Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz is an epidemiologist and author of the Health Nerd newsletter, where he writes about public health and scientific evidence. He earned a Master of Public Health at the University of Sydney and a PhD at the University of Wollongong in 2024. His doctoral research examined diabetes self-management applications and continued use of digital health services.
What we have documented
We have documented 2 statements by Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, in 1 case. Each statement below gives the quotation, its original source and a link to the full case.
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Role at the time: Epidemiologist, University of Sydney
Condemned
Statement summary
Epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz called the HHS report "a very poorly done piece of research" and "pseudoscience," citing oversampling of Democrats and one-sided violence-justification questions.
“a very poorly done piece of research ... the most obviously political study that I've come across ... pseudoscience”
Open source (opens in a new tab)‘Nakedly political’: US attempts to link trans support to authoritarianism in new health department reportPublished September 7, 2026; updated September 8, 2026; comments from Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Daniel Aaron, Craig Konnoth and Colin Wright
Why we used this label
Meyerowitz-Katz directly condemns the report's methodology as political pseudoscience, a substantive rejection of the report's credibility relevant to the case's central question.
Role at the time: Epidemiologist and author of Health Nerd
Condemned
Response to this claim
HHS reported that, in its analytic sample, stronger agreement with its Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale was associated with higher left-wing-authoritarianism scores and greater stated justification for specified political-violence scenarios.
“There’s no good reason to believe that people who support “gender ideology”, however you define it, are more likely to be violent extremists.”
The author does more than offer a different interpretation: he expressly rejects the report's validity and criticizes the research and its promotion as pseudoscience. Our Condemned label includes substantive criticism of a claim; it does not require a moral denunciation or the word condemn.
An HHS survey report linked selected gender-affirmation beliefs with higher authoritarianism scores and stated political-violence justification. Its authors say it does not establish causation or measure violence; critics dispute its measures and broader framing.
