The Cass report - Peer review

[BeizenderKarneval]

There has been some peer review work done on the Cass review, something that a lot of us in the industry knew was problematic but that has been used by government and a number of notably outspoken individuals to justify their hateful positions

The results and conclusions are quite compelling, and I urge you to read them for yourselves:

Critically appraising the cass report: methodological flaws and unsupported claims

I find this section especially interesting:

“It undermines the legal competence of both children and adults to access medical treatment and dismisses almost all existing clinical evidence on trans people’s healthcare by applying impossible evidence standards which, if applied to other medicines would invalidate more than three quarters of the existing treatments used in paediatric care which, like puberty blockers, are currently being prescribed off-label.”

The report’s primary conclusions rest on excluding 98% of the relevant evidence on the safety and efficacy of puberty blockers and hormones for lack of blinding and controls.

What this means is that they require studies in which some patients are given the treatment, and others are unknowingly given placebos.
This is not only a clear breach of medical ethics and monstrous suggestion, but also impossible due to the obviousness of the impacts of puberty blockers and hormones.

The report also strays far beyond its scope and competence in recommending a review of adult services and in suggesting that young people ought to stay under the care of children and young people’s services until the age of 25.
The latter is based on highly questionable understandings of brain development which have been repeatedly debunked as an oversimplification of the constant changes in human neurology over the course of our lives.

This recommendation, especially in a context of an already broken system of care for both adults and children, has the potential to have a significant negative impact on the lives and wellbeing of trans people in the UK.
Underpinning this report is the idea that being trans is an undesirable outcome rather than a natural facet of human diversity.

This is clear not only from the recommendations but also from the exclusion of trans researchers from the design of the review process and the links individual members of the research team have to anti-trans groups, which the Cass team were warned about.

I look forward to an interesting dialogue.

Arschgeige. Brilliant.

It's the expectation that women will perform on demand, provide responses/arguments to a requisite standard and in the correct tone that gets me.

Arse fiddle? Conceptually, that is a thing of great beauty.

Lol, we’ve had men coming here for literal decades patronising the “mummies” only to get their arses handed to them by women who turn out to be subject matter experts in the area they’ve chosen to pontificate about. It’s always a pleasure to watch.

I think it's important to change our opinions in the face of updated facts, so my opinion on the Cass report validity has now changed. I'll also be feeding back some of this information to colleagues who are critical of said report.

Indeed. We don't always do that though - it's very easy to get caught up in one's own biases and to reject any information that someone with an opposing opinion puts forward.

I'm glad you took the time to look into the information that @TangenitalContrivences and @Helleofabore posted and consider it. I hope your colleagues will also look at it.

One of the most important things in this whole debate is for all of us to look at the facts, as scientific research uncovers them. I think that's the only basis for making decisions as to whether puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are harmful or beneficial.

Brilliant 👏. I fucking love it when a truly knowledgeable poster hands someone their arse and educates the rest of us at the same time. I think we’re done here aren’t we?

Yes! It was one of the aspects that drew me to this board - many posters really know how to handle data and statistics and can thoroughly analyse a report in the time it takes me to make a cup of tea. Awesome, in the true sense.

Thank you for returning @BeizenderKarneval , I and I am sure others appreciate it. I believe that (I'm not that regular a poster I am here for something specific) that there are frequently visitors from other parts of the internet who arrive, pontificate an opinion and then never return, that you have returned and have stayed polite is a breath of fresh air and welcome.

As for you taking onboard the points raised, by me and others, is even more welcome and should be applauded in the extreme. I too value being able to take on board new evidence and opinions, and I strive to not have a rigid world view. Though I am only human and no doubt get it wrong a lot.

It would be wonderful if this learning opportunity went further than just you, I'd personally love to know how your journey with new information goes, please do return to keep us informed and continue a polite debate :)

I’m delighted that the OP has changed their view on the Cass report. The acknowledgement of TangentialContrivances and Hellofabore’s patient offering of evidence was nice. However the sneering is irritating.

I’ll be feeling some of this back to colleagues who are critical of said report

They seem to be coming here as some sort of ChatGPT alternative that they can patronise whilst simultaneously understanding that on any given thread they’ll find a subject expert. Given the patronising tone throughout, is OP intending to report this insightful analysis back to colleagues as their own? Or will they admit who did their homework for them?

thank you to them; and to the one or two other intelligent posters on this forum

I find this hypocritical in the extreme. OP has posed a question in ignorance and demanded an answer. Having had this provided, the arrogance continues assuming that anyone following along is somehow ignorant rather than the alternative which is that most are here to learn and debate. I personally love the witty commentary and satire that goes along with the insight. Shame OP has contributed neither.

Yup - same old, same old. "Educate yourselves" the gender identity muppets said - so we bloody did and exposed the biggest scam /charade/cult ever, doing untold harm in society - especially to children.

Yet they post on here with increasing levels of derangement, bad faith, fantasies and downright lies because of their inbuilt contempt for women.

But now we see them.

@TangenitalContrivences please don’t be a temporary visitor! I’d love to hear more - my field is something completely different and it’s so useful to hear from someone who can cut through the obfuscation on the medical research!

Yep. Ointment for that burn, sir?

It does. Although we can see in that behaviour a very helpful illustration of the misogyny soaked, women-are-subhuman-resource-units-to-be-used (and scolded with derision from a position of absolute belief in high superiority and authority) culture strong in so many that was the petri dish for all of this unholy mess in the first place.

I don't think we'll see men capable of recognising this never mind taking responsibility for it in our lifetime, but it has at least exposed it. For example it's notable that there is no men's forum parallel to mumsnet, set up by men for men where these kind of issues are discussed in such evidenced depth and comprehension.

Thank you

A few years back i went on a workshop run by women to train female wiki writers. The male-centric content and attitudes creates a bias. So to fix the problem more women need to get involved and improve the data held on women. It’s really easy to do. I’m not a regular editor but last week someone pointed out some Wikipedia errors on a thread here and I popped off to correct them. Anyone who is interested do register and make sure to start by making only very small edits and fact based corrections until you get the hang of it. We need more mumsnetters on there for sure 😀

I could not agree more and I think wikipedia has a far larger effect on the world than people like to admit.

It's the first search result for almost any subject

Some articles are bang on, but anything contentious is often flat out wrong and agitator issues such as transgender articles are written by activists, with no challenge.

For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Rape_Crisis_Centre

And especially the talk page behind it

Or worse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mridul_Wadhwa

They are both atrocious and very, very biased.

If you want to get very very angry look at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-critical_feminism

A concerted effort, maybe by mums netters? to improve this page for example could make a world of difference. a lot and I mean a lot of people read these pages, take it as truth, move on.

Another MN working group, maybe?

I also attended a wiki editing workshop for women years back, KnottyAuty, although it was on a very obscure and niche subject, so probably not the same one!

I almost instantly forgot every technical detail that was explained, unfortunately.

I use wikipedia as a quick reference for my work stuff, because it is generally accurate for that topic. And I have enough knowledge to sense when it isn't, plus I fact check before I write anything. Usually though Wiki is a memory aid for me as I forget more than I remember stuff. But ... that is one narrow field and it is just factual information that is there.

The biased entries that I find for so many other topics is very worrisome though. The fear for me is that the propaganda that is allowed to stand will be treated as accurate. All because of the power plays that we know happen behind the scenes.

When I fact checked the dossier that Pesutto's team put out most of it had come from wikipedia. And most of it I had fact checked before. But the number of times we have seen those same false accusations repeated here (even before Pesutto spread them to the wider world) is fucked. People simply don't take the time to even think things through. Like, just who are these 'far right' people are they even 'right wing'?

There is a decrepitude that is now coming from having information directly at hand. In the past, you would get someone to go further in explaining, or you would look up what you hoped were credible sources in libraries etc. Now you just do a google search and some people don't look further.

But on MN we also know that wikipedia has had numerous known to us activists who would gatekeeper the information there. Remember, KJK had people changing her entry constantly and the activists there would just change it right back to false information or false interpretations of facts.

I am surprised when people post something, use negative language such as 'anti-trans', then post in expectation that someone will deliver answers, and then when people react negatively, believe that they have some fucking superiority over the people they are expecting to deliver.

All the while, when you read that OP, this poster obviously has done very little background reading before finding this hugely biased paper 'compelling'. Yet has their very own prejudices that came out in later posts about the people they are expecting to perform for them.

I think that having a working party constantly editing wiki would do me in. Just dealing with the crap propaganda papers that are posted on MN each fucking day is enough. I would feel like I was in a constant spin cycle if I started on wiki. I mean, is there a time limit between changes? I could be stuck there changing one entry for a decade. 😁

@BeizenderKarneval
Could you please answer the question which was asked by several people what you mean with "Industry" when you say "a lot of us in the industry knew"

How do you get any edits to Wiki to stay when activists change them back pretty quickly?

I can remember watching an interview with a former SJW (possibly interviewed by Peter Boghossian on YouTube) and one of the things that she discussed was editing Wiki to further social justice. She said that she had altered the Christopher Columbus page based on the most tenuous sources, but that she now couldn't remember what she had changed. So I guess her misinformation/spin is still there.

and to the one or two other intelligent posters on this forum.

I'm glad you have listened and been willing to change your mind. And surprised, because judging on your posts you did not seem to be coming from a neutral perspective at all, or engaging on any intellectual level at all with Cass or the article you posted.

As you're in a learning frame of mind: insulting people's intelligence doesn't generally convince them you're an intelligent person yourself, or encourage them to want to respond to you in detail. If you actually want rational discussions, just ignore any posts you feel aren't moving the discussion forward. And ask questions rather than make dogmatic pronouncements about things being "hateful".

If you had said in your opening post:

"I work in x industry.

People have been sharing this article responding to the Cass review.
I heard the MN feminism forum generally rates Cass, I wondered what you thought of the points raised in the article."

I think you would have got much better engagement from the start.

Well it is a problem. Here I have to admit to bending the rules - I once tried to make a correction to my own entry 🤫 And someone decided they knew the facts better and changed it back 🤣 So it is possibly an endless task of bullshit detecting

The whole

‘what do you make of this you hateful bigots?’

’wait, why is everyone being so mean to me?’

dynamic is puzzling. You are very kind to explain to chappie that it’s not necessarily a winning strategy for stimulating intellectual debate

Dave Gorman had that problem. He talked about it on 'Modern Life is Goodish' IIRC.