Medical experts are unwilling to give evidence in gender cases

[Igneococcus]

I don't know if this has been shared yet (I'm only just emerging from one hell of a migraine), it seems courts can't find any experts who are prepared to appear at court. And again someone is blaming the “the toxicity of the debate”.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/791b188c-6d00-4952-91a7-70038f29e822?shareToken=a97449d04794d7f970582e6ea0de1fc9

I personally know clinicians who have declined to take on work for the court because they are well aware that if they say anything that can even be remotely construed as not completely supported of "affirmative care" they will be personally harassed. As the contributors say, it is not worth it.

I would add that this is not just a fear of being harassed by anonymous social media trolls. This is fear of being harassed by other clinicians with activist agendas. Those protesting the CAN-SG conference - both online, and in person - included many clinicians...

The Cass review, if anything, may make this worse. The review makes it clear that the evidence base is poor, to say the least. So a clinician is unlikely to testify that these treatments are, in general, a good idea. But then they are too afraid of the consequences of telling the truth...

ETA if judges exercise discretion to allow clinicians to give expert evidence anonymously, I suspect that there will be (1) many more people willing to accept the court's instructions, and (2) those people will be far more candid.

They are going to have to allow them to be anonymous!

This is almost unbelievable, that clinicians are declining to give evidence in court, for fear of attack by activists. I feel that says an awful lot about the integrity of those involved in such "activism"

I don't know if it's mentioned in the article but a likely outcome of the growing wariness over "gender medicine" is that responsible practitioners will back away while the dodgy ones will rush towards, seeing that they will be able to make more of an impact. Reminiscent of bad money driving out good.

It's telling that the gentle, be kind brigade are so kind that consultants are too intimidated to give evidence in court. They've actually shot themselves in the foot, because without medical support, how can judges proceed? They can't just say, "Meh. Nothing to the contrary, oh let them have the hormones."

As Boiledbeetle says, perhaps they should be allowed to give evidence anonymously. It's permitted in some criminal trials.

All science, including medical science, should welcome challenge and debate. Its how we make sure the most effective treatments, with the most robust evidence base, are progressed.
Everyone who has been involved in emboldening and enabling this movement to become so confident in their harassment strategy, whether by silence or endorsement ( including comments like ' of course we shouldn't say only women have cervices' and ' dinosaurs hoarding rights), should be fully ashamed of themselves.

Clinician activists are currently trying to oust the entire UKCP board. Why, might you ask?

Because the UKCP took the ethical step of removing themselves from the MoU as it doesn't distinguish between child and adult gender care and conflates sexual orientation with gender identity. You only have to look at the sketchy practices at the Tavistock to work out for yourself the safeguarding implications of this.

These loud and influential activists believe that therapists who know sex is real should be removed from the profession.

John Armstrong has posted on twitter that he had an article rejected from BMJ Open against the advice of peer reviewers because the editor didn't like his comments about sex and gender on Twitter/X. He reports that the same thing has happened to Michael Biggs.

Articles are being blocked by medical journals because of fears about "transphobia"... it's no wonder clinicians don't want to risk giving opinions in court!

So many children are being let down by the adults who should be protecting them. Goodness knows, I realise how awful it all is, but there must be someone who will stand up for them.

And yet even the more moderate among the progressives won't see this as censorship and will continue in their reality-defying claim that "cancel culture" isn't a thing. The political right is expected to own the swivel-eyed loons on their side, but on the left they're all as pure as the driven fucking snow. Orwell had it bang on with Animal Farm and the gaslighting hypocrisy of the far-left.