Susie Green and Keira Bell on Newsnight

[OldeMagick]

It's about halfway in

Emily Maitlis not giving an inch

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pyyc/newsnight-01122020

I hate that she was so dismissive of what happened to Keira. Describing Keira as part of a small percentage and therefore irrelevant.

It seems to me very telling that the Tavistock refused to put anyone up for interview. They know, deep down, that their position is indefensible

Thats happened alot with everything every step of the way. Its not that often you get a full range of guests ro discuss. Many leave statements or pre recorded interviews citing fear and prejudice as to why they "can't" go live. Its very clear that a live interview where its possible it might go off topic or on a slight tangent fir clarification, is something that alot of people are ill equipped to deal with.

Even being asked to define their terms is avoided.

What are these "many studies" Susie was lying through her arse about talking about?

She really is a shocker. Mermaids needs a complete overhaul or it needs to go.

The time that Polly Carmichael was interviewed a couple of years ago was very revealing...also by Emily Maitlis. Did not come over as anything but arrogant when asked about lack of evidence

@FamilyOfAliens

I hate that she was so dismissive of what happened to Keira. Describing Keira as part of a small percentage and therefore irrelevant.

In other areas of medicine, such levels of harm is not considered 'acceptable'. Especially when you are talking about children.

Why is it that gender identity should be treated differently?

[quote SecondRow]Wrong link! This is the dysphoria thread!
twitter.com/AlexAlicit/status/1328079116151754757?s=19[/quote]
Thanks. Interesting read.

From the Charity Commission website:
"Only use this form if there is a serious risk of harm to the charity or people it was set up to help.

Examples of serious issues include:

-a charity not following the law, with damaging consequences to its reputation and public trust in charities generally
-serious harm to the people the charity helps or other people who come into contact with the charity through its work
-a person or organisation receiving significant financial benefit from a charity
criminal, illegal or terrorist activity
-a charity set up for illegal or improper purposes
-a charity losing significant amounts of money
-a charity losing significant assets, for example land or buildings"

Thinking there's surely an argument on the first two points.

Back in August there was a Twitterstorm when the BBC quietly dropped its links to Mermaids (who vociferously challenged this with various scarcely-veiled threats about consequences). At the same time, Mermaids did a spectacular 180-degree turn to arrive at the claim that no one is born in the wrong body and that children should be encouraged to wear and play with what they want. Now we're seeing an another volte-face in Susie Green's new claim that the 'suicide statistics' constantly being quoted (but that no one can actually quote) are 'anecdotal evidence'.

'Anecdotal evidence'. For using experimental treatment on children which has permanent, irreversible effects. As for their former inaccurate claim that the use of PBs is 'reversible', that was another spectacular about-face by Mermaids who later suggested they never made it in the first place. And don't get me started on Green's highly irresponsible muddying of the waters surrounding minors' bodily autonomy and capacity for consent. She will no doubt backtrack on this, too, at some later stage. All I can say is the memory hole at Mermaids HQ must be working at full capacity.

Happily there is a noticeable lack of ideological dogma in that judgement. 'Experienced' and 'expressed' gender are referred to, as are 'primary and secondary sex characteristics'. No fluffy 'assigned at birth' or 'correct pronouns' jargon. And the Twittersphere was, interestingly enough, very upset by the erasure of their particular language (funny, that). As the second claimant pointed out, take that away and the whole case for treatment tumbles down like a house of cards.

The best way to discredit Susie Green is to allow Susie Green to speak for herself. Top work by Maitlis (again)!

@ForgotAboutThis

I find it interesting that SG's argument is that this judgement treats children with GD differently to any other child needing/wanting medical treatment when it's actually the complete opposite, and is just applying the same (evidence based, widely used and respected) competency framework that's is used in all other areas.

Yes. The screams of outrage at the court's reaffirmation of the existing principles of informed consent are an indication of how far outside medical norms the Tavistock was operating.

Watching the clip from last night, I am reminded of when Graham Linehan went onto Newsnight and was ripped into by Sarah Smith (I have just re watched the segment).

I wonder if she would approach the topic differntly today, given yesterday's ruling?

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08305wc

This is from the judgment, concerning the circumstances when the Court of Protection might be asked to decide on whether treatment ought to be given or not:

^95. In those circumstances he submitted that the court should be guided by the approach of the Court of Protection in its Practice Guidance (Court of Protection: Serious Medical Treatment) [2020] 1 WLR 641 which sets out those decisions relating to medical treatment where an application should be made to the Court of Protection.
96. Paras 10 and 11 of that Guidance state:^

^“10. In any case which is not about the provision of life-sustaining treatment, but involves the serious interference with the person’s rights under the ECHR, it is:
“highly probable that, in most, if not all, professionals faced with a decision whether to take that step will conclude that it is appropriate to apply to the court to facilitate a comprehensive analysis of [capacity and] best interests, with [the person] having the benefit of legal representation and independent expert advice.”
This will be so even where there is agreement between all those with an interest in the person’s welfare.^

11. Examples of cases which may fall into paragraph 10 above will include, but are not limited to: (a) where a medical procedure or treatment is for the primary purpose of sterilisation; (b) where a medical procedure is proposed to be performed on a person who lacks capacity to consent to it, where the procedure is for the purpose of a donation of an organ, bone marrow, stem cells, tissue or bodily fluid to another person; (c) a procedure for the covert insertion of a contraceptive device or other means of contraception; (d) where it is proposed that an experimental or innovative treatment to be carried out; (e) a case involving a significant ethical question in an untested or controversial area of medicine.”

The judges agreed that the evidence presented showed the drugs to be experimental (point (d) above), so the court should be involved.

Susie Green's failure to submit the reams of evidence she claims to have is no one's fault but Susie's.

@maudtheinvincible I'd argue that the primary purpose of blocking puberty which creates fertility is to sterilise so that would include (a).

The court quite clearly laid out that (b) there were plenty of children who would never pass the threshold for consent because certain implications could not be explained to them in an age appropriate manner.

Arguably saying that puberty blockers are completely reversible and that cross sex hormones are not a foregone conclusion is (c) convert sterilisation.

And its definitely the case that this is a controversial area of medicine which isnt fully tested because there is a serious lack of evidence and there are twitter storms, mass threads on MN and elsewhere and hundreds of media reports/articles on the subject which suggest it falls under (e) too.

So thats a, b, c, d and e - all sections of this law - where it seems perfectly valid that courts should become involved.

That's quite the list.

@FamilyOfAliens

I think for SG the problem is that it is also deeply personal for her. She facilitated gender reassignment surgery for her then 16-year-old son in Thailand because it was illegal here.

Obviously she’s not going to support any measure to introduce an extra layer of safeguarding for children when she rode a coach and horses through the notion of safeguarding where her own child was concerned.

Exactly. Which makes me wonder if she secretly regrets it. In her Ted talk in 2017, she basically admits that the father's homophobic and didn't like their son playing with toys he thought only girls played with.

I’m hoping this is more much needed sunlight on Mermaid’s appalling behaviour.

Suicidality... 🤔

I don't care whether Susie Green secretly regrets anything.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for her. Indeed i go further than that in saying i hope her not just in contempt but also regard her as actively endangering children and their best interests because of how her own vested interests at a personal level are more important to her than medical ethics and safeguarding.

She personally has to bare a significant level of blame for the fall out of all this.

We have a situation where vulnerable children were lied to and told they could change sex. Rather than properly managing expectations and informing children accurately and within what is age appropriate.

I regard that as criminal level failing given her position of influence as a charity trustee and ceo.

I do hope it all comes out in the wash and the Mermaids scandal is exposed for what it is: a group which interests are about the parents beliefs first not the children, the protection of Susie Green herself and a trojan horse for the erosion of safeguarding and medical ethics.

It cannot come soon enough.

RedToothBrush My first thought on reading it was that a case could be made that it met them all. I guess Keira's barrister is more measured and restrained than me though

The Thai government was so horrified by what happened that they very quickly changed the law to raise the age of consent for this type of surgery to 18. Thailand has very liberal views on genital and breast surgery on biological males.

Does SG's child ever talk publicly about their transition?

I thought Maitlis had a very strange angle in the interview. She seemed very focused on charging Bell with being the catalyst for the sudden refusal of PBs on children who might "need" them, rather than an individual who has exposed the 'experimental' nature of a set of drugs used on children without significant investigation.

And then her intervention in the Green interview seemed a bit lily-livered.

If this is Newsnight's idea of balance, it's pretty poor.

I thought maybe she was kinda trying to lull SG into a false sense of security. Remove the idea that she would be challenged in any way.

I think it worked quite well. It exposed alot.

Also, it is the BBC. She probably has to tread carefully.

I'm going to watch it again on you tube but two things are bugging me.

EM didn't challenge SG on:
1% detransition
Dutch research

It would have been good to pull her up on both those points as well as the suicide thing which she did.

It was basically the same old same old and we all know it's bollocks but this is MSM and prime time for avid news followers and both the above were left to stand.

I was pleased to see SG say "anecdotal evidence" which counts for SFA and I hope that not only are the Mermaids staff absolutely swamped and desperately scrambling around to manage and retain funding but are also questioning their involvement and considering a change of job.

MimmyMum and SG will never learn but there are others who work there who might just might still have a moral compass that forces them to question their involvement.

Oh and are their offices really above a betting shop?

The problem with SG is she relies on her own experience and anecdotal evidence which reinforces it.

If, and it is a very big if, the pathway she took for her child was correct for that particular individual it does not make it the best pathway for other gender questioning children.

Neither we nor her own child will ever know whether things would have been different if another approach had been taken. By the time her child reached the age of maturity irreversible life-changing interventions had already happened.

Under SG, Mermaids raison d’etre is to justify what SG did to her own child. If other actions, counselling, waiting to see if they changed their mind, or acceptance prove to be more successful it would demonstrate what SG did was wrong.

Forgotaboutthis I don't know if sg's child has publicly looked back at the transition but she is supportive of susie and gives the impression of being a happy trans woman whenever I've seen anything about her.
She did refer to her being born male as something that needed to be adjusted, or a defect, which wld give some clues to how she thinks about it.
I'm sure that for some people medical transition really helps & is the right decision. But the issue of whether a child can decide that is separate (as we know from the ruling).
I have a vague recollection that convos about this on mumsnet get zapped though.