Debate happening in House of Commons: Victoria Atkins on fire

[BonfireLady]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/15/rishi-sunak-david-cameron-downing-street-general-election/

Ah, cool. Thanks. I wonder why I got that message.

Anyway, I can find what I'm looking for now... all good.

(But I do still wonder what was changed from the original)

There's something about a rolling version vs the corrected version I don't understand. Might be things like correct spellings/names? No idea.

With the service as it was I sadly agree. But I don’t think severely mentally ill children being left for years is acceptable. I frankly consider a referral to GIDS to be a red flag for abuse and safeguarding concerns and would like to see these children seen quickly. There should be a holistic review of the child, their family and their environment by a caring safeguarding professional as advised by Cass. That really should be happening in a timely fashion considering the very real risk of further harm.

How dare you use someone's extremely personal information, shared with you and other posters in good faith on AMA, to promulgate your prurient and crass opinion? Go and post this on the thread in question ad see where it gets you. You are a disgrace.

However personal that info may have been, it was shared in a public forum, is still available to view there and was an ‘AMA’. No need to clutch pearls over this.

I'm inclined to agree.

I wouldn't have worded it the same way personally (I'm aware I'm probably about to be shot for "tone policing" by saying this 🤦‍♀️) but I think valid, pertinent points have been raised.

When I first engaged on X, I got in to several conversations with autistic people and was struck by a common theme of "turkeys voting for Christmas". I never said this directly to anyone about themselves but I have said it about my experiences. One conversation that still sits with me to this day is where I was being descried as a bigot as per usual (and as per usual, I ignored those comments and engaged with the substance of the conversation) where the poster told me that as an autistic person they had "a unique insight in to gender" and were "not a vulnerable person". Yes, autistic people are vulnerable, whether they like it or not. As as victims of sexual abuse. There are many people who are vulnerable to wanting to escape their own body - and they deserve safeguarding in line with the Cass recommendations... whether they agree with that or not.

I'm so glad that MNHQ don't appear to agree with you. By all means go and read the thread, including @TicklishLemur 's increasingly poisonous and inappropriate posts towards the end. You will learn a lot from an extremely thoughtful, informed and courteous OP.

He isn’t autistic though? And despite @TicklishLemur trying to bully him into saying he was, he was never sexual abused as a child. He doesn’t seem anything but logical and sane. What do you mean by safeguarding someone like that? Stopping them from transitioning? He was 18 and an adult before he was given anything physical and doesn’t have any regrets 13 years later. Fair enough if you don’t agree with his decision but he isnt asking anyone to approve just to let him live his life.

@TicklishLemur harassed him over and over again on that thread including demanding answers to her invasive and cruel questions about a very traumatic event. Then she victim blamed him when actually he was just being respectful and giving someone the chance to decide if they wanted to start a relationship with a trans man. He responded all of that with patience every time and now she is just continuing it elsewhere. Yeah it’s a public forum and people will do what they want but the rest of us can also call out harassment when we see it.

Well, we can't see what the 'poisonous' posts were, because they've been deleted, haven't they? As has the one here.

The bullying at the end of the AMA thread that I can see looks like a group of posters attacking TicklishLemur. Her posts are deleted, so again, nobody can see what was said other than what posters are claiming. And now you're following her here to continue to attack her?

the rest of us can also call out harassment when we see it.

Right.

Plenty of the ones I mentioned are still there. In the one that was deleted she insisted his uncle had sexually abused him when he was too small to remember and his parents covered it up and lied to him his whole life. Based on no evidence just making assumptions. Even if you knew it was true it is really irresponsible to drop a bomb like that on someone’s life especially when you know how important their parents have been to them during difficult times. Obviously people were disgusted by that comment, that isn’t bullying. Bullying is forcing someone to relive explicit details of an extreme sexual assault just to satisfy your perverse curiosity. Those posts you can still see. It is telling him it was his fault for being stupid enough to tell someone he was trans. You can see those posts too. Pointing out that behaviour isn’t bullying. No one has followed her anywhere we read plenty of posts here and saw another where @TicklishLemur is continuing her obsession with him.

You're on an unrelated thread, on a different board, criticising a poster and continuing to @ the poster. Looks like bullying and harassment to me.

I'd still urge people to read the whole of the OP's contribution to that thread - I'm aware that many posters here are also signed up to that thread.

For literally years I have wished someone sane could explain or describe their experience of gender dysphoria. OP does just that, in a very calm way. I hope and think that at some point the less extreme sides of GC & GI will need to come to some form of agreement in order to take some heat out of the argument and to be able to say "actually no, that's not what I think", to the extremist elements on their side. For me, at least, that thread is a really helpful contribution.

Remind me, who was it that brought up an unrelated thread here in order to continue harassing someone? I posted once to criticise that choice, and once again to challenge your attempts to minimise what she did and the ridiculous idea that challenging harassment is itself harassment.

@ArabellaScott I don't want to get into a fight with you; you're someone whose posts I always look forward to seeing. I know you are, or have been, on the AMA thread too, so I would be genuinely interested in your reaction to it - do you feel that those of us who have responded positively to the OP are somehow being duped or distracted?

I don't think I am, but I do try to keep myself honest, so it would be good to know.

Duped? I don't think so, no, why would you be? I'm sure the OP is quite probably sincere, although of course we never know who people are on the internet.

All I'd say is that from what I read of it - which wasn't all of it, and some posts have been deleted - the OP developed severe inexplicable distress at her genitals as a two year old, after being cared for by her uncle.

Her parents subsequently severed all contact with said uncle, forever, and OP was referred by the school to psychologist as a safeguarding concern at around that time.

The OP had no real explanation of the reason for her sudden distress at her genitals, as far as I recall.

If that's the case for 'gender dysphoria' is then the explanation that it suggests to me is tragic, prosaic, and unfortunately hardly revelatory.

Am I missing something? OP has posted a link to a parliamentary debate, to alert those interested in it. A discussion as followed.

I am sorry if I spoke out of turn, but I really could not see the issue of someone referencing another thread where the OP on that thread has shared information. I did not read that thread - it’s too close to home for me - so did not see the vitriol or understand the conflicts that seem to have happened there, but it is pretty much the norm as far as I can see on MN. The PP post here, now deleted as someone has obviously objected, seemed to simply be referencing/summarising that thread here. As someone who had not read it, sees alt-threads referenced and linked in every other thread, I am perplexed as to why doing so here was a heinous act.

There is clearly some conflict between certain users that is moving between threads and that I, personally, have no awareness of, but it would be nice if we could get this thread back on track - and park the hostility. It is making those of us who are nothing to do with it very uncomfortable.

Yes, apologies if my post was part of the derail. I'll desist.

If that's the case for 'gender dysphoria' is then the explanation that it suggests to me is tragic, prosaic, and unfortunately hardly revelatory.

This is the key point here.

I had read some of the AMA but felt increasingly uncomfortable that what the person really needed was professional support, not an open forum on the internet. Obviously kudos for stepping forward but it was uncomfortably apparent that there were several unresolved issues that are directly related to what's been uncovered in the Cass Report - and in the interim Cass Report in 2022.

What's being discussed in parliament, and what's been said on this thread this week (perhaps clumsily, hence the MNHQ deletion) are directly connected. Hannah Barnes' book Time to Think helped to shine a light on the scale of co-morbiditities which are present in the vast majority of cases (97.5%) where children have been referred to GIDS - see screenshot below. That's exactly what the new model that Cass suggested is designed to tackle, and what Victoria Atkins referred to in parliament with the reshaping of front line and CAMHS mental health support.

To clear up possible ambiguity in my previous comment: I wasn't suggesting that the AMA OP was/wasn't autistic, it was a reference to those who are vulnerable in general (including but not exclusively) people who are autistic. Oh, and sorry about the typos! I couldn't get to the edit button on time to sort them.

As uncomfortable as it is, it's imperative that there is an understanding in healthcare and government that any child or young person who presents with a trans identity is incredibly likely to be vulnerable and in need of mental health support, no matter how positively they feel (at present) about the pathway they have taken re hormones and/or surgery.

My biggest concern about the next government re all of this is that it's likely to be headed up by a Health Secretary (Wes Streeting) who says he supports the Cass Report but uses the term "trans children". His use of this term, which is on the public record in Hansard, should be a big red flag to anyone who understands how difficult it will be to get the Cass recommendations in to the NHS. If the Tories are going to bring the topic of gender questioning/trans-identifying children in to the public debate, I hope they haul him over the coals on this point.

I said it up thread but it's worth restating again here, Victoria Atkins' response after Wes Streeting spoke was that she believes in the Cass Report, unlike some. I've added italics to reflect her emphasis.

Here is the quote:

"The reason why I am able to be so robust on this issue is that I believe in it; on that, I may be different from others".

Despite the way it was written in Hansard, she actually said "I believe in it" twice. Unfortunately Hansard removes repetition, so the nuances of her response are lost. If you listen to her words, she's sending out a warning that there are some (she looked at Wes Streeting while saying the final part of that quote) who don't really believe in it.

When it comes to the use of the term "trans child" or similar, this comment from David Bell (first image) summarises the implications of the problem that this creates. I've also added the article from which it came.

Giving this excellent comment a boost too, as I think it may have got a bit lost in the discussion that followed.

I frankly consider a referral to GIDS to be a red flag for abuse and safeguarding concerns and would like to see these children seen quickly.

Yes. But it's also a red flag for a broken system. So it doubly disadvantages anyone who is referred, under the previous system. I have no doubt that my daughter would have been referred to GIDS, had I not fought tooth and nail to get her paperwork corrected, and that an affirmation pathway would have been followed. I'm working with CAMHS/CYPS collaboratively, one year on from her entry in to the mental health system to understand how the positives of what has happened since the entry date can be used to help others. Everything we've discussed during the last year is in line with the Cass Report recommendations and helps to join the dots between mental health support and schools, where children have an EHCP in place. The conversation is a long, slow slog but it's moving in the right direction. It's also imperative that it joins up where there isn't an EHCP already in place for a child, but that's a much bigger point about how to spot signs of autism in girls earlier. Hopefully it will link up as CAMHS and frontline healthcare increases its understanding of all of this 🤞Also it's important that they understand the different, yet equally important, vulnerability of autistic boys to this: in particular where an unstanding of what it means to be male or female conflates with an emerging libido in adolesence.

It's been a while since I posted it, but here's the article that I wrote which explains what happened when my daughter first entered the system. Unfortunately my optimism that she understands that she's female was a little misplaced, but she's not actively trying to identify out of girlhood (and there is a well-rounded safeguarding approach in place via the school and her EHCP... conversations still unfolding in to the supporting organisations that deliver the needs and provisions within it..) and she has talked a little more openly about why she doesn't like being a girl. The horrendous bullying that she went through, which was a significant contributor in her mental health crisis, left her feeling disillusioned with girlhood and being female. When I asked her what was rubbish about being a girl, her exact words to me were "Girls are weak. if I was stronger, I could beat the bullies". Thankfully, the professionals who support her recognised the significance of this comment.

I don't need it want to tell those leading the new system what it should look like. Nor am I qualified to do so. But what I will do is ask questions and advocate for a fully joined up system, between schools and healthcare, that does what Cass has recommended.
This is what the new government needs to lead on, taking forward what was discussed in this parliamentary debate and making sure that the NHS is held to account to deliver it.

⬆️ Edited to add a comment about autistic boys too.

The MPs who constantly referred to ‘trans children/young people’ use language that presents them almost as a ‘fait accompli’
Could we at least wait until a diagnosis is made?
In the light of the Cass report it seems a little premature

Exactly. And the most likely diagnosis, following a fully differential exploration, is going to be an underlying mental health condition which is linked to one of the most common causes that are conflated with identifying as trans.

@BonfireLady I think you only assume the OP needs professional support because you think that anyone who transitions is mentally ill so you’re just seeing what you expect to. I haven’t seen anything to suggest that and I think he comes across as totally in touch with reality and aware of himself. He is perfectly able to stand up for himself and balance up decisions and that is clear because he has explained how he made them.

Same thing with the uncle @ArabellaScott . Abuse is always a possibility but there is absolutely no good reason to argue that must be the case in this situation so I don’t think you’d be saying that if he wasn’t trans. You put it all together to make it look as bad as possible but his dad had fallings out with other people in his family and the referral was just because he was shy about getting changed. It clearly didn’t find anything or there would have been more actions taken and surely a child psychologist would be able to pick up on a child being sexually abused. Gender dysphoria is another very realistic potential cause of his behaviour as a child. If he admitted details about an adult sexual assault then why would he deny childhood abuse. It doesn’t make sense.

@BonfireLady I don’t see what is so vulnerable about him other than the ways he has been treated when it was found out he was trans. If people here want trans people to be honest about who they are then maybe you shouldn’t make them feel like any honesty just means that people are allowed to make wild allegations about their mental health and family. He clearly had a lot of assessments and therapy and tried to accept his body before being given hormones and surgery so what do you think should have been done instead?

It is one thing to say that we should make children wait till 18 and I’d probably agree there but it isn’t right to try and stop sane adults from making choices about their own body. Also while you all mention the cass report if you read the OP you would see that he agrees with it and wants it put in place. So I don’t see how you can use that to say that he made the wrong choice and is really just mentally ill or it’s because he was abused. He also started all this 16 years ago and the report admitted that the worry is about how children have started being referred who have very complex issues. Those statistics don’t necessarily apply to the kids referred ages ago and they are more likely to be the same as the very small group we see now whose only problem is gender dysphoria.