CNN was fact-checked by X's Community Notes after it cited a study claiming "[t]ransgender and nonbinary patients have no regrets about top surgery."
"Gender-affirming mastectomy is a procedure that shapes the chest skin and tissue of people who identify as transmasculine or nonbinary so that their chest aligns more closely with the contour of what is typically thought of as a male chest," CNN wrote in the article, published Wednesday.
It shared the story in a post, "Transgender and nonbinary patients have no regrets about top surgery, small study finds." But Community Notes, a fact-checking service on X, formerly known as Twitter, objected.
"Headline implies generality, while in reality, respondent pool is very narrow. All 139 respondents: - Surgery 1990-2020 at one clinic - 18+ at time of surgery - WPATH SOC* only Pool excludes trangender youth (13-17), a recent phenomenon that doubled in size 2017-2022."
Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir bashed the study for "never once mention[ing] that those who got mastectomies in this study did so as adults (median age 27.1 at time of surgery)."
"Isn’t that a relevant detail here?" Sapir asked.
Sapir continued to undermine the study, asking if it was logically sound to apply results from a survey of adults to teenage girls.
"Do you think results from a survey of adults who got surgery in their late 20s apply automatically to 13-16 year old teenage girls?" he asked. "The omission speaks volumes. There are other problems with the study not discussed in Jen’s article, but this level of dishonesty in reporting is just stunning to behold. And for what?"
"The degree of sloppiness they're allowed to get away with on this issue is truly astounding," evolutionary biologist Dr. Colin Wright wrote.
A biological man who underwent "gender-affirming care" 40 years ago told Fox News Digital that the surgery nearly destroyed his life in April.
"When you hit the regret button, you can't put the pieces back," Walt Heyer, an American author, activist and speaker, said.
He claimed that trasngenderism is a social contagion that can spread especially easily at "schools."
"They do it because their friends do it. Sometimes the school or schools are doing the indoctrination. So, I tell parents, take your kids out of school," Heyer said.
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Fox News' Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.
