Susie Green and Keira Bell on Newsnight

Not giving a child puberty blockers is not forcing them to go through puberty.

Puberty is what happens in a developing body - if you really want to interfere with a normal, natural (even if sometimes challenging) (and arguably necessary) bodily process, you need to have a very good reason backed up with substantial evidence that it will work and not cause more harm.

Agree that Susie Green does not at all come across as responsible in terms of being someone supposedly providing support to children. Her case is emotive, anecdotal and relies on highly questionable 'statistics' and vague references to other countries' practise. Just because it's legal to perform sex reassignment surgery on a 16 year old in Thailand doesn't mean it's right or in the best interests of the young person.

Sorry not RTFT but if there was a “wealth of international evidence” as stated by SG then why wasn’t it presented? If they have all the evidence to show how amazing this treatment is why didn’t they take it to court?

There are an awful lot of careers it seems propped up by this, from Stonewall to Mermaids to various medical staff. It isn’t in the interests of any of these people for there to be no trans children

Will there be an announcement about whats going to happen now. I mean is there any point in pushing kids down what is now a dead end...

What will they do with their time.

Here’s Mermaids Q&A on what will happen to kids on the GIDS wait list or treatment pathway (archived link)

They're actually seeking some important clarifications - it will be interesting to see what the answers are.

They had Deb Cohen (from Newsnight) to explain what it was all about and it was surprising to hear her give a rather watered-down acount of the case. It felt like she was minimising the strength of the criticisms in the judgement and she seemed to skim very quickly over the reason for the criticisms, that is the nature of the consequences for children and young people.

DC has done some excellent reporting on this issue for Newsnight. What a shame, having to water down her own insights to appease the in-house audience of Woman's Hour

I'm very pleased to hear Keira stressing the need for much more support for mental health issues.

Having had to argue the toss with someone on a thread last night who seemed to think lesbians shouldn't use the word lesbian because it excludes women who aren't lesbians I can't imagine the level of lesbophobia these young girls must be subjected to.

No wonder they're opting out.

Who is going to guide the schools, clubs etc as to how they handle the kids they have been counselling thus far?

I was talking to a friend last night who is a (lovely, kind, well meaning) teacher, she was worried about a female pupil who is identifying as a boy, along with several others. She thought this pupil would be very upset at the judgement.
I think the ethos in schools on this is part of the problem . If you are completely affirmed in this mid-teen dysphoria by everyone at school, if your teachers , who you trust, now call you a boy , where is there to go when you grow up a bit and start to regret that identity? Not surprising at all that girls tend to suddenly want to be boys as puberty starts, or half way through. Being a teenage girl is really hard, even more difficult now with porn everywhere.
There are an awful lot of careers it seems propped up by this, from Stonewall to Mermaids to various medical staff. It isn’t in the interests of any of these people for there to be no trans children.

This twitter person seems to think puberty should be fought off (like an attacking monster)? WTAF

And Professor Stephen Whittle demonstrates how despite being an supposed legal/transgender expert, Whittle doesn’t know Whittle’s arse from Whittle’s elbow on this:

(Archive link to Whittle’s tweet):

archive.md/0Nvma

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Whittle

Here’s Mermaids Q&A on what will happen to kids on the GIDS wait list or treatment pathway (archived link):

archive.md/gasVj

Puberty is not a disease that needs a cure.

And Mermaids themselves have said there's no such thing as being born in the wrong body. So there's no such things as going through wrong puberty. Yet kids are going to kill themselves if they have to go through the "torture" of the wrong puberty?

They'll write a script that they actually stick to one of these days. So many plot holes in their current one.

The 1% detransition figure is mendacious. What I suspect it is supposed to represent is the number of people who have a full medical transition of whom very few desist. For various reasons. For the UK you'll be looking at a population of maybe 5000 with 50 desisters.

However, there are supposed to be several hundred thousand trans people in the UK. We are continually reminded that if someone says they're trans then, no question, they are trans. What percentage of these people desist? It'll be substantially more than 1%.

This business of using one sub-group to generate a number which is then applied to a different sub-group or the whole population never ceases to annoy me.

[quote Biscuitsanddoombar]good luck getting any of this Board to challenge her

mermaidsuk.org.uk/staff-and-trustees/[/quote]
I did a massive eye-roll at all those pronouns.

good luck getting any of this Board to challenge her

mermaidsuk.org.uk/staff-and-trustees/

Also, it is the BBC. She probably has to tread carefully.

The Keira Bell case was covered on Woman's Hour this morning*. They had Deb Cohen (from Newsnight) to explain what it was all about and it was surprising to hear her give a rather watered-down acount of the case. It felt like she was minimising the strength of the criticisms in the judgement and she seemed to skim very quickly over the reason for the criticisms, that is the nature of the consequences for children and young people.

I think she was torn between wanting to inform the audience and not wanting to scare the horses and leaned a fair bit to appease the latter. Despite some parts of the BBC standing up and wanting to be responsible in reporting about this issue, I think institutionally the BBC is scared, probably about upsetting progressives, and that's informing much of their coverage.

• www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000py8z, should be available to listen again soon

It’s jeremy vine

He will no doubt do a very special soft voice

Hope there are no false suicide claims

Yet another adult who doesn’t understand what ‘life saving’ actually means when it comes to medicine.

Puberty is not a disease that needs a cure.

On a lighter note did anyone else think Susie Green was wearing a dressing gown on Newsnight? It took me a couple of minutes to work out that it was actually a white hoodie

No, but the glasses, the shaking and the rage did remind me of someone.. 🐟

Keira's case is going to be discussed on Jeremy Vine show on R2 today, at about 1. Should be interesting...

We need to move away from this notion of 'trans kids'. It's an invented term - clever PR. I've fallen into the trap of using it before because it's easy shorthand.

Yes. The Newsnight report referred to 'transgender children'. What is a 'transgender child'? Afaik even Tavistock tries to avoid this language.

On a lighter note did anyone else think Susie Green was wearing a dressing gown on Newsnight? It took me a couple of minutes to work out that it was actually a white hoodie.

I'm kind of disappointed, ranting in a dressing gown would have fitted nicely with the segment.

Then they came for school children, teaching them porn and harmful sexual practices and telling them they were not allowed boundaries...