Newsnight Tonight - Tavistock Clinic concerns

[rogdmum]

On at 22:45

Tweet: twitter.com/bbcnewsnight/status/1273702696076410882?s=21

Says:

TONIGHT: #Newsnight has seen evidence that staff at England's only children’s NHS gender clinic say their concerns over the care provided were ‘shut down’.

Clinicians reported worries that some patients were referred onto a gender transitioning pathway too quickly.

22:45

"Child like bodies from.blockers on those at the age of consent. Do the math"

Yes. Deeply creepy.

It is striking that there are no journalists commenting on this despite there being a huge number who normally want to chip in on trans issues. Where is OJ and the guy from pink news.

This shows that you can’t dismiss these allegations they do need to be taken seriously.

Go back a few years and even Whittle is on record telling politicians that the majority of these kids are probably grappling with sexuality.
What the hell happened?

Michael Biggs 2019 article demonstrates Whittle's involvement with pressure on NHS to suppress puberty in children identified as transgender

July 2019 Professor Michael Biggs (Oxford)
'The Tavistock’s Experiment with Puberty Blockers'
(extract)
"The Dutch protocol became well known in Britain before the first scientific article was published. A television documentary showed girls who wished to be boys travelling to meet their peers in the Netherlands, who were taking GnRHa as young as 13 (Channel 4 1996). This inspired Stephen Whittle—who led the transgender campaigning organization Press for Change—to argue for a legal right to access “pubertal suppression”; doctors who failed to provide drugs could be vulnerable to litigation (Downs and Whittle 2000; Wren 2000: 224).
This argument was first advanced at a conference at Oxford in 1998, whose keynote speaker was the head of the Amsterdam Gender Clinic. There was little movement, however, over the next few years. Guidelines issued by the British Society for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes (BSPED) in 2005 still insisted that children had to reach full sexual development (known as Tanner Stage 5)—around the age of 15—before being prescribed GnRHa drugs. A crucial role was played by organizations that campaign for the transgendering of children: the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) and Mermaids.

GIRES organized a symposium in London in 2005 to develop “guidelines for endocrinological intervention”. Additional funding came from Mermaids, two medical charities—Nuffield Foundation and King’s Fund—and the Servite Sisters Charitable Trust Fund. This brought together the creators of the Dutch protocol, American clinicians like Norman Spack in Boston, and key British figures such as Domenico Di Ceglie, the Director of GIDS, and Polly Carmichael and Russell Viner, both at Great Ormond Street Hospital. (The latter two would lead the 2011 experiment.) continues
users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/Biggs_ExperimentPubertyBlockers.pdf

Thank you R0.
Basically saying one thing and doing another. Sounds familiar.

I posted the report onto my Facebook and a friend who's a highly intelligent lesbian in her 30s replied with a link to Mermaids and said the report was 'highly misleading'. I am so tired.

I can't imagine so many people dismissing out of hand the revelation of serious Safeguarding failures in any other NHS paediatric service.

said the report was 'highly misleading'.

She doesn't sound particularly intelligent to me. She seems unable to self-reflect on her blind faith in supporting a cause no matter the consequences. And would rather dig her heels in than pause for thought to realise that a respected investigative news programme would have made sure they had sufficient evidence before publicising such a damning report.

Genuine intelligence involves the willingness to admit you might be wrong. It involves ensuring your positions on issues are based on evidence, not feelings, and the humility to change those positions as new evidence emerges to indicate that there might be problems with certain approaches.

@ValancyRedfern

I posted the report onto my Facebook and a friend who's a highly intelligent lesbian in her 30s replied with a link to Mermaids and said the report was 'highly misleading'. I am so tired.

If someone told me that, I'd want more details about what was misleading and why.

Although providing a link to Mermaids implies that she hasn't thought about any of this herself and is just repeating what someone has told her, so she's unlikely to have any answers.

The concerns of senior NHS staff at The Tavistock have been on record for soe time:

Wed 04-Sep-19 OP QuoteBiologyIsReal wrote,

"Transgender children medically treated risk serious damage - psychiatrist

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/04/transgender-children-medically-treated-risk-serious-irreversible/

Page 12 of print version. Paraphrase for those who can't access online version.

Dr David Bell, consultant psychiatrist at Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, speaking in a personal capacity in a foreword to a book soon to be published "Transgender children and Young People" said transgender children who undergo medical or surgical treatments risk "serious and irreversible damage".

He accused lobbying groups of silencing debate.

He is a former president of the British Psychoanalytic Society and works in the adult department of the Tavistock Centre where he directs a specialist centre for serious or enduring complex disorders.

He said his involvement in the area of transgender children was prompted by "the sudden exponential growth" of youngsters who "declare themselves to be in the wrong body". There was pressure for such declarations to be immediately accepted without "sufficient investigation for its basis."

He said gender dysphoria was a highly complex problem with many causal pathways:despite this, gender services "tend towards damaging simplification".

"Many services have championed the use of medical and surgical intervention with nowhere near sufficient attention to the serious and irreversible damage this can cause and with very disturbingly superficial attitudes to the issue of consent in children."

He raised concern about those who "refuse to accept the dominant ideological position are often accused of transphobia and had a chilling effect on public debate. This silencing had been remarkably successful, he said, resulting in a simplification of a very complex problem that needed to be understood at both individual and sociocultural levels.

The book, due to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, is a collection of essays by clinicians, psychologists and sociologists."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3683312-Transgender-children-medically-treated-risk-serious-damage-psychiatrist

Times February 16th 2019
'Staff at trans clinic fear damage to children as activists pile on pressure'
(extract)

"The true histories of “highly disturbed or complex” child patients were not properly explored by Gids clinicians struggling with “huge and unmanageable caseloads” and afraid of being accused of transphobia if they questioned the “rehearsed” surface presentation. The report says the concerns voiced by staff are shared by Sonia Appleby, who is in charge of safeguarding at the trust." (continues)

archive.fo/vfg2Z

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3509817-Times-16-2-1-9-Staff-at-trans-clinic-fear-damage-to-children

Sun 17-Feb-19 OP Bowlofbabelfish wrote,
"Tavistock article in the DM
Fairly damning.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6713887/NHS-transgender-clinic-warns-damage-young-patients.html

The report, made by former staff governor David Bell, said some children 'take up a trans identity as a solution' to 'multiple problems such as historic child abuse in the family, bereavement, homophobia, and a very significant incidence of autism spectrum disorder'."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3510367-Tavistock-article-in-the-DM

Quillette
January 17, 2020
'Why I Resigned from Tavistock: Trans-Identified Children Need Therapy, Not Just ‘Affirmation’ and Drugs'
written by Marcus Evans
(extract)
My concerns in this field became more acute in Spring, 2018, after I retired from active work as a therapist and joined the Board of Governors of The Tavistock and Portman NHS, which hosts the National Health Service’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the aforementioned Tavistock Clinic—a public facility available to everyone in the UK. Almost as soon as I’d joined, I was made aware of the growing controversy over GIDS. A letter had come in from a group of parents complaining that their children had been fast-tracked through GIDS without any serious psychological evaluation. The author of the letter, a mother representing a group of parents, wrote to me in my role as governor, and I replied, circulating copies of that reply to other governors.

Around the same time, Dr. David Bell, a senior consultant at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust and a Tavistock governor, was approached by 10 GIDS staff members (amounting to about one-fifth of the London-based service) who had grave ethical concerns similar to those expressed in the parents’ letter—including inadequate clinical assessments, patients being pushed through for early medical interventions, and GIDS’ failure to stand up to pressure from trans activists. As I discovered, this was not the first time such concerns had been raised. Thirteen years previously, psychotherapist Susan Evans (who, full disclosure, is my wife) had raised her own concerns about the thoroughness of the assessment process by some staff.

As a governor of the Tavistock Trust, I personally witnessed attempts by the Trust’s management to dismiss or undermine both Dr. Bell’s report, which he submitted in late 2018, and the letter from parents. This included accusing Dr. Bell of fictionalizing the case studies he described, questioning his credentials, withholding his report from certain governors, and preventing him from attending a meeting to discuss the Medical Director’s response to his report.

I have learned, through long experience with managing clinical areas in the National Health Service, that such efforts to dismiss or discredit serious concerns about a service or clinical approach typically are driven by those seeking to evade accountability and shield their methods from criticism. Such a defensive, self-serving approach would be dangerous and objectionable in any NHS context. It was particularly worrying in the context of a service that treats vulnerable young people in the midst of life-changing, often irreversible decisions that have unknown medical consequences. And so in 2019, I resigned from the Tavistock board of governors, in protest over the Trust’s failure to address the serious concerns that Dr. Bell and parents had raised." (continues)
quillette.com/2020/01/17/why-i-resigned-from-tavistock-trans-identified-children-need-therapy-not-just-affirmation-and-drugs/

I've not read the full thread, but skimmed and didn't see this FOI request had been posted by someone on Twitter, apparently as a devastating takedown of the claim that 37 people had left the Tavistock since 2016.

(spoiler - actually 44 people have left)

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/staff_resignations

• s/b a colon between 'this' and 'FOI'.

I’m both relieved and horrified at the same time. Would love those resigners to come together in a documentary and share what they know.

Where is OJ and the guy from pink news

The possibility that just one child has been physically committed to a lifetime of sexual dysfunction, infertility and problems relating to puberty blockers just because her family is homophobic should invite, at the very least, a comment of concern. The fact that it’s likely to be multitudes of children who have been permanently physically destroyed as a result of such homophobia and yet they say nothing, is a scandal.

Right side of history my arse, Owen. We won’t forget you fucking prick.

Scrimpshaw - The same person who did this FOI request, did another FOI into what sort of treatment young people were receiving. I.e. psychological only, puberty blockers, cross hormones etc.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/patient_numbers_and_outcomes_at#incoming-1546650

It was really interesting request and would have given clarity to all.

The answer they got is that the information is stored in individual files and therefore it would be time consuming to provide this.

But that is ridiculous, surely they must collect statistics on what treatment they give to children. How do they measure outcomes? It seems crazy.

I dont actually think they could care.less about children with gender dysphoria. I support a local womans refuge, I would be gutted if it was announced that there had been whistleblowing about safeguarding, but I would be saying loudly what's going on here, there needs to be a.proper investigation etc etc, I wouldn't be trying to minimise it because I care about the people who use the service.

But that is ridiculous, surely they must collect statistics on what treatment they give to children. How do they measure outcomes? It seems crazy.

The same person also made a request to the Leeds GIDS who have at least supplied the information.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/prescribing_hormones_and_puberty

The Tavistock answers every request about this with an excuse that (a) they don't prescribe hormone blockers and (b) their records are all in individual files and the cost of collating the data would exceed the FOI cost limit.

They put all their FOI responses here:
tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/about-us/contact-us/freedom-of-information/foi-disclosure-log/

And this is the same worldwide. Clinics are unable to, or not willing to disclose how many children are on puberty blockers and how many have continued to cross sex hormones and what has happened to them in their 20s. Only now, there is the proposal to study this longitudinally.

marginalised, murdered and committing suicide.

Blimey.

I am impressed by the principled stance that Dr David Bell and Marcus Evans have taken over this issue.

I am left wondering how they felt about their many colleagues, including people in positions of significant influence, at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust who promote bizarre conspiracy theories about satanic ritual abuse and dissociative identity disorder?

To anyone with even basic cognitive skills it is easy to see how theories regarding the multiple selves of DID and the multiple genders and non-binary / gender fluid selves of the transgender movement have evolved alongside each other and are even promoted by the same actors.

Given that many of these controversial people are also highly active and influential in the various professional psychotherapy and psychology members associaitons I wonder whether it is difficult for David Bell and Marcus Evans to opine further on this issue?

marginalised, murdered and committing suicide at a fantastic rate

Meanwhile, in the real world.

tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/documents/1882/FOI_19-20375_GIDS_suicide_rate_2018-19__2019-20.pdf

This is worse than thought.

So clinics around the world are prescribing medication to children, based a belief, without any data driven objective measuring or analysis.

This really is a scandal waiting to happen and the tax payer, most who have no idea that this is going on, will need to pick up the bill.

The terrible thing is that vulnerable children will be effected the most.

I haven't managed to read the whole thread so apologies if I'm crashing on and saying something that has been covered but the thing that has shocked me in all this is Polly Carmichael. She's a psychologist. I don't know why but I had assumed she was a medical doctor.

I have great respect for psychologists - I think the really good ones are highly educated and compassionate and usually extremely ethical. I respect the training they've undergone. I also don't think that a child should embark on taking life-changing and potentially dangerous medication simply because a psychologist's view is that it's in their best interests, whatever the medical condition is, largely. The Tavistock has both psychiatrists and other medical doctors making these decisions overall no? Please tell me they do. Surely, if not, a psychologist could work with a young person, feel compassion for them being very convinced they've been born in the wrong body and recommend they take puberty blockers based on nothing more than the child's feelings. Feelings change. Feelings can be wrong.

I was just watching Leo on one of the BBC player programmes and aged 16 he is being filmed seeing Polly. Leo talks a lot about how great the Tavistock is and how they have been supportive of the fact he is struggling with having a boy's brain in a girl's body. He's a great kid but has clearly not once come up against someone saying 'we want to support you with these very difficult feelings but it's actually impossible to have been born with the 'wrong brain.''

Does legislation around safeguarding children need updating? To make it illegal to block or withhold reporting safeguarding concerns?