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Talk:Cass Review

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BMJ Investigations article

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Latest comment: 17 days ago52 comments8 people in discussion

Raladic has deleted a paragraph sourced to an article published in the BMJ with with the edit comment remove Individual response (not due per established prior consensus on the talk page, else there would be many more others that would also be here)

Raladic is this the "prior consensus" you are referring to? Talk:Cass_Review/Archive_1#Condensing_the_individual_responses FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 08:43, 27 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

That and many more discussions that happened subsequently in the Talk page.
You'll find the Talk:Cass Review#sources for consideration up at the top of the talk page, which has some of those sources, many of those individual responses, which are omitted from the article, so in line with this, that new one was also omitted to avoid the bloat of detailing every single response.
The article instead has a sentence in summary at Cass_Review#Other_academic_responses that says that The report was praised by some academics in the UK, who agreed with its findings stating a lack of evidence; while others both in the UK and internationally disagreed with the report's methodology and findings. which WP:SUMMARIZEs the fact that also some individual academics have praised, or criticized it. Raladic (talk) 15:46, 27 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
many more discussions... I don't think so, I have searched the talk page archives and can't find anything like that. Maybe you have some specific discussion in mind?
If it is just the "Condensing the individual responses" discussion, then it looks like six months ago there was a consensus to condense a number of quotes into a single paragraph, and this was to avoid inflating quotes and opinions from individuals to the Review itself. That isn't relevant to this source, because:
  • this is a commissioned, peer-reviewed investigative article published by the BMJ. The notability of the author as an individual is not an issue.
  • the source isn't "praising" or "criticising" the Review, it's presenting an analysis of the reception to the Cass Review among US medical and media organisations, so it wouldn't be summarised by that "summary sentence" anyway.
So the normal rules of WP:DUE apply, which AFAICT don't allow arbitrary exclusions based on the number of authors.
BTW WP:SUMMARIZE refers to summarising articles in the lead sections and splitting overly-detailed sections into their own articles. So nothing to do with this. Why are you referring to it? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 17:48, 27 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
We try not to rehash and relitigate the same points over and over when a new editor pops up who's trying to come here, but alas as you said you couldn't find some of the others in the archive, here's some for your convenience: there's been Talk:Cass_Review/Archive_6#Refactoring_the_Reception_->_Final_report_subsection (note that one of the editors who was very vocal in this thread on trying to downplay the criticism of Cass has since been topic banned due to their extensive POV pushing). We've also had Talk:Cass_Review/Archive_7#Critical_papers. And some in between that have re-affirmed that by-and large, we have omitted individual responses, which are summarized in the sentence I pointed out and have given slightly more detailed paragraph level summaries for statements from representative organizations.
Also note that the article you tried to include is a primary partial WP:RSOPINION piece journalist commentary (by a person that has been described as a anti-transgender activist, [1]), not a peer-reviewed paper. So inclusion of it on its own merits likely wouldn't be there unless we have WP:RELIABLE WP:INDEPENDENT, WP:SECONDARY sources reporting on it. So even if we didn't already have the current consensus (as otherwise, we'd have many more papers, such as Horton's that has been cited again and again, in the article on limiting individual responses, the article you tried to include wouldn't pass the secondary RS part.
Also note that WP:SUMMARY isn't just about the lead, its sub sections, in particular WP:DETAIL is what was relevant here. What level of detail we give to any particular cite is dependent on the WP:WEIGHT that is relevant to the Wikipedia article. This particular piece you tried to add, being neither academic, nor secondary, would be given very little weight if it was due to begin with. As this commentary is basically just another commentary from the UK of the surprise of why the Cass Review is basically universally criticized outside the UK, it doesn't add anything that isn't already captured in the above sentence that the report has been celebrated in the UK, but not outside. Raladic (talk) 20:05, 27 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
here's some for your convenience: there's been Talk:Cass_Review/Archive_6#Refactoring_the_Reception_->_Final_report_subsection (...). We've also had Talk:Cass_Review/Archive_7#Critical_papers. And some in between...
And in the most recent of those alleged discussions ("Critical Papers"), what do we find? You arguing for the inclusion of the Horton article. So you clearly did not believe that a consensus against individual responses had formed during those previous discussions, did you?
YTFS participated in that discussion, yet she evidently doesn't recognise this consensus against individual responses, because she has continued to advocate for inclusion of the Horton article up until a few days ago.
In fact, less than two weeks ago, you and Snokalok were arguing enthusiastically for the inclusion of reposted substack content from Erin Reed. Clearly neither of you believed there was a consensus against individual responses then either, or else you would have been knowingly editing against it.
In case I am not clear: there is clearly no consensus against single-author sources. Please stop claiming there is until you establish it in one of the usual ways per WP:CONSENSUS.
Also note that the article you tried to include is a primary partial WP:RSOPINION piece journalist commentary ... not a peer-reviewed paper.
I don't know why you would write something that can be so easily disproved. Click on this link https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q1141 and scroll to the bottom of the page. Below where it says "Footnotes" you will see:
Provenance and peer review: Commissioned, peer reviewed.
This feature has been funded by the BMJ Investigations Unit. For details see bmj.com/investigations.
Using this same mouse-clicking action described above, you can follow the link to BMJ investigations and see what they do, which is not "journalist commentary" but investigative journalism into health topics in society. What could be a more appropriate RS to discuss the comparative impact of a review of medical care on UK and US society?
(by a person that has been described as a anti-transgender activist, [2])
I strongly suggest that you do not repost slurs against living people from activist websites on this Talk page. Be aware that WP:BLP applies to talk pages.
The author has written frequently for BMJ Investigations on various topics, as you can see here.
Also note that WP:SUMMARY isn't just about the lead, its sub sections, in particular WP:DETAIL is what was relevant here. What level of detail we give to any particular cite is dependent on the WP:WEIGHT that is relevant to the Wikipedia article.
No, that isn't what WP:DETAIL says. It is about how different readers require different levels of detail about a topic and for that reason WP presents information at different levels of detail in the parent article lead, parent article body, and child articles. This is interesting stuff, but since we aren't talking about creating a new article this doesn't apply. Posting links to policies can be helpful, but it is good to read the policies first so you don't look silly. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 19:57, 28 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
is a primary partial WP:RSOPINION piece
This is categorically false. A peer-reviewed investigation in the BMJ is pretty close to the gold standard of secondary, independent RSs. Also did you really just cite a highly partisan activist's personal website to call a journalist an "anti-transgender activist" in order to exclude the BMJ? Void if removed (talk) 19:12, 30 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
This, as I've said before, is an excellent source for expanding the wider reception elements of this page, because it discusses the nature of the whole response, and focuses on the clear divide between the UK and the US in particular. It is also peer-reviewed, and not an "individual response". Nor is it in itself a "response". It is a high quality secondary source discussing the various responses to the Cass Review and thus provides a good framework for further coverage. Void if removed (talk) 20:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
It also makes some pretty wild and unfounded speculations, like that American doctors aren’t turning on GAC because they’re scared of the government. This is an extraordinary claim that the source 100% does not rise to meet Snokalok (talk) 21:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
American doctors aren’t turning on GAC because they’re scared of the government Snokalok I can't find that. Can you post a quote? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 17:40, 29 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, the doctors part was the sentence before and I misremembered. The exact quote from the removed text was
speculated that this could have been due to unwillingness by journalists to rebuke their previous support for gender-affirming care or question the US government.
So it was speculation that journalists were afraid to question the US government, which is still a wild claim that the source does not rise to meet. Snokalok (talk) 19:01, 29 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
I meant a quote from the source.The closest I can find is US reporting in the main is sympathetic with, if not following the lead of, authoritative sources such as the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which doesn't sound that wild to me. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 17:49, 30 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well, that sounds a little like the added text failed verification to me. Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Some confusion here, but I read it as the "it" Snokalok is referring to at the top of the thread is not the added content, but the source itself, ie suggesting *the source* makes wild claims and is thus unsuitable. I would agree that the removed form of words is unsupported, but not that the source itself makes wild claims. Void if removed (talk) 15:30, 1 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
What I propose (at least initially) is a Media Coverage section with something like this, cited to the article in question:
An article comparing the reception of the Cass Review in the UK and US noted that after the Final Report was published "the tone of major print and broadcast media in the UK has shifted" in reporting about gender care and even outlets which had formerly dismissed criticisms of gender services as transphobic reported some such criticisms more sympathetically.
In the US, a number of prominent news organisations reported on the Review in detail, and some of these subsequently published editorials supporting a more precautionary approach to gender care. Many US outlets which had previously taken advocacy positions in support of gender-affirming care did not report on the Review at all, including Scientific American and CNN. Still other outlets likened the Cass recommendations to ongoing political campaigns in the US to restrict access to gender-affirming care.
Is this a fair summary of what the article says about media coverage specifically? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 18:06, 29 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don’t think this is accurate. UK media has been well documented as leaning GC long before the Cass Review was published, little was changed on that front by the report’s publication. See these sources and the dates of their publication.[3][4] [5][6]
Everything after that reads as intensely POV and reads as though the US media took a similar position as the British but for a few outliers, which isn’t true at all. Snokalok (talk) 19:08, 29 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
UK media has been well documented as leaning GC long before the Cass Review was published
Both can be true surely? The UK media can be more sceptical of gender-affirming treatment than the US media but become yet more sceptical post the Final Report. In any case the "UK media" is quite heterogenous. I understand the source to be saying that post-Cass even outlets like the Guardian which previously dismissed criticism as transphobic now acknowledge concerns re lack of evidence. Do you read it differently?
(Sidenote: I'm not sure those links all show what you think. The most recent one says the BBC had to apologise twice in one year to the same person for allowing them to be labelled as transphobic on air and eventually issued some internal guidance to stop this from reoccurring. This doesn't suggest much sympathy with gender-critical views.)
Everything after that reads as intensely POV and reads as though the US media took a similar position as the British but for a few outliers, which isn’t true at all.
You're right, we need to make that clear, that's the main point of the article! How about to start the second paragraph instead of
In the US, a number of prominent news organisations reported...
we say
Compared to the UK, the Cass Review received less coverage in the US and that coverage was less favourable. A number of major US news organisations reported....
Would that work? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 18:10, 30 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Consider these sources across the political spectrum, parroting the common GC talking points on puberty blockers and youth gender medicine.
-The Guardian in 2023[7]
-The Guardian in 2021[8]
-The BBC in 2023 [9]
-The BBC in 2019 [10]
-The Telegraph in 2023 [11]
We could perhaps say that UK media, which had already sympathetically platformed gender critical, became more loudly so - if we can find a reliable source for such a thing. But saying that the British media had this sort of pivot as is being implied, simply isn’t accurate.
As for the US, I’m not opposed to this opening fragment as you’ve rewritten it, but I think the entire paragraph needs to be rewritten because the rest does still read as to give the connotation of tails between legs. Snokalok (talk) 22:53, 30 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
To elaborate, I think a section on media reception is a decent idea, I just think it’s going to need a lot of collaborative work before we get it to something that adequately conveys the situation while satisfying npov Snokalok (talk) 01:21, 31 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
But saying that the British media had this sort of pivot as is being implied, simply isn’t accurate.
At the end of the day, we have a top-quality secondary RS saying there has been a shift in how UK media report gender care, and no sources at all saying there hasn't. We have to go with what the sources say. Even if your sources did show that UK media was somehow "gender critical" beforehand, it doesn't mean that it didn't go further in that direction post the Final Report.
And BTW what you see as parroting the common GC talking points reads to me like evenhanded factual reporting. This is why we need reliable secondary sources for any general statements like "UK media is..." rather than looking for examples which (we think) support our view.
I think the entire paragraph needs to be rewritten because the rest does still read as to give the connotation of tails between legs
We can adjust the wording, of course, but we can't change the information presented in the source. If news organisations refuse to report scientific developments which contradict their political views, this might have a negative connotation regardless of what wording we use, simply because this behaviour is at odds with how people expect news orgs to act. That doesn't violate NPOV, provided we accurately and impartially report what the RS say. How would you like to phrase the US paragraph? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 17:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
top-quality secondary RS saying there has been a shift in how UK media report gender care
A. Demonstrably false, see the links above.
B. Jennifer Block is not a top quality secondary source, and the BMJ is not a top quality news outlet (especially without this piece being peer reviewed) - and even if both were otherwise so, reading over this piece, it’s an editorial.
C. The source cites SEGM as “a group of researchers and clinicians that has pushed for systematic reviews and an evidence based approach”, and Jesse Singal as “one of the first American journalists to expose the potential harms of youth gender treatment”, throwing away any pretense of neutrality in favor of platforming a fringe org as legitimate, which on its own makes this not a reliable source.
D. It’s at best, even if all of the above wasn’t true, an individual response. We wouldn’t report every single NYT or CNN article. Snokalok (talk) 21:09, 31 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
A Your collection of links don't demonstrate anything.
B From the article: Provenance and peer review: Commissioned, peer reviewed. And it's not an editorial it's an investigations piece.
C I think you need to accept there are different opinions about all that and chart an NPOV between them.
D It's not an individual response. Void if removed (talk) 21:30, 31 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
A. It absolutely does, it demonstrates that the central point of Block’s argument is at best revisionism. This is a revisionist piece.
B. Fair, I was looking at the fact that there’s no submitted vs publication date at the top.
C. Sorry, to be clear what you’re saying, I need to accept that the fringe group which has been roundly rejected by the international medical community as a conversion therapy lobbyist org may actually have validity because a freelance journalist said so?
D. I only see one name, Jennifer Block. Snokalok (talk) 13:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
So much of your reasoning on this page has boiled down to ‘any source that disagrees with my side is fringe, and we know my side is right because only fringe sources disagree.’ The circularity is alarmingly obvious. Frank Forfolk (talk) 17:41, 1 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well, of both the sources we’ve argued over, the common thread regarding my personal opposition was that they both had significant involvement from the fringe conversion therapist group SEGM. If you still have strong feelings on the Cheung source, there’s an ongoing thread about it on the RS noticeboard. Here’s the link. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard Snokalok (talk) 18:07, 1 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the link, I had missed it. Would you accept that at some level of participation by SEGM members in mainstream scholarship, it would be incorrect to call the group ‘fringe’, despite your personal opposition to their positions? Frank Forfolk (talk) 23:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
This is of course the problem. Editors have that SEGM members were cited by or had some level of involvement with the Cass Review, therefore the Cass Review is tainted (or even fringe), because of a pre-existing POV about SEGM.
You can look at it the exact opposite way - the Cass Review is a serious and authoritative piece of work, and if members of SEGM had some involvement, or it is based on citing their work, then that demonstrates that they are not fringe.
We now have another peer-reviewed investigative piece in the BMJ by Block:
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2227
This refers to SEGM as "watchdogs", while laying out issues with WPATH's non-publication of systematic reviews. It also mentions SEGM have commissioned four systematic reviews
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=308739
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=448265
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=452171
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=324741
Here's one in preprint, with Gordon Guyatt listed as co-author: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39252149/
The BMJ are citing and publishing SEGM, and SEGM they are sponsoring and publishing systematic reviews in reputable journals. At some point this fringe accusation that corrupts discussion of totally valid sources and wastes enormous time and energy has to be dropped. Editors disagreeing with a POV is not a valid reason for exclusion. Void if removed (talk) 12:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
it is incredibly crystal ball to say that SEGM are sponsoring and publishing systematic reviews in reputable journals given none of the studies are published. Also is incredible that none of these studies are fully independent as Abbruzzese is a collaborator on all of them. Ignoring the issues with independence and publishing, if this action was primarily what SEGM did (instead of advocating a position before receiving the evidence, as Gordon Guyatt has criticised them for) they probably would be less fringe. If they continue to do this, and become independent of their studies there will be a point in time that they aren't fringe. However fantasizing about the future is not our job and at the moment (given all of these studies aren't published), their advocacy work were they put the cart before the horse and went against medical institutions can only be described as fringe.
If antivaxxers were used as expert witnesses, started to be involved in reviews of vaccine rollouts, and only then started to (try and) publish systematic reviews, we could still call them fringe but argue that they're starting to work against that. I see no reason segm should be treated any different. LunaHasArrived (talk) 17:06, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
No, if antivaxxers had that level of support they wouldn't be fringe. They don't have that level of support, because their theories were proven bogus long ago. In youth gender medicine there's enormous, legitimate uncertainty and controversy between non-fringe scholarship, which is then being wedged through a lens of false certainty by people with a strong ideological determination that one side is correct without the evidence to prove it. Frank Forfolk (talk) 18:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
The anti-vaxxers do have that level of support. I’d like to point you to the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatrics. Much like SEGM, they’re a right wing medical lobby group masquerading as a MEDORG and that tries change policy on contentious healthcare topics via institutional capture. Their pet issues are abortion, conversion therapy, and vaccines - and they’re a significant force in the American anti-vaxx movement. We wouldn’t cite ACPeds on vaccines or abortion, we shouldn’t be citing SEGM on trans healthcare. Snokalok (talk) 22:44, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Have you actually read the article you just linked to? Nowhere does it say ACPeds is antivax, and I could find no other coverage, even in extremely hostile sources like SPLC, that says they are, and their official position is a rather anodyne endorsement of vaccination and rejection of common antivax claims. I wish I could say I’m surprised to see you pulling completely false claims out of nowhere to support your arguments, but I still find it shocking. Frank Forfolk (talk) 00:23, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's probably too strong to say they're antivaxx without qualifiers, but they do definitely oppose vaccine mandates, especially for COVID specifically. That second one also has a suspicious line about At this time, the benefits of vaccinating children against COVID-19 are limited. Loki (talk) 02:04, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Do AcPeds have any sham antivax scholarship published somewhere like the BMJ? Void if removed (talk) 06:23, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
That’s understating the level of false equivalence we’re on. If every systematic review on vaccines had found no evidence they work and no monitoring of their long term effects, that would put it on about the same level as youth gender medicine, and in that alternate universe antivaxxers certainly would not be fringe. Frank Forfolk (talk) 11:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
The huge gap between no evidence and poor evidence should not be understated and I hope you made a typo. No evidence is for things like ROGD and Gender exploratory therapy (which genuinely have no evidence of existing / providing benefit), poor evidence is when you want more investigation so patients can be better informed and the risk/benefits of a treatment are better understood. Grading of evidence in medicine is a specific endeavour and the fact that Cass ignored the predifined terms for her own (never defined) terms has been a source of criticism because it can lead to misunderstandings like confusing wanting more evidence (poor evidence) for no evidence existing. LunaHasArrived (talk) 12:26, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Okay then, poor evidence. In the alternate universe where there was only poor evidence for the efficacy and safety of vaccines, doctors and researchers questioning vaccine safety and efficacy would not be fringe. In our universe the evidence in favour of vaccines is overwhelming and scholarly consensus reflects that, which is why we can apply WP:FRINGE to antivax positions. In our universe there is also poor quality evidence for any benefits of youth gender medicine, there are doctors and researchers questioning its efficacy and safety, and WP:FRINGE does not apply because there is no overwhelming evidence-backed consensus in the field. There is certainly an overwhelming ideological consensus in some camps that youth gender medicine huge benefits, indeed that it’s lifesaving — but this is derived from ideology, not medical evidence, and Wikipedia should treat it like any other political POV, and it certainly shouldn’t be taking sides and declaring actual medical evidence to be ‘fringe’ if it contradicts that POV. Frank Forfolk (talk) 15:41, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
I am so glad you brought that up! Because according to a 2016 systemic review, only 13.5% of medical treatments have high quality evidence, and over 50% had low level evidence.[12] The only ideology here is the one that said that one of those specific treatments needed to be banned for being part of that over 50%. We have countless MEDORG sources on this page saying the same thing, and the overwhelming consensus outside of one island in the Atlantic is that the evidence supports these treatments. Wikipedia should not be citing fringe content from conversion therapy lobby groups like SEGM to try and paint a picture that misleads the reader into thinking that GAC is some ideological craze and not, you know, the well informed consensus of the global medical community. Snokalok (talk) 16:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Because according to a 2016 systemic review, only 13.5% of medical treatments have high quality evidence, and over 50% had low level evidence. And of course it would be absurd to try to call doctors and researchers who called the efficacy of those treatments into question 'fringe'. But for this class of treatments we're meant to pretend we have absolute certainty that they work, that they're lifesaving, despite the lack of good evidence; and what's more because of this absolute certainty on the matter we automatically know that any doctor, researcher or country that publishes dissenting opinions is automatically fringe, no matter how many WP:MEDRS sources do so.
This is, of course, ridiculous. I just want Wikipedia to reflect the truth, that there's major controversy in this field and RS are in conflict. Frank Forfolk (talk) 18:46, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
I also don't think you appreciate what 'poor evidence' means. It does not mean 'we know this works but we want better research on that'. It means 'we have only poor evidence that this works'. This can, and often does, mean that better quality research will see the effect vanish entirely, proven to be purely an illusion of things like publication bias, researcher degrees of freedom and random chance. It also means that the null hypothesis is not fringe. Frank Forfolk (talk) 15:53, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Void if removed ah, but that just proves the BMJ and the University of York are fringe too, because they are platforming SEGM! They've already unmasked Gordon Guyatt [13]. You can't argue logically with the ideologue, they will always interpret or ignore any evidence to fit the conclusions they "know" to be true. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 20:10, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Wikipedia:NOTFORUM LunaHasArrived (talk) 23:42, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Quite right. Struck. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
(A) you have posted some links to news-stories you think proves the UK media was "gender-critical" before the Final Report was published, and are arguing that this proves there could not have been a "shift" as stated in the source. You are wrong because (1) none of the sources you provide are really examples of gender-critical reporting (2) even if those specific examples were gender-critical, it wouldn't be possible to generalise to the whole "UK media" from such a small range of examples (3) even if you could somehow show that the UK media was gender-critical before the Final Report, it doesn't disprove the claim that it underwent a "shift" to become more gender-critical afterwards. Presumably it isn't a binary phenomenon where someone either is or isn't gender-critical. (4) There is a policy against trying to use primary sources to make "an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim" (WP:SECONDARY), and this situation is exactly why. Please stop.
(B) For anything related to health and society, a commissioned and peer-reviewed BMJ Investigations article is one of the best sources available.
(C) Those descriptions sound fair enough to me, but that doesn't matter. Editors cannot obstruct inclusion of RS because they disagree with what the RS says. This is a cornerstone of NPOV. A number of editors on this article seem to be struggling with this.
(D) As VoidIfRemoved says, it isn't a "response" to the Cass Review at all, individual or otherwise. If you mean it's a source with a single author, there is no policy against that, that was just something an editor on this article made up.
Do you have any further input or concerns about the draft "media coverage" section (based on real WP policy, not personal disagreement with the source)? You mentioned POV earlier; maybe you can elaborate? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 18:50, 1 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
A) We’re allowed to conduct research and use primary sources for the purpose of talk page discussion and evaluation of the quality of secondary sources we might put in the article.
B) Health perhaps, society absolutely not. Society is not a medical topic, it’s at best a non-medical academic one. We wouldn’t start saying “Goth and emo fashion combined with the release of MCR’s Helena” and cite the British Medical Journal.
C) It’s not an RS though. It gets factual information wrong, has dubious sourcing, and presents fringe right wing lobby groups as reasonable MEDORGs. Per WP:FALSEBALANCE, we do not have to give factually incorrect, poorly researched, and fringe information a platform simply because of the media source that published it. An example: The BBC is an RSP green source, but that doesn’t make "We're being pressured into sex by some trans women" a reliable article to cite - it’s still fringe, poorly sourced, and citing right wing lobby groups as neutral. we as editors have a duty to evaluate a source based on its individual merits, not merely the name of its publication.
D) This point’s actually fair, I shall not push it further. Snokalok (talk) 22:59, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
(A) you're not evaluating the quality though, you are trying to evaluate the truthfulness of the source with a view to excluding it if you decide it's "wrong". That is not the place of editors to do. Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.
(B) By "Health and society" I meant social impact of health affairs. You can see the type of areas BMJ Investigations covers here [14] In these areas, yes, BMJ Investigations are clearly an RS. It would be strange to cite claims about Goth and Emo fashion to the BMJ but it might happen.
(C) It gets factual information wrong, has dubious sourcing, and presents fringe right wing lobby groups as reasonable MEDORGs. The first two are your opinion, the last wouldn't be a reason to exclude even if it was true. Of course investigative journalists are allowed to quote lobby groups. BTW I think you have it backwards re RS citing potentially unreliable sources - you seem to think citing e.g. SEGM somehow "contaminates" the RS and makes it less reliable. In fact, the opposite is true: per WP:USEBYOTHERS widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability for similar facts. So if RS like the BBC or BMJ frequently cite SEGM without comment, editors should eventually regard SEGM as a reliable source (not ignoring other RS criteria); it doesn't somehow downgrade the BBC or BMJ.
Per WP:FALSEBALANCE, we do not have to give factually incorrect, poorly researched, and fringe information a platform simply because of the media source that published it. Again "factually incorrect" and "poorly researched" are your opinion, and it isn't WP:FRINGE - what prevailing views or mainstream views regarding the media coverage of the Cass Report does it deviate from? I can't find any.
What WP:FALSEBALANCE actually says is Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view, fringe theory, or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. I don't see how it can be a minority view, fringe theory or extraordinary claim to say that there has been a shift in how the UK media cover transgender issues since the Cass Final Report, when there no RS at all expressing a contrary view. Plus peer-reviewed articles in the BMJ would seem to typify commonly accepted mainstream scholarship.
Regarding your BBC article example, I think you are wrong, depending on the claim being sourced it might be quite acceptable to use the updated version of the article as an RS. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 20:29, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
To be clear Snokalok, I personally think you are right that there has not been a shift in UK media coverage, but for the opposite reason to you - I see the Guardian and the New Statesman etc acknowledging the lack of evidence for GAC in editorials then continuing to take a pro-"affirming" line in their reporting e.g. of the puberty blocker ban. So this isn't about me trying to force my beliefs into the article.
But we have an RS which claims there has been such a shift, and as far as I understand WP:NPOV and WP:DUE we have to report the viewpoints expressed in RS. In the wording I propose, we would not state the shift has happened as a fact - we would keep it in quotes and attribute it to the source. Naturally, as soon as we have a secondary RS saying there has been no change in how the UK media report transgender issues post-Cass, we should add it. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 20:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
That’s a misunderstanding of WP:DUE - represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint.
If this viewpoint is only supported as a claim by this one person, without other supporting statements by others, then by definition, it is not a significant viewpoint, which means we the use Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all of DUE and ommit this entirely.
Basically we are not obligated to publish every single point of view from somewhere, just because it itself may be RS. Raladic (talk) 21:21, 4 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
If it is currently the only secondary RS which discusses this topic (media coverage of the Cass Review), of course the viewpoints it presents are significant.
If this viewpoint is only supported as a claim by this one person, without other supporting statements by others, then by definition, it is not a significant viewpoint
No, that is not a real policy. A viewpoint doesn't need to appear in multiple RS to be significant; not all topics are covered by a large number of RS and there is no interpretation of WP:DUE which requires that. Anyway, you don't really believe it yourself; what were the other supporting statements by others for the substack content you wanted to add here?
we the use Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all of DUE and ommit this entirely.
Obviously "tiny minority" in the context of WP:DUE means a minority of the sources which discuss the topic in question, not a minority of all the sources ever published on any topic. It cannot be a minority view unless it contradicts a "majority view" of the same topic, for example if a majority of RS said there has been no change in how the UK media report transgender issues, or said that reporting of the Review in the UK and US was the same. Do you have those sources? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 18:15, 6 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
At the end of the day no evidence has been provided that there is a shift and with no other sources the best we can say is Jennifer block thinks there has been a shift. This source can't get the age of SEGM right, it says the Cass review had a huge impact in the UK and Europe (citing the Cass review). I'm not aware of any impact this has had outside the UK in Europe. Given this is not an academic paper I'm treating BMJ investigations the same way I'd treat a highly respected newspaper and saying this is a poor peice put out by a respectable source and while it could be useful for some quotes or attribution, we probably shouldn't be writing our article based on this source. This is mainly given the level of unreliable claims (which are at best a matter of opinion) presented as fact within the peice. LunaHasArrived (talk) 10:51, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
At the end of the day no evidence has been provided that there is a shift
We represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources, it doesn't matter whether editors find those viewpoints persuasive or not.
with no other sources the best we can say is Jennifer block thinks there has been a shift.
Once again, this is a peer-reviewed secondary RS published in a scientific journal, it would not be appropriate to try to diminish its conclusions by implying it is only the personal opinion of the author.
Anyway, the proposed text is:
An article comparing the reception of the Cass Review in the UK and US noted that after the Final Report was published "the tone of major print and broadcast media in the UK has shifted"
so the claim would be attributed to the article and even in quotes, so nobody will confuse it with wiki-voice.
If people prefer changing "noted" to "said", let's do that. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 19:53, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

OK, I've added the Media Response section. I have tried to make the wording as neutral as possible but Snokalok and LunaHasArrived please can you check for any POV and adjust the wording as you see fit? FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 18:36, 7 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Raladic has also been active against this inclusion, we should tag her.
Anyway, I personally am still thoroughly unconvinced on this source. Additionally, we should ask ourselves about notability. Why are we giving an entire section with two paragraphs to contentious claims made by a single unreliable source with no clear other sources reporting on such a thing? Snokalok (talk) 20:08, 7 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
I have to agree, even if this source was top level quality there is the question of how much should we write based off of one rs. The main point being if only one source talks about the media reception, it really isn't a big deal. LunaHasArrived (talk) 12:17, 9 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Two minor errors in subsection header captions

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Latest comment: 10 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

"Adult Clinics" should be "Adult clinics" (capitalisation). "Other government bodies actions" should be "Other government bodies' actions" (apostrophe), or "Actions by other government bodies". 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:947F:B029:98CA:1E06 (talk) 14:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

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