Medical doctors rather than therapists
It seems the NHS really has made a serious shift:
Most children who believe that they are transgender are just going through a “phase”, the NHS has said, as it warns that doctors should not encourage them to change their names and pronouns.
NHS England has announced plans for tightening controls on the treatment of under 18s questioning their gender, including a ban on prescribing puberty blockers outside of strict clinical trials.
The services, which will replace the controversial Tavistock clinic, will be led by medical doctors rather than therapists and will consider the impact of other conditions such as autism and mental health issues.
Hoo-boy – what an improvement.
NHS England says that the interim Cass Report has advised that even social transition, such as changing a young person’s name and pronouns or the way that they dress, is not a “neutral act” that could have “significant effects” in terms of “psychological functioning”.
Naturally; that’s the whole point of it. Mind you, I think there should be plenty of middle ground on clothing so that what people wear can be a neutral act. Can we get more men to wear kilts?
The proposals say that the new clinical approach will for younger children “reflect evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence” and doctors should be mindful this might be a “transient phase”.
Instead of encouraging transition, medics should take “a watchful approach” to see how a young person’s conditions develop, the plans state.
How very sane and reasonable.
I’m game, as long as it’s not wool.
Previously, the NHS swallowing the gender identity idea was taken as proof of its validity. I wonder what the approach will be now? I’m guessing a total 180.
Holms, the NHS regurgitating the gender identity idea isn’t proof of that idea’s invalidity, but proof that the NHS has been poisoned by TERFS.
Also, this is an amazing and realistic step that will help many children and prevent needless destruction of many young bodies. It can’t come across the pond soon enough.
The NHS has also released interim guidelines for the treatment of children with gender dysphoria in the clinics that are to replace the fallen Tavistock. They are very much in line with the interim Cass report and very encouraging.
Holms, Papito, I share some of your cynicism, but don’t forget that it also disarms the argument “all the major health authorities say…”
latsot, you make a good point. We’re maybe almost there. I figure that once people can say “Why is the US so out of step with norms elsewhere?,” some insurance companies might back off paying for child-chopping, and the practice could fall away quickly.
That said, things in the US currently seem to have momentum in the other direction. I’m perplexed at how some states (e.g. California) are now encouraging children in other states to run away from home and go there to get sterilized or mutilated on the taxpayer’s account.
“Can we get more men to wear kilts?”
In my case not for about 6 months. Anything other than pants, on either sex, in an Alberta winter is crazy.
Jim Baerg, second that for Nebraska. And I still remember being in grade school in Maine – we were required to wear skirts all year round (not the boys, of course).
I don’t think I could get my husband to wear a kilt. He’d be afraid they’d make him listen to bagpipes.
An important point made by the interim Cass report is that the Tavistock’s clinicians fell into something called “diagnostic capture” (or “diagnostic overshadowing”). That’s when a particular diagnosis is seized on and alternative or co-existing problems are left untreated–if they’re recognized at all.
“Gender dysphoria,” is a trendy diagnosis. Slap it on a troubled child, and all that child’s problems can be accounted for without further ado–depression, anxiety, social troubles. All the “care team” need do is “affirm” the child’s new, “true” identity, and presto chango! Any remaining problems are the fault of society, (especially those damn TERFs) for transphobicly refusing to educate itself and accept that little Ayden really is a boy and always was.
Thank goodness. Here’s hoping the new teams are composed of experts who haven’t been captured by TRA rhetoric.
I’ve got a Maori friend who wears a kilt, including when holidaying in Scotland. Was quizzed by a Scot on his attire, and then they ended up having a great discussion about kilts and the best makers thereof.
Yesterday, he posted on Facebook “Can we normalise wearing great kilts, capes, coats with tails, bowler hats, and robes in public please?” Took my mind back to the 60’s when one of my best mates would go out kitted in a fantastic cape while I trotted along in a Kaftan and beads. Rules were broken, but no one had to give up anything to indulge our clothing choices.
Heh. My brother once had a dark blue London police officer’s cape; he looked very dashing in it.
I’m greatly in favour of a return to gender-bending late-twentieth-century fashions. For everyone else who wants to. I already have an idiosyncratic style which I don’t expect anyone else to emulate. I’ve always loved capes and am heartbroken that I could only afford one once I could no longer reasonably wear one. They’re not really practical in a wheelchair.
P.S. My husband wears a kilt, but not nearly often enough for my taste. All four of my sons look good in kilts too, but wear them far too rarely.