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.

Agreed. Which places specific emphasis on the quality of the consents discussion at the Tavi end, but unfortunately there seems to have been huge problems there if the level of careful recording of patient consents is anything to go by.

My impression was that the main reason for the High Court's judgment was lack of evidence to enable them to make a different judgement.

These interventions seem very much along the lines of "Do you know who we are?", but there doesn't seem to be much suggestion that they are going to provide the missing data.

merrymouse I have the horrible feeling that in America there are attempts to make gender dysphoria an endocrine disorder. So instead of saying that someone has such severe dysphoria that they need to take cross-sex hormones, it's presented as "This person is a boy (because they say they are). But they have girl hormones. This is an endocrinology problem."

I'll see if I can find some evidence for this assertion - it might have been in California or Canada?

The most notable thing that is missing from this is Mermaids. Have they decided to ditch Mermaids. I noticed that the description of Gendered Intelligence is that it is a trans run organisation.

The endocrine society thing is very sinister. Why are an American lobby group promoting drugs intervening in a British court case about whether children can consent to treatment?

I've just started reading this book from 2009 that may be of interest to others. It has a lot of parallels to the way the US is approaching gender identity. It available for £3.99 on Kindle.

Cohen, Susan. Normal at Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry's Quest to Manipulate Height

Normal at Any Cost describes more than fifty years of medical attempts to modify height in children. The broader purpose is to illustrate how the future might play out as medicine offers more and more opportunities to change inherited traits. Because over the last five decades, as physicians discovered ways to treat pathological conditions that make some people extremely tall or short, they also intervened in the lives of young patients who were normal and healthy, just far from average. Along the way, doctors made miracles and caused tragedies. They found themselves facing ethical dilemmas that reach far beyond the issue of how much height matters. They engaged in a running debate about what is normal; whether their prescriptions alleviate suffering or reinforce social prejudice; and how far they should go to accommodate the wishes of children, or the aspirations of parents. In a way, this small group of doctors has been on the front line of the future, along with the families of the tallest and shortest kids.

We tell this story decade by decade. It begins with girls whose mothers worried they would grow too tall to be happy, and who dutifully took massive doses of estrogen to stunt their heights. It describes how the pituitary gland, a pea-size organ that sits at the base of the brain and produces growth hormone, fascinated scientists who competed to harvest cadavers for the stuff that might make short kids grow. The book narrates the early days of treating children for dwarfism, until a strange disease seen in the elderly and among cannibals in a Papua New Guinea jungle struck down a young man in California. It follows scientists who raced to synthesize human growth hormone using the new technology of genetic engineering and in the process launched an entire industry, then details how that industry sometimes stepped over the lines of legality as it turned short stature into a market. The later decades include detective stories of a sort, as adults given treatments as children found one another, and as researchers tried to track down what became of these children. The final chapters show how, as ways to manipulate height expand, the government agencies that protect patients, the nonprofit organizations that speak for them, and the physicians who treat them have all been influenced by the pharmaceutical companies that sell to them. In the end, short stature is a multibillion-dollar business that is still growing like a weed.

I think Siablue there was a lot of evidence from around the world but in KB's case, they were very high in their professions which is why they were giving evidence. Whether these interveners are at that level, I don't know

@highame

I think Siablue there was a lot of evidence from around the world but in KB's case, they were very high in their professions which is why they were giving evidence. Whether these interveners are at that level, I don't know

There was and that was entirely appropriate as they were expert witness some of them were world experts in their subject area. Christopher Gilbert is a very respected expert in autism.

There is a huge difference between that and an American lobby group for the pharmaceutical industry who wants to promote drugs that evidence suggest has no benefit to children who can’t consent to them.

It shows that this is not about child welfare but about pushing for a particular position no matter what the cost to children who have to live with the consequences.

@InvisibleDragon

merrymouse I have the horrible feeling that in America there are attempts to make gender dysphoria an endocrine disorder. So instead of saying that someone has such severe dysphoria that they need to take cross-sex hormones, it's presented as "This person is a boy (because they say they are). But they have girl hormones. This is an endocrinology problem."

I'll see if I can find some evidence for this assertion - it might have been in California or Canada?

Yes, I suspect that is the case.

However, even if you follow that line of thinking, you still have to start with a diagnosis.

Incidentally, my impression is that people in the US are much more likely to talk proprietorially about ‘my endocrinologist’, ‘my OBGYN’, ‘my dermatologist’ as people who promote wellness.

In the U.K., you usually only see a specialist if referred by a GP because something is wrong.

The culture seems very different.

Apols if this was already posted. A thread from Maya about the co-opting of the RCOG and their statement about Gillick.

twitter.com/MForstater/status/1354594516624437248

@Manderleyagain

is this org the same endocrine society whose guidelines were developed by Norman Spack et al?

I have no idea. I have never heard of Spack I'm afraid. Do I dare ask?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3469374-Dr-Norman-Spack-evangelist-in-chief-for-early-medical-intervention

OP wrote:
"I think many of us have been wondering just how medical practices for dealing with gender identity issues in children have changed so rapidly over the past decade or so. Who is pushing earlier and earlier use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery in children, without controlled clinical trials (and apparently ignoring the evidence that does exist that many children will desist if allowed to go through their natural puberty)?

One Norman Spack appears to have played a major role. Spack is a pediatric endocrinologist who founded the Gender Management Service (GeMS) at Boston Children's Hospital in 2007. It bills itself as "the first major program in the United States to focus on transgender children and adolescents."

The Daily Mail called Spack "evangelist-in-chief for early medical intervention" and "the guiding light of Mermaids and a friend of both Susie Green and Dr Webberley."
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3973036/Jackie-Green-heart-controversy-children-young-nine-given-drugs-change-sex.html

from that article:
He wants children who identify as transgender to routinely be given hormone-blocking drugs around the onset of puberty, and then move to high doses of hormones to change their sex, after which they can consider surgery.

The Spack philosophy is that age limits are arbitrary and often cruel. ‘Why wait?’ is his mantra. He says he has put ‘about 200 children’ onto hormone blockers, and claims 100 per cent have gone on to take cross-sex hormones because ‘no one changes their mind’.

Here is a Q & A with the doctor published in 2008:
archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/qa_with_norman_spack/?page=full

Some bits that stood out to me (Spack in italics, my own comments in brackets):

All I know is that when I see preadolescents, they have been dressing in the underwear of the other sex for years. These kids are almost certainly transgendered. [As we know, the clothes make the man/woman/boy/girl.]

The puberty-blocking drugs work best at the beginning of the pubital process, typically age 10 to 12 for a girl and 12 to 14 for a boy. Stopping puberty is, in itself, a diagnostic test. If a girl starts to experience breast budding and feels like cutting herself, then she's probably transgendered. If she feels immediate relief on the [puberty-blocking] drugs, that confirms the diagnosis. [Gee there are no possible other reasons girls in our society might feel distress at body changes during puberty, huh?]

You have to explain to the patients that if they go ahead, they may not be able to have children. When you're talking to a 12-year-old, that's a heavy-duty conversation. Does a kid that age really think about fertility? But if you don't start treatment, they will always have trouble fitting in. And my patients always remind me that what's most important to them is their identity. [So he understands that his patients are incapable of truly informed consent to sterilization...]"

---

And from the article linked by OldCrone:

"The puberty-blocking protocol gained legitimacy in 2009, when it was endorsed by the Endocrine Society, the leading association of hormone experts, on the recommendation of a task force including Dr. Spack."

So he self confesses to 'salivating' at the thought of being able to administer drugs to children who he knows cant consent.

Pathologising the normal process of puberty for commercial gain.

Whoopie.

"Trouble fitting in." In his TED talk, he talks about "normal" breast size and says that the children he treated looked "beautiful, normal".
He seems to be very keen on looks and lacking in understanding of the emotional turmoil of female puberty in particular.

[quote OvaHere]Apols if this was already posted. A thread from Maya about the co-opting of the RCOG and their statement about Gillick.

twitter.com/MForstater/status/1354594516624437248[/quote]
That is very interesting. There is a bit of a pattern emerging in the way all these orgs are being co-opted as mouthpieces.

Why are an American lobby group promoting drugs intervening in a British court case about whether children can consent to treatment?

Because the medical insurance industry will be watching closely and may decide to stop funding.

Looks as if the RCOG is reverse ferreting from their initial support for the interveners. That thread is well worth a look for the other unsurprising information revealed about policy capture there - as usual to the detriment of women.

What have they said persist ?

@Whatwouldscullydo

What have they said persist ?

Maya explains it here Scully : twitter.com/MForstater/status/1354594516624437248

And she has some other fascinating information.

My that is interesting.

So typical though. Someone jumps in desperate fir the public pat on the back then does the research after.

Its embarrassing.

Akot of tweets suddenly get deleted or accounts made private

Some of her other info about their women's network may go some way to explain their unusual take on court judgements about child safety.

This is also interesting on the 'numerous cases' that have apparently been brought this year to undermine access.

twitter.com/MForstater/status/1354784505123524611

If the policy of the RCOG is to always jump in feet first without checking, it's not clear how helpful their intervention is.

So the RCOG has a person in their Women’s Network that has the purpose of discussing women’s ob/gyn experiences and needs and shaping policy who wasn’t born female and has literally no lived experience of any ob/gyn issues?? Oh, and happens to be employed by Stonewall...

It is extremely concerning that the RCOG have had the poor judgement and presumably inaccurate legal advice (or have misunderstood the legal position presented to them?) to this extent. RCOG set professional guidance for women’s sexual and reproductive health doctors. These are separate legal and clinical issues to the Bell case area of work. So you’d hope eg RCOG provide good guidance for the reproductive and sexual healthcare of female people who identify as trans and non binary. That subset of biological women given the interventions they may receive could well need specific guidance.

But Gillick in RCOG context isn’t relevant to the questions from Bell. Bell does not trump Gilick or compromise Gillick.

Thank you oldcrone and rozwatching for the background on Spack. It's horrendous how areas of medicine can be influenced an influencial doctors opinion rather than a sound evidence base. It's happened elsewhere but this is something else - unreal. If the Endocrine Society's evidence displays the same ideas regarding children's capacity to consent and its place in treatment decisions, then I think we can be fairly sure the court of appeal will not be impressed.