Cass report on newsnight Now

[Binglebong]

Will try to keep up but being helped.

Yes this - sorry @Binglebong you were doing an epic job, thank you!

Hannah was not a she. Thank goodness for Sue Evan’s who clearly laid down the dangers. Wish she had enlarged on DArk Forces though.

Don't worry - just wasn't with it.

But I am going to use this as a chance to push people to watch the report- loads I didn't get down.

Thank you @BBinglebong for starting the thread and for the live posting.

I'm out of the UK at the moment. I can get BBC Sounds (so heard the 2 excellent pieces with Justin Webb on the Today programme) but I Player keeps blocking me so I didn't even bother trying to watch Newsnight.

Sounds like it was a good one.

You care right, I was going for speed which really shows how these things happen. I also didn't want to get the thread deleted.

Don't know what happened with the extra B there!
I was trying to thank @Binglebong

Hannah Philips is a Youtuber who documented their "trans journey" on that platform.
Hannah is also a LibDem councillor. Of course.

I didn't like how the patient was used there. The patient clearly knew very little about the issues in general (concerning in itself) and couldn't ethically be questioned in depth about the personal, so they mostly wasted a lot of time spouting irrelevant TRA soundbites.
There should have been someone from GIDS or even Mermaids or Stonewall. Maybe they were asked and refused.

The Cass Review literally says that children presenting as gender incongruent should not be lumped together into one homogenous group under a singular umbrella (such as trans).

Then the media continue to wheel out adult males when one of the key concerns is teenage girls with comorbidity issues.

The comment I saw a few days ago is that males transition to become visible, girls transition to become invisible. And the media seems to be reflecting this pattern.

If we are talking about better representation of transpeople, let's actually have better representation - not just endless rent a quote transwomen.

Hannah struck me as not very bright, I don't think they are used to critical thinking or having to explain complex ideas.

My poor elderly dad was say 'that woman looks a bit odd, why are they taking puberty blockers?' So I had to explain it was a man who had taken puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones from around the age of 16 and that he'd probably have more masculine features if he hadn't.

If you haven't been following this for years watch the news reports which still use non-sex-based pronouns and call the medical treatment 'trans healthcare' it's still very hard to understand the situation. Trans activists are relying on this confusion.

This is how the BBC are presenting this unprecedented medical scandal involving unevidenced use of medication on children. An interview with an expert - someone like Sue Evans - which is then countered with a trans person wibbling on about their personal journey / wishes and fantasies.
So there's no examination of the issues in Cass, just one side exposing the awful facts with the "other side" in a self pitying ramble about their experiences and feelings.

It is #OperationLetThemSpeak in that it clearly exposes that this scandal enabled adult fantasies and demands to override safe NHS care for vulnerable children.

Apparently also involved with the Tavi at Board level? Not sure how/in what capacity though

x.com/journalistjill/status/1778321926286643557?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

I'm fairly sure Hannah was featured at a younger age in the first Newsnight investigation along with Polly Carmichael.

My assumption is that for the moment Hannah is GIDS showcase for successful transition. Hannah however is still very young and not part of the demographic the Cass Review has most highlighted.

IIRC Hannah’s interaction with GIDS is one of the case studies in Hannah Barnes’ book and shown to be very much an activist patient.

I'm sure there's something in Time to Think about someone being recommended for puberty blockers or hormone treatment after just two consultations.

@RedToothBrush OMG that visibility/invisibility thing is so pertinent! Thanks for that.

Yes, so true that.

More on Hannah
https://x.com/CaigerRob/status/1778372569084710931

OK.

Some unformulated thoughts and hope that posters can clarify for me:

So reading through all of this (re Hannah extract from TTT book), and the Cass responses - particularly from the RCPCH (www.rcpch.ac.uk/news-events/news/rcpch-responds-publication-final-report-cass-review), and I'm also struck by remembering the response of the (previous?) children's commisioner many moons ago- that was discussed on here. On a similar topic re children's rights to be involved/consulted.

Is there something around a difficulty balancing children's and young people's autonomy with protection- and around service user engagement- and that has shifted in recent years. Is it the same theme that's playing out in the sex education debates?
How much is this another key tension/conflict playing out in all this- re Gids and Cass.

Can anyone help me formulate this?

In trying to get to grips with it, I found this research article for example:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JCS-10-2020-0069/full/html

FINDINGS (extract)

Health-care professionals emphasised parental needs and children’s vulnerability. In turn, the professionals from social services and child welfare non-governmental organisations perceived children as partners, although with reservations, as they discussed ethical issues widely and foregrounded the responsibilities of adults in protecting children. In general, the professionals in both domains saw themselves as having ethical responsibility to support children’s service user involvement while at the same time setting limits to it.

That's a really interesting issue.
One factor that we're seeing is the "adultification" of children. It was noticeable in the BBC's coverage of Cass yesterday - in the face of discussion / even direct questions about children's ability to comprehend and consent to loss of fertility, impact of pbs etc, all the transwomen interviewed, seamlessly responded to questions about children with an "well, this is my experience and trans people....." - repeatedly changing the focus onto themselves and other adults.

I'd suggest that this is at the root of so much of this. We've allowed very self invested adults who've seen an opportunity to further their own needs (and make a lot of money) using children as a tool. Add to that a climate of intimidation that framed questions / challenge as rightwing bigotry and they've been enabled to openly undermine child safeguarding and frame children as mini adults, fully able to give up their fertility, sex lives and health. The same people have used the SRE curriculum in schools as another tool to adultify children.

It's no coincidence that this is (at the top) a middle aged, male led movement. Most of the tras who rock up on here do it. Presenting it as "autonomy" and "a child's "right" to be who they really are" while dismissing the age related vulnerability of children. Much of it stems from an ignorance of the challenges of parenting / being in loco parentis. But it's the depressing lack of societal challenge that's allowed them to strip away the needs and rights of children to be safeguarded.

Once you see it - you can't unsee it.

One factor that we're seeing is the "adultification" of children.

Which bizarrely is running in parallel to the infantilisation of grown adults in some spheres of life.

It definitely warrants a complaint to the BBC if they are interviewing people who sat on the Tavistock board and fail to disclose the fact.

Thank you for your detailed response MrsOverton.

(and highlighting the weird contradiction of the infantilisation of adults Ova)

I think you're absolutely spot on about a kind of cultural adultification happening. And the reasons for it.

I'm also wondering about a wider element; around pendulum swings that go too far in cultural shifts.

I totally appreciate the value of lived experience, respecting children's autonomy, and service user involvement, for example, and how these were missing or underheld considerations, previously.

But as a culture, in bringing in new focusses, we then seem to really struggle balancing rights and needs that come into tension beacuse of it eg autonomy with safeguarding, and professional knowledge/experience with lived experience.

Is that an aspect of what's playing out now?

Those of us arguing for caution, have been wanting to maintain the hard won values that had been established (eg safeguarding, professional experience), and those fully supporting the affirmative approach, have been so focussed on the importance of, and establishing the newer values (lived experience etc) they have been willing to throw babies out with the bathwater. Taking the importance of these to a simplistic extreme.
So, they have not been able to consider how different values and considerations might be able to work together. It can be complex and nuanced to balance the tension.

I'm thinking Cass is aiming to address this balance and the pushback is around not being able to recognise this.

The Hannah excerpt particularly brought this into focus for me.

Thanks for letting me work this out on here. Apologies if this is a derail!