Mick Hartley

Well well – in the Guardian, no less. David Bell – The Cass review of gender identity services marks a return to reason and evidence – it must be defended:

The policy of “affirmation” – that is, speedily agreeing with a child that they are of the wrong gender – was an inappropriate clinical stance brought about by influential activist groups and some senior gender identity development service (Gids) staff, resulting in a distortion of the clinical domain. Studies indicate that a majority of children in the absence of medical intervention will desist – that is, change their minds.

The many complex problems that affect these young people were left unaddressed once they were viewed simplistically through the prism of gender. Cass helpfully calls this “diagnostic overshadowing”. Thus children suffered thrice over: through not having all their problems properly addressed; by being put on a pathway for which there is not adequate evidence and for which there is considerable risk of harm; and lastly because children not unreasonably believed that all their problems would disappear once they transitioned. It is, I think, not possible for a child in acute states of torment to be able to think through consequences of a future medical transition. Children struggle to even imagine themselves in an adult sexual body….

Characterising a child as “being transgender” is harmful as it forecloses the situation and also implies that this is a unitary condition for which there is unitary “treatment”. It is much more helpful to use a description: that the child suffers from distress in relation to gender/sexuality, and this needs to be carefully explored in terms of the narrative of their lives, the presence of other difficulties such as autism, depression, histories of abuse and trauma, and confusion about sexuality. As the Cass report notes, studies suggest that a high proportion of these children are same-sex attracted, and many suffer from homophobia. Concerned gay and lesbian clinicians have said they experienced homophobia in the service, and that staff worked in a “climate of fear”….

Those who say a child has been “born in the wrong body”, and who have sidelined child safeguarding, bear a very heavy responsibility. Parents have been asked “Do you want a happy little girl or a dead little boy?” Cass notes that rates of suicidality are similar to rates among non-trans identified youth referred to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Indeed, the NHS lead for suicide prevention, Prof Sir Louis Appleby, has said “invoking suicide in this debate is mistaken and potentially harmful”….

The pendulum is already swinging towards a reassertion of rationality. Cass’s achievement is to give that pendulum a hugely increased momentum. In years to come we will look back at the damage done to children with incredulity and horror.

At UnHerd they note the Guardian's unfortunate history on trans matters in general, and the Cass review in particular:

A day after the report was released, it published an article by transgender writer Freddy McConnell which criticised Cass for “failing to take on clinicians who doubt the very existence of trans children” and “giv[ing] credence to anti-trans bias”. McConnell’s article was later amended after a previous version suggested that the feminist campaigner Julie Bindel had likened trans adults to Jimmy Savile….

A number of former Guardian writers have since spoken publicly about a culture at the paper which stifled gender-critical views and of staff who bullied women for criticising the Left-of-centre orthodoxy on “gender-affirming care”. Suzanne Moore, who used to be a columnist there, wrote for UnHerd in 2020 about her experience of being ostracised by colleagues for her views on sex differences, while former staff writer Hadley Freeman stressed in an essay that “it’s not bigoted” to stand up for single-sex spaces and the rights of biological women.

Speaking to UnHerd today, Bindel said, “I know how hard David Bell had to try to get the Guardian to agree to him writing an opinion piece, following his complaints about the Freddy McConnell article. I don’t believe for one minute that the Guardian has decided it has been wrong all along on this issue, but its hand has been forced.” Speaking about the newspaper, she went on, “What a monumental mess it’s made of everything, losing decent feminist journalists and readers in order to capitulate to transactivists on staff and contract.”