Have you damaged the life of a child?

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The Cass Review into child’s gender services is out. For those of us who have been following this for years, it really is a No Shit Sherlock moment. All of our beliefs and fears for what is happening to vulnerable children (mainly autistic, traumatised or same-sex attracted girls) is set out in black and white.

https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/

So,

Every doctor, psychologist and therapist who ignored evidence and went along with this medical scandal and who set a child on the path of no return to future infertility, osteoporosis, increased heart disease and dementia risk, lower IQ and foreshortened life span;

Every school counsellor who felt they were Rosa Parks, whispering secrets to vulnerable kids and damaging the parent-child relationship;

Every teacher who adopted gender ideology and actively poured poison into their student’s ears;

Every teacher who shut down a student who wasn’t toeing the party line;

Every teacher who made girls feel ashamed for not being happy about sharing toilets with boys;

Every social worker who damaged the parent-child relationship and threatened parents with consequences for not affirming their child’s trans identity;

Every child’s friend’s “cool” parent who claimed their home was a sanctuary from the child’s bigoted parents;

Every autism organisation staff member or volunteer who swallowed the nonsense whole and damaged a generation of autistic girls;

Every person who cut off friends when they raised concerns about trans ideology and kids;

Every Facebook group moderator who blocked members raising the mildest questioning of gender ideology, then out up the sickening virtue signalling post about “no hate allowed”;

Every single person who chanted “protect trans kids” without knowing a single thing about the issues;

Every sports coach who allowed boys into the girl’s teams and berated objecting parents and girls as bigots;

Every separated parent going along with the child’s trans nonsense to get back at the other parent.;

Everyone who has ever donated to Mermaids;

Every single person who blindly believed that a parent’s doubts about transitioning their child were based on transphobia and bigotry, not love and concern;

Everyone who has ever told a child that society hates them because of their trans identity;

Every parent who didn’t do their due diligence and happily went along with their child and who enjoyed the attention of having a trans child;

Every politician (pretty much all of them) who decided to ride this one out, even though they could see the harm occurring in real time

This disaster, ruining the lives of a generation of children, is on you.

Yeah, I wonder how tomboys feel today, even without questioning gender. To me it feels like people aren't allowed to just be different. If they don't conform to the gender norm, they must be the opposite of their biology or something else altogether.

The OP made something up, if she didn't show us the evidence that school counsellors think they are Rosa Parks. Why are you hell bent on denying that?

Maybe you can't just be a tomboy now. I find it strange with my granddaughters who are absolutely rigid about things like girls must have long hair, boys must have short hair, boys can't wear pink or play with dolls and certain toys e.g. cars are for boys and never played with by girls. I wonder where that comes from, I always had short hair as a child and so did the majority of other girls I knew, I think the only rigid thing was girls couldn't play football, cricket was OK but it was a rare girl who would be allowed to join in with football.

What we are seeing with the Cass report as with the Post Office enquiry are further examples of the old saying:

A lie gets halfway round the world while the truth is still pulling on its boots

Logically, we know that taking PBs, opposite sex hormones, performing major surgery will have far reaching and long-term consequences.

Logically, we knew that whole swathes of sub-postmasters didn't suddenly become corrupt at the point at which a new computer system got implemented.

But we were all told black was white by people we were told were authorities in the subject.

What we can see now is that those 'authorities' had a vested interest in keeping the lies alive. Lives have been ruined so we can look forward to seeing yet more of these 'authorities' generally arse covering and pointing the finger at each other.

OMG, my daughter is the same. The unicorns!!! I keep trying to tell her that boys and girls are equal, they can wear whatever they want and have long hair, but no no no. Girls are better. Girls should wear rainbow tutus and bows. None of her toys can be boys. Even her lion with it's great big mane. I really really don't want to make her think that feminine stuff is bad, but I'm worried she thinks all masculine stuff is bad! She concedes that some boys are nice, and her best friend is a boy, but still...

Totally agree with your OP. I've been involved in this fight since 2016 and yesterday felt like a watershed moment. This ideology wouldn't have got so far without so much support from individuals in all these different professions, and there needs to be some reckoning, as so many women, children, and a few right thinking men ( Graham Linehan being one shining example of a man who saw what was happening and spoke out about it to great personal cost ) have suffered as a result.

I just wanted to address the point about the difference in how easily dangerous and untested PBs and wrong sex hormones have been dished out to distressed teens compared to normal healthcare ( or possible gatekeep ing )

I am currently trying to get HRT for menopause. My Dr, on a phone consultation, spent a LOT of time talking to me about the possible negative side effects of HRT. Demanded I had a blood test and asked I see her in person to get a blood pressure test, before she would even consider prescribing HRT. Contrast this with prescribing life altering drugs to confused teenagers who have never had sex, don't know what an orgasm is and have no idea whether they may want children in the future. The contrast couldn't be more stark.

I just want to add, why did no-one think ever that prescribing Lupron, a drug that is used for CHEMICALLY CASTRATING SEX OFFENDERS , was a suitable treatment for confused teenagers??? It's still mind boggling to me that anyone could ever have thought that this was appropriate, and not severely harmful!

Does she know any gender non conforming children or adults?

I find children accept what they know from their own experience.

for example my Dneices and nephew totally accept that boys can have long hair, wear makeup and nail varnish because their cousin (my ds10) does. Same with girls having short hair, wearing ties etc (my DW is butch). It’s just normal for them.

This issue seems to have led many people to abandon their critical faculties. I have no explanation of why so many otherwise rational people fell for it, other than its cult like appeal.
I feel fortunate that my circumstances were such that I wasn’t professionally involved in any situations that might have put me in a difficult position. I’m well aware of the problems it caused for others.

Not really! The only links I have to nonconforming people are far away or we aren't very close. We don't know many people with secondary age kids. I completely agree that she'd find it normal if she were around it more - for instance she doesn't bat an eyelid at gay couples - but I'm not sure it would impact her own desire for pink, glitter and unicorns, and my point is that it's sad that people who don't conform are now called nonconformists. I worry in a way it's forcing people to conform more rather than allowing for more fluidity. But anyway. This has somewhat hijacked the conversation.

I found this interesting, seems the report ommitted a lot of data too, unsurprisingly
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv20l497xvjo.amp

The joke with GD is her dad had long hair as a teenager, she will say boys can't have long hair, I say is daddy a boy and she says yes, I show her a photo of him with shoulder length hair and say who is this and she says daddy. I say yes daddy is a boy and daddy had long hair. She laughs and says boys can't have long hair. I'm hoping she grows out of it.

This is an anecdotal report, though, which is designed to manipulate through emotion. More "Oh, but it's different when it's trans" desperate scrabbling tactics. It isn't different and shouldn't be - that's the point. The review omitted data which did not meet the standards required by ALL studies involving medical treatment.

I'm unclear why the trans lobby and its allies seem to think that those standards of evidence aren't required by them. Especially as they are recommending treatments which send children and young people down IRREVERSIBLE medical pathways and cause known side effects, some of which have already been mentioned on this thread. You'd think that they'd be busting to provide solid evidence, wouldn't you? But strangely, they often seem reluctant to provide it, do research which meets known standards, or even bother keeping the data of patients they've treated, or follow up. That's extremely negligent. And it isn't standard practice. Why should this be different for them?

I presume he was not the only one in the gourp and more of them were saying the same thing.
I suppose when oy make a report, you should include all the data available. Not just the one that proves a point.

Oh good another Mumsnet teacher bash. It’s been a hot minute

You must see more nuance than that, surely.

That article is the personal opinion of a self interested trans man determined to dismiss the evidence about mental health co morbidities in these vulnerable children and disappointed that his personal views weren't centred over evidenced facts about the lack of research and evidence. This is a regular feature where trans activists insist that their lived experiences must trump medical ethics and research into child health care.

In contrast the BMJ (British Medical Journal) have produced a very clear warning to their colleagues about what Cass has shown from extensive research:

"....studies in gender medicine fall woefully short in terms of methodological rigour; the methodological bar for gender medicine studies was set too low, generating research findings that are therefore hard to interpret. The methodological quality of research matters because a drug efficacy study in humans with an inappropriate or no control group is a potential breach of research ethics. Offering treatments without an adequate understanding of benefits and harms is unethical. All of this matters even more when the treatments are not trivial; puberty blockers and hormone therapies are major, life altering interventions. Yet this inconclusive and unacceptable evidence base was used to inform influential clinical guidelines, such as those of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which themselves were cascaded into the development of subsequent guidelines internationally"

The full article is linked below. Make no mistake, Cass found that the NHS has been using experimental drugs on children with no clear evidence of benefit and significant evidence of harm. Doctors reported a climate of fear and intimidation that often halted research with lobby groups wielding excessive power. That's why the new facilities for children are now in Children's hospitals - because the rest of child health care operates to the highest of standards in terms of ethics and evidence while this vulnerable group were subject to the political whims and demands of adult transactivists:

https:www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q837

Trans people often make a hyperbolic statement that even the most gentle pushbacks on their ideology means “you think trans people don’ exist”

Its obviously rubbish but this ridiculous statement comes out so often and so early in any discussion that I actually believe that any pushback against trans ideology does in fact cause them an existential crisis.

The Cass report makes it clear that trans identities in children is mostly the result of social contagion or a symptom of other mental health conditions or as a result of trauma. The pure “wrong body” trans identity doesn’t really exist and this is very upsetting for trans identified people- their whole life and sense of being and “me against the world” Is tied up in an identity that has been called into question.

So while is is perfectly logical to most people that the best treatments should be available to children with gender identity issues, this is not what trans identified people want. They want to be validated constantly and not be told that they ended up where they are for boring reasons like mental health conditions or social contagion.

All my DCs (mid 20s) would see themselves as 'trans allies'. The messaging around how trans people are the most victimised has been strong.

Every generation wants a cause and preferably not the same one as their parents. For a long time I have had to keep my GC mouth shut.

I'm not expecting them to suddenly throw off their views but I think the Cass report is giving them pause for thought. The idea that maybe they have been lied to is going to be a hard one to swallow.

I find myself coming back to Tickle vs Giggle. Georgina Costello's line of pushing that Tickle has become a women because Tickle grew their hair, shops in the women's clothes department, plays women's sport, and has all the people who care about Tickle using pronouns and using Tickle's chosen feminine name really is stark to me. That someone even thought this was in any way a legitimate way to force society to treat people as they identify rather than their material reality , and that this was in any way positive for society is concerning.

I keep coming back to those people who have had extreme body modifications to emulate lizards, or snakes, or vampires, the way Georgina Costello positioned this for the Supreme Court in Sydney means that these people's identities should be given exactly the same respect. That by making these changes to their bodies, and living as if they were what they say they are, then they ARE what they identify as.

Rather than what they materially are. In Tickle's case, Tickle is just a male person living their life as they envision a female person's life is like. But not a female despite having their cock chopped off. And no one in society should be forced to treat this male as if they miraculously became a female.

Gnome, I wonder when the horror that these young people have been emotionally manipulated into believing pseudoscience and philosophical theories above material reality and proven science will sink in.

That the emotional manipulation has been documented and is all there to be read is remarkable. I think that all those declaring that the current generation are so tolerant and so kind have very little real life experience with teenagers.

I keep thinking about Wes Streeting et al. Thing is I could probably forgive if they were opening apologetic, if they said:

I naively did not question data I was given in the past and I realise now that I have not only been supportive of heinous medical malpractice that put children and young people at risk, but have actually been part of the problem. I cannot reconcile my lack of due dilligence over the sources and veracity of the studies I relied upon and will never take so-called evidence at face-value again. As a politician/teacher/NHS worker etc, I should have done better and will try my hardest to be part of the solution. I apologise unreservedly to those I criticised or maligned and, more imoirtantly, to the children and families impacted by support of this.

Thing is, they will never do this. They’ll pretend they weren’t culpable, that they were on the right side of history, that it was everyone else who pillaried the likes of Rosie Diffield. They will never take responsibility.

A lot of senior HCPs and organisation managers need to have a long hard look at themselves to work out how they have allowed themselves to be so sucked into a medical rabbit hole which has led to vulnerable young people being given untested and dangerous treatments.

Unfortunately I don't think they will do it. They will quietly drop treatments and patients and act like it never happened.

@Helleofabore when DS started banging on about how he (his SM feed) had 'doubts' about the Cass report I suggested he went away and read it for himself to see why certain conclusions had been drawn.

We had a more interesting conversation this morning about how good causes can get infiltrated by bad actors. The penny is slowly dropping.

@BusyMummy001 I think we will see a lot of people quietly stepping away. Nobody likes admitting they have got it wrong especially when other people have been harmed as a result.

I think a lot of people jumped on the PB and cross sex hormone affirmation treatment bandwagon for two reasons:

• the glory, being a radical thinker, challenging orthodoxy, being part of the 'in crowd'
• access to funding

At a lower level people went along with it for a quiet life and hoped it wouldn't do too much harm.