Mick Hartley

An interesting look at how well-funded smear campaigns are being used to discredit the Cass Review in the US – notably the smearing of the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) by the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC). Amongst other revelations: SPLC describe SEGM as a hate group for (in part) taking $400k from three charitable foundations, despite SPLC taking $22 million from those same foundations in the last 3 years alone. You'll need to read the whole piece for the details, but here's the gist:

The more US-based lobbyists can publicly discredit SEGM, the more suspicion can be cast on anyone with any connection to them, any evidence they produce, and now on the findings of the Cass Review. The fact is that the Cass Review’s damning assessment of the evidence for the efficacy and safety of puberty blockers fatally undermines legal cases based on arguing the opposite. The Cass Review is already being cited by their Republican opponents, so in the absence of any actual response grounded in evidence, SPLC’s huge resources are turned to an international smear campaign – one that is exemplified by their CAPTAIN report, which as I’ve previously discussed is built on an echo chamber of activist groupthink and conspiracist logic….

I think that anyone seeking to understand and address the misinformation and disinformation currently being spread about the Cass Review need to take a long look at the incredibly well-financed activists in the US who have been successfully traducing tiny organisations and blameless individuals, with no serious opposition, for years. As with feminist targets before, these attacks don’t stop at the door of SEGM – they spread, by relentless guilt-by-association, to contaminate absolutely everyone who touches them, or anyone connected to them. Unchecked claims like this are toxic to public discourse, spreading and gaining traction with zero corrective force, creating an unwarranted chilling effect around their targets. Bystanders are quick to believe there is no smoke without fire, and UK clinicians cannot realistically defend their reputations from this sort of partisan dreck from the US. Blandly wondering why the Cass Review has been “largely ignored” in the US misses the point – it is not merely being ignored, it is actively being undermined.