New anti-Cass screed

The Cass team do not mention any of the potential harms caused by not offering treatment, of which there are many - the development of permanent secondary sex characteristics that are not congruent with a person’s gender identity (e.g. a deepening voice, facial hair growth, breast tissue growth to name a few) can cause high levels of distress to many gender-diverse youth.

If they are claiming (as I presume they are) that they are not ideologically driven, and are giving an objective, non-partisan view, they should be able to explain what they mean by this, and give objective definitions of the terms used.

What does 'gender-diverse' mean? What is a 'gender identity'? Why makes particular sex characteristics 'congruent with' a particular 'gender identity'? Why is it important that those sex characteristics are 'congruent with' a particular 'gender identity'? Why is it better to change the body than encourage someone to accept that their body is not 'congruent with' their 'gender identity'?

I have to say I do agree with this point. Cass starts from a position that gender belief is not just a belief system and that for children to be ‘trans’ is a reasonable outcome then works from there rather than examine the legitimacy of gender ideology as a condition that needs medical treatment at all.

It’s mind-bogglingly weird that anyone could be surprised by that.

And pretty astonishing coming from a paediatrician and a psychologist. I'd expect them to actually know something about child development.

Yes. Adults indulge a child’s fantasies, and the child is upset when reality shatters them. Without adult encouragement, the child would probably have lost interest and moved on to something else. It’s mind-bogglingly weird that anyone could be surprised by that.

Yes, they're so immersed in their own ideology, that people are 'born trans' and that being 'gender diverse' requires serious physical, medical intervention, that they can't even see that they are coming from a "particular world view and set of beliefs" and that they are far from objective.

One example:
Many of the pre-pubertal gender diverse young people seen at the GID service were doing well in many or all areas of their lives, post social transition, and it was often only when puberty started that distress levels increased.

You don't even have to think very long and deeply to see why children who have socially transitioned and have been 'affirmed' in their opposite sex identity are so distressed by the onset of puberty. When a little boy, who has been encouraged to believe that if he changes his name to Emily and wears dresses and everyone pretends he is a girl, that it's possible for him to become a woman, finds his body changing at puberty and it's clear that he's becoming a man, not a woman, of course he's going to be distressed. But the fault lies with the adults who lied to him, not with the natural process that his body is going through.

God, that's a hilarious quote isn't it? That group has absolutely no self-awareness.

We shouldn’t be encouraging anybody down a medical pathway with very serious side effects, without evidence that it is the best approach available. That is the least I would expect from any doctor to any patient in any circumstance.

In committing these thoughts to print, we are not seeking to settle scores, or dismiss the work of the Cass review team. What we are aiming for is to convince the reader to approach the Cass review in a critical way, and to see it as a product of a particular world view and set of beliefs, rather than an authoritative objective overview

If they have to tell you some of the above stuff it's plausibly because the reader is likely to form a very different opinion when reading.

Max Davie's publication record is very limited so it's not the sort of basis I'd expect for decent critiques of how systematic reviews are conducted. Lorna Hobbs has some publication experience, including systematic reviews.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=T9WQUqcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=lorna+hobbs+systematic+review&btnG=

This is a blog post but it's far from the language I'd expect to read in a credible review.

the Cass team is extraordinarily casual when it comes to amplifying potential harms.

That is quite the comment to make about a systematic review team and the reviewers.

The footnotes are a disgrace. I went into it thinking there would references for some of the blog post's more extraordinary claims but it's snipes and snark of the sort you'd expect to see on MN not a review with pretensions. Footnote 28:

Dr Cass expressed her dismay and shock at the practice of medical transition to one of us before she started this review, and recommended strongly that we read the gender critical polemic “Irreversible Damage” on the subject. She is described on the Cass review website as an expert who came in with no fixed views - we will leave the reader to draw their own conclusions.

And one of the authors is offering up their memory of a conversation as part of a serious critique and invitation to others to engage their critical faculties? No awareness that their own recollection might be subject to skew and personal cognitive biases?

It's an open whinge letter (to indulge in the writers' casual language).

Well, erm... quite!

“Infused with ideology” is rich coming from genderists.

All this has done has inspired me to write to Wes Streeting with a different opinion!