by WorldTribune Staff, December 5, 2016

A new study reveals that “some of the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence.”

The report, published by The New Atlantis, a project of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, noted “higher rates of mental health problems among LGBT populations,” and questioned “the scientific basis of trends in the treatment of children who do not identify with their biological sex.”

The report was written by Johns Hopkins University researchers — Dr. Lawrence S. Mayer, an epidemiologist trained in psychiatry, and Dr. Paul R. McHugh, “arguably the most important American psychiatrist of the last half-century” — in the hope of improving public understanding of these questions. It is a meta-analysis of data from over 200 peer-reviewed (and left-leaning) studies regarding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

The New Atlantis is published by the Center for the Study of Technology and Society in partnership with the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Highlights of the report, titled, “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences”:

• “The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings — the idea that people are ‘born that way’ — is not supported by scientific evidence.”
• “Sexual orientation” in adolescents is “fluid over the life course for some people, with one study estimating that as many as 80 percent of male adolescents who report same-sex attractions no longer do so as adults.”
• “Compared to heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals are about two to three times as likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse.”
• “Gay”-identified people are “at an elevated risk for a variety of adverse health and mental health outcomes.”
• “Gay”-identified people experience “nearly 2.5 times the risk of suicide.”
• “The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex — that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ — is not supported by scientific evidence.”
• “Studies comparing the brain structures of transgender and non-transgender individuals … do not provide any evidence for a neurobiological basis for cross-gender identification.”
• “[S]ex-reassigned individuals [are] about five times more likely to attempt suicide and about 19 times more likely to die by suicide.”
• “[T]he rate of lifetime suicide attempts across all ages of transgender individuals is estimated at 41 percent, compared to under 5 percent in the overall U.S. population.”
• “Only a minority of children who experience cross-gender identification will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.”

  Sexuality and Gender, Study finds major tenets of LGBT narrative ‘not supported by scientific evidence’, The New Atlantis, WorldTribune.com