Judge over rules social services concerns

I am so angry with these fucked up therapists who prey on vulnerable people and children.

As am I. I dropped my psych major in college (was going the research route not practitioner) because all of my classmates were maladjusted with a plethora of unresolved issues. Sitting in class with them all denying that they had issues while deconstructing their personal traumas and waxing poetic about treating other people was seriously disturbing to me. These people were psychoanalyzing friends and family with zero understanding of the concepts they were applying and giving advice to people based on their own misconceptions. The classes were too easy to pass - I barely applied myself and earned A's (while my classmates struggled with C's and worse - I destroyed the curve so none if them received free grade bumps and was hated for it). Most of them struggled with basic math while I was enjoying theoretical calculus.

Now I regret not sticking it out as some of my former classmates are in respected positions without logical challenge from actually balanced/healthy psych professionals... one of them has written and sold a bunch of books on creating a strong marriage (they have been married and divorced five times - wtf do they know about the merits of marriage or what constitutes healthy marriage?). These people need to be challenged by people who have the ability to think critically.

IDGAF if they have a PhD, those are handed out like candy in the soft sciences (US)... and it certainly does not mean they are intellectually or emotionally equipped to treat vulnerable people. Not to say all psych professionals are fucked up - I don't think they are but I do think it is a discipline that attracts incredibly disturbed individuals as well as healthy well-adjusted types.

Social services do not have the resources to persue it further. That's the bottom line. The bottom line that sells out children.

Lancashire County Council are about to go bust. They are broke, and using financial reserves which are also running out.

I'm not in the least bit surprised that faced with a judge out of his depth and taking his lead from an 'expert' on gender dysphoria in children with a strong assessment that they felt they had to back down rather than fight a costly court case they couldn't win and would have further financial implications not matter what happened.

I suppose you can take heart from the fact that the social workers weren't buying it.

I am interested in why the LA withdrew as that is at the heart of the ruling. It must have been a balance between taking children out of a long term foster placement where they were already settled (at least one after an awful initial life) and balancing that against the impact of the suspicion of emotional abuse (Munchausens etc) - which is very hard to define because so much of the judgement is subjective rather than concrete evidence - like bruises etc. In the face of emotive "experts" lobbying hard for their world view and special interest groups quick to shout transphobia, I can see why they might have felt on balance that leaving the children there with the monitoring that fostered children receive would cause the least disruption to the children ??
I'm not defending it - just recognising that these situations are exceptionally complex and it's often really difficult to decide what situation is the least worst (iyswim).

The legal team for the foster mother/mother according to the judgement rely largely on the report of Dr Pasterski.

This is the position of Dr Pasterski on childhood GD:

In her report she identifies that there have been recent changes to the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria and that research on mental health and transgender children have shed light onto critical historical misunderstandings related to clinical presentation in gender dysphoria. Firstly, that children who present with gender dysphoria are likely to desist in their cross-gender identification and secondly that gender dysphoria is inherently associated with high rates of comorbid psychopathology. She notes both have been shown to be false. She identifies that these misunderstandings arise from two particular factors. Firstly earlier studies which showed that up to 80% of children desist in gender dysphoria included children who presented with gender incongruent behaviour but did not necessarily state the wish to be or that they were the other gender. Thus children displaying gender variance may have been wrongly diagnosed with gender dysphoria. As a result of this treatment protocols previously incorporated a watch and wait approach which had prevented truly dysphoric children from transitioning which had likely resulted in increased rates of depression and anxiety. As Dr Pasterski puts it 'Put simply, many who have shown to desist were likely not dysphoric and psychopathology in those who persisted was likely due to forbidden expression of their true gender identity.'

This is not the current NHS position. (Quite aside from the usual No True Scotsman fallacy as used by gender evangelists day in, day out). This extreme position has been recently challenged both by a review at the Tavi and by TV documentaries such as Panorama.

Why did SS withdraw in the face of this? Why is the family court accepting QCs arguing this extremist view?

Absolutely shocking.

And also that the parents keep seeking to have foster children placed with them. And they get them

Cannot understand how Dr Pasterski can be seen as a proper expert when she openly backs a struck off doctor. Should that not mark her out as unsuitable?

From the very first page of the judgement: TP and CP frequently seek referrals/diagnosis for the children in their care for medical conditions relying on symptoms which are not witnessed by other professionals involved in their care. This results in unnecessary investigations by medical professionals and has resulted in them being recorded as having health conditions which are not evidence based.
TP and CP persistently pursue mental health diagnoses for children in their care. They provide information to professionals which is not supported by other professionals involved with the children's care and use their knowledge of mental health services to provide information designed to maximise the chances of a referral to specialists.
www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2019/30.html

That screams Munchausen by proxy! Why could the judge not see that?

From the age of about 3 or 4 to 10/11 I was desperate to be a boy, my brother seemed to have much more fun than my sister, I had football boots and a football, played with the boys, wrestled with my brother.
My parents just let me get on with it, then at 10 or 11. I obviously knew I was a girl, but decided that I wasn't as happy doing all the 'boy' stuff, so wanted to be more of a girl, I assume it was the puberty hormones starting. Many many years later I am a woman with a DH and 2 DCs.
I dread to think what might happen to a child like me these days if my parents had been taken in by someone telling them I had obviously been born in the wrong body. Scares the hell out of me!

That judgement makes horrifying reading

Sorry Eevee

What have you read Evee?

Everything I have read hasn't shown me tgat the parents are pushing this on their daughter but rather supporting their daughter instead.

Interesting case and will hopefully sharpen up practice in this area.

I'm not sure how ignoring the long-established principle that childhood trauma often leads to identity formation issues in favour of queer-infused, material reality-ignoring, gender evangelism could be viewed as a sharpening up of practice.

The recent Irish and Scottish cases and this one should be ringing every alarm bell we have.

The LA could have opposed their appointment, but who could they put forward? Interesting case and will hopefully sharpen up practice in this area.

At the start of proceedings the parties -parents, LA and guardian - agree on expert witnesses. The options in gender dysphoria are limited, partly because there aren't the numbers of specialists, also the effect on their career. It sounds like a horrendous mess. People who exaggerate medical conditions tend to have very powerful personalites (disorders!) and put an enormous amount of energy into getting what they want.

Yes. One wonders why the original judge was so happy to accept such an evangelist in Dr Pasterski, a professional who has publicly supported Helen Webberley.

At the start of proceedings the parties -parents, LA and guardian - agree on expert witnesses. The options in gender dysphoria are limited, partly because there aren't the numbers of specialists, also the effect on their career. It sounds like a horrendous mess.
People who exaggerate medical conditions tend to have very powerful personalites (disorders!) and put an enormous amount of energy into getting what they want.

Bloody hell. That court report.

Social workers are massively over stretched, there's no way in God's earth they'd have brought that case without significant concerns.

I'm absolutely shocked with the judge.

I am so angry with these fucked up therapists who prey on vulnerable people and children. They have a rescuing complex and no rational intelligence. They are utterly compromised. Its so POMO, dissociated, depersonalisationed/derealisationed, nihilistic, "feelings are reality".

It is very possible to support very dypshoric/ dissociative people through their symptoms and trauma without reifying symptoms or delusions. Not easy at all, but very possible.

We should be compassionately giving them the sanity and safety they have lost, not making the world a more scary, more uncertain and more meaningless place by saying that their delusion has any basis or value other than as coping strategy for things that they cannot mentally or emotionally comprehend (eg by a child who is being abused/ neglected/ shamed/suffering from disordered parenting).

apologies, 3 expert reports & that of independent SW.

The LA withdrew following the 3 expert reports, including that of Dr Pasterski & the independent SW.

It's a complex judgement and isn't just about the trans issues with the children. There were other concerns about repeated accidents to one child and concerns and query fabricated illness.

But the LA withdrew their case - the judge only heard it because the parents felt that there were concerns about them and wanted to be 'exonerated'. Although an independent social worker expressed concerns about the children transitioning at such an early age and whether either child would be able to revert if they changed their mind the rest of the issues were deemed not to trigger the threshold for action? To me it's an example of how difficult cases of alleged emotional abuse are - so much of this is subjective opinion - just as we have very strong feelings about the ethics of adults transitioning little children so it seems obvious to us that it's wrong. For the Judge, the local authority had withdrawn the case and independent experts deemed the children settled and happy. Why would he disrupt the lives of these children if the professionals said that all was well? Very tricky.

Am I reading that right? Three trans kids in the same family though unrelated (presumably kids who have gone through care and trauma of being separated from birth parents)?

The odds of that statistically occurring spontaneously are? And having no connection with social setting and social contagion in some way?

Can anyone give me a science based answer to that?

Just what the fuck is anyone thinking who says that's not really fucking concerning? And social services are wrong to raise questions????!!!!