BBC interview with Cass. 'Both sides weaponised'

[RedToothBrush]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k1vkmxgd6o

Asked if children had been let down by an adult-led debate, Cass said "absolutely", adding they "were also caught up in all the issues about single-sex spaces and sports and safe areas for women which were actually not to do with the children but they were somehow part of a football within it".

This woman is proving herself exceedingly stupid and self serving.

Children were caught up in a debate about single sex spaces and sports which aren't about children?!!!

Wtf?

So let me get this straight. Young girls and teenage girls don't need and use single sex facilities. And issues with sports also don't impact on teenage girls.

Is that what she's saying????!!!!

Fuck off. And keeping fucking off some more.

This woman is proving herself to be an idiot and is trying to desperately make herself look better in the eyes of activists. She doesn't give a fuck about children. She's playing politics here for her own sake.

The issues around kids and single sex facilities are some of the most compelling!

I'm just staggered by this shit show.

I thought Cass made a lot of sense, actually. Very clear that social media has pushed the idea of 'trans' on children, especially girls, that there is a complete lack of understanding of what the drugs and surgery route actually entails, and that the 'trans' child should be a unicorn and most of us should never encounter one.

I'm on the fence about the puberty blockers trial. I hate that they've been given that inane cutesy name, for starters, having been on them twice for endometriosis I cannot understand how giving them to a healthy adolescent can ever be considered a good idea. The side effects are awful - bone pain, joint pain that kept me awake at night, sweats, broken teeth, my hair fell out, I gained weight, I had nightmares and I felt constantly panicky and upset. But she is right when she says that, thanks to the tavistock and their failed record keeping, we don't have clear evidence of what happens when these drugs are used in this cohort, and having a decent body of evidence is needed to push back against the arguments for their use. Unfortunately, the only way to get it is to harm another cohort of children.

To spare the next generation of children from online influencers and idiot parents willing to believe that taking lupron for cosmetic purposes is a good idea, we need a solid body of evidence proving the harm, and the only way to get that is to sacrifice some children now.

But are the planned tests for evidence even going to be the right ones after this cohort of children are sacrificed? Will the trial run for long enough?

What evidence are you drawing on when you say (what I think you are saying) that you know for certain that there can not be a rare condition whereby the symptoms are distress in one’s sexed body for which causation is not linked to likely causation (autism, SA, gender non conformity etc.).

I struggle to see how being open to such a condition existing, especially when encountering children for whom this seems to be the case, is akin to being a climate change denier.

That's a very different question to whether or not it should be done at all. I don't know how you design a study for this, because I don't really know what the harm is that the drugs are helping to avoid in these otherwise healthy children (which is presumably why the suicide narrative was pushed so hard because without that, there's no sufficiently serious risk of harm attached to not using them).

I don't know what a 'better with' outcome is supposed to look like. I don't really understand the point of the puberty blockers from a medical point of view. 'Buying time' is meaningless. If they are being used as a way of helping a child with puberty phobia cope with their anxiety, it's completely at odds with how anxiety for all other phobias is treated. If it's cosmetic then surely the outcome can't be measured because it's not how the individual feels about their appearance, it's about how other people feel about it.

Sterilising children because of gender stereotypes is also an insane thing to do. But here we are.

Cass’ position , as I understand it, is that she thinks that there are ‘many ways in’ to a ‘trans identity’ and this needs to be matched by many ways out. I think she is suggesting (from her research, which has been extensive) that there may be a very small number of people whose ‘way in’ may be linked to a condition (maybe mental health, may be neurodevelopmental) that we know little about. I think she is referring to people for whom there aren’t other more likely explanations for their dysphoria symptoms - and their symptoms reach clinical levels of impairment, meaning their quality of life is significantly impacted.

There is nothing from what she has said that makes me think she is thinking about people who are preoccupied by how they are perceived by other people. I am confident she is thinking about children who are agoraphobic, self harming, school refusing etc. who make sense of their difficulties as being because they cannot tolerate being the sex they are, for whom there aren’t any other hypotheses explaining this (eg SA, homosexuality, autism) and while they cannot change sex, hormone treatment could reduce symptoms and improve participation and access to activities that will improve their quality of life.

I understand why there is so much scepticism about this - the vast majority of children have trans identities because of a shit show of other factors at play. What I have trouble accepting is the absolute certainty that people cling to in stating that she is wrong. There are few people who have had access to evidence that Cass has - it’s quite something to suggest that she has less insight than them.

I would argue that NICE is an example of society having an input. There are opportunities for the public to get involved.

But there also seems to be a rare condition which is cured by cutting off people's limbs. Should we start permitting that as well?

And should we do it while they are still children, before their brains mature?

That's my point. But also it makes the point that Cass could have more explicitly made the links between the concept of child transition and adult issues, rather than dismiss them in the way she did.

No, we shouldn't, but we've opened Pandora's box as far as trying to change a child's sexual phenotype goes and we need hard evidence of harm to force it shut again specifically because a medical/health route has been used to open it in the first place. That route can be closed off with good evidence.

If the adults involved in this were honest and had always been upfront about it being cosmetic surgery, they'd never have been able to experiment on children in the first place.

Gathering actual evidence (because the previous decade of puberty blockers for all who made it through the wait lists or went private didn't actually gather reliable data) and having balanced conversations that don't result in hysterical stand-offs and no-platforming is what is needed.

The first Tavistock 'trial' was supposed to gather evidence. Is this one any more likely to do a better job?

I'd like to know how we're supposed to have balanced conversations when the trans lobby do nothing but shut down anyone who disagrees with them with 'no debate' and threats of violence.

She was absolutely the most sensible and intelligent person in that segment.

It would be pretty embarrassing if she hadn't been, when the other participants were Billy Bragg and Emily Thornberry.

@Brainworm I think she is suggesting (from her research, which has been extensive) that there may be a very small number of people whose ‘way in’ may be linked to a condition (maybe mental health, may be neurodevelopmental) that we know little about.

I would not rule this out. It's just that, given the dangers we are going to inflict on them, we would need an impossibly high level of certainty that such children exist and that we have identified the correct children and that our research protocol will give us the answers we need about what is best for these children in the short- and long-term.

But the children don't understand what a sexual phenotype means. They think that if they look like the opposite sex they become the opposite sex.

Why was Billy Bragg there?

Once there is decent evidence which says this % of the children treated became incontinent, had osteoporosis, memory problems, dental problems, heart disease, auto immune diseases etc, the extreme trans activists will lose all their power in this fight. I saw a study recently which found that 95% of women using testosterone for 'gender transition' had some degree of urinary incontinence, and these were young women. A shocking number had fecal incontinence on top.

I can't imagine many young women consenting when told upfront that they will be wetting themselves as a result. But we need that hard data not just emotion.

Of course they do, they're children!

This isn't about children at all, it's about the adults involved who are happily enabling this - the teachers, parents and doctors. We need proper evidence of harm to stop that.

Hadn't she said she was frank and honest in the report because she thought she was dying ... Assuming she isn't I can see why she'd be terrified of the nasty lot.

But even so.

Children will get damaged if good people don't stand up for them.

This trial will not reveal these long term harms. It was designed by activists and looks at short term outcomes, mostly subjective. It is a horror show and should be stopped. I can't believe anyone who has looked at rhe methodology thinks otherwise. I'd like Cass to explain precisely what this particular experiment is supposed to acheive? What gaps in our knowledge will it fill in? None as far as I or anyone else can see.

Cass probably also recognises that maintaining a very balanced viewpoint, where she always acknowledges both points of view, is an essential part of getting her work recognised and taken seriously.

The Cass report exists in a world where there are plenty of otherwise intelligent, sensible clinicians, researchers, parents, kids, teachers and politicians (and Billy Bragg) who still entirely believe in gender ideology, including the medical transitioning of teenagers.

Even if Cass privately thinks "It's all bollocks except in the tiniest minority" - which I wouldn't be surprised if she did - she may well believe that the best way to win hearts and minds is to always keep the debate balanced and always acknowledge both sides. And I would agree with her. Otherwise she'll just be denounced as a bigot and the two sides will just keep shouting at each other.

To pick up on your closing remark, I think it is dangerous to assume that just because someone had access to a large volume of evidence that they and they alone fully understood and correctly interpreted it and must therefore not be subject to challenge or scrutiny.

Being capable of withstanding challenge and critique is a core part of science. Humans are also fallible. It's not appropriate to close down questioning in this way.

I have looked at it. Can you explain what the issues are with it, as you see them? (I have my own thoughts on this and I think there are problems, but it has to start somewhere).

Her PB trial position is, as I understand it, that there are case studies indicating that there is a rare condition for which puberty blocking followed by cross sex hormones produces the best outcomes for those with the condition, but the quality of evidence is weak and more robust evidence is needed.

That may be her position, but it's based on pure speculation. We can't possibly know that this was the best outcome for those people who never went through puberty, because we don't know what would have happened if they hadn't been given these drugs. The outcome may have been satisfactory, but perhaps it would have been even better for them if they hadn't been sterilised and had their sexual function impaired.

It's not possible to get more robust evidence, because you can't do any sort of research which will show what happens in the two different scenarios with the same person.

I find the certainty of the people on here that there is no such condition surprising.

Do you? I'm one of those people. What do you think 'trans' is? 'Trans' seems to me to be a mental health condition or paraphilia, or possibly a neurological condition. Treating such conditions with powerful body-altering drugs or surgery seems barbaric to me. It also seems inappropriate because it supports the idea that there is something 'real' about the person's perception of their body being the wrong sex.

I don't believe that 'trans' is a real state in the sense that I don't believe that anyone is literally born in the wrong body.

Going back to the ‘both sides’ part of the quote - in the clip I’ve seen, Cass refers to ‘the extremes’, and uses her hands to gesture (possibly indicating ‘both sides’), but I don’t think it’s actually what she said, is it? So the BBC’s headline quote isn’t quite what it seems, if so.