Tag: homosexuality

Detransition, Retransition, and What Everyone Gets Wrong

A article published in The Atlantic implored people to take detransitioners seriously but did so by perpetuating non-evidence-based tropes that harm both detransitioners and transgender people

Conversion therapy is pseudoscience

Federal appeals court strikes down conversion therapy bans

A recent federal Court of Appeals decision struck down local governments' conversion therapy bans on First Amendment grounds, characterizing licensed mental health therapists' advice as a "viewpoint" and regulation thereof subject to strict scrutiny by the courts, a standard that, historically, is rarely met. This decision carries disturbing implications for the regulation of the practice of medicine as well as the government's...

/ December 31, 2020

Significant Ruling Against Conversion Therapy

The standard features of quackery are all there. Proponents of this particular therapy claim that a normal condition is a disease. They make false claims about the cause of this disease. They then charge thousands of dollars for their fake treatment to cure the fake disease, and claim success rates that are not backed by any statistics. In this case the fake...

/ February 11, 2015

Learning from Animals: Evolutionary Medicine with a Twist

In 2005, cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz was called to the zoo to examine a non-human patient, an emperor tamarin with heart failure.  She was surprised when the veterinarian told her not to look her patient in the eyes because eye contact could cause capture myopathy. In this condition, when an animal is captured, restrained, and feels threatened, there is a catastrophic surge of...

/ September 11, 2012