Hilary Cass sent a document to every single MP and Peer, justifying and defending the puberty blockers trial

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

https://x.com/JamesEsses/status/2075512549248745744?s=20

There are ten images on X, sorry can't add them all here, or upload a file with it all in.

Thank you.
This is a screen shot for,
a) Utrecht Gender Scale
Questionnaire

https://genderanalysis.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ugds-fm-mf-adolescent.png

I cannot believe that some of the statements here should relate to whether or not a girl is transgender.

“I like to behave sexually as a girl.”
What if a girl is not being sexual because she is young and has not fallen in love?

”I prefer to behave like a boy”
Good for her. Is she concentrating on maths and science? Good at a sport and keen on it? So what.

“I enjoy seeing my naked body in a mirror”
About the last thing any adolescent girl enjoys is seeing her naked body in a mirror.
Many many girls will be full of self-criticism and even possibly disgust when they look.

…. and on it goes.

This should not be serious.

I am not commenting on the boy’s as I have never been one.

There are plans for a follow-up extension study into adulthood in the protocol.

IF the early data is missing. If it’s not, then it’s even more useful. It’s perfectly possible to look back at the notes of children who are now adults and look for their other diagnoses.

If the linkage is allowed.

What notes?

And in the original Dutch research they asked the boys the boys’ questions at the start. Then at the end they asked them the girls’ questions. And vice versa.

They could have shown the same improvements in scores by just flipping it over to the other questions 5 minutes later, not PBs/CSH/surgery later.

Do we have a guarantee that this proposed trial won’t do the same?

Their clinical notes. From attending the clinic at the Tavistock. What do you mean “what notes”? 🙄

One of the challenges to be overcome is that NHS numbers were changed as they transitioned so in order to link the clinical records of them as children with them as adults this change in number needs to be clarified. It’s the entire point of the linkage study, to link them together and there was a change in legislation to allow research into this change in number.

Cass is looking for longer-term benefits and risks. This data cannot come from a 2 year trial.

In the protocol posted by noblegiraffe under Secondary Objectives it says:
To allow for future safety, efficacy, and effectiveness data, including rarer adverse effects and long-term effects, pending further funding.

Secondary Objective sounds a rather vague intention especially as, if the funding does not come through, then this objective might not be realised. The whole trial might well end up being piecemeal.

The notes where it wasn’t recorded if a patient had autism or childhood trauma?

What data do you think is being talked about?

The NIHR has agreed to fund it. See page 29 of the protocol.

Wasn’t recorded? At all? In any child? Ever? Of course there will still be useful information to look at.

Recording it for some children and not for others doesn’t make it any better! Missing data is a massive problem when it comes to data analysis and wrecks the validity of conclusions.

I mean, I get that you want to nosy around the data and go ‘gosh, lots of them have mental health issues’ but on its own that tells you nothing.

Not yet applied for and with no obligation on current participants to take part and with no control/comparison group. It will apply to those participants who may continue to be given PBs, not to those who stop after the 1 or 2 years of the Pathways trial, so will not assess if there are longer-term harms from even short exposure.

Why does Cass want it then? Is she an idiot, running after crap data?

“All participating CYP and their parents/legal guardians will be asked to assent/consent to longer term follow-up, which in the first instance will be for the life of the funding (total period 5.5 years)” page 31

I’m not Cass. She’s pretty clear that there’s no point in waiting on it.

But she wants it done and she has said this in black and white and has persuaded the Govt to lean on the adult clinics witholding the data. She would not bother if she did not think that there is valuable data here that will not be available from the trial. Your insistence of 'nothing to see here' is becoming puzzling (or not).

Is there any chance they’ll need to agree to longer? And have funding for longer?

Say an 11 year is on the trial they’ll still only be 16. It needs to reach well into adulthood.

What do they mean by "live as a girl", "be treated like a girl", " behave like a girl" "feel like a girl"?

Because what some of that stuff is likely to boil down to is:

1. Hating the messiness and physical discomforts of periods and bras.

But who doesn't? And who doesn't feel it's unfair that boys don't have those problems? It doesn't prove anything about anything, other than your levels of tolerance for physical things you find distasteful, and for life's unfairness ( and the luck of the draw; not everyone gets big boobs and period pains).

1. Hating the discovery that in many ways, you will be a second class citizen in a nominally equal but actually quite sexist society. In particular, you will be seen by many as a sex object or as a failed sex object.

That's a problem with society, not with your identity. Some girls will recognise the problems more, and sooner, than others; and some will be more frightened or angry about it than others.

1. The particular milieu you grow up in and what it considers to be "for girls" and " for boys" and "for everyone".

That is very much a moveable feast. A girl growing up in an environment which is inclined to "gender" behaviour and activities ( whether she is then restricted on that basis or not) will surely be more prone to this kind of thinking.

Yet the questionnaire seems to consider that the meaning and significance of those phrases is self-evident. It isn't. Framing the three things above as issues of gender identity is social and cultural and not even consistent across society.

^1.6.5 Long-term follow-up
Gender incongruence may be a life-long condition or may resolve over adolescence or adult life. The aim of all interventions, Psychosocial and medical, should be to provide support that promotes the short and longer-term health, wellbeing and quality of life. In order to understand the impact of interventions, long-term follow-up is essential. The National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) has agreed to fund an open-label extension study to provide longer term follow-up of PATHWAYS TRIAL participants into adulthood, over and above the routine data collection already in place within routine NHS Gender Service care. The investigators will submit an application by month 12 and no later than 15 months post-first randomisation for this follow-up. The open-label extension if approved will include measures of physical health, mental health, gender identity and gender/body satisfaction, quality of life and well-being. This application for long-term follow-up will undergo the usual scientific evaluation and will be subject to regulatory approval.^

It sounds like a good intention, but I do not understand what is meant by submitting an application by month 12 and no later than month 15 in regard to a study going so many years beyond that.

Because some people think that the data linkage study can replace the puberty blocker trial, which it can’t.

That is how your argument started, but you have developed into a 'nothing to see here' argument which, frankly, I find troubling.
Anyway, I think we have explored the subject as far as it will go and we are just repeating ourselves now. Good night.

But it’s not completely unusable.

Most people are of the opinion that we should find out what’s happened to the children who have already been experimented on before experimenting on any other children. It’s possible to attempt this, only blind pessimism and negativity, or an imperative to hide the problems is stopping this.

It’s not impossible at all.

Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Not worth being ‘troubled’ over.

I’m afraid that statistical validity doesn’t rely on a positive can-do attitude, rather complete, clean datasets.