Mermaids' response to the Cass review

[WarriorNonVerbalHateCrime]

I had a look to see if this had been posted and couldn't see anything.

Jfc

We have significant concerns about mandatory participation in research as a condition of access to treatment, and the way in which this area of gender care has been politicised far more than any other.

They don't get it do they.

And they mention that

"We will continue to advocate for supportive schoolss*, where young people are able to express themselves authentically."

It's been said before on MN, and I agree, that the TRAs need a supply of 'trans kids' coming through in schools to justify the adults.

To rephrase @lonelywater

There are indeed two quite distinct main groups when it comes to being trans.

Remove the poor, sad 'trans children' group and the optics become very different and the funding and sympathy rapidly disappear.

Theres also a huge amount of sunk costs, the damage done to themselves, relationships and their children's health... They can't just turn round after all that and say 'Yeah it was a bad idea, we should probably stop and examine this (like we should have done at the very beginning)' and still have any credibility or business left.

Thank you. This is pretty much what I suspected. I guess it lends an air of legitimacy to those who may have their own less salubrious reasons.

That paragraph (the one quoted in the OP) has made me so angry. Even angrier than the attempts to discredit Dr Cass’ research.

The deliberate misrepresentation.
The attempt to describe this as the most unethical practices when it is the absolute opposite.

It is gaslighting at the highest level.

I don’t know why I’m so surprised really.

Imagine being a parent so completely captured by the ideology that you would get puberty blockers and cause irreparable damage to your child.

Awful.

I haven't seen anything either. I'm wondering, well hoping that we haven't seen anything yet because there is a concurrent criminal investigation.

Didn’t Emma Watson once exhort people to donate to Mermaids?

I wonder what she thinks now. She seems to have gone awfully quiet in the subject. As has Daniel Hardofthinking Radcliffe.

This video made me think of Mermaids:

It was done within the backdrop of "better a son, then a dead daughter" so I do have some sympathy for many.

Completely. I have every sympathy for parents railroaded and terrified by the activists.

Bit the parents chose to listen to unqualified lobbyists and not to their own common sense.

Exactly.

Helen Joyce discusses this in this recent interview, watched it the other day.

thought that Mermaids said, in terms, that they are not, nor do they purport to be medical experts. Which means anything they have to say about Cass has the standing of "some bloke down the pub said....."

Is there anything in there about the pharma industry? It can't only be activists behind this surge in synthetic hormone treatments. The pharmaceutical sector seems to be deflecting scrutiny rather well.

When you can't say 'STONEWALL MADE ME DO IT' continue to rely on blind faith and disinformation.

Grifters.

There is a strand of trans activism that believes that trans is a “born this way” issue, like sexuality, not a “develops at some later stage”, like a fetish or (some) health conditions.

If trans people are “born this way” then it becomes a predominantly a human rights issue, not a medical one. (Though of course medical interventions are required.)

There is another strand of trans activism that says you don’t have to transition, there is too much medical gatekeeping of what “trans” is and you don’t have to have gender dysphoria.

The wider movement hasn’t, as far as I can see, worked out how these two diametrically opposed definitions of trans can both be true, and how they can campaign together.

So being terrified into assisting in abuse of your own child and causing irreparable damage if puberty blockers used. As in 'I don't want them to kill themselves so will cause damage to their body and mental health long term instead'. Surely help for their anxiety, anguish and mental health comes first before medical intervention. That would make more sense.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-policy-puberty-suppressing-hormones/

This is the new NHS England policy on using puberty blockers. It advises that they should not be seen as standard treatment, and that a review of evidence carried out by NICE found that existing studies were poor quality and that there is no evidence showing a benefit to using the type reviewed.

Cass is the lightening-rod, but her report is not the only review of the evidence coming to the same conclusion. I expect other health services will now be conducting their own reviews, which I expect will also come to similar conclusions.

The NHS policy document notes that puberty blockers used this way are "off-label". This is for me the smoking gun. No matter what you believe personally, as a clincian, to routinely prescribe potentally harmful medication to children whilst fully aware that it has not been scientifically evaluated for the purpose AND also not even try to find out if it has the desired result through long-term clinical trials is downright negligent.

Aside from the trans debate this is a medical scandal in its own right. If it was happening in any other area of child healthcare it would be seen as such. What I would like to see is an investigation into whether or not patients were fully informed about the lack of evidence showing efficacy. Medical consent is cornerstone of ethical treatment, so we need to know if genuine informed consent was sought and given. And if the clinicians themselves failed to review the evidence and still prescribed them off-label, that's quite a mistake. Someone has fucked up here and it's important that we find out who.

Post Susie Green Mermaid’s voice seems so much quieter, it seems to have been her conviction that drove it forward.

Now they are like a slowly deflating balloon, they still makes trans flag-waving loyalist statements but not even the Guardian is running stories by them anymore.

Families were told puberty blockers were safe.

i feel like I am dreaming it, because I cant find it, but wasnt there was that video of Polly Carmichael on children's TV saying puberty blockers were reversible?

There was 'I am Leo' and 'butterflies' and anyone who displayed any object lions were 'right wing' or 'transphobic'. Incredibly few journalists would offer an opinion.

Families with children who are gender questioning must be very confused and incredibly torn. Suddenly the landscape has totally changed. Unfortunately these families can't rely on Mermaids to help thrm through this.

Wasn’t it she who drove it from ‘wait and watch’ to GOGOGO’?

Adults rarely admit culpability, especially wrt gender ideology and its harm

Good point

Thank you for this. That's such a reversal from "puberty blockers are reversible and pause puberty", to " we're not certain about the impact" and now to "no evidence showing a benefit to using the type reviewed".