In our view, Freddy McConnell’s opinion piece ( Hilary Cass’s proposals are mostly common sense. She must reject anti-trans bias with the same vigor as she did on April 11th ), which suggests that support for the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender ( CAN-SG) fundamentally undermines trans people’s identities and rights and that clinicians who disagree with the innate model of gender identity do so in order to protect their own interests and are “denying the existence ” of trans people.
We reject these statements. In fact, the destruction of research and debate in this field undermines a proper understanding of gender identification and the right to receive medical care that is both safe and effective.
According to the Cass report,” there is widespread consensus that gender incongruence results from a complicated interplay between physiological, psychological, and social factors,” which varies over time and between people. This concept is fundamentally different from one of an intrinsic gender identity that needs to be confirmed. Medicine and technology are expected to develop better models to know some aspects of human suffering, and this does not imply that everyone is a human being or has any rights.
According to this kind of toxic, exponential response, some practitioners have been intimidated into quietness. In the face of withdrawal attempts and concealed protesters using smoke bombs to obstruct access, the CAN-SG conference on preventing gender-related harm proceeded on March 23.
Despite the anger, valiant clinicians, including CAN-SG members, have for some time raised concerns about risks, and challenged the unsatisfactory analysis, low-quality research and bad data collection that the Cass report then highlights. Victoria Atkins, the secretary of state for health and social care, said in parliament that she expected “medical experts may act in accordance with these recommendations”, and this was echoed by Wes Streeting, her Communist darkness. People of CAN-SG ask their colleagues to pursue our example.
Dr Stella Kingett
Dr Louise Irvine
Co-chairs, CAN-SG
The nail on the head is hit by Freddy McConnell. A paediatrician’s analysis of the medical care provided to trans children and young people has been provided by Hillary Cass. Her statement is balanced and wise-informed. However, she has made it very simple for transphobes to recycle it as information that youth gender dysphoria is an intellectual invention by failing to explicitly acknowledge the reality of childhood gender dysphoria.
I am almost 60 and I was a gender-dysphoric baby. In the first 1970s, there was no social change. I struggled frantically and failed to fit in, and spent my entire youth being bullied as a wimp. There was no online; I was the only child in the world who was like this, for all I knew. Eventually, in my teens, I learned how to “pass ” as a “normal” male. The influencers were society, not vloggers, because I had to fit into a mold that I did n’t like or suffer approbation from. Self-acceptance came just after years of emotional anguish.
I am aware of what it’s like to live in a universe that rejects the existence of a child with gender distress. If a review of medical care for younger individuals was allowed to be hijacked in the name of love, it would be a huge failure.
Karen Smith
Sheffield
I thank Freddy McConnell for his article as the mother of a transgender daughter who has been waiting for her first appointment for four years ( and counting ) on the NHS waiting list. Unfortunately, it’s uncommon to hear a transgender person’s message through the noise.
Despite the fact that the Cass review itself plainly demonstrates how harmful the poisoning of disputes can be for trans young citizens, their families, and associates, Amnesty International UK and Liberty have pointed out that the Cass assessment is already being used by anti-trans organizations.
In this environment, I request that gender-sensitive politicians and activists take into account the impact of their statements as our people consider the profound effects of the evaluation. And politely remind them that some women ca n’t claim to speak for all women.
Name and address supplied
I am concerned that in your editorial ( 11 April ) you seem to use terms such as “gender dysphoria”, “trans identity ” and “transgender ” as though they are the same. The Cass statement does not address” trans children,” but rather children who exhibit signs that their biological sex and gender identity are conflicting.
What Hannah Barnes described as the only correct assessment of the Gender Identity Development Service, which I was a part of, including the layout, variety, and study of it, was a part of my involvement in the pattern, data collection, and analysis. We discovered that, despite having a very long history in this field, about 20 % of the first 124 children referred to the service had some form of strong non-aligned identity. Emerita Professor Susan Bradley, the psychiatrist who established the first clinic in Canada for such children, was one of the people who found this figure. It is impossible to assume that 20 % of their adult life’s chosen path will be one of embracing a full trans identity. Let us all be very careful in the language that we use.
David Freedman
London
