Jeremy Vine show is discussing Keira Bell's case today

[Destinysdaughter]

Will be on at around 1 on R2. Should be interesting...

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Totally. I’ve long suspected binders are fulfilling some sort of sensory processing function

Completely, "bear hugs" sensory vests are essentially binders.

And the OTs give strict time limits for their use.

I have an adult friend who's recently got an asd diagnosis and is actually using a bear hug to help anxiety. She's also v GNC.

[MedusasBrandyButter]

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000pycm at 1:08:55

[JamieLeeCurtains]

This is where I am pinning hopes on Dr Cass, to cut through the crap excuses and deflections about record keeping; and also to analyse the presenting characteristics of all those hundreds and hundreds of girls currently on the waiting lists, e.g. neurological atypicality.

[nauticant]

ListeningQuietly, my cynical interpretation on reading the judgement is that the Tavistock deliberately didn't gather/process the information because they didn't want to find anything that would either show they had no evidence base for their treatment methods or would show the treatment methods were harmful. They wanted to remain wilfully blind. I think they were hoping that being on the right side of history would sweep them along untroubled by challenge.

[BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero]

twitter.com/victorialive/status/1234429254969982976?lang=en

This little clip of Polly Carmichael on Victoria Derbyshire hasn’t aged well.

I don’t think I’ve ever noted that Dr Carmichael is a phd (psychologist) rather than a medical doctor before now. Obvs that’s fine, GIDS is supposed to be a mental health service...

but when giving tv interviews about experimental drugs for children, using the title Dr, most viewers are surely likely to believe she’s qualified to actually prescribe drugs herself?

Anyway, here’s the list of papers she’s associated with - not sure how much is going to be viewable without relevant subscriptions:

www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Polly-Carmichael-2052851446

[RoyalCorgi]

It is astonishing that the CQC did not raise this as a basic data handling issue years ago.

CQC are useless. Look at how they have repeatedly failed to identify safety issues in maternity units.

[BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero]

I’m going to rewatch this this evening, should anyone fancy watching along:

www.channel4.com/programmes/kids-on-the-edge

It was originally shown in Nov 2016, so presumably shot spring/summer 2016. By this point, GIDS staff must have been well aware that the patten in their referrals had changed.

‘I am Leo’ went out on CBBC in November 2014, setting that big spike in FtM referrals in motion, and then ‘Born in the Wrong Body, Girls to Men’ (featuring British YouTuber ‘Jammi Dodger/Jamie Raines) was broadcast in October 2015.

I note this because Sweden have correlated their spike and decline in referrals to pro trans and trans questioning Tv programmes and media coverage:
genderreport.ca/the-swedish-u-turn-on-gender-transitioning/

[Siablue]

@Datun

Totally. I’ve long suspected binders are fulfilling some sort of sensory processing function.

For crying out loud, you'd think it was basic, wouldn't you?

Binders seem very similar to a weighted vest which feels amazing)to me as an autistic woman).

I was one of those girls who didn’t know how to deal with attention from boys. I am still not entirely sure if I actually want to date men or if I have just been conditioned to do so.


There was a documentary on a while ago (channel 4 I think) following children in the clinic. One child with autism never spoke in their appointment but because they liked boy things they were referred for blockers. They had no voice at all and their mum seemed uncertain.

I think it is irrelevant what other countries do if there is not good evidence for this and it is not under the law.

[Siablue]

Cross post with Betty but maybe that was it. I will have a watch and see if I have remembered right.

[ListeningQuietly]

RoyalCorgi
CQC are useless. Look at how they have repeatedly failed to identify safety issues in maternity units.
I know
but every time their failings become the story, the pressure to change their governance structures
as regularly highlighted by MD in the Eye increases

Hopefully people like Keira become advocates for strong improvement

[FurryGiraffe]

• Presumably it's because almost 100% of children who go on puberty blockers end up on cross sex hormones.
  
  And there doesn't seem to be any evidence to say that blockers don't just suspend the child in time mentally as well as physically?*
  
  But is that not in part due to the fact that the Data management at The Tavistock was so poor that they could not prove that the two could be decoupled
  
  Oh I agree with all those points. But making the understanding of procedure B a pivotal point for consent to procedure A is very unusual. The novelty of it is what might induce the Court of Appeal to review it. That isn't to say I think such an appeal would succeed, but that's what I'd be concentrating my argument on if I wanted to get the appeal heard. It's the least orthodox aspect of the decision. The fact that the coupling of the decisions might be the Tavistock's fault isn't really relevant to the legality of the coupling, IYSWIM.

[EdgeOfACoin]

‘I am Leo’ went out on CBBC in November 2014, setting that big spike in FtM referrals in motion, and then ‘Born in the Wrong Body, Girls to Men’ (featuring British YouTuber ‘Jammi Dodger/Jamie Raines) was broadcast in October 2015.

I remember 2014 very clearly being the year that the media started running lots of stories on transgenderism and transgender children in particular.

I'm not someone who works in a particularly woke industry or who is involved in the LGB community, so to me it seemed to come entirely out of nowhere.

I do think that the BBC etc have encouraged the narrative of the transgender child. I'm not surprised there has been an increase in referrals to the Tavistock.

[2Rebecca]

I do think that the BBC and the Guardian bear a lot of responsibility for the gender dysphoria epidemic. They took a blinkered approach to the subject, seemed happy to pretend sexual stereotypes were more important than the reality of your body and are influential with politicians and teachers

[nauticant]

Likewise FurryGiraffe, I also think the weak spot is the argument that effectively puberty blockers aren't separable from cross-sex hormones in terms of treatment. I note from the judgement that:

68. ... As is set out above at para 57 above, a very high proportion of those who start PBs move on to CSH and thus in statistical terms once a child or young person starts on PBs they are on a very clear clinical pathway to CSH.

and if reference is made to para 57 the evidence there is to "the use of PBs for young people in the Netherlands". From what I've read treatment in the Netherlands is different to that under GIDS. However, I don't know whether to exploit this point the Tavistock would have to show that there are loads of children and young people under GIDS who come to the end of their use of puberty blockers and then don't move onto cross-sex hormones.

[BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero]

This is the TV show that kicked off the others, I think? First aired in 2011 and repeated in 2012.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Transsexual_Summer

(Featuring Fox Fisher, who went on to found ‘My Genderation’ with ‘Owl’, and published pro trans books aimed at children)
Fox features on the Mermaids Retreat promo video they tried to hide.

From the wiki link

In April 2010, non-profit organisation Trans Media Watch published a study called "How Transgender People Experience the Media", which found that there is "an endemic problem with negative and inaccurate representations [of transgender people in British media stories], and observed that this leads to considerable real-life suffering".[5]
in an effort to improve this situation, Trans Media Watch drafted and published a memorandum of understanding for media companies: signatories of the memorandum agree to "work toward… increasing positive, well-informed representations of transgender people in the media."[10] In March 2011, Channel 4 became the first company to sign the memorandum.[11] "Our editorial independence always come first; but it is part of our remit to reflect the diversity of the UK", said Cosgrove.[11]

After signing, Channel 4 engaged journalist/activist Paris Lees of Trans Media Watch to be a production consultant for the show; Lees served as consultant for the duration of production.[12]

BBC3 aired ‘Transsexual Teen, Beauty Queen’ (about Susie Green’s child) in 2012.

Up until this point, IIRC, trans on telly was mostly older male transitioner types.

But ‘I am Leo’ is the biggie, because it went out on CBBC, so was expressly aimed at 7-16 year olds.

[FurryGiraffe]

However, I don't know whether to exploit this point the Tavistock would have to show that there are loads of children and young people under GIDS who come to the end of their use of puberty blockers and then don't move onto cross-sex hormones.

I think if they could show that it would certainly help the Tavistock's case. But I think there's a broader conceptual issue of making consent to A dependent on understanding of B.

If the linking of PBs and CSH for consent purposes is the correct approach, then I think it's a difficult judgment to overturn. The court was very careful to say "we think consent here is very unlikely" rather than "nobody under 16 can consent" which makes it tricky for the Tavistock because really all the Court did was express the view that it was highly unlikely that a child under 16 could understand these extremely complex adult matters in which there are many unknowns. Appeal courts don't usually interfere with findings of fact and are unlikely to say that the Court was wrong to say it was highly unlikely a child could demonstrate sufficient understanding.

So the Tavistock needs to show that the linking of PBS and CSH is the wrong approach. Either they say it's the wrong approach in law- ie as a matter of principle these two should not be linked, because consent works on the basis of each individual treatment. Or alternatively they could introduce evidence to show that they are in practice quite separate treatments (because lots of people don't go on to CSH). Of course, that evidence would need to be there...

[PearPickingPorky]

I think if they could show that it would certainly help the Tavistock's case. But I think there's a broader conceptual issue of making consent to A dependent on understanding of B.

Trying to think of a comparison with this.

I remember when I was being induced with DC, I read the process (as I was clueless about it) and it said they'd try pessary 3 times, then membrane rupture, then drip. I wasn't keen and said to the doctors that I would try the pessary but didn't want the membrane rupture. They effectively told me I couldn't opt-out of one part of it, I had to follow through the whole process (if labour didn't kick-in on its own).

Could this be similar, from the judges' perspective? They are saying that, since there is zero value in blockers unless you then go onto cross-sex hormones, you have to make sure they understand (and can consent to) both.

[ListeningQuietly]

Could this be similar, from the judges' perspective? They are saying that, since there is zero value in blockers unless you then go onto cross-sex hormones, you have to make sure they understand (and can consent to) both.
No
other way around

Puberty blockers are a known and accepted treatment for early onset puberty
that is then allowed to take its natural course a few years later

Cross sex hormones have been known and used for many years
to change portrayed sex and as chemical castration
and can be used by adults at any age (eg Bruce Jenner and James Morris) without use of the former

the failure at the Tavistock was that one was used as a precursor for the other without
data
evidence
consent

[Aesopfable]

@carlaCox

the international scientific consensus that exists around the treatment of trans young people is applied in the United Kingdom

What planet is he on? What scientific consensus?!

I am sure I saw a tweet from the WPATH conference about how one group were recommending treating 13/14/15 year olds with cross sex hormones rather than puberty blockers due to the problems associated with puberty blockers. And that was the fanatical lobbyist at WPATH.

[Tootletum]

@persistentwoman in that case Listen to the segment at the beginning of today's WH. It consisted solely of the news night Lady criticising the judgment and finished with the presenter asking parents whose children's treatment would be stopped to phone in with their concerns. I'm so outraged I'm writing to ofcom.