The entitlement of children
The Tavistock ruling has been overturned, as many people predicted.
The court of appeal has overturned a controversial judgment that children under the age of 16 considering gender reassignment are unlikely to be mature enough to give informed consent to be prescribed puberty-blocking drugs.
So we’re back to first do lots of harm because 15-year-olds never get it wrong about what they will want at age 30, 50, 70.
Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust, which runs NHS England’s only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children, challenged a high court ruling last year in a case brought against the service by Keira Bell, a 24-year-old woman who began taking puberty blockers when she was 16 before detransitioning. The other applicant was the unnamed mother of a teenage autistic girl on the waiting list for treatment.
…
The Tavistock had argued that the high court ruling interfered with the entitlement of children to make decisions for themselves and was based on “partisan expert evidence”.
But of course adults interfere with children’s decisions for themselves all the time. Children aren’t competent to make all decisions for themselves, because they’re children.
Bell said she planned to seek leave to appeal to the supreme court, adding: “A global conversation has begun and has been shaped by this case. There is more to be done. It is a fantasy and deeply concerning that any doctor could believe a 10-year-old could consent to the loss of their fertility.”
Cross-sex hormones are only prescribed from the age of 16 and experts say puberty blockers do not cause infertility.
Mrs A, the other claimant alongside Bell, said: “A child experiencing gender distress needs time and support – not to be set on a medical pathway they may later regret.”
Jolyon Maugham is celebrating.
Technically correct. What’s left out is the strong connection between taking puberty blockers and persistence. Over 90% of these children go on to transition by taking cross-sex hormones. Puberty blockers + cross-sex hormones = infertility.
It’s a bit like saying driving with an alcohol level of .20 does not cause car accidents. The experts agree that accidents are caused by a lapse in judgment, impaired motor coordination, or blacking out.
As for the judgment, the court is understandably reluctant to interfere when the parents, the child, the doctor, and the “experts” all agree on a course of medical treatment. I wish judges could rule “but this is total bullshit” when it’s total bullshit.
I think that this is a great opportunity for purveyors of alcohol and tobacconists in the UK to join in the case so that children’s entitlement to their products is recognized as valid and wise. Who are the government to deny?
https://www.haringey.gov.uk/business/licensing-and-regulations/trading-standards/trading-standards-age-restricted-sales
Listed below are examples of products whose sale is controlled by age restriction.
Alcohol
Cigarettes, tobacco, shisha and other smoking based products
E Cigarettes and Vaping Products
Fireworks – sparklers, party poppers, caps, cracker snaps
Dangerous chemicals – cigarette lighter fuel, glue, aerosols
Acids
DVDs, Blu Rays and computer games
Dangerous Weapons – air weapons, crossbows, knives
Lottery tickets and scratch cards
Petrol
Bookmakers
Sunbeds
Advice to Traders: Staying within the law
How is it right that acids are restricted, but bases are not?
It really is horrifying how “woke” British twitter are reporting this ruling to allow dangerous medication to be given to children and teenagers.
Owen Jones:
“A massive victory for trans people, and a huge defeat for Britain’s increasingly fanatical anti-trans lobby.”
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1438856376718090242
Shon Faye:
“Delighted this monstrous decision has been overturned and so happy that I now get to rewrite the section on trans youth healthcare for the paperback!”
https://twitter.com/shonfaye/status/1438860667444924425
Richard Seymour;
“Excellent”.
https://twitter.com/leninology/status/1438854672824012801
Seymour followed this tweet with a Patreon essay headed “On the “anti-gender” ideology and its roots in religious anti-gay and anti-women campaigns.”
What on *earth* has happened?
My own theory is that the British left has become so disorientated by the splits between left-Brexiteers and left-Remainers, Corbyn’s crushing defeat in 2019,and that the advent of Covid, that they’ve been flailing haplessly under Starmer.
Hence the gender identity issue, which seemed like the one way Seymour and co. might be able to influence politics at a national level. It also had the false impression of being like “the new gay rights” and all those people like Jones who were too young to campaign against the awful Clause 28 could thus jump on this issue.
(Never mind the powerful capitalists backing the medicalisation of gender noncomforming youth, or the atomised individualism advocated by Judith Butler, the new saint of Owen Jones & co.)
There have been numerous articles published by Novara, Huck Magazine and the rest of their outlets, attacking the diminishing number of British gender critical feminist and gender critical socialists as “TERFs”,
“Woman-haters” and “Fascists” who are plotting a “genocide” of transgender people.
I keep seeing articles on places like Mumsnet from veteran women Labour activists. Some of these women have been active in the party since the 1970s. Some were strong Corbyn supporters, as I was. But now they feel like they can’t support a party dominated by people who want to medicalise gay, lesbian and autistic children and teenagers, and destroy women’s private spaces.
(Sorry if this was a bit long, BTW).
[…] a comment by Michael Haubrich on The entitlement of […]
Would the courts be less hesitant to invoke “bullshit” if children, parents and “experts” all agreed on a course of exorcism? How long before genderism and its “treatment” is studied as a cautionary tale alongside witchcraft and demonic possession?
As far as I know, taking your child to a exorcist is perfectly legal.
As for when it’s all going to be considered an embarrassment and shame similar to Satanic Panic and lobotomies — eventually. Truth will out , even when powerful forces march the public in the opposite direction for a long, long time. And if we’re wrong, that will come out, too.
Bet we’re not.
“As for when it’s all going to be considered an embarrassment and shame similar to Satanic Panic and lobotomies — eventually”.
I really wish I could share your optimism. There is far, far more financial and political muscle behind the
“gender self-identification” movement than there ever was behind “Satanic Panic” or lobotomies.
In the UK and the Irish Republic, falsely named “conversion therapy ban” laws are being discussed, and these currently enjoy largely uncritical media coverage.
These laws will harshly punish any doctor who uses the watchful waiting & therapeutic exploration methods to treat children & teenagers with gender dysphoria.
https://twitter.com/SistersOfAnne/status/1438473467679154181
Could your GP get sent to jail for not doing what Susie Green demands? It could happen.
‘attacking the diminishing number of British gender critical feminist and gender critical socialists as “TERFs”’
I expect the number is actually increasing rather than diminishing, as more people are becoming aware of what’s going on. Publicity around recent books, particularly Helen Joyce’s, seems to be helping.
“I expect the number is actually increasing rather than diminishing, as more people are becoming aware of what’s going on. Publicity around recent books, particularly Helen Joyce’s, seems to be helping.”
I doubt it. Nearly all the radical left-wing outlets in the UK attacked Helen Joyce’s book, and the other British authors of GC books (Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel) were either similarly attacked or ignored by these outlets. The Morning Star and Peace News are virtually alone in being UK radical left-wing outlets that give the occasional space to gender-critical feminists. The Morning Star gave a good review to Kathleen Stock’s book “Material girls”.
The weird thing is, a lot of UK prominent transwomen (Christine Burns, Kellie Maloney (formerly Frank Maloney), and Diana Thomas (formerly David Thomas)) were active Tory or UKIP supporters. David Thomas even wrote an anti-feminist book called “Not Guilty: In Defence Of The Modern Man” before transitioning!
What are they doing giving puberty blockers to sixteen year olds? The “damage” (healthy development) is done at that point…
Mostly Cloudy #3
As I keep saying, I think people tend to get involved in various kinds of activism or movements out of a sincere desire to do good (as they see it). But once you have identified your ingroup, other, far less admirable, motives (deference to authority, group conformity, avoiding conflict, keeping the group together, reducing cognitive dissonance, consistency with former acts or statements etc.) gradually come to supplant the original cause, even to the point of actively embracing the polar opposite of everything that got you into activism in the first place.
We see this in the case of feminists who – less than 10 years ago – knew perfectly well (as we can tell by their own words back then) how to tell a biological male from a biological female and identify which biological sex was most disadvantaged by the patriarchy, but have since gone on to deny that biological females even exist as an identifiable group, let alone have any issues worth addressing in their own right. We see it in the case of “LGBT” activists who – once again, less than 10 years ago – used to fight for increased acceptance of same-sex attraction (as opposed to attraction to people who think or feel in certain ways best left unspecified, call themselves by certain names, use certain pronouns etc.), but have since gone on to argue that same-sex attraction is the pinnacle of bigotry and evil. And we see it in the case of anti-racists who used to rage about white people appropriating the struggles of POC, but have since gone on to insist that TRAs – no matter how white – have an absolute monopoly on “non-white” feminism as well as an unlimited right to claim the opinions of POC for themselves whether the latter do in fact hold said opinions or not.
@Bjarte #11
Excellent comment, thanks for that.
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