Nearly 900 doctors sign letter urging BMA to abandon inquiry into Cass review

Hannah Barnes in the Times on how a small cohort of the BMA took control and the piss

https://archive.ph/67hqP bypass paywall

www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/politics-power-and-puberty-blockers-the-trans-row-dividing-the-bma-xl52dgdmb

That is a beautifully written piece.

Telling children this process can be “paused” or avoided entirely is as meaningful as telling them they can be made immortal. It is telling them they can get out of being human rather than helping them to live. Some doctors — hopefully most — are still doing the latter. The would-be gods of the BMA union ought to halt their “evaluations” and learn from them instead.

Victoria Smith in Unherd

https://unherd.com/newsroom/bma-civil-war-over-cass-review-deepens/

She makes a good point (one of several) if doctors are promising the impossible to patients I, too, want to be immortal and I'd like the power of flight while they're at it.

Instead of getting back in their box, the BMA is going on a witch hunt for who leaked to the press. There needs to be a vote of no confidence in the leadership

www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/29/witch-hunt-bma-tries-to-identify-who-leaked-planned-opposition-to-cass-review

Jo Bartosch has an excellent article

https://archive.ph/NfYyK paywall jump

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/27/the-activist-bma-has-betrayed-medicine/

Forgive this rather long quote

More widely, the sickness of the BMA has not only harmed patients, it has left clinicians unsupported. The union hasn’t found the time to condemn the harassment and persecution of clinicians by transgender activists. No public support has been offered, for example, to the twenty-six female nurses who have had to take legal action after County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust allowed a biological male who identified as transgender to get changed alongside them. The nurses were told to “re-educate” themselves despite reporting inappropriate behaviour by their male colleague.

Moreover, Banfield opted not to praise the whistleblowers from the scandal-struck Tavistock clinic, brave and experienced therapists many of whom were monstered, and some forced out of the NHS, for simply trying to protect the interests of confused young people.

And not one person who voted to reject Cass found the time to speak up on the impossible situation for BMA members who are now expected to routinely ask men if they might be pregnant during hospital appointments. Meanwhile, the BMA has found time to release statements on the conflict in Gaza, the killing of George Floyd, keeping communities safe from fascists on British streets and the situation in Afghanistan.

The TQ+ activist mentioned upthread comes across as forceful and energetic. Although I've not seen interviews with any of the others and prepared statements tell you little of the character and motivation of the people putting their names to them. However, I can imagine a forceful and energetic character, with transphobia metaphorically in their back pocket, being able to bamboozle and steamroller others on subjects that perhaps aren't important to them, or where they see not harm in complying. The silence though, in areas where they should be supporting their members, that speaks very loudly as to their character.

Happens in charities too.

I don't understand how they're saying the ban on pbs goes further than the recommendations, have I missed something?

I signed the letter because I think the Cass review is important and should be respected. It wasn’t the place of the BMA to challenge the report.

I think there is a place for them in principle, it's just that - in practice - their status as genuine grassroots mass movements has been hollowed out, which has led to them being wildly unrepresentative. Nothing reveals that more than the damage they are doing on this particular issue of women's rights. But the same has happened/is happening with the Labour Party too. It is no longer an authentically grassroots organisation, controlled by its members.

I don't know what the answer is, but I still view the trades union funding model as less undemocratic than the funding models of other major parties.

It’s why there is no place for unions in democratic government and the main reason I won’t vote labour. The unions have too much power vis a vis the ordinary voter when it comes to policy, manifesto and its leadership.

Exactly as it goes in political parties.

People like this get voted into union positions (almost all unions, not just the BMA) because the majority of members are not particularly active and either don’t bother to vote, when candidates stand for election, or don’t take the time to find out what their values are.

It means that the activists standing for union positions can leverage the votes of fellow activists to take office. And, once there, can manipulate the union’s processes to keep themselves in office.

Pronouns in the bio is just the beginning

www.bma.org.uk/about-us/about-the-bma/how-we-work/leadership-at-the-bma

List of staff. Note Emma.

Bloody hell. Well said that person.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13781747/BMA-revolt-Cass-review-Doctors-quit-opposition-review-gender-identity-services-children.html

Doctors are quitting the British Medical Association in revolt at its opposition to a landmark review into gender identity services for children.
Many members, including NHS leaders and former presidents of medical royal colleges, have voiced their dismay over the report, led by paediatrician Hilary Cass.
They have accused the BMA of being influenced by a 'vocal minority' with an ideological agenda.
…
Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist and council member, told The Times: 'This minority has voted to block the implementation of Cass, an evidence-based review which took four years to put together.
'They have no evidence for their opposition. The Cass review is not a matter for a trade union. It is not our business as a union to be doing a critique of the Cass review. It is a waste of time and resources.'
In response, more than 1,400 doctors, including nearly 70 professors and 23 former or current presidents of medical royal colleges, signed an open letter urging the BMA to drop its opposition to the Cass review.
…
One signatory called for a 'vote of no confidence in BMA leadership' and another commenting that 'activists appear to have been allowed to take over'.
Despite the BMA's stance, the NHS remains committed to implementing the review's recommendations.
Professor Philip Banfield, chairman of the BMA council, said a 'task and finish' group set up to evaluate the Cass report would report on progress at the end of the year.

Quite the way with words that blogger - I felt it would be rude not to share @ArabellaScott !

'The selfish political climbers who have somehow managed to take control of the BMA must be stopped, otherwise the BMA will die; its corrupt hierarchy is dragging it into the gutter as we speak.'

Crikey.

Tom Dolphin has been winning over his colleagues for almost 2 decades now - & apparently was an infamous misogynist even before it was cool to deny women exist as a discrete class into which one cannot identify…

The comments are, as usual very cross. With lots of doctors who've left the BMA commenting.

Another article in the Times

https://archive.ph/h14RC bypass paywall

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/bma-members-resign-in-revolt-over-transgender-children-stance-nvqd0vgv5

Perhaps I'm being unfair to the BMA but i find myself angry that a fucking union has the arrogance to think it can mark Dr Cass's homework. They should stay in their lane, perhaps look into the concerns of doctors who think they're breaking their Hippocratic Oath if they prescribe wrong sex hormones.

Well, if Amnesty International and Liberty can get involved in the Cass Review...

It's common enough that unions are involved in "progressive" activism, so I don't think there needs to be a financial motive in play. Simply an "oppressed group" that the BMA can help with experimental medications and surgery.