Telegraph: ‘Sturgeon’s Tavistock’ clinic offers trans treatments not backed by ‘robust evidence’

[ResisterRex]

A very long article about the Sandyford clinic in today's Telegraph:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/26/sturgeons-tavistock-clinic-offers-trans-children-surgery-not/

"A gender identity clinic’ branded “Sturgeon’s Tavistock” has been offering patients irreversible sex-change treatments despite senior clinicians admitting that its methods are not backed by “robust evidence”, a leaked recording showed.
The Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow, home to Scotland’s only gender identity clinicc_ for children, also authorised hormone treatment and referrals for surgical procedures for its patients after apparently rudimentary mental health assessments, according to unguarded comments by a senior clinician."

Here's the excerpt I added but with the offending word removed:

"In a leaked recording, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, a consultant clinical psychologist at the Sandyford Clinic states explicitly that gender clinics are following advice issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Healthh_ (WPATH), despite the NHS and Scottish Government denying this is the case.
WPATH presents itself as a global body of medical professionals but its critics believe it is little more than a lobbying group, set up to legitimise an extreme form of gender ideology. It believes people who identify as eunuchs should be able to receive [WORD REMOVED] on the NHS.
In its new guidelines, which were released in September, it calls for “eunuch” to be recognised as an official gender identityy_ and for “surgical intervention” to be considered for those who “wish to eliminate masculine physical features”.
Its guidelines provide a link to a eunuch fetish website that contains graphic depictions of child abuse so extreme that when they were examined by NHS cyber security staff, they recommended it was reported to Police Scotland."

I saw “cast….” on a recent thread. It wasn’t deleted! Why do MN delete it? What would be a more acceptable word??

No idea what is wrong with it. It's in the Telegraph, which is a pretty dry kind of newspaper...

Yeah, I've been deleted for that before. Not sure how else one describes the removal of genitals?

The dictionary definition of 'eunuch' is 'a man who has been CENSORED'

There's an accessible link to the new article here:

twitter.com/wommando/status/1585705244838592512?s=46&t=FBZwNUHMND2Mjir3FxFwqw

archive copy of the second Telegraph article archive.ph/ZjING

I wonder whether the sensitivity by MN over the c word relates to what happened to Posie Parker years back:

Susie’s main complaint is that I refer to c[deleted] in my tweets about her child, now known as Jackie. It is widely known that Susie Green took her son to Thailand at 16 to get Sex Reassignment Surgery, which obviously involves c[deleted].

www.faircop.org.uk/case-studies/kellie-jay-keen-minshull/

I feel like an idiot having to obscure a word describing accurately what occurred in a surgical procedure.

I know someone who has worked as a psychiatrist in gender with kids and teens. She and I used to be in the same book group for years.

She's actually a highly moralistic person, and from what I can see, is overall a competent* and careful practitioner.

*Now, when I say competent, what I mean is she studied, did well, works carefully, is empathetic, and so on. She is also someone who is very concerned with being good, accepting, open, and tolerant. And my sense after spending a lot of time discussing literature with her is that she also has a lot of black and white thinking and seems to me to have a very difficult time understanding other people's thinking and motivations, and becomes really distressed when good people think the "wrong" things.

She really believes that her job is to help people be themselves in a healthy way, which is true of course, but she seems sure that with gender this means just accepting their self-assessment. I think it's because she is a good person and that's what the good people have said.

It was a bit eye opening to me to see how someone who seems so lacking in psychological insight went into that kind of work, and became very well respected in it, without, to my mind, having the basic talents (insight, groundedness) that work requires.

Another Telegraph article with Dr David Bell:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/28/tavistock-whistleblower-says-snp-listened-trans-activists-groups/

"He told the Telegraph: "It's not clear to me the Scottish government has listened to anyone apart from trans activist groups.
"They don't seem to have listened to the Cass Review [an independent NHS England commissioned report into gender services] or to the many parents and detransitioners who have raised very serious concerns about the damage done to children and young people by the ideologically driven affirmative agenda."
"It seems to me there are elements in the Scottish government who are becoming unable to see the difference between reasoned debate, allowing proper reasonable debate, and recasting that as being transphobic.

"And that is going to have a very serious impact on these young people.
"I think the Bill is really following an activist agenda rather than a thoughtful agenda and is reneging on its duty of care to young people.""

That’s a very clear, damning comment from Dr Bell - “reneging on its duty of care”.

The telegraph are really going for this aren't they? I have a subscription and I'm keeping it as long as they're covering these issues.

The term 'castration' is not allowed on the boards unless we tell you off for using the word 'castation'. Thus rendering your use of the word 'castration' subject to the Streisand effect and making lurkers who didn't know about it, more interested in why a user said the word 'castration'.

Well played MNHQ!

regarding the (other) c word

one worrying thing to bear in mind about the Eunuch Archives: Thomas W Johnson is a retired Professor at California State University in Chico and a formative member of the site.

WPATH have collaborated with him. He has advocated for 'gender identity' to include men who have castration fantasies

The Eunuch Archives contains fictional stories about castrating children (among other things)

To quote from one of Johnson's papers

“Many stories feature attraction to, and ablation of, the genitals of pubescent or adolescent males.”

what do people think 'gender affirming surgery' for boys is?

TL:DR

turns out the trans movement attracts some people who should urgently have their hard drives examined.

nothing should be accepted uncritically.

@BernardBlacksMolluscs This is absolutely horrendous.

When the NHS investigated the WPATH links they found CSA material in the Eunuch Archive so extreme they reported it to Police Scotland.

Agree

I can’t remember which podcast I listened to about the Eunuch Archives (vaguely thinking it was Genevieve Gluck with Glinner or someone like Benjamin Boyce) but the feminist who infiltrated the protected site and accessed the CSA-related content said it was really disturbing, but apparently not outlawed in the US because it is written, not image-based. ☹️

Yes that was G Gluck

Something that strikes me even from the criticism of whistleblowers is that the idea of ‘evidence-based practice’ is seriously distorted in all things trans. It seems to be practice seeking out evidence in the service of enabling the existing practice (and the demands of activists). When it should be practice that emerges from and responds to thorough systematic review of the best possible evidence.

The whole thing has horribly confused user wants with user needs in incredibly dangerous ways. A very vulnerable person - particularly a child - who is seeking to
address issues in their life by making irreversible changes to their body with lifelong negative effects is most certainly not someone whose current wants are at all aligned with their needs. unquestioning affirmation and fast tracking intervention actually makes it much, much harder to meet their needs.

It’s terrifying. And an emblematic example of what happens when you try to solve a problem defined on the basis of wildly inaccurate assumptions. And what happens when powerful interest groups are determined to thwart any attempt to question or challenge the assumptions that serve their purposes.

I can’t remember which podcast I listened to about the Eunuch Archives (vaguely thinking it was Genevieve Gluck with Glinner or someone like Benjamin Boyce)

If MN doesn't want us to use the c-word, how about 'genital ablation'? Though that, to me, sounds worse.

Let’s go with ‘penectomy with bilateral orchiectomy’ then.

I don’t see how anyone can legitimately object to the actual medical terms for these procedures.

Using the medical terminology possibly has the added advantage that it doesn’t euphemise how invasive and medicalised this is. It’s not a minor thing.

'Surgical removal of the testicles (orchiectomy)' - but there's also penis removal. Which I just cba googling, tbh.

Emasculation?

'Emasculation is the removal of both the penis and the testicles, the external male sex organs. It differs from castration, which is the removal of the testicles only, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.[1] The potential medical consequences of emasculation are more extensive than those associated with castration, as the removal of the penis gives rise to a unique series of complications. There are a range of religious, cultural, punitive, and personal reasons why someone may choose to emasculate themselves or another person. Consensual emasculation may be seen as a form of body modification that enhances a recipient's identification with their community or sense of self. By comparison, non-consensual emasculations, such as those performed punitively or accidentally, may constitute genital mutilation. The medical treatment for an emasculated person differs depending on whether the procedure was consensual.' (wiki)

The obvious trouble is 'emasculation's other (more commonly used) meaning.