217 Factual Errors: Erin Reed’s Reply to the WPATH Files & Serious Problems With Equality Tasmania

I recently criticised Equality Tasmania for blindly endorsing Erin Reed’s woeful reply to the WPATH files report written by Mia Hughes and Michael Shellenberger. Erin is a male trans activist who helps minors and teens get their hands on experimental drugs with "no therapist required.” Equality Tasmania asked me to substantiate my claim that Erin's reply to this shocking report exposing the biggest medical scandal of the 21st Century was, in my words, irrational and illogical. It should be first noted that the head of Equality Tasmania, Rodney Croome, is a long-time family friend and former colleague of my late father, Tony Sherlock, who was the President of the AIDS Council of Tasmania. Rodney has done remarkable work as a gay rights activist here in Tasmania, which, in the 90s, still had sodomy as an offence in the criminal code. Sadly, like several gay rights activists, Rodney has been fully indoctrinated by Judith Butler’s Woke Queer Theory, and his organisation is now pushing for draft legislation here in Tasmania akin to its counterpart in Victoria, (The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021) - which conflates sexual orientation with gender identity, thereby making medical and surgical transition mandatory and criminalising “talk therapy” and anything other than medicalisation and surgical intervention for gay, lesbian, autistic, schizophrenic, etc., and gender confused children, teens, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. This species of legislation carries prison sentences ranging between 5-10 years and heavy fines anyone who might be seen as standing in the way of self-diagnosed gender identity disorder. After offering a few (let’s call it 217, because why not?) reasons for my claim that Reed’s reply was irrational and illogical, Rodney and his organisation, Equality Tasmania, blocked me. Here is my reply:

There are so many serious problems with Erin's article. Where to begin? Okay, Erin starts with a poisoning of the well fallacy by falsely alleging that the group (Environmental Progress) who published the report is "conservative." If you go to their website, it is clear they are politically liberal. Michael Shellenberger has also made it clear in multiple interviews that he comes from the Left and still holds very liberal values. Quoting from his organisation's About page:

'Our Mission and Strategy

Environmental Progress (EP) was founded in 2016 with the mission of achieving nature, peace and prosperity for all. We believe everyone has a right to affordable energy, a healthy planet, and urban environments that enable citizens to thrive. Our strategy has been to organize grassroots movements to defend these rights, and to fund research into why they are threatened.'

So, not only was this a poisoning of the well fallacy, but it was also a dishonest application of poor logic. As an observation, I do see Woke gender ideology activists and groups like Equality Tasmania giving life to the humorous meme: There are 600 genders but only 2 political positions: Mine and Nazi.

Next, Erin alleges he has uncovered 216 errors within the report but only highlights a few, and these few aren't actually errors, well, they aren't the report's errors, they are Erin's (citing now debunked studies is one example of her errors). 216 is a large and very specific number, so if in fact Erin did uncover this many, he would have to have been writing them down as she went, unless, of course, he is endowed with Dustin Hoffman's character's abilities in the movie Rain Man. Erin excited me for a brief moment as he does hyperlink to an article he wrote with the title: 'Fact Check: 216 Instances of Factual Errors Found in Right-Wing “WPATH Files” Document' Unfortunately, however, Erin still doesn't list the alleged 216 errors in this linked article. I could just claim I found 217 errors in Erin's article, but unless I supply evidence for such an extraordinary claim, I'd expect it to be dismissed, as I dismiss his grandiose and unsubstantiated claim. Erin also cites a now debunked study from the Netherlands concerning detransition rates.

Erin further falsely alleges that signatories to an open letter are critical of WPATH are predominantly unqualified people, such as "concerned parents," but if you actually navigate to that open letter, you will see that the overwhelming majority of signatories are professionals in relevant fields and scholars.

Also, in the linked '216 errors' article, Erin misrepresents a study concerning rates of sexual satisfaction after transition but omits concerns held by the authors of the study regarding their findings, the main concerns being the lack of follow-up data and the unsuccessfully mitigated impact of recall bias in their methodology. Erin also omits other more robust studies (studies which include necessary follow-up data) showing the opposite. One example can be found in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, Vol. 16 Issue 12, dated December 2019 titled: 'Prevalence of Sexual Dysfunctions in Transgender Persons: Results from the ENIGI Follow-Up Study.' This study clearly contradicts Erin's poorly data-mined example.

Erin also falsely alleges the report decontextualizes statements and conversations at WPATH, but this claim is also demonstrably false, as full statements both audio and written are in the report which clearly demonstrate serious issues with WPATH, like admissions by clinicians of lack of informed consent, serious side-effects of gender-affirming care, high rates of comorbidities that are essentially ignored to push transition as a cure-all remedy to autism and other mental illnesses.

Erin also clumsily attempts to use the rhetorical device of pathos to distract and supplement her lack of logos, bringing in arguments about how trans people are discriminated against in society. Whilst this is a fact, it is irrelevant to the purpose of the report she is replying to (red herring fallacy) and I would argue it is activists like Erin and organisations like Equality Tasmania who are increasing the risk to trans-identifying people by pushing a Woke Queer Theory ideological model which is harming children, teens, adolescents, vulnerable adults, gays, and lesbians, and which, is also causing an increased backlash against gays, lesbians and trans people.

Also, by dismissing this comprehensive and thoroughly researched report out of hand, Equality Tasmania and Erin have in fact increased the current healthcare risks to people who present with gender identity disorder, by mindlessly yielding to ideological biases over strong science and evidence-based solutions to this increasingly utilized area of healthcare.

Given it is within Equality Tasmania's charter to protect gays, lesbians and trans people, I would argue that given this organisation’s ideological capture, it is now a) causing increased discrimination against LGBT people, b) placing trans people at risk via propagating harmful pseudoscientific remedies, and c) disenfranchising gays and particularly lesbians (females sexually orientated toward other females), as a result of Equality Tasmania’s overdosing on Woke Queer Theory's "inclusion," which irrationally holds that males can be lesbians by mere declaration and should be included in lesbian-only spaces. For these reasons, I believe Equality Tasmania is unintentionally harming those it seeks to protect.

Further, Equality Tasmania is pushing a draft bill that conflates sexual orientation with gender identity, creating a situation in which gay and lesbian youth are at risk of essentially being converted by harmful pseudoscience (gender-affirming care) into heteronormative appearing trans-straight people, as some conservative Islamic regimes do in Iran, therefore, Equality Tasmania no longer appears to be fit for the purpose it is granted to fulfil.