Newsnight now

[PaleBlueMoonlight]

Now

Saw this on twitter and it explains it better than me as I heard it right at the end of the programme and thought it was a shame that there was no thime to talk about it and an explanation from that doctor

Quite an admission at the end, though, that GIDS have had feedback that’s making them raise the age at which puberty blockers are offered… after they decided to offer them to 9-10yr olds in 2014 with no research in support. Perhaps the HRA review nudged them into this?

Don't forget also that EM has two young sons. She may be approaching this as many of us here, that she is concerned someone someday will turn around to one of her kids and say that some aspect of their personality that is even in the slightest bit GNC means they need permanent surgery and life-long medication with unknown side effects.

As the mother of two DSes who have variously done football and ballet, musical theatre and science, love dressing up as everything from Moana to Batman, play with any kind of toy, dress in any kind of clothes and in any colour, I am afraid of this too.

ECT is still used. Treatment of last resort, poorly understood but works for some people.

One would hope in ten years time, we'll be saying precisely this about, well, something else. Eh, Corn, eh?

Quite an admission at the end, though, that GIDS have had feedback that’s making them raise the age at which puberty blockers are offered… after they decided to offer them to 9-10yr olds in 2014 with no research in support. Perhaps the HRA review nudged them into this?

I think it must have done. After all, we already know HRA told them to stop describing puberty blockers as a "pause" when they're nothing of the kind.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3721138-HRA-GIDS-admit-purpose-of-blockers-is-to-progress-to-cross-sex-hormones

There are interim clinical guidelines about treatment of autistic adolescents with co-morbid gender dysphoria - they are on the National Autistic Society's website.

I've seen no evidence of those being followed either.

The fact is Gender Identity Clinics are being "informed by public consultation" (presumably that doesn't include parents, only transgender people and the likes of Mermaids). and not by clinical guidelines.

The wealth of judgement and experience the Tavi spokeswomen referred to sounds very much like an echo chamber to me.

If anybody would like to donate Debbie has a crowd funder here. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/support-debbie-harries

This is great. A year ago there'd have been absolutely no chance of an interview like this.

So, what's happening at the BBC? My feeling (not entirely based on guesswork) is that it's the same as the Guardian. It has a very strong, very vocal group of TRAs on its staff who have been telling the BBC that this is a settled debate, anyone who disagrees with all the TRA demands is a bigot. But there is also a group of persistent, gender-critical women who have been pushing back. It is finally dawning on the BBC - possibly as a result of the numerous complaints made by people like us - that actually there is a debate, and it's not a done deal.

Royal you mean they’ve finally realised it might be a good idea to start hedging their bets?

the mermaids person had really weird body language at the very end of the interview. it was like a moment where they went 'did i say the right thing there?' it was odd

She certainly looked like someone who didn't believe in what she was saying.

"We mustn't use these experiences to suggest that everybody is being dealt with in a way that suggests that they're being pressured or made into being trans. That's incorrect. You can't make someone be trans"

and later

"What's really, really important is to ensure that this experience isn't used to pressure other people. It shouldn't be used to tell those who are trans, that those who are gender diverse that they are wrong or that they are different.
It is about creating a system that makes everybody feel validated"

So, Mermaids are in essence saying that it's really important to not make people pause and really deeply consider whether making irreversible changes to their (or their children's) bodies is in their best interests? have I got that right?

Vic Derbyshire hasn't done much special sad voicing of late either. I wonder if that's significant?

Yes. And if I can hazard a guess as to the slightly unconvincing nature of the Mermaids rep - looked like a woman to me, but knowing the way Mermaids filters normal things like short hair etc. she may well have been a transman (for clarity for moderation purposes, it wasn't made clear, hence my vagueness), and she is being asked to brush away detransitioners, people who have been on a journey she might be on, and that might be quite disconcerting.

I've just realised that I referred to the Mermaids rep as 'she' because that was my assumption.

Apologies if I have misgendered.

The lack of interest from the Tavistock person for any sort of research into what might play into a transitioned person deciding to detransition was notable.

Sterilisation of women who decide they don’t want to conceive- perhaps ever, perhaps again - is often turned down because they may change their mind and it’s an expensive procedure but to sterilise and to try to undo a sterilisation. Why isn’t there the same fiscal scrutiny of transition treatments if nothing else?

It’s really hard to take a balanced view when all transitioning people are treated as if there is one reason - that they were born into the wrong body. Maybe for some, this does absolutely fit with their feelings but how do we know without research? It does feel so much more nuanced.

I can’t help feeling there will be a huge increase in evidence of people who regret transition. Why aren’t the Tavistock keeping tabs on this? Essential research. The younger a person was when they transitioned, the more responsibility the Tavistock and their type will need to take if it proves to have been the wrong thing.

It’s a massive thing to have your fertility removed, especially before you have reached the age when so many change their mind about not having children.

I know that Thomasin, a detransitioner, pictured holding the lesbian banner at the march with Charlie, found the adult GIDs service to be pretty lax and affirmative. She was in both and the difference was quite stark.

She will be speaking at the Manchester detrans event. And I think spoke at the WPUK Leeds event. She describes social media being a huge influence on her thoughts that she was trans - to answer the woman from the GIDs service's question about why such a big increase in referrals.^^

If I were any of these people I would be waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying about the day this blows up to be a massive scandal - the select committee hearings, the tribunals, the court cases... if this is their rationale for their treatment strategy they are going to be on a very sticky wicket when this reaches national scandal level.

If the adult services are "pretty lax and affirmative" then they are in breach of NHS clinical guidelines.

Who is challenging that?

The big problem is that people like me, whose DD is affected, is that I cannot go public. I can't risk challenging the clinic directly or even getting my MP involved.

That's why Charlie Evans, and others like her, are so important.

Hoping all those complacent clinicians are all in a cold sweat and have as many sleepless nights as I have had over the past few years.

As a professional, the best defence is usually the truth. So I think the Tavistock doctor played a poor hand well by just admitting that "we don't know" and that it's all based on individual experience of the medics there.

It will be much harder now for anyone to refuse funding for researching detransition won't it?

Small 💐

So sorry @smallblanket.

Thanks for your wishes.

The research could start with actually following up after patients are discharged, which GIDS admit they don't do, so I don't suppose the adult clinics do either.

The Tavi spokesperson said de-transitioners are a tiny minority, but she doesn't know that.

So instead of saying to patients "the vast majority of the people we see are very satisfied with their treatment" , they could say "we do know that some people regret their treatment, and we currently have no idea how many, so irreversible treatments should be a last resort".

And family doctors need to step up to the mark and express their doubts too, instead of sending kids down a train track by immediately offering to change an 18 year old's medical record to state "m" instead of "f" , long before an appointment with a gender clinic. I am also looking at schools, colleges, all of whom are complicit in swallowing ideology whole without any critical thought.

Yes Smallblanket

I've just realised that I referred to the Mermaids rep as 'she' because that was my assumption.

They is a non binary person who demands they/them pronouns.

twitter.com/enbylawyer?lang=en

twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1199104370446520320

The shift in numbers really needs research. It does coincide with the rise of youtube etc, but also with the rise of pornography. The ways in which to be a girl or women seem frighteningly narrow compared to my cohort at my (all girls) school. I would guess that men who wanted to be feminine found the social strictures so difficult that identifying as a women felt like the way to some level of freedom. That seems to be happening with girls now instead. There is also the autism factor. How any doctor can think it is ethical to put an autistic child on a lifelong medical pathway, when the issue is partly their literal interpretation of social gender mores, is beyond me.
I cried watching Debbie, when she talked about having a mutilated body, and no hair.

I did say to myself when watching “I bet the Mermaids person is NB.”

Yes small

And why are doctors referring 3 and 4 year olds to the clinic !?