NHS say ignore parents even if child is not Gillick competent

[Datun]

It looks like The Telegraph has access to a lot of the FOI results. This can't go on, surely.

NHS staff are being advised to ignore parents’ wishes if they conflict with those of a child who identifies as transgender - even if the child is not considered to have the understanding and intelligence to consent

The policy of Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust states: “Where appropriate the wishes of the parents must be considered, but in the case of young people their preference should prevail.”

Adolescents might prefer to spend most of their day time in mixed areas, but must have access to same gender sleeping area, treatment rooms and sanitary facilities.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/11/nhs-staff-advised-ignore-parents-wishes-children-self-declare/

That's so true Datun.

As witnessed in the last couple of years with several very distressing cases in the public eye, if parents and medics disagree over treatment it goes to court and a judge makes a decision in the best interests of the child.

In those very public cases the transcripts showed the lengths judges go to in order to respect parental views, feelings, responsibilities and choices.

Is it the case that law supports all this actively being put aside as soon as the magic word 'trans' is in play, or is this another case of policy being made up, against the law, which has in most cases been based on the advice and guidance of a political lobby.

is this another case of policy being made up, against the law, which has in most cases been based on the advice and guidance of a political lobby.

I'd like to know who advised Dame Christine Beasley when that <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091105195026/www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_098893.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2009 document was published.

How do we FOI this shit out of this?

Here
www.whatdotheyknow.com

You have to ask the right questions, though.

From the document linked by OldCrone

"Operating Framework 2009/10
The Operating Framework required PCTs to
work with provider units to publish, by the
end of March 2009, plans to deliver
substantial and meaningful reductions in the
number of patients who report that they
share sleeping or sanitary accommodation
with members of the opposite sex. This
supports the NHS commitment to providing
every patient with same-sex
accommodation, helping to safeguard their
privacy and dignity when they are often at
their most vulnerable. This means providing
a same-sex sleeping area, bathroom and
toilet facilities."

This article in the Times ought to make some people in the NHS stop and consider what they're doing:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nhs-forced-to-pay-1m-bill-for-jimmy-savile-sex-abuse-2xk26jx7s?shareToken=664e92d067b017bbb212d09f002db9b3

Shocking derisory compensation as it is for all those abused by Savile, presumably with 'trans' children there is clear evidence of NHS trusts setting aside safeguarding and deliberately breaching Gillick / Fraser guidelines alongside a complete abandonment of ethical mediacl practice. The potential for significant compensation for detransitioners grows massively by the by the day as all this is exposed.

The potential for significant compensation for detransitioners grows massively by the by the day as all this is exposed.

Young people who are detransitioning seem to be finding each other:
www.reddit.com/r/detrans/

Andrew Lansley is someone we need to ask questions.

Add in intentionally detaching the child from the family and parents, and setting precedents around removing parental responsibility and the right of professionals to put the parents aside if their views/choices are inconvenient.

That isn't supported in the Code of Practice (law for every agency working with children), where working with parents and respecting parental choice is key. It isn't supported in the family court either. Older children are not allowed to decide not to have contact with an abusive parent, they're not considered competent to foresee the long term consequences of the choice.

This is actively against standard UK legal practice in every other area involving children.

This, this, this. All of this.

Anyone recall the Mermaids training session that Michael Conroy attended where the trainer was talking about requiring non-teaching school staff to keep secrets (like social transition at school and name changes) from the parents? Excerpt:

You don’t want an accidental outing. And the sad thing is if it’s always the receptionist who’s doing it because even if the school gets training, they haven’t trained the TAs and other staff. It’s the admin staff and domestic staff, tutors who are coming in to do music or sport so now I say when I go into schools, I say ‘Will you please invite everyone’. Any award or certificate the they have achieved, please reissue them in their new name because they’ve earned them.

Hiding things from parents. The people with legal responsibility for a child that can only be taken away after court proceedings.

Heavens, R0, those desister stories on reddit are heartbreaking. The one whose doctor repeatedly lied to them... I don't have words. The lawsuits in the US can't be long in coming. Maybe that will help bring people to their senses.

These are children for heaven's sake!
Adults are supposed to protect them and that sometimes means stopping them from doing things they want to do because it's not in their best interests!
I despair for these children who are so badly being let down.

Andrew Lansley is someone we need to ask questions.

YY absolutely this ^^

for starter questions see:
twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1083812243756773376

as well his key involvement in the conflation of sex and gender within the NHS, there was also, I think, interesting discussion about his position in the 2004 GRA debate.
(There's a relevent thread somewhere)

Lots of Lansley reforms were dumped earlier this week with May's big NHS announcement.

In many respects his vision for the NHS is dated and discredited.

Followed some links. Quite upsetting. mikstapes.tumblr.com/post/176449122332/we-really-have-harmed-a-whole-generation-of-trans (link "Health impact of chest binding..." won't let me link here).
Apparently participants reported improved mental health including feeling safer. Feeling safer.

Breasts make you unsafe. FFS

I should imagine a large proportion of all girls feel some trepidation at the growth of their breasts. Masculine girls feel dysphoric. Other girls feel that it's the end of an era, and all start receiving unwanted sexual attention.
This study was horrendous to read for me. It's a Tumblr link from the Reddit detrans subreddit.

Sorry if it's off topic, I just feel really angry that young girls are going through this. Nobody is looking out for them.

A young butch exposing her "people pleasing" conditioning in a heartbreaking way www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/aeeuix/how_do_i_come_out_as_cis_to_my_doctor_gender/
Bed time for me, I think. I can't read much more of this.
18 is bad enough. We absolutely definitely should never allow transition prior to adulthood...

I'd be up for some FOIing. Is there any chance of taking advantage of all the knowledge gathered here and putting a decent set of questions together on this thread?

Hang on - so a child of, say, 11 could be forced to have a vaccination because they are not deemed to be Gillick competent to refuse it when their parents are adamant that they should have it, but the same child could insist on receiving puberty blockers against their parents' wishes and be prescribed them under the NHS guidance doc?

but who else gets to pick these things anyway?

Light bulb moment for me! Do TRAs think that because part of "cisthet" privilege is passing, it means that we are all content with our appearance? Because we are physically how we wish to be? Which of course is complete tosh, but perhaps explains the rage that some TRAs direct at us - we are how we are without having to even try

The policy statement about Gillick Competence & parental wishes is specifically with regards NHS single-sex accomodation eg wards , showers etc.

Not about medical interventions.

R0wantrees it appears that way, yes. But the AHW Medium pieces also appear to show that the NHS carefully built a data structure that allowed for sex and gender to be kept separate, with sex being a required data field, and that has been for nothing too.
So although this might specifically refer to accommodation it will be used in an overreaching way by some trailblazer. Of that I have very little doubt.

At the risk of sounding churlish, can I please direct people to the original Medium articles on this.
The story broke there, in October, to very little fanfare. Shared on twitter, here on Mumsnet, and no journalists were interested at that time.

The writer of those original Medium articles has included a lot of data, and far more information than the Telegraph articles today and yesterday.

She's unpaid. She writes and investigates for free.
She's a mumsnetter.

Barracker ^^ YY I keep going back to her articles wondering why the hell the MSM hasn't picked up on this, it's all there in black and white. I'm hoping that someone is working on an in-depth story but I'm not holding my breath.

Is the Christine Burns who wrote the NHS Trans guide the same CB who thinks that children can make informed decisions about 'transitioning' because, you know, in some countries 12 yo children can fight in wars (see link)?
FFS, child soldiers are not consenting, they are recruited, brainwashed and coerced by adults.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3398737-We-re-Still-Here-Conference-8th-September-A-report-from-the-inside

The wording of any FOI needs to be precise and predictive of sly ways to dodge the question you really want to ask. It really is an art. Get it right and you nail the fuckers.

perhaps explains the rage that some TRAs direct at us - we are how we are without having to even try
Yes, I've seen that rage. I think perhaps a natal male, in the depths of either dysphoria or AGP, might be quite happy to have any natal female body instead of their own and we've already seen that FTMs are willing to accept simply looking less female (as phalloplasty and metoidioplasty results are aesthetically poor) so we could assume some FTMs would again accept any natal male body instead of their own.
So if we are less than delighted with our bodies aesthetically or functionally, we should just be grateful that body is the right sex.
I understand their logic, but they downplay other people's body issues quite coldly. And my point was that nobody else gets to tailor their puberty to ensure the most attractive adult result. We get what we've been given.
Logically, the rest of the population could ask for surgery or hormones or supplements from the NHS to improve their self-esteem also. I've looked at the NHS page for rhinoplasty as an example, and it clearly states it isn't available unless you can't breathe. So for medical not cosmetic reasons.
Again taken to a logical end, if there were online forums devoted to rhinoplasty, where posters coached each other on what to say to trigger the most sympathy (claiming suicidal thoughts perhaps) then we might see an increase in nose jobs.
However, a nose job is much less intrusive, far fewer risks in terms of surgery, far fewer complications, no requirement for follow up surgery in many cases (GRS has a high rate of revisions needed) and doesn't require long term endocrinology support and lifelong hormone prescription.
So from a purely financial point of view, it would be cheaper to meet the wishes of people in the UK who didn't like their nose than who are trans and intend full surgical transition.
Of course, there are absolutely no way the NHS would fund large scale rhinoplasty roll outs to give us all cute button notes (or whatever).

FlyingOink
Yes I know & agree , as with much done by TRAs, there is a nudging, use of precedents etc.

I think though its worth being clear about what this article is about and the specific policy.

Its an indefensible policy. There needs a huge amount of light shone onto it and the circumstances which led to it being written.

Not just the NHS, but more so the TransRights lobbyists and politicians who pushed this through.