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.

The ethics committee and Cass herself must believe there is a realistic prospect that this treatment is beneficial to the children in the trial.

There are many, many people who will say that it has been beneficial, either to themselves or their patients, and many who say that it isn't. Clinical trials are literally the way you decide this sort of thing.

As for the made-up case (referring to a real and potentially identifiable child in such a way in the HOL would have been an actual safeguarding issue), what's interesting is that people are saying 'oh it's made up, she lied, that child doesn't exist, what a bitch' and not really looking at what she has said about it being an amalgam of several children. Instead of going 'that child doesn't exist, phew' the response should be 'fuck, there's more than one of them'.

And for the 'that's child abuse' response. Well yes, but saying that doesn't actually help that child right now, does it? How to proceed with those poor kids? If they have only just come to the attention of the clinics, then it is possible that puberty blockers could in this sort of case, give the fabled 'time to think' while the psychiatrists do more work with them to reconcile them with their sex. I don't know.

Me too. The anecdote was a real game changer for me in terns of viewing her as prepared to stop at nothing to gaslight others. Although I did think the concerns raised about the possibility that she's felt bullied or intimidated by certain powerful transactiovists in the NHS are legitimate. Women on here are only too aware of the manner in which TRAs throw around threats towards careers, reputations and physical safety.

At the core of this, is that she and others reckon think that the long term safety and well being of a group of children is fine to sacrifice for the "greater good" and quite casually dismiss everyone pointing out that harm to one child is one child too many.

Those of us who are child & child safeguarding centred disagree. We've watched the long term abuse of children by advocates for this ideology for over a decade and now say enough. Time to stop. Literally, leave children alone.

As for the made-up case (referring to a real and potentially identifiable child in such a way in the HOL would have been an actual safeguarding issue), what's interesting is that people are saying 'oh it's made up, she lied, that child doesn't exist, what a bitch' and not really looking at what she has said about it being an amalgam of several children. Instead of going 'that child doesn't exist, phew' the response should be 'fuck, there's more than one of them'.

Well, if that's what she meant then that is what she should have said. "There are several children who... and they would benefit from..." Creating a single hypothetical case and emoting about it is not good behaviour. Neither (as has already been pointed out) is ignoring the safeguarding aspect of how a child came to be in this position in the first place and failing to consider whether blocking that child's puberty is a better way to proceed than giving a child in such an extreme situation an off-ramp.

When I start thinking that perhaps I am failing to take into account that wrong things may be done for the greater good, I go and re-read Ursula K LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas".

Do the ends justify the means? I don't know. I know that if it were my own child (as it very easily might have been) I would find this experiment on children abhorrent, and so perhaps I should also find it so when it is not my, but someone else's, child who will suffer "for the greater good".

I also simply do not believe that any study/clinical trial carried out in "Terf Island" will be remotely persuasive to anyone who wants not to believe the results it produces. That is, anyone who wants children to be transed; there seem to be a fair few of them, and unfortunately many of them seem to have children.

Oh, the text of LeGuin's story? Here you go: www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf

And for the 'that's child abuse' response. Well yes, but saying that doesn't actually help that child right now, does it? How to proceed with those poor kids? If they have only just come to the attention of the clinics, then it is possible that puberty blockers could in this sort of case, give the fabled 'time to think' while the psychiatrists do more work with them to reconcile them with their sex. I don't know.

Cass doesn't seem to be arguing that giving her fictional child puberty blockers is to give them time to think. She appears to be saying that this child has been socially transitioned for so long that they are unable to be reconciled with their actual sex and are fixed in their new gender so require puberty blockers prior to medically transitioning

I mean, she probably has considered that.

On the flip side, are you really 100% certain that for a kid who is terrified to go to school in case they are discovered, that allowing puberty to progress so that they will definitely be discovered if they leave the house is the option that will cause the least harm to them?

Blimey. How would you know that an 11 year old could never be reconciled to their actual sex? I mean know it with enough confidence to say, well fine, this way to mecication and surgery and sterility and lack of sexual function and physical urinogenital problems and whatever else because it's better than the alternative?

💯

Also puts a huge amount of faith in medical transitioning.

Perhaps a child who has been treated like this will always have profound psychological difficulties, but it doesn't follow that those can be solved with surgery.

This is the problem with the whole trial, and its objectives and its timelines and Cass's comments on it. It's all slippery, smoke and mirrors, unfocused, scattergun. It just doesn't pass the sniff test. There is something very wrong at the heart of it, and we sense that.

For me it comes down to ethics.

Yes, you and I have very different opinions on the quality of the data in the proposed trial (I say it won't be high quality, from what I see you believe it will) and the data linkage study (I say it's worth seeing what the data points show when correlated, you say it's crap don't go fishing). But ultimately it's the ethics difference that is most fundamental.

Although the children are assenting, they don't really know what they are assenting to. How could any child understand agreement to possible brain damage and early osteoporosis? Although their parents are consenting how can any parents morally say yes to these things either, on behalf of their child? How many of these assents/contents have come from children and their parents believing that they'll die by suicide if they don't get this "treatment"?

That's not real consent. On the face of it, it's better than what the Nazis did to get scientific data but I'm not convinced that it is. These vulnerable children are pawns in this mess. The saddest part of all is that they and their parents have been coerced into believing that it's something that is right for them. Obviously I'm not talking about the morally corrupt Munchausen by proxy parents here (they'll probably be off buying the drugs illegally) but the likely majority of scared parents who are turning to the NHS for help.

Some food for thought on data that hasn't been gathered ethically:

https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/how-should-we-regard-information-gathered-nazi-experiments/2021-01

Given these prisoners were going to die anyway, I have no doubt that some people will convince themselves that it was worth gathering valuable data before they did. I'm not suggesting you would think that but I'm genuinely confused why you wouldn't see this PB trial as equally aborrent (assuming you do think the Nazi example is such).

I don't know what she has considered because she didn't tell the Lords. This wasn't a "very difficult situation and maybe transition would be better or maybe not we just don't know" kind of speech it was a "how could we consider not transitioning this poor child?" kind of speech.

But given the physical consequences of transition, and the long history of fuckups caused by medical interventions on children with DSDs to help them pass better as one sex or the other, I 'm surprised by Dame Cass' insistence that such a child is the poster child for a puberty blocking experiment.

Cass doesn't seem to be arguing that giving her fictional child puberty blockers is to give them time to think. She appears to be saying that this child has been socially transitioned for so long that they are unable to be reconciled with their actual sex and are fixed in their new gender so require puberty blockers prior to medically transitioning

I wonder if she'd have advocated chopping off Imane Khelif's and Caster Semenya's (or any of multiple male sports stars with the DSD 46 5-ARD) penises when they started to grow and their testicles, if these descended in puberty?

It would have been very distressing for them to discover that they were actually male. Perhaps she thinks teaching a child what sex they really are, if they had strongly believed they were the opposite, is unkind and adjusting their body to match their belief is a better option.

The kindest thing to do would be to help them reconcile with their male bodies. I suspect that's exactly what happened in private with these individuals and that, thankfully for them, they've probably all still got intact bodies.

@Cantunseeit · Today 08:33
Thank you for relating the tragedy of Chicken Girl. I agree the transing of two year olds is comparable, even if preferable for at least still including human interaction.

That is such an upsetting story. I wonder if she misses living with the chickens? I hope she has enough ‘human’ instincts left to enjoy being with them a bit.

As for the made-up case (referring to a real and potentially identifiable child in such a way in the HOL would have been an actual safeguarding issue), what's interesting is that people are saying 'oh it's made up, she lied, that child doesn't exist, what a bitch' and not really looking at what she has said about it being an amalgam of several children.

That's a bit of a misrepresentation of what people have been saying.

She did lie. She should have said it was a hypothetical child, not a real one. But nobody has said 'what a bitch', or anything like that.

Instead of going 'that child doesn't exist, phew' the response should be 'fuck, there's more than one of them'.

Has nobody said that? It's certainly what I thought. The idea that there might be several, or dozens, or hundreds of children like this is horrifying.

And for the 'that's child abuse' response. Well yes, but saying that doesn't actually help that child right now, does it? How to proceed with those poor kids? If they have only just come to the attention of the clinics,

I'm honestly surprised (perhaps I shouldn't be) that a child could go from the ages of 2 to 11, without some professional that they have come into contact with (teachers, GPs...) alerting social services to the obvious abuse which is taking place. But since Dr Cass herself doesn't view this as abuse, perhaps those professionals didn't either.

She does seem to think, like John Money did, that if you pretend a boy is a girl for long enough, from a young enough age, you can then create a girl from a boy using medication and surgery.

Has she not heard of David Reimer? Does she not know what happened to him?

Many people haven't and don't, but someone in her position really ought not to be ignorant of his case.

This child has only been socially transitioned. With enough psychological support he could revert to being the boy he is, and he won't have to fear being found out as masquerading as someone he is not.

No child should have been put in this position of living a lie.

I agree. He's already halfway there. He obviously knows he has a male body, otherwise why is he not socialising? His parents need to explain why they lied to him and the clinicians need to explain, in as professional and supportive and caring a way as possible, that he will never be female. It sounds harsh, but some children have to be told some difficult truths, because life hands some children some shitty deals.

The alternative, as you say, is a lifetime of lies.

The fictional boy/ real children like him who were transed as toddlers could even begin by telling the world they realise they are “Non-Binary” or “Gender Fluid”.

Although the children are assenting, they don't really know what they are assenting to. How could any child understand agreement to possible brain damage and early osteoporosis? Although their parents are consenting how can any parents morally say yes to these things either, on behalf of their child? How many of these assents/contents have come from children and their parents believing that they'll die by suicide if they don't get this "treatment"?

There is this first and foremost. That these children do not know and cannot know what they are agreeing to. Second, any parent consenting on their behalf either does not know what they are consenting to happen to their child or ought to be also evaluated for their mental health fitness along with their child’s. How many parents will be told or understand the typical conveyor belt between PBs and CSHs? And then surgery.

The reason we’re in this mess in the first place is precisely because of how many healthcare professionals are true believers and have advocated and affirmed. From Tavistock to gender clinics to the BMA to the likes of sad times Dr U to the hospitals denying an opposite sexed patient was housed on a ward to the medical researchers putting their names to the primacy of ‘gender identity’ in literally thousands of journal articles. All insisting that humans can change sex and/or that gender is more meaningful than sex. Yet, we are meant to trust that this will be an outstanding clinical trial? Doubtful.

AimsAndObjectives

AimsAndObjectives
The alternative, as you say, is a lifetime of lies.

And expensive and damaging medications, let's not forget, and sterility. And probably unpleasant physical conditions such as eg osteoporosis and incontinence.

(One day I may work out why moving down the box I am replying in causes my unfinished post to send: sorry about the textless wonder above this.)

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime (One day I may work out why moving down the box I am replying in causes my unfinished post to send: sorry about the textless wonder above this.)

There is something odd going on. I've scrolled and had a couple of posts send, without me hitting the 'post' button

Victoria Smith, as always, has an interesting take on this: Too late now - by Victoria Smith - The OK Karen