Shame on the SNP acolytes who traduced JK Rowling and Joanna Cherry

CONGRATULATIONS are due to Kevin Mckenna (“JK Rowling should not be villified”, The Herald, April 16) for his tribute to JK Rowling on the implications in Scotland of the Cass Report. His worthy accolade describes the compassionate approach and practical measures that she has delivered to those in need of help and understanding.

He then performs a pretty neat demolition job on those academics and, more worryingly, those politicians, whose naivety beggars belief. Shame upon them for their timidity and turpitude.

Keep up the good work, Kevin.

Bob Scott, Drymen.

AS usual I enjoyed Kevin Mckenna’s article. His last line was interesting: “This is much worse: this is wickedness.” To quote John Calvin: “When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.” Well, we’ve certainly got incompetent ones. I wanted to write stupid ones but you probably wouldn’t print that .

Michael Watson, Glasgow.

I COULD not agree more with Kathleen Nutt (“Humza Yousaf faces new leadership test over Cass review”, The Herald, April 16) and Kevin Mckenna in their articles commenting on the impact of the findings in last week’s Cass Report on the current and now-discredited treatment of our young people who find themselves in gender confusion.

This is a complex area and Nicola Sturgeon and her acolytes should be hanging their heads in shame for the obloquoy which they poured on the heads of JK Rowling, Joanna Cherry and others for having the temerity to express a different view on the terms of this now “stranded” Gender Recognition Reform Bill. Alan Ramage, Edinburgh.

Scots parents must be vigilant

THE Cass report is damning in its assessment of gender clinics and their activity. It applies, however, in England, but not in Scotland. The Westminster Health Secretary, Victoria Atkins, has strongly welcomed the Cass report and undertaken to implement measures deriving from its recommendations, for example, the cessation of the use of puberty blockers and hormones on children.

In Scotland, the SNP regime likes to do things differently from what is being done in England, often simply to assert its separate authority. That means not closing or restricting treatment at the

Sandyford clinic in Glasgow, which focuses on children’s gender issues, even though its counterpart in London, the Tavistock, has been obliged to cease this kind of activity.

Scotland’s Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Maree Todd, is confident that gender clinicians in Scotland “are practising to a very high standard”. She will hold a review of Cass’s findings, but she has said that involving trans rights activists with “lived experience” is “good practice”.

Dr Cass criticised the American methods used by clinics such as Sandyford as “lacking developmental rigour”. It seems, however, that the Scottish Government’s capture by lobby groups such as Stonewall, Scottish Trans, LGBT Health and LGBT Youth Scotland, which receive funding from Holyrood, will continue to exert significant influence over government policy in Scotland.

This is a time for parents to be ever more vigilant about what is being done to their children in the name of “progressive” policy.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.