Is This The Worst Fact Check From the GOP Debate?

AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

The liberal media routinely beclowns itself with its biased fact checks. We’ve gotten used to this. But the New York Times really pulled off a doozy Wednesday night with a ridiculous fact check of something Vivek Ramaswamy said during the GOP primary debate.

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“I have to be very clear about this. Transgenderism, especially in kids, is a mental health disorder,“ Ramaswamy said. “We have to acknowledge the truth of that for what it is.”

Ramaswamy continued, “The very people who say that this increases the risk of suicide are also the ones saying that parents don’t have the right to know about that increased risk of suicide. And I’m sorry, it is not compassionate to affirm a kid’s confusion. That is not compassion, that is cruelty.”

Ramaswamy may not be the candidate I’m supporting, but his position on this issue is spot on. Yet, the New York Times fact-checked him, insisting, “This is false,” regarding his statement.

“Being transgender is not a mental health disorder,” Azeen Ghorayshi of the New York Times claims. “Many transgender people experience gender dysphoria, or psychological distress as a result of the incongruence between their sex and their gender identity. Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis in the Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and can be given to children, adolescents or adults.”

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As we’ve covered here at PJ Media before, there is no evidence of any medical benefit to transition kids who claim to be the opposite gender, and the alleged benefits of “gender-affirming care” are “no greater than a placebo effect.”

It’s interesting that this wasn’t mentioned in the fact check.

Nor was it mentioned that a Swedish study on “gender-affirming care” found that cosmetic “transition” does not reduce the likelihood of suicide. The two widely cited studies that claim tremendous benefits to transitioning children are deeply flawed and systematically excluded the experiences of participants who dropped out of the studies over time, creating a bias in favor of participants who reported positive experiences.

European countries have started figuring this out. That’s why, in July of last year, England’s only transgender clinic closed due to concerns that doctors were performing surgeries without considering children’s mental health. Several other European countries, including Sweden, Finland, and France, have all dialed back on pushing transgender “treatments” for children because they have begun to recognize the harm it does to kids.

Another factoid the New York Times doesn’t want you to know is that as many as 90% of young people with gender confusion who are not encouraged to transition (socially or medically) will no longer identify as transgender upon reaching adulthood—supporting the assertion that transgenderism in children is a mental health disorder.

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And then there’s the issue of the rapid onset of gender dysphoria, an alarming trend pointing to social contagion for the sharp increase in young people “identifying” as transgender. The New York Times won’t tell you about that.

And, frankly, there’s nothing impressive about citing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM-5) because prior to the latest version of the manual in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association called “gender dysphoria” “gender identity disorder.” The change was made specifically to reduce the stigma associated with this mental health issue and ensure access to transition procedures and insurance coverage for those procedures. There are countless reports of kids who are being hastily diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” without any psychological evaluation into other factors. As a result, the transgender industry is growing rapidly, projected to be worth billions of dollars annually in the near future.

Make no mistake about it, it’s all about the money.

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