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August 29, 2024 - 12:45pm
Last month, the council of the British Medical Association voted in favour of a motion to “publicly critique the Cass Review”. Hilary Cass’s four-year investigation into provision of care for gender-questioning children was apparently not up to scratch. The right thing to do, according to BMA activists, was to pause the implementation of its recommendations while a “task and finish group” cobbled together some more politically acceptable ones.
Anyone could see what was really being argued by BMA chair Philip Banfield and others: that even the most tentative calls for caution were not acceptable in the field of paediatric gender medicine. Hence the council’s desire to continue prescribing puberty blockers until there was “solid evidence” that all the evidence against them was flawed. Perhaps the hope was that, one day, everyone would forget there had ever been alternative pathways at all. Lifelong medicalisation, with a loss of fertility and sexual function, would be the best life had to offer, and no more questions would ever be asked again.
Thankfully, not all BMA members are in agreement with the council’s approach. This week it has been reported that many have handed in their membership in protest. An open letter opposing the official BMA stance has attracted hundreds of signatures, two-thirds of them from BMA members and many from former or current presidents of medical royal colleges. This provides some reassurance, not least for anyone who fears their own doctor may be more interested in scoring political points, as well as avoiding embarrassment, than in doing no harm. Thus far, however, the BMA council remains unrepentant.
It is concerning that doctors in such positions of power think this way. More than that, though, it is concerning that they so clearly believe this is a debate they now “own”. Unlike them, or indeed Cass, I don’t have a medical background. If I did, I’d like to think I’d have signed that open letter, too. I’d like to think I’d be aware of the limits of my own knowledge. As it is, the fundamentally shaky concept of “gender medicine” — the only “life-saving” medicine that treats something which cannot even be called an illness — has created a situation in which a medical-activist elite vastly overestimates the reach and value of its own expertise.
What are we talking about when we discuss “paediatric gender medicine”? Drugs? Surgeries? Psychological therapies? It is all of these things, but much, much more, right down to the nature of being human — and the impossibility of transcending the human condition. In a recent interview with LADbible, UK gender surgeon James Bellringer dismissed J.K. Rowling’s position on trans issues as “ill-informed”, claiming he wished the author would “stick out of what I do and not comment on stuff she doesn’t know much about”.
I don’t doubt that Bellringer knows more than most of us about the mechanics of creating a neovagina. But when it comes to understanding human embodiment socially, relationally and politically, in terms of both its possibilities and its limitations? “I did some stuff to one person’s body and I think it made them happier” simply doesn’t cut it.
If anything, the Cass Review does not go far enough — and cannot go far enough — because the current situation forces us to treat vast, age-old questions regarding what it means to be, what it means to have a body, as something those with a medical degree can solve. Yet what it means to move from one life stage to another — physically, emotionally, developmentally — is not taught on any degree course. It is not learned in a lab, or thrashed out in a seminar room. It can only be lived through.
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SubscribeThis is a first class piece by VS, whose writings on this topic haven’t been less than forthright but here she excels. The specific focus on “what it means to be human” is the most salient question in the whole trans debate.
Each adult has an insight into that question but none of us can prescribe ‘humanity’ to anyone else. In the case of minors, what certain members of the medical profession are seeking to do is to prescribe the particulars of their humanity ahead of that humanity becoming sufficiently formed. This is tantamount to prescribing medicines and surgeries ahead of an established diagnosis. Any medic doing that in any other field would be disbarred.
The BMA should take note. You are on the brink of making yourself outcasts in your profession. I hope the signatories of the open letter which those who rightly dissent from the opinions of the BMA leadership (i.e. the ones who’ve taken the time and trouble to accede to those positions) are able to form a new professionally-representative body which will gain the support of the majority of their medical colleagues.
In the United States, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Pediatric Association (APA) remain fully committed to puberty blockers and surgical mutilation of minors. While many believe this violates the “First, do no harm,” phrase of the Hippocratic oath, that phrase does not exist in the oath. In reality, most medical procedures have the potential to cause harm while pursuing the goal of curing the malady. But gender dysphoria is not a malady. It is a state of mind, often transient. No physician, anywhere in the world, should be prescribing these powerful drugs, with irreversible effects, to minors. Likewise, no physician should be surgically removing the penises of minor boys or performing mastectomies on minor girls. By any definition, that is medical malpractice.
The Lysenkoization of American Medicine is far ahead of the BMA. The AMA recommends not putting the sex of newborn on the birth certificate because we cannot really know the “gender” of the child. My hope is that the predators of the plaintiffs bar will eventually put an end to this criminal madness.
I remember that the doctor who argued against the MMR vaccine was eventually struck out. Why nobody acts against the vandals who argue for these mutilations?
Because the fraudulent doctors in this matter are those like you.
It really says something about the ideological capture of the expert class. And people wonder why we no longer trust institutions.
I agree, but it needs to be remembered that even senior medics are far from being “experts”, except in a very narrow sense of the particular specialty they’ve chosen to pursue; and even then, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for any medic to keep up with the latest research findings – and many often give up after a certain point in their careers, content to plough the same vat of ‘knowledge’ that got them to where they are in the first place.
I find it very hard to believe that blocking a child’s development with PBs, with no evidence of benefit – needs any great effort at ‘keeping up with latest research’. I understand from detransitioners, that some girls have a chunk of skin removed from their arms, reformed into a tube, and attached as a neo-p***s. Exulansic gives examples of the resulting distress. Will this do as evidence? I don’t know the technical challenges of amputating a healthy limb, but I hope that members of the BMA, would never agree to do such a thing.
It absolutely doesn’t need any effort – since there is no definitive research around ‘benefit’, which is very much the findings of the Cass Review.
The findings of the Cass Report are fraud. There is quite definitive research about that matter, Cass chose to ignore it.
That Cass did not ignore research has been explained to you. Yet you chose to ignore it.
The operations to create the “tube” has a complication rate of 70 percent, and it can result in eight to ten operations to fix the complications, which are sometimes life threatening. I don’t understand how any doctor could ethically perform the “tube” operation. (The operation to create a faux v****a also has a high complication rate. I think about 40 to 50 percent.)
Fair points, however, do they really need to keep up with the latest research to understand these fundamental issues, or are they not simply playing their own pathetic game with the lives of our young people?
…..or many “experts”.
The BMA were infiltrated a while back by progressive, leftwing activists. They don’t speak for doctors on clinical matters, even though they pretend they do.
This is all down to university conditioning and doctors spend longer in University and medical school than other blthere not doctors the agenda activists and ideologues and they’re wrong what they’re doing in pseudo science not real science and look what the BMA has already done got a massive pay rise for junior doctors and because of it 10 million pensioners will not get any help with their winter fuel now
The people who profit from drugging and operating on children want to continue drugging and operating on children. But let’s calls it a “critique” and maybe no one will notice.
If society went as far as accepting it is possible (it isn’t) to change sex, what would be demanded next, trans-species or trans-age? What dark tunnels would that take society down?
I like the idea of “Trans Age.” It would be the perfect repost for when my wife or daughter accuses me of acting like s four year old
That comment did amuse me! Perhaps we can also claim to be older than we are and entitled to a state pension early!
Hang on. I have a state pension but I want to claim to be younger.
We’re already there KA: people convinced they’re cats or wolves & adults identifying as minors…
“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”
The evil being done by gender “doctors” would make Mengle cringe.
For context, the BMA is not alone in this massive hypocrisy. (I can’t find the word. Conceit? Hubris? )The AMA is also voting on the same position in the USA.
Look, the outrageous claims of medical professionals who support trans dogma about gender is the tip of the iceberg. They don’t think surgical intervention to fix a psychological problem is unusual because they are already doing the same in every other branch of medicine, especially prescription drugs, and now even vaccines tailored to change your immune system and even your DNA. Got a problem created by bad health choices? We have a drug to fix that. It sounds virtuous. But instead of curing people they are creating lifetime dependencies on drugs and other medical ‘solutions’ because there are billions of dollars in fake immortality.
Their product is medical intervention. They want to demonstrate that everyone needs their product and they have the government to enforce it. It’s your ‘right’ as a human to be healthy, if healthy means using the maximum possible designer drugs or surgeries to be the best you can be. That’s a lie. It’s creating Brave New World. And this is the kicker. They don’t know what they are doing. They just pretend they do.
Fantastic article. More of this please Unherd
Those conducting lobotomies and electroconvulsive therapies no doubt felt others should but out of their area of expertise. Fortunately the lobotomises and convulsive treatment experts didn’t capture the institutional heights of their profession so doctors no longer contine such practices.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is still considered one of the most effective treatments for a variety of psychiatric disorders including severe depression, severe mania, catatonia, and severe agitation/aggression in people with dementia.
Like abortion was, ‘gender dysphoria’ (or whatever it’s being called this week), is a societal issue not a medical one. Once society has worked out how it wishes to deal with the issue (not ‘treat’), any aspects requiring medical expertise can be delegated to appropriately trained and qualified professionals, always with the caveat that practitioners can opt out if they wish, as with abortion.
In this regard, the Cass report has done society no favours. Clearly, the best way to address a societal issue is not to appoint a very clever doctor to decide.
It is also important to understand that much of the ‘medical’ evidence on psychological matters is based on complex questionnaires completed by ‘patients’ at different points in their ‘treatment’. The manner in which such questionnaires are completed is highly vulnerable to third party influence and ‘cult’ indoctrination.
So glad Victoria Smith mentions the video of Dr. James Bellringer as I’d like to ask you all for a second opinion on a number of points in that video.
FIRST, am I right that he is actually against giving puberty blockers? [see video at 9 mins 30 sec]. Despite everything else he says, this surprised me! Does he actually agree with Cass on this one?
SECOND, he refers a number of times throughout the video to those who are “genuinely trans” almost as if he’s aware of a lot who are not. Pity no one asked about autogynephilia.
THIRD, he is asked about the cost of a Vaginoplasty and quips about asking his private secretary [see video at 2 mins 56 secs]. Was that an indirect admission that there’s a lot of money being made out of this here in the UK as well as in the US?
FOR THE VIDEO, just look up: Gender Surgeon On Orgasms, Surgical Risks & JK Rowling, Honesty Box
I’m a bit confused. Where’s Talia? This discussion just isn’t the same.
Wonder if the BMA are doing this, because they know there’s no money in the NHS for these interventions, and so this kind of grandstanding is relatively victim and blame-free, plus, is a way of looking good in front of the right people.