News commentary on the Cass Report

KellieJaysLapdog absolutely I think we also need to know who commissioned and signed off the funding for theses GIDS clinics, their KPIs and oversight provided. A few years ago I got one years funding for a new position in my team and we had to meet with our commissioners every month show them the data we collected and evidence we were meeting out KPIs. This case has deeply damaged my trust and belief in the NHS even though I have worked for them for decades as I personally know dcs who have been through the GIDs clinic. I think when the NHS comes out with its begging bowl claiming they are underfunded people will think well why on earth are they funding unevidenced dangerous expensive treatments for very vulnerable children and young people and there will very little sympathy and probably a lot of anger

Hard to believe anything the Guardian says after years of both lying, Gaslighting or ignoring this issue for years tbh...
( unless it's The Observer on Sunday )

Absolutely bonkers that NHS England are funding all the adult GICs yet the GICs think they don’t have to comply with a review commissioned by NHS England.

The video from the OP seems to have been deleted (they always do this when they get called out saying the quiet bits out loud),

Glinner put a copy up on his channel:

Two fascinating interviews the first is the BMJ interview with Hilary Cass and explains the most salient points of her review

In the same letter NHS England made clear to the trusts that if they do not disclose the details, they will resort to “mandatory direction in this respect” to compel them to do so."

This will be interesting.

The ICO was a party to a legal action to compel QMUL to release data about the PACE studies. QMUL spent substantial sums to fight this.

https://citizen-network.org/news/major-breakthrough-on-pace-trial

Unions for those who work in the NHS haven't been forthcoming to protect GC workers but it will be interesting to see union responses in re: their members if they're compelled to release the records.

The last Guardian one is pretty shocking:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/10/adult-transgender-clinics-in-england-face-inquiry-into-patient-careN

"NHS England also intends to force adult gender dysphoria clinics to hand over data which they refused to share with University of York researchers whom Cass had asked to obtain to help draw up best practice guidelines for how the NHS should help such vulnerable young people.

It will outline the health outcomes seen among the 9,000 people who as under-18s were cared for by the gender identity development service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS mental health trust.

Six of the seven trusts did not cooperate, prompting Cass to complain in her report that a potentially world-leading research project had been “thwarted” by NHS secrecy.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said he was “pretty angry” to learn about the blocking tactics. “Under a Labour government there will be accountability for that – you’re not going to get away with it,” he said.

In the same letter NHS England made clear to the trusts that if they do not disclose the details, they will resort to “mandatory direction in this respect” to compel them to do so."

The Guardian actually has some really good articles on the Cass review, alongside the dodgy ones.

I particularly like this one which gives a summary of the scientific evidence:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/10/gender-medicine-built-on-shaky-foundations-cass-review-finds

Also this one which covers the move to a more holistic, less medical model, but the problems with waiting times for mental health support:
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/10/review-of-nhs-gender-services-for-children-has-major-implications-for-mental-health-services

And this one about possible reasons for the huge rise in teenage girls seeking treatment:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/10/what-cass-review-says-about-surge-in-children-seeking-gender-services

And one quoting Cass on the toxicity of the debate and the failures in the system:
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/10/children-are-being-used-as-a-football-hilary-cass-on-her-review-of-gender-identity-services

Also this one about adult services and the refusal to share data on patients who have been treated:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/10/adult-transgender-clinics-in-england-face-inquiry-into-patient-care

Labour stoked ‘culture of intimidation’ over trans issues, health secretary says

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/201e3ecb-9e56-4bc6-9f1a-4c10c4e0f6d1?shareToken=53349257e8665ada6a13cf6e7941c641

Dr David Bell on Times Radio: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLjC7FLXMC0

(apologies if this is a duplicate, I’m losing track of posts!)

This is one of the great cognitive dissonances of the desire to have "lived experience" at the heart of health and social care decision-making.

You want people from particular demographics (including socio-economic, those in paid employment, carers etc.) but it seems that you have to edit the way that they speak and express themselves…

The BBC and other media outlets could record and edit video interviews with Ritchie and Sinead if they consider they'd have too many complaints otherwise. Not doing this is a choice and it seems the BBC prefers exclusion.

This is what Ch4 news did yesterday. It was very much focused on the personal frustrations of being on a waiting list for what the teenage girl and her mum saw as too long.

In contrast, the World at One yesterday featured a first-hand account from parents who were taking a much broader view of the issue ie questioning and not affirming, and who were very articulate about how awful their experiences had been.

From The Tomes article posted here yesterday:
The meaning of “affirmation” became entangled in messages of social justice. “Affirmation then became understood to be a human right and a movement developed around it. People who simply didn’t know about the lack of evidence assumed that any criticism was due to transphobia or lack of support for the kids.”

Also, someone pointed out to me yesterday that the BBC has over 400 transgender employees. I looked it up.
This article was from 2018:
recruitingtimes.org/news/23597/bbc-amazed-after-secret-survey-reveals-that-417-of-its-staff-are-transgender/

Coverage played out from the perspective of one side.

There's a dearth of useful analysis although I do attribute some of that to the fact the coverage is largely not from health correspondents who do understand patient safety, trial design, systematic reviews and such.

The Cass Report got much more coverage than the WPATH files story did last month but I’m disappointed and frustrated to see certain sectors of the media already framing it as a story about waiting lists instead of covering it as harm done to children by adults who were supposed to be helping them.

Why are so many journalists refusing to realise that they have (and still are) getting it wrong on this issue?!

This is an old thread about Aidan Kelly from 2020, about a talk he gave in 2018.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3950421-Talk-by-Dr-Aidan-Kelly-Tavistock

The video from the OP seems to have been deleted (they always do this when they get called out saying the quiet bits out loud), but the OP helpfully gave a partial transcript:

“We are putting responsibility back on the family because we don’t have the evidence base to say ‘it’s these kids or it’s these kids’, or how we can pick out which kids should go forward and which kids shouldn’t. “

“The blocker is not a benign thing, it comes with - I don’t mean financial costs- it comes with downsides, especially around energy- if the young person has mood difficulties the blocker can sometimes make that worse- it also takes away those sex hormones, so that whole thing I was talking about, of being attracted to, developing crushes, when all your teens and peers are getting into relationships and developing social connections in that sense- that’ll be gone, well not totally gone, but that drive that interest whether it’s the opposite or same sex or whatever will be greatly reduced. And we do worry, because we don’t have long term evidence for this. We do worry for what impact that might have on their identity because sexuality is such an important part of your identity,who you’re attracted to.”

“It can often mean you are signing up to be a patient for the rest of your life. In a way you taking what is essentially a physically healthy, you know it’s not got medical- you might say internally in terms of gender it’s not right- but medically it’s a healthy body and you’re introducing medication and making it dependent on medication, so ethically it’s really quite a complicated area, especially for children.”

“We’ve only started talking about fertility in the last 4 to 5 years. Before that, we were putting people down this pathway and actually they were coming back to us 15 years later and going, “oh, you never really said, you know.” And that’s what I mean about this being such a new area, CoS we weren’t even doing hypothalamic blockers under the age of 16 until 5 years ago. We don’t have people who are 40 to 50 to see, you know, how’s your life been, were we right to intervene so early? We don’t know.”

TL;DR We don't know what we're doing, we know we're probably harming kids, but we're doing it anyway and we'll blame the parents for allowing it if it all goes wrong.

This was always going to happen.

NHS Comms are infuriatingly command and control and have a history of underestimating useful scenarios such as how this would play out, be distorted etc. They need to pay a lot more attention to the plausible framing of the story and have their own parent and child dyads, ready to go and to tell their stories.

It's the asinine comms of MMR and Wakefield in a different arena.

Surely this level of blatant advertorial should come with a warning? It’s an advert.

That Times leader is really sharp - almost like the leader writer has read all the years of discussion here.

It might have been even better had The Times acknowledged journalism’s role in this too, though! IPSO guidance on pronoun use for convicted rapists etc- it’s all part of the same thing. Yes, irreversible harm to children is the biggest scandal, but there are many others and journalists have been playing along with it all for too long.

Guardian returning to form today, advertising Aiden Kelly's private gender practice in the guise of "helping" troubled children:

www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/11/trans-children-in-england-worse-off-now-than-four-years-ago-says-psychologist

As an old Guardian reader I am still horrified to see them shilling for big Pharma and private medicine over a systemic, careful NHS medical review, but as we've seen repeatedly over the past few years the rot goes very deep.

That's a moving article with Keira and there are some lovely comments btl .

The Times leader today - commenting on how silent the government is in the face of such a massive medical scandal:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/23043651-b0c3-4185-a315-715a20e58014?shareToken=50815c703f46f42a48851a695ccba3c1

in some outlets there’s an almost deliberate attempt to ignore the people that the whole debacle is really about - girls and young women. The narrative is still focusing on testimony from adult men

The Telegraph has an interview with Kiera:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/10/keira-bell-detransitioner-cass-review-tavistock-clinic/

Victoria Atkins just gave a reasonably good, short interview on LBC. Succinct and to the point. I hope it will be repeated/ re-broadcast over the next few days.

I hope to hear this being explored in more depth in the mainstream media rather than yesterday’s Ch4 video report which perpetuated the “trans child” narrative.

I’d hope so too, but I got the distinct impression that in some outlets there’s an almost deliberate attempt to ignore the people that the whole debacle is really about - girls and young women. The narrative is still focusing on testimony from adult men. It’s also possible that really thinking about it is too painful for some of those who espoused the “trans child” ideology, because it would expose their ignorance and stupidity. So they double down, or try to spin it away.

This is an article for parents and teachers to save and use whenever any of thse organisations tries to sell its "services" to a school. They're completely compromised with all this.