Times 16/2/1/9 Staff at trans clinic fear damage to children......

current relevent threads

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3517453-Panorama-25-Feb-20-30hrs-Trans-Kids-Why-Medicine-Matters-Thread-title-edited-by-MNHQ

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3518188-BMJ-Prof-Carl-Heneghan-Evidence-Based-Medicine-Oxford-Panorama-Trans-Kids-Gender-affirming-hormone-in-children-and-adolescents-Evidence-review-concludes-There-are-significant-problems

Stella O'Malley Twitter comment:
twitter.com/stellaomalley3/status/1099402782896017408

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3430608-Stella-OMalley-Trans-Kids-Its-Time-To-Talk

current thread discussing significant development, OP EweSurname wrote:
"Times article - Governor quits ‘blinkered’ Tavistock clinic
Another fantastic Giliigan piece

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/governor-quits-blinkered-tavistock-clinic-82db7wzq8

A governor of the NHS trust that runs England’s only gender clinic for children has resigned in protest at its “blinkered” and “one-sided” response to doctors who had raised the alarm about “woefully inadequate” care.

Marcus Evans, a consultant psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman trust with three decades’ experience, told The Sunday Times that the trust had said things that were “not true”, had created a “climate of fear” and was trying to “dismiss or undermine” concerns raised by its own clinicians.

Some openly homophobic parents pushed their children to transition because they were gay, the report said. In other cases, youngsters seized on transition as a “solution” after abuse or bereavement. Their histories were not properly explored by clinicians struggling with “huge and unmanageable caseloads” and afraid of being accused of transphobia if they questioned the “rehearsed” surface presentation.

The report said Gids had tried to “placate” lobby groups such as the Mermaids charity, which campaigns for children to be given sex-change treatment."
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3515980-Times-article-Governor-quits-blinkered-Tavistock-clinic

Sparse evidence is absolutely not OK. If al you have is sparse evidence- fine then do some research first. or if it’s desperately urgent then proceed to do only the necessary minimum with very great caution and share your results of treatment with others openly. The opposite of what is happening here.

Could anyone who is out GC on Twitter very kindly please tweet some of these evidence based medicine gurus and tell them their ideas are outdated now and it’s fine to forge ahead to give permanent life limiting treatment based on ‘sparse evidence’ or Andrew Gilligan might want to ask them for comment:

www.bmj.com/campaign/ebm-history

Sparse evidence-based medicine. You heard it there first.

Yes, looks like the Tavistock are ready to chuck David Bell under the bus. In stopping short from calling Gilligan a liar, they have cast aspersions on the veracity of Bell's report.

The report itself will clarify exactly who is lying.

And this part of their statement struck me.

"The recommendations made by Dr Sinha mainly focused on standardising and evidencing our very thoughtful and personalised processes in a field where clinicians grapple daily with high levels of complexity, sparse evidence and great variety in the young people coming forward, their developmental stage, feelings, histories and hopes".

I have a feeling that the public admission of sparse evidence will bite them in the arse in a courtroom very soon when these young people start legal action against the Tavi.

I wonder how the author of the report will respond to this weird deliberate confusion, in public, about his report?

Amazing that Gilligan has written this and that the Times have published - surely this will lead to changes esp to the affirmation model enforced onto clinicians at the moment

It is amazing that Gilligan has had access to this report. Well done to him and the times for continuing to ask extremely pertinent questions when so many others are scared of facing reality. Some of the statements are very shocking particularly that parents can sometimes be involved in pushing young people down that route as a way of ‘avoiding’ homosexuality.

Quite. 'Gender identity' is pure religion. Is there a similar service funded by the government that helps young people find out which God they believe in?

In its statement the Tavistock says:

The service prides itself in taking a perspective on issues of gender identity which is independent, open-minded and based on the needs of an individual young person.

On their website they also say:

The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) is for children and young people, and their families, who experience difficulties in the development of their gender identity.

I am troubled by a health service which is promoting the idea of the development of a 'gender identity' as a positive thing. This is an ideology which appears to cause nothing but confusion and distress, particularly amongst children and young people. What is a 'gender identity' other than a part of personality which 'feels' more masculine or feminine? Why should it be important to 'develop' such a masculine or feminine part of one's personality? What purpose does it serve?

For treatment to be ethical it must
a) have informed consent
b) be free from undue pressure from friends, family or any other group or individual

How is this possible atm?

Does this not mean pretty much all medical transition is deeply flawed and unethical in the UK atm? And if it is unethical should the plug be pulled completely and only counselling legally allowed for under 18s and anyone deemed in some way as a vulnerable adult?

I've said for some time that in terms of safeguarding, medical ethics were utterly fucked in this area.

Interesting to see a report brutally spelling this out. It means that the NHS is vulnerable to getting its ass sued off somewhere down the line.

I'm guessing no one will do anything until that point. Cos politics.

The easiest response is to stop the concerns being raised or to undermine them.

Yes. They are in NSPCC and Guides territory now.

There's a paper trail.

You're right nauticant. At least this time they can't claim not to have known - the evidence is out there.

Or to ignore the challenges. I have been shown some spectacularly awful responses from Damian Hinds (Secretary of State for Education) in response to women raising the safeguarding issues about parental alienation, eradicating sex segregated spaces and organisations deliberately undermining safeguarding. He just writes about his enthusiasm for mixed sex toilets and ignores the serious questions about safety and safeguarding. Comes over as totally creepy.

Sadly it's always the way feministfairy. Things often need to overshoot before there's a trigger that brings things into the public domain and once the people in charge are aware that anger is growing, they cry "But this is appalling! If only we'd known earlier!"

People often comfortably coexist with the actual scandal for quite some time. There needs to be a trigger.

I didn't quite finish my thought. It's one thing to cause harm while being able to say "but I was actually trying to do good" and quite another thing to have been seen to have turned a blind eye once concerns have been raised.

Quite a difficult position to be in. How to deal with it? The easiest response is to stop the concerns being raised or to undermine them.

nauticant
My worry is that politicians won't say or do anything until there is clear evidence of the harm being done to children. Just as the Ministry of Justice and David Gauk implemented and defended the indefensible placement of male born sex offenders in women's prisons until women were actually sexually assaulted, so I fear the woke and dodgy in the DfE and Damian Hinds will be silent until the serious case reviews into child deaths / abuse scandals start. And then they'll 'review and amend'.

It feels like there's a potential tipping point here. Cracks are beginning to appear and those with a stake in this, like the Tavistock, are facing a choice between acknowledging the cracks or trying to paper over them while people are watching. Till now those supporting the gender identity ideology have relied on things not being being discussed in the public domain and that's been very effective.

I'm hoping that now the Tavistock has accused Gilligan / The Times of lying the Times will be able to publish more to establish the facts.

Well, The Tavistock and Portman statement is carefully worded isn't it?

Isn't it just? An internal review has leaked and it doesn't make for complimentary reading.

On Gilligans twitter there is a comment from the parent of an autistic child about their experiences. I am paraphrasing but "in the first appointment I experienced more hard sell than from a double glazing salesman"

Oh yes.

And their denial then becomes the story.

And Gilligan actually has a copy of the Bell report. Which he might decide to release publicly if the Tavi starts to go after him.

Or if any single member of staff is unhappy with the "hypothetical vignette" story then they could release it anonymously as well.

Gilligan must be wetting himself with excitement. Because this is just the start.

When someone in a position of power says "our enemies are telling lies about us, but we're not going to say what the lies are" it's time to assume they're trying to cover something up.

Yeah, the Tavi statement wants to suggest that somebody somewhere made stuff up about stuff that the Tavi say was deliberately made-up in the Bell report (hypothetical vignettes rather than actual case studies).

But the Tavi won't directly say who they are accusing of making stuff up about the made-up stuff.

Anyways.

David Bell himself will be able to tell us if those case studies are true or "hypothetical vignettes" as the Tavi calls them. As will the Tavi staff who contributed the material.

The phrase hypothetical vignettes just sets alarm bells off with me. It is a phrase that is used to obfuscate. And we are supposed to believe that overworked staff, under huge pressure suddenly have spare time to contribute made-up case studies to a report designed uncover the truth.

Not. buying. it.