ICO threatens Gender Clinic with court over Mermaids involvement .

[MrsOvertonsWindow]

The Telegraph is reporting that the ICO has threatened GIDs with court action for denying that they have records about their involvement with Mermaids. A courageous parent who was concerned about the inappropriate influence Mermaids had on GIDs issued some FOIs. The Trust claimed that it "did not hold" emails or minutes of meetings .

Mermaids previously accidentally published emails between Susie Green from Mermaids & Tavistock staff that led to the ICO fining Mermaids for a data breach. In the light of this, the ICO doesn't believe the Trust's denials and has ruled that “on the balance of probabilities” they do have relevant emails. It's a criminal offence to hide, alter or delete information requested via an FOI and it looks as if the ICO are prepared to throw the book at them

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/30/tavistock-nhs-gender-clinic-threatened-court-action/

The Telegraph has put its story online

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/27/trans-lobby-group-mermaids-helped-nhs-treatment-children/

Trans lobby group Mermaids helped NHS plan treatment for children

"A trans lobby group helped to draft NHS plans for treating children questioning their gender, The Telegraph can disclose.
Susie Green, then chairman of the charity Mermaidss_, was part of a task group reviewing services at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation trans clinic.
The service specification, which outlines treatment for children, included details on how “hormone blockers will now be considered for any children under 12”. The relationship between Mermaids and senior NHS employeess_ is laid bare for the first time in documents seen by The Telegraph.
The Tavistock claimed that it did not have emails or minutes of meetingss_ with Ms Green but after the information regulator threatened court action, it released more than 300 pages.
They show that Ms Green had a direct line to Dr Polly Carmichael, Tavistock’s director, and demanded to be regarded as a professional so she could refer ­children for treatment when their GPs refused. Ms Green, who has no known formal medical training, held an advisory role on two of the studies that the clinic was involved in on the long-term effect of gender identity.
The service specification, which is still available on the NHS England website, was due to be replaced in 2020 but was put on hold when the Government ordered the independent Cass Review into the clinicc_."

Possibly the releases are spread across different years on the Tavi FOI page? (tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/about-us/governance/freedom-of-information/foi-disclosure-log/). But it only goes back to 2016. Cannot see them. Anyway:

"The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust had originally refused to release the details of the meetings between 2014 and 2018, relying on an exemption under Freedom of Information law which said it would have a “disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress”.
When the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) asked them to justify that refusal, the Trust withdrew it and said that following “an extensive search of emails … the Trust does not hold the requested information”.
The ICO said that “on the balance of probabilities” it did hold the information and threatened to refer them to the High Court unless they complied with the request from a parent. The Tavistock has now released 322 pages of communications between 2014 and 2018."

Accessible here
twitter.com/cforwomenuk/status/1662548703134068739?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Honestly people are going to end up in prison for all this at some point.

How can an NHS refuse, then deny something exists then conjure up 322 pages. How much more are they sitting on?

And what the hell is this woman up to now, working with an offshore registered practise that dispenses off label drugs over the Internet?

They damn well should, the damage they have caused is devastating.

She has been allowed to go into schools up and down the land, to persuade little kids that they have a thing called a gender identity. Unevidenced, dangerous claptrap.

And then when their normal behaviour appears to be at odds with her made up gender identity, she then gets to refer them for experimental treatment on the NHS.

it's made up. There is no such thing as a fucking gender identity.

"Honestly people are going to end up in prison for all this at some point."
Let's bloody hope so.
SG should have been arrested as soon as she returned from Thailand 15 years ago.
I've asked this question before and I'll never understand it, JG was the eldest of 4 boys, where did all these 'girls' toys even come from?? If you think a play kitchen or a pram and doll will turn your boy child gay why buy them?

We can hope someone is jailed but I'm not holding my breath.

Susie Green over ruling GPs and forcing referrals because of her beliefs is an ethical farce. The duty of care of the Tavistock to protect minors and ensure that they aren't consenting without undue influence is the bit that's not ok.

Not sure which thread is best but will cover these here as well.

Dennis Kavanagh thread

twitter.com/jebadoo2/status/1662589681022779394?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

And Telegraph access

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1324/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1324/pub/1324/page/5/article/NaN

Dr Belinda Bell isn't a medical doctor.

Why are schools and social workers referring children, they're not medically qualified either? Surely, they should have referred via Doctors, actually medical doctors.

TRANS lobby group helped to draft NHS plans for treating children questioning their gender, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Don't forget Susie Green is a vocal advocate for WPATH, who are committed advocates for 'eunuch ' as a gender and reference a child abuse website in their 'standards of care'.

Sorry also

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1324/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1324/pub/1324/page/41/article/NaN

We all know the difficult getting a doctor's referral, is there any other NHS dept that takes referrals from non medical sources? Or just the ones that <checks notes> affirms everyone and dishes out drugs that result in sterilisation and catastrophic harm?

WPATH mentioned 16 times in this, from the Susie Green Facebook post via ripx upthread

www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/gender-development-service-children-adolescents.pdf

First mention:

"The service will be delivered in line with:
 emerging evidence for best practice
 relevant national and international guidelines for the care of children and adolescents with
GD such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards Of Care For the Health of Transsexual, Transgender and Gender Nonconforming people, (Version 7 2012) (referred to in this document as WPATH SOC v7) and the Endocrine Society’s Clinical Guidelines (2009)..."

Ms Green, who has no known formal medical training, held an advisory role on two of the studies that the clinic was involved in on the long-term effect of gender identity.

You know that research that is regarded as trash in quality....

Ms Green, who has no known medical training, said that she was told “that the referral was not validated or risk-assessed by a professional” and that is why it was rejected.

She added: “I can only assume from this statement that I am not seen as a professional? I am now very confused, as my understanding was that your service would accept referrals from Mermaids, but this statement appears to suggest the opposite….

“If you do NOT accept referrals from Mermaids due to the fact that I am not a professional I would like to know the reasoning behind this? Referral by a non-healthcare professional is acceptable from schools, social services etc, and my understanding has been that Mermaids referrals were accepted.

Schools and social services ARE professionals and deal with safeguarding and do have a certain amount of training and are positioned in a way that is accountable... A lobby group doesn't have this.

Green pretty much blagged her way to be recognised as a professional on the basis of having a big gob and being pushy. She is a self appointed con artist who doesn't have any credible qualifications in this area. And yes that matters. She's been acting as a quack for years.

Green also overseeing research meant she was in a place that ensured she could never be found to be a charlatan in terms of the value/ effectiveness of referrals. That's a massive conflict of interest and it prevented any kind of oversight/ accountability going on.

It's like Carmichael didn't have the guts or brains to say no to Green.

We've suspected this for a while. There was a deliberate attempt to deny it / cover it up and now we've got this.

Heads need to role.

Lest any of us forget the two ‘similar’ threads below on Mermaids being removed from DoE and NHS.
It really just suggest that a lobbying method akin to ‘nice little dept you’ve got there, shame if it suddenly caught fire’.
But equally does show that we have got far, far away from that Starbucks campaign and fundraising biscuits

But she identifies as a professional. Transprofessionals are professionals, bigot!

What's worrying me (apart from everything else) is that the new services for trans people will be headed and staffed by people from Tavistock (at least I think that's right). If they can be bamboozled by Green, what hope for the new services

Hope that Cass is going to restructure so that there is oversight and accountability.

Her points about 'holistic ' care suggest a move away from a tightly controlled cabal, and repeated insistence on evidence basis hopefully means less ideological input.

But yes, there is a real risk that the.same ideologues will repeat the same problems in a new model.

To break from that Cass would have to get rid of the extremists.

It is the removal of the extremists that seems to be the issue though. Considering she is being accused of nepotism and whatever can be flung around to discredit her.

It seems clear that Belinda Bell committed perjury when she said under oath that "Mermaids does not do medical stuff." I hope she experiences the consequences of that.

I also wonder (and this is pure speculation) whether this is why the judgement has been delayed in the Mermaids v LGBA and Charity Commission case. Perhaps the judge got wind of the Telegraph investigation and decided to postpone the judgement until the facts became known.

I'm hoping that these desperate attacks will both reveal the extremists who are unwilling to use an evidence based approach, and give a good reason to get rid of them.

If someone is not willing to reassess.their approach based on research and evidence, and are further making unfounded attacks on Cass, there's no place for them in the service or in fact in.the NHS.

Laughing here, but my god, that's so on the money. Emperor's new clothes to the max. Why in the name of god didn't anybody stop her? Back in the late 90s, when Jackie was a miserable and confused little boy, surely no GP in the land would have said to the Greens 'Your clearly male child says he's really a girl and of course he's right, we must get him on a medical pathway so he can have hormones and surgery at the earliest opportunity to get his body matching his brain'? It has to have come from his mother, surely? She must have read something somewhere that convinced her she knew better than medical orthodoxy and Jackie shouldn't be given the chance to go through puberty and see if that resolved his gender confusion, as all available research indicated happens in the great majority of cases. So she whisked her child off to New York so that one of the very few doctors in the world at that time prepared to give puberty blockers or cross-hormones to 12 year olds would prescribe for him. Then it was off to Thailand so he could have genital surgery on his 16th birthday, the earliest day possible anywhere in the world. There have to have been responsible professional people in Jackie's life who knew all this was happening and did nothing about it, or were unable to get Social Services to take an interest. And here we are as a consequence.

There needs to be a hard reset across the taxpayer-funded spectrum, and the private sector where child protection is concerned. No more children transed by the NHS and schools, no more political activism by staff whose jobs centre on being political impartial.

DWP example
Civil servant who dared to challenge the activists – and won

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1324/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1324/pub/1324/page/42/article/NaN

DfE example
twitter.com/igmansfield/status/1662129951523459078?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

And of course we know about the ongoing/paused EHRC debacle.

Enough is enough.

This is definitely going in the right direction.

All these devious little plots, that have been going on behind closed doors, to change the rules, the meaning of words, etc etc are finally starting to see the light of day.

And with each one it becomes so much clearer why they all tried to shut things down with "no debate".

The tide is turning.