Have you damaged the life of a child?

The difficulty with this is that nobody wants to be allocated to the control group.

When I was pregnant for the 6th time, with no living children, I agreed to take part in a clinical trial for an experimental treatment for recurrent miscarriage. I ended up not participating because that pregnancy and my next one both went to term.

In that situation I'd have been happy to take the risk of being allocated to the control group. I got pregnant very quickly and easily and the likelihood is that another three miscarriages would have only "wasted" six months of my life.

I imagine that for children with dysphoria who are desperate to be prescribed puberty blockers and believe that time is of the essence, if they are taking part in an NHS clinical trial and they start to show signs of puberty, they will realise that they are in the control group. The risk of them then dropping out of the trial and seeking puberty blockers from a private provider such as Gender GP is, I imagine, high. In fact, I suspect that the only children who would complete the trial in the control group would be those whose parents would prefer them not to medically transition and are very glad that their children turned out to be in the control group. So if those children in the control group subsequently desist, how does the researcher know how much of that is due to the passage of time and how much of it is influenced by their parents?

I’m not sure why e.g. people working at the Tavistock weren’t interested in finding out if the drug actually worked. Not having a control group in their study is a pretty basic flaw.

Well this is a pretty big question, isn't it?

We are talking about medicine. When you are testing medicine to see if it is safe and it works then those are the standards. The testing of drugs is highly regulated.

People complaining about the impossibly high standards demanded by Cass that simply aren’t expected anywhere else clearly don’t have any experience of clinical trials where those standards are what would be expected if you want your drug approved.

The Cochrane Collaboration works along similar lines to the Cass review.

I’m not sure why e.g. people working at the Tavistock weren’t interested in finding out if the drug actually worked. Not having a control group in their study is a pretty basic flaw.

The UoY team that did the two reviews used a tool called the Newcastle-Ottawa which is used to assess studies to see whether they are useful or not for the aims of a particular review/meta analysis. Like every other aspect of Cass, the selection of the studies for the analysis was done objectively and carefully.

without looking at the studies characterised as “low quality”, I wouldn’t necessarily call them junk. There could be qualitative studies out there that fulfilled their own purpose but not in a way that made the data useful for other purposes. My interpretation is that these studies are treated by Cass as effectively anecdotal, rather than statistically robust.

One anonymous blog post proves bollox all I’m afraid. If there were a lot of these stories they would have come out more clearly in the review.

Initially I was all for giving people like Tandora the benefit of the doubt in all this. In that they're wrong, but misinformed. Ultimately I once thought people like this meant well, but were misdirected.

But now, as the utter heartlessness is shining through the wreckage, I'm revising my view. This is just a totally inhumane take. How dare you dismiss vulnerable children's stories like this for your own ends?

As the Cass review makes devastatingly plain, we don't know how many examples of this are out there as records are not being kept (or will not be handed over).

How can anyone stand up for this abuse of children? That's the bottom line.

It’s my story. And resonates with other parents like me with children like mine. And totally NOT bollox. So eff off.

Oh, we are. Always have been. Far more thinking should have been going on before this got as far as it did. We will look back on this with horror, and those supporting this even more so. That includes you. You will NOT be considered on the right side of history, I'm afraid.

YOU think. Seriously. Because what you've supported here has involved IRREVERSIBLE and unevidenced medical and surgical treatments to young people based entirely on their adherence or not to rigid, conservative sex stereotypes. The majority were same sex attracted and had other problems, as evidenced in the report. If that doesn't give you pause for thought, I really don't know what to say to you except there's something gone very wrong with your moral compass, you need to build some serious critical thinking skills, and I would also check your homophobia. Appalling lack of self awareness.

There is plenty of good evidence of the benefits of hormonal treatments, just not of the type they were looking for.

I disagree.

This is the kind of medical research that demands the rigour that Cass applied.

Not all studies that fail to do this are 'junk' but they are not relevant to the core question of Cass' review.

To answer the question she was given Cass needed to reject particular studies.

I have no question about this. I also accept that the question itself was valid and correct.

I am ecstatic about the resulting report.

Think. Please think.

https://x.com/assignedmedia/status/1779504643673837950?s=46

Well it’s a point that’s very pertinent to the Cass review and I’m very glad you made it.

They said there was no good evidence. (Which is not evidence of terrible harm btw).

There is plenty of good evidence of the benefits of hormonal treatments, just not of the type they were looking for.

Sorry to hear you agree with the OP.

Also I just skim read this and it sounds like her child didn’t even get any medical services from Tavistock so what the hell are
you even on about? Sounds like the lack of services were the problem.

100% this. The questions the Cass review sought to answer through the methods they sought to answer them was absurd. It was no wonder they came out with “no evidence”- which is all they came out with by the way - no terrible evidence of harm as the OP is maliciously trying to suggest.

I agree with the OP and I did not say this.

I said that there was not necessarily a correlation between data being collected in a way that makes statistical conclusions unreliable and 'junk'. That is a different issue.

With no support from unions either let’s not forget who have bought into this rubbish lock stock and barrel.

I’m so disgusted at parents who have weaponised their children too, to shut down debate and discussion as “bigotry” while they were the ones damaging their own kids. Even now it’s still everyone’s fault, Cass is corrupt etc. Terrible people.

One anonymous blog post proves bollox all I’m afraid. If there were a lot of these stories they would have come out more clearly in the review. The overwhelming majority of people affected by this review are horrified by its recommendations and the media (/public) response to it.

you. Are. Wrong.

history will not judge you kindly.

100% this. The questions the Cass review sought to answer through the methods they sought to answer them was absurd. It was no wonder they came out with “no evidence”- which is all they came out with by the way - no terrible evidence of harm as the OP is maliciously trying to suggest.
This is not how paediatric medicine works in other areas , this is all driven by politics and transphobia and it’s trans kids who will suffer.

@Tandora you are wrong.

https://genspect.org/parenting-a-trans-identifying-child/

Some of the available data was junk, due to having been collected in a way that renders any statistical conclusions unreliable.

That's actually unfair. Not everyone writes research/articles as if they were to be evaluated by systematic reviews.

Some excellent research, including much of mine (!) is highly qualitative. I've rejected my own articles for systematic reviews because they are not what I am looking for according to very particular criteria.

This does not mean they are 'junk'.

No. YABU and all of this is so so toxic 😔. This “debate” is just getting so out of hand. I think it’s time that everyone who is not trans and is not a trans child just please sit down and shut up.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1778824854105416143.html?

That’s not how systematic reviews of medical evidence works. If you put junk in, you’ll get junk out.

Some of the available data was junk, due to having been collected in a way that renders any statistical conclusions unreliable.

It’s like if you wanted to decide the nation’s favourite sport and you had a study that only asked the favourite sport of people coming out of a football match. It would be entirely reasonable to disregard that study as the study design was badly flawed.

Deputy Head/Head of Pastoral Care was a rabid rainbow warrior. The rest of the staff had no choice, i think, but wave the flags and dance to the beat of her drum.

That's the situation in so many schools though and on so many topics, a bit like MN, if one isn't 'on message' then there'll be trouble.

I always told my teen to go and read the original source documents and then critically think though things that they had read to work out what is likely to be the truth. It is remarkable when they start to questioning what they read and the veracity of news articles. It is sad though. We used to read news items and feel some trust, these days it feels like we have to check everything.

Well done you and your son though.

@Helleofabore when DS started banging on about how he (his SM feed) had 'doubts' about the Cass report I suggested he went away and read it for himself to see why certain conclusions had been drawn.

We had a more interesting conversation this morning about how good causes can get infiltrated by bad actors. The penny is slowly dropping.

@BusyMummy001 I think we will see a lot of people quietly stepping away. Nobody likes admitting they have got it wrong especially when other people have been harmed as a result.

I think a lot of people jumped on the PB and cross sex hormone affirmation treatment bandwagon for two reasons:

• the glory, being a radical thinker, challenging orthodoxy, being part of the 'in crowd'
• access to funding

At a lower level people went along with it for a quiet life and hoped it wouldn't do too much harm.

A lot of senior HCPs and organisation managers need to have a long hard look at themselves to work out how they have allowed themselves to be so sucked into a medical rabbit hole which has led to vulnerable young people being given untested and dangerous treatments.

Unfortunately I don't think they will do it. They will quietly drop treatments and patients and act like it never happened.

I keep thinking about Wes Streeting et al. Thing is I could probably forgive if they were opening apologetic, if they said:

I naively did not question data I was given in the past and I realise now that I have not only been supportive of heinous medical malpractice that put children and young people at risk, but have actually been part of the problem. I cannot reconcile my lack of due dilligence over the sources and veracity of the studies I relied upon and will never take so-called evidence at face-value again. As a politician/teacher/NHS worker etc, I should have done better and will try my hardest to be part of the solution. I apologise unreservedly to those I criticised or maligned and, more imoirtantly, to the children and families impacted by support of this.

Thing is, they will never do this. They’ll pretend they weren’t culpable, that they were on the right side of history, that it was everyone else who pillaried the likes of Rosie Diffield. They will never take responsibility.

Gnome, I wonder when the horror that these young people have been emotionally manipulated into believing pseudoscience and philosophical theories above material reality and proven science will sink in.

That the emotional manipulation has been documented and is all there to be read is remarkable. I think that all those declaring that the current generation are so tolerant and so kind have very little real life experience with teenagers.