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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Legal firms preparing to sue for "Transgender Treatment Claims"

98 replies

AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken · 26/09/2020 23:55

I think this is a huge development

www.attwatersjamesonhill.co.uk/medical-negligence/transgender-treatment/

OP posts:
Whatwouldscullydo · 27/09/2020 11:06

Unfortunately I think it is still too early to start using the past tense

Honestly i don't think these lawyers have any idea what they are about to get themselves into..

I hope they are in it for the long haul and look under every rock.

rogdmum · 27/09/2020 11:09

The other thing about Gillick is that the role of influence plays a part. I struggle to understand how this is not a major role when affirmation is pushed by orgs like Mermaids and (in some cases) schools, GPs, CAHMS etc as well as endless YouTube videos by young transitioners. This all leads to a push to physically interventions.

wellbehavedwomen · 27/09/2020 11:10

When you are being told "happy son Vs dead daughter" rational decisions possibly go out the window. It was (is?) sold as a fait accompli that if the child wasn't allowed to transition they would kill themselves, must be very difficult to resist under tat level of pressure - especially when the so called experts are telling you this.

When you have a desperately unhappy child, you are frantic for experts to advise you on how to make them better, happier, able to cope. The terror of losing a child to suicide is unspeakable - sadly, it's something many parents with autistic kids know all too well already. The parent is therefore incredibly vulnerable to being sold a narrative that X will be a magic cure, and when the child is equally emphatic, of course you go with that. And if a parent has gone down the full intervention route, they're going to have a huge emotional cost to any backpedal.

People go nuts over whether other people use purees or baby led weaning, when the choice isn't their own - we've all seen those threads when in those stages, ourselves. The fear of not having parenting validated comes, I think, from the fear of failing or harming your child. My heart absolutely goes out to parents dealing with this one and trying to do the very best for their kids. They, in many cases, have been horribly failed as well, I think. Just not as badly as the parents who were kept out of the picture completely until they found their kids had already been socially transitioned at school with blind affirmation - no watchful waiting, no considered approach at all.

Any movement that advises parents be kept out of the loop unless guaranteed to be cheerleaders is suspect. No reasoned, rational position needs good, loving parents to be kept completely in the dark, lest they argue against it.

Aesopfable · 27/09/2020 11:13

Generally you have 3 years from the date you are aware of injury to bring a claim in the uk. There are a few exceptions the main one in this situation being for children the three years doesn’t start until you turn 18 - so you have until you are 21 to start a claim. I think there may be exceptions for ‘mental disability‘ (which has strict criteria). As far as puberty blockers are concerned - I wonder if that might start to count from when they made changes to their website? That would be an important driving force for them making that change.

highame · 27/09/2020 11:30

My mistake on the 6 years but it is different for children. In the case of children, the 3-year limit doesn’t start to apply until their 18th birthday. This will be very helpful in the case of trans kids.

persistentwoman · 27/09/2020 11:41

@wellbehavedwomen

When you are being told "happy son Vs dead daughter" rational decisions possibly go out the window. It was (is?) sold as a fait accompli that if the child wasn't allowed to transition they would kill themselves, must be very difficult to resist under tat level of pressure - especially when the so called experts are telling you this.

When you have a desperately unhappy child, you are frantic for experts to advise you on how to make them better, happier, able to cope. The terror of losing a child to suicide is unspeakable - sadly, it's something many parents with autistic kids know all too well already. The parent is therefore incredibly vulnerable to being sold a narrative that X will be a magic cure, and when the child is equally emphatic, of course you go with that. And if a parent has gone down the full intervention route, they're going to have a huge emotional cost to any backpedal.

People go nuts over whether other people use purees or baby led weaning, when the choice isn't their own - we've all seen those threads when in those stages, ourselves. The fear of not having parenting validated comes, I think, from the fear of failing or harming your child. My heart absolutely goes out to parents dealing with this one and trying to do the very best for their kids. They, in many cases, have been horribly failed as well, I think. Just not as badly as the parents who were kept out of the picture completely until they found their kids had already been socially transitioned at school with blind affirmation - no watchful waiting, no considered approach at all.

Any movement that advises parents be kept out of the loop unless guaranteed to be cheerleaders is suspect. No reasoned, rational position needs good, loving parents to be kept completely in the dark, lest they argue against it.

THIS.
FannyCann · 27/09/2020 11:48

One of the problems with claims relating to puberty blockers, I would have thought, is that many of the consequences are not going to be apparent for some time yet. Things like increased osteoporosis - I know this has affected some people quite early on but I would have thought there will be a substantial range to the time scale?

Also the issue is complicated by the fact that use of puberty blockers invariably sets a child on a pathway, involving cross sex hormones etc.
So harm is not necessarily clearly attributable to the puberty blockers alone?

Just musing here and happy to be corrected.

NewlyGranny · 27/09/2020 12:00

Good to know that children now in their teens - or younger - will have until 21 to consider their outcome and whether they have sustained damage. Not so good for the taxpayer if the claims are against the NHS, but decisions were made and accountability must be accepted.

I hope there are some consequences, too, for the surgeons who have been removing healthy body parts from young bodies.

Double mastectomies in particular, performed on girls and young women who will never breastfeed a baby and don't understand what they are throwing away just break my heart.

ChattyLion · 27/09/2020 12:05

I’d be interested to know what the time limit is around actions revolving around consent or the inevitable lack of it.

ChattyLion · 27/09/2020 14:57

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Boomboomboomboom · 27/09/2020 18:26

I know for a fact, that at least until mid 2019 an NHS Tavistock clinic based in London did not, apparently, have anyone capable of carrying out a capacity assessment on their patient who was pursuing life changing trans treatment.

They wrote a letter confirming that fact.

I was absolutely flabbergasted as the patient had a medical history, which if there was any joined up thinking (and there was not - only a here and now affirmative approach), should have made them stop to get the appropriate assessments, you know, just to be sure.

I cannot say any more than that and thought about whistleblowing at the time but let's face it, March 2019 is not the same questioning climate we have have now.

persistentwoman · 27/09/2020 18:28

What an informative post ChattyLion. Thank you.

AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken · 27/09/2020 19:47

Also think it’s very important that legal culpability in such cases does not sit solely with with the NHS and private medical professionals who signed the prescriptions but also with everyone else charged with maintaining a safe environment for patients*

Oh gosh, absolutely! There's sadly going to be nurses and doctors who have been forced through bureaucracy and threat to their careers to comply who will be hauled in front of boards and juries. This goes much higher up. I hope the law suits reflect that.

OP posts:
PearPickingPorky · 27/09/2020 21:11

@highame

this isn't the case for crime in the UK, but I'd be interested to know if there's a statute of limitations for civil claims. Yes there is Lysistrata and I think it's 6 years if it were something like negligence which I think this would come under
Not sure if someone else has already picked up on this, but it's 3 years for injury claims (6 years for property).

There are exceptions to the 3 years in the Limitations Act though, for example with asbestos-related cancers, that time-bar is 3 years from when the disease manifests itself, not 3 years from the initial exposure (so someone exposed at work in 1970 when they were 20 might not develop cancer until now, but they can still claim, just has to be within 3 years of the disease being diagnosed (assuming causation checks out).

The rules of Limitation can also be set aside if the issue of causation has only recently been established. So someone might have developed asbestos-related cancer but at the time didn't know the asbestos caused it (or where the asbestos was). Or the industry didn't know. Once that information is established, they can then take legal action even 9f they were diagnosed more than 3 years ago (or their family can if they are already deceased).

How this will relate to the victims of the Tavi will be interesting. I think they would have a good case to say that it shouldn't necessarily be 3 years from the treatment that their action is statute-barred. I hope so, anyway.

PearPickingPorky · 28/09/2020 16:03

Blocky McBlockface QC still tweeting about "reversible" puberty blockers...

SerenityNowwwww · 28/09/2020 16:10

He is a silly man.

zafferana · 28/09/2020 16:20

I'm willing to bet that there will be many cases of cancer too that trans people will be claiming for in future decades. It surely can't be good for one sex to pump themselves full of the other sex's hormones.

SerenityNowwwww · 28/09/2020 16:27

Scott Newgent went through the catalogue of prospective health issues... a shortened lifespan was one of them. I know people smoke but who signs up for a shorter life?

ShagMeRiggins · 28/09/2020 16:31

TRAs wanted to remove any notion of mental illness around transgenderism

Yes. Then they shouldn’t have played the suicide card.

highame · 28/09/2020 16:37

Pear yes 3 years, I did correct myself up thread. My other point was that for young people, the three years doesn't start until the 18th Birthday.

hoodathunkit · 29/09/2020 08:11

Generally you have 3 years from the date you are aware of injury to bring a claim in the uk. There are a few exceptions the main one in this situation being for children the three years doesn’t start until you turn 18 - so you have until you are 21 to start a claim. I think there may be exceptions for ‘mental disability‘ (which has strict criteria).

Personally I believe that we need legislative change in this area.

There is no statute of limitations on child sexual abuse and we need a similar situation with regard to the abuse of vulnerable adults by professionals in positions of authority.

When cults and mental health professionals abuse vulnerable adults it can take many years and sometimes decades for the victim to find their feet and even consider legal proceedings.

Anyone abused by a mental health professional is extremely unlikely to be able to gain the necessary support to make a complaint within the legal window.

This issue can be further complicated by the fact that some lawyers and charities that exist ostensibly to help victims of mental health abuses, are themselves compromised or even operated by the same abusive networks that create the problems in the first place.

There needs to be legislative change in this area to prevent further abuses.

2Rebecca · 29/09/2020 09:18

Agree re lawyers going after any clinicians who didn't fully assess people eg giving out medication online without ever having met the person or being able to examine them, anyone giving out puberty blockers just for the purpose of transitioning a young person, not fully counselling someone including discussing why they can't achieve what they want in life without changing their appearance and body, exploring sexual stereotypes.
Someone prescribing oestrogen to a transwoman years later on a consultant's recommendation should not be able to be sued

NewlyGranny · 29/09/2020 09:20

As for the whole Gillick competence justification, I think we will come to understand that it should never have applied to the use of puberty blocking drugs nor medical/surgical transitions. Gillick was designed on response to situations where a young person was at risk of coming to harm for lack of parental or legal consent and was intended to prevent that harm occurring. It seems that Gillick had been misapplied instead to allow potential physical harm in an attempt to prevent a potential mental or physical harm (suicide ideation or enactment) that is largely concocted and backed only with very shaky and limited data from a tiny, self-selected study producing frightening results that have not been replicated by larger scale better constructed surveys.

Basically, it starts to look as if the lobby group/charities waved the suicide shroud to justify their continued existence, growth and funding. I suspect that is where the truth lies and what the verdict of history will be.

I can't decide whether it will end up being seen as more like this era's satanic abuse scandal or our thalidomide tragedy. It has elements of both.

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