Legal challenge to UK ban of puberty blockers

[Litterpicking]

How depressing! This in the Guardian (of course).

Campaigners mount legal challenge against puberty blockers ban in Britain https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/06/legal-challenge-puberty-blockers-ban-britain?CMP=sharebtnn_url

The thing is though, I don’t believe any feminist would be not fully supportive of exposing any attempt to obfuscate or to erase the truth around these cases. I am sure we all want to see the clear, unvarnished truth. Including the mental health history and the nature of the interactions of any person who gave that child advice online or in person.

At what point will those in positions of influence who have followed the messaging that included false information accept responsibility. And by false information, I mean repeating phrases to children such as ‘PBs are safe and just a pause’ when the truth of the nature of these drugs started to be discussed. Plus, any person of influence that leveraged suicide as a persuasive tool.

To be clear, I am referring to support groups, clinicians, MPs and journalists / influencers and so on. I am not talking about parents and their children here. I think the leveraging of suicide, which had been false, has been extreme negligence on the part of these groups. And I am all for such misuse to never happen again by a group in society.

Telling children that other children are committing suicide when they have not received treatment they have been taught is ‘life saving’ and that society hates them for being trans, and that medicalisation is the only way they can live their true self, and all the messaging along that line is abhorrent. Exposing it to view is the one way to stop it and the only way it will be truthfully represented in the future case studies on this era.

If there has been an increase in suicides, this needs to be exposed. So, on so many levels, bring it on.

Jolyon posted a thread on Twitter yesterday (sorry I can't link) with pointers for families to get around the ban. His final post was ....

"My advice is to think extremely carefully before choosing to engage with the NHS. I do not think it can be relied upon to prioritise welfare"

Christ. Can't begin to think why he's no longer a barrister.

He's not been sanctioned, he just gave up his practising certificate, looking at this.

The 2 results are other Jolyons.

Wasn't he advocating going abroad for hormone injections every few months or am I getting confused about a previous tweet?

Yes, he decided he'd rather focus on the Good Law Project. Presumably he'd made a lot of money as a tax barrister and QC and has it squirrelled away. I don't know anything about his wife and whether she's also a high earner who's still in a proper job. Rather surprising for a QC (then KC) to just walk away while still at the height of his/her powers when he still has dependent children who will need financial support through higher education, but there we go, we're all different. He's only 52. He could have carried on his legal career for at least 20 more years if he'd wanted to, I'm sure. He burned his bridges by saying something unpleasant about his Head of Chambers on Twitter, IIRC, on his last day there. I think he then blocked the H of C. Extraordinary stuff. Can't remember whether that was before or after the beating a fox to death with a bat while dressed in a kimono on Boxing Day incident.

What does he mean about funding inquests? That’s not something that needs funding.

There are members of my wider family who have a 9 year old son who thinks he is trans. They are both fairly well known authors in their niche who are posting all over the internet about being proud parents of a trans daughter, so this poor kid doesn’t have any hope of one day coming to his senses and realise he was fed a lie. Anyway these are the kind of people donating to Jolyon and sharing the crowdfunder - complete zealots who see it as a personal badge of honour to have a trans kid.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, sounds like his chambers were probably pleased he decided to go, as I imagine the HoC was aware of this thoughts before he went public with them!

It's quite bizarre to give up at that age. That's when barristers can pick and choose the lucrative work, pull back from court work to concentrate on paper advices / advices in conference and they're generally past doing the grunt work of earlier years, which is required to get a good client base.

Though given his advice on circumnavigating the PB ban, that could've brought negative attention from his regulatory body, so maybe that's why he has stepped back. As solicitors we can be found to have brought the profession into disrepute. I imagine barristers have something similar.

As solicitors we can be found to have brought the profession into disrepute. I imagine barristers have something similar.

Would that be within the remit of the Bar Standards Board we heard about during Allison B's tribunal?

Yes, it would be. It's the SRA for us. But they do the same role for the two professions.

Thing is, if we're talking about mental health, I basically agree with that statement. That's not to say individual clinicians don't care, but overall services are appalling. There was seriously dodgy practice and inadequate funding years ago when I had the misfortune to attempt to get help, and that was before the Tories were in power and funding got even worse!

IF there has been an increase in suicides (quite possible for various wider social reasons and lack of services) it would feel like a cover-up to anyone close. There seems to be a lot of arse-covering and buck-passing (because no one has the resources to actually offer help/adequate treatment). Everything is fire-fighting - briefly stepping in if a suicide attempt is in progress, but no treatment/inadequate treatment. A friend of mine killed herself - she had contact with services, it was all utterly predictable. But the buck-passing, the "doesn't meet criteria for in-depth therapy", the general impression given to patients that they are time wasters... it's literally the opposite of what anyone needs, it would break a mentally robust person! And then you have an inquest where the arse-covering peaks, or at most "lessons will be learned", except they're not.

It all feels like the most scandalous cover-up. In a way, it is. But this is the case across the board, not just for those with difficulties around gender identity. I think this is important because there will be so much evidence of poor care of "trans" children - but the trans is a red herring, services are that poor for (almost) everyone.

Fox botherer has raised over £340,000 in 7 different crowdfunders on trans stuff. None have got anywhere at all, indeed most appear to have not even gone to court.

100% failure rate on trans stuff. Yet he still is racking in the cash mostly for doing nothing more than basic paperwork.

Great and hilarious summary of how legally weak the latest GLP grift is:

Good Law Project: Jolyon loses the plot over puberty blockers ban
https://labourpainsblog.com/2024/06/07/good-law-project-jolyon-loses-the-plot-over-puberty-blockers-ban/
On 5 June, having already grifted more than £20,000 for legal advice on challenging NHS correspondence with parents of trans-identifying young people on puberty blockers, Jolyon ‘I used to be a KC’ Maugham’s midlife crisis plaything, the (Not Very) Good Law Project launched yet another new crowdfunder, with an initial target of £75,000, in support of potential legal action against emergency Regulations on the prescribing and supply of puberty blockers to under 18s, introduced by the Government on 30 May.

Moreover because these cases are so badly designed they are shifting the legal profession in a pro-women direction simply by consistently failing. If one side are malicious clowns who FAIL, then the side with competent well mannered lawyers who WIN will gain ground.

List of GLP's 70 cases mostly failed. They raised over 5 million pounds. That is a lot of kiminos.
https://labourpainsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/screenshot-2024-05-03-at-09.39.33.png

Bumping this because the letter before action (see link below) was sent on 4th June with a response deadline of 7th June (see attached list of requests). So the response should have been received by now: the next step is to apply for an urgent hearing. I don't see any downside to Atkins defending this given that it's in their manifesto.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lbSBvs-mtYI31hUPw_8rqxxYLgMBGRry/view

(Grounds - 1. This type of order is appropriate only for a drug which is now known to be dangerous, not one where the dangers have allegedly been inadequately monitored until now. 2. Inadequate consultation before issuing the order.)

You're meant to give your opponent a 'reasonable' time to respond, as per the Pre-Action Protocol. 3 days is not reasonable!

I can never decide if Joly is a grifter or has a humiliation fetish when it comes to all these terrible cases he loses. Maybe it's both

There's always the possibility that he's an idiot with a good but limited education who is convinced that he's right and attributes all his defeats to bias, prejudice and wrong-thinking people being in positions of influence.

I've known a fair few men like that.

Something will be happening though. I think the claimants could win this. Its frustrating because the lack of clear evidence of harm is entirely down to GIDS not gathering evidence and/or concealing it from Cass.

Update - see screenshots from GLP's website.

The case has been put down for a one day hearing as soon as possible after 15th July.

The health secretary appears to have accidentally released, then tried to retract, some documents she didn't want the claimants to see 😮. No further info yet.

Why it's important:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13558643/New-gender-clinic-children-launched-former-Tavistock-psychologist-allegedly-agreed-teenage-girl-prescribed-puberty-blockers-liked-Thomas-Tank-Engine-charges-1-500-assessment.html

'Dr Wood's new clinic does not currently offer such prescriptions [ie puberty blockers], but its website says it is in discussions to do so with independent providers.'

Update:

The case has been put down for a one day hearing next Friday (earlier than predicted).

Well, at least it puts the ban into focus for the new government. Let's see what happens!

Who is the head of the department of health and social care now?

Because I have a horrible feeling it's going to be deliberately lost making the ban overturned.

It's Wes Streeting - he's said he's on board with Cass.

Thank fuck for that.

Yes this is where we get to see how serious Labour are about implementing Cass and protecting vulnerable children from private quack medical experimentation.

Have you not seen the clown whistle blowers? I feel sad for you.