Newsnight now

According to Wiki she was convicted for the crime of sexual assault and murder, not rape.

I'm almost certain in the UK the crime of rape has to be committed by the person with the penis. Fred West's convictions include rape.

(Ok, ugh, now I need a cup of herbal tea and some deep breathing).

I'm pretty sure it's called something else, like "aiding and abetting rape" or something.

I believe it is possible for a woman to be convicted of rape in the UK if she was aiding and abetting a man who raped someone. But it's rare.

Sir
Indeed.
What the hell have The Tavistock been playing at.
It really is regulatory capture in action.
Now no one can bear the reality of what they've supported.

vagina
Oh dear,
"Rose West is in a women's prison who committed rape (paraphrase)"

Uhhhh no, only someone with a penis attached to them can commit rape.
That TRA was so tedious.

But.... Sunlight, right?!

I do sometimes wonder whether some people could not face the results of real research into this.

It is glaringly obvious to me that treating healthy bodies with lifelong medication, and amputating body parts, and /or attempting to create replica ones, cannot possibly be the best way to treat teenagers or adults distressed by their sexed bodies. Even more so when you start to look at the myriad of reasons WHY someone might have those feelings. A wish to escape abuse, or to escape oneself, internalised homophobia, autism, there are so many possible factors.

Yes, having watched it again, the shrugging and repeated 'We don't know' was even more striking. A bit like watching the consultant equivalent of Andy from Little Britain.

The most astounding thing to me was that the Tavi psychiatrist seemed to have no interest in research. It's one thing to not have the data on longterm outcomes or the reasons behind the increase in referrals; it's quite another to not actually want to have that data. Quite a bizarre lack of clinical and intellectual curiosity. My guess is that they don't want to do the research because the data would not support their current approach.

It's a classic of tra/mra rhetoric, Rosemary West chucked in for good measure.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnui7OqawSM&t=119s
Maybe this helped peak her.

To be fair to the Mermaids rep, I think it was more a question of not being sure if they had finished filming.

It was up to the editor whether to include that last bit.

I thought that Mermaids rep was really interesting. When they had finished speaking and the camera stayed on for a few seconds their body language / facial expressions were very odd I thought.

Why is a lawyer having to be the spokesperson for a charity? Is this normal? That person freaked me out with all the Cheshire grinning. Not trusting the lawyer one bit. If this is the best spokesperson that Mermaids have then I think they must reconsider. The fact they have a lawyer doing this also makes it seem they are preparing for an onslaught. How could any parent trust an organisation that has to be on the defensive from the oft? Is it because the public will be so intimidated by a lawyer speaking they will not challenge? I think this is a bad move from Mermaids. It only reinforces they have something to hide.

Still thinking about this! Local services are stretched to capacity - as I’ve said it took 4 years for our local services to accept our referral, and that was only because they were forced to after dd took an overdose. Our local ASD services cocked up dd’s assessment as they don’t know how ASD presents in females and we’re still fighting for a second opinion.
If the Tavistock refer back to local services for ASD assessments then they again lose access to the data. A patient is placed on a waiting list for assessment - here around 15 months, next county along 3 years! So after waiting 18 months for GIDS appointment, there may be another wait of up to 3 years for assessment for ASD. GIDS will treat your dysphoria and you may find out 3 years later that you have ASD.

@emerencemaybehopeful people outside the UK who can't see the programme on BBC iPlayer might be able to see it here.

Scientologists, yes. That same look, the expressions.

From memory the figures from the Tavistock are 50% of female youth present with ASD traits, 36% moderate to severe. It would be interesting to find out if GIDS diagnose ASD or if they refer to local services.

I have just come from watching it and agree with everything LowerCase has posted.

The Mermaids rep was amazing - all the over the top smiling that would suddenly vanish as her eye line dropped down.

EM is such a calm, gentle and assured interviewer and it works.

Mermaids staff remind me of Scientologists.

Just caught up with this. Not perfect by any means but part of a real change in the BBC reporting. I don’t know if the reporter in the film is really woke - I more got the impression that they were carefully picking their way through BBC prescribed language to avoid complaints and censure rather than eg actually believing that sex is assigned.

The mermaids rep did not come over well. Their weird smiling on and off was disconcerting and their focus on everyone being validated was concerning. We don’t “validate” anorexics, we try and offer them help ideally to understand what has caused their issues.

The current Tavi doctor was on a rather sticky wicket and it showed. A mass of contradictions that we will need to wait and see with de transition rates and yet making clear Charing X has been going 53 years. I’d have said 53 years is a long enough period!

The worst bit? Bare faced lie from the NHS that all transitioners have extensive access to therapy/help. How the press offer could put that out I simply don’t know.

How can they talk about detransitioning and how many do so, when puberty blockers arrest their mental development?

They already know that going through normal puberty reconciles a lot of children to their natal sex. Preventing children going through puberty will have the opposite effect surely?

Quite apart from anything else, those of us with autistic DC or relatives know that they are years behind their peers in terms of emotional maturity. My DD is light years behind her siblings in this respect. Yet, like your DD, non, they are treated as if they were a mature adult from aged 18.

Bore - the number of autistic children and young people is likely to be underestimated because autistic girls and women are more likely to be undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed. A double whammy - you grow up not understanding why you feel so different to everyone else; and then you get sterilised and become a lifelong dependent on the pharmaceutical industry as a consequence.

Another way that gender ideology manages to crap on women.

because WE CAN'T FUCKING TELL IF SOMEONE'S NON BINARY

I can't be arsed to go back and look but am entirely likely to have committed pronoun heresy.

I might buy some prayer beads and perform linguistic mea culpas before bed time. Not.

If I were any of these people I would be waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying about the day this blows up to be a massive scandal - the select committee hearings, the tribunals, the court cases... if this is their rationale for their treatment strategy they are going to be on a very sticky wicket when this reaches national scandal level.

YY. Hence my comment upthread about this reminding me of Kids Company.

Although when this finally blows it's going to be more like the Thalidomide scandal