The dam is breaking in Europe, but it will take years for a similar awakening in the United States and Canada, I am afraid.
The British Medical Journal has finally acknowledged what has been obvious to anybody who has followed the disastrous headlong rush into transing the kids.
The Cass Review–a carefully researched review of all the “evidence” for “gender-affirming care” that is out there–found that the evidence for any of the claims made by the alphabet people regarding the harmful “treatment” of children with gender confusion is lacking.
It doesn’t exist. All those claims that social transition, puberty blockers, and surgery are safe and effective and necessary to prevent suicide are based on ideology, not science.
Who could have guessed?
The BMJ is finally striking back against the gender ideology that has been ruining lives.
Welcome to the party. Why did it take so long?
The Cass review: an opportunity to unite behind evidence informed care in gender medicine https://t.co/J2gWb3LBra
— David Strom (@DavidStrom) April 11, 2024
So after a “safe” expert finally tells the world what people like me, Matt Walsh, Christopher Rufo, and the vast array of activists have been screaming, the BMJ can finally admit what should have been obvious from the very beginning.
At the heart of Hilary Cass’s review of gender identity services in the NHS is a concern for the welfare of “children and young people” (doi:10.1136/bmj.q820).1 Her stated ambition is to ensure that those experiencing gender dysphoria receive a high standard of care. This will be disputed, of course, by people and lobbying groups angered by her recommendations, but it is a theme running through the review. Cass, a past president of the UK’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, seeks to provide better care for children and adolescents on one of the defining issues of our age. Her conclusion is alarming for anybody who genuinely cares for child welfare: gender medicine is “built on shaky foundations” (doi:10.1136/bmj.q814).2
That verdict is supported by a series of review papers published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, a journal published by BMJ and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (doi:10.1136/archdischild-2023-326669 doi:10.1136/archdischild-2023-326670 doi:10.1136/archdischild-2023-326499 doi:10.1136/archdischild-2023-326500).3456 The evidence base for interventions in gender medicine is threadbare, whichever research question you wish to consider—from social transition to hormone treatment.
I have known that the evidence is “threadbare” for years because I can read. There is lots of activist literature and a distinct paucity of good research on what actually helps or harms kids going through a tough time.
What is out there is emotionalism, contempt, and ideological posturing, but no actual research. Worse, there is active hostility to doing research. It doesn’t take a medical degree to understand the difference between emotional appeals and rationally designed studies.
Medical experts should know this, and perhaps most of them do. But they turned their backs on children–as they did through the pandemic when exactly the same mistakes were made–because as a rule they either trust “experts” who opine rather than discuss reasonably, or they are afraid of activists.
Almost every medical professional has been complicit in what amounts to an atrocity–what would be a war crime if it were done to people in a conflict–because they were afraid or intentionally ignorant.
That may seem harsh, but it is true. Medical professionals have a duty of care and they abdicated that duty in the service of…something else. Personal convenience or perhaps fear.
For example, of more than 100 studies examining the role of puberty blockers and hormone treatment for gender transition only two were of passable quality. To be clear, intervention studies—particularly of drug and surgical interventions—should include an appropriate control group, ideally be randomised, ensure concealment of treatment allocation (although open label studies are sometimes acceptable), and be designed to evaluate relevant outcomes with adequate follow-up.
One emerging criticism of the Cass review is that it set the methodological bar too high for research to be included in its analysis and discarded too many studies on the basis of quality. In fact, the reality is different: studies in gender medicine fall woefully short in terms of methodological rigour; the methodological bar for gender medicine studies was set too low, generating research findings that are therefore hard to interpret. The methodological quality of research matters because a drug efficacy study in humans with an inappropriate or no control group is a potential breach of research ethics. Offering treatments without an adequate understanding of benefits and harms is unethical. All of this matters even more when the treatments are not trivial; puberty blockers and hormone therapies are major, life altering interventions. Yet this inconclusive and unacceptable evidence base was used to inform influential clinical guidelines, such as those of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which themselves were cascaded into the development of subsequent guidelines internationally (doi:10.1136/bmj.q794).7
The atrocities will continue in much of the Anglo-American world–although Great Britain is reversing course. Nobody with an ounce of compassion denies that people who are suffering from dysphoria of any kind deserve the very best care in the world–I and others are constantly accused of this by the activists, but they are the ones who are sterilizing and mutilating children. They are butchers, not us.
The doctors who performed these ghastly procedures are still insisting that they are right–but they are clearly certain of the opposite. They refused to provide any evidence, including access to their own records.
The Cass review attempted to work with the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) and the NHS adult gender services to “fill some of the gaps in follow-up data for the approximately 9000 young people who have been through GIDS to develop a stronger evidence base.” However, despite encouragement from NHS England, “the necessary cooperation was not forthcoming.” Professionals withholding data from a national inquiry seems hard to imagine, but it is what happened.
I am not exaggerating when I compare these people to Mengele, because they are knowingly performing horrendous experiments on children who cannot understand or consent to the procedures. What do you call a person who performs castrations? What can you say when a doctor bullies a child into an atrocity? The entire “do this or you will commit suicide is blackmail.
European countries across the continent are waking up to the horrors that their medical establishments have been complicit in, and this is welcome. It is too late to save the children who have been harmed–just as the thousands subjected to lobotomies that were once considered miraculous–but we can save the thousands more who are being lured into horrendous “care.”
Here in America, over a hundred “gender care” clinics have sprung up, engaged in a gold rush. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and activists have joined in an unholy alliance to destroy children for fun and profit.
Vanderbilt was apparently concerned that not all of its staff would be on board. Dr. Ellen Clayton warned that “conscientious objections” are “problematic.” Anyone who decides not to be involved in transition surgeries due to “religious beliefs” will face “consequences” pic.twitter.com/CgNicrG4Mg
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022
Blue states are rushing to embrace and protect “gender-affirming care” and creating “sanctuaries” for adults who kidnap children to provide it. That is a thing.
This is a trend that will not crest for years, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is evil. The level of commitment to the cause far outweighs any evidence. It is no different than the people who remained committed to communism after 100 million people were killed. No level of evidence will convince them.
Still, the wave will crest, the tide will recede, and the stench of rot left behind will eventually dissipate.
On @talktv presenter @ThatAlexWoman re: Cass report:
“Children have been the unwitting pawns in stupid left-wing, posh people, elitist dinner party games.”
As the tend to to white & rich they don’t have any intersectional problems. Turning them into trans trophies rids them of… pic.twitter.com/aWS5rzvIPP
— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) April 11, 2024
One thing we can be sure of is that few, if any, people will be held accountable for the atrocities committed. Fingers will be pointed, excuses made, and everything will be memory-holed.
As long as we don’t hold people accountable for the evil they have committed, more evil will be done. We have seen this with the pandemic-mania, and unfortunately we will see that here.