America’s most prominent medical journal advocates accepting transgenderism, but Neil A. Kurtzman, MD, Emeritus Professor of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech, in "Science Deniers at the New England Journal of Medicine," blows a hole in their bloviations—a solid center mass hole exposing their arrogant, politically motivated nonsense. It helps that Dr. Kurtzman has had a remarkable career in clinical medicine, education, basic research, and administration for more than 40 years. The article and Dr. Kurtzman’s rebuttal help reveal how the woke mob that controls The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) -- which was once the epicenter of good medical research and practice -- is hijacking American medicine.

Last month, NEJM published an article entitled “Protecting Transgender Health and Challenging Science Denialism in Policy. Writing at American Greatness, Kurtzman doesn’t pull his punches, asserting that the article “is the latest example of using denialism to denigrate any opinion contrary to that of the latest set of experts to claim sovereignty over a controversial subject.”

Denialism now takes its place in the rhetorical armory of the left as another weapon to stifle debate and intimidate those opposing a narrative that the socialist/sex deviancy army pushes to promote the fetishist/transvestite/sexual fluidity movement. It is no coincidence that Boston Children’s Hospital was recently exposed as another medical center engaged in mutilating confused children and adolescents.

The articles’ authors—McNamara, M.D. (physician), Lepore, B.A. (grad or med student), and Alstott, J.D. (attorney)—are all from Yale, another bastion of leftist advocacy. They argue that whether to treat so-called “transgender” and “transgender expansive” (TGE) patients is a battle between enlightened advocates and ignorant science deniers, without room for debate. Therefore, they opine, any laws preventing doctors from mutilating and giving hormone treatments to confused dysmorphics are malicious examples of science denial that should be reversed without any further discussion.

Image: January 1814 New England Medical Journal cover; gay man in makeup by freepik.

The paper itself, written by one physician, one medical student and a lawyer has no science; it’s just political advocacy. Dr. Krutzman exposes this with basic questions, such as “What is the disease we are treating?” He notes that dysmorphism is a mental health problem, not a disease, but the NEJM authors don’t consider that important. The authors also say nothing about the tremendous increase in dysmorphic patients, particularly youth, compared to the problem 20 years ago, when it was a rare diagnosis occurring mostly among transvestites.

Dr. Kurtzman criticizes that the authors argue as if the social history of homosexuality is the same as the transgender issue. Thus, they note that, over 20 years ago, under attack from what was then the LGB community, psychiatry retreated from labeling homosexuality as a psychopathology. That sounds more like politics than medical science, but psychiatrists are mostly political and social “experts” who are only distantly familiar with the scientific method.

I disagree with Dr. Kurtzman about whether psychotherapy should be included as one of the three inappropriate therapies for sexual deviancy or dysmorphism (transgender ideation). Psych therapy is appropriate for anyone unhappy with or harmed by their sexual or sexual organ delusions, antisocial, inappropriate expectations, or dangerous fetishes.

Likewise, psychotherapy for dysmorphism is and always has been appropriate for sexual desires, fetishes, cravings, and behavior that are unacceptable to society at large. The problem is that the sexual deviancy advocates want the societal norms destroyed in favor of nihilist and “anything goes” approaches that are politically motivated and a part of destroying societal moral norms.

If the NEJM authors think that gender dysmorphism should be treated with the psych, medical and surgical modalities, it is they who are pathologizing TGE. Moreover, they are advocating mutilations for a mental health disorder, a basic violation for medical practitioners—“First do no harm.” It is not that TGE is not a pathological phenomenon; it’s that it is a mental health and sociological problem that propagandists with political agendas promote to destroy western moral norms. Advocating pharmacological and surgical mutilation is anti-science and fails to address the pathology.

So, who are the science deniers, now?

The NEJM authors, all three of them, defend the treatment of gender dysphoria in children with weasel words: “In reality, prepubertal children are ineligible for medical treatments such as puberty blockers and exogenous sex hormones, and treatment decisions for adolescents are generally made in concert with legal guardians after thorough assessment.” This implies that an 11-year-old who has entered puberty is eligible for the treatment mentioned above, becoming a human experimental subject for the LGBTQ agenda? And treatment decisions are generally made with input from parents. Why not always? And why not with their approval? The authors have no time for parents. The claim of thoroughness is belied by the fact that the decision to give children hormones or surgery is reviewed only by advocates for those procedures.

Then there’s the expert problem. Experts commonly believe that the only opinions that should count are their own. They typically fail to realize that a problem has facets that are far outside their areas of expertise. Look at the mess experts in infectious diseases got the world into over their incomplete and misguided “solution” to the COVID outbreak. Enough said in the interest of time and space.

Thus, those who are engaged in the treatment of gender dysphoria believe they should have the final, or even the sole, say about its management. That other people with different experiences might have something useful to offer for treating the children lined up for “medical care” that can have lifelong effects seems irrelevant to the NEJM authors. Anyone who disagrees with them is summarily convicted of science denialism.

Dr. K rightfully condemns the authors’ statement that “Transgender health isn’t a nascent field, it’s an evolving one that shouldn’t be hamstrung by biased laws.” Advocating bad medicine because a field is new and popular always wrong. Refusing to acknowledge countervailing evidence—e.g., data from Paul McHugh, a renowned and respected psychiatrist, that transgender treatment creates unhappy and even suicidal patients who, because of transgender pressure, are permanently damaged, rather than receiving appropriate psychiatric treatment—is also wrong. Psychotherapy is acceptable to cure or mitigate the problem of dysmorphism--drugs and surgery can’t be reversed.

If these laws are indeed biased, they should be repealed. But that’s not what these authors want. Litigation is their preferred course of action. “In litigation lawyers and scientists have begun consolidating their expertise to expose and rebut science denialism at the policy level.” To them, it’s obvious that only those with an inherent conflict of interest (the doctors who are paid to provide gender-affirming care) should provide the sole authoritative voice in court. Any scientist bold enough to disagree is, by definition, a “science denier”—whose lack of expertise must silence him.

Dr. K provides a conclusory remark:

On a more general level, this paper and the stance that it takes is part of a decades-long effort to remake society into a new form. First it was the academy, then K-12, and now it is medical schools and the rest of the profession. It has taken a long time for those who see the current structure as the best way to organize and improve society to realize what they are up against. Instead of defending oneself when accused of science denialism or some other form of diversionary attack on established norms, one should apply that label to the would-be-destroyer of an established norm worth preserving. Thus, the authors of the NEJM paper just discussed are science deniers.

Dr. Krutzman makes an important point: “That this paper appeared in the NEJM is no accident. As a subscriber for well more than half a century, I have watched the journal over the past 30 years evolve in its opinion section into the medical equivalent of The Daily Worker.”

Damn, Dr. Krutzman, you nailed these creeps to the wall. The real question to ask is what the hell has happened to the NEJM editorial staff?

John Dale Dunn MD JD is a retired emergency physician and inactive attorney.