TRAs attempting to obstruct Cass review.

[FireFlyBoogaloo]

Saw this on Twitter. It seems that TRAs and captured alphabet groups are co-ordinating to try and stop the Cass review getting access to data that will allow the results of experimental treatment for trans-identifying children to be assessed.

twitter.com/CTransTalks/status/1542834235752448002

Might be worth writing to Javid, Cass and perhaps Baroness Nicholson and any other interested parties to make them aware and also to express support for the review.

As of right now I would happily let them slither quietly back under a rock

Golden bridge and eyes on the prize. There is a clear need for an evidence review given the absence of adequate follow-up of the children and young people who have been supported by GIDS.

People who are uneasy about the opposition to such an evidence review need to know that there is a golden bridge and that they can cross it when they're ready.

There never been any real evidence found to really support the idea of a pink/blue brain conclusively despite what people say.

I also think its worth considering alternative possibilities and causes. For example there has been studies into radicalisation and brains. People with extreme views do seem to have different brain patterns - normal brains, but brains doing something a bit different when it comes to what they term 'sacred values'.

There does seem to be an ability to de-programme though. This is by exposing them to different view points rather than simply remaining in an echo chamber.

This begs a very difficult question if you do find differences between brains - is it innate at birth or could it be the product of a certain type of socialisation? As in could it actually be the result of grooming / brainwashing?

I've mentioned it on a couple of threads with links about this on MN before.
Here you are:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3610447-Pink-Brain-Blue-Brain-Some-research-on-radicalisation-and-brains

So I think that there could be something in brains, but I also think we need to be careful about the correlation and causation thing going on and there is a large elephant in the room even with that which TRAs might not like too.

There are also some pretty frightening implications if you can indeed deliberately change the brains of people and in effect deliberately programme them. If you deliberate remove debate and discussion, it could effect how people actually think on a physical level, not just what they think on an emotional level.

FWIW as an aside, my sibling is trans. They had a brain scan to see whether there was any different. They couldn't find any difference between his male brain and other male brains. It was a very normal male brain apparently. So yeah, I remain very unconvinced by pink and blue pseudo bollocks and concerned about radicalisation of all forms.

Neuroscientist Sophie Scott on sex and brains.

mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Play/54419

Thanks RedToothBrush, that looks like a really interesting thread to explore.

If they gave even the teeniest shit about children they would welcome this investigation. But we always knew they don’t.
It’s always been about adults needing a group children to be poster children for their adult political cause to give it legitimacy.
And now those adults are afraid that the numbers of children taking on this role that advantages their political purposes might fall away. That’s all they care about. They do not care about the kids.

This. And I have no idea how so many adults fail to understand it.

And as with so many historical scandals involving children it’s women speaking up, asking questions and being concerned with safeguarding. Which is why we must be discredited, vilified and silenced.

Yes. It was the nurses at Stoke Mandeville, the school nurse and the local MP in Rotherham. Vilified, slandered, sacked. Exactly what is happening now.

So Jane Fae is now calling for all trans orgs to withdraw cooperation from Cass review, but, more interestingly, also for targeting the researchers who use the data obtained through the new legislation. jane-67706.medium.com/clarity-in-a-moment-of-crisis-1faf63121af2

They REALLY don't want any research into this, do they? I wonder why?

twitter.com/CTransTalks/status/1543150805326364673?s=20&t=6O59felWUknZ_pi6xMCrBQ

Long thread that wants you to think that it's because the Doctors, clinicians, researchers are all CIS, and only we mighty Trans know what's best for our people.

Which really is from the Jeffrey Marsh school of thinking.

We shouldn't underestimate how important 'trans children' are to transactivism:

The concept of the “transgender child” is therefore central the campaigning of transgender activism. One of the most telling admissions of this instrumentalisation in contained in an interview published on YouTube between TransYouth Family Allies executive director Kim Pearson and transgender activist Autumn Sandeen (Sandeen and Pearson 2010) with this transcription taken from the “GenderTrender” website (GallusMag 2012):

Autumn Sandeen: “I’ve always said there are two groups that are going to make change in transgender legislation and the “gender identity and expression” related language in legislation. It’s going to be trans youth because they take, you know, they demystify it and take the sex right out of the trans experience.”

Kim Pearson: “They do. They do.”
...
Pearson: “... And it’s hard to say no to kids, and the needs of kids and “keeping kids safe”. And you know, “being respected in schools” and things like that. It’s really hard for people to say no to that.”

mirandayardley.com/en/a-full-life-uninterrupted-by-transition/

What do we want?
"Less data and no research"
When do we want it?
"Now!"

Wait, but why?
"TRANSPHOBE!!!!"

That Fae article is shocking.

Is it me, or is an objection in that thread to the review of data is that the data kept by GIDS is “garbage”?😵‍💫

@OldCrone that’s chilling. What I meant by the original comment was that re Rotherham people were frightened of calling that out for fear of being called racist, likewise there is this fear of being called transphobic if anything to do with transgender issue, especially children, is criticised.

Listen
Believe
Change

Except that the whole point of research is to remove belief and instead look at real world outcomes.

If you could do a study and then say, 'ok here are the flaws in the study' in terms of explaining how bias was actually being applied. Being able to explain how the bias is being applied is actually useful in itself because you can then work to remove it or adjust for it.

But you still have to look at the real world outcomes.

If you do research and its only done by trans people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, thats biased and could be actively dangerous. You remove self interest from studies because it produces a conflict of interest.

Its also hugely disrespectful to the professionalism of people doing a review.

Don't get me wrong, i do think that you need to listen - a lack of listening is always present in medical scandals. But listening includes the voices of detransitioners and people who feel theyve been failed by those who carried out medicalised transition on them.

I thought Fae was a writer of some kind? That piece is atrocious - full of typos, clunky, badly argued.

Thank you to the link to the Jane Fae article. I hope someone has archived that. Fae seems to view themselves as having some kind of informed sage perspective on the safety and outcomes of modern day invasive medicalised child transition in the NHS over the last few years. So what’s Fae’s experience of going through GIDS services as a child or parent? Or what is Fae’s professional GIDS expertise giving Fae the authority to comment on this?

No? Nothing?

Yet Fae feels entitled to dismiss Professor Hilary Cass, a paediatrician at the height of her profession, and former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, as some kind of unethical ‘cispert’. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so ignorant and threatening to medical and scientific understanding that could actually help children’s health and welfare or could help to avoid any serious medical mistreatment of children.

I think anyone could tell Fae what’s actually seriously unethical here- that would be the long years of experimenting on vulnerable kids subject to a vast amount of pressure, leaving them with permanent physical and mental changes and keeping them permanently in their child bodies with a host of side effects and known health problems, and without the benefit of natural physical and mental adult maturation. With no research being done to say whether it’s safe or effective at helping them at all. It’s almost as though they were a group whose outcomes nobody cared about. And that’s the real scandal.

Most tellingly, while Fae is trying to whip up feeling against the Health Secretary (who has finally acted responsibly in this issue whereas previous government ministers have not), and while encouraging readers to take action against individual researchers and other people who may have authorised access to children’s or adult’s health records as part of doing this research, Fae fails to explain why doing this research is actually a problem. Fae just doesn’t want this research done.

Fae clearly has zero understanding of the extremely strict rules concerning use of data in medical research whether it belongs to an adult or a child. So strict in the case of GRC holders that government has to bring in legislation to allow this. Fae actively promoting an anti-research position and calling on others to follow tells us all we need to know.

And once again, shame on the original legislators who passed the hugely ill-thought-out GRA. I didn’t realise that its requirements for secrecy must have been a block to medical research invitations and social research follow up of people who have had GRCs ever since. That is outrageous and would have been actually something to write to MPs about to get it changed. No group should be given untested medical treatment with no research or follow up.

It’s great that this has been overturned and research can now take place. But does that change permit researchers to apply to use GRC data indefinitely? Or is it only applicable to those doing specific research to inform the Cass report?

Jane Fae article. I hope someone has archived that.

Available on the appropriately named archive sites.

Or is it only applicable to those doing specific research to inform the Cass report?

Looks to be limited to 5 years and those commissioned on behalf of the Cass review (York). NB: this link says "time limited period" but I know that I read 5 years somewhere.

This instrument will make a minor change under the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004 to facilitate the progression of the Review’s research programme, enabling the researchers to have carefully controlled access to pseudonymised data (i.e. they will not be able to identify anyone from the data they receive) for a time limited period, and solely for the purposes of the Review’s research.

cass.independent-review.uk/research/

It was good to read this.

The Review’s research team has undertaken service user engagement and involvement, with six online sessions to explain the research process and ask their views, especially around the use of data without consent. The feedback from the trans and gender questioning adolescents and young adults and their parents who attended these sessions was overwhelmingly supportive of both the importance of this study and the methods to be used.

I've been thinking about this overnight and it's incredibly serious. Slothtoes has nailed it:
Most tellingly, while Fae is trying to whip up feeling against the Health Secretary (who has finally acted responsibly in this issue whereas previous government ministers have not), and while encouraging readers to take action against individual researchers and other people who may have authorised access to children’s or adult’s health records as part of doing this research, Fae fails to explain why doing this research is actually a problem. Fae just doesn’t want this research done.
Fae clearly has zero understanding of the extremely strict rules concerning use of data in medical research whether it belongs to an adult or a child. So strict in the case of GRC holders that government has to bring in legislation to allow this. Fae actively promoting an anti-research position and calling on others to follow tells us all we need to know.

This is an overt attempt to undermine child safeguarding in the medical field. As the research finally starts happening and all the unintended consequences emerge, Fae openly threaten the livelihoods (and arguably given the unhinged nature of so many trans extremists) the safety of professionals working in the field. I do hope that the press pick this up and Fae is challenged to explain why fae thinks that issuing threats to others in this way is acceptable? And why fae is so determined to stop research into child health care and safety?

Thanks Hadrosaurus and MrsOverton
I’d say while this is a welcome move from Javid I think that any researcher with the right credentials should be able to ask questions of GRC data, in perpetuity, subject to the usual very tight restrictions on researching government data or health data particularly NHS records.

Child transition-related questions are very important to answer, but there are also other questions about the wellbeing of adults that Cass’ team won’t be asking under their remit. Like researching the outcomes that adult GRC holders have by looking at their healthcare records- especially important given the number of vulnerable adults who get GRCs- and asking how they have been doing since.

Or for gathering evidence to place together with detransitioned people’s views around the process for reversing a GRC, which could then be used to argue the case to make the GRC process more reversible. I understand that currently there’s a problem because it would only be possible to reverse a GRC by declaring that you fraudulently applied for your GRC in the first place, which not every detransitioned person would feel is an accurate.way to describe their application at that time, made in good faith.

Its a fundamental ethical requirement of equality that there should be no unresearched groups. GRA is still relatively recent legislation from the early 2000s. And there are known problems with it- like that GRC doesn’t allow people to change their mind about taking on a completely subjective legal status that they adopted voluntarily. Why not?

If a GRC aid nobody’s business but the adult individual’s and they must be granted a GRC if they apply and submit the right paperwork, then the same must also be true for adult people who detransition.

Perhaps Fae is using this as an opportunity to relaunch Fae as being relevant as a go-to media spokesperson.

They just needed to allow some time to pass after their ‘eggshell skull’ and that misogynist Covid comment. I mean, that they had got Faeself named as a Top 100 Lesbian by Diva after the eggshell skull comments made Diva’s decision doubly questionable.

But I don’t think Fae can stay out of the limelight, be ignored by BBC TV or Radio for long without feeling the isolation.

I think anyone commenting on Cass research should have their expertise to do so established very clearly before any weight at all is placed on their opinion.

The Cass project, or approved researchers seeking to access health records and GRA status information under strict legal oversight for approved purposes is not ‘fascist’. What an insult to the millions of victims of fascism.

The Cass review is not going to be making any kind of opinionated judgement on the concept of child transition. My understanding is that they are simply looking to discover what has happened over time (judging by the health records) to children who have medically transitioned and this group will include some of those who will have as adults gone on to get a GRC. (Not all children who transition will want to get a GRC.) When they have this info they will make it public.

All of which is urgently needed information to inform and improve the quality of care for children, because the physical and emotional consequences of taking medical or surgical transition can be so severe and permanent. And because currently they can be decided by children who can’t possibly be expected to understand the full meaning of what they are giving up. And what they are taking on in terms of health problems. I think it’s a misapplication of Gillick competence.

That’s also another argument for the GRA to be updated to allow research using data from people who do get GRCs. It sounds like it’s not possible research for researchers in general to apply to do that (because only allowed for the Cass review ones for next 5 years. Why is that?). Isn’t that in itself an argument for GRA reform?

Adults who live as transmen or transwomen may or may not medically and/or surgically transition as part of that and they may or may not get a GRC at some point in their lives.

Enabling GRC data to be used in research would allow comparisons of outcomes to be made between those adults who get GRCs and those who don’t and to look at what medical interventions they may (or may not) take on in the course of their lives relative to the GRC application.

Having publicly-available research data on all of that could better inform trans adults impartially about their options, could inform better ways of the state supporting trans adults who want to change their legal status. Research evidence could also inform making sure the health care provided to trans adults is as safe and effective as possible at supporting their needs and could be used to look at where that could be done better.

So banning research on the data of people who get GRCs in fact means that researchers lose an important comparison group for all of the groups under the very wide ranging ‘trans umbrella’. Which means all trans people lose out on important information.

Taking an anti-research position calling for a whole community not to support it, in fact asking people to just stop short of putting ‘tanks on the lawn’ to actively try to prevent it happening, seems incredibly selfish and individualistic, not to mention intimidating, whatever way you look it.

It seems a very odd position for anyone to advocate that a caring, inclusive, health-conscious community ever would want to adopt.

I think they have to keep the remit of the study limited to comply with data protection laws.

It is difficult to get an open ended exemption with no time frame for the holding of data because of the concept of it being unnecessary to do so. I do think this is right because of the implications in other areas of data protection : you want data to be available for a specific narrow reason and not available for a well there's a fuzzy what if which we aren't quite sure of. This limits the issue of data being used for unintended purposes and there being unintended consequences of that.

However that doesn't mean you can not then make a case for an extension, by demonstrating at the end of the fixed time period that there are certain questions that still need to be resolved and you can justify the continuation of the study under a tightly regulated set of rules.

By having one study, you also open up the legitimacy to ask questions and have other future studies and that in itself is important. It means this area is no longer off limits due to the ideology.

It means science has relevance and ideology does not dominate.

As I've said before, most medical scandals are rooted in belief and ideology over taking and silencing evidence. Whereever you see the pattern of ideology entering medicine you see problems emerge as a direct result.

If it is legitimate to research transition in children, it also opens up the legitimacy of research into late transitioning. There are a few key questions that you can pack into that. Is it the same as children transitioning and if its not, what does it reveal? If there is a difference are there patterns? Are there similarities? We know about correlations with autism and trauma in younger people?

I also think that part of the appeal of the ideology is about control and power over others. If thats true, as things unravel we are going to see some good displays of that as power is lost. I think of Trump throwing his plate across the room and ketchup dripping down the wall and him trying to grab the steering wheel of his car on Jan 6th as an interesting comparison.

I hope someone is studying the reaction of prominent TRA activists...

Speaking of ideology, I saw a tweet earlier that summed it up perfectly. I can't find it now, but it was relating the trans stuff to the with trials.

If she drowns, she was never a witch. If someone detransitions, they were never trans.

I think the reason they don't want GRC holders included is because their exclusion will allow TRAs to poke holes in the review on the basis of incomplete data. Which at this point, with all the evidence of them working hard to try and prevent the data being accessed, would be an interesting tactic.