Cass review - out on Wednesday

Emma Barnett on Woman's Hour leading with the Cass Report.

Apologies if already posted

https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/the-cass-review-mermaids-response/

"Everyone deserves access to timely, supportive and holistic healthcare. However, across all of the UK, the NHS is failing trans youth, with appalling waiting lists of more than six years, virtually no first appointments offered for over a year, and increased politicisation of the support offered to children and young people.

Trans youth tell us they want services which are accepting and respectful, which offer supportive spaces to explore their gender, and provide access to medical transition if and when they need it.

The Cass Review, an independent review of NHS England gender services for children and young people, published today (Wednesday 10 April) after almost four years, echoes much of this and recognises the current system is failing trans youth.

We are pleased the voices and experiences of trans young people appear to have been heard and respected, and we welcome Dr Cass’ calls for trans children and young people, and their families, to be “treated with compassion and respect”. We hope for the same, and for the sharing of clear, accurate information when discussing this topic.

However, we are concerned that some of the language in the report is open to misinterpretation and could be used to justify additional barriers to accessing care for some trans young people in the same way the interim report has been. We will publish our full analysis of The Cass Review in due course.

NHS England has published their immediate response to The Cass Review and written to all adult providers, explaining the changes they plan to make in the short to medium term. Very few of these will have an immediate effect on children and young people, and we will keep trans young people and their families informed about any changes that might impact them.

In the meantime, we call on NHS England, and the NHS across the UK, to resist pressures from those who seek to limit access to healthcare, listen to trans youth directly, and act urgently to provide gender services which are timely, supportive and holistic.

If you need support or have questions about what this might mean for yourself or your young person, please contact our helpline team. We’re here for you Monday – Friday, 9am – 9pm. "

NOT at puberty, not but at puberty

It's a minefield. Sorting the rare but genuine cases of gender dysphoria from the transactivist influenced contagion

I don't think it is that hard, if we go back to the original criteria (one of which was that onset occurred early in life- but at puberty) and addressing any confounding issues (such as other mental health conditions).

Even when this is done, the preferred treatment should be to help the individual accept their body.....but if this is unsuccessful, physical intervention might be an appropriate route.

Didn't Hannah Barnes also cite Gendered Intelligence as being a significant pressure on GIDs? Remember that's the adult organisation that offers "mentoring" to gender distressed children in schools (at a cost to the school).

BBC took training from Gendered Intelligence when they had to stop Stonewall training? GI is affiliated with Global Butterflies? (I am very hazy on both these assertions but so many threads have been deleted in the past it's difficult to check.)

https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/2022/11/28/jay-stewart-gendered-intelligence/

https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/tag/global-butterflies/

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4571251-given-that-global-butterflies-is-in-the-news-bbc-breaching-impartiality-this-article-about-who-they-are-and-their-stated-mission-is-a-must-read?

Let's see how James O'Brien covers it

💯 this

Cass laying out how the clinicians should be doing their job and that they are responsible for any harm caused.

Does this mean we will finally get the Charity Commissions review of Mermaids?

I also hope the NHS leaders responsible for not releasing the data to Dr Cass face a parliamentary committee asap.

Didn't Hannah Barnes also cite Gendered Intelligence as being a significant pressure on GIDs? Remember that's the adult organisation that offers "mentoring" to gender distressed children in schools (at a cost to the school).
The techniques these organisation use to wedge themselves into positions of influence over children and children's services really needs exposing.

Yeah, she will have been told that one of her priorities will be to take the political heat out, I bet.

And frankly, from the little I've read, the report is overwhelmingly compassionate. Which, in my opinion, does indeed take the heat out.

Thank you all for the links. I'm out today, to a dinosaur museum 😁 but I hope to catch up soon, possibly in a day or two. I was worried Cass would pull out a TRA rabbit, and happy that isn't the case. I think it's important because we now have a secure fortress (with Cass-tellations 😃) where we can stand.

She specifically comments that medics were scared of being called transphobic - and that's not an allegation that comes from those concerned with safeguarding children.
I do find the "both sides" comments frustrating but defer to her vast experience annd overview of all this. She's played this so carefully and if on occasions she's felt the need to characterise the ability of women to get occasionally heard in the face of this vast trans monolith, I'll settle for her use of "both sides".

Well done FWR for being the light that never went out on all of this.
It's thanks to you that many years ago, as a lurker, my eyes were opened to what was going on. You are very special.

Those who want healthcare due to distress, or medicine/surgery, they need to accept that there is a universal standard that must be followed - to protect them!!

Only those who want their healthcare paid for by the NHS unless action is taken against private clinics. And I should think the overseas option is still available.

CYP might be eligible for the planned study.

A study into the potential benefits and harms of puberty suppressing hormones as a treatment option for children and young people with gender incongruence is being developed through the National Research Collaboration Programme (NCRP) in place between NHS England and the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NRCP joint programme provides a collaborative approach to study development; studies being progressed through this route still have to demonstrate that they can materially build the evidence base for potential future NHS treatment options, while meeting a high scientific bar in terms of research methodology, as well as securing other important research approvals, including ethics committee approval.
It is envisaged that children and young people in both England and Wales will be able to participate in the study with access through NHS children and young people’s gender services. A multi-disciplinary team approach will be taken to identify those children who, with the consent of their parents, may be deemed clinically suitable for consideration of puberty suppressing hormones through the study. Children participating in the study will also continue to receive comprehensive psychosocial support.
The study will measure a range of potential treatment benefits and harms (for example whether puberty suppressing hormones impact in a meaningful way on levels of anxiety or depression, on body image, or brain development) using a range of validated tools, questionnaires and user feedback. Key measures included in the study, and the way data are collected, will aim to bridge gaps in existing research and will also be shaped by engagement with a range of stakeholders, including children and young people referred into NHS gender services and their families or carers.
Professor Emily Simonoff has been confirmed as Chief Investigator for the study. Emily is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, where she is also currently Head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Director of the King’s Maudsley Partnership for Children and Young People. She has extensive research experience and is also academic lead for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Clinical Academic Group at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. The research will be co-sponsored by King’s College London and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/gender-dysphoria-clinical-programme/implementing-advice-from-the-cass-review/cyp-gender-dysphoria-research-oversight-board/

What time was this please nauticant?

Yes, that's a point. I wonder what will happen to mermaids now.

I don't know how these things work, but it wouldn't surprise me if the charity commission's decision has been delayed, in order to wait for this report to be published.

It is likely that if/when we get a better understanding of the range of causes of gender distress, gender dysphoria is likely to be one (in and of itself). This is anticipated by Cass as there is an evidence base relating to this being a very rare condition.

I keep banging on about this, that before the madness hit, gender dysphoria in a diagnosed sense was: "According to the DSM-5, among individuals who are assigned male at birth, approximately 0.005 percent to 0.014 percent are later diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Among individuals who are assigned female at birth, approximately 0.002 percent to 0.003 percent are later diagnosed with gender dysphoria." If "trans people" make up 0.5% of the population, that suggests that of the current "trans" cohort very few of them have gender dysphoria (as the term originally meant).

I’m wondering if Jeremy will go there today 🤔

Seems the BBC need her expertise rather a lot today!

i really hope that action of some kind is taken against the then Board of Tavistock & Portman NHS tryst who allowed mermaids an undue level of influence in a medical setting and it seems enabled GIDS to behave in such a clinically irresponsible manner

I agree eyeballs that’s why I think a public inquiry is needed. To prevent repetition of mistakes. The Cass report shows all the whistleblowers to be right and the huge failings in the treatment of kids is acknowledged as a system failure by Cass. Not having read her report she must see the colossal failure this represents for child safeguarding? Just that has all the ingredients of lessons needing to be learned right there.

A public inquiry is a political decision- and sadly my prediction is it will not ever happen unless a new government wants to put clear blue water between this past decade+ of awful politics and their own. But I think we should absolutely press for it - why not. We have come this far. There will only be more kids and young people in need of redress and care.

It's a minefield. Sorting the rare but genuine cases of gender dysphoria from the transactivist influenced contagion.

Because TRAs will always, always try to exploit the former in order to recruit more of the latter.

Yeah, GIDS weren't very cooperative with Cass. Cass had to write to someone to ask that they make the NHS give her the information. Helen discusses it in the radio interview on 5 live

Of course it does! Book yourself in for a double mastectomy with that delightful Irish surgeon in America who’s made a fortune from filling buckets with teenage girls’ breasts but it’s okay because the operating theatre is full of smiles and lols as the girls become their “authentic selves” pronto!

Boiledbeetle · Today 08:51

"I've just been on BBC radio 5 live.You can probably listen back. From about 8.10. Listen from 8.05 to catch the transwoman before me who explains he was always a girl because as a child he wore a blonde wig and pink dresses."

Them said that them was always in pink, with a blonde wig in baby pictures. That seems as though the parents transed they.