The Press Ombudsperson has decided not to uphold a person’s complaint about an article carried by Gript.ie in April 2026. The article is about a Finnish study of the mental health of young people who have undergone medical gender re-assignment. The complainant said it breached Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) and Principle 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Commentary).
The Article
The article is headlined “Study: mental health risks increase after youth trans treatments”. It claims that a new study from Finland shows that mental health problems “increased markedly” among young people who underwent medical gender re-assignment, and that the psychiatric needs of adolescents did not subside after such treatment. The article quotes from a clinical psychologist who said the study showed that “gender affirming care is a disaster”, and the author of a UK report, which led, according to the publication to “a ban on puberty blockers” in the National Health Service.
The Complaint
The complainant said the article breached Principle 1 because it was “materially misleading and distorted” in the way it presented the study. They said a fair report should have made it clear that the study “is a register-based design concerning people who contacted specialised gender identity services, with psychiatric needs assessed through specialist level psychiatric treatment contacts in national registers”.
They argued that this “not the same thing as a study design that can straightforwardly establish that treatment itself caused deterioration in mental health” and that the article should have highlighted this “limitation”.
They said the framing of the study within the article gave a misleading impression of what the evidence established.
They said the article breached Principle 2 because it blurred the distinction between factual reporting and comment. They said it presented “contested inference and ideological commentary” as though these constituted the “obvious factual conclusion of the evidence”.
The complainant included a link to an article on Substack which, they said, clarified the issue.
The Response
The publication stated that it had accurately reported what the study found and that it included “the researchers’ own interpretive language” and summarised the “direction of the findings” as the researchers’ described them. It stated that science journalism “routinely reported longitudinal study findings in this manner”.
The publication said the authors of the study saw the register-based design as a strength rather than a limitation “noting mandatory reporting, no loss to follow up, consistent national screening thresholds, and a matched population control group” as features that eliminated the shortcomings of prior research studies.
The publication defended the commentary it included from a clinical psychologist and from a review which it described as “the most significant recent policy intervention in this area in these islands”. It said the commentary was used to contextualise the Finnish study within a wider international debate. The publication said this was editorial judgment “not distortion”. It said the complainant’s objection was to editorial emphasis and framing which were matters of journalistic judgment.
The Decision
The Press Ombudsperson finds that the complained-of article, which is lengthy, quotes extensively from the study, and from the findings the study claims to have made. She finds that the publication’s framing of the conclusions appears to align with the framing of these matters within the study. The publication evidently finds the study convincing and is not required to present alternative views of it which it does not share.
The Press Ombudsperson accepts the publication's assertion that readers are "not misled about the type of research being reported." She notes that readers are free to reach their own conclusions about both the study and the article.
The Press Ombudsperson has read and considered the Substack article submitted by the complainant and notes that its core argument is that the Finnish study is “fatally flawed”. It claims the study’s findings are not supported by its own data and that it is inherently biassed and rooted in anti-trans ideology.
The accuracy or otherwise and the ideological slant of the study are not at issue in this decision, which is about how Gript.ie reported on it.
The Press Ombudsperson accepts that the article does not distort or misleadingly report on the findings claimed within the Finnish study. Principle 1 was not breached.
The preamble to the Code of Practice states that the press is free to publish what it considers to be news. Principle 2 notes that the press is entitled to advocate strongly its own views on topics.
The Press Ombudsperson notes that the publication has chosen only to quote from “critics of ‘gender-affirming care’”. She finds that this is a matter for editorial discretion. Principle 2 was not breached.