Parents who challenged Tavistock GIDS: new evidence from 2018

[BonfireLady]

I've not read it yet but this promises to be an insightful read for anyone who is interested in Hannah Barnes' investigation in to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in her book "Time to Think".

This is the story of a group of parents who wrote a letter of concern to the clinic, at the same time as staff governed David Bell raised concerns from staff about its practices in 2018 and declared the centre "not fit for purpose". It includes the parents' letter and their dossier of evidence.

Transgender TrendtTrendtTrendtTrTreTrendt (not sure if this link works?)

Short excerpt:
Initially friendly and apparently open (there was talk of sharing our
letter with the NHS commissioners), Tavistock management swiftly made it clear that their
main concern was to limit the circulation of our letter. They would only maintain
communication on their terms, if we left it up to them. They were not willing to grant access to
parents who were sceptical

Here is the link again in case the above one doesn't work: Parents challenge GIDS: new evidence from 2018

It works! And has an echo.

Just finished reading this. I feel like I've read a lot but it's still a shock to see the attitudes and decisions taken.

Placemarking to read later. Thank you for positing.

Just like @LizzieSiddal , I'm also placemarking to read later. I'm currently mid-way through Time to Think and it's a logical follow-on.

Are there any high level bullets that are worth sharing ahead of a full read through?

Apologies. I meant to quote this message when asking the above question.

• The repeated appearance of a individual who moved from children's to adults' services
• The lack of time taken to explore issues for young adults
• A tweet (IIRC) saying "but 17yos can get married!" ie why can't they change sex? And of course the marriage age is now raised to 18
• Relationship between Mermaids and GenderGP
• The pages of videos encouraging children to transition, the graph showing searches (?) for anorexia have nosedived but those for changing sex have skyrocketed.
• The way the service seems to have thrown parents under the bus. Looks like they wanted to maybe give an impression they were listening but they wanted to capture the concerns and then stifle them. Certainly that's how it looked from their muted response and then angry response after the parents went public
• The tracked changes minutes...

A few things!

I’m only on page 12 so far but I am struck by the comparative lack of depth and rigour in Paul Jenkins (big boss at the trust) first two responses in contrast to the thoughtful, carefully evidenced opening contact from the sceptical parents.

It’s a GCSE level reply to a post grad level letter.

Really interested in the point that a school age child in the era of Stonewall-ification cannot have a meaningful ‘real life’ experience. Real life won’t send everyone who forgets your pronoun to the deputy head’s office.

Wow! Pretty damning. Thank you so much for sharing.

Hopefully the press will be reading all of it and bringing some of it to light. Videos of encouragement sound particularly shocking - very much the opposite of the principles that everything started with to support distressed children who are struggling with gender identity amongst other co-morbidities.

The parallels with what is being called out in that same time frame (e.g. rise of importance of pharmaceutical industry funding, rise of Mermaids involvement in decision making) by Hannah Barnes are very interesting alongside the above.

Update:
I've just read the part in Time to Think which coincides with this happening. The book says that the parents' letter was leaked to the press at that time (not sure if the rest of the material from the link was or not) and Newsnight covered it.

What I can't quite get my head around is how much outrage from the public and/or press coverage does it take to fully blow open the medical scandal that is happening to children?

We've got Newsnight coverage of this in 2018, then in 2019/2020 we've Newsnight laying in to Graham Linehan (link below) who is saying the same thing. Now we've got Hannah Barnes' book, also by a Newsnight journalist. How many more times does it need to be brought up before it breaks through the public conscience once and for all? Are we there now or just on another section of the rollercoaster?