Musing about exams v the Kiera Bell case

[Let2020beoversoon]

I’ve been lurking here for a long time and have finally decided to start a thread. I’m in Scotland and we’ve just been told the schools aren’t going back till at least 18th January. This is the week my daughter’s “prelims” start. We know they won’t be sitting their highers/national 5s so this is her only exams this year. As soon as the news came through, I, like any parent, immediately reassured her it will be ok. The adults have got this and she doesn’t need to worry. I’ve just seen a (late night Saturday) post on the school twitter page saying almost word for word what I said. Imagine if we had hit the roof, said how awful it is for the young people and that there will be suicides. It’s completely unthinkable but that’s exactly what the adults did to teenagers after the Kiera Bell ruling. It just isn’t how you handle anything with impressionable teens. The difference is so stark, do you think the people who did this can see it?

Sadly, to answer your question. No. They cannot see it. We see it replayed here all the time. The suicide stats brought out to shut down debate and the posters think it will miraculously make their argument credible.

I am so glad that you are able to reassure your daughter. It is a very difficult time for these students and the uncertainty makes it even harder.

"The difference is so stark, do you think the people who did this can see it?"
No.

But these are people who cannot respect the most basic aspects of child and teen safeguarding.

"The difference is so stark, do you think the people who did this can see it?"

Do you think they care? Care for the children, rather than the

They’re probably either political idealogues with no care for individual-level collateral damage or caring people groomed by them to believe everything they say.

Mermaids have been using the "better a live daughter than a dead son" rhetoric for so long that threats of suicide are automatic now. As for the TRAs I don't think they are thinking about actual individual kids at all.

Threats or predictions of the suicides of gender dysphoric children and young people are a political tactic and it tells me all I need to know about anyone employing it.

I always point out that the Tavistock says kids with GD are no more likely to kill themselves than those with other MH issues and these are very rare.

Yes, and Philip Schofield asking Keira Bell what would she say to the mum who says their child would take their own life if they didn't have the treatment. I have also heard him repeat the 'better a live daughter than a dead son' on 'This Morning'. Maybe people in Media shouldn't keep repeating this weaponising and politicisation of suicide which is used to bolster an ideology. I do hope his and similar voicing of this mantra hasn't influenced any parents watching to be less cautious on serious matters like putting their children forward to be drug dependent for the rest of their lives and possibly surgical patients as well.

When it is presented on TV in such a way with a lack of any analysis, parents or children watching may regard it as a fact as to what would happen if they don't interfere in their child's development (which it is not) and it may seem like an imprimatur.

I mean medical drugs! Medicines are usually meant to have a therapeutic effect. I'm unsure as to how this off label use would be defined.