April 19, 2024 - 7:00am
So it turns out that Scottish children are no more suitable for medical experimentation than English ones. Yesterday NHS Scotland responded to the Cass Review by pausing the prescription of puberty blockers for gender-confused children and — in a move that goes further than its English counterpart — halting cross-sex hormones for under-18s.
This is a tremendous relief and, to some of us, a surprise. As Dr Hilary Cass noted, evidence-based care for vulnerable children has been disrupted by those who prefer “a social justice model”. Being in favour of the sterilisation of autistic and gay children — or “protecting trans kids”, as it’s been known — has long been a way to advertise one’s right-side-of-history credentials. It has also, in the eyes of certain Scottish politicians, been a way to indicate that one’s own country is young, progressive, and forward-looking, rather than mired in stuffy old principles such as “child safeguarding”.
It would have been a tragedy if, yet again, adults were permitted to sacrifice the health and future wellbeing of children for the sake of their own egos. Even so, the announcement on the Sandyford Gender Service website leaves a lot to be desired. There’s no shame, no apology, seemingly no awareness that if you are indeed lacking “evidence of safety and long-term impact” for the therapies you have already been prescribing, you are complicit in doing harm. The language is oh-so-neutral.
Apparently, none of this means practitioners are not “committed to providing the best possible clinical care”. It’s just pure coincidence that even someone like me, with no medical qualifications, suspected that there was a problem years ago. There are only so many videos of homophobic mothers describing the “fixing” of their children that a person can tolerate (let’s be honest: it should only take one).
There is progress here, certainly. Thanks to this belated return to ethical standards, some children who would have been harmed will be able to grow and thrive. Right now, however, many of them will not want to. The thought of being “forced” to go through the “wrong” puberty must be terrifying them. If the adults around you have spent most of your life affirming your own sense of wrongness, then how could the Sandyford decision seem anything other than barbaric? You’ve been told — by organisations visiting your school, by books in your school library, by teachers, parents and doctors — that the way you feel and behave is incompatible with the sex you have been “assigned”. Why, then, should anyone be barring your only escape?
The problem is not just that evidence-based medicine was abandoned in favour of cultural trends. Any return to basic standards has to go hand-in-hand with a serious critique of the culture. On the same day the Sandyford decision was announced, it was reported that “LGBT champions” are visiting primary schools in Scotland to teach children as young as four about gender identity. That is, to teach them that if they are gender non-conforming they may in fact be the opposite sex — there is no real “championing” of LGB in this entire enterprise.
It is not possible to reform “gender medicine” without addressing the incoherence, bigotry and cruelty of this ideology. Gender-variant children have always existed, usually growing up to be lesbian or gay. The “trans child” was constructed to validate trans-identified adult men and appease homophobic parents, before being championed by individuals more interested in appearing cutting-edge than engaging in the poorly-rewarded, unglamorous work of putting children first.
It is too late for those who were complicit to say they didn’t know. Now we must create an environment in which children bullied into fearing their own physical development can start to feel safe again. It’s time for the bullies to get out of the classroom and off the bookshelves. Back off and let these children grow.
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SubscribeWe’ve gone from “pray the gay away” to “spay the gay away.” Not an improvement.
“It’s time for the bullies to get out of the classroom and off the bookshelves. Back off and let these children grow.”
They won’t. They have already made that crystal clear. This is a cult and cultists are not amenable to rational persuasion. Ever. We need to understand that and act accordingly.
We now live in a world of bullying dressed up as inclusivity and anti-‘oppression ‘.
Just look at the behaviour of some Muslim parents at that school where they started ostentatiously praying in the playground. Apparently they’ve had bricks through the windows, threats to the head and teachers, and a petition has been got up to get rid of probably the best school head in London. All in the name of diversity and equality, naturally.
Look at antifa, look at the ecological maniacs. Look at the ‘hate-crime’ legislation.
As a society, if we’re not to be doomed, we seriously need to grow back some b******s (not the transwomen obvs – they’ve already got them).
It’s a war, and we not started this war.
So glad Scotland has seen the light – the cold wet miserable weather there clearly has not rotted all their brains, just those of their politicians.
Also good to see the finger of responsibility being pointed at those organisations like Stonewall who have been pushing this poison in schools. Cass put the blame on social media, which was most certainly an amplifier of the effect, but the ideology was germinated in PHSE lessons.
Look at the picture accompanying this article: those children are screaming in support of their own abuse and mutilation. Yep, fully informed decision makers.
Those poor individuals in the photo. Kind of feel sorry for them. But not enough to pass laws that allow the genital mutilation of children.
This is telling it like it is: ‘Being in favour of the sterilisation of autistic and gay children — or “protecting trans kids”, as it’s been known — has long been a way to advertise one’s right-side-of-history credentials.’
In 20 years’ time people will be just as appalled by this whole saga as we rightly are today at the scandal of tests being performed on haemophiliac children, with terrible consequences for them.
There should be a full public enquiry as to how a clinical pathway for children involving hormone blockers and amputation of healthy body parts, for which there was no credible evidence base and, apparently, no attempt at longitudinal follow up was introduced and allowed to run for years.
Well that would certainly be a effective way of kicking the whole thing into the long grass. How about we opt for something more radical, show trials? Or something like a people’s tribunal, where those who advocated for this stuff get to try and convince ordinary folks that they shouldn’t be tarred and feathered.
I suspect that will only happen once the upcoming blizzard of lawsuits have been dealt with and the monetary cost of this madness has been realised.
I agree, and we merely require the complete overthrow of the Liberal progress narrative in order to make this happen.
Very well put. Thank you.
The Victim Hierarchy Complex will move into its “don’t make me cut myself” phase when it runs out of new victims.