Cass review - out on Wednesday

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/06/children-socially-transition-face-grave-psychological-risks/

Major.

I know a paediatric nurse who has done this with her 8 year old and splatted it all over fb in a special announcement style.

Beggars belief.

Link to the thread on X if it's useful for anyone. I reposted comment 9/10 (the link below) because of the focus on safeguarding, the current law and Cass, but there is more general context in the rest of the thread above as well.

https://twitter.com/Teach_Evidence/status/1776894728111313200?t=XGI5hQC8672IV7oubdrLzQ&s=19

Thanks @BonfireLady
It's so good to see more evidence of the countless women and men working relentlessly behind the scenes to get this ideology away from children and to restore comprehensive safeguarding in schools.

I wonder why they haven’t considered another social experiment. Say, ensuring that the prospect of life post puberty is appealing to girls who, with damned good reason, fear it. Safety from male harm, equality in professional opportunity, equal privileges of the sexes, normalisation of the male pill, including misogyny as a hate crime etc etc etc. And, following such changes, a review of the number of girls saying they want to transition. I’d have thought it would be much cheaper.

WRT parents 'transing' young children; so long as the NHS supports any kind of 'transition' in response to the perceived issue of 'gender incongruence' or dysphoria, who can really blame them? They are going by what they've been told by a well organised, influential lobby that has got to government, terrified parents with the suicide narrative, and infiltrated the NHS, as well as having documentaries made on 'trans kids', and numerous brighly coloured children's books made celebrating the 'journey'.

They are one group I will be happy to try and build a golden bridge for.

I expect many of them are in a very difficult position, confused by the establishment's vague and sometimes contradictory approach, and bamboozled by the Pride mafia pushing the narratives of 'trans joy' etc. There may well be some 'transing' their children for their own reasons, of course.

Agreed.

Apologies for what will probably come across as me being a stuck record, but I also think the power of belief is a major factor here. Initially, I couldn't get my head around what someone on a MN thread (a long time ago now) meant when they said "I don't have a gender identity". My first thought was "How odd. Of course you do". I then watched a brilliant presentation (I'll link it below in case it's of use to anyone but apologies for the derail as it's not what this thread is about) that another poster put up and that's when the penny dropped for me that I didn't have one either because I didn't believe that anyone does.

If you combine the inherently performative nature of Facebook with a parent who unquestioningly believes that "everyone has a gender identity" and who hasn't spent time unpicking LGB (fact) and T (belief), alongside everything that they will have heard from medical professionals about suicide risk, or the true risk of medicalisation, it makes sense that such a parent could want to support their child in their "gender journey". Even if that parent is also a paediatrician, phrases like "going through the wrong puberty" are going to have an emotive pull. It all starts with the belief. Once that's there, everything else is skewed by that bias. The belief in gender identity as a (liberating) truth is effectively the carrot. The stick part is not wanting to be "that parent". The TQ++ has been so firmly and successfully welded on to the LGB that so many people would rather not question any of it, because they would feel a sense of shame in doing so, that they were letting their child down with their own narrow-mindedness.

Link as noted above:

Obviously there will be many parents who are performing solely for their own gains, and getting notoriety through their child etc. But I suspect most parents do genuinely believe that they are doing what's best for their child.

The Mail are reporting on this now.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13280931/Transgender-children-face-psychological-repercussions-allowed-change-gender-landmark-review-set-rule.html

I know cass will be using very tactful language. But tactful language is really easily picked apart and deliberately misinterpreted by bad faith actors - and where do you think schools will get their advice from? Sex matters, transgender trend and the LGB Aliance all provide resources and training to schools, but who tells schools where to get their materials?

Very definite language is needed. It's all still so murky. And to be frank, even with definite clear language and instructions, schools will be spending the next decade unpicking this nonsense. We will now have to have PHSE lessons telling kids they CAN'T change sex, who will provide those materials? What about all the teachers with Pride flags up in their rooms and pronoun pins? What about the teacher who told me there was research proving using kids preferred pronouns helps them flourish and thrive, who will tell her she is wrong, she's been lied to?

Who will negotiate all of that mess?

The NEU's leaders need to step up and re set the boundaries:

Well said. The schools guidance MUST remind schools of their requirement to be politically impartial - it's been the interference of trans lobbyists with their insistence on mixed sex changing rooms, ending single sex sports, pbs being reversible etc that's done so much damage. Getting the organisations out of schools has to be a first step.
But yes - so many children and families caught up in this mess. With all these organisations culpable for failing to safeguard them who will be reluctant to admit any responsibility.

Sex matters, transgender trend and the LGB Aliance all provide resources and training to schools, but who tells schools where to get their materials?

Absolutely.

When I opened up the conversation with my daughters' school, I was very aware that I needed to stick to officially recognised information or be at risk of being dismissed. Unfortunately, despite how brilliant these organisations are, they are positioned as "lobbyists". Speaking from personal experience (admitedly a very small straw man!), once the conversation has been established, it's possible to bring in wider information from these groups as something for consideration. Even then, I'm still very cautious about what I share because each time it gets shared up the hierarchical food chain it's at risk of being dismissed because it's positioned by someone who is in a position of influence as being from a "hate group". That's why the imminent final Cass Report will be particularly useful, because it's yet another "official" document (i.e. it has been commissioned by the NHS).

Whilst I support the "golden bridge" approach, it does stick in my craw somewhat that people can have been so dim.

It only takes a moment's thought to see that gender ideology is nonsensical. Or the most rudimentary understanding of child development to know it's not a good idea to pretend they can become the opposite sex.

I've seen a small child socially transitioned at the drop of a hat. Mum enjoyed making a huge fuss about it, acting like mum of the year for psychologically damaging her child. This wasn't a child with huge issues around gender. Just they'd been brought up relatively free of stereotypes, and gravitated towards some things society sees as for girls. Commenting (once started in school and being more exposed to stereotypes) that they'd like to be a girl was enough to immediately transition them. Now some years on the situation is an entrenched mess. How someone against gender stereotypes could so easily not think for a moment and see the nonsense for what it is, I don't know. (The child's other parent was basically of TERF mindset, but somehow got railroaded into going along with it. In a way this is even worse!)

I'm not sure to what extent TT, Sex Matters, LGB Alliance would want to get into producing materials / training for schools?
Just musing here, but what we're all after is a return to facts / ethics based education.
Education that respects all the pcs and looks at how we build a society that's inclusive of all, promoting respect, not prioritising one group's demands over everyone else.
Stopping treating children as mini adults with age inappropriate concepts and selling lies that sex change is possible.

I suspect it's about removing queer theory & trans extremism from schools and returning to a boundaried, child and safeguarding centred education.

No.

The Equality Act still has to take account of other laws.

This means if you start to build a legal case about why transition causes physical harms then this laws, would in effect, give a legal argument to override the Equality Act.

At the moment I think we are at a stage of building that legal case, so if it does go to court then it's deemed to not be discriminatory because of x, y and z reasons.

The Equality Act is a law which is about balancing rights and needs remember. If the balance gets tilted for some reason so it becomes overwhelming impossible to ignore other issues because of concerns in minors and risk of abuse or undue influence by adults in various manners.

Consent is based on capacity to consent AND must be free of undue pressure and I think this is a really key point about the role of schools and the school environment. How do you unsure this - that teachers aren't effectively grooming children or that children are not part of social contagion in schools or online?

The more evidence we have for this, the better.

What you don't want is to get a legal precedent in place now saying there is an absolute right to socially transition because this would be difficult to reverse. Better to have a softer approach whilst evidence builds and when you think you have a legally sound case that's difficult for gender affirmers to challenge THEN you consider a ban. And not before.

People can be convinced of all sorts of strange things, for all sorts of reasons. Plus remember that on this board we mostly favour critical thinking, ask for references and evidence, and people are often challenged and disagreed with.

That is depressingly rare. In many other discussion boards any dissent may be vigorously suppressed, and activists have long since made it their business to take over forums whenever they can - see Aimee Challenor and one of his polycule working as Reddit moderators, for example.

So if you're in a bubble and surrounded by 'affirmative' narratives, and most of all the story that your child's problems, which may be several and complex, can all be solved so easily by a simple wave of the trans wand, it may be quite appealing. Especially to any parent wrestling with homophobic feelings, too.

The narrative is slightly more sophisticated, in that it suggests one has to bravely battle 'hate' in order to win the prize of medical treatment. But to me this seems a sort of trauma-bonding to the narrative, if that makes sense.

In fact, it reminds me something I've heard said about heroin, that one swaps a broad range of different problems for ONE problem only - how to get your next fix.

(sorry that was a response to 'ProtectandTerf', I missed teh quote function!)

The union for educational psychologists (association of educational psychologists AEP) also had a consultation of members and submitted a response to the government guidance.
It is totally captured by gender ideology and supports social transition, not involving parents and no requirement for single sex spaces.
Educational psychologists are widely supporting this union position.
It's not just the teachers. This ideology is deep within schools Local Authorities.

x.com/ClaireMcguiggan/status/1772235332164935903

I don't know how much Cass will impact what teachers and educational psychologists are doing in schools. They view the government and Cass as invalid and bigoted positions.
The guidance needs to be statutory and strong to turn the tide.

surely the publication of the final Cass review will signal an untenable position for Mermaids?

I can see why they would be able to dismiss the government's position: it would be easy to say that it's a partisan viewpoint, so they could say that they are being impartial.
But would they be able to do the same with the NHS-commissioned Cass Review?
I agree re the need for statutory guidance BTW.

We can’t be far off a case of a teacher being sued for transitioning a kid in school without parental knowldege. Tory are not psychologists or doctors so they can’t rule out eg autism so they should not be doing any social transition

Trouble is these cases mean parents putting their child through a court case - as parents are trying to protect their vulnerable child, they understandably back off when they realise this.

Not if you put your plane into airplane mode immediately after clicking on the link…

Here you go

Children risk psychological harm if allowed to change gender, landmark review warns

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1668/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1668/pub/1668/page/5/article/NaN

The problem is the psychologists are recommending social transition.

I don't think people realise how captured the psychology profession is. I see people saying schools and parents should be looking to guidance from psychologists but the psychologists are the ones promoting this.

The AEP above is totally on board with gender ideology. Schools will look to EPs for guidance on social transition.

The British Psychological Society is totally captured too.

Psychologists are currently the problem not the solution.

This was the response from the
Lead psychologist for sexualities division from within the British Psychological Society (BPS) to the banning of puberty blockers:

https://x.com/ClaireMcguiggan/status/1768540016131670266

Psycholgists are the source of the problem.