What's the difference?

Explaining is about providing a narrative. Adding additional detail can make a narrative more persuasive. On the other hand it also makes the whole story less likely to be true.

Then as evidence I refer you to the site http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/, which is largely devoted to middle-aged women complaining about displaying terrible symptoms, and being ignored.

I don't see how that's evidence for the fact that middle-aged women get treated differently than men or woman that aren't middle-aged.

How do you know that you aren't simply ignoring people who aren't middle-aged women because they aren't complaining as loud as the people towards which you linked?

The book is closely argued. It is heartbreaking. Its arguments affect the lives of millions. Tell me why she is ignored. [...] This is not science. This is some pathetic parody of science, where idiots in white coats claim the glory of physics despite not being able to reason their way out of paper bags. I call bullshit.

If she has the same mentality as you, that mentality is a good recipe for getting ignored.

This reminds me of a woman who thinks that a lot of women lose their needlessly lose their uterus because of operations to remove myomes. Because financial relations between stakeholders in Germany are different than in France, there are a lot more operations in Germany than in France and in France other treatments get used that don't remove the uterus.

She was willing to make that case behind closed doors. In public she was using much more friendly language to be in a position where all-stakeholders would talk to her. As a result she's finds herself in a position where people listen to her.

You seem to suffer from the just-world fallacy.