Cass review - out on Wednesday

The union for educational psychologists (association of educational psychologists AEP) also had a consultation of members and submitted a response to the government guidance.
It is totally captured by gender ideology and supports social transition, not involving parents and no requirement for single sex spaces.
Educational psychologists are widely supporting this union position.
It's not just the teachers. This ideology is deep within schools Local Authorities.

x.com/ClaireMcguiggan/status/1772235332164935903

No.

The Equality Act still has to take account of other laws.

This means if you start to build a legal case about why transition causes physical harms then this laws, would in effect, give a legal argument to override the Equality Act.

At the moment I think we are at a stage of building that legal case, so if it does go to court then it's deemed to not be discriminatory because of x, y and z reasons.

The Equality Act is a law which is about balancing rights and needs remember. If the balance gets tilted for some reason so it becomes overwhelming impossible to ignore other issues because of concerns in minors and risk of abuse or undue influence by adults in various manners.

Consent is based on capacity to consent AND must be free of undue pressure and I think this is a really key point about the role of schools and the school environment. How do you unsure this - that teachers aren't effectively grooming children or that children are not part of social contagion in schools or online?

The more evidence we have for this, the better.

What you don't want is to get a legal precedent in place now saying there is an absolute right to socially transition because this would be difficult to reverse. Better to have a softer approach whilst evidence builds and when you think you have a legally sound case that's difficult for gender affirmers to challenge THEN you consider a ban. And not before.

I'm not sure to what extent TT, Sex Matters, LGB Alliance would want to get into producing materials / training for schools?
Just musing here, but what we're all after is a return to facts / ethics based education.
Education that respects all the pcs and looks at how we build a society that's inclusive of all, promoting respect, not prioritising one group's demands over everyone else.
Stopping treating children as mini adults with age inappropriate concepts and selling lies that sex change is possible.

I suspect it's about removing queer theory & trans extremism from schools and returning to a boundaried, child and safeguarding centred education.

Whilst I support the "golden bridge" approach, it does stick in my craw somewhat that people can have been so dim.

It only takes a moment's thought to see that gender ideology is nonsensical. Or the most rudimentary understanding of child development to know it's not a good idea to pretend they can become the opposite sex.

I've seen a small child socially transitioned at the drop of a hat. Mum enjoyed making a huge fuss about it, acting like mum of the year for psychologically damaging her child. This wasn't a child with huge issues around gender. Just they'd been brought up relatively free of stereotypes, and gravitated towards some things society sees as for girls. Commenting (once started in school and being more exposed to stereotypes) that they'd like to be a girl was enough to immediately transition them. Now some years on the situation is an entrenched mess. How someone against gender stereotypes could so easily not think for a moment and see the nonsense for what it is, I don't know. (The child's other parent was basically of TERF mindset, but somehow got railroaded into going along with it. In a way this is even worse!)

Sex matters, transgender trend and the LGB Aliance all provide resources and training to schools, but who tells schools where to get their materials?

Absolutely.

When I opened up the conversation with my daughters' school, I was very aware that I needed to stick to officially recognised information or be at risk of being dismissed. Unfortunately, despite how brilliant these organisations are, they are positioned as "lobbyists". Speaking from personal experience (admitedly a very small straw man!), once the conversation has been established, it's possible to bring in wider information from these groups as something for consideration. Even then, I'm still very cautious about what I share because each time it gets shared up the hierarchical food chain it's at risk of being dismissed because it's positioned by someone who is in a position of influence as being from a "hate group". That's why the imminent final Cass Report will be particularly useful, because it's yet another "official" document (i.e. it has been commissioned by the NHS).

Well said. The schools guidance MUST remind schools of their requirement to be politically impartial - it's been the interference of trans lobbyists with their insistence on mixed sex changing rooms, ending single sex sports, pbs being reversible etc that's done so much damage. Getting the organisations out of schools has to be a first step.
But yes - so many children and families caught up in this mess. With all these organisations culpable for failing to safeguard them who will be reluctant to admit any responsibility.

The NEU's leaders need to step up and re set the boundaries:

I know cass will be using very tactful language. But tactful language is really easily picked apart and deliberately misinterpreted by bad faith actors - and where do you think schools will get their advice from? Sex matters, transgender trend and the LGB Aliance all provide resources and training to schools, but who tells schools where to get their materials?

Very definite language is needed. It's all still so murky. And to be frank, even with definite clear language and instructions, schools will be spending the next decade unpicking this nonsense. We will now have to have PHSE lessons telling kids they CAN'T change sex, who will provide those materials? What about all the teachers with Pride flags up in their rooms and pronoun pins? What about the teacher who told me there was research proving using kids preferred pronouns helps them flourish and thrive, who will tell her she is wrong, she's been lied to?

Who will negotiate all of that mess?

The Mail are reporting on this now.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13280931/Transgender-children-face-psychological-repercussions-allowed-change-gender-landmark-review-set-rule.html

Agreed.

Apologies for what will probably come across as me being a stuck record, but I also think the power of belief is a major factor here. Initially, I couldn't get my head around what someone on a MN thread (a long time ago now) meant when they said "I don't have a gender identity". My first thought was "How odd. Of course you do". I then watched a brilliant presentation (I'll link it below in case it's of use to anyone but apologies for the derail as it's not what this thread is about) that another poster put up and that's when the penny dropped for me that I didn't have one either because I didn't believe that anyone does.

If you combine the inherently performative nature of Facebook with a parent who unquestioningly believes that "everyone has a gender identity" and who hasn't spent time unpicking LGB (fact) and T (belief), alongside everything that they will have heard from medical professionals about suicide risk, or the true risk of medicalisation, it makes sense that such a parent could want to support their child in their "gender journey". Even if that parent is also a paediatrician, phrases like "going through the wrong puberty" are going to have an emotive pull. It all starts with the belief. Once that's there, everything else is skewed by that bias. The belief in gender identity as a (liberating) truth is effectively the carrot. The stick part is not wanting to be "that parent". The TQ++ has been so firmly and successfully welded on to the LGB that so many people would rather not question any of it, because they would feel a sense of shame in doing so, that they were letting their child down with their own narrow-mindedness.

Link as noted above:

Obviously there will be many parents who are performing solely for their own gains, and getting notoriety through their child etc. But I suspect most parents do genuinely believe that they are doing what's best for their child.

I wonder why they haven’t considered another social experiment. Say, ensuring that the prospect of life post puberty is appealing to girls who, with damned good reason, fear it. Safety from male harm, equality in professional opportunity, equal privileges of the sexes, normalisation of the male pill, including misogyny as a hate crime etc etc etc. And, following such changes, a review of the number of girls saying they want to transition. I’d have thought it would be much cheaper.

Thanks @BonfireLady
It's so good to see more evidence of the countless women and men working relentlessly behind the scenes to get this ideology away from children and to restore comprehensive safeguarding in schools.

Link to the thread on X if it's useful for anyone. I reposted comment 9/10 (the link below) because of the focus on safeguarding, the current law and Cass, but there is more general context in the rest of the thread above as well.

https://twitter.com/Teach_Evidence/status/1776894728111313200?t=XGI5hQC8672IV7oubdrLzQ&s=19

I know a paediatric nurse who has done this with her 8 year old and splatted it all over fb in a special announcement style.

Beggars belief.

This popped up on my X feed this morning and is rather timely:

https://ateachersguidetosexandgender.org/2022/07/06/a-teachers-guide-to-the-cass-review-interim-report/

One of the specific areas I'm focusing on with both my daughter's school and my MP is the legal position of schools allowing teachers to share their belief in gender identity under the current statutory guidance and other legislation. In short, the lack of minimum age in the EA for the PC of gender reassignment seems to be the elephant in the room here too.

Hopefully the people that put this document together will do a similar analysis on the final report when it comes out.

However, in the interim I'll be pointing my daughters' school to this paragraph in particular:

Moreover, the promotion of specific beliefs about the source(s) of gender-related distress could influence children’s attitudes toward the diagnostic process before meeting with a clinically trained professional. Guidance from the Department for Education states that teachers “are in a position of authority and will typically be respected and trusted by the pupils they teach, giving their personal opinions greater weight and credibility. As a general principle, they should avoid expressing their own personal political views to pupils unless they are confident this will not amount to promoting that view to pupils [4].”

Once I've read the final Cass report this week, I'll ask for a meeting with the school to discuss next steps. To be clear, the school has been really collaborative but I'm now going to respectfully challenge them on their position to wait for the final Guidance on Gender Questioning Children before they take any steps on changing their policies. They are in a difficult position but I would argue (and I expect/hope to see good reasoning in the Cass Report) that they leave themselves fully exposed to legal risk in the future if they continue to allow teachers to promote the belief that everyone has a gender identity e.g. pronouns in emails, pronoun posters on walls, posters of trans"identified role models etc.

A very good and unequivocal article, thanks.

A firm and very clear intervention from The Hill, a publication in the US that goes out of its way to keep to the centre ground, to the extent of having contributors from both the Left and the Right being allowed to go at each other like Punch and Judy:

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4573662-the-reckoning-over-puberty-blockers-has-arrived/

This is an opinion piece submitted by Leor Sapir, very much on one side of the debate. However, it has been given a platform in a mainstream US publication.

This report will have world impact I'm sure.

I am waiting for this report with great hope - something needs to make Australia wake up to this dangerous ideology and evil transitioning techniques, please let it be this!

Please let this publication mark the end of ignoring children’s neurodivergence and trauma (and safeguarding and informed consent and scientific and medical knowledge) by giving them unnecessary drugs and surgeries that we already know won’t make them feel better and will make them feel worse. While ignoring their psychological needs.

It’s been a shameful period of a disgusting use of permanent damage of kids in order to make them poster children in a campaign to support adult men’s sexual rights and sexual access to other people.

That appears to be a grey area given the EA hasn't specified children. But could be argued either way I assume.

So potentially an amendment to GRA in light of harms evidenced by Cass...?

Well no. I was thinking about the organisations like UK Council for Psychotherapy.

However… now that you mention it… would they have someone who leaked the direction of the report to them? Or just worked it out for themselves?

Hopefully 🤞🤞

It feels like an arm wrestle between the law (no minimum age for PC of gender reassignment to apply) and the safeguarding of children and vulnerable young people.

The timing of the general election comes in to play as well. At the moment it's not clear how far the Tories want to go on this either before the election or as a wedge issue in their manifesto. They seem to be hedging, possibly more worried about a split in the party than anything else? The final Cass Report could also be helpful here as it will allow for some "experimental" political debate to continue within both the public discourse and parliament. I hope they grab that opportunity with both hands.

As many have said on many threads, this shouldn't be a partisan issue, but Labour and the Libs Dems are a lost cause and the Tories remain the only party that seems to go near it in a effective way.
Although that said, the previous track record of the Minister for Schools, Damian Hinds on this topic isn't exactly encouraging...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4943126-idiot-who-wrote-current-rshe-guidance-is-education-minister-again

Hopefully it was a case of Damian Hinds being blindsided by the forced-teaming of sexual orientation and gender identity (as a single package), like so many others have been because of the TRA/Stonewall lobbying, and his views have changed since then.

I look forward to all of the conversations that will stem from the release of the final report. It feels like it's all going on the right direction on medical interventions, at least for under 18s (ideally this will implicitly end up including vulnerable young adults too) but with lots of inevitable fight still being put up by those who either genuinely believe they are Being Kind or are actively part of the Dentons' strategy, or something akin to it.