Hilary Cass was actively impeded from doing a follow-up study of Tavistock children by adult gender clinics who wouldn’t co-operate.

[ChristinaXYZ]

Important point from novelist Simon Edge

https://twitter.com/simonjedge/status/1778000213149377015

"Hilary Cass was actively impeded from doing a follow-up study of Tavistock children by adult gender clinics who wouldn’t co-operate. She believes this stunning refusal was co-ordinated and ideologically driven. All credit to
Amelia Gentleman in the Guardian for this revelation"

Full quote in image on twitter

https://twitter.com/simonjedge/status/1777983256224210993/photo/1

A lot of trans people are very worried now that the Cass Report will put the wind up their GPs, who will then balk at issuing repeat prescriptions for cross-sex hormones. Proper follow up and monitoring for all trans patients would put paid to this worry and provide the NHS with valuable outcomes data.

On your second point, they compare it to other non-illnesses that require treatment, like menopause and pregnancy. Not saying I agree with that, but I think a possible least worst outcome would be one where 'transition' is available on demand for adults only, and then monitored really rigorously.

There's a decent article in shock! the Guardian again, by Hannah Devlin and Ian Sample. It's on the subject of suppression of research:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/12/this-isnt-how-good-scientific-debate-happens-academics-on-culture-of-fear-in-gender-medicine-research

After publishing her review, Baxendale was contacted by a senior expert outside the UK who said they had walked away from a study after being told the team would only publish “positive” findings.

“Ultimately, I’ve seen completely unhelpful views on both sides,” Jayasena said. “There’s an overly affirming view of let’s just do everything. This results in what I’d call bro-science. We’re getting that disconnect between evidence and assumed knowledge because the internet is an echo chamber. Then there’s the other side of things – a more rightwing, moralistic view. Unfortunately, some members of the medical community are immersed in these views.”

Interestingly, there are a number of examples of bullying, bias and cancellation, all from the pro-trans side, but nothing to illustrate "unhelpful views" from the sex realist side.

Transition "on demand" is no better for vulnerable adults than vulnerable children. The most common age for young males to question gender identity is between 17 and 25, they may be isolated, immature, groomed online and have comorbidities. Turning 18 doesn't make somehow flick a magic switch of rational thought.

Nobody should be making any permanant changes to their bodies without extensive counselling by skilled people which addresses all the issues they face.

They’ve backed down, apparently:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b9b640e0-9e9b-444c-a7a7-308ca672a4e5?shareToken=317eff553d8fe21594f0c8e4552255b2

“The clinics are also said to have complained that the “unintended outcome of the study is likely to be a high-profile national report that will be misinterpreted, misrepresented or actively used to harm patients”"

But if all the patients are fine, what’s the problem?

A document, buried in Cass’s report, lays bare the alleged reasons for the clinics’ refusal to participate, including that the “study may not be fully independent”. It said the six clinics claimed the study “may suffer from interference by NHS England, the Cass review team and government ministers” whose interests “do not align” with theirs and those of the patients.

Yeah, I bet their interests don't align.

@SinnerBoy
In fairness a not insignificant proportion of the US medics opposed to any & all forms of “trans healthcare” for any age are rabidly anti-abortion & couch their arguments less in “this is bad science” & more in “this is the work of Satan”. Sometimes with bonus racism. Not at all universal; but the frothing Republican seeking to ban abortion completely (trans issues have become tied for assorted reasons, but crucially, Planned Parenthood’s supplying blockers & CSHs) is the stereotype & it is readily believed.

I think it’s highly likely that the data from these clinics will reveal the highest rates of iatrogenic disease ever recorded.

Iatrogenic disease is disease or problems caused by doctors and treatments given. Sometimes this is tolerable or acceptable; a little bit of diarrhoea while on antibiotics to treat an infection, for instance. I highly suspect these adult clinics will have pretty much all of their patients with mild, moderate and severe iatrogenic diseases.

There will be patients with bothersome side effects they just accept as “the norm”. There will be patients with side effects they don’t even see as side effects. There will be patients with more serious conditions. There will be patients who have had strokes, blood clots, heart attacks and cancer as a result of their treatments. And there will be patients who have died as a result of medical complications of their treatments, like the 18 year old in the Netherlands who died post-vaginoplasty of necrotising fasciitis.

No other clinic group in history will have such high rates of iatrogenic disease, apart from perhaps oncology clinics, where treatments are designed to cause problems for the body in order for them to do their job.

I predict when this data is revealed, in 5 to 10 years, it will shock many about just how unwell doctors have made their patients, on purpose. I won’t be shocked at all.

Bloody hell NotBadConsidering. I was thinking more like they don't know where they are, or they haven't made the correct notes, they're no happier, or they detransitioned.

I don't know why, because I know it causes life long health issues.

But I think you're right.

I think it will reveal record keeping that is an absolute mess.

Apparently there are currently > 1000 lawsuits against the Tavistock Portman clinic hopefully all the professionals involved are being investigated by their professional bodies

That Telegraph article made me cry. This is what we've been trying to say FOR YEARS. And NO ONE was listening. It's incredible to see it in the mainstream media after so long. And to see JK Rowling finally being taken seriously, after years of being denounced as a right wing, transphobic bigot. She speaks for so many of us. I don't feel vindicated by this finally getting the attention it deserves, I feel Fucking LIVID!.

I know. All the pushback to what women were saying

From the article...Gender clinic leaders who had led opposition to the research provided assurances that they will co-operate, after being threatened with “mandatory direction” from NHS bosses

What is 'mandatory direction'?

i agree with @NotBadConsidering the financial burden of long term care and support for this group of clients will be significant.

I missed that! Where did you see it Mycat?

AlisonDonut · Today 04:41

What is 'mandatory direction'?

I'd imagine it's them being told to provide the information by higher-ups; possibly as a result of legal action.

I have never heard of it as a specific thing. I am assuming they mean we will come in and take over the direction of the facility and my question would be why aren't they suspending the whole lot of them until this has been investigated.

In no other medical facility would this be allowed to fester for so long.

No, four years indeed.

Just think how much that is costing the NHS!!

The document also reveals how the clinics conceded that changes to NHS numbers, postcodes and gender “would make record linkage between Gids and adult clinics extremely challenging”.
This is despite a legislative change ordered by the former health secretary Sajid Javid in 2022, to allow pre and post-transition NHS numbers to be linked, so that the study could proceed.

From the Times article linked above.

FFS. It's bonkers that their NHS number should even change in the first place.

I would also like to know! To be honest that doesn't sound very likely.

When "Time to Think" came out I do remember a newspaper article saying that up to 1000 people might sue the Tavistock but I've not seen any evidence that this is happening. It could just have been a bit of newspaper hype?

The Telegraph are all over this scandal. They've been looking at the WPATH leaks and found this:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/12/nhs-trangender-doctor-jonathan-arcelus-male-female-genitals/

various members discuss a range of procedures, including patients keeping their original genitalia, as well as having all genitalia removed entirely.

In response to the message thread, Prof Arcelus suggests that such controversial procedures may become “standard” in future, and, as such, should not be referred to as “non-standard”.

How can anyone read this and not conclude it's absolutely fucked up

Is ‘non-standard’ procedures the best term to use? They may become standard in the future… any more possible terms that could be used to describe these kinds of procedures without having to describe them?”

"Without having to describe them"

I wonder why?

Helen Joyce:

This is the notorious document that claims baby boys can be born with a ‘eunuch gender identity’ and that removed all suggested age limits for children to have irreversible procedures.

Dr Jane Hamlin, president emerita of the Beaumont Society, a charity that supports transgender people, said: “Sex Matters is an organisation that is openly hostile to trans people and regularly spreads misinformation about us. I would not take anything they say very seriously.

Nasty, pervy ghouls.

Usually it’s a direct order from the Secretary of State, to a public service. Unusual, but not unprecedented. Directions, in my experience (not NHS), are used when the Secretary of State is exercising wide, discretionary powers and there is no specific legalisation that can be used instead.

But it's not misinformation, is it? It's a matter of public record that these doctors will do these mix and match surgeries and see nothing wrong with them. The doctor named isn't denying saying what's been quoted.

The Beaumont person might as well have said 'Sex Matters are smelly poo poo heads'.