This, from Suzanne Moore today in The Telegraph:
“ When Dr Hilary Cass was commissioned to report on standards of care within the NHS, it was as if finally an adult had stepped into the room. She and her team have looked at the evidence and practices that have evolved the affirmative model (designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity) and found much wanting. She also signalled the high levels of comorbidities with gender dysphoria. A high proportion of girls who did not want to be girls were autistic. Many had troubled childhoods or had been in care. Many were gay. All of this resulted in the unravelling of Gids and a ban on puberty blockers.
In the full report, due to be published this week, Cass is not only concerned with medical intervention but is also expected to come out against “social transition”. This is not something that happens within the health service, but it is, she says, an “active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of psychological functioning. There are different views on the benefits versus the harms of early social transition… it is not a neutral act and better information is needed about outcomes.”
Some believe that socially transitioning kids locks them into an identity and medical pathway that is detrimental. Cass says that gender expression is indeed fluid and changeable for adolescents and that many may take till their mid-20s to settle. In other words, leave these kids alone.”
Maybe, just maybe, we are turning a corner regarding this topic. I hope so.
M0nica
Glorianny She is not giving up on dancing, just focussing on other performance talents she has. Dancing will always be a core factor in her life, and probably her career.
That's great. There are some great independent companies including all sorts of people in dance now. There's a company called Ballet Lorent which has pregnant women dancing and women dancing with their babies. It's wonderful to see. All the best to your GD.
Glorianny She is not giving up on dancing, just focussing on other performance talents she has. Dancing will always be a core factor in her life, and probably her career.
Even the bins are at it
Glorianny
M0nica
Doodledog I would add that we cannot always have something just because we want it. My DGD a very good and talented ballet dance has had to accept that no matter how good her dancing her physique is entirely unsuitable for being a ballet dancer. At leat she has accepted it and not turned to starving herself in the irrational belief that that if she lost weight suddenly her broad shoulders, and wide back would shrink also.
All of us have to learn to know our limitationsM0nica please tell your GD not to give up. There is a movement now to be more inclusive and to abandon the skinny ballerina model, which is a comparatively recent idea.
www.dancemagazine.com/ballet-body/
Modern dance has become more inclusive already. Ballet is starting to be.
... this article is interesting too. Also from Dance Magazine.
www.dancemagazine.com/the-cult-of-thin
Ballet still has a long way to go, but it’s encouraging that so many in the field are calling for change. “Dance should celebrate our humanity,” says Alberta Ballet artistic director Jean Grand-Maître, “and not be an artificial ideal imposed upon us by individuals frightened by what constitutes the natural shapes of the feminine physique.”
Hurrah to that!
Glorianny
Dickens
... do you believe Cass is recommending conversion therapy?
Probably not. But I think it is extremely foolish to not include any reference to studies which perhaps present a different point of view. Even if the study was flawed actually mentioning it would show a more balanced approach. I notice as well that. no trans people were included on the team making the report.
"Fairness must not only be done, it must be seen to be done."
Trans advocates agree with Dr Cass that waits should be shorter and better mental health care provision is needed, and approve of her call for more local services. They, like her, accept that there will “be a small number of young people for whom a medical pathway is the right pathway”. But before giving young people drugs, Dr Cass asks NHS medics to consider alternative interventions, especially for those with “existing mental health problems and neurodiversity”. That seems uncontroversial, though the numbers waiting for mental health treatments dwarf those in gender-affirming care.
This is from an editorial in The Guardian.
What, exactly, is wrong with considering alternative interventions especially for those with existing mental health problems and neurodiversity?
And I believe that Dr Trilby Langton is a former Clinical Psychologist at the Tavistock GIDS - one of the Review Team members.
Being told to go to Cahms or mental health services is a joke as they are not able to cope with those already on their waitlists
This is true for all mental health patients and it’s causing immense stress for all of them.
I’m just checking; Are you saying that gender dysphoria is a mental health issue?
No, I wouldn't want identifiable data made public, but there is no obvious reason why data couldn't be anonymised, is there? It's perfectly usual in medical information to say that X% of smokers get lung disease, for instance, without saying that Ms D Dog of 7 Acacia Avenue Hometown smoked 20 a day for 50 years and died aged 64 of emphysema, is there?
Many medical papers are anonymised and this could easily be done in this case, as I am sure you are aware.
eazybee
The NHS has been ordered to reveal the fate of 9,000 transgender young people treated by the Tavistock Clinic; adult gender clinics had refused to disclose whether transgender people late r changed their mind about transitioning. Dr. Hilary Cass said it was unacceptable that there was a lack of 'robust data' on what happened to the children treated by the Tavistock Clinic between 2009 to 2020.
York University is due to look at long term outcomes of the clinics'work but apparently the clinics would not engage in research to inform future treatment. (DT April 11.)
Surely once someone became an adult their medical records could not be disclosed without their consent, so the clinics could not engage in research, rather than would not.
Would anyone be happy if their medical records were disclosed without their consent?
So now where will the thousands who have been on the waitlist now go . Their should be clinics that are proposed that are not yet built and when they are there are not enough professionals to work there . Being told to go to Cahms or mental health services is a joke as they are not able to cope with those already on their waitlists . Recipe for disaster .
“Sack those who conspired against children.
We will only close this dark chapter in our history if we punish trans extremists for the harm they have caused.”
JULIE BINDEL
Iam64
I’d read a while ago about the absence of robust data. It’s staggering as medics have always worked based on research evidence. Clinical psychologists even social workers are supposed to follow research based evidence practice.
It gets worse as more information comes into the public domain
Me too Iam I’ve found this report very unsettling - to the point of scariness - as practice seem to have been fired up by dogma not evidence. Quite shocking.
Galaxy - agree with you. It’s made worse because in my discussion with a friend who worked at the Tavi three years ago, they highlighted exactly what Cass would conclude. So as with the awful post office scandal, this was widely known
I will be honest and say this has shaken my faith in almost everything. The health system, all political parties, organisations, to watch this happening to all aspects of society has been unbelievable.
I’d read a while ago about the absence of robust data. It’s staggering as medics have always worked based on research evidence. Clinical psychologists even social workers are supposed to follow research based evidence practice.
It gets worse as more information comes into the public domain
The NHS has been ordered to reveal the fate of 9,000 transgender young people treated by the Tavistock Clinic; adult gender clinics had refused to disclose whether transgender people late r changed their mind about transitioning. Dr. Hilary Cass said it was unacceptable that there was a lack of 'robust data' on what happened to the children treated by the Tavistock Clinic between 2009 to 2020.
York University is due to look at long term outcomes of the clinics'work but apparently the clinics would not engage in research to inform future treatment. (DT April 11.)
Kiera Bell (who underwent transition). supports its conclusions.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13291485/journalist-investigating-tavistock-clinic-hails-cass-report-nhs-transgender.html
Dickens
... do you believe Cass is recommending conversion therapy?
Probably not. But I think it is extremely foolish to not include any reference to studies which perhaps present a different point of view. Even if the study was flawed actually mentioning it would show a more balanced approach. I notice as well that. no trans people were included on the team making the report.
"Fairness must not only be done, it must be seen to be done."
U don’t agree with your analysis Glorianny, no surprise there . Dr Cass conducted a comprehensive assessment. I accept her conclusions
Smileless2012
I don't think it is and the accusation IMO is an attempt to discredit it.
I agree. From what I've read, it takes some stretch of the imagination to interpret it as such.
I don't think it is and the accusation IMO is an attempt to discredit it.
... do you believe Cass is recommending conversion therapy?
Dickens
Iam64
eddiecat, there are so many similar stories. The attacks on Dr Cass have started. Let’s hope the majority views on ensuring the transactivists ideology don’t continue to dominate
Cass appears to be recommending a holistic approach which, unfortunately, will be seen by some as a form of 'conversion practice'.
In any other clinical setting working with young people - or any group - would this not be the better method... to be all-inclusive and make judgments based on comprehensive evaluation?
I haven't look at this particular aspect of the news - the attacks on Cass, but I'm pretty sure what the accusations will be.
... Oh, I just looked - and found exactly what I expected...
growinguptransgender.com/2022/04/06/the-failure-of-the-cass-review/
I've just read that. It seems a pretty balanced criticism from a non-binary person with a transgender child who did a PhD researching the opinions of the parents of transgender children.
I think asking why your research wasn't included in the study is a valid question.
Iam64
eddiecat, there are so many similar stories. The attacks on Dr Cass have started. Let’s hope the majority views on ensuring the transactivists ideology don’t continue to dominate
Cass appears to be recommending a holistic approach which, unfortunately, will be seen by some as a form of 'conversion practice'.
In any other clinical setting working with young people - or any group - would this not be the better method... to be all-inclusive and make judgments based on comprehensive evaluation?
I haven't look at this particular aspect of the news - the attacks on Cass, but I'm pretty sure what the accusations will be.
... Oh, I just looked - and found exactly what I expected...
growinguptransgender.com/2022/04/06/the-failure-of-the-cass-review/
M0nica
Doodledog I would add that we cannot always have something just because we want it. My DGD a very good and talented ballet dance has had to accept that no matter how good her dancing her physique is entirely unsuitable for being a ballet dancer. At leat she has accepted it and not turned to starving herself in the irrational belief that that if she lost weight suddenly her broad shoulders, and wide back would shrink also.
All of us have to learn to know our limitations
M0nica please tell your GD not to give up. There is a movement now to be more inclusive and to abandon the skinny ballerina model, which is a comparatively recent idea.
www.dancemagazine.com/ballet-body/
Modern dance has become more inclusive already. Ballet is starting to be.
Aveline, that has been my experience too
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