Jeremy Vine show is discussing Keira Bell's case today

the international scientific consensus that exists around the treatment of trans young people is applied in the United Kingdom

What planet is he on? What scientific consensus?!

Is Foxy Kimono fundraising for the NHS costs of the appeal? How does that work? I'm blocked.

We at @GoodLawProject are taking advice from several leading QCs in relation to yesterday's decision of the High Court which we believe to be legally, scientifically and morally flawed.

We have identified two separate legal interventions which we expect to make to secure that the international scientific consensus that exists around the treatment of trans young people is applied in the United Kingdom.

We will make announcements in relation to those actions as soon as we sensibly can. We are acting with the benefit of advice from the leading public and healthcare lawyers in the United Kingdom.

We will publish advice shortly from a Queen's Counsel on whether loving parents who access care for their gender incongruent children in line with accepted international treatment norms are at risk of having their children taken into care following yesterday's decision.

twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1334116708450246656?s=19

Foxy Kimono has already redirected his crowdfunder towards an appeal.

Didn't he begrudgingly admit yesterday that it would be nigh on impossible to win an appeal?

At least she didn’t mention self harming and suicide.

Still implied though... use of the words "life-saving" next to puberty blockers.

Susie is so completely wrong to say Precocious Puberty and Gender Distressed children are having the same treatment. The drugs are the same, sure, but you can take paracetamol for a headache or a fever, but that doesn’t mean a headache and a fever are comparable.

There is pretty much no overlap at all between the PP and GD patient groups.

Kids with PP are on blockers at earlier age, and often for less time (the document I read yesterday says they are usually taken off them by ten, so they still have a slightly earlier puberty than most kids). They then ALWAYS go on to a natal sex puberty (and some have lasting side effects, including PCOS). These children are not held back beyond the developmental stages of their peers.

Not all kids with PP have blockers anyway, and the parameters as to what counts as precocious is under discussion (it’s 8 for girls presently, but is likely to be pushed back to 7). Underlying causes of PP have to be investigated, including seriously life threatening conditions, such as brain tumours.

GD kids only start AFTER the age the PP kids come off, and then RARELY go through a natal sex puberty. So rarely, that we have no idea if they have lasting side effects or not. If they start at 10, they could be on the drugs for 6 years. During this time their peer group will overtake them in body, intellectual and emotional development.

Where is the point in ‘buying time’ if the kid’s brain development is paused? They are no more mature, no more ready to make a life altering decision than they were when the drug was administered.

It’s just gobbledygook to say these two scenarios are the same.

I'm sure that's possible carla. But as has been repeatedly pointed out - if there was all this world beating international evidence the surely Mermaids / Stonewall would have produced it for the JR. GIDs were repeatedly asked about evidence yet were completely unable to produce any

As an aside - it's rather wonderful to see all these organisations reaping the consequences of their #nodebate you transphobes. The tragedy is that vulnerable children have been the casualties.

Is it possible that SG is doubling down because they're going to appeal? I guess if you're going to appeal then you can't exactly start admitting you might have been wrong after all...

Psychologically, SG cannot back down even by a mm. Because to back down would be to take responsibility for the enormity of what she did to her child on her child's 16th birthday. Surely that realisation would destroy anyone, mentally. So SG's psyche won't let her go there.

Which leaves you wondering: is she speaking about a judgement she hasn't actually read? It can't be that she has evidence that the judgement is wrong because Mermaids put forward the evidence they had and the judge's job was to look at all relevant evidence to do this establishing of facts.

Given how little preparation went into what they apparently submitted to the court, I'm pretty sure she hasn't read it.

It's unbelievable. People who are the type to turn up to a sales meeting and wing it, rather than actually knowing their subject and being prepared, but rather than wasting money on dodgy products, they're medicalising and mutilating vulnerable children.

Whilst I don't think it could be said they were doing any harm (although I'm not sure there was much evidence of useful outcomes either), everything about how the org was run was centred around their vision and their mission. They were quite tyrannical to work for at times.

The case was also discussed on Woman’s Hour today. It was all very negative and didn’t really give a very balanced view of the case which surprised me as they were interviewing Deborah Cohen who has reported on this for Newsnight. There was a lot of ‘assigned sex at birth’ and talk about those children who were going through the process were now in limbo. Not much discussion about the downsides to puberty blockers or lack of research.

The cases of both Freddie McConnell and Keira Bell have shown that in the UK courts, the rights and wellbeing of the child always take precedence.

Even where the judges would rather align our laws with those of the more liberal European states, and make it clear in their judgements that they'd rather this were the case, when applying UK legal precedent the wellbeing, rights and needs of the child still trump the wants of adults.

SG is evidently too lacking in insight to get a handle on this. In her newsnight appearance she only refers to the feelings of adults. The children don't get a mention. The TRAs have been so used to stampeding over the rights of women - not only with total impunity but with women taking the shit for daring to say 'no' that they now think they can do it to children as well.

These two recent judgements have shown them that they can't. And now even Jeremy Vine's turned lukewarm. No wonder Twitter's going ape.

this is my personal journey I'm going to tell you about..

I read an account of a Mother ringing the Mermaids helpline with concerns about their child. Suzie answered the phone, told the caller all about her experience with Jackie leaving them both in tears.

Thank goodness the Samaritans don't operate like that.

That pretty much sums it all up persistentwoman !

As an aside, I've been thinking about the parallel with this and the White Fragility author Robin Diangelo who has managed to take her own personal issues around race and extrapolate from them an entire theory that covers every other white person and spin it into a huge money making empire ($12,000 for a lecture anyone...?) to boot...

Related to that, does anyone know where I can find David Bell's report on the Tavi?

According to the Guardian‘S story on Marcus Evans, it was ‘internal’ - I don’t believe it’s ever been published/leaked:

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/23/child-transgender-service-governor-quits-chaos

Dr Bell is currently fundraising on crowd justice, with few details as to why, so maybe he is planning to blow the wheels off?

Related to that, does anyone know where I can find David Bell's report on the Tavi?

Susie has to believe this though, the alternative is for her to confront the decisions she made for her own child. She isn't a doctor or an expert, just an ideologue.

I can't see SG ever backing down , I can't imagine it is possible for her to do so in light of her own situation.

And that's the root of much of this nonsense, extrapolating from one's own personal experience to the wider world with no evidence, facts, reliable data etc.

How Mermaids was ever allowed to get beyond being a support group to the horror that it is now with the ear of government and institutions is a shocking disgrace.

Good.

simply won't be bothered enough to read a 38 page court judgement.

I know you're right. It just staggers me.

If you were an organisation who closely worked with an organisation who was the subject of this judgement or sent vulnerable families to this organisation and would be supporting them with the outcome of this judgement...….?

Wouldn't any workplace have assembled everyone this morning with a whole bunch of highlighter pens and be going through the judgement line by line establishing exactly what it said, what it means in practical terms, and what they need to do in terms of practice change from today?

MN readers and GC organisations had put up relevant key paragraphs from the judgement within an hour or two of it being released yesterday.

Fact based reality vs emotion creating reality. The dichotomy is getting really clear.

Transwoman who changed as an adult talking about it reducing the need for facial and voicebox surgery, erm, only if you are male, I don't know of any transmen who have had this, plus if most desist without blockers you are saving the ones who'd desist from medication and surgery.

Yeah, they sure know who the females are and who the males are when it comes to who gets priority re transition, don't they? Much harder for a post-puberty transwoman to pass, so even though the majority of kids wanting to "change gender" are girls, we have to focus on the urgency of stopping puberty for the boys, and if a whole lot of girls are collateral damage, well, who cares?

And just to cheer you all up, Stonewall are backing away from Mermaids.
They have tweeted organisations that will support families, and Mermaids are not on the list.

Really? And they were so incensed when the BBC dropped Mermaids.