Kemi Badenoch on the Tavistock GIDS

[InTheCanteen]

This is so good:

Tavistock scandal shows the dangers of civil service groupthink

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0df1a300-1022-11ed-b7aa-67f5549661eb?shareToken=a63b0046a438836d715431528446b1a3

“I insisted on meeting campaigners on both sides of the debate: not just Stonewall but, to the horror of some officials, the LGB Alliance. I met clinicians and, most importantly, I asked to meet young people who had used the Tavistock’s services.

One such young person was Keira Bell. To my surprise, I was advised strongly and repeatedly by civil servants in the department that it would be “inappropriate” to speak to her. I overruled the advice. Along with other advisers across government I met Keira and listened to what she had to say. Her testimony was harrowing and brought many on the Zoom call to tears. Keira described how, after being put on puberty blockers at the age of 16, she was given testosterone shots at 17, before her breasts were cut off at 20. Worse was the casual indifference she described from the GIDS service to her continued post-surgery wellbeing.“

Thank you for the share token link, @InTheCanteen - I was hoping that someone would post it! This is really important.

Btw my understanding is that Keira Bell brought a judicial review. She didn't 'sue the Tavistock' for money (yet), did she? I thought all that was yet to come?

I'm thinking about what we need government to do about gender ideology in schools?

They could tell schools not to use outside organisations which promote this, they could even ask schools to remove it from the curriculum.

Both important steps. But the involvement of schools and local authorities in supporting this ideology goes so much deeper and happens in soft ways that it's hard to legislate for.

For example most teachers now assume the correct practice is to use young people's preferred pronouns and to refer to them as the opposite sex if they believe they are.
The assumption is that social transition is important and must be supported by everyone.

How could the government address these now embedded assumptions?

And do we need to?

I would love it if next PM made a new ministry for Anti Woke and put Kemi in charge. Imagine the size of the bonfire she would make.

‘How could the government address these now embedded assumptions?’

They need to let the medical evidence come through that social transition is an active psychological intervention. Then they need to remind teachers that they aren’t psychologists, and they aren’t qualified to decide these matters. They need to continue to use a child’s sex-based pronouns, and although there’s nothing wrong with using a preferred nickname, in anything official the child’s name as registered with the school needs to be used (it’s not illegal for a child to change their name, but that’s not up to teachers).

‘And do we need to?’

Yes.

Btw my understanding is that Keira Bell brought a judicial review. She didn't 'sue the Tavistock' for money (yet), did she?
That's my understanding too and I think it's an important point.

We feel a very long way from challenging social transition.

Psychologists recommend it to schools. The psychology profession is utterly captured by this ideology.

All professionals who work with children teachers, social workers, mental health professionals all assume it's the correct response.

It is so deeply assumed as the right thing to do.
It's so linked to the principles of 'lived experience: and 'young people's voice', and identity being acknowledged and protected.

Im finding it difficult to see how this gets turned around.

I cannot imagine a school currently that would refuse to use preferred pronouns.

This is also a sentence (like so many) that made me think what a powerhouse of a woman she is. She knows what is going on.
Sunak or Truss, make sure she has a senior role in Cabinet please. Education or Women's rights.

“some battles have to be fought and won”

Thanks, @Floisme for confirming that.

So in actual fact neither keira Bell nor any other patient has yet 'sued the Tavistock'. I assume that when they do, it'll be along the lines of a class action.

I would the anticipate that the pay-outs will be significant, once the extent of the permanent harms and damage to the bodies and minds of the young people becomes clearer.

Any awards for psychological damage will suggest that schools need to watch their step, too, if they have encouraged 'transition' that has caused long-term harm.

I do admire Kemi Badenoch for finally being the one to shout 'Enough!' But, I'll not forget that all this terrible and pernicious ideology and behaviour really took hold under successive Conservative governments.

Yes, I was struck by this, too.
Excellent article - thank you for posting it, OP.

So in actual fact neither keira Bell nor any other patient has yet 'sued the Tavistock'. I assume that when they do, it'll be along the lines of a class action.

There is one potential upcoming case:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4575439-what-you-all-said-was-coming

what a fantastic article. KB comes across as a person with genuine moral integrity

‘I cannot imagine a school currently that would refuse to use preferred pronouns.’

It will change. The change will be slow but it’s coming.

Oh yes, that's the Newcastle NHS 'gender identity clinic' case - so desperately sad. I believe that the young man has given up his anonymity now. It's a shame if he's fighting this on his own - it must be a lonely place he's in.

Maybe others will start to come forward.

Does anyone have links to evidence around social transitioning for children.

I'm thinking about how to start directly challenging this in schools, but it's going to be hard as all advice they've had from children's charities and psycholgists is to affirm.

Quick question on suing the NHS.

How do you get hold of your records to prove you only had one appointment before you got puberty blockers, then cross sex hormones, then had your breasts cut off?

Because at some point in that journey you switch from female to male and get a new NHS number.

Are the old records kept? Or are they destroyed because there is no longer a person attached to that NHS number? Is there a basement somewhere where old NHS records go to die?

And if they aren't destroyed how do you get hold of them? All your ID now says you are someone else so you wouldn't be entitled to the records connected to a person with a different name, a different sex and a different NHS number?

I've got visions of some poor sod currently in a room doing nothing but shedding old NHS files.

There's a paragraph in the Cass Review Interim Report (p.62):

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.64,65 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

cass.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Cass-Review-Interim-Report-Final-Web-Accessible.pdf

Are the old records kept? Or are they destroyed because there is no longer a person attached to that NHS number? Is there a basement somewhere where old NHS records go to die?

This BMA article gives the current record retention rules: www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ethics/confidentiality-and-health-records/retention-of-health-records

It’s worrying that children/young people’s hospital records are only retained until their 25th/26th birthday (depending on age they were treated) given that many of the issues with fertility, coronary health etc won’t become apparent or pertinent until these kids are in their 30s. 😔

It’s worrying that children/young people’s hospital records are only retained until their 25th/26th birthday (depending on age they were treated)

It's crazy. My records from an Alder Hey clinic were destroyed without my knowledge. I was never offered them, or copies of them, and now in my later years I actually need them because there's a new treatment I might benefit from. So now I'd have to go through another assessment surgery, because the results of the previous surgery have been destroyed.

I would advise any young person or family currently on the 'gender train' (or any treatment train tbh) to grab their records while they can, or at least obtain good quality copies.

I think what is positive about all these recent outcomes - Allison, Maya, particularly the Cass report and the closure of the Tavistock, articles by Kemi, the Tory leader hustings - is that it shows that people do care what is happening, and it also should boost concerned parents to say, the Cass report says affirmation is not neutral.
All those MPs, government ministers and civil servants, as well as parents, are now empowered to try and tackle captured departments and schools. It won't be easy but it certainly will be much easier than it was only a month ago.

i heard a clip from Liz Truss talking to a Leeds husting. One concerned parent flagged that during lockdown, their school had changed the toilets (not sure if all or just girls) to gender neutral toilets and the girls consequently didn't go in breaktime and were asking instead to go during lessons. A small thing but very important to that parent. Truss confirmed she would support single sex spaces, which got a cheer. I know talk is cheap but it is being discussed and supported.

I had a legal case a while back that relied on my medical records. I was lucky I suppose that so much information had made it into my doctors records, but there was massive differences depending on where i was in the country at the time of receiving care.

My hospital notes are only available for my current location and hospital. All my records from childhood and moving around the country just don't exist. I always assumed that was because the hospital i went to as a child didn't exist anymore and my notes had gone astray. I put the lack of records from hospitals around the country as just bad luck.

The information that i did recieve was generally of poor quality and having to put together time lines of when things happened and how they happened was only possible by sitting and cross checking everything, and having a good memory.

All the points where it would have been handy for the NHS to have clearly marked in notes things like "patient needed resucitating due to our absolute incompetence" etc was mysteriously missing from the version of my notes that my solicitors received.

So for any parent whose kid is currently caught up in this keep everything, get copies of everything. Note every appointment in your diary.

I absolutely guarantee the information you think should be there won't be there when yoI need it.

As a point of interest, does anyone know if records have to be retained longer for clinical trials? In other words, if children receiving PBs as part of a clinical trial would have better records to fall back on. If so, it’s a scandal these experimental treatments have been administered outwith formal clinical trials.

Clinical trial records have to be archived and the length of storage is determined at the start of the trial and confirmed by the ethics committee that approves the protocol. I have conducted trials with a 15 year term - reasonable for the drugs we were trialling, but cancer trials require records to be kept for about 20 to 25 years. Clinical trial records include every single phone call, email, drug sheet, blood test, scan, any kind of adverse event. Copies of the protocol, informed consent documents. Every single piece of information is kept.
The trouble with the current situation seems to me to be the fact that none of this was carried out in the context of proper, ethically approved clinical trials. So there are no records. In any other situation there would be real possibilities of prison sentences.
Running clinical trials is a really responsible job, requiring regular ethical and legal training, endless inspections, mountains of protocols and SOPs, and constant auditing.

In support of Boiledbeetle's excellent advice:
So for any parent whose kid is currently caught up in this keep everything, get copies of everything. Note every appointment in your diary.I absolutely guarantee the information you think should be there won't be there when yoI need it.

I'd add schools and any other organisation deciding to transition your child - with or without consent. Keep names, dates, copies of letters / phone calls, record what you can. These children are going to need massive support as they reach adulthood and realise the damage that's been done to their bodies, their fertility, their sex lives and their future health. If that means suing professionals / organisations who stepped outside their professional boundaries and gaslit children via school Stonewall groups, unqualified adults / schools "socially affirming" them , referring to dodgy adult organisations then keep those records. Get copies of all school records so that when the inevitable happens, as beetle points out, you already have the evidence.