Firstly, and has as has been repeated to you ad nauseam, the evidence basis simply isn't there to be confidently asserting that "going through adolescence is going to make that dysphoria significantly worse". There are even studies showing that going through adolescence can relieve these feelings of dysphoria. Again, I implore you to actually read and engage with the literature and studies that are out there.
Secondly, as the Cass Interim Report highlighted as one of its key points, there isn't even consensus of what gender dysphoria even is. How can you possibly expect to treat something that we can't even define?
Thirdly, for someone who was so concerned with my apparent "alarmingly sensationalist misinterpretations", you've tried to paint my views a few times now as wanting to "stop them from being able to transition" and not the clearly stated view of "let's wait until there's evidence to support the medical pathways being used (as we do for pretty much every other aspect of medical treatment) before allowing kids to begin potentially irreversible treatments".
Finally, this doesn't actually address the question answered about making informed decisions. It's essentially conjecture around the effects of delaying medical treatment (unless you're able to produce evidence that the Cass Interim Report has been unable to find supporting your stance).
Given that minors are not able to provide consent for other elective treatments, with parents or guardians having to do so on their behalf, I ask again, why this is different to that, or any of the other many things we recognise that they are not able to make informed decisions on?
I'm also not really advocating a one-size fits all approach, but it seems quite clear to me that placing minors on potentially irreversible medical pathways is never going to be anything more than an extreme, last resort.
I'm happy to respect that you believe early medical treatment can be life-saving, and this is something that remain open to, but the fact remains that we simply do not have the evidence to support this belief, and until we do, I'll be sticking with my stated view of things.
I'm glad you've acknowledged that there have been failings, but in all honesty, you still don't seem to be grasping the severity of these failings, or indeed what I have had to say about them.
Yes, the clinic has not failed due to simply not attempting to provide care. Neither I or the Cass Interim Report have stated as much. Yes, it's abundantly clear what some of the contributions to some of the failings have been. It is highlighted in the report that the organic growth of the service was one such contributing factor.
None of this changes the fact that the actual clinical processes and treatments carried out there were woefully inadequate.
Again, you seem to have fundamentally failed to comprehend what the report has said. This is not
the key message. This is simply a recommendation for increased service, and is the first and only recommendation it can make at this time. The report essentially spells out that it can not even begin to place recommendations on what the actual details of this service will be because the evidence is not there to support any of the currently used medical processes.
To spell it out for you again, within the current service:
- Children and young people using the service were not routinely offered or given therapy before being placed on puberty blocking hormone treatments.
- Children and young people that had been placed on pathways of hormone therapy (including puberty blockers) routinely saw a drop-off in the frequency of their appointments. The exact opposite of what you would expect to happen.
- Children and young people that had been placed on pathways of hormone therapy, and indeed referred for surgery, were not kept track of, and outcomes of these treatments were not sought nor recorded.
- The medical pathways that children and young people were placed on were not supported by evidence or extensive review by medical experts.
- Clinical decisions were not always being made by appropriate clinical experts.
- There were not appropriate safeguarding procedures in place.
These are also just some of the findings. You can read up on more in the report, or indeed, my earlier posts quoting the report.
As I have said now on numerous occasions, it is simply not enough for the staff that worked there to have tried their best. I have never doubted that they did anything other than do their best for the children placed in their care. I haven't even denied that demand for the service has been a contributing factor; I've simply pointed out that this is not a phenomena unique to the gender services as practically the whole NHS has demand vastly outweighing available treatment. I also agree wholeheartedly that the service, in whatever form it takes in the future, needs to be readily available at more than a single location, at a single level of the NHS care structure.
Once again, you are deliberately misrepresenting my posts and responding to things that haven't actually been said, rather than engaging with the things that I am actually saying to you. You could not be arguing with much more bad faith.
What do you even mean by "if I had been promoting the need for increased care"? What are you on about when you say I "don't think young people should be transitioning at all"?
Literally one of the posts you quoted of mine literally shows me saying that we should want the treatment and care available to children and young people to be extensively reviewed by medical experts. What is this, if not advocacy for better care for young people? As above, I have not once expressed that I disagree with the recommendation for more availability of services.
Another post you've quoted quite literally has me advocating for leaving children to choose how they live and how they dress. How does this oppose transition? You are conflating my (current) opposition to early medical transition with your entirely misplaced belief that I believe children should not be free to express themselves how they wish. I could not have been clearer about why I believe that medical transition should be off the table for children (again, it's because there is little to no evidence supporting these treatment pathways), and yet you continue to ignore these explanations to instead repeat complete falsehoods about my views and present straw-men arguments in response.
I am not using the failings of the Tavistock of evidence "to stop young people transitioning" at all. I am using the failings of the Tavistock to highlight to the many people in this thread that the care provided to children and young people is not remotely close to the quality and standards they seem to believe it is, or indeed the quality and standards these children deserve.
For the nth time, you quite clearly do not understand what the Cass Interim Report is for. You quite clearly do not understand what it has found. You quite clearly do not understand my position on this issue.
The Cass Interim Report is an intermediate report published part way through an extensive review of the services provided to children and young people in relation to gender dysphoria or feelings of gender incongruence. It is not a report advocating against gender transition, which is not something I have ever claimed it to be, despite your numerous attempts at suggesting such. It is also not a report strictly designed to "help children transition", as you seem to believe it to be.
The Cass Interim Report is a report designed to highlight the failings and flaws of the current services provided (of which there are many), and present an early outline of how the service can move forward to resolve and correct these issues, so that the children and young people requiring access to the service can receive care of an adequate standard. Helping children transition will form just part of this reformed service, but there are many failings in practice and gaps in evidence that need resolving, including providing actual therapeutic treatment, before transition can even be determined as the best option for these children.
I have no idea what you are even suggesting by saying you are "dubious about [my] motives" when your motives seem to extend no further than blind advocacy for transitioning children, despite the obvious failings in the entire structure through which these transitions take place, stemming right from diagnosis of gender dysphoria, right through to a complete lack of aftercare or follow up on treatment outcomes, and despite an extremely fragile evidence base upon which the whole structure has been built.
From very early on in this thread it was clear that you have decided that anyone that disagrees with your stubborn, largely conjecture-based stance, is a horrible bigot. You have repeatedly demonstrated an inability to engage with actual evidence put to you - be that in relation to the participation requirements for trans-athletes in Olympic competition, the performances of Lia Thomas in NCAA competition, or indeed what the Cass Interim Report has to say about gender care for children in the United Kingdom, instead choosing to either ignore and disengage from discussion, or misrepresent points and argue against strawman.
Engage in good faith. Respond to my actual points. Stop making things up.
You've shown a remarkable ability to consistently talk out of your arse in this thread, but this has to be the most blatant load of bollocks you've come out with yet.
As a pre-teen, you (and your parents) were presented with the option to undergo elective surgery on your back. You (and your parents) were told the full range of possible outcomes, because this is standard practice when presenting a patient with any surgical treatment (I was once due an appendectomy and they told me there was a slim chance I'd die during it - fortunately it turned out to be a kidney stone). Your doctor advised you (and your parents) against electing for the surgery.
Your parents may well have asked you what you wanted to do, and ultimately respected your decision, but be under absolutely no illusion that had you elected to go for it (it is not clear that you did), your parents would have been the ones signing the consent form(s) for the operation to go ahead.
As for that last line, you are clearly incapable of coherent debate.
Given that I have repeatedly asked (and failed to receive) clarification as to how a minor can make an informed decision on electing to undergo potentially irreversible treatment while it is acknowledged that a minor cannot make an informed decision when it comes to consenting to sex, and the entire precursor to that post was a quite clearly false recounting of a tale of being offered elective surgery as a minor, it seems abundantly obvious that NotThatSoph was, in fact, referring to the doctor's ability to "feck" them.
It's well established at this point that reading comprehension is not a strength of yours though, so it's not really a surprise that you've failed to grasp this.
