For this week’s episode of Citation Needed, we begin with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which upheld Tennessee’s law banning sex trait modification procedures for minors. Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an emotional dissenting opinion, invoking the oft-repeated claim that these interventions are “lifesaving” and that denying them puts transgender youth at high risk of suicide. In our first segment, we take a sober look at the origins of this narrative, the actual evidence behind it, and why it’s both medically misleading and ethically dangerous to invoke suicide as a political cudgel in policy debates.
In our second (supporter-only) segment, we explore two academic papers that take Kafka-trap scholarship to new heights. The first, funded by the NIH and published in Child Development, frames white teenagers’ rejection of racism as evidence of “white ignorance.” The second, from Men and Masculinities, interviews vulnerable fathers in support groups—only to conclude that their emotional openness is proof of their complicity in “hegemonic masculinity.” We break down how these studies use ideological blinders to contort participants' good-faith responses to support activist conclusions. Spoiler: disagreeing with the researchers just makes you more guilty.
