Spectator article-wandsworth councils troubling trans case

[happydappy2]

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/wandsworth-councils-troubling-trans-case/

I can't get past the pay.wall. please could you summarise? Thank you

News of a troubling case reaches Steerpike. Earlier this month the Administrative Court handed down judgment in the case of R (AI) -v- London Borough of Wandsworth and Secretary of State for Education [2023] EWHC 2088 (Admin). It’s a complex ruling on a complex case, not likely to catch the attention of the public. But that judgment does contain details that raise some striking questions about medical treatment as it relates to issues of sex and gender...

...
Here, it seems appropriate to summarise the facts set out in that court judgment as they relate to the person known as AI. This is a 22-year-old with more than a dozen diagnosed clinical conditions, who cannot read or write, who cannot function independently and who may well require 24-hour support in order to live. This person has been approved for surgery to remove healthy breast tissue, as well as for hormone treatment that the NHS says can lead to blood clots, gallstones and infertility.

Bloody hell. Why would anyone think this person a good candidate for a needless double mastectomy and cross sex hormones?

Medical malpractice suit in the making! How can Drs do this?

So a deeply disturbed child, who can’t read or write and will never have the capacity to live independently, is judged competent to agree to a programme of body-damaging surgery and lifelong drugs.

And this is being enabled by the people who are meant to protecting her.

It's absolute madness that such a mentally incapable person, ESP of such a young age, should be considered for such treatment. Have the council no common sense, or foresight?

What happens in a few years, when she realises that it's all been a terrible, horrible mistake?

Absolutely outrageous.

Full article:

News of a troubling case reaches Steerpike. Earlier this month the Administrative Court handed down judgment in the case of R (AI) -v- London Borough of Wandsworth and Secretary of State for Education [2023] EWHC 2088 (Admin). It’s a complex ruling on a complex case, not likely to catch the attention of the public. But that judgment does contain details that raise some striking questions about medical treatment as it relates to issues of sex and gender.

This relates to the claimant in the case, a 22-year-old with a heart-rending personal history and a string of serious problems. The claimant, named only as AI, was born female and now identifies as a transgender man. The judgment uses male pronouns for AI.

Here’s the court on AI’s background:
The circumstances of his early life are significantly distressing and can only provoke profound sympathy. Although he cannot yet read or write he has been able to make a statement through his solicitor. He records that his childhood was chaotic. His mother was a recovering drug addict, he saw her subjected to domestic violence and witnessed her taking drugs. He would go back and forth between her and his grandmother and when around 11 or 12 years old, AI went into his grandmother’s care. He records moving all the time, living in numerous different places in the South East and spending a lot of time with his grandmother, who is disabled, whom he cared for, and with whom he is in fact, once again, currently living, although he reports difficulties with that relationship. At about 13 or 14 AI went into the care system.

Here’s a summary of AI’s conditions:
He has a total of 14 diagnoses and continues to have complex needs. His difficulties have been medically described as Mild Mental Retardation, Attachment Disorder, Emotion Dysregulation, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (“ADHD”), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (“ODD”) and (Autism Spectrum Disorder (“ASD”), dyslexia, severe anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”) and low self-esteem. In 2021, he was diagnosed with disturbance of activity and attention, minimal impairment of behaviour and reactive attachment disorder of childhood. The combined impact of those conditions is that AI is unlikely to be able to live unsupported. The judgment says: ‘Mental health professionals have previously advised he may likely need 24-hour support in the foreseeable future.’ In sum, AI is deeply troubled and faces multiple psychological, behavioural and emotional challenges. AI cannot read or write.

AI cannot function as an independent adult, meaning the State must provide additional support: Wandsworth Council duly provides an Extended Health and Care Plan, a legally binding plan to help meet those additional needs. In that context, consider these words from that court judgment:
The Claimant was assigned female gender at birth, but identifies as male. He was referred to the Gender Identity Clinic (“GIC”) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust (“the Tavistock”), when he was about 14… He has been approved for testosterone treatment with gender affirming surgery known as a Subcutaneous Mastectomy.”

Here, it seems appropriate to summarise the facts set out in that court judgment as they relate to the person known as AI. This is a 22-year-old with more than a dozen diagnosed clinical conditions, who cannot read or write, who cannot function independently and who may well require 24-hour support in order to live. This person has been approved for surgery to remove healthy breast tissue, as well as for hormone treatment that the NHS says can lead to blood clots, gallstones and infertility.

The matters of administrative law involved in the case of AI vs Wandsworth are unlikely to trouble many people beyond a few corners of the law and the public sector. But you don’t need to understand the legal details to look at the story of AI and ask how on earth we have created a system that means a struggling and vulnerable young person who cannot live independently can give consent to life-changing but physically unnecessary surgery and medical treatments, in the name of ‘gender identity’?

Don’t expect an answer to that question anytime soon…
WRITTEN BY
Steerpike

Is it about this case?

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2023/2088.html

Yes, Resister that’s the case paras 7&8 are the most shocking

I do no have adequate words to respond to this.

If I had my time, I'd be a solicitor/barrister. You just can't lose as the law suits start rolling in. Easy money.

It makes total sense within the context of the ideology, in which "trans" is an innate quality. If a toddler can be trans, an extremely vulnerable person with developmental disabilities can be trans.

So someone who's bought into the ideology is going to be almost incapable of seeing the glaring and obvious issues here.

We really need to systematically dismantle the propaganda right at the root if we're going to ever be able to protect vulnerable people like this. I don't know how far we've got with that, even people who are starting to have doubts about the effects of the trans movement tend to believe in "true trans" which is a version of the idea that transness is somehow innate. And as long as that idea is widely accepted, abuses like this will continue.

Interesting judgment. Misgendering not very important after all.

I've had a read of the judgement. It seems to be that this exceptionally vulnerable young person has been supported by "Just Like Us" - an LGBT+ young people's charity, to take a case against Wandsworth arguing that their EHCP did not protect them from serious misgendering (2 alleged incidents including one by a student with a learning disability) leading to repeated placement failures. They also criticise the council's "systemic and/or operational failure to protect children and young people with EHCPs from gender reassignment discrimination". The Brighton & Hove Trans Inclusion Toolkit seems to be promoted as a model with Wandsworth criticised for failing to have a formal policy for trans inclusion in schools.

Of course, because young people with EHCPs are so intensively monitored Wandsworth were able to evidence to the Judge's satisfaction that all the allegations were all unfounded. The breakdown in placements were not because of misgendering, they were due to"

1. a. Multiple changes of address.
2. b. Homelessness.
3. c. Suspension and exclusion for fighting.
4. d. Exclusion for drug use.
5. e. The inability to join certain placements due to continuing cannabis use.
6. f. He has not always accepted the assistance offered him by social or health care.

The evidence from the chief executive of the charity was embarrassingly dismissed with the judge openly agreeing with Wandsworth who argued that: "His statement is not specific to trans children or young people, much less to the impact of misgendering on them. Nor does any of the material exhibited to Mr Arnall's Witness Statement indicate the extent of misgendering in educational settings".

The judge comprehensively dismisses every single aspect of the claim in her final summary.

This raises questions about how such a vulnerable young person got caught up in such a high profile case which appears to not only seek to address their individual issues but, had the claim not been thrown out for a complete lack of evidence, could have embedded the dubious Brighton toolkit as a "gold standard" for children confused about their sex with EHCPs.

Years of being surrounded by echoes that being called she is literal violence.
Did find it sad that the misgendering/correct sexing was a problem because this young person, as yet happily unharmed by testosterone or the butcher's knife "didn't want anyone to know" their sex. As though it wouldn't be immediately obvious to anyone with eyes.

Wouldn’t it be great if Local Authorities were actually monitoring whether trans identifying children and young people were able to effectively participate in education or not?

instead, transactivists have fought against attempts to collate this sort of data to the point where no one knows how many children and young people are claiming to be trans, let alone if said trans identification interferes with their education.

sometimes the information is even kept from an individual child’s own parents!

Wasn’t there a case of a parent specifically trying to protect their child, who had an EHCP, from gender ideology being taught in school? As they knew their child would be vulnerable to it. I can’t remember all the details but someone might…these vulnerable people swept up in this ideology don’t stand a chance if medical Drs ‘agree’ they are trans. We have no diagnosis for trans that doesn’t exclude being autistic, potentially suffering sexual abuse, or being gay.

Had a read of the judgement and the question it raised for me was, what was the actual purpose of this case? How was ‘winning’ going to improve the outcomes of AI? The EHCP will be in place for a few more years, but there is a YP with complex needs who doesn’t appear to be in any position to be independent despite not wanting parents/ carers to be involved. All the placement breakdowns, loss of a stable living environment, these should have been addressed in the appropriate place, not court. My concern is what will happen in next five or so years once AI moves into adult social care? They need to be supported somehow and not to jump to the simplistic conclusion that everything going wrong is down to others.

Yes - she's has posted on here and I think shares her expertise with other parents.

Part of the background for this case is that vulnerable groups of children have been specifically targeted by adult queer theory groups selling them the concept of flawed bodies that can be fixed by drugs and body modifying surgery.

This young person evidently has profound challenges & is massively vulnerable. Having read the judgement it's possible to argue that they were cynically used in order to try to get the dire Brighton toolkit established in law as a bench mark for dealing with this group of children. Thank heavens the judge so comprehensively dismissed the whole thing - and well done to Wandsworth who were able to evidence so clearly in court that they had appropriately supported this young person.

The cynic in me wonders whether it was an attempt to get the Brighton toolkit established as the benchmark for dealing with children with an EHCP? The allegations of "misgendering " were so flimsy that the judge completely dismissed them.

@MrsOvertonsWindow of course, there’s silly me thinking the focus should be on providing support to give AI the skills and security for a happy adult life.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12434955/Tavistock-Clinic-sex-change-person-read-write.html

Mail article

The judgment in the case revealed that AI cannot read or write following a 'chaotic' childhood with a mother who was a 'recovering drug addict' whom he saw 'subjected to domestic violence'.

AI was looked after by his disabled grandmother, went into the care system as a teenager and had a 'long history of disrupted schooling'.

The judgment continued: 'He has a total of 14 diagnoses and continues to have complex needs. His difficulties have been medically described as Mild Mental Retardation, Attachment Disorder, Emotion Dysregulation, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder, dyslexia, severe anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and low self-esteem.

'In 2021, he was diagnosed with disturbance of activity and attention, minimal impairment of behaviour and reactive attachment disorder of childhood.' AI was referred to the Tavistock – whose gender clinic for young people was rated 'inadequate' by inspectors and earmarked for closure last year – aged 14 and has now been approved for body-changing surgery.

The judgment added he would need ongoing support.

Fears have been raised in recent years that vulnerable teenagers have been rushed into taking puberty-blocking drugs and undergoing irreversible surgery at the Tavistock. Lord Goldsmith wrote on social media: 'This young person has been diagnosed with 14 mental health disorders.

'The response from these ghouls is to chop up her body and fill her with hormones. How is this different to lobotomies? These professionals are utterly barbaric and need locking up.'

Considering AI is unable to read and write, how would AI know how to make formal complaints re: misgendering anyway?

Makes you wonder if there are are activist social workers in AI’s support team.

Interesting that one of the ‘misgenderers’ is another young person with learning difficulties (who no doubt has an EHCP of their own and is also entitled to access education & learning).

Shame the judge (magistrate?) who convicted that Welsh autistic lad didn’t have the same level of understanding as the judge in this case.

For some people it’s nigh on impossible to see a female person and use he/him pronouns, even if they want to, the brain-to-mouth process just won’t comply.

Yes.

That’s @bonfirelady who will probably find this thread interesting.

They will repeat the cycle their mother was in won't they? With such a chaotic life, you can't help but think they will eventually end up homeless. Then what? Will they still be able to access getting hormones? Or will they turn to a black market on that too? If they can't read or write where will they get money?

There is a question at the back of my mind here about state sponsored sterilisation of a child likely to live a chaotic life.

It is indeed! Thank you for the tag @ColinTheGenderMinotaur
I'll take a read through it all.

I've been mostly consumed in the fascinating Stephanie Hayden threads so haven't read this one yet.