Wes Streeting addresses puberty blockers decision -excellent response

[Fenlandia]

https://x.com/wesstreeting/status/1812435914473295927

Love this, from Ben Williams on Twitter/X re Jolyon Maugham and his (now 25 I think) list of questions to Wes Streeting and his annoyance that Wes Hasn't Answered Him Yet:

Streeting really now understanding how the wedding guest felt as he saw the Ancient Mariner lurching towards him

Era

Accordingly

No edit on the app...

I just read that and chuckled

'You need more light Jolyon. Get some light into your list. You're getting all hot and fox bothered.'

Image for those not on Twitter

Thank you, @WarriorN
Note to self: really must look up how to post images.

Defending his decision to stick with Atkins’s stance, Streeting said the evidence that puberty blockers were safe for such use “should have been established before they were ever prescribed”, and that a clinical trial was being set up.

Arguing that the use of such drugs for gender dysphoria was clinically very different from their prescription to much younger children to prevent very early puberty, Streeting said: “We don’t yet know the risks of stopping pubertal hormones at this critical life stage. That is the basis upon which I am making decisions. I am treading cautiously in this area because the safety of children must come first.

“Some of the public statements being made are highly irresponsible and could put vulnerable young people at risk. I know there’s lots of fear and anxiety. I am determined to improve the quality of, and access to, care for trans people.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/15/wes-streeting-defends-puberty-blocker-ban-decision-after-labour-criticism

Does anyone know what was the turning point for Streeting. As far as i know it was shortly before the Election. Was it facing the possibility of being the person in charge that he realised he could not longer make emotive statements to show the most discriminated group in the world he was on their side, when he would become accountable for any negative outcomes once the Cass Report raised this as an issue?

You would have thought (in line with Labour thinking) that wooing the trans lobby would help win the election, but he back peddle. Or became an adult.

re what will be put in place to make up with this "unkind" position.

Easier self id (and lowering the age?) IMO.

Good question. Was it the report itself?

Thanks all for your replies, I will think them over but for now, I'm just going to pick out one statement:
Really it depends what the bills say and how they are worded. We fight those battles when they come.

How do we fight them?

OK more writing to MPs, more supporting court cases, like we did before the election. But I just don't believe this will persuade anything like enough back benchers to defy their party whips, especially not new MPs. And even in the highly unlikely event that it does, the government can probably count on enough Lib Dem / SNP / Green support to get it through.

So what else? Or is that it?

When term ends I'm going to start writing to my Labour mp. Who is in the education dept.

She's already replied to a couple of emails, but not the one I send asking for a public inquiry.

<rolls up sleeves>

Peter Tatchell sticks his oar in.

https://twitter.com/PeterTatchell/status/1812873571552698626?t=7_XR7B4gqYtqzausch5ZXA&s=19

Wes Streeting condemned by Labour MPs over his decision to permanently ban puberty blockers for trans youth

He cited the Cass report to justify his decision but Cass recommended caution, NOT a complete ban

Labour perpetuates Tory policy that harms trans

Does anyone know what was the turning point for Streeting. As far as i know it was shortly before the Election. Was it facing the possibility of being the person in charge that he realised he could not longer make emotive statements to show the most discriminated group in the world he was on their side, when he would become accountable for any negative outcomes once the Cass Report raised this as an issue?

I think a few of us have discussed our own moments of eye-popping realisation that the emperor is naked, @IwantToRetire.
It seems you can't be a little bit gender critical.

Like many other feminists, my journey started at be kind. Once I reached hang on a minute, I was on the fast train to Hell, no. And I've not had the opprobrium on Twitter that Wes has. Whether it was Cass or not, now he gets it the Twitter tantrums are likely to harden his position.

Streeting is the Minister for Health. If he has serious leadership ambitions he is going to want to make a good job of Health. Anyone in their right mind in such a role, with such responsibility, cannot ignore the warnings of one of the country's senior paediatricians; or fail to take seriously GPs when they say they do not want responsibility for diagnosing and 'treating' children with a post-modern condition.

He's probably now looking to the new NHS child gender clinics, that are already up and running, to see which way to go next.

Cass did bring this firmly back into health.

Don't forget Cass includes a trial for 1000 kids.

They're following the science.

The ideology is yet to be seen, but how can the nhs "medically treat" using drugs and surgery based on ideology?

I'm struggling to think what other medical situation is ideologically based bar some religious beliefs which request no medical intervention.

I was going to say that women are not Streeting's problem - but of course the nurses are. And single-sex wards.

Interesting times ahead!

Kim Johnson, Labour Liverpool mp

The proposed ban on puberty blockers for young trans people is very concerning.
Labour's manifesto promised to "remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition & acceptance" -this entails ending the ban on puberty blockers.* I will always stand with trans youth.*

x.com/kimjohnsonmp/status/1812865611103441137?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

What was I saying upthread about an absence of saying things???

I've forgotten

If anyone ever doubted that LOJ was a weasel his grift jumping is painfully apparent for the world to see.

Trans kids and Gazans are just dollar signs for LOJ.

The Katie Hopkins model of employment. But for the left.

I'm struggling to think what other medical situation is ideologically based bar some religious beliefs which request no medical intervention.

Circumcision and FGM are the only ones I can think of (if you class religious/cultural beliefs alongside ideologies). And that horrible surgery which apparently promises to create a new hymen.

LOJ is so unbelievably SPENT as a quasi-serious political/sociological force.

I knew he was a wrong-un when I read his book Chavs. I grew up in a WC family in a WC community, and the vast majority of WC people don't think and talk like the so-called WC people in Chavs, who basically ape all the views and speech patterns of Highgate Guardian readers but with names like Shelley and Darren as opposed to Isobel and Sebastian.

Sure enough, once the book was out, some of the subjects complained that their words had been misquoted and misrepresented.

Despite this, there aren't many WC people in the media, so Chavs was taken seriously as was his next book, The Establishment.

How do you write about The Establishment without including critiques about the BBC and the Guardian which are both as about Establishment as you can get? But according to LOJ, the Beeb and the Graun are plucky outsider subaltern grassroots organisations fighting The Man. Gimme a break.

So yeah I always knew he was a faker and a poseur and I'm glad he followed the TRA movement right over the precipice, it exposed him to so many more people. How many copies did his final book, This Land, sell? Maybe about 7?

Now what's he got left? A bunch of impotently angry neckbeard followers and a Patreon account. Loser. Mean-spirited misogynist.

I used to hate him, now I just cringe.

He saw the light after seeing how JKR and Rosie Duffield were being treated - it made him think, and as we all know, once seen you cannot unsee.

Good points @GiveMeSpanakopita - not exactly persuasive though.

Afaik body dysmorphia is now mostly treated with cbt.