Mick Hartley

The dangers of leaving private clinics unregulated. GenderGP is run by Helen Webberley and her husband Michael – long term fans of dishing out puberty blockers and hormones virtually on request to troubled teens. From the Times:

A teenager was prescribed “dangerously high” levels of hormones that could have resulted in sudden death, a judge said as he warned of the perils of online transgender treatments.

Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the family division of the High Court, said in a ruling on Wednesday that there was “very significant concern” over children “accessing cross-hormone treatment from any offshore, online, unregulated private clinic”.

McFarlane had heard evidence from an expert witness that the dosage of hormones prescribed to the teenager by GenderGP after just a single online consultation with a counsellor was so high it was “highly abnormal and frankly negligent”….

At the heart of the case was a 16-year-old, referred to in the ruling as J, who was born female before beginning a course of cross-hormone treatment at the start of last year.

The autistic teenager is biologically female and has a history of anorexia and self-harm….

It is the latest controversy around the clinic, which was set up in 2015 by Helen Webberley, 54, a doctor from south Wales, and her husband Michael, 57, a former gastroenterologist. It is able to defy NHS guidelines because it is private.

Michael Webberley was struck off in 2022 for “wide-ranging failings” in prescribing hormone treatments to patients as young as nine without proper assessments. One teenager was prescribed testosterone without any consultation of medical records. They took their own life a few months later.

A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) panel found there had been a “catalogue of failings” in relation to his care of the seven patients between February 2017 and June 2019.

None of this is mentioned on GenderGP’s website, in which he describes himself as “a highly experienced and respected consultant physician of 23 years’ standing.”

Helen Webberley is the public face of GenderGP. She was found to have committed serious misconduct by an MPTS panel in 2022.

Daniel Sugarman – thinking of Amos Oz:

The Telegraph:

Six trustees of a nationwide breastfeeding support group have been suspended for demanding that biological men be excluded from their services.

The British wing of La Leche League (LLL), which gives mother-to-mother support to those finding it hard to breastfeed, has been told by its US-based board of directors that the service cannot be single sex and they must support “male lactation”.

They were also told that the use of the term “mother” could be a “roadblock”, and that questioning gender ideology was “harmful”.

The suspended trustees have now complained to the Charity Commission, saying the charity’s demand that trans women were admitted was against UK law because single-sex places are protected.

Could be interesting.

The Mail:

Britain's oldest breastfeeding charity has called in regulators amid claims of 'harassment and bullying' over a policy to include trans women in meetings.

Directors at La Leche League GB (LLLGB) have requested the Charity Commission intervenes over an inclusivity policy that permits biological males.

The majority of the charity's board of directors have objected to allowing transgender women to be at the gatherings.

Directors have raised concerns that the diktat from the global organisation – based in the US – could mean volunteers are also forced to give advice to trans women wishing to breastfeed….

Meetings are currently female-only and LLLGB's directors have resisted attempts to permit males.

The row has become so heated that it has seen six of the 12 board members sent notices of complaint, threatening them with removal.

A serious incident report has now been sent to the Charity Commission, which will decide whether to investigate.

The report, seen by the Mail, warns of an exodus of volunteers if the charity's international parent body forces the policy on them. It also warned that women in need of support would be put off from attending meetings if trans women were present.

The report read: 'Opening meetings to males (of any gender identity) would exclude a significant number of our beneficiaries i.e. mothers.

'At meetings, they expose their breasts and share intimate experiences. Most are comfortable doing so around other mothers; many will not breastfeed around men, whether for religious reasons, modesty, previous (or current) experience of male violence or 'just' discomfort."

Obviously.

Update: Statement from the concerned LLLGB trustee group defending sex-based rights.

“La Leche League (LLL) has always been about mother-to-mother support to breastfeed. Being able to provide a female-only service is fundamental to the rights, safety and wellbeing of both mothers and babies.

“The volunteers at LLLGB have built a powerful legacy over 50 years, having helped thousands of mothers in a culture that is not always supportive of breastfeeding.

“Pressure to abandon mother-only breastfeeding services has been building internationally at LLL for several years as gender-identity activism has gathered force. We are now at the point that group leaders around the world are being told they must support ‘male lactation’.

“As a group of current trustees of LLLGB, we have exhausted every process available to us to defend sex-based services. LLL International and a small number of fellow trustees at LLLGB have undermined our efforts and left us with no choice but to alert the Charity Commission.

“We would like to reassure group leaders and the mothers who benefit from LLLGB’s services that we are confident the law is on our side, as mother is a sex-based term in UK law.

“Our primary focus is to serve mothers and their children, and we are determined to see through this turbulent time and secure the future of LLLGB as an organisation with mother-to-mother support at its heart.”

Manhattan ca. 1901. "St. Paul's Chapel and St. Paul Building — Vesey Street and Broadway, New York."

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Photographic Company]

The St Paul Building, on the left, was completed in 1898 – at the time one of the tallest skyscrapers in New York at 26 stories. It was demolished in 1958.

A young Jewish woman was beaten unconscious by pro-Hamas students at the UCLA campus in California today.

Will mainstream media tell their viewers and readers about it? Or do we have to do all the work here on X?

Via @mihaschw pic.twitter.com/IMRCbLnS9U

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 30, 2024

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That X audio of the UCLA phone call had some comments comparing the barring of Jewish students to segregation in the South in the 1950s, when Eisenhower sent the national guard in to protect black children.

Here's Ari Allyn-Feuer at Fathom making the same comparison, this time on the Columbia situation:

If Columbia in fact calls in law enforcement to its campus, and they in fact clear out the Palestine encampment on its lawn and restore order to the campus, so that in-person classes can resume and its graduation ceremony can take place, what previous event from US history will this most resemble?

The national guard clearing segregationist protesters to allow the Little Rock Nine to attend Little Rock Central High School on 23 September 1957.

I do not mean this metaphorically, I mean that these two events, in 1957 and 2024, will be literally the same type of event: law enforcement removing a mob trying to segregate a school.

The encampment now operating on and around Columbia’s campus is literally a movement to segregate Columbia by removing Israelis and other Jews.

Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine, organisers of this camp and protests, state explicitly and in writing that they support an ‘anti-normalisation’ effort that would see ‘Zionists,’ including Jewish Israelis in general, marginalised from every place antizionists are capable of marginalising them, and explicitly Columbia….

"Zionists" instead of "Jews" isn't fooling anyone.

Update: the police have now cleared Columbia's Hamilton Hall and made a number of arrests.

We heard yesterday about Iranian enthusiasm for the US anti-Israel campus protestors. Here's more:

Tehran University professor Foad Izadi, one of the leading mouthpieces of the Iranian regime, discussed encampments in American college campuses on an April 26, 2024 show on Ofogh TV (Iran). He said that Iranians like what they see on the college campuses, but “it should not end with this.” Izadi continued to say that these students are “our people.” He added that if tensions between America an Iran rise, “these are the people who will have to take to the streets to support of Iran.” Izadi said that Iran could potentially repeat what it did in Lebanon in greater measure, because its “Hizbullah-style” groups in America are “much larger” than in Lebanon. He further said that America is the Great Satan and Iran’s main enemy, but “we have hope.”

At the Isabella Plantation, Richmond Park:

Parent @UCLA gave permission to release this audio of her phone call with @UCLAPD as they describe the school's directive to allow protestors to restrict the movement of Jewish students.

"Are the protestors allowed to block students who are paying tuition from classes? No, but… pic.twitter.com/qBo9TKci3v

— Stephanie🕊 (@stephsvox) April 30, 2024

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Marcus Evans, one of the earliest Tavistock whistle-blowers, talks to Brendan O'Neill at Spiked:

I see gender dysphoria as being a problem similar to anorexia and self-harm. You wouldn’t affirm a child’s belief that, by starving themselves, they can create a perfect version of themselves. That they can live a life where they have no appetites or desires.

The kids who are desperate to transition have a very similar psychological makeup to this. They have a desire to control everything, including other people. The major difference between self-harm or anorexia and gender dysphoria, however, is that political interference has stopped us doing our jobs as mental-health practitioners. It has absolutely undermined ordinary clinical thinking and normal medical practice.

Well, ideological interference rather than poltical interference per se. The politics, unfortunately, followed the ideology. After Cass that's no longer the case.

Thanks to dodgy science, parents are afraid that not affirming their child’s identity will push them towards suicide. The reality is that children with gender dysphoria are no more likely to kill themselves compared with other mentally ill adolescents. There’s also the threat that kids will cut off contact with their families, encouraged by online groups and an overall culture that tells them their parents are bigots if they fail to unconditionally affirm their children. Parents are made to feel like they’re the problem if they have questions or concerns.

It also doesn’t help that children who identify as trans are very wary when you ask them questions about their identity and beliefs. They want to bring you into a narrow discussion about gender identity. They have this certainty that gender-affirming care is the solution. That it will get rid of all their confusions and doubts about themselves. They feel very easily assaulted when you challenge that certainty, even in an empathetic way. A good therapist will skillfully try to move through this discomfort and encourage the child to understand that their certainty is not necessarily a helpful, healthy thing. This is already a challenge on an individual, clinical level. But the politicised culture around the trans issue makes everything worse.

For the longest time, not embracing gender-affirming care had you instantly dismissed as a bigot. This just isn’t true. Those of us who don’t instantly affirm a child’s identity are the ones actually interested in opening up discussion. We’re interested in exploring the variety of rich and complex ways that a person becomes who they are. We are not interested in pushing children into narrow gender stereotypes, which state that boys are always logical and play football, or that girls inevitably want to dance and wear pink. These beliefs, on which gender-affirming care relies on, are deeply regressive. That’s why exposing them to external scrutiny, as the Cass Review did, has been so important.