Social work and trans identifying teens

It is worth mentioning that in the past (1980's?) PIE were invited to speak to social work students, at some institutions.

@Sisterpita sensible suggestions.

As students requesting the original source of such claims shows diligence in your studies.

What is the evidence?

Agree...but to refute with such certainty, positioning herself as an absolute authority, was reckless and dangerous.

Yes I agree.

@concernsocialworkstudent you could provide feedback in a constructive way e.g. a participant asked about balancing sensitivity towards trans identifying older children and the need to be aware that ROGD can be an indicator of child sexual abuse.

The guest lecturer from the charity replied “That's completely incorrect and not a known sign of child sexual abuse"

It would have been really helpful if the guest lecturer could have provided more detail about the studies and evidence that supported their definitive statement. For example xx study/evidence indicates …. and it would have been useful to discuss why this evidence is not valid.

What a fab thread - it's a little microcosm of how women are fighting this regressive and harmful ideology that's undermining the safety of children everywhere. We have to be smart & strategic - but in the end we will prevail because the sterilisation and bodily modification of children to suit a lie must not continue.

Sorry that turned into a rant.

Good luck with your training. I love social work, love the people I work with and feel utterly privileged to work with the children and families I do.

Don’t be disheartened there are GC SWs walking among you and we’re keeping our powder dry for when this sorry mess begins to fall down.

Ordering Time to Think now

Hi changed my username but a regular poster. I’m a CG SW and a Practice Educator. The Uni I have students through is supposedly one of the best courses in the country. It is completely captured. One of my recent students went on and on about how by working with a non binary teen she had met the anti discriminatory practice PCF. This worries me significantly as by such focus on gender ideology the need to really understand the impact of sex, race, religion, disability and poverty on the people we work with we discriminate. Gender means fuck all for the people we work with. Sex does.

I have also worked with some trans men (in reality teenage girls) who have experienced the most horrific sexual abuse. But we’re not allowed to suggest any analysis on why a girl who’s been sexually abused may choose to identify as a man, to try to identify out of the sex that made them vulnerable to abuse by men.

I find the lack of reflection and analysis by social workers around this issue bloody depressing.

And the day I’m forced to state my fucking pronouns is the day I say fuck you to social work. And trust me it needs me more than I need it.

I noticed this. There was a not-inconsiderate degree of tongue biting done by yours-truly during workshops.
I raised a question in one workshop as to why all the case scenerios involving trans identifying/NB children had their gender identity and pronouns but not their biological sex...

It's not just around trans issues. It's much wider.

It's about crime, mental health, race ... anything. The evidence does not matter as much as doing good social justice work.

@AlisonDonut sorry repeating others. I've just ordered Time to Think

@AlisonDonut where can I find the source for this please?

I must say, I've been GC since forever and been on this board a lot and I've never come across this statistic.
I believe it, Don't get me wrong. It makes perfect sense.

Do you mind if I ask do you have a reference or resource for that statistic, simple so I can share it with confidence?

If you have time and are on Twitter (as they don’t seem to have a website at the moment) you could DM the Evidence-Based Social Work Alliance (@ ebswa) and let them know about your experience. They may have suggestions on how best to phrase any feedback etc.

The programme itself is very woke on a lot of issues, have given misleading information/data (USA-centric rather than focussed on England/UK) on a few social justice issues.

SW is now obsessed with largely identity-based social justice issues. There is very little taught about evidence-based practice anymore.

It's a travesty of its former self.

Go buy Hannah Barnes 'Time to Think' before you do anything else today!

Kids referred to GIDS had ten times the number of parents on the sex offenders register compared to the general population.

10 times.

So their assertion is completely false.

Do you get to give any feedback? That question should not have been met with flat denial but the evidence should have been properly explored.

I don't know about ROGD as such but it came up in Hannah Barnes' investigation of the Tavistock GIDS that a high proportion of the young patients claiming gender distressed had been abused. Dr Hilary Cass used the term "diagnostic overshadowing", I guess that can happen in social work as well as medicine?

And I would take what Galop says on the subject with a grain of salt. They are not a neutral or balanced source of information. Lectures from specialist but politicised organisations have some useful content but they need to be put in context and not just swallowed whole. They can have useful and interesting information but they're not a reliable guide to practice. Is that distinction made clear in your course?