How Many Misrepresentations Can One Interview Contain?

Genspect NZ's Jan Rivers goes for Gold in the Misinformation Olympics

Hold on to your seats, folks! Jan Rivers, a spokesperson for Genspect NZ, has just pulled off an Olympic-level routine of misinformation in her interview with Paul Brennan on Reality “Chucked” Radio, Aotearoa’s hub for conspiratorial, anti-vaccine and anti-trans content. It’s a dazzling display of mental gymnastics, complete with reality-defying flips and vaults over evidence. Grab your popcorn as we view the highlights (lowlights?) reel and score her performance!

This might be the story of the Baloney Bunch.

The "No Research" Nosedive

Claim: Rivers insists that NZ researchers aren’t studying gender medicine effectiveness because it would “become very unpopular” and claims there’s “no such research”, as well as claiming affirming clinicians are “slightly behind the evidence,” implying puberty blockers and hormones are being administered without adequate backing.

Refutation: This claim is trivially false. New Zealand researcher, Dr. Gloria Fraser and others have published multiple pieces of research into safety and efficacy, including a study in 2023. And over the ditch, there is an Australian RCT published in 2023 providing evidence that affirming care, specifically hormones, are effective. These studies aren't hiding in some dark corner, they are peer-reviewed, recent, and local. I’ve even directly pointed Jan at the Australian RCT on X/Twitter. So it would appear it is Jan who is the one “slightly behind the evidence”, wilfully ignoring recent findings that contradict her scare story.

The Baxendale IQ Backflip

Claim: Rivers also repeats the disputed claim that puberty blockers cause a “10-point loss in IQ”, a reference to Sallie Baxendale’s work which she correctly states was turned down by “three different journals”.

Refutation: Well, Baxendale’s review paper faced significant peer-review rejections, primarily due to concerns about speculative conclusions drawn from limited data, including small-scale human studies and animal research. Critics also noted potential bias in her framing, particularly in a disproportionate focus on unproven risks.

And here’s the kicker: the University of York systematic review of puberty blockers, commissioned as part of the Cass Review, which Jan often likes to cite, found no evidence to support any claim of an IQ drop.

So, if Jan wants to talk about research being "unpopular," maybe she should reflect on why her preferred study kept facing peer-review rejection. When scare stories meet scientific rigour, the facts tend to win out.

The “Social Contagion” Somersault

Claim: Rivers agrees with the claim that transgender identities are a “building kind of fad,” blaming social pressure, especially among young women, for an apparent explosion in transitioning. Because clearly, being yourself is just the latest TikTok challenge, right?

Refutation: The "social contagion" theory and its companion, the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) hypothesis, have both been thoroughly debunked. Multiple studies have shown no credible evidence for this ‘theory’, which I prefer to call ‘Late Parental Discovery Disorder’. What Rivers and others fail to grasp is a fundamental truth: queer people, including trans individuals, have always existed, often hiding their identities from non-supportive parents until they can manage the risks of abuse or being made homeless. This isn’t new, it’s just more visible now.

Instead, the rise in referrals for transgender youth is largely due to increased awareness, greater access to affirming care, and the reduction of stigma, which makes it safer for people to seek help. Framing trans identities as a “fad” is not just harmful, it erases these real experiences and struggles.

And here’s the real issue: Rivers, like many gender critical people, is confusing rising clinical referrals with increased population prevalence, a common mistake known as surveillance bias. Many conditions, from autism to ADHD, see more diagnoses today due to better awareness and care, not because the conditions are new or growing in number. So when it comes to social contagion, to borrow Jan’s words, “if you look at that claim, it really doesn't stand up to analysis.”

The Legal Leapfrog

Claim: Rivers claims that legal challenges to gender-affirming care are “moving extremely quickly.”

Refutation: While Rivers spins a tale of mounting legal challenges, the reality is more like a legal drought. The Keira Bell case that Jan mentioned? Overturned on appeal 3 years ago, reinforcing the 39 year old principle of Gillick competence, which continues to safeguard young people's ability to make informed medical decisions.

Remember that much-hyped UK class action against the Tavistock where lawyers boasted about 1,000 potential claimants back in 2022? Well, it seems those clients are as elusive as Bigfoot. Nothing's been filed in court yet. But wait! The lawyers have an explanation worthy of a right wing Youtuber: it's all because of "cancel culture". Yes, folks, the dog ate their lawsuit.

In the U.S., detransitioner Soren Aldaco’s case was partially dismissed, with $40,000 costs awarded against the complainant for filing frivolous litigation. None of the other 13 or so US detransitioner cases have made it to trial yet, and if they get there, they will have to address the same medico-legal challenges successfully raised in the Keira Bell appeal.

Rivers may conjure up these lawsuits as an existential threat to affirming care, but so far, all of these phantasms have failed to materialise.

The “Conversion Therapy” Contortion

Claim: Rivers claims that gender-affirming care is actually “conversion therapy from same-sex attracted people”, apparently because transitioning supposedly alters their sexual orientation.

Refutation: This claim is a full-on assault on reality. As someone who wrote a master's dissertation on the 100+ year history underpinning conversion therapy, I can attest that Rivers' argument isn't just misleading. It's an outright lie and a profound misrepresentation of both affirming care and conversion practices.

Affirming care does not seek to change someone’s sexual orientation. Terms like "same-sex attracted" are relative to a person’s perceived sex or gender identity. While labels like 'gay' or 'straight' might shift when someone transitions, their core sexual attraction to others, what sexual orientation literally means, remains the same or sometimes broadens with the reduction in dysphoria.

Rivers' real trick here is exploiting this linguistic relativity to suggest that affirming care somehow ‘converts’ people’s orientation. But that’s a gross distortion. Conversion therapy is about forcing someone to deny their authentic self, while affirming care is about supporting them in living it, whether they are trans or gender non-conforming. Unlike what gender critical people claim, affirmative care is holistic and exploratory and not transition-only, since what it actually affirms is that all gender identities and expressions are equally healthy.

I’ve told Jan this and even cited clinical guides on gender affirming care. Sadly, it would appear she’s still avoiding reading them and just keeps repeating these falsehoods.

It’s not just her doing mental gymnastics here. Despite the University of York systematic review of psychosocial interventions finding only limited and low-quality evidence of benefit for gender dysphoria, the Cass Review continues to recommend these as first line interventions.

Affirming care supports people in living their authentic lives. To claim this is “conversion therapy” turns the very concept upside down, and it’s particularly egregious given that the so-called “Gender Exploratory Therapy” that Genspect promotes is tantamount to a conversion practice itself and would likely be illegal in New Zealand under the CPPLA 2022 s5.1 for “suppression of gender identity”.

The worst part? While Rivers does these backflips, real trans teens are fighting for their lives. Framing their existence as a “fad” is not just absurd - it’s dangerous. This kind of rhetoric creates a hostile environment where trans youth are forced to defend their very existence. It fuels harmful narratives that lead to rejection by family, schools, and communities, and it dismisses the life-saving impact of affirming care, which has been proven to reduce suicide risk, depression, and anxiety in trans teens.

Reality Check, Jan: Will You Live Up to Your Claims?

Jan claims to stand for “Decency. Truth. Evidence.” It’s right there in her X/Twitter profile. But after this masterclass in deflection, twisting, and evasion, it seems the real challenge now is to see if she’ll correct these fumbles and misrepresentations, or if we’ll keep seeing this same routine with every new audience. In the meantime, it’s up to us to stand up for facts, science, and our trans whānau.