Pro-trans doctor faces plagiarism accusations after defending trans surgery for minors at AZ legislature
The doctor’s ‘opinions are not reliable because he plagiarized them, he lacks the qualifications to offer them, and he has presented no objective proof that his opinions represent good science,’ the Republicans wrote.
“Attempts to ‘cure’ transgender individuals by forcing their gender identity into alignment with their birth sex are harmful and ineffective,” read one of the passages that was reportedly plagiarized.
Dr. Daniel Shumer, a proponent of transgender surgeries for minors and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, was recently accused of plagiarism after he testified against legislation protecting women’s sports.
Arizona State Sen. Warren Petersen sharply criticized Shumer’s actions in a statement given to Fox News, accusing him of “gaslighting.”
“The ultimate gaslight is to say that a boy is a girl,” Petersen stated. “Now, we have learned that the expert witness did more than gaslight. We have presented the court with multiple examples of identical or virtually identical phrasing used by other academics without any attribution.”
Shumer’s testimony came as part of a case against Arizona’s Save Women’s Sports Act, a case in which Petersen is the lead defendant, Fox News stated.
Petersen, who is the President of the Arizona Senate, together with Arizona House Speaker Steve Montenegro filed a motion asking for the removal of Shumer’s testimony record, stating that his “opinions are not reliable because he plagiarized them, he lacks the qualifications to offer them, and he has presented no objective proof that his opinions represent good science.”
Petersen and Montenegro accused Shumer of plagiarizing “the majority of the substantive paragraphs in his report.”
One of Shumer’s paragraphs read: “Attempts to ‘cure’ transgender individuals by forcing their gender identity into alignment with their birth sex are harmful and ineffective. Those practices have been widely denounced as unethical by all major professional associations of medical and mental health professionals, such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association, among others.”
With the exception of only a few words, the passage is almost entirely identical to a statement made by a Dr. Stephen Rosenthal.
Other passages are also largely identical to Rosenthal’s statement, as well as to another statement made by a Dr. Joshua Safer.
Shumer has been called upon to provide testimony in support of youth transgender surgery on at least one occasion.
While testifying regarding a Georgia Senate Bill that bans trans-surgeries on minors, Shumer asserted that hormone treatments have allegedly enabled patients to “flourish and grow.”
Transgender surgeries for minors have been widely criticized as causing irreversible and harmful changes to children that will last for the rest of their lives.
The University of Michigan has declined to comment when asked by Campus Reform.
Campus Reform has reached out to Dr. Shumer for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.