The Cass Review- Interim Report

[rogdmum]

The Cass Review Interim Report has been released. 112 pages long and it’s such a bloody relief to read common sense.

cass.independent-review.uk/publications/interim-report/

There’s so much in it, but emphasis on taking a holistic approach with a great chart on page 57 showing the complex presentations in and complex pathways.

And social transitioning has been recognised as an active intervention!

“Social transition – this may not
be thought of as an intervention or treatment, because it is not something
that happens within health services. However, it is important to view it as an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning. There are different views on the benefits versus the harms of early social transition. Whatever position one takes, it is important to acknowledge that it is not a neutral act, and better information is needed about outcomes.” Pages 62/63

So much in it. So much. And there’s more to come as the review continues to work on the issues.

[quote rogdmum]The accompanying documents on the website are worth reading as well, especially for the comments. E.g. this about the role of schools:

issue:

“ During the second facilitated workshop, it became clear that a key element of the pathway, which has not been addressed in the wider conversation amongst professionals, is the role of the education system. Some participants said that often CYP begin to express questions about gender identity in schools, and that their views and beliefs about their gender identity can be either negatively affected or reinforced by their peers or adults in the institutions themselves. This demonstrates the need for appropriate training to professionals working in schools and better joint working to ensure holistic support for the CYP.”

“The bit that’s missing is the fact that a lot of CYP have effectively already had a diagnosis made before they reach [the] medical profession – they’ve made it themselves, or it’s been made by school or another education professional. Theassessmentpathwayhasstartedbeforetheyreach CAMHS”

cass.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/REPORT-Cass-Review-professional-panel-FINAL.pdf[/quote]
I'm loving the grown-up, rational language, devoid of ideology.

Compared to "a lifetime of discrimination and sneering" if Maugham doesn't get his own way.

We have often wondered out loud where the bloody adults are. Well there she is. And who ever chose her for the job presumably knew it, too.

And yes. I cannot wait for this to be banned in schools. It will make all the difference.

@Datun

And yes. I cannot wait for this to be banned in schools. It will make all the difference.

Sorry I’m being lazy and not feeling well, what is ‘this’ that you cannot wait to be banned on schools? Thank you in advance

@Datun

And yes. I cannot wait for this to be banned in schools. It will make all the difference.

Same. So far my (tomboy) DD is too young for this to have made an impact but I am just waiting for the day a teacher / speaker tells her girls don't like climbing trees and playing rugby and wrestling and getting muddy, boys like those, so maybe she's a bit instead? I will go ballistic.

Crossing fingers, toes and fallopian tubes that this sexist, insane ideology is rooted out of schools soon.

Also a BMJ news article summarising the report, with an interesting timeline at the end of key events in recent years

www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o589

Sorry I’m being lazy and not feeling well, what is ‘this’ that you cannot wait to be banned on schools? Thank you in advance

I cannot speak for Datun but for me, it is diagnosing kids with something because they don't conform to 'gender' stereotypes, which leads them onto a lifelong pathway of drugs, dependency, frailty and potential sterilisation. AKA lying to kids that if you are a girl that likes [boys stuff] you are actually a boy.

This all needs rolling back before anyone else is harmed by this ideology.

For me as well it’s the hope that schools will stop with the unquestioning affirmation often behind parents’ backs if they recognise that social transition is an active intervention. Even looking beyond stereotypes, many children with complex backgrounds (trauma, comorbidities like anorexia, sex abuse etc) can look to transition as a “solution”. In these cases, their then following gender stereotypes can come as a result of a need to “present” as the opposite sex, rather than previous preferences to be GNC and adopting a belief that they are trans because they are GNC. If that makes sense…

At the moment, some schools are unwilling to let parents take the time to explore any underlying issues and insist on supporting a social transition straightaway. I hope The Cass Review will put an end to this and encourage schools to support parents who wish to follow a more cautious approach.

Exhales

@AlisonDonut

Sorry I’m being lazy and not feeling well, what is ‘this’ that you cannot wait to be banned on schools? Thank you in advance

I cannot speak for Datun but for me, it is diagnosing kids with something because they don't conform to 'gender' stereotypes, which leads them onto a lifelong pathway of drugs, dependency, frailty and potential sterilisation. AKA lying to kids that if you are a girl that likes [boys stuff] you are actually a boy.

This all needs rolling back before anyone else is harmed by this ideology.

Equally can't speak for Datun. For me it's that schools must stop a politicised response, that is unevidenced, biased, and taking a role in starting these children down pathways that as this report shares, are unevidenced, uncertain, not properly researched or carried out, and are not taking proper account of all aspects of the needs of the child even when carried out by the top professionals in the field .

School staff should be taking absolutely no part in this.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

It's really good but my only real concern is that she does buy the genderist line that 'gender' is 'socially constructed' and also somehow 'innate' and that there can be 'incongruence' between expressed and assigned gender' that requires treatment (pp. 27-27). Somehow the emphasis on 'sex' has slipped here.

People are assigned gender in the sense that different stereotypes are expected of them according to their sex. So for genderists there could be an incongruence when a girl (female) is expected to be dainty (socially constructed/assigned gender) but she’s happier striding around with her hand in her pockets (innate/expressed gender). The only treatment that needs is supporting her.

My only real concern with this statement is that she buys the genderist line that 'gender' matters at all.

@HPFA

If you are a young trans woman, absent puberty blockers, your voice will drop and you will develop an adam's apple and this will make it very, very difficult for you to 'pass' as what you feel to be your gender in later life.

The whole logic fail in a nutshell. If sex and gender are separate then why would making yourself look like a female sexed person be necessary for you to live as your gender?

A trans woman has always been a woman just as much as I am (I'm a female human) and yet somehow in order to be a "woman" she must make her body resemble mine as much as possible. Surely the implication of that is that I am a more "real" woman than she is?

This is the paradox I can never get my head around.

Me too, and I think JM exposes his views as he clearly believes that "passing" as a woman (which is supposedly a gender identity, not a sex with any physical characteristics) requires not having a deep voice.

He doesn't truly believe this gender stuff, which makes his dishonesty somehow worse.

Stonewall's response is interesting. Bigging up all the "children need the great care they should expect for any medical situation ". Well, duh. And that there should be better local access to care. Again, duh.

Presume they can see which way the wind is blowing and are trying to stay on the right side of it.

Now being reported on the PM programme on Radio 4. Hannah Barnes reporting which is good.

My Dad who was born pre-Great Depression didn't see gender roles as fixed. He cooked and sewed - taught me. He also taught me to use power tools and change fuses. He would praise my intelligence and determination as much as my appearance. My Mum took a similar approach.
Both of them recognised the biological reality of being a woman and the impact it would have on my life. I was never expected to marry and have kids if I didn't want to/my life didn't work out that way.
So I'm not sure about this nonsense about older people being set in their gender conforming ways comes from.

The summary from PM by Barnes: "The review has not yet produced any guidance on physical interventions such as puberty blockers and cross sex hormones and it can't do that because of the gaps in the evidence base."

It will be a brave (foolhardy) clinician who carries on prescribing as before given the identified gaps in evidence.

I would imagine there are indemnity insurers panicking right now.

Fucksake, foxylocks:

' if you are desperate to get puberty blockers, and you will be because not having them is not neutral, you will get them and the only question is how. '

@bellinisurge

My Dad who was born pre-Great Depression didn't see gender roles as fixed. He cooked and sewed - taught me. He also taught me to use power tools and change fuses. He would praise my intelligence and determination as much as my appearance. My Mum took a similar approach. Both of them recognised the biological reality of being a woman and the impact it would have on my life. I was never expected to marry and have kids if I didn't want to/my life didn't work out that way. So I'm not sure about this nonsense about older people being set in their gender conforming ways comes from.

Your parents sound brilliant!

My mum asks for power tools for her birthday and my dad cooks dinner every night.

@NotBadConsidering

I think the report also speaks to the standard of this forum. Many of the points have been made repeatedly here over and over again for years, with our own research and analysis of research and experience, both personal and professional. No one has listened to us, but they can’t ignore Hilary Cass.

I agree, @NotBadConsidering

I wonder how many of them are on this board?

Thank you for looking after our children. I feel quite choked up by this report, and it's only the interim!

Also look at the gender specialists report:

cass.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Gender-specialists-questionnaire-report_FINAL.pdf

Lots of echoing the views of the Australian clinicians a year ago who reported children presenting at GIDS already pushing for the medical pathway.

E,g.

…”very definite views of the ‘solution’, which largely lies in physical intervention.”

Also “Concerns about the focus on Gender alone and risk of diagnostic overshadowing”

I thought that too rogdmum. The diagnostic overshadowing is a great new term I have learned today.

Who knows quite what Dr Cass' team will end up recommending. The thing is now that it feels that they are actually starting from more of a balanced field to start with. And maybe there will be some answers studied now.

Hannah Barnes was clear and concise on PM. Evan sounded like he was holding his nose and waiting for her to finish before not asking her any questions.

I agree, Hannah Barnes was very clear on PM. I came straight on here to read the thread I knew would be here. Thanks OP.

I’m a teacher. I have challenged the GIDS line and felt horribly isolated as a result. It’s been awful.

But I feel so, so sorry for the unhappy children caught up in this system. I can hardly believe that drugs are given to children to “help” them when in law they are not permitted to get a tattoo. I hope the full report by Cass will shed further light on how all teachers, doctors, social workers and care providers for young people should listen to them, not jump to medicalised pathways.

I want to shout, “I bloody told you so” at those who called me a bigot.

@Rowlingfan

I agree, Hannah Barnes was very clear on PM. I came straight on here to read the thread I knew would be here. Thanks OP.

I’m a teacher. I have challenged the GIDS line and felt horribly isolated as a result. It’s been awful.

But I feel so, so sorry for the unhappy children caught up in this system. I can hardly believe that drugs are given to children to “help” them when in law they are not permitted to get a tattoo. I hope the full report by Cass will shed further light on how all teachers, doctors, social workers and care providers for young people should listen to them, not jump to medicalised pathways.

I want to shout, “I bloody told you so” at those who called me a bigot.

Thank you @Rowlingfan and all other teachers who stand up for children's needs and space to develop at their own pace in the face of such dreadful pressure.

Parents (like me) are enormously grateful

@DomesticatedZombie

Fucksake, foxylocks:

' if you are desperate to get puberty blockers, and you will be because not having them is not neutral, you will get them and the only question is how. '

Quite.

Supposedly intelligent adults pushing their own personal political agenda in repeating this kind of thing are failing to take responsibility for their own part in pushing kids and worried parents to believe their narrative: that pbs are the only solution, that without free access they should and indeed must look for ways around responsible and ethical boundaries, and that nothing else could possibly help.

Like the endless unchallenged repetition of suicide myths and 'most vulnerable' lines being thrown out regularly now in parliament, completely unsubstantiated and no one ever saying 'hang on a minute, justify that. What's your source? What responsibility are you taking here when you say that? Let's talk about the many other responsibilities you're ignoring when you say that?'

I have come across supposedly intelligent women in my organisation who object mildly to obligatory things like DBSs and child-protection training courses because they consider them to be offensive. "We all know each other and we're all nice people". They pass all these things because they are, indeed, 'nice people'. They do not seem to understand that that are promoting the dismantling of safeguarding. Unsurprisingly, these same women believe we must Be Kind and embrace TWAW.

Supposedly intelligent people.