Interview with Dr Hilary Cass 7:30 am bbc r4 Today programme

[WarriorN]

Just flagging this up.

Cass review has been the headline news on today

Back to the concern about permanent changes.

Cass saying there may be a small number of people who will use a medical pathway "sooner rather than later."

Private clinics - Cass has concerns that they're not giving the level of care and assessment

Has this been a medical scandal?

"That's for someone else to make a decision about."

'My concern is to get the right level of care and the evidence base.'

They've read out Javid's comment in the times that the lobby groups need to be kept at bay.

Good that Cass was given enough time to speak without endless interruptions

Shame that she thinks some children should be put on a medical pathway sooner rather than later. What gave her that idea? What evidence?

I disagree that the medical pathway will be the right way for ANY child.
Plus the follow up question to that statement is : how do you distinguish the child for who a medical pathway is the best pathway from all the others?

As she says, brain development in puberty is a huge issue and it isn't known what the effect of blocking that is. As she says, the research isn't there. Obtaining that research presumably will mean giving this treatment to children for who this isn't the best pathway.

It just has to stop. All (gender related) medical treatments for all children have to stop.

(Obviously not referring to medical treatments for other issues, for clarification).

That's a "yes but the politicians need to name it that, not me"

We heard a clip from a trans woman (registered male at birth) who talked about the horrors of going through puberty and the delays to treatment. What he needed was psychological therapy and lots of it.

Waves to Stonewall and The MN Monitors.

Exactly. I was very sorry to hear that.
For some people that will mean business as usual.

The "front pages" are on my BBC News app on my Kindle, with Cass review being the first news item.

It was updated at about 6am.

Front page news for:
Telegraph
Guardian
Daily Mail
Yellow box on front page for the "i"
Times

The Star is covering a mini heatwave, Metro reporting about rata in hospitals, Express leaving the EHCR, Sun Peter Philips splittling up with his girlfriend, FT not a mention on the front page.

As an aside I like her use of "Birth registered" male/female.

Goodbye to "assigned" male/female.
And avoids arguments about use of language such as "biological" female/male etc.

of course the the BBC managed to find a man who said he had to wait too long and a mother who approved of how hormones had helped her daughter (how could she not?) Hilary Cass came across as sensible and concerned but the report pulls no punches.

That's a "yes but the politicians need to name it that, not me"

Public inquiry now.

The Star is covering a mini heatwave,

So mini I missed it! Must have been while I was digging out another thick sweater and turning up the heating.

Sorry to derail from important issues but that made me smile.

I'm listening again, she describes from surveys of clinicians that it was lack of guidance plus a concern that they'd be criticised for not immediately affirming that mean that normal assessments were not undertaken and children were passed to GIDs.

That says to me that the NHS's edi trans focussed training was influencing them. Hugely.

Public inquiry now

*meant.

I can't edit 😭

Normal assessments and referrals being around trauma, autism, depression, abuse etc.

As I listen again, she's working around pushing the evidence base as mush as possible. Which unfortunately means some people will be medicalised. She immediately balances with

"Impact of Long term psychological therapies."

Which puts the lid on that being conversion therapy.

She's calling for better long term evidence for non medicalisation and psych treatments

Justin asks a very important question about if GIDs Tavistock clinicians felt the "pressure from outside" - ie lobbying groups

Cass responds that she feels everyone was doing what they felt was best, which sounds like they could only refer to WPATH and those outside pressures.

I think she's been disparaging of WPATH elsewhere?

Shame they feel that they have to provide 'balance' when we've heard far too much of that type of story already and it's purely anecdotal and no analysis

It's very unusual to prescribe life changing drugs without evidence base

This was my favorite comment. It’s an absolutely devastating indictment of how the NHS has been handling children presenting with gender incongruence, calmly delivered with extremely British understatement.

My understanding is that this was to acknowledging some gender dysphoric children may go on to a medical pathway (hormones/surgery) in adulthood and that person might feel that's the right decision for them.

I'm listening again, she describes from surveys of clinicians that it was lack of guidance plus a concern that they'd be criticised for not immediately affirming that mean that normal assessments were not undertaken and children were passed to GIDs

Which again is a devastating indictment of the affirmation approach.