Have you damaged the life of a child?

[LargeSquareRock]

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.

And if you are saying that women's rights are "anti trans" then you are acknowledging that it's a men's rights movement

😂😂😂😂😂😂So that must be the Tories given how they’re grasping at any straw and quoting this.

No thanks. I’ll be voting for the party that actually cares about mental health provision and the vulnerable.

I agree. The constant shouting down and getting all discussion moved off the main boards to FWR has only made it much harder to get the warnings about what has been done to children out there.
The culture of silencing and punishing whistle blowers has done so much damage.
The Cass review needs to be publicised and read as widely as possible.

@MarshMarig0ld7364 It doesn't have to be either / or.

As a parent of a ND same-sex attracted teen daughter, I thank our lucky stars that, as yet, we've seen the 'exploration of gender'-wolf off at the door, despite it being pervasive in DD's social group. DD affirms her trans identified female friends but doesn't 'believe'. Gender-woo is just one of many sharks lurking in the water which disproportionately impact neuro-diverse girls vulnerable to social contagion, all of which have life-threatening consequences.

As a family, we're experiencing the impact of lack of autism support and services daily, and this struggle is real, as you know. Battle-weary doesn't begin to cover it. It's relentless. It's heartbreaking. Families ‐parents and children‐ are coming apart at the seams. We need services fit for purpose, pro-active services which 'come to meet you', as opposed to require you to exhaust every last smidgen of personal resource in the fight for access.

But this is why it is extra important that people are shouting about the dangers of gender ideology. So many parents of ND DC are on their knees trying to manage the challenges of their DC's daily lives with nothing left to give in terms of campaigning for anything, improved autism services OR the safeguarding of children and young people at risk of the damaging impact of gender ideology.

Luckily, there are groups and individuals working extremely hard to do both of those things, and I for one, am so grateful that they are able to do so on my behalf.

Totally agree! This is one of the few places we can discuss this. Just tried to discuss this elsewhere and been told not to share transphobic content.🙄

Actually the constant focus on feminism re this issue has made it harder to focus on the dire state of services and provision. It just gets forgotten and ignored in all the arguing.

Too often encounters with HCPs are single issue.

If you can get a GP appointment you are only allowed to discuss one issue. In a 5 minute appointment there is no time to discuss that issue in a broader context.

If your GP decides to refer you on but has slightly misunderstood the issue you can find yourself on a long waiting list only at the end to find you are talking to the wrong person.

This has always been a problem in health care. Each specialism views the patient through their own lens. Some specialisms will have a very focused lens and will throw the patient back to the GP.

Other specialisms may have a broader focus and decide that they can treat the patient for the original single issue but still not address the broader context. Or decide that the single issue is the cause of the broader context.

You see this with obesity treatment. The assumption is that obesity is the cause of other health problems rather than it can be a symptom. Worse still for single issue medicine is when the patient has two unrelated issues!

That is actually very heartening to hear. We do need to hear about this sort of policy in schools and how they work.

Thanks

The thing is the main issue here with all this is the total lack of being able to access any proper professional support while your child is going through this. I am a parent who has navigated these waters and we waited 3 years for our first CAMH’s appointment. Luckily we played the long game, I was not prepared to seek out any gender specific support until said child had been assessed psychologically. However, like I said it took 3 years from the first referral to CAMH’s to be seen face to face. I can well see how a parent faced with their child telling you they are suicidal, possibly self harming, becoming isolated and refusing school etc etc would seek support from the obvious place, when literally you are on your own otherwise .

I don’t disagree that a parent should tread carefully - but I also don’t think you should shut your child down and tell them they are wrong to think a certain way. Doing so would only push your child into further isolation and to seek affirmation in dangerous places from people who don’t have their best interests at heart. That is not a place you would want your child to go. A parent needs to be their safe place, needs to listen and to guide gently and have open conversations. I am proud of how my self and my husband dealt with this journey. I listened, listened for hours, I allowed my child to explore their identity while supporting their mental health. We took steps as a family to improve their life, build connections, hobbies and nurtured their talents all while allowing them to express them self how they felt fit. They cut their hair , changed their clothes and their name. We didn’t make a big deal out of it, I made it clear from the off their mental health comes first, we are focusing on that. I also stated from the off “you are child, I am not saying you are wrong and I am listening but there will be no medical intervention until you are an adult should you want or need it”. I was expecting massive arguments to follow over the next 5 years and for them to push for this, but they didn’t - the topic never came up again. My advice for any parent going through this is don’t shut your child down, allow them to express them self safely, don’t over think it just go with the flow. Be present and open, listen, make them feel safe and supported. If you do this hopefully they won’t seek validation and support in dangerous ways and go down a rabbit hole they can’t get back out of. The internet is a dangerous place for kids who have no one to turn to. Don’t force them there!
I want to make it clear, if my child really was trans (I don’t know how you 100 percent know) it would be fine with me I’d love them any way, but I’d rather they weren’t. Not because I’m anti trans but what a truly difficult path to have. The world is not kind to these people. My daughter isn’t trans, they are ultimately autistic but they are also happy, secure and have parents they trust. They felt able to transition slowly back to being a girl with it being a non issue. It was done so subtly I barely noticed. They have kept their new name (it’s better than the one I chose anyway - it’s unisex their original was not). My child isn’t trans no, but they are also not typically female in societal way. They didn’t feel like they fit in this world once they hit puberty and I can well see how they thought they might be a boy. It’s not these kids fault or their parents, it is society as a whole. It was an easy answer for a child who felt out of place. It’s true they are autistic, makes sense doesn’t it. But when your child has to wait 5 years for the answers, because CAMH’s is such a shit show, can you blame these kids for trying to work it out on their own! I’ll say it again do not shut your child down, do not make a child who already feels displaced feel more isolated. Just tread carefully go with the flow, make it a non issue and hopefully it will work out for them. Good luck any parent navigating this journey it’s challenging at times but it doesn’t have to be.

Teachers had no guidance. Literally none. You've seen what happened to teachers who openly disagreed with transitioning students.

And yet, now they do the largest teaching union has told them to DISREGARD that guidance. Including link to DM article (there are many others in other papers), because it's not behind a pay wall:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12883253/Fury-schools-ignore-governments-trans-guidance.html

I suggest you read the Cass report.

Studies are coming through that show that social transitioning locks in transition. Particularly the circular nature of anxiety being caused by the focus on this by everyone meaning the child feels locked which increases the poor mental health which in turn feeds the comorbidities that might be feeding into the gender dissatisfaction.

I have several autistic children in my family and I am eternally grateful for everything I learned about child safeguarding and the GIDS from the FWR board because I wasn't seeing it anywhere else. There has been a huge amount of discussion about vulnerable children, including children with autism over there.

OP your post hits hard. I often wonder if I've "damaged the life of my child". My child ("registered male at birth") was gender non-conforming as soon as they could express an interest. (I already feel I have to defend myself here: I was completely nonchalant about this until at least the early years of primary school, so this wasn't me "forcing" anything, or disallowing anything. DC hasn't experienced trauma or abuse. DC is however neurodivergent).

DH and I have been caught between a rock and a hard place navigating our way through this. We've tried incredibly hard to hold a line, being very wary of the repercussions is social transitioning, but ultimately prioritising our relationship with DC.

By the age of about 11 DC had essentially "socially transitioned" at school, dressing in stereotypically more feminine clothes (with our "blessing") and with friends using female pronouns (to our concern). Ultimately we surrendered on this. Our hands were forced by external pressures, with DC requesting teachers to use female pronouns, and teachers in a well meaning way "pressuring" us to allow this. What we needed was back up, so that we parents didn't become the "bad guys" in a sea of well meaning but misguided validation.

Anyway, we have a good relationship with DC, but at what cost? The new messages of caution around social transitioning don't surprise me at all, but yes I wonder if we should have refused to "surrender" to the pressure from DC and those who "affirmed" them.

Dr Cass clarified on the radio today that these issues were different. On BBC 4 , I think, at 7.30 am.

I'm glad that we can now start to dismantle what I can only describe as mass gaslighting.

@MarshMarig0ld7364 the new clinics are going to have to take a holistic approach, so without all the campaigns including ones from a feminist angle this progress would not have been made.

My DD14 is autistic and I have had to battle with the gender ideologues. Constantly reminding her that it's ok to be non conforming and not adhering to stereotypes is ok, it doesn't make her a boy. She is now out the other side of this after puberty really settled in....JUST LIKE ALL THE EVIDENCE SAID SHE WOULD.

How could they discuss the effects when very little follow up had been done on children getting PB for a non physiological reason (eg precocious puberty). It’s only in the last couple of weeks that the Mayo Clinic has produced a pre-print of a study looking at the risk PB cause to boys.
What evidence that exists from the adult sphere is worrying (the women claiming harm from Lupron used for endometriosis as an example).
How could a child give informed consent to a treatment that was not physiologically necessary when the doctors weren’t collecting the data on the potential harms (see the GIDS evidence in the first Kiera Bell case) and where other non pharmacological treatments were available but weren’t always being offered.

I have friends who are 30/40 yo and trans. They were not growing up in the same times as my students now so there was no 'social locking' of their transition. There is so much trauma around their growing up and people not accepting who they are, Id go with that than someone who has seen a trans person on a TV once and made their opinion based on that.

@menohnopausal I really do feel for you and other parents caught between a rock and a hard place. The title of this post is rather too harsh, I think. So many parents had nowhere to seek help.

I think it is crucial that the topic now isn't silenced anywhere, especially on mainstream MN. Some people may feel it's been discussed far too much but it covers medical malpractice, especially in the crisis-ridden, under-resourced NHS (which we pay for), child protection and the protection of young adults to their mid-20s, before their brains, and perception of risk, are fully mature - our society's next generation.

The subject goes way further than gender ideology. Things learnt from what has gone horribly wrong here should help in terms of other areas, and hopefully shed light on woefully lacking services in child and YA mental health - the Cass Report gives ammunition for that change, another reason it needs to be shared widely.

We need to understand how an ideology has so quickly taken hold world-wide and has had life-changing implications for many. It's on a scale bigger than the Thalidomide scandal of the 1950s and 60s which resulted in babies being born with life-threatening conditions and birth defects. I'm of an age where I remember this happening, and my scientist mother could so easily have taken that drug but deliberately chose not to. We need to be able to question things now and must listen to each other so that when (sadly, I don't think this will be if) something like this happens again, we are much more aware, pick up the signs and act far sooner.

Seriously?

Can't say I have but I've seen plenty of others doing it.

Because that's where it belongs. Some people have boards hidden for genuine reasons so threads should be on the appropriate boards.

Then you don’t interact with the threads that directly discuss that very thing.

It is very easy to cherry pick threads that are not directly related to discussing mental health services and declare that they are the norm. Whereas, that is just you cherry picking.

Of course, most people discussing the impacts of gender identity fully support the improved provision of mental health care for children. It seems that you have a very entrenched viewpoint that seems fully related to your use of ‘anti-trans’ as a descriptor.

Nope. . This is a thread that affects children and parents, and has been hidden away for too long, so it can be her to get traffic.

Can I suggest that you scroll on past any thread that doesn’t suit your personal preference? If you choose to engage with a thread that you don’t want to, it says a great deal about your lack of impulse control. That is not an issue for MNHQ to deal with.

Scroll on past and be free!!!