What’s most troubling in Van Meter’s account isn’t only the contested science, but the way major professional societies now police the conversation.
By shutting down questions, ending sessions early, and ring-fencing presentations with security, they behave less like scientific bodies and more like ideological gatekeepers. This is how the Vatican treated Galileo: suppress the evidence, not engage with it. It’s also how Soviet institutions enforced “official science,” where dissenting views were silenced because they threatened the prestige of the state.
In both cases, the priority was protecting authority, not seeking truth. When our medical associations adopt that posture, they betray the very principles that give science its legitimacy.
I was treated for precocious puberty as a child in the 80s. I was part of the research group that helped puberty blockers gain FDA approval. I was on them from age 3 to age 11. I went through my normal puberty and have one healthy child. But there has been no follow up. I have never been contacted for additional study since I went off the puberty blockers in the early 90s. I wish someone would contact me because it is a very strange experience to have been a research guinea pig and to not understand what the long term consequences might be, especially as people use individuals with conditions like mine to support puberty suppression of gender nonconforming children which I strongly disagree with.
What’s most troubling in Van Meter’s account isn’t only the contested science, but the way major professional societies now police the conversation.
By shutting down questions, ending sessions early, and ring-fencing presentations with security, they behave less like scientific bodies and more like ideological gatekeepers. This is how the Vatican treated Galileo: suppress the evidence, not engage with it. It’s also how Soviet institutions enforced “official science,” where dissenting views were silenced because they threatened the prestige of the state.
In both cases, the priority was protecting authority, not seeking truth. When our medical associations adopt that posture, they betray the very principles that give science its legitimacy.
I was treated for precocious puberty as a child in the 80s. I was part of the research group that helped puberty blockers gain FDA approval. I was on them from age 3 to age 11. I went through my normal puberty and have one healthy child. But there has been no follow up. I have never been contacted for additional study since I went off the puberty blockers in the early 90s. I wish someone would contact me because it is a very strange experience to have been a research guinea pig and to not understand what the long term consequences might be, especially as people use individuals with conditions like mine to support puberty suppression of gender nonconforming children which I strongly disagree with.