After the government passed legislation outlawing conversion therapy for gays, but not for transpeople, here’s another official blow against the trans ideology. According to Sky News, the Health Secretary Sajid Javid is going to launch an inquiry into the treatment of children with problems with their biological gender by the Health Service. This follows the findings by one of his allies, a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, that NHS staff are under pressure to follow the affirmation model, in which the doctors and medical professionals treating the child support their identity as a member of the opposite sex.
The Sky article begins:
‘Health Secretary Sajid Javid is preparing to launch an inquiry into gender treatment for under-18s as he is concerned the current system is “failing children”.
Mr Javid believes vulnerable children are wrongly being given gender hormone treatment on the NHS and plans to overhaul how the health service deals with those who are questioning their gender identity.
As first reported by The Times, the health secretary is understood to have been alarmed at the interim findings of a review into NHS gender identity services for children.
The review by Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, has found staff felt pressured to adopt “an unquestioning affirmative approach” to the issue of transitioning and gender issues caused other mental health issues to be “overshadowed” – two issues Mr Javid is said to be particularly concerned about.
“This has been a growing issue for years and it’s clear we’re not taking this seriously enough,” an ally of the health secretary told the paper.
“If you look at Hilary Cass’s interim report, the findings are deeply concerning and it’s clear from that report that we’re failing children.”
The ally of Mr Javid also said services should have a holistic view of what might be causing problems for the child, such as a mental health issue, bullying or sexual abuse.
“That overly affirmative approach where people just accept what a child says, almost automatically, and then start talking about things like puberty blockers – that’s not in the interest of the child at all,” they added.’
There’s abundant evidence that this has been going on for years. Whistleblowers at the Tavistock Clinic, for example, have claimed that patients with schizophrenia have been misdiagnosed as trans, and a high proportion of people also diagnosed as trans are autistic. This also suggests that their mental condition is also leading to misdiagnosis.
If left to themselves, 60%-85% of children identifying as trans will eventually grow out of it and settle down as adults secure in their biological sex. I think the evidence also suggests that the majority will turn out to be gay or lesbian, not that this should matter. There are people, I’m sure, whose gender dysphoria is so acute that it requires transitioning, but clearly you need to be absolutely sure that this is appropriate before such radical medical intervention is applied.
Treatment for gender dysphoria – the dissatisfaction with one’s biological sex – in children has also involved the use of puberty blockers. These have been hyped as reversible, and their use justified on the grounds that it simply gives the child time to work their gender problems out. In fact they aren’t reversible. Nobody quite knows what their effects are, but they can lead to problems with physical health. The pause in the development of puberty they create also has neurological, emotional and cognitive effects, as the brain also develops and undergoes rewiring during adolescence. This means that a child given puberty blockers isn’t just physically immature compared to their normally developing peers, but mentally as well.
I utterly despise the Conservative party and what they’re doing to the NHS. But I firmly believe Javid’s right to question trans therapy for children. I also believe that Tory resistance to the trans movement could well be a vote-winner with women. A week or so ago, if I recall correctly, the right-wing New Culture Forum posted a video about this and other issues. One of their guests was a Tory lady, who had launched a group, Conservatives for Women, to fight the trans ideology. This group has made alliances and built bridges with other gender critical feminist organisations. The week before last, the Heil proudly ran a story about three gender critical ladies, who had launched a movement to tackle politicians about the issue. Their slogan was ‘Respect my sex if you want my X’, meaning their vote in the box on ballot sheet. These ladies made it clear that they believed that only biological women could ever be women. The article also included a series of quotes from politicos, largely Labour, failing abjectly to answer the simple question ‘What is a woman?’
The Tory party should now come under real pressure, not just because of Johnson and ‘Partygate’, but also because of the cost of living crisis. This is going to plunge masses of people into terrible poverty and starvation. I think this pressure is the reason they’re turning to culture war issues, although I think this is also due to genuine convictions on many people on the right.
I think Javid is doing the right thing in demanding such an inquiry, but really don’t want this issue to detract from the way the Tories have wrecked our great and noble country and impoverished and degraded its working people.