Feminist Library statement on the NHS Cass Report

[IwantToRetire]

The Cass Report is the final report of Dr. Hilary Cass’s review of trans healthcare for children and young people in the NHS. The report is unequivocally transphobic, rejecting the agency and self-determination of trans people. We at the Feminist Library stand in solidarity with trans people in the fight for their healthcare, and see the struggle as part of wider Feminist struggles for bodily autonomy and healthcare equality. We echo the statements of @transationbloc and @thedykeproject in our position. Below is a statement written by a volunteer on the report and public response to it.

https://feministlibrary.co.uk/statement-on-the-nhs-cass-report/

'Feminist' library my arse. Can we get them on the Trades Description Act?

rejecting the agency and self-determination of trans people

Children. The report is about children.

Ponders their definition of feminism and transphobia.....

Also notes Cass focus was children and not "people".

Looks like an organisation that's very much lost its way in a bid to be perceived as "progressive".

Looks like an organisation that's very much lost its way in a bid to be perceived as "progressive".

Looks like a Feminist organisation that has been over run by TRA infiltration.

This isn't just mission drift.

This is an organisation that has been totally appropriate by queer activists who did none of the hard work of establishing the library, whose credentials as being feminist was such that many women who had been activists left their private and personal papers to the FL on the basis they would only ever be made available to other (biological) women. This is trans activism as rampant cuckoos.

Unlike Glasgow Women's Library that through mission drift and funding streams drift into "inclusivity".

Not suggesting any one wastes their times but if you look at their events over the months there is no connection what so ever to women let alone feminism, or even its founding roots, Women's Liberation.

Nice to see their medical evidence so clearly laid out. Not. They can whinge as much as they like, the days of bullying people to get what they want are over.

It comes across like the true communists from East Germany talking in around 2010: jarring, and out of kilter with the new reality.

They have made themselves look swivel eyed.

They identify as feminist.

Feminist means whatever you want it to mean, apparently.

Genderism has decimated so much of the feminist landscape.

Foxes have taken over the henhouse. No hens left.

I particularly liked this bit which co opts marginal groups, a pattern all too familiar.
"While white children of middle class liberal parents will be able to work this system like they do a SENCO coordinator or exam remarking for their wronged child, a black trans girl of a working single mum in Manchester is never going to survive such a system, much like they do not survive many of the systems which are designed along these lines."

Sigh. Another women’s enterprise, overrun by men.

My DS has ASD and sensory difficulties. Near where we live there is a bike track which has resulted in several injuries. Wearing his helmet is genuinely uncomfortable and difficult for him.

Do I tell him he doeent need to wear a helmet because it may be distressing to him? No, I make him wear a helmet because his physical safety is more important.

That is the job of adults, to weigh up consequences and act in the best interest of children.

CHILDREN you feminist library fuckers.

"What do we want?"
"Poorly evidenced healthcare!"

It's not the world's most trans-friendly statement, is it?

* ....struggles for bodily autonomy and healthcare equality*

People in the UK with trans identities have as much bodily autonomy and access to free healthcare as those without. The Cass proposes that the healthcare provided to trans people meets the same quality standards as all other areas of healthcare. The healthcare provided by the Tavi fell short of those standards.

Across all medical fields in the NHS, HCPs are gatekeepers of treatment, this is a fundamental role they hold to protect patients. It's not authoritarian, paternalistic or transphobic - this applies to every NHS patient. HCPs may offer no treatment, one treatment or a choice between treatments. This depends on evidenced based clinical reasoning.

They are right to say that they have lost something, but they shouldn't have had it in the first place and this is being corrected.

I guess an extreme liberal might argue that all healthcare is oppressive in that individuals don't get to make their own choice about what treatments they can access. It isn't reasonable to claim that this 'oppression' is limited to trans people only.

I keep hearing that 'cis children' are offered puberty blockers and this presents clear evidence of discrimination. This is as ridiculous as citing discrimination and bigotry that cis cancer patients are offered chemotherapy but cancer free trans patients aren't, despite wanting it.

Money can buy you access to more treatments, in terms of speed of access and where cost is the reason for not being offered a treatment on the NHS, but it can't buy you access to treatments that have been deemed unsafe or damaging (where the known or potential risks outweigh the known or potential benefits) - well at least not when medics operate within the confines of their licences to practice.

This anger and upset has been fuelled by the Tavi's negligence to practice ethically and safely. TRAs would still have had beef that they couldn't have their treatments of choice, on demand, but they wouldn't have had the upset/ anger that comes from being given something you want (perhaps giving the impression that it is your right to have it) then it being taken away.

What an embarrassment this organisation is to produce a statement with such drivel. Can just imagine the type of 'feminists' running this show.

Good lord. I had always thought they were essentially an important and valuable feminist institution that had lost its way a bit. I feel almost reassured to learn that they are out-and-out a transactivist organisation because that means there is no lost and internally marginalised feminism that is struggling to get out.

The poor books, though. Won't somebody think of the books.

'"While white children of middle class liberal parents will be able to work this system like they do a SENCO coordinator or exam remarking for their wronged child, a black trans girl of a working single mum in Manchester is never going to survive such a system, much like they do not survive many of the systems which are designed along these lines."'

The GMC has made it very clear that medics in private practice risk losing their license to practice enable paying patients to 'work the system' in this way. Private practitioners have been told to follow the same clinical guidelines as those in the NHS. The only difference that should be afforded through private practice should be speed of access, choice of appointment times, hotel like environment etc. These are 'nice to haves' that the NHS (and tax payer can't afford). A caveat to this is that 'waiting list' are undesirable as opposed to catastrophic when effective triaging means that access when it is needed is facilitated (which in turn creates long waiting times for some).

Of course, the NHS is on its knees, and lots of healthcare provision is currently unacceptable- but this are economically driven issues, not issues linked to clinical decision making

Should gender-critical people be creating organisations with similarly Orwellian names like “Trans Library” promoting a gender critical position?

Cass Report – A single trans woman responds

That makes perfect sense now.

That's all very Judith Butler.

I guess money talks and this charity is keeping its donors happy.

WORST. 'FEMINIST'. EVER.

I don't understand the "single trans woman" thing. Is it a reference to the fact that this person doesn't have a partner, or is it just intended to convey that the person is responding as an individual, not as a representative?
If the former, why is it stated?
I've just scrolled down and seen the postscript at the end, which is even stranger than the rest of the text. The overall impression is almost as if the organisation has had its account hacked by an extremely troubled individual.

‘Replaced with a system of checks and balances’
So that’s a bad thing, statement writer?
and why the anonymity??

Uh, gross. Trying to pretend to be hard-done by, like a single mom. Probably gives him a kick somehow.