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icymist

(15,888 posts)
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 09:06 PM Oct 2015

Fact Checking Janice Raymond: The NCHCT Report

It has long been asserted that the iconic TERF, Janice Raymond, played a part in bringing an end to the public and private coverage of transgender medical care, resulting in measurable death and suffering within the trans community. Unsurprisingly, Raymond rejects any assertion that she has blood on her hands. Over on TheTERFs.com, Raymond objects to the following assertion:

“It was only after the NCHCT [National Center for Health Care Technology] published Raymond’s bigotry in 1980 that the US government reversed course in 1981 and took up Raymond’s views and rhetoric. Raymond’s hate became the government’s stance. Raymond – a Catholic ethicist, not a clinician – was the architect of the anti-trans stance the US government adopted in the 1980s”

<snip>
First of all, you need to know that there wasn’t just one, but TWO reports:

The report the National Center for Health Care Technology (NCHCT) commissioned Raymond to write; and,
The report the Office of Health Technology Assessment (OHTA) issued which drew upon Raymond’s work to support one of three basic fact claims it made about trans care.

Next, you need to know that the OHTA was, for a brief time, a section of the NCHCT. The NCHCT existed as its own entity for 3 years and its duties were shifted to OHTA in 1981 . NCHCT made 75 coverage recommendations during those 3 years and a recommendation about trans care was one of them. If one wanted to muddy the water, one could technically assert that her research was merely one source from which the NCHCT pulled when writing their report on trans care because in 1981, NCHCT and OHTA was basically one organization. The fact that gets lost is that, in reality, the NCHCT commissioned ONLY ONE trans report: the one Raymond wrote. It was the OHTA Report – not the NCHCT Report – that drew from the research bodies Raymond claims. Raymond claims that “My paper was never published by the NCHCT but was treated as a consultative paper among many that were solicited from other experts and groups at the same time.” Yes, her report was indeed used in this manner for the OHTA report. However, NCHCT commissioned reports – such as Raymond’s NCHCT report – were available, in their entirety and these reports were targeted to very specific groups. Moreover, Raymond’s report – one of only 2 governmental reports on the efficacy of trans care at the time – was later available through the OHTA after the NCHCT shut its doors.

- See more at: http://www.transadvocate.com/fact-checking-janice-raymond-the-nchct-report_n_14554.htm?utm_content=buffer3ca98&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.G3JDDhDU.dpuf
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