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

Totally agree that this is a big worry. For all their current talk, will a Tory government keep on top of this and fight the inevitable attempts to influence and infiltrate the new clinics? Also agree with WarriorN that until Labour, and the left generally, change their tune many of the captured organisations will carry on as before and there will be the usual attempts to paint pushback against TRA ideology as right wing bigotry.

Totally agree that this is a big worry.

Certainly Nottingham Hospitals are in thrall to gender ideology. The guidelines will have to be very clear and monitored to make sure a local Tavistock type situation doesn't develop.

That’s an impressive article by Kemi - she doesn’t pull any punches!

Thank you very much for sharing the link to the KB article - wow.

It's a shock to know for certain everything we suspected was happening. And to know that the walls really are falling now.

Inquiry. On political capture. Now.

Inquiry. On political capture. Now.

Abso-fucking-lutely. No-one voted for political lobby groups such as Stonewall and Mermaids to wield influence on Government.

A stunning article from Kemi Badenoch, a very clear sighted and direct individual should definitely have got the PM job, so much clarity in her thinking. However, I suspect Kemi will get a decent role whoever wins the leadership contest Kemi has definitely proved her mettle.

YES to an Inquiry!
Much as it disappoints me as a labour voter, we need this government to stay in power to put right the harms that have happened on their watch - especially to children. The labour party are clear that safety / ethics / fairness for women and children are of no interest to them. They've clearly come down on the side of the trans extremists. Whatever position Kemi is appointed to, hopefully she'll be able to influence change - and both the current candidates are clear that they'll roll back the power that extremists have in society - which benefits children and women.

Yes. Any enquiry should include the influence of senior civil servants, who may have broken the civil service code.

I am relatively new to this case so sorry if I have misunderstood, and of course we might need to wait for the report publication but does anyone in the medical field have insight?

I would have expected a specialist clinic to be collaborating with other clinics of this kind, probably internationally, to better understand these conditions and establish the most effective treatments. Then publishing in high impact peer reviewed medical journals, with the goal of establishing a set of evidence based treatment guidelines for children and young people.

They also had a missed opportunity through the cohort they were seeing and through collaboration with other clinics to gather data to help understand why their case numbers were rising, and in particular why cases with ASD and girls were rising faster than other groups.

Why did none of this happen?

@GrowlingManchego

It's a mix of many factors but from my view it's mainly fear of upsetting a vocal minority group.

Organisations like mermaids and Stonewall have been very good at becoming influencers in this area and getting their voices into policy across high levels of organisations.

The messaging has been that if children aren't affirmed and allowed to transition then they will kill themselves. That anyone telling a child they are not trans or questioning whether there is a possibility they may not be trans is conducting conversion therapy or denying the existence of trans people and being transphobic.

What this has led to is a massive wait list for services due to increased demand, when someone does finally get to the front of that list and is seen, they are affirmed as being correct in their self diagnosis and put in to gender affirming treatment with little in the way of exploration of the issues. Partly because there isn't the capacity for the treatment they need, partly because service providers are scared of being accused of transphobia and conversion therapy and partly because they've been sold a load of shite theory by stonewall/mermaids.

Thank you very much for explaining. Patient advocacy organisations should of course be at the table when talking about effective treatments for gender dysphoria and should be able to fight alongside clinicians for better provision and more research funding. But they shouldn’t be able to deflect clinics from delivering best practice. This is what shocked me and why I asked the questions.

But digging into the history, Stonewall have years of experience influencing treatment, funding and policy responses to HIV. Here is some background They generally did a good job by the looks of things and have probably built up relationships of trust with the medical establishment. They have also created a strong brand around fighting for the rights of minorities.

My theory is that people of influence within these organisations in the past few years have used the goodwill, reputation and connections built from a solid HIV campaigning track record, to advance the trans rights cause. But it is problematic because the narrative, however well intentioned, doesn’t support pathways for the best care for trans people. Which is what most decent people would want to see.

And yes, you'd be right.

It would appear that Stonewall were a victim of their own success - equal rights for homosexuals and campaigning around HIV and aids.

A new revenue stream emerged in the shape of transgenderism. (Although, I do wonder sometimes, if even they realised what monster they were unleashing.)

But the manipulation in terms of fear mongering, threatening, intimidation and outright deceit has done its job. That, and playing on absolutely everybody's sensitivities by claiming that any challenge is akin to long held homophobia - that every politician in the land wants to forget.

How else would you end up with rapists being given access to incarcerated women? Or rape refuges being petrified out of holding any women only sessions?

The push against all reason, common sense, fairness, laws and protocols is across-the-board.

Cass has identified the influence of lobbyists on GIDS, from one end to the other. I suppose Clinicians at GIDS are only human, and as subject as anyone else to manipulation, coercion and ideological capture.

Fortunately there were quite a few people who did not buy it, and whistle blew. And they, in their turn were also subjected to intimidation. The censorship is powerful. So it's taken some time for them to be taken seriously, and also for other people to be 'un-intimidated' into listening to them. Maya Forstater's case has helped that enormously.

For what it's worth, the women here have been pointing out the problem with GIDS for years. (And mermaids, Stonewall, Gires, Gendered intelligence).

We, like everyone else, have been subjected to censorship. With posts being repeatedly reported, and deleted and many superb posters banned.

Mumsnet is a constant target for trans activists. It is a business which relies on advertising, and they have struggled with the onslaught.

i'm glad there are many more people turning their attention to this. New as it is for them, it really isn't for the people here.

Thanks for your perspective Datun. I’m thankful to all who have dragged this issue into the light.

The push against all reason, common sense, fairness, laws and protocols is across-the-board.

You’re right, it’s astonishing that this ideology has been allowed to prosper to the extent that it has. Money talks and all but would something as straightforward as a new revenue stream for an organisation really be driving such a narrative.

I found this article on Helen Joyce's Twitter feed, and i think it gives a good oversight of international dimension in child transition trend. www.commonsense.news/p/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-gender

I don't think Stonewall invented any of this crockpot ideology, but they were certainly the biggest proponents of it in UK.

Hadley Freeman:

"Now might be the time for me to write about the time last year when I called GIDS for a comment for a book I was then writing (out early next year) about teenage girls’ mental health (1)"

"They refused to speak to me because they didn’t like something I said in a tweet conversation with @VictoriaPeckham about the @KLBfax case. I asked if many NHS trusts spend their time monitoring journalists’ conversations with each other on Twitter. They laughed (2)"

"They refused to give a comment, but they also said I couldn’t say say they “refused to comment”, because that didn’t sound good. I recorded the conversation, as I always do when calling someone for an official comment, and now might be the time to write it up"

twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/1553651240650825730?t=NToU7MNrhsTuRbLw6tz0jQ&s=19

Thank you for this. If the US are taking the lead on gender affirmation and other nations are showing a cautious approach, then it’s more than likely that US pharmaceutical and healthcare interests are driving some of this.

A quick google shows that 300,000 children identify as transgender in the US and that blockers cost around $16-20K per year currently despite being off patent, so it is potentially a very lucrative market for the healthy pipeline of new generation gonadotropin agonists under development. That’s before you get to any analysis of the costs of cross sex hormones and surgery. Always down to money in the end. Depressing.

And it’s going to be an easier sell to many young people with dysphoria to say, hey, we understand your pain, you really are born in the wrong body…here are some drugs to ease your transition….talking therapy is not such an easy sell in many respects.

If the US are taking the lead on gender affirmation and other nations are showing a cautious approach, then it’s more than likely that US pharmaceutical and healthcare interests are driving some of this

I would bet they are driving almost all of this . . .

@GrowlingManchego I cannot, sadly, find any other explanation.

The whole approach certainly hasn't, sadly, made life of people with gender dysphoria any better, or led to reduction in stigma for those most affected.

That's sort of the worse thing about it, all that throwing of women and children, and gays, and lesbians, under the bus, for what?

Obviously for Stonewall it does seem to have been all about the money. They were effectively finished as the causes that first brought them into existence had been sorted. They took on the trans fight for the money. Then used their reputation to push their ideologies through unnoticed.

I think it's been a perfect storm. So many factors, money, internet, deep religious conservatism on the increase, way to much influence from USA, a push back from MRAs, people not wanting to raise their head above the parapet, and many other things that don't immediately spring to mind.

You have to bear in mind there has been a core group of TRA s trying to push this narrative we are currently experiencing for many decades. sooner or later enough people were not going to be paying enough attention all at the same time.

Unfortunately for us that time has been the last decade.

Article by Dr David Bell in the Mail, which is well worth reading in full:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11065129/More-time-spent-assessing-facelifts-life-changing-decisions-Tavistocks-ex-governor-reveals.html

"... nothing was done after those concerns were raised. GIDS and the Tavistock’s management dug in their heels, having been captured by a powerful ideological movement led by groups such as Stonewall and Mermaids.
Instead, I faced consequences. I was threatened with disciplinary action. Other staff felt intimidated for raising legitimate safeguarding concerns."

And:

"As a former patient told me: ‘I look in the mirror and I do not see a man but a woman with a mutilated body.’ GIDS misrepresented the affirmation model as giving children a voice.
But any right-thinking person knows listening to a child, taking them seriously, is not the same as agreeing with them.
Clinicians have a duty of neutrality. To simply affirm, without exploring the child’s history – which may take considerable time – is a complete dereliction of that duty.
Consider an adult patient who was referred to me by a plastic surgeon. She was repeatedly visiting the surgeon, convinced there was something wrong with her face and wanted a facelift, but he felt something wasn’t quite right in her attitude.
After many sessions with her, it emerged that she had a long history of depression. Within a year or so of psychotherapy, she came to see her face was like her father’s and, with help, was able to get rid of her fear of identifying with him.
She also gave up the idea of plastic surgery. Yet downstairs in GIDS, children were being ushered towards far more wide-ranging, lifechanging alterations without any adequate exploration of the roots of their gender dysphoria.
Many of the GIDS therapists I spoke to said that when they mentioned the idea that there might be unconscious factors behind gender dysphoria there was laughter from senior staff.
‘Don’t give us all that psychotherapy talk,’ they were told. Given this history of mistreatment, it would be inappropriate for any of the GIDS staff to have anything to do with the new services NHS England has announced will now be provided locally. Hospital management had plenty of opportunities to intervene.
In 2006 the then Medical Director raised serious concerns. In 2015 a report by an external consultant recommended they put a cap on referrals because the service was not coping.
These warnings were ignored. The trust’s chief executive, Paul Jenkins, has even tried to spin GIDS’s closure as a positive, writing in a letter to staff this week how ‘proud’ he is of the service, and of the ‘hard work caring for patients’."

The waste of everyone's time in defending normal societal concepts, the alienation of natural allies, the polarization by age and party allegiance, the 'medication on demand' movement, medicalising gender-non-conformity in children-these are real consequences of what was pushed on us.

Who and for what purpose could only be speculated on, at this point.

At least in UK we had good legislation to protect us, and in Scandinavia they are really driven by evidence, are excellent at collecting it and responding to findings.

US lacks both of these, and that adds fuel to the polarization fire currently engulfing the country. And all of it won't stop completely till it stops in US, iyswim

I'm just acknowledging how classy and focused Helen Joyce is here. She's always advocated being eyes on the prize which, for her, has primarily been a cessation of the sterilisation of children and the use of an evidence-based treatment pathway.

Open invitation to journos who have interviewed me and seen the result spiked by high-ups who say I’m “transphobic” to reach out again. I’ve been proven right on it all - women fired, charities becoming extortion rackets, kids sterilised. I won’t hold a grudge. Drop me a line

Or if you’ve wanted to interview me or commission me but been too afraid, or convinced you wouldn’t get it through more senior editors - now’s the time. You’re already very late to a huge story. You’ve ignored the biggest medical scandal of our era. Time to do your job properly

twitter.com/HJoyceGender/status/1552924642863620096

Feom Dr Bell in the Mail

What must happen now is a cultural overhaul, taking in schools as well as gender clinics.
And we must now really put children’s interests ahead of those of the ideologues.

I hope Dr Bell and the other Tavistock whistle blowers can be somehow involved in overseeing the new centres, and ensuring the likes of Mermaid's and the other horror groups are allowed no part in them.

@GrowlingManchego

Yes, Helen Joyce's book is really good in giving you a comprehensive overview.

I don't think Stonewall were the beginning, no. They jumped on the emerging bandwagon. They were very useful, given the necessary Trojan horse of LGB rights.

Also, can anyone link to the thread that is titled something like 'this is older than you think, or 'this goes back further back than you think.'?

I can't bloody work the search.

Also GrowlingManchego this thread will provide answers...and more questions.

Take wine.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?reply=111376335

This one?

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4281733-The-Trans-Umbrella-Is-Older-Than-You-Think