A voice of reason on trans who must not be ignored

IT’S been three and a half years in the making, but at last the Cass Report, a deep investigation into the most controversial issue of recent years — the medical treatment of those who feel they are living in the wrong gender — has finally been published.

there’s a long-standing approach to reports of this kind. Find someone highly respected in their field. Pay them to make their inquiries and write a report. Publish and read it. Put it on a shelf and forget about it.

This must not happen with the Cass Report. the subject matgender ter is far too important to ignore.

Hilary Cass is a paediatric consultant. Her concern is children, their treatment and the way they’ve been influenced by what they’ve been told about being a girl or a boy and changing sex.

Of equal concern is the way the medical profession and other adults charged with the care of the young have dealt with the pressure from the trans lobby from as long ago as 2010, when the Equality Act included gender reassignment as a protected characteristic.

When former Minister for Women and Equalities Maria Miller took over the Women and Equalities Committee in 2015, the first subject they chose to tackle was ‘equality issues affecting transgender people’.

WHY, I asked at the time, when trans people are such a tiny minority? surely, she should be concerning herself primarily with women — with violence in the street and at home, with equal pay, discrimination, lack of childcare. the list was brushed away. It was trans people who experienced widespread suffering, she’d been told. she must consider their needs first.

It was the first hint I had of a powerful lobby, concerned with those who were not happy with the sex they’d been born with.

No one was talking then about children suffering from ‘gender dysphoria.’ And no one thought children needed special services. In 2009-10, only 97 children were referred to GIDs — the NHs development service, based at the tavistock Clinic. By 2021, more than 5,000 children were referred. What was going on?

My anxiety grew after an interview on Woman’s Hour with trans activist India Willoughby. What influence was stonewall having on the NHs and the seeming erasure of women in maternity care? Why were trans women calling themselves real women? Why were so many kids seeking treatment after ‘being born in the wrong body’?

In my research for an article I spoke to stephanie Davies-Arai, director of transgender trend. she was worried about children being given puberty blockers — drugs that had not been properly tested — which seemed to be leading young people towards surgery to change their gender.

I was appalled and expressed my horror in an article I wrote.

Friends had warned me not to get involved in this toxic debate. Inevitably, like so many others who were equally shocked, I suffered the full onslaught of the trans lobby. there were threats of murder and rape. My alma mater, Hull University, was told it must not name a lecture theatre after me. the BBC ignored demands to sack me but became terrified of discussing the issue. I cancelled myself by quitting.

DR CASS has suffered just as I have. In the introduction to her report, she writes of the criticism she’s faced for talking to people on both sides of the debate.

‘ There are,’ she writes, ‘ few areas of healthcare where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views, where people are vilified on social media, and where name calling echoes the worst bullying behaviour. this must stop.’ It was the appearance in court of Keira Bell that brought damage to children to the forefront.

She was suing the tavistock for its haste in giving her puberty blockers and hormones to become a boy, which led to her having a double mastectomy.

She’d been only 16 when she was treated at the tavistock and argued in court that it had been too young to give informed consent. In 2021, she lost the case, but it was her bravery in speaking out and the actions of the tavistock’s whistleblower, psychiatrist Dr David Bell, that fatally undermined the power the clinic had enjoyed.

Dr Bell reported that too many children who had come as patients were not fit to make an informed choice. some were simply too young, some suffered from autism, some were gay. What they needed was talking therapy, not powerful drugs.

Since Dr Cass began her investigation some of what Dr Bell said has been taken on board — albeit belatedly. the tavistock finally closed at the end of last month. And a few weeks ago NHs England finally confirmed gender identity clinics would no longer prescribe puberty blockers. two new gender clinics are scheduled to open this month in London and Liverpool, where the emphasis will be on talking about gender dysphoria.

Dr Cass is not only concerned with medical intervention, but ‘social transitioning’. It is, she says, ‘an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of psychological functioning’.

I’m hoping this means no more primary school teachers being encouraged to allow kids to change their name without informing parents. they are teachers, not psychiatrists.

And if you have a five-year-old son who wants to go to school in his sister’s skirt, let him.

It’s about style, a bit of fun, maybe jealousy or maybe, as in my case, defiance. My son, aged six, trying on shoes for school, opts for widely advertised Princess shoes. ‘No,’ said the shopkeeper, ‘they’re for girls.’ ‘Don’t care,’ my son replied.

I bought them. One week later: ‘Mum, they’re uncomfortable. Can I get some trainers?’

Of course. No need to make such a fuss about it.

And Dr Cass must be cheered for her courage and common sense.