Here's an easy way to determine a "fact checker" isn't harping on facts, but on dismissing arguments against the Left. On Tuesday, PolitiFact lined up in solidarity with LGBTQ+ activists by throwing a "Mostly False" at the Instagram account of "Gays Against Groomers." PolitiFact dislikes this group so strongly that it wouldn't use their name and blurred it out of their reproduction of the Instagram post.
Worst of all, it's sad when "fact checkers" undermine themselves with trans lingo like "gender-affirming treatments" when they are obviously gender-REJECTING treatments. They promoted their Madison Czopek article with this tweet:
Experts said gender-affirming treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapies are not experimental. More research can be done, but the current standards of care are based on research and evidence. https://t.co/wzp27UIruR
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) January 17, 2023
Gays Against Groomers argued "All ‘gender affirming care’ for children is 100% experimental. There are zero long term studies on the effects the drugs and surgeries will have on them." This article carried no fewer than 29 uses of "gender-affirming" in all its Orwellian glory.
As you can expect from the lingo, the "Experts" in this article are all LGBTQ activists. The National Center for Transgender Equality and something called The World Professional Association for Transgender Health are recognized as the central experts, when their spokesman Shane Diamond is a "proud transgender man" who proclaims his focus is "on transgender inclusion, supporting trans youth, and empowering communities to create safer and more affirming spaces for LGBTQ+ people." PolitiFact is demonstrating it's more interested in "supporting trans youth" than in biological facts -- like the two genders "assigned at birth."
PolitiFact cites Dr. Michelle Forcier, who proclaimed her hostility to facts in the Matt Walsh documentary What Is A Woman? From the Daily Mail summary:
Dr. Forcier also told him that his sperm doesn't make him male and that an objective truth does not exist.
'Whose truth are we talking about?' she said.
'The same truth that says we're sitting in this room right now you and I,' Walsh replied.
She shot back: 'No, you're not listening.'
Walsh pushed back: 'If I see a chicken laying eggs and I say that's a female chicken, did I assign female? Or am I just observing a physical reality that's happening?'
The doctor, rejecting his argument, said: 'Does a chicken have gender identity? Does a chicken cry? Does a chicken commit suicide? A chicken has an assigned gender, but a chicken doesn't have gender identity.'
She also said it's only an assumption that a chicken laying eggs is female.
This is who the "fact checker" is citing as an "Expert." Czopek's fact check concluded:
Experts said it is inaccurate to call all gender-affirming care for children "experimental," because the approach, including the use of puberty blockers, is evidence-based. Research also shows that gender-affirming care reduces the risk of suicide, anxiety, depression and gender dysphoria.
For prepubescent children, gender-affirming care does not involve medication or surgeries; instead, it’s about social affirmation such as allowing a child to wear gender-affirming clothes or adopt a gender-affirming hairstyle.
There’s an element of truth to the claim: There aren’t many long-term studies on the effects of gender-affirming surgeries for youth, but that’s because they aren’t done on children and rarely on teenagers.
We rate this post Mostly False.
This article strongly underlines everything people don't like about so-called "independent fact-checkers." They aren't at all "independent" and "facts" aren't their primary business. Their primary business is reinforcing leftist narratives.
