’ claim about improvement was based on the fact that the kids in the control group, who received psychotherapy but not hormones, got worse relative to the hormone group. But even this isn’t accurate, as 80 percent of the control group dropped out by the end of the study.”
Tordoff et al. (2022) was assessed in a systematic review “Masculinising and feminising hormone interventions for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria or incongruence: a systematic review” and found to be low quality.
Chen et al. (2023) has been criticised for multiple problems including its failure to report on all parameters studied, the extremely small improvements reported in the few parameters that were reported on, refusal to release raw data for closer inspection, a worryingly high suicide rate in the cohort treated with hormones, lack of control group, selection bias, confounding factors (like the patients in the study also being treated for depression at the clinic) and the disregard for the honeymoon period of elevated mood experienced with the initiation of cross-sex hormones.
Chen et al (2023) was discussed in the strengths and weaknesses section of a systematic review “Masculinising and feminising hormone interventions for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria or incongruence: a systematic review” and it was noted, “there is still limited evidence about the effect of hormones on gender-related, psychosocial and cognitive outcomes, no further conclusions can be drawn.”
Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender (DIAG) have released a detailed explanation of these two studies and how they do not adequately support claims of benefits of “gender affirming care”. They do a better job than we can at explaining it all and we encourage you to read through their essay.
The Oxford English dictionary defines integrity as: “In moral sense. Soundness of moral principle; the character of uncorrupted virtue, esp. in relation to truth and fair dealing; uprightness, honesty…”.