Fox News got it wrong about trans people yet again.
On April 7th, 2021, Tucker Carlson interviewed and debated the Arkansas governor, Asa Hutchinson, live on television. He also followed the interview up with a series of false claims and misrepresentations of studies.
The dangerous degree of misinformation within these two segments concerned me heavily, so I decided to write an email to Fox News on two occasions; one to Fox News itself, and the other to Tucker Carlson Tonight, the show where this occurred. Of course, Fox News unfortunately never responded, something far too common of them. Individuals like Tucker Carlson cannot heed criticism, shown by his ignorance of criticism in addition to his fallacious and slimy debate tactics.
In hope of teaching anyone who may incorrectly adhere to any of the unfounded beliefs that Tucker Carlson is a proponent of, I have decided to publicize this email complaint debunking the interview and its followup.
The Email
Hello, I am emailing Fox News in regard to a recent “Tucker Carlson Tonight” show during which Tucker Carlson questioned the Arkansas governor on his decision to veto the bill banning GRS and hormone blockers for minors and a follow-up to this show.
Tucker Carlson repeatedly interrupted the guest, questioned his integrity multiple times (with no solid ground to base concern about his motives off of), unfairly compared puberty blockers to chemical castration, misinterpreted existing studies and cited a controversial, flawed study.
Tucker Carlson interrupted on various occasions the guest with multiple questions and concerns, often giving the governor a lack of time to speak. This is commonly referred to as a “gish gallop”, whereby somebody in the offensive of a debate repeatedly makes broad, unsubstantiated or weak points in an attempt to overwhelm the opponent without any actual substance to the argument. This is not a honest debating technique and it is incredibly bad faith, for which I strongly condemn and criticise Tucker Carlson’s diatribes.
When Governor Hutchinson referenced some bodies of evidence, Tucker Carlson again interrupted the guest and did not address the resources provided. Rather than criticizing the publications and the physicians who were adhering to existing data contradictory to what Tucker Carlson advocates for, he simply questioned the integrity of the evidence by concern trolling in regards to the short duration of trans healthcare’s existence in pediatrics. While this is somewhat true, puberty blockers have also been studied extensively and have been found to be completely reversible (Murchison, et al. 2016), (Hembree, et al. 2017), making this concern completely illogical. Additionally, it is a ridiculous assertion to make to claim that puberty suppressants are “experimental” or a new field research, as they have been studied extensively and the process of prescription is incredibly rigorous (Giordano, et al. 2020).
Tucker Carlson also ridiculously questioned his motives by suspecting a conflict of interest due to funding bias when the Governor was unable to cite a specific study. For many individuals who read studies, it may be difficult to remember the name of publications they have read. Questioning the host was not necessarily a concern grounded in genuine reasoning, but simply an ad hominem based on shortcomings of someone who doesn’t specialise in this area. One does not have to be an expert to cite THE experts to make decisions about certain topics.
In addition to various fallacies, Tucker Carlson also cited various studies in his follow-up to the interview. I take incredible issue with what he cited. He misrepresented the Swedish study, cited a highly criticized article which relies on a study which had poor methodology and cited another study which cherry-picked bad studies to make the overall argument look weak.
The Swedish study (Dhejne, et al. 2011) was an out-dated study taken out of context, and does not prove that sex reassignment is itself harmful to transgender people. The study assessed differences between cisgender (not transgender) people and trans people post surgery. To prove a direct link between sex reassignment surgery (SRS) and poor long-term mental health outcomes, one must assess the link by using pre-SRS trans people as the control group, not cisgender people. This did not prove that SRS was itself harmful, but that it wasn’t ENOUGH to resolve existing poor mental health or future negative outcomes and that additional work must be done in terms of long-term counselling and making society more progressive. These things appear to be significantly opposed by Tucker Carlson, shown by his history of direct opposition to improved transgender rights. The leading author of the study has come out as a trans rights advocate and has criticised the poor representation of her study, asserting that the claims are pseudoscientific and not based on the actual results.
Tucker Carlson additionally cited the British Medical Journal’s (BMJ) publication puberty blockers lacking positive health outcomes for transgender people (Dyer, et al. 2021). This study has not been received well by the scientific community, and has been responded to by authors at the BMJ themselves (Miah, et al. 2021) for various reasons. The study DIRECTLY contradicts itself by mentioning that those on puberty blockers demonstrated a generally happy mood, felt more comfortable and enjoyed positive mental health outcomes. Additionally, it had a sample size of only 44 people, which would make it extremely difficult to control for confounding factors. It was also limited due to short interview time with the participants. He also claimed that the study linked puberty blockers to bodily harm, which is not substantiated. Puberty blockers are reversible (Murchison, et al. 2016), (Hembree, et al. 2017), and simply allow puberty, female or male, to occur at a later date (Puberty Blockers, St. Louis Children’s Hospital), which would resolve the issue he cited of “reduced height and bone strength”. Reduction in bone strength is also temporary and not common, and usually returns to normal after puberty suppression is ended.
He further stated that the London Tavistock clinic produced a study which was the exact same study cited by the BMJ in their article (which I previously covered). To restate and summarise my criticisms, it is incredibly flawed. It lacks a control group, has a small sample size making controlling for confounding factors incredibly difficult and directly contradicts itself multiple times. The study also suggests that only SOME of the children participating in the study had negative health outcomes over time. It was ridiculous of Tucker Carlson to cite this study, as he already cited the BMJ’s article covering it. Doing so made the “evidence” of Tucker Carlson’s claims look stronger than they were, when he was simply repeating the findings of the same study.
The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence study was also cited. It did not address the plenty of studies and systematic reviews that had extremely positive findings on the health effects of transitioning, which were found to be significantly beneficial (What does the scholarly research say about the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being?, Cornell University), (Murad, et al. 2010), (Nobili, et al. 2018), (Weyers, et al. 2009), (De Vries, et al. 2011), (De Vries, et al. 2014). Furthermore, in the context Tucker Carlson used the study in, he made it out to sound like there was NO evidence that it was beneficial. This was not what the study meant, it was referring to the quality of evidence, not the quantity.
To conclude my criticism: I strongly condemn Tucker Carlson’s unfair method of debating, unjust ad hominems and citations of misrepresented or poor studies.
