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.

It seems to me that Javid is fully alive to the tactics of TRAs trying to limit access to any and all information. His obvious question is going to be why?

The answer he gets from TRAs will only reinforce his resolution, in my opinion. It wasn't for nothing that he likened it to the Rotherham scandal.

And I don't think TRAs like Fae are going to make the slightest dent. All the stuff about extreme porn, lowering the age of participants, and advice on how to erase your hard drive, doesn't do much for one's credibility. In fact, I should imagine most of what TRAs are going to say, will actually have the opposite effect to the one they are hoping for.

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

I think that's another reason Fae and friends are so desperate to obstruct this research. It paves the way for other research.

If Javid was my MP I would definitely be making an appointment to speak to him.

Same.

RedToothBrush I totally agree with what you say here: I think they have to keep the remit of the study limited to comply with data protection laws.

That would make absolute sense in terms of Cass researchers’ different applications for defined research projects to answer specific questions.

However what I think is extremely concerning is the impression given here that it is an offence for a researcher to be given permission do other routine research on GRA data (outside of Cass work)….: hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022-06-30/debates/22063044000016/GenderRecognitionDisclosureOfInformation

… because GRC status has been drawn up in the GRA as special untouchable data that you would need to get consent for to take part in research. This is much more confidential than say, our medical data is treated. But how could a researcher ever invite a GRC holder, starting now, to take part in retrospective research, when you’re not allowed by law, to know who has a GRC? Another example of GRA being dangerously and poorly made.

Javid says:
‘Under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, it is an offence for a person acting in an official capacity to disclose information about the gender history of a person with a gender recognition certificate (GRC). The Act calls this “protected information”, with some existing exemptions, such as where disclosure is to prevent or investigate crime, or the subject of the information agrees to the disclosure.

The order I have laid today will add a further exemption to the GRA so that a closely defined class of people who facilitate, assist and carry out the research for the Cass review will be able to disclose protected information to each other during the course of their work. Without access to information currently protected under the Act, a significant portion of the available data on health outcomes would have to be removed from the study. This would subsequently prevent Dr Cass review from being able to provide robust recommendations rooted in the best available clinical evidence about how this care can best be provided.

This data will allow us to plan the provision of these services from a world-leading clinical evidence base, to promote better health outcomes for those who use these important services. I firmly believe that this will help enable further debate on these issues to be informed by the best available clinical evidence which will better serve everyone, not least children.

I remain committed to upholding the rights and privacy of transgender people, so this data will be carefully controlled. Only those working for a small number of organisations listed in the order and who are involved in the research will be able to access protected information and share it with each other. Furthermore, those within this closed circle will only be able to access and share the data if doing so is genuinely necessary in order to facilitate, assist or carry out research as part of the Cass review.’

So this change is a really breakthrough and it is a first to be celebrated because it will bring new knowledge. But the fact that the law apparently forbids anyone to do research on this area (unless they are doing it via Cass review) is a huge limit on research.

The GRA has had baked in to itself, stopping all research around GRC holding. That seems a dangerous and discriminatory approach both for people with GRCs and for trans people in general. This legal block will be contributing to very uninformed medical care for GRC holders and all sorts of other unnecessarily potentially poor outcomes for them, due to a lack of research evidence.

edinburghath.tumblr.com/post/163521055802/trans-health-manifesto

'There will be no clinics, and no authorities. We will conduct our own research, and experiment with our own bodies. We will heal and grow together. We will accumulate knowledge and share it freely and accessibly. We demand nothing less than the total abolition of the clinic, of psychiatry, and of the medical-industrial complex. We demand an end to capitalist & colonialist “medicine”.'

Actually, here's the relevant research section:

'We demand research centres & libraries of knowledge, autonomously & horizontally organised by and for trans people, in which research subjects are equal participants in deciding the experiments conducted & the manner in which those experiments are carried out. We demand full funding for any research or projects undertaken by these collectives.'

(same link above)

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.

My understanding that a GRC can be reversed, but only by the holder going through the entire process (diagnosis, panel etc.) all over again, with their original sex now being the one they want to transition to. Crazy, but no crazier than the rest of the GRA.

I agree actually. Though the way you phrase it makes it hard to fully understand.

I think the simplified version of that is to use an example:

Researcher A is doing work on breast cancer. They have 100 participants in the study. All are female on paper.

However in reality 3 are actually male.

Key Question: How does this affect the research findings and what are the implications for health care for women?

Its a really valid question and one thats really important. Researchers can not take the word of a participant that they are female at this point. They can not trust the paperwork. In theory they need to be able to access the data that allows them to see that someone's sex when they look at their medical records.

This is a matter of public interest in order to prevent harm.

I guess the only alternative way to do it, is to have some kind of marker on files, saying this person is not suitable for general medical research cases.

Not read all the thread but wanted to pick up on the analogy about abortion. I had an abortion 25 years ago at 15 weeks which I still bitterly regret. I remain staunchly pro choice but if I was invited to be interviewed in a confidential clinical setting about my experience I would have three fundamental points I could make about how I think the process could have been different without being unnecessarily intrusive or difficult, and if handled differently would have made all the difference and may well have made me choose a different course.

Action for Trans Health were invited to give evidence for Maria Millers Government Response to the Women and Equalities Committee Report on Transgender Equality.

It's difficult to believe that such a batshit organisation was ever taken seriously enough, but it was.

I read this as belts n braces:

"Only those working for a small number of organisations listed in the order and who are involved in the research will be able to access protected information and share it with each other."

Because someone will need to obtain the data. Then share it for research purposes with other people. Then they will probably have to do things like categorise it and discuss it. All of those things = "sharing info with each other"

I’m looking forward to seeing how all those bodily “experiments” get on without all the capitalist and colonialist antibiotics, surgical guidelines, hormones and so on. 🍿

In about ten years time when we can look back at this time like some very bad dream there will be an archive of classic trans bolloxology-this document will be somewhere at the top.

Exactly, this is how we got to this absurd position.

ResisterRex I read it as belt and braces too. A blanket ban on research using GRA data. And I agree RedToothbrush it’s really worrying that GRA’s secrecy poses a risk to the integrity of all research that relies on biological sex being accurately recorded? If people can get their NHS health records to be changed to reflect a new legal sex; that will skew the data for all of us.

I hadn’t even got on to that aspect though- sorry if I expressed it poorly up thread but I was worrying about the implications for GRC holders themselves, that research around to their transition could not normally ever be done. Because for secrecy reasons GRA doesn’t allow researchers any access to GRC status data. It looks very much like research isn’t one of the allowable reasons that GRA gives for people to be allowed to share a person’s GRC status with others. (..unless for doing Cass review research, where it will now be allowed.)

I don’t think it would be possible to have any kind of markers on files because that could still reveal GRC status somehow, which would be against the GRA.

The GRA should just be changed (repealed ideally) to allow research on the data gathered around GRC status to be done, which could be carried out under the normal strict rules for doing any research using government data.

And the GRA should also be amended so that it can no longer be given as a reason for changing biological sex markers in NHS health records, in order to pretend that the patient’s biological sex is the same as their legal sex shown on the GRC.

It should be made legally OK for NHS records to show someone has a GRC, and that they would prefer different names and titles and so on. It could be noted in NHS records (which are obviously confidential) that the person is transgender, which I presume is what already happens for trans people who don’t have GRCs?

This could be really important to know about for their medical care, but also for monitoring patient demographics and service design and staff training purposes etc.

And the GRA should also be changed to require any new legal sex status granted to be made visible alongside biological sex status in NHS health records- instead of replacing biological sex with legal sex.

That way the people with altered health records wouldn’t skew the results of health records research in which sometimes biological sex really matters. The same could be done for people who adopt transgender or NB status but choose not to get a GRC. Inclusive research would be of benefit to everyone. Because we all have a sex, and any one of us might need medical treatment according to our sex, regardless of any gender identity we may or may not feel we have got.

I've been following a thread on the fruit farms about gender reassignment surgery and it is heartbreaking and horrific (don't look at the spoilers unless you have a really strong stomach).
There has already been some research into GRC - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33663938/. But the results are not great - "Of the 1,212 patients completing the survey, 129 patients underwent genital reconstruction surgery...Patients reported 281 complications requiring 142 revisions. The most common complications were urethrocutaneous fistula (n = 51, 40 percent), urethral stricture (n = 41, 32 percent), and worsened mental health (n = 25, 19 percent)."

We really need research into this before more people go on to have surgery or hormone treatment that leaves them with life-long health issues.

And me. Tenner says they’ll fuck it right up and then ‘demand’ NHS care to put it right.

The whole movement has gone so far beyond anything you could call logic, science, truth, evidence - it’s a deliberately obscure hotchpotch of pseudo-science, misinterpreted biology and word play which is so incomprehensible that it can be twisted to mean anything they want it to mean.

On one hand, it isn’t about biology, on the other they need ‘medical treatment’ and reconstructed genitals made from forearm.

On one hand it isn’t about chromosomes, on the other it has something to do with DSDs.

On one hand it isn’t about gender stereotypes, on the other we have the ‘gender bread’ person and transwomen dolling up and wearing OTT ‘girly’ clothing.

On one hand it isn’t about ‘reducing’ women to body parts, on the other they want us to be called ‘womb havers’ and similar.

it contradicts itself at every turn, and the only card they have to play to protect the insanity is by shutting down every attempt to query it with ‘U R such a bigot’.

Whatever the Cass report says, the movement are too far gone to accept it - it will be ‘transphobic’ and ‘discredited’ by somebody with green hair and a degree in Twitterology.

The only thing we can do is hold our small fort of (female!) truth and ride it out. I really believe it’s turned up to fill a gap in teen subculture and like all the others it will fizzle in a handful of years.

Excellently said, Wouldloveanother!

deliberately obscure hotchpotch of pseudo-science, misinterpreted biology and word play which is so incomprehensible that it can be twisted to mean anything they want it to mean.

100%

Excellent post.

And although I think the tide is turning, it's bloody slow. A lot slower than I thought it would be.

at some point, I sincerely hope the government realise that just saying no is an option.

Just bloody say no. That's it. No to men in women's prisons, no to men in women's sport, no to men in women's changing rooms, no to shared toilets. The vast majority of people would back that.

This data is the thing. And that is why it is so important for them to stop it if they can. Because it will show more damage than good.

Nailed it.