Gender agenda

In my naivety, I had assumed that medical practice in the 2020s was based on research leading to “evidence-based medicine”. Dr Hilary Cass, in her timely report, tells us that, in the case of “gender identity” clinics, invasive treatment has been delivered to adults and children which has been based on flimsy research and “remarkably weak” evidence. There should be a rigorous investigation into how this happened, in a profession whose motto is “first, do no harm”.

It seems likely that the Cass report will result in measures in England restricting the use of puberty blockers and hormones for confused children whose problems may or may not have anything to do with “gender”. But the chances of this happening in Scotland, where the Gender Recognition Reform Bill remains in limbo, are remote. There is in the coalition at Holyrood a party whose msps believe that children should be encouraged to change their “gender”, perhaps as early as age 6 or 7 – the Scottish Greens.

In what other area of a child’s development would the very young have their bodies experimented on with unproven treatments in the name of an unscientific belief system, which is what “gender ideology” is? Gender is a social construct; it is sex that is biological fact. The bottom line from which all of this should begin is, as Lord Winston says: you cannot change your sex.

And why are we taxpayers spending so much money on gender advocacy groups and similar quangos? Holyrood funds a cornucopia of organisations of this kind whose main function appears to be supporting SNP government policies. An overhaul of that arrangement is long overdue. Jill Stephenson

Edinburgh