‘Fact Checkers’ Discredit Themselves In Service to Transgender ‘Stigma’ Reduction

When it comes to the question of transgenderism being a mental illness, the “independent fact checkers” might need a new rating: “Factually Correct, Politically Incorrect.” When a man with male genitalia thinks he’s a woman, the people who pose as the Guardians of Fact say he’s not wrong. You’re wrong to say he’s mentally ill. Because the “Science” has genuflected to transgender ideology.

You can say “I’m in the wrong body” and the “fact checkers” will back you up. Gender-denying treatments are “gender-affirming.” Liberals think this doesn’t discredit their efforts. But it does.

PolitiFact joined The New York Times in “correcting” Vivek Ramaswamy after the latest presidential debate at the Reagan Library. Grace Abels, the LGBTQ-issues “fact checker,” is funded by the Gill Foundation, a radical LGBTQ philanthropy.  As a student at Duke, Abels was a research assistant to PolitiFact co-founder Bill Adair. 

Out came the “FALSE’ rating: 

Vivek Ramaswamy got it wrong; being trans isn’t a mental health disorder.

Ramaswamy said “Transgenderism, especially in kids, is a mental health disorder.” Liberals think it’s inhumane to deny “puberty blockers” and irreversible amputations to minors. Abels noted “Ramaswamy has said this before, but the medical community disagrees.”

The “medical community” has been lobbied to change the “Science.” It turns out “facts” can be mangled to reduce “stigma.”  

Historically, the experience of being transgender carried the term “disorder,” but experts no longer view it that way and are working to destigmatize the diagnosis while continuing to ensure access to gender-affirming health care.

In 2019, in the latest edition of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases, the WHO renamed the diagnosis from “transsexualism” to “gender incongruence” and moved it from the chapter on mental health disorders to a new section titled “conditions related to sexual health.”  

Similarly, in 2013, when the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, was revised, the term “gender identity disorder” was changed to “gender dysphoria” to clarify that being transgender is not an illness. 

Some advocates argued the diagnosis should be removed from the manual, but that change would jeopardize access to gender-affirming care. Without a diagnostic code, most insurance plans wouldn’t cover it, and incarcerated trans people could be denied gender-affirming health care. 

When revising the DSM, “the challenge … was how to reduce the stigma of having a diagnosis while maintaining access to care,” said Dr. Jack Drescher, a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and past president of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry. 

You especially have to wonder why a “fact checker” is worrying out loud about prisoners being denied “gender-affirming care” with our tax dollars.