Hillary Cass at Scottish parliamet - live

That's why I was angry about it in my original message. That particular politician wearing the lanyard in front of Dr Cass felt the same to me as that PHD supervisor putting up the Trans banner on her Twitter feed after Mumsnet users discovered they had been stealing our data. It was a deliberate FU to signal (not so subtly) what the true feelings were.

Which Dr Cass, being light years ahead of that MSP in terms of her intelligence would have no doubt picked up on. Therefore it was a way to intimidate. That's what annoyed me.

I'm not saying politicians shouldn't express their political beliefs but when listening to a serious person discuss serious matters to do with actual child harm she could have restrained herself. But she didn't. Says a lot.

It's pretty simple. Civil servants don't get to express political opinions or affiliations at work, actual politicians do.

Cass CAN NOT say that puberty blockers have no benefit. In the same way that Cass CAN NOT say there is a benefit.

Why? Because there is no evidence based for either position.

Cass CAN say there are significant harms that puberty blockers produce. Cos the IS evidence for this. Therefore there's no ethical base for encouraging their use.

You have to have an evidence based to say that there is a significant effect benefit to out weigh the harm. But you can't unethically seek to build this evidence either.

We also know the placebo effect may be at play, at least in the short term.

The absence of long term follow ups is one of the critical issues here. As is the ability to identify cases where other issues are driving problems and that it's not about gender identity.

Further research may well find that evidence in either direction to either say it's utterly harmful or have enough benefit to some children to make it worthwhile.

But you also can't harm lots of other children in the process of helping a tiny number - no one should be collateral damage for someone else - even if you do find evidence of benefit for some. Until you can find the ' true trans' magic formula, you cant risk the lives of other children.

Cos ethics and evidence based medicine.

Where do you draw the line?

I'm in the public sector, when I joined we were given clear rules of nothing that shows an affiliation to any organisation or cause. We're not allowed to take pens with logos into meetings even if the logo is a charity that nobody would take issue with and has nothing to do with the subject at hand. It's far easier to say 'no lanyards or badges', because otherwise someone needs to check each item and judge each cause.

Thanks for the thread

Just pointing out how difficult it can be to identify the difference between the rainbow flag waving muppets only interested in slogans from professional politicians who (one would hope) would approach a meeting like this centring the needs of children to be protected from medical mistreatment?

Well, yes, it is a bit optimistic. They're not civil servants or lawyers, who are professionally bound to be impartial. Politicians hold strong beliefs and are free to express them - ultimately they are only accountable to their electorate. I thought we wanted fewer professional politicians, not more?

A high percentage are same sex attraction, you can see how the issues get conflated, this may have been naive but I was surprised by how much homophobia there still is, as well as transphobia.

the 🌈 lanyard crew have always been affirmation without qualification because be kind and because they are LGBT allies.

Pointing out it might be homophobic is just a little awkward for that.

The bar is very low in terms of what that means these days. Presumably it's too much to expect politicians to go into such an important meeting about the Cass review without signposting their personal allegiance to the trans lobby.

Expecting them to be professional politicians weighing up evidence in a mature way is likely a bit too optimistic. 🙄

She's a politician. Are you saying that politicians should not be permitted to express their political beliefs?

Boom.

Yes. Significant and good to see this put so explicitly. Adolescent girls are not middle aged men...

Well said as ever datun - this is why the TRAs leapt on Helen Joyce saying it would be better if less people medically transitioned. She meant so they would be happy or accepting of their bodies or sexuality without needing lifelong medical intervention, but the loons said she was doing a gEnOcIdE.

I firmly believe that ‘transition’ is never the right path for a teenager/ young adult, or grown woman. Where are all the middle aged women rushing to ‘live as men’?

we know that a LOT of men get sexual pleasure out of dressing as a woman or even a school girl but that has nothing to do with helping children suffering anxiety about their own bodies.

its as crazy as suggesting for some people suffering from anorexia liposuction is the right treatment.

I agree Kilopascal. An impartial review should be carried out by people with no personal interest in the results. This review also concerned children, mostly girls. Not adult males from Malaga airport.

*Mochan: Why no trans people included in review team?

Cass: That was 4 or 5 people. We weren't excluding. Nobody trans applied. Tokenist representative not helpful.*

I would have thought, actually, that identifying as trans would be a conflict of interest here. In my experience, even having a family member identifying as trans is enough to make objectivity fly out of the window.

TRAs seem to think it’s transition or suicide

But this was always a lie and the organisations that promote this know it. The reality is risk of suicide increases multifold after transitioning. They have pushed suicide in order to justify their demands.

If there is no evidence then you should say that there is no evidence that it will help. Not that there will be some it will.

Unfortunately the above is how it works.

Don't like doing the "this" thing but absolutely this.

@ArabellaScott thank you for typing all this out.

The response to the first question in this post is really sad. Why is being same sex attracted still such a big deal that being trans is a better option?

I'm glad there were some questions about the conversion therapy legislation as it really worries me that we seem to be at a point where alternatives to medical "treatment" of dysphoric symptoms that focus on the sexed body are literally being legislated out of existence.

I've not seen any good studies which look at different kinds of talking therapy, or ways of engaging patients in non-medical therapies. There was a thread on here from a trans man recently where they talked about their inability to engage with therapy as an adolescent, and not feeling that therapy could be at all useful to them as an adult - is this being investigated? Or do services just give up - god knows any kind of mental health intervention is hard to get, so when the service user refuses to engage I guess that's that.