Comparisons are odious
The Telegraph is, to the surprise of no one, more blunt than the Guardian.
The Tavistock transgender clinic is to be shut down by the NHS after a review found it is “not safe” for children.
NHS England will move young people who believe that they are trans into regional centres which will take a more “holistic” approach to treatment and look at other mental health or medical issues they may have.
Emphasis mine. The Guardian of course wouldn’t dream of putting it that way. Yet.
The decision is a response to the interim Cass Review, which warned that medics in the Tavistock had felt “under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach” to gender identity rather than going through the normal process of clinic assessment with young people.
The Guardian left that bit out. It’s rather important.
NHS England have also committed to follow Dr Cass’s recommendation that they carry out “rapid” research on the use of puberty blockers by young people after it was noted there is currently “insufficient evidence” on their impact.
I can almost hear them. “Oh research! Now there’s an idea. Thanks for suggesting it, we’ll get right on that.”
The Cass review was commissioned by NHS England in 2020 amid concerns that there was “scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision making” which saw children as young as 10 given puberty blockers.
…
It was amid fears that doctors were too quick to affirm a child’s new identity, without looking at other mental health or medical issues, that Dr Cass recommended moving away from a single provider model.
The Guardian left that bit out too.
The part of my past of which I am most ashamed is the part where I stayed with, and defended, the RCC as the abuse scandals broke, choosing to believe the lies from the pulpit instead of the claims of those brave people who came forward with the accusations. I took far too long to realise how congregations were being lied to and manipulated, and leave in disgust, and will never be able to atone for my behaviour.
I was, thanks to this place and others, much quicker to believe the accusations of abuse from people who could see what the trans cult was up to. Also, the internet has made it much harder for evidence to be withheld, so it’s easy to counter the claims of TRAs with verified figures and actual reports.
I wonder whether the Guardian and all the other trans apologists who denied wrongdoing in the face of a blizzard of evidence will ever feel shame, or admit to it?
I imagine that the shame associated with the admission is a factor that keeps apologists so entrenched.
I wonder. Once I’m convinced I’ve done something wrong, I’m acutely uncomfortable until I’ve said so and apologized. The shame of not doing so is much worse than the shame of having done the thing.
Then again I suppose that depends on what the thing is. I can’t say I have a history of being a priest who rapes children, so there’s that.
I am deeply ashamed of a rebuttal I once gave to someone pointing out Stalin’s crimes; I am glad my enamourment with the USSR lasted only about two weeks. I think I mostly loved it because my brother hated it, which is a really, really, really bad way to choose sides. Even when your brother is a lot like D.J.Trump, it is possible he could be right about some things, even if for the wrong reasons.
It’s impossible to view this editorial decision making as anything but ideological. Newspapers aren’t usually in the business of “being kind,” but in this case they’re soft pedaling the story (perhaps for their own sake as much as for anyone else’s). It’s like the unspoken agreement between the press and JFK in regards to his infidelity and womanizing. But this isn’t about turning a blind eye to a politician’s extramarital affairs, it’s a story about the health and safety of children. It’s not just word choice or even a “slant” or “spin,” it’s withholding information. What price “the right side of history?” What do they get out of all of this? What exactly have they bought at the cost of this reputational damage? More and more, it looks like less and less. Their end of the deal is starting to look a lot like a mess of pottage.
Does the Guardian think it can cross its fingers and hope the story goes away quickly and quietly? You chose a side, and that side failed by almost every conceivable professional, moral, and ethical standard. You helped paint critics of that side as heartless bigots. You drove away reporters who didn’t follow what had become the paper’s party line. Even now, you’re still trying to protect that side, your side, and to conceal from your readers the fact that your reporting on this issue, far from journalistic neutral impartiality, was fatally tainted by bias. And it still is.
Now that the Tavistock is being shut down, is it all just so much water under the bridge? Spilt milk? Those are ruined lives and injured people. How many — Hundreds? Thousands? Oh, right. Follow up and outcome studies were a bit lax. Sorry about that, but there’s no time to spare when you’ve got suicides to prevent and teets to yeet. All the children, and adults, who’ve been needlessly medicalized and mutilated still have to live with the consequences of the failure of responsible adults to exercise their duty of care, for the rest of their lives. That part doesn’t go away. It just doesn’t get reported on. (Not by you, anyway.) There’s a difference.
“Sorry about that, but there’s no time to spare when you’ve got suicides to prevent and teets to yeet.”
*applause*
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