Tavistock clinic to close as not safe for children

[GettingMarriedAgain]

Breaking news in the Times and Telegraph:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e1ed2bea-0e63-11ed-93cf-b011fa7fe86b?shareToken=4fa557c3083dee141defde72e0e53d54

@bellinisurge the article later states:

"A spokesman for the Tavistock clinic said: “GIDS [the Gender Identity Development Service at Tavistock] works to NHS England’s specification, which states that assessments are ‘typically three to six appointments, depending on the individual’.
“GIDS works on a case-by-case basis with every young person individually, with no preconceived outcome of what path they may take, and only the minority access any physical treatment while with the service.
“Referring to the endocrinology team after fewer than four sessions would be very unusual – a recent study showed there were an average of 10 appointments before referral.”"

It also says the below about looking closer still. It's a long article that covers a lot of ground:

"Bayswater, a family support group with more than 450 members, said that they hoped that a review into the Tavistock service promised by Sajid Javidd_, the-then health secretary, “will still go ahead, and be expanded to include the education and charity sectors”.
“We would like the inquiry to include the 18-25 age group, who are currently fast-tracked to adult clinics that have even fewer safeguards. The adolescent brain does not complete its development until age 25, which could explain why so many who detransition do so in their mid-20s.”"

I know someone's already linked Helen Webberley's twitter up-thread but this post encapsulates to me the crux of the problem with the activist model:

"puberty blockers and puberty with peers are essential for the wellbeing of trans youth who want them."

A healthcare model based on 'customer demand'.

I can't think of another treatment model like this for children (or, to be fair, adults, apart from in the private sector).

Helen Webberley: "Today's trans youth are tomorrow's trans adults"

Translation: "Today's trans youth are our pipeline for our business model of creating adult customers who will need our services for a lifetime"

A healthcare model based on 'customer demand'.

I can't think of another treatment model like this for children (or, to be fair, adults, apart from in the private sector).

A slew of adults (mostly middle-aged and female) would attest to the fact that they would like treatment for hypothyroidism but:

• the guidelines in the UK allow a far higher TSH level than countries such as the US


• it's very rare for somebody to be able to obtain T3 on the NHS no matter whether they had it before the eye-watering price hike or are not improving on T4 (there are controversies, of course).

Ditto, it's not that straightforward for people to obtain injectable B12, even if there are verified chronic deficiencies and related multimorbidities.

I've read that some body builders have been able to persuade their GPs to monitor their steroid usage and authorise their bloodwork but this is very rare, afaict.

There are many women who want particular treatments for endometriosis but can't have them, sometimes for years.

Women who suffer chronic back pain etc. but can not obtain breast reduction surgery.

I'm sure that we can all come up with many examples.

I console myself with the knowledge that Hilary Cass knows exactly who Susie Green is and what Mermaids does.

Mermaids is cited over and over for having a negative influence on GIDS

Hilary Cass will absolutely know. She might well be concerned, though, about the amount of children who are connected to mermaids. And the outcome for them.

But I don't think, for a single second, that she will allow mermaids to have any kind of input into these new clinics.

And want them because they have been strongly encouraged, advised and steered to want them by gender political activists. I won't say trans people, because not all TQ+ people agree with the politics and not all the activists are themselves TQ+, this has been a political capture by a group that has used children to further their own agenda.

As Datun says above: Cass is fully aware of this. Political capture is at the heart of everything that went wrong at the Tavistock, and those seeking to now capture and control the new organisations are likely to find those loopholes being slammed shut at high speed. They never should have been open in the first place, this has been a massive failure to follow the most basic, known safeguarding policies and practices.

This is the first step towards the next inquiry and review: the political capture by the activist lobby across multiple institutions who have a duty towards impartiality and following actual laws and actual policies. And following that review, the action to root it out and re establish impartiality and re train staff out of trained biased beliefs incompatible with impartiality and actual law will have to be taken. It's going to take years and a hell of a lot of money to fix this.

It's taken us ten years of jumping up and down, writing, pointing it out, arguing, being repeatedly deleted, handed strikes, banned, in some cases ending up in police cells and being punched in the head, setting up grassroots groups for ourselves, funding legal actions to force captured institutions to follow the actual bloody law, and we're nowhere near done - but finally we're seeing what we've been shouting about be openly stated in the press, and picked up with horror from evidence in reviews.

Its infuriating in many ways, not least that those ten years will reflect kids who were exploited in this wild west and may be permanently affected by it, but it wasn't for nothing.

It's taken us ten years of jumping up and down, writing, pointing it out, arguing, being repeatedly deleted, handed strikes, banned, in some cases ending up in police cells and being punched in the head, setting up grassroots groups for ourselves, funding legal actions to force captured institutions to follow the actual bloody law, and we're nowhere near done - but finally we're seeing what we've been shouting about be openly stated in the press, and picked up with horror from evidence in reviews.

Its infuriating in many ways, not least that those ten years will reflect kids who were exploited in this wild west and may be permanently affected by it, but it wasn't for nothing.

When I think of the women's and LGB (mostly L) initiatives that are not funded by BBC CIN and the near monopoly of T of any LGBT funding—when I think of what it's literally cost us (as you so poignantly summarise), I could weep. But we don't have time for that. We have to keep on with the basics, no matter that what the opprobrium. We do it and know, all too often, that the people we do this for would banish us from public and civic life, and cost us our liberty and our occupations/livelihood if they could.

Spot on EmbarrassingHadrosaurus
"But we don't have time for that. We have to keep on with the basics, no matter that what the opprobrium. We do it and know, all too often, that the people we do this for would banish us from public and civic life, and cost us our liberty and our occupations/livelihood if they could"

We desperately need schools to be challenged. The September term will begin with countless "training" sessions for teachers as the lobby groups desperately try to embed their power and line their pockets. Somehow we need to up the pressure on schools to remove the queer theorists from the outset and ensure that schools refocus on their core purpose and ensure children's wellbeing and safeguarding - not feeding social contagion and lining the coffers of Stonewall and other associated narcissists.

Janice Turner:

Gender clinics face scrutiny of science at last

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a8875ebe-0f73-11ed-93cf-b011fa7fe86b?shareToken=1c84012592892d00c67d6f0cd95e64d6

It's taken us ten years of jumping up and down, writing, pointing it out, arguing, being repeatedly deleted, handed strikes, banned, in some cases ending up in police cells and being punched in the head, setting up grassroots groups for ourselves, funding legal actions to force captured institutions to follow the actual bloody law, and we're nowhere near done - but finally we're seeing what we've been shouting about be openly stated in the press, and picked up with horror from evidence in reviews.

it wasn't for nothing.

👏👏👏

Excellent Janice Turner article
its inevitable that once this stuff is looked at it all falls apart. It’s not evidence based treatment, it’s politics based snake oil.

Mermaids having to pretend this is a win and something they wanted is galling but it's also so revealing.

It would have been great if whole thing collapsed in one moment that took the whole ideology down and tbh I've kept hoping the next thing would be the big break through.

But I'm realising now it's a war of attrition and step by step the ideology is being pushed back.

They tried no debate - we pushed back and the debate is happening. It's central now in politics.

They tried wrong body concept - and had to remove this idea from their literature.

They tried to get ehrc to collude - they've restated the law clearly.

They tried to control the health clinic treatment pathways - the clinic is being shut down.

And each time they have to pretend it's not a loss.
But it is.

But it's not over and they're trying desperately to stay in the game.

Next is:
Getting the ideological capture out of schools and institutions.
Ensuring treatment pathways revert to watchful waiting.

They're going to pretend all is fine so they can try to shore up these. New battle fronts.

Janice Turner's final paragraph is accurate and chilling in its outline of the challenges we still face and the vigilance we must maintain.

Now gender services will move to regional children’s hospitals, including Great Ormond Street, and Alder Hey in Liverpool. Treatment, Cass says, will be holistic, taking into account autism traits, mental health and life experience. Yet already we learn GIDS staff will assist with the creation of these units. Activist groups such as Mermaids remain quiet, perhaps hoping they can assert influence. It will take generous funding, well-trained therapists and strict treatment protocols if we are to avoid the creation of more dark places, where opinion trumps data, and sunlight cannot reach.

Yes. I suppose they still need children to sign up to whatever it is they do, in order to justify their existence. And they have to be seen to be adhering to the law and the studies findings.

Eventually, everything they say and do will be within the confines of as close to a gender critical viewpoint as the government will endorse!

TRA's make facts go spinny.

I didn't see this last year so apologies if this is old news but this correspondence between Bayswater Support and the CEO of the Tavistock is shocking.

(Spoiler: he dismisses them and Transgender Trend as transphobic and says the Tavistock won't engage with them)

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1435203185912725504.html

We desperately need schools to be challenged. The September term will begin with countless "training" sessions for teachers as the lobby groups desperately try to embed their power and line their pockets. Somehow we need to up the pressure on schools to remove the queer theorists from the outset and ensure that schools refocus on their core purpose and ensure children's wellbeing and safeguarding - not feeding social contagion and lining the coffers of Stonewall and other associated narcissists.

it's worse than that.

It's the teacher training colleges and universities.

And they're funding phds by TRAs. Creating research bases. Publishing books, for teachers and trainees, all which have a starting point of the concept of a "trans child" being an indisputable tangible fact based on the affirmation model. The articles are there now. Teachers are being created by these people and places.

It's going to take a while before the approaches that Cass has outlined will impact and filter through to the public consciousness, and I'm sure many parents will seek private routes.

But the nhs and education are poles apart. The tories have decimated centralised education; private education companies delivering cpd are now normalised. Museums have to demonstrate their educational value to maintain funding, often providing workshops, resources etc. Will the history lead have any idea of the guidance for pshe and RSE regarding gender stereotyping when reviewing resources for history that sneak a couple of "trans romans" lessons in? Will they care?

Miriam Cates has an opinion piece in the Telegraph which is accessible here and covers many of the areas discussed on this thread and over the course of this week:

mobile.twitter.com/pittparents/status/1553267249049243648

Now gender services will move to regional children’s hospitals, including Great Ormond Street, and Alder Hey in Liverpool. Treatment, Cass says, will be holistic, taking into account autism traits, mental health and life experience. Yet already we learn GIDS staff will assist with the creation of these units. Activist groups such as Mermaids remain quiet, perhaps hoping they can assert influence. It will take generous funding, well-trained therapists and strict treatment protocols if we are to avoid the creation of more dark places, where opinion trumps data, and sunlight cannot reach.

Yes. I have been worried about this. What is really needed is good, rigorous and transparent oversight. If this isn't maintained via Cass or otherwise provided it will all go to shit.

Treatment, Cass says, will be holistic, taking into account autism traits, mental health and life experience.

Problem is, the National autistic society is very captured and many autistic charities are very pro autism and trans.

They don't recognise that many autistic people are simply very gender non conforming. That non conformity is being equated with trans. Not an issue if medicalisation is being reduced but still becomes a confusing issue for young people who think they're the opposite sex and then demand access to different single sex spaces. Particularly obviously 'male to female'

Thread demonstrating the rot.

Charities targeting SEND children with gender identity www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4595808-charities-targeting-send-children-with-gender-identity

What what a surprise, () mermaids feature in that thread too.

Yes most of the autistic charities are captured (Sunshine Support, National Autistic Society).
When your child needs your help you seek out help from charities, support groups etc. I've been on Facebook groups where a parents come to discuss the issue and virtually all the responses are along the lines of this:
So good they felt safe to come out to you.
Yes support them and use their pronouns.
Go to Mermaids they are brilliant.
Most autistic kids are trans so it quite normal.

I usually go on and recommended an alternative approach to affirmation which is watchful waiting. Recommend they do as much research as possible on both sides and say look at Transgender Trend, Bayswater etc. Then I get a pile as these organisation are deemed transphobic, get called names, then the admin delete my posts.

I did have a few mums DM and say thanks for the links I got them before they were deleted and this aligns with more of what I was thinking.

I praise gender non conforming kids and say that's what it is about smashing sexist gender stereotypes, but that is dismissed instead trans is the only way.

It is so hard to tackle when affirmation is just everywhere. I really hope these new centres slow everything down and truly offer a watchful waiting approach.

This is good news but as others have said this is only the start, the TRA dogma has to be removed from education and, crucially, the entire NHS.