NEW: Grounds in support of intervention in the Bell v Tavistock JR appeal published

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

twitter.com/RadFemLawyer/status/1354002497753538562?s=19

This is going to fascinating to follow.

GIRES, Stonewall, Brooks and the Endocrine society are intervening.

@FreiasBathtub

I'm very confused about this assertion in the grounds to intervene that being 'well-informed' is the same as being 'competent', in the Gillick sense. You can have as much information as you like, if you don't have the emotional, intellectual, experience-based framework to contextualise that information, and if you haven't yet developed the tools to weigh up choices and make decisions, you cannot be competent. It's a really important category error. Gillick surely is predicated on the idea that it is these abilities that develop over time, they can't be 'educated' or 'enforced', they are developmental. In the same way that we wouldn't expect a four month old to walk, no matter how many different ways we try to teach them. They simply don't have the capacity to do it yet.

Well yes, this seems to be the issue. This particularly tunnel visioned lobby thinks that Gillick competency is when you tell a ten year old child all about a procedure and possible side effects and consequences, and if they say they still want to have it, for sure, no takesy-backsies, they have given consent.

The level of credulous ignorance among people who manage to otherwise live adult lives astounds me.

Yes I noticed that too - the intervenors said the ruling was partly because of the information being given to to the children. But as I read it, the judges explicitly said it wasn't about the information, it was about the child's capacity to give informed consent based on that information.

@BuntingEllacott

Section 16(3) is claiming that children with gender dysphoria going through the GIDS system are so well versed in their condition that they are uniquely placed to give consent. The implication is that while other children with other conditions might not be gillick competent, children with gender dysphoria are a special case and have more insight at an earlier age.

I really hope this gets laughed out of court. That is a ridiculous, evidence-free argument.

Quite Bunting - so special. So insightful.

You say ‘toemaytoe’, I say ‘tomato’
You say ‘versed’, I say ‘coached’
Versed, Coached
Versed, Coached
Let’s let you have what (you think) you want.

Traditionally, if a young lesbian took part in a legal case alleging that a clinic had failed in its medical and safeguarding responsibilities and gone on to give her (and other young women like her) inappropriate treatment, Stonewall would be on her side.

Instead, Stonewall is intervening to support the clinic?

@Apollo440

It all falls apart outside of twitter.

That's so true. If it wasn't for the echo chamber maybe there'd be a more considered approach rather than the bulldozer. Bulldozers aren't effective in court.

@NonHypotheticalLurkingParent

It sounds like they’re basically arguing that trans children are special, have special comprehension powers and so can consent (to PBs) on account of being uniquely special. That no one considered that trans children, when denied what they want, will scweam and scweam and scweam until they’re sick.

The only logical interpretation of their argument is that these children are “wise beyond their years” to the extent of being psychic.

Have I got this right?

• The relevant part of the original judgment that they are not contesting is that “informed consent” must include consideration of factors that one can only understand through actually experiencing them, eg. orgasm, adult potential for fertility, sexual and fertility factors in adult relationships.

• What they are claiming is that children who believe they are the opposite sex (including those who have been led to believe they are opposite sex by adults interpreting their behaviour) have a special super-power that enables them to bypass the normal need to a) experience these things and b) to consider them with adult understanding, in order to take them into account.

Is that right??

Bunting I'm honestly not a conspiracy theorist. But I'm really saddened that apparently all of these organisations are able to twistily extrapolate that Kiera's judgement threatens abortion rights, and yet cannot take the much more direct path to the risks to children if you say knowledge = consent.

I've only had very limited professional engagement with safeguarding principles and procedures, but that would be my first thought. What else might children know about but not, legally, be able to consent to? Sad that GIRES, and especially Brooks, couldn't work it out.

You do not have to be remotely tin foil hatted to know that the argument that some children are wise beyond their years and therefore able to consent has horrendous provenance.

But I would caution anyone posting to be too much more direct about what we are alluding to, as, yes, even on a parenting website, it is likely to get you deleted. Hell, I might even face the chop myself for my oblique references.

It doesn't make any sense at all. Anyone with the smallest experience of these children knows they are highly influenced, often negatively, by online pressure. ROGD, which many parents think is responsible for the huge increase in children showing up to these clinics, relies on Internet pressure.

Many have suffered from past trauma. And aren't looked after children particularly susceptible?

The thing that characterises these children is their vulnerability, not their wisdom. I have no idea how they are going to spin it as the opposite.

I know Bunting. Not saying for a moment that the organisations involved have even the smallest interest in securing such an outcome.

Just that, if they are able to draw a line between the arguments they don't like and abortion rights, why can't they draw and consider a similar and pretty obvious line in relation to the arguments they do like?

It's basic critical thinking?

@FreiasBathtub

I know Bunting. Not saying for a moment that the organisations involved have even the smallest interest in securing such an outcome.

Just that, if they are able to draw a line between the arguments they don't like and abortion rights, why can't they draw and consider a similar and pretty obvious line in relation to the arguments they do like?

It's basic critical thinking?

Because they're not really drawing a line to abortion rights. They are doing what TRAs have perfected as an MO - adopting any and every point that other campaigns have used, no matter how contradictory, to force compliance.

They give no fucks about abortion rights. Just as they give no fucks about gay conversion therapy. Or the sensitivities of women who do not menstruate. Or the women of colour they so often co-opt.

They're not trying to protect any of these rights or groups of people. They are leveraging slogans to emotionally manipulate. If they actually gave a crap about children with gender dysphoria they'd be pouring their energies into campaigning for world class care for those children, not attempting to throw up dust about rights which are not even slightly threatened by ensuring the best care for these kids.

Have people seen the tweet from The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists .. nothing surprises me anymore. Nothing.

twitter.com/RCObsGyn/status/1354024000838627331

I suppose this is the first time that any authority has ever said no to this ideology. To date organisations just capitulate to all demands - not matter how extreme. It's good that it's the safety and wellbeing of children who initiated the first no .
And as for Stonewall being involved - let's just remind ourselves how Stonewall demonstrated their approach to safeguarding children when they appointed an individual to their Trans advisory group (that advised schools) who was the subject of a damning report about safeguarding. Any other institution making that appointment would have been barred from working with schools.

@persistentwoman

I suppose this is the first time that any authority has ever said no to this ideology. To date organisations just capitulate to all demands - not matter how extreme. It's good that it's the safety and wellbeing of children who initiated the first no . And as for Stonewall being involved - let's just remind ourselves how Stonewall demonstrated their approach to safeguarding children when they appointed an individual to their Trans advisory group (that advised schools) who was the subject of a damning report about safeguarding. Any other institution making that appointment would have been barred from working with schools.

And also tried to remove sex as a protected characteristic. What next, sexual orientation?

Especially since the CQC report mentions that some GIDS kids don’t verbally communicate.

Does anyone know if the CQC report be allowed as new evidence?

Yet again, ignoring the Keira's actual experience!

Para 16.3 says the scenario of a child making a short term decision which they later regret is "theoretically possible", as if it isn't the basis for the entire case!

WTAF

(sorry, just 'Keira' but maybe she should have a definite article for being such a brave person)

Traditionally, if a young lesbian took part in a legal case alleging that a clinic had failed in its medical and safeguarding responsibilities and gone on to give her (and other young women like her) inappropriate treatment, Stonewall would be on her side.

Which other medical area would accept the current level of misdiagnosis of a condition IN CHILDREN with no corrective action or even acknowledgement of the issue?

Afaik they don't even offer to support the detransitioners - they just get ostracised and abused by their former 'rainbow family'. I can't believe what a toll that must take on these young people.

@ThePonderer

Yet again, ignoring the Keira's actual experience!

Para 16.3 says the scenario of a child making a short term decision which they later regret is "theoretically possible", as if it isn't the basis for the entire case!

WTAF

Interesting that the woman who forced the judgement is now 'theoretical'.

@ThePonderer

Yet again, ignoring the Keira's actual experience!

Para 16.3 says the scenario of a child making a short term decision which they later regret is "theoretically possible", as if it isn't the basis for the entire case!

WTAF

Well we know the evidence threshold for this lobby is n+1 for women being harmed or disadvantaged. No reason their thinking wouldn't include children.

I have to say, I did wonder if whose responsibility it is to assess and undertake the capacity work would muddy the waters. We have GIDS who diagnose the gender dysphoria and the endos prescribing and carrying out the treatment. The CQC review of the capacity/consent assessments for the endo clinic was good, GIDS not so much (as in not so much bothered about doing them). Capacity assessments are undertaken by the professional who is responsible for making the decision with the person, in my line of work I have a limited remit as to which decisions I assess capacity on because some aspects are outside of my jurisdiction. Things can overlap and get messy at times, which is where joint working comes into play. I'll be interested to see how this aspect plays out.

I have to say, I see some dreadful consent/capacity work take place. I'm not surprised we're seeing nonsense about the threat to gillick competence being bandied around, the level of understanding around these things is pretty dire. I spend a lot of time educating other professionals on how to undertake consent work and it is excruciating. I find Doctors and psychiatrists the worst - Disclaimer, only my personal experience.

And also tried to remove sex as a protected characteristic. What next, sexual orientation?

Give it a year and they'll be campaigning to rename it "gender orientation".

I'd love to hear from the UK endocrinologists who have been prescribing puberty blockers. I wonder if they have been prescribing on the basis that the consent process has already been carried out?

It seems like the argument is based on some sort of Schrödinger's child - simultaneously so fragile they will attempt suicide and so emotionally sophisticated they can consent to experimental medical procedures that a normal child could not understand.