Epistemic injustice *title edited by MNHQ*

I have the impression, rightly or wrongly, that up until around 2015, GIDS were doggedly sticking with the closest thing they had to an evidence-based approach and that they were, at that stage, more or less applying a watchful waiting approach. Between 2011 and 2014 they started a relatively small scale trial of puberty blockers.

Had they concluded that trial, examined the results, and followed the pathway indicated, they likely would have continued with watchful waiting and probably stopped the use of puberty blockers, or perhaps cut down their use to an absolute minimum, due to the lack of convincing evidence.

Instead, they seem to have headed down a different route, continuing and possibly increasing the use of puberty blockers. From the outside, it looks very much like with the huge increase in caseload, they more or less gave up and caved to the pressure. Nothing in this person’s testimony indicates that my impressions are incorrect.

Which all-in-all was a great pity as I have always hoped (and indeed naively assumed until relatively recently) that the NHS was better than that.

If a whistle-blowing report on GIDS was needed, I wish I’d written it myself.

This is such a weird phrase. I read it as 'I don't agree there were any problems but I like to fantasize about being a hero and everyone thanking me and saying how marvellous I am, though in reality I am too much of a coward'.

I've only very skimmingly (yes I know that's not a word) skim read this but why is the Butler quote even used?

It adds nothing beyond "ooh get me I can quote Judith Butler"

The Butler quote, if you break it down, is just 'violence begets violence' - an idea so new and revolutionary it's in the Bible

Thank you. I thought that was what it was trying to say.

The last paragraph is perhaps more revealing than the author intended.
She doesn't appear to understand why normalising cross sex hormones and surgery for children might be considered contentious. Or why sometimes people who have accepted positions of responsibility need to be the ones to resist pressure, especially when it appears to be driven by children.

This seemed to me like pure one-sided propaganda but so (deliberately) poorly written in the genderist style that the arguments being made are obscured.

I can’t detect any scepticism towards genderism in amongst the waffle and Butler quotes, or any kind of acknowledgment that critics might have a point.

I think it’s a long-winded complaint that they are being attacked by big meanies.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus I think you've got the most pertinent quotes, there.

The Butler quote, if you break it down, is just 'violence begets violence' - an idea so new and revolutionary it's in the Bible. So, given the irrelevant quote, what does bringing up Butler mean? It means for Wren, GIDS is a postmodernist, post-structralist project, not a clinical or medical one.

The second quote can be summarised as: "If I wrote the whistle blowing report, I'd ignore the whistle blowers."

The article refers to Newsnight expose, but doesn't engage with the substance.

It refers to Bell v. Tavistock, but sticks close to the legal abstractions, avoids the fact that there's scant evidence of GIDS applying gillick properly.

It refers to the NICE evidence review, but again doesn't engage with the substance (i.e. there isn't any evidence).

It drones on and on in this vein, referring to criticism of GIDS but never actually acknowledging if they have any validity.

That was a painful read. Long and completely pointless.

I guess if someone had worked for eleven years at a homeopathic hospital and felt they were under attack by people pointing out the lack of evidence, they'd be upset, too?

Judith Butler’s recent work is significant here, not on the topic of gender, but violence: ‘Violence does not exhaust itself in the realisation of a just end; rather, it renews itself in directions that exceed both deliberate intention and deliberative schemes.’

It's interesting to see this perspective about GIDS from another 'insider' but I'm struggling with the value assigned to Butler's work. My internal discussion has not been assisted by the use of the phrase puberty suspension by the author and the implication that it's questionable whether or not a "whistle-blowing report on GIDS was needed".

If a whistle-blowing report on GIDS was needed, I wish I’d written it myself. It would have highlighted the isolation of a group of conscientious clinicians who were trying to cope, in the absence of adequate support, funding and external expertise, with complex clinical, empirical, legal and procedural challenges while an upheaval in cultural narratives of sex and gender took place across the country. GIDS became the scapegoat in a society that needs to look more boldly and intelligently at how we should accommodate a great many new forms of pressure for change.

OP - could you ask MNHQ to change your title and link to Epistemic Injustice as it will make it easier to find previous threads on the topic?