Last Wednesday, Dr Hilary Cass, a British paediatric physician and researcher who specialises in disability, released the final report in the Cass Review.
The Cass Review, formally known as the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People, is a four year independent review for the National Health Service in England on medical services for young people with gender dysphoria, including GIDS (Gender Identity Development Service) at the Tavistock Clinic.
The review included consulting with a range of stakeholders and people with lived experience, as well as running a multi-pronged research programme.
The final report is a carefully worded document designed particularly for the systems of power in charge of child health, wellbeing and safeguarding: health systems and their managers, medical practitioners and their professional bodies, MPs and government departments, and NGOs.
It’s also a damning indictment of the poorly evidence medical experiment that has been done on gender non-conforming children in the past decade. It’s likely to be the biggest medical scandal many of us will see.
Since Wednesday, there has been an overwhelming amount of mainstream and social media coverage. This is a dam breaking because part of the picture of the past ten years had been the strategy of No Debate and the degree to which this has meant little MSM exploration of the issues around child safeguarding.
I’m going to put up a few posts with links to useful material for people to read so they can get their head around what is happening, including the relevance for New Zealand. The post today is an introduction to the Cass Review.
If you want to get the full breadth of the discussion and debate as it is playing out currently, get a twitter account.
I’m including the following two resources because one of the reactions to the final report from gender identity activists and lobby NGOs has been a superficial attempt to undermine the medical and research credibility of the review.
From the British Medical Journal Editorial, by Editor in Chief Kamran Abbasi (11/4/24):
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
My emphasis added, because this applies to New Zealand.
Of particular note is this tweet from Abbasi on the same day,
Critics of the methodology of the systematic reviews that form the basis of the Cass Review are displaying their limited understanding of research methods and evidence based medicine — but that’s what got us into this mess in the first place
Cass paints an alarming picture of an anxious and distressed generation of digitally savvy young women and girls, who not only are more exposed to online pornography and the wider problems of the world than any previous generation but also consume more social media and have lower self-esteem and more body hang-ups than their male peers.
Lack of evidence for medical pathway
Rather than affirming children’s gender identity with medical treatment, the report calls for a holistic approach that examines the causes of their distress. It finds that, despite being incorporated into medical guidelines around the world, the use of “gender-affirming” medical treatment such as puberty blockers is based on “wholly inadequate” evidence. Doctors are cautious when adopting new treatments, but Cass says “quite the reverse happened in the field of gender care for children”, with thousands of children put on an unproven medical pathway.
Mental health
The increase in gender clinic patients “has to some degree paralleled” the deterioration in child and adolescent mental health, it finds. Mental distress, the report says, can present through physical manifestations, such as eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorders. Clinicians were often reluctant to explore or address co-occurring mental health issues in those presenting with gender distress, the report finds. This was because gender dysphoria was not considered to be a mental health condition.
Puberty blockers
The report says there was “no evidence” puberty blockers allowed young people “time to think” by delaying the onset of puberty — which was the original rationale for their use. It finds the vast majority of those who start puberty suppression continued on to cross-sex hormones, particularly if they started earlier in puberty.
There was insufficient and inconsistent evidence about the effects of puberty suppression on psychological or psychosocial health, it says, and some young females had a worsening of problems like depression and anxiety.
Cass says there is “some concern” that puberty blockers may actually change “the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development”.
Cass also raises concern about the impact of puberty blockers in developmental and long term health, including brain function and bone density. The key takeaway here is the lack of solid medical research to support use for gender dysphoric children.
Social transition
The report concludes it was “possible” that social transition, including the changing of a child’s name and pronouns, may change the trajectory of their gender development. It finds “no clear evidence” social transitioning in childhood has any positive or negative mental health effects, but that children who socially transitioned at an earlier age were more likely to proceed to medical treatment. A more cautious approach to social transition needs to be taken for children than for adolescents, it concludes.
Rogue private clinics
Long waiting lists for NHS care mean distressed children are turning to private clinics or resorting to “obtaining unregulated and potentially dangerous hormone supplies over the internet”, the report says.
Some NHS GPs have then felt “pressurised to prescribe hormones after these have been initiated by private providers”, and Cass says this should not happen.
Detransitioning
Cass says some of those who have been through medical transitions “deeply regret their earlier decisions”. Her report says the NHS should consider a new specialist service for people who wish to “detransition” and come off hormone treatments. She says people who are detransitioning may be reluctant to return to the service they had previously used.
One of the most unconscionable aspects of wider society’s response in the past decade as been the refusal to listen to young people who have been through varying degrees of medical transition, or to minimise their experience or relevance.
As an example please read this first hand account of medical/surgical transition and detransition, and the lifetime of disability, pain and distress that transition can bring, from Ritchie/TullipR. Keira Bell was one of the first detrans people to challenge the radical gender treatment orthodoxy in the UK (she was treated at the Tavistock). Stories like this are why the Cass Review came into being.
NHS identity numbers
People who transition can be given new NHS numbers, making it very hard to track their health outcomes from that point onwards.
This ties into the refusal by adult gender clinics in the UK to share crucial data to the research team during the Cass Review. The UK government’s Health Secretary has now ordered the data to be released, as well as a similar review of the clinics themselves.
Toxic debate
Cass has called for an end to the “exceptionally toxic” debates over transgender healthcare after she was vilified online while compiling her review. In a foreword to her 388-page report, the paediatrician said that navigating a culture war over trans rights has made her task over the past four years significantly harder.
She warned that the “stormy social discourse” does little to help young people, who are being let down by a lack of research and evidence. Cass added: “There are few other areas of healthcare where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views, where people are vilified on social media, and where name-calling echoes the worst bullying behaviour. This must stop.
In case that’s not completely clear, it’s not gender critical feminists, whistleblowers and the large number of gender critical journalists, academics, lawyers and NGOs working on this issue who have done that, it’s trans rights activists, their allies, and the MRAs and trolls who jumped on the bandwagon as an excuse to harass women online.
Some additional themes
No Debate
No Debate was an intentional strategy apparently developed by UK NGOs like Stonewall UK. The idea was to refuse to debate anything about transgender rights and the impact on society. It was picked up by liberals and large chunks of the left as well as being taken into government departments, social services, legal services, businesses and medical services. It has been a key tool in blocking public understanding of the issues, including limiting MSM coverage, and it is central in understanding many aspects of the Cass Review.
I hope to do a specific post on this, but you can follow this hashtag on twitter on meantime #NoDebate
Other themes are
women, detransitioners, whistleblowers and others speaking out and the impacts of cancel culture
institutional denial including historical revisionism and reverse ferrets since the final report was released
the relevance for New Zealand.
On the latter, some initial New Zealand resources on the Cass Review, puberty blockers, and the treatment of gender dysphoria.
Mod note: please be thoughtful in commenting and provide arguments and evidence rather than making stand alone assertions of fact. Please be mindful of the people who may be reading as well as wanting to comment who are affected by this, including detransitioners, trans people, parents and family, and women. If you are new here, please read the Policy.
We don't "shut it down". But I sure as hell disagree with virtually all of you who are so damn concerned about this minor issue. Frankly I can't see what so many are so concerned about the genitalia and hormones of others. It is almost pornographic to observe.
Fundamentally I can't see what difference this report makes. But to me the entire 'debate' on this just reeks of bigots trying to tell other people how to live their life. For no apparent reason apart from a desire to meddle in the lives of others for no obvious or apparent reason apart from some kind of moral indignation that other make different choices to the ones that they would take themselves.
It is akin to having adults telling teenagers that they shouldn't be able to deface themselves by poking poke holes into themselves to insert jewellery. Why exactly? In the end there is a damn high probability that they will do it anyway.
Or another one that comes up often through history is that people under the age of X shouldn't be able to get tattoos just in case they change their mind in later life. FFS: it is their damn choice to make. It is also their choice to take the risk of regret.
Basically this is just feels like another instance of a witchfinder or Mrs Grundy trying to tell people how to live their lives and how they should all be as they'd prefer. I really just despise meddlers who think like that. The whisperers in corners talking about others and ultimately throwing then on pyres for imagined offences against 'nature'.
I'd get interested if there were evident instances of coercion in forcing others to do these procedures. But reading though this morass of commentary of data I can't see any mention of that actually happening.
What I see is that people frequently having regret about their own choices. Some from not getting the emotional or bodily effect that they felt they should have gotten. Some at suffering the short end of the risks of the procedures that they decided to take.
How exactly is this different from something like plastic surgery. Or body building. Or steroid misuse. PTSD from voluntarily being in a dangerous profession like military, firefighting or whatever. Or deciding to try addictive drugs..
There are whole TV shows or docos about regrets from some of those.
What I do see in the commentary is some self-righteous arseholes wanting to restrict the choices of others without even proffering reason why they should be sticking the nosy beaks into the debate as they demonise other for their choices. What exactly is their interest. What motivates it. And why in the hell do they care at all? It has been noticeable that few of the most enthused at pillorying gendered fluid have ever bothered to explain why they find them so terrifying. Instead, they endlessly pull up singleton examples of arseholes who happen to be gender fluid across the world, usually the same ones over and over again to express their terror.
Let me make this absolutely clear. I don't know of a single person who hasn't subsequently regretted some of the choices that they have made in their life. I know that I do, both when I was a teenager and for many other decisions I made in later life.
But in the end there are only a few reasons why society should get involved in the personal decisions that people make. Most of them are related to harm to others like assault/rape/theft/etc and are individual criminal acts, and some related to harm to society – like destroying common property/fraud/inciting riots/hooking people on addictive drugs for profit/etc.
I can't see any of this in what has been described. I can just see the shadow of people like witchfinders, Mrs Grundy and other idiots who want to remove the ability of people to make their own informed decisions. Who cares about people cross-dressing
So far few of the indignant advocates for this particular variation of prohibition have been even remotely convincing. Like prohibition, it appears to be a meaningless gesture. If thinking people want to do something and it doesn't impact significantly on others or on the whole of society – then I can't see a reason to drive it underground. I simply can't see a victim in all of this kerfuffle about gender.
What I see is another stupid debate about toilet gender – where almost all of the pathetic indignation was about a problem that did not exist. Toilet are regulated by densities of people – not gender. Choices about having gendered toilets are made by the owners of facilities fro what they perceive are the wishes of their clientele – not by legislation or prohibition. If you want to change
I'll go and have a look at the detail of Cass report at some point. But from what has been said, it just looks like a scientific study on efficacy of treatments (which require control populations to determine significance). It looks like the studies it was looking at are too few or of too poor a quality to actually draw too many conclusions. It also doesn't appear to have been particularly assiduous at looking at the reverse cases (again required by double blind) by looking at consequences on non-treatment.
Which is always going to a be a weak point because as someone said in the Wikipedia article..
Portia Predny, Vice President of the Australian Professional Association for Transgender Health, also disputed Cass’ conclusion that the evidence base for gender affirming care was weak, saying that the standard of evidence requested (randomized control trials) was neither feasible nor ethical to achieve.[36]
You can't give treatments to those who don't want them. It is unethical. You cannot deny treatments to those who do need them as that is also not ethical. That means it is near impossible statistically hard to build a case for either way.
That really means that to decide if there is a actual problem, the best approach is probably to do what is happening now. Let people make their own decisions about themselves based on the information present at the time, then study it longitudinally.
I should really tidy this comment up and post it to the top of the site…
Your long reply misrepresents (or misunderstands) concern raised, while simultaneously showing a decided lack of knowledge.
Many who raise concerns are accepting of non-conformity in presentation or personality. They are concerned about significant iatrogenic harm from unnecessary medical interventions.
You mention tattoos.
What tattoos are paid for by the Ministry of Health? Are tattoos associated with decreased bone density, a drop in IQ, loss of libido, connected to a delay or interruption in emotional and psychological maturity? Do those tattoos lead onto more significant body modifications – again paid for by the Ministry of Health – that will reduce or remove fertility, reduce or stop sexual function and enjoyment, and increase the chances of many significant diseases – kidney disease, MS etc. At this point – do the Ministry of Health commit to funding the re-inking of your tattoo until death, as that will be a requirement.
Let's just agree, your comparator was both trivial and poor.
If this is what you call "bigots trying to tell other people how to live their life." then you have very little understanding of what those "bigots" are concerned about, and why they are concerned.
"I'll go and have a look at the detail of Cass report at some point. "
Yes. It is apparent you are riding on reckons in this rant. A bit of reading might do some good.
Are you able to provide any other example of a state of being that is not considered a pathology but DEMANDS and receives significant, expensive and ongoing medical interventions on demand from our health system?
Did you consider that those who witnessed the harm from other ill-evidenced treatments, might be wanting to avoid the same level of harms being visited on those children most vulnerable to this response?
(As for the benefit of single-sex spaces for females – I'll leave that for now. The issue of iatrogenic harm to children is the topic of the day, and you have a mountain of evidence to catch up on.)
What tattoos are paid for by the Ministry of Health?
I deliberately picked a range of examples that are based on choice specifically for your benefit.
I notice you cherry picked only one example to respond to and ignored all of the others. Kind of hypocritical of you don't you think?
For instance so why shouldn't this be like plastic surgery which I also raised as a matter of personal choice. Mostly done in the private sector outside of reconstructive surgery. I suspect that in your view that also shouldn't be done.
Perhaps you'd like to look at that as the basis of your defence of your views.
Did you consider that those who witnessed the harm from other ill-evidenced treatments, might be wanting to avoid the same level of harms being visited on those children most vulnerable to this response?
Sure, and exactly how does that give you the right to right to impose your views on it on others. Inform if you wish. But to advocate for a prohibition as you seem to be doing is just ridiculous.
"I'll go and have a look at the detail of Cass report at some point. "
Yes. It is apparent you are riding on reckons in this rant. A bit of reading might do some good.
Have you read the actual report? Do you you understand the statistical arguments. The statistical reasons to exclude or include studies?
That level of understanding is not apparent in your comments. What I can see from your writing on it is that you are relying on the interpretations and opinions of others. I simply can't see a high degree of understanding evident in your commentary. I suspect you are simply being implicitly dishonest in that statement as well because you are holding someone else to standard that you'd fail yourself.
"For instance so why shouldn't this be like plastic surgery which I also raised as a matter of personal choice. Mostly done in the private sector outside of reconstructive surgery."
Plastic surgery – when it relates to cosmetic surgery – is another poor comparator. The Ministry of Health does not fund or provide this on demand. ACC would be unwilling to fund revision procedures or required medications arising from unintended or unwanted outcomes from plastic surgery.
"I suspect that in your view that also shouldn't be done."
Suspicion unfounded. Unless you were talking about cosmetic surgery for children, in which case I would expect there to be quite high restrictions, mostly reliant on whether there is an underlying condition or not – eg. cleft palate.
"Have you read the actual report? Do you you understand the statistical arguments. The statistical reasons to exclude or include studies?
That level of understanding is not apparent in your comments. What I can see from your writing on it is that you are relying on the interpretations and opinions of others. "
Oh, Hello Pot.
No, I haven't yet read the full report (just a visit to the website) – as I have to get down to Warehouse Stationery to print it out – hardcopies being my preference. I actually have issues with some of what I have read, but they are trivial compared to the iatrogenic harm currently happening to children.
I HAVE, however, read many of the documents relating to WPATH SoC – both 7 and 8, The Endocrinology Society, the AAAP which form the basis for gender affirmative care. I have read the DSM-5 articles relating to the diagnosis. I have read the studies produced by the likes of Jack Turban et al, and the systematic reviews produced by Sweden. Occasionally, I read a random study from a list. I have also listened to the testimonies of clinicians, researchers, whistleblowers and patients from gender clinics. I have also had the edifying experience of being on a hormone blocker for several years now, and have spoken with others on the same medication about the significant impacts this has on their lives, function and well-being.
I have taken every opportunity to stay informed over the last few years, and did not require the Cass report to support my current position which is based on acquired knowledge.
"I simply can't see a high degree of understanding evident in your commentary. I suspect you are simply being implicitly dishonest in that statement as well because you are holding someone else to standard that you'd fail yourself."
I honestly don't care about your opinion of me, and am not writing my comment as a thesis for you. In fact, due to experience on this site, and observation of your exchanges – I would consider it a waste of time – so I challenge your comparators in the same patient way I would with a novice whose knowledge is limited, and so they approach it with glib comparators and misunderstandings. It's a initial untangling of the ball of ignorance, rather than knitting the full jumper – if you get my drift.
Besides, people – including myself – have provided numerous links in this thread, and over the years for those whose interest is peaked to get started. Everyone has their own method of investigation and research. I suggest you do what you keep saying – I'll go and have a look at the detail of Cass report at some point – and start playing catch up.
At this point, I'm comfortable waiting, you've got a lot to do.
Molly has responded to you Lynn and I agree with all her points.
Quoting Portia Predny from Apath shows how little you have read on this thread. I posted above about research from the University of York. The Cass Review got the University of York to conduct a rigorous evidenced based study of the various transgender healthcare guidelines across regions and countries. This research included the Australian guidelines as well as New Zealand. Their research found that out of 21 guidelines studied all bar two fell well below acceptable standards. The only two standards that were of an acceptable level were Sweden's and Finlands. So organisations like Apath and New Zealand's Patha have been completely discredited.
That really means that to decide if there is a actual problem, the best approach is probably to do what is happening now. Let people make their own decisions about themselves based on the information present at the time, then study it longitudinally.
Part of Cass's remit was to run research as part of the review. The team were supposed to gather data from the adult gender clinics of people that had transitioned as teens.
So that the effectiveness of the model of care used in the past decade/s could be assessed.
Because GIDS at Tavistock had failed to keep records or track the outcomes of its patients. That's one of the reasons why the government set up the review.
Nearly all of adult gender clinics refused to co-operate with the review, and withheld data.
The clinics have now been told to hand the data over. They are also now going to be formally reviewed.
The NHS must reveal the fate of 9,000 transgender young people treated by the controversial Tavistock clinic, the Health Secretary has said in the wake of the Cass review.
The landmark report published on Wednesday found adult gender clinics had refused to disclose whether transgender people who started their treatment as children later changed their minds about transitioning, or went on to suffer serious mental health problems.
Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, met Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, on Wednesday to tell her “nothing less than full co-operation by those clinics in the research is acceptable”.
…
The review, led by Dr Hilary Cass, a paediatrician, said that the lack of “robust data” on what had happened to the 9,000 children who were treated by the gender clinic at the Tavistock between 2009 and 2020 was “unacceptable”.
Those children then went on to continue their treatment at adult clinics.
Research led by the University of York had been due to look at the long-term outcomes of children treated by the Tavistock.
It was expected to provide insights into the clinic’s work, including the number of patients treated with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, how many people detransitioned and how many had a “co-occurring mental health diagnosis” or a “diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder”. The review had been given the power to access medical records.
Ms Atkins says: “It is disgraceful that adult gender clinics have not co-operated with the vital University of York research to link data on children at the Tavistock so that we can understand their journey into adulthood.
Ok. So that is a purely bureaucratic issue in another nation. Sloppy. Hardly earth shattering.
However that has nothing to do with anything outside of the NHS. Here is just means that the reporting provisions for similar centres should be reviewed. Just as happens in areas like oncology, pharmac, etc etc
It has absolutely nothing much to do with
Cass also raises concern about the impact of puberty blockers in developmental and long term health, including brain function and bone density. The key takeaway here is the lack of solid medical research to support use for gender dysphoric children.
The other side of that is nothing in the review about saying that there isn't a need to provide services that have been provided by the GIDS. In fact there is a recommendation that they continue.
You wouldn't know that is the case from many of the comments here or offshore. What I see is a whole pile of people trying to play god over the choices of others and doing it in a total reprehensible way with distortions of "what this review means".
And that is before I get time to have a peek into the actual report.
one of the great things about the CR is that it is centred around the health needs of gender dysphoric children. The debate is polarised, but she treads a very good middle ground without losing sight of the child safeguarding issues.
Yes, she is talking about the need for continued provision of services. Of course 🤷♀️ She talked about it in the interim review as well, including when GIDS was being closed. It's been a key part of the whole thing.
It's mentioned in the post, where I quote the piece about holistic services. What that means is stopping using the affirmation only model that says children must be affirmed in the gender they profess and treatments follow that and only that, and instead do all the things that used to be considered standard for distressed children and youth: mental health assessments, taking into account abuse histories, checking of undiagnosed autism and considering that many kids will grow out of their gender ID and settle into being lesbian and gay instead.
All of that has been discussed for a long time in many countries, including NZ. The reason not many people know about the issues is because No Debate has suppressed public discussion. We don't have good reporting on this in NZ.
One of the reasons I am writing these posts is to present the resources that people can use to inform themselves without having to wade through all the polarised fights. And secondarily, to provide a space on TS that will allow people to work through the issues without the vitriol and evidence free reckons that is happening elsewhere.
lprent, apologies for the previous comment, which weka quite rightly moved to Open Mike.
Here are some of the studies I've read recently – am currently going through my Bookmarks for another reason – that form SOME of the basis for my position and current understanding:
I'll leave it there, because I don't want the number of links to trigger off moderation, although I have many more. From those that support my current understanding, and also from those that advocate for affirmation only care – including not just acceptance of self-diagnosis, but immediate and significant medical and surgical treatment.
Ok. So that is a purely bureaucratic issue in another nation. Sloppy. Hardly earth shattering.
Well, no. The point here is why the adult gender clinics refused to share the data. It's an ideological issue and not a bureaucratic one. And it applies in NZ as well, where clinicians are afraid to speak out because of fear for their jobs and careers.
The studies the Cass report looked at Lynn was extensive, but the quality of the studies was poor. These drugs have been prescribed to children off label.The evidence isn’t there. That's why Cass (a senior Paediatrian) concluded that the evidence to support the benefits of puberty blockers was weak and the risks, including long term ones were uncertain. That is why they have been banned in the UK for under 18 year old. Because there has been no adequate research conducted on these drugs for gender dysphoric youth. In other words there use has been experiemental. They have been experimenting on children. Tell me you think that is o.k.?
Cass has recommended that puberty blockers should only be prescribed to people under the age of 18 as part of a rigourousresearch study which needs high levels of ethical consent which the design is likely RCT.
From what I see in the studies is that there isn't evidence one way or another. Finding that some people have regret about their decisions simply isn't unexpected and is their choice if they are informed about the risks.
What I don't see is much evidence that any of the procedures are inherently life-threatening or cause harm to society.
So why exactly do you want to take informed choices away from people who are willing to take the risks for themselves.
A wish to arbitrarily interfere in other peoples lives? Explain who made you the arbiter for other peoples choices.
The more pertinent question is why are people saying 12 year olds can't give informed consent to puberty blockers.
Following from that, why it took whistleblowers at Tavistock and ex-patients going to court to be able to even get the question looked at seriously.
What I don't see is much evidence that any of the procedures are inherently life-threatening or cause harm to society.
This is why the Cass Review happened. Puberty blockers are now banned for that use because they were being used off label by clinicians in organisations that didn't keep adequate records and who blocked investigation multiple times and where many people were afraid to raise concerns.
Pro-transition GOs and clinicians and the NZ MoH all said that PBs were safe and fully reversible. There was no evidence that that was true. Last year the MoH removed the "safe and fully reversible" phrase from its website after members of the public and child safeguarding orgs asked questions and did OIA requests.
The BMJ quoted in the post said,
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
my bold and italics.
It's unethical to be using drugs on children without clinical trials that support that use. It's unethical to continue to use those drugs on children when there are good reasons to be concerned about the impact of those drugs on brain development and bone density.
You might not see the damage being done, but this is true of many people, and again, the is why the Cass Review was necessary.
Its very simple Lyn. Clinicians have a duty of care. Health treatment isn't like goods and services that consumers are free to purchase (and of course children don't have much power here either as their parents rightly supervise their purchases to some degree).
I haven't made this decision. Dame Hilary Cass after a four year review of gender medicine has. She is a senior paedetrian. She got York Universtiy to undertake research under the most rigourous scientific conditions. Their research found that most advisory groups who set the standards of care, including Patha NZ are sub standard. This is a daming finding. They have completely lost credibility.
You may be confused, thinking that I want to outlaw or ban men who want to present as women from doing so. This is incorrect. They are entitled to do so and I will do what I do with all people I meet, take them as I find them. But by wearing a dress or even having cosmetic surgery, they don't become women. That is scientifically impossible. And like all GC I will fight to ensure that women only spaces are maintained when sex matters.
You do not seem to relize that the Cass review points to a medical scandal of significant.
BTW it is highly debatable that children can give informed consent to these treatements cause their level of cognitive development. Adults can.
Appalling medical misadventures that don't affect us are easily dismissed as a "minor issue." They're not so minor to the people who are affected by them.
We aren't "concerned about the genitalia and hormones of others," we're concerned about alleged medical professionals messing with the genitalia and hormones of children based on no good evidence and in many cases causing permanent damage. The Cass report is damning and there's no reason to believe the situation in NZ is any better.
The question is always about choice and informed choice.
I can and did go into the army as a teenager. That was a choice that carried risk.
I have family members that have had grommets for hearing issues. That carries medical risks.
My problem is that I see a number of idiots trying to remove the informed choice to take risk from others. What I want to see is reasons why the state, idiot politicians, or a collection of indignant meddlers have to take decisions for others. So far I don't see any.
Moreover I also can't see any need for society. If parents, teenagers, and adults choose to take informed risks about themselves or their children that have little or no consequences for others – I also can't see any reason to stop them.
That is my issue with this. State why you have the right to remove choices from others. So far all I see is that you want to play god with other peoples genitals without their consent. Crimes act anyone..
This argument is based on a false premise. Medical treatments (as opposed to cosmetic treatments) should and do have different standard for effectiveness and risk than other treatments.
"The question is always about choice and informed choice."
I can see that the issue needs to be broken down into ever smaller pieces for you. In this respect, the Cass Report – alongside the WPATH files – also reveals an issue with "misinformed consent".
(Still awaiting your answer on what other non-pathology get significant and harmful state funded medical and surgical interventions?)
"That is my issue with this. State why you have the right to remove choices from others. So far all I see is that you want to play god with other peoples genitals without their consent. Crimes act anyone.."
I suggest you stop this attempt at redirection, you come across as a flailing idiot in search of an actual argument.
"That is my issue with this. State why you have the right to remove choices from others. So far all I see is that you want to play god with other peoples genitals without their consent. Crimes act anyone.."
I suggest you stop this attempt at redirection, you come across as a flailing idiot in search of an actual argument.
This argument that people concerned about lack of informed consent and lack of options are being concerned about 'genitals' you know 'dirty' etc is a deliberate strawman.
Similar arguments, and the minimisation that goes with these arguments, were advanced several times by this poster on other what I call loosely women and children's issues.
Would he have raised the same arguments around the discusion about the poor service offered to the women in the Unfortunate Experiment….you know focused on genitals and reproductive organs. 'Ick' Genitals and reproductive organs are parts of the human body. The discussion of experiments on them is no less concerning than any other part of the body.
In fact rather than posters acting as god this has been the forte of those involved in the poor biased care being offered to children. Doctors and the like.
I mentioned yesterday that some parents also have, in giving their consent to irreversible medical 'experiments' on their children, when commonsense & watchful waiting or treatement that did not involve irreverseability,may have suggested otherwise. Parents led by the nose to a service that presented two options only. Parents who in giving their consent for their minor children who were acting as God or 'in loco Deus' as I said.
This isn't about removing people's right to choose anything, the Cass report is an evidence-based medicine review. It's effectively found serious problems with the "informed" part of informed consent and with standards of professional therapy and medical care, and that children and young adults are being harmed as a result.
There is a difference. These kids are being transitioned when they are children. they have no idea of the possible longterm costs such as infertility and lack of sexual function. They and their parents are told untreated they will commit suicide.
I have met three young women who have detranstioned from being 'male'. Each regrets this and each bears the costs with courage. I have heard on a couple of occassions of other girls who in early adulthood are deeply depressed and won't leave their rooms because the shame of having made a wrong decision. Are the medics who gave them testosterone interested? Compassionate? When kids stop being glitter kids their peers bully them mercilessly and their doctors lose interest very quickly. I transcribed this from the video diary of a fourth young woman who provided her coming out story on Youtube. She had a trainee psychologist, an authority figure who put into her mind the idea that she was trans. She had never heard of it and thought it glamorous. And at the next appointment she told the psych that yes, she was transgender. She had a mastectomy at 18 after puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.
I effectively went from being a little girl to a teenage boy pretty much overnight. It was the first 10 weeks of high school that I transitioned to male. It just blows my mind actually that I was allowed to do this. And I was endorsed to do this … by medical professionals. They were the ones who put this in my mind; told me this was possible; and supported me. They never gave me enough push back to say ‘are there other issues’? They knew I was going through therapy and I was very open about the fact that I had been the victim of domestic violence and abuse by men. And they knew that I had trauma about men being abusive towards women in my life and also me and my family. They knew that I had issues in my life. I was self-harming. I was depressed. I had so many issues and instead of trying to figure those out first they just slapped this label of trans on me and sent me off on my way to transtion. Looking back I do think that was abusive in a way – to send a child, a literal child, I was 13 years old I was barely a teenager. …. I had this idea put in my mind and I don’t blame myself. At the start of my detransition I blamed myself a lot. I felt stupid. I felt I did this to myself. But now I don’t. You know. I’ve heard a lot of stories of other detransitioned women like me – who felt that they were pressured by medical professionals to continue down this road. This is the fault of the system that we have at the moment with trans kids. I was experiencing gender dysphoria but it wasn’t because I was trans – it was because I felt safer in a male body. And I was vulnerable and I was hurting.
New Zealand, and particularly the Greens, need to square up to this. I supported the Greens for the best part of 20 years, my entire adult life, because I regarded them as the party of science and evidence-based policy. They aggressively abandoned those principles as soon as this became politically and ideologically convenient, throwing longtime members and supporters under the bus in doing so. Absent accountability and a thorough cleanout, I will not trust them again.
I alternated between Greens and Labour, and had a lot of respect for the older Green MPs. I'm very disillusioned with the current state of affairs, and will not support them with my vote.
I posted this on Open Mike, rather than Wekas excellent article on the Cass report.
I realize it may give shifted there, but this is information I wanted to draw to the attention of the wider Standard audience.
Both Patha (the Professional Assn Transgender Healthcare Aotearoa) and Inside Out have come out against the Cass Review,This very thorough article responds to Patha's, IO criticisms and shows they are spinning misleading at best, lying at worse.
The Universtity of York conducted a comprehensive review of clinical guidelines available across a range of countries. They critiqued the guidelines based on a number of measures. Only two sets of guidelines met a high enough standard, Finland and Sweden. Patha can second to last. Patha are now completely discredited.
While not supporting every action of every trans rights activist, I would tend to count myself as an ally (observer status only) in many of their causes. My current views have much to do with my two (now young adult) niblings (both doing well), and my initial lack of support and understanding – notably a botched effort to deter the older nibling from venturing too early (for me) and too far along their unconventional gender identity path.
Still think that, on balance, it's better to delay/withhold most/all irreversible interventions for as long as possible, but some youngsters seem to know their own minds, and can be quite determined – as it was, and ever will be.
For interest, there has been some criticism of the Cass report – believe it or not.
Dr Cass, appeasement might get you through this short-term discomfort in the media spotlight, but please remember: it isn’t your healthcare, your rights or your everyday dignity they are trying to take away.
Immediately after the release of the Cass Review, experts in transgender healthcare from around the world voiced their opposition to its findings. Dr. Portia Predny, Vice President of the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health, criticized the findings and recommendations as “at odds with the current evidence base, expert consensus, and the majority of clinical guidelines worldwide.” Similarly, a statement from the Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa condemned the review, noting, “The Review commissioned several systematic reviews into gender-affirming care by the University of York, but appears to have ignored a significant number of studies demonstrating the benefits of gender-affirming care. In one review, 101 out of 103 studies were dismissed.”
Sorry if you are having trouble with link. That could be my fault.
The SUFW article goes through what Inside Out, Patha and Dame Sue Bagshall have said in response to the Cass review. It takes there statements and then using Cass's words from the review, shows that their arguements are untrue.
Still think that, on balance, it's better to delay/withhold most/all irreversible interventions for as long as possible, but some youngsters seem to know their own minds, and can be quite determined – as it was, and ever will be.
one of the truly great things about the CR is that it subverts the narrative that children should be allowed to make decisions independently and that everyone else has to support that (the affirmation only approach). She is squarely putting the responsibility back on the shoulders of the adults, especially medical professionals and policy makers.
There is a very big difference between someone who is in their early teens knowing their own minds, and being able to make decisions at that age about becoming a lifelong medical patient with iatrogenic disability. Even more so when those teens are distressed via mental health, abuse, autism and living in a regressive, sexist and homophobic society. And even more so when they are deeply immersed in social media culture that is designed to manipulate them into social media culture.
I am curious, did you read Ritchie, and Keira Bell's stories?
I am curious, did you read Ritchie, and Keira Bell's stories?
No – are they consistent with a belief that "on balance, it's better to delay/withhold most/all irreversible [gender-affirming] interventions for as long as possible"?
I'd prefer that "for as long as possible" not be extended to 'forever', but bans can creep, and morph – in all directions. Watch out Kansas.
State efforts to restrict gender-affirming care are moving beyond trans youth and increasingly focused on patients over the age of 18.
The big picture: Legislators in Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have introduced bills barring health providers from offering care such as hormone treatments or surgery to people as old as 26.
No – would those accounts be consistent with my belief that "on balance, it's better to delay/withhold most/all irreversible [gender-affirming] interventions for as long as possible"?
I don't know, but I would be interested to know. My point here is that if we're not listening to the first hand accounts of what hormone therapy and surgery means in real terms, then we don't have an adequate understanding of what medical transition is. That lack of understanding has implications for politics as well as youth and clinicians.
I follow a lot of detrans people on twitter, it's not like those two stories are rare or outliers.
From that, I have repeatedly heard people saying they weren't given enough information to then give informed consent. No-one can consent to what Ritchie now lives with, so an additional question is have children and their families been lied to?
And I have little doubt that the lobby groups, activists and NGOs have played a big part in the idea that the drugs and surgeries are safe and a better option.
There's also a lot of blather from the reactionary side of the GC movements that obscures good understanding.
So again, this is one of the values of the CR. She's saying we have to have good evidence now.
I'd prefer that "for as long as possible" wasn't extended to 'forever', but bans can creep, and morph – in all directions. Watch out Kansas.
NZ is unlikely to follow US politics imo, and more likely to follow the UK. Because of the structure of our legal and health systems, and because of the cultural differences.
I can't see the rationale for not suspending PB use in gender dysphoria until the research has been done. Equally, affirmation only could be replaced with the kind of holistic models Cass is talking about. And we absolutely need the research on detransition rates and outcomes from current treatment (which was blocked by ideologues in the UK).
Any trans health care in NZ needs to include care for detrans people. Do you see the inherent resistance to that yet?
Yes, that's unlikely, although “it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future” – recall MAGA Muller, not to mention our current pro-gun MPs.
Any trans health care in NZ needs to include care for detrans people. Do you see the inherent resistance to that yet?
"Inherent resistance" to "health care" "for detrans people" "in NZ"? Not seeing it, inherent or otherwise, but that's not evidential.
And I might not be understanding (the point of) the question – there are manifold examples of elective and recommended medical procedures that can have negative outcomes, and that includes deliberately withholding treatment. Health professionals do their best to tidy up, or (in what is, I hope and believe, a small percentage of cases) cover up.
can you point me to NZ healthcare services for detrans people?
No, I can't. Maybe there are no such healthcare services available in NZ. That's certainly possible – we’re a small country, and relatively less well-off (as a whole) than we once were. Seems to me that the pressure/stress on our health services and professionals has been increasing for some time.
are detrans people covered by ACC for their injuries?
I don't know, but hope someone does – maybe case-by-case?
I don’t know either, but I hear rumours that detrans services aren’t available and that ACC won’t cover detransitioners.
My point here is that detrans people exist. We know that some of them have huge regret for the lifelong disabilities they now live with, and some of those disabilities are severe. Please read Ritchie’s story.
The reason there aren’t detrans health services (this is true in other countries) is because acknowledging the existence of detrans people and their needs breaks the covenant of ‘affirmation only’. There is a direct ideological and political conflict between TRA healthcare demands and the needs of detrans people.
Here Owen Jones interviewing Freddy McConnell, mentions the mythical figure of a 1% detrans rate, and FM gives a No Debate response. Afaik no-one knows what th detrans rate is because the research hasn’t been done. In the case of the UK, that’s in part because the adult gender clinics refused to cooperate with the Cass research team (see my post). That’s a medical scandal in its own right. But the 1% figure is used to minimise the existence and needs of detrans people.
Note that TRA healthcare demands probably aren’t what you are talking about. Their demands are a range of things including the idea that anyone who wants hormones and surgery should have them. They are also the ones that have blocked holistic approaches that take into account mental health, abuse, autism, and other approaches.
This is political.
Detrans people are caught in that because when they need medical specialists to help them deal with persistent urogenital pain and dysfunction for instance, there aren’t any. Because of the politics.
But people who haven’t transitioned yet are also caught in those politics. Affirmation only stops us talking about the numbers of lesbian and gay kids going through major body modification when they would otherwise just turn out to be lesbian and gay kids.
As unlikely as it seems that reading Ritchie’s story will alter my view that “on balance, it’s better to delay/withhold most/all irreversible [gender-affirming] interventions for as long as possible“, I will steel myself and give it a go.
Given the variety of healthcare options, and the difference in change and impact dependent on sex, it is hard to grasp the variety of the different aspects that have to be reviewed.
For example: testosterone in women can act as an anti-depressant, can vastly improve energy and libido levels while simultaneously atrophying organs and impacting on fertility, and causing internal pain. Relying only on short-term surveys will capture the patients reports of well-being but not any underlying medical issues.
I'm sorting through bookmarks at the moment, and IIRC, I have a link to a table that goes through the different healthcare options separated by sex. (As expected, the hormonal treatment impacts much more significantly on females, and results are more permanent). I will post here if/when I find it.
quick glance at that and it seems an improvement. Last time I looked at a NZ resource it was basically saying that detrans people are the ones who the evil terfs have convinced aren't trans and if they just had better support they wouldn't want to detransition. Something like that.
My thought is that this should be a time of reflection about medical 'misadventure'. My initial thoughts are that it is similar to The Unfortunate Experiment (Cartwright report)
The Cartwright report looked at capture/unwillingess to 'pot' anyone, dominance of the medical establishment.
One of the good things that came out of the recommendations of this enquiry was the establishment of a series of Ethics Committees throughout NZ.
1 Thinking more about it makes me wonder about the involvement of Ethics Commitees in the setting up of the gender industry in NZ. NZ has around 10 times the number of children on pubery blockers than other similar jurisdictions.
As far as I can see NZ children have no features that would predispose them to being 10 times in need of irreversible medicines than children in other jurisdictions.
I am thinking that having accepted less than stellar research from the UK (some of which was not accepted by Cass), the NZ gender industry has been able to build on this to set up their own clincs without an oversight or need to go to Ethics committees.
2 Bearing in mind that gender dysphoria appears in the DSM-5* it appears that not enough time or money has been devoted to the provision of non chemical or surgical options. This I call watchful waiting and I would couple this with access to long term regualr counselling for both patient and parents.
*A diagnosis for gender dysphoria is included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a manual published by the American Psychiatric Association. The diagnosis was created to help people with gender dysphoria get access to necessary health care and effective treatment. The term focuses on discomfort as the problem, rather than identity.
Health care includes counselling and ties in with the maxim of 'first do no harm' & watchful waiting. In pre teens I read somewhere the most effective 'cure' is puberty ie going through puberty without suppressing drugs or cross sex hormones. Support to get there without drugs etc is what I call watchful waiting.
3 Is this somehow a reflection that society has not in fact accepted that people can be same sex attracted?
'Young confused-about-identity children/teens are often gay.'
The vast majority of young people being put onto irreversible medical pathways are attracted to their own sex.
In 2015, the Tavistock GIDS Service revealed that 30% of male young people attending were attracted to males and 30% attracted to both males and females (i.e. 60% were homosexual or bisexual). Only 30% said they were attracted exclusively to girls.
For female attendees, over 50% were attracted to other females, 20% to both males and females (i.e. 70% were homosexual or bisexual). Only 30% were attracted exclusively to males.
Remember that the UK 2021 census says that only 3.3% of the UK population is lesbian, gay or bisexual. If there was not a problem, we would expect a similar small number of GIDS patients to be LGB. Instead, we can see that LGB people are vastly overrepresented in the young people attending gender identity clinics. GIDS has since stopped publishing any data on the sexual orientation of its patients
Kemi Badenoch said:
Kemi Badenoch: I have evidence gay young people are being told they are transgender
Minister quotes clinicians who believe helping a homosexual child change gender is in effect 'making them straight’
This then leads me to think that despite many western jurisdictions doing their very best to outlaw discrimination, give rights to gay people to live as everyone lives eg marriage etc, not everyone supports this.
In fact it appears to me that some parents would rather their child suffered from irreversible chemical and surgical interventions than accept a child that who is gay. Thus my view that some parents are acting 'in loco deus' my pig Latin for 'standing in the place of god'.
Hence my view that parents are a necessary part of the counselling that should be marshalled to help children with gender dysphoria. Counselling for any type of childrens mental health is under funded in NZ (on the basis of my sister's experience trying to get help for her troubled teen, not gender related). She paid mega bucks to see a psychiatrist herself to initiate the family help the family needed.
4 Is this a case of social contagion or a type of reverse moral panic? Cool, calm researched oriented scholars need toinvestigate this.
Despite the denials and those trying to induce guilt in those who suggest this, this aspect of social contagion is worthy of investigation. We have several instances in recent history eg the McCarthy hearings etc where a witch hunt sought to out wrong thinking people, to the questions that remain during the initial times of the pandemic over the ability of those who set up a moral panic by believing bad actors/ideas on the efficacy of vaccines. This went far beyond the normal questioning etc of the new, anythings. Further back we have witch trials to condemn observant women who did not go along with the prevailing orthodoxy.
5 In the 'olden days' puberty blockers were used to delay what was called precociuos puberty.
Taskforce head Dr Hilary Cass – former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health – recommended a pause on blockers in light of the short and long-term side effects, including menopausal symptoms, weaker bone density and the potential impact on fertility, sexual function and brain development.
It was not known whether blockers really provided time for young people to consider their options – or whether they effectively “locked them in” to a medical pathway, she said.
The report found clinicians were “unable to determine with any certainty” which children and young people would go on to have an enduring trans identity, therefore a medical pathway was not the best way to manage gender-related distress for most.
“For those young people for whom a medical pathway is clinically indicated, it is not enough to provide this without also addressing wider mental health and/or psychosocially challenging problems.”
Shanreagh, this might be slightly off topic, but maybe kinda related. In primary school I was picked up with autism. Much later a Psychiatrist would diagnose me with both ADHD & Autism. I was prescribed Ritalin, my life changed for the better.
In 2018 I was recovering from an accident, I was referred to a psychologist as I wasn't sleeping. The psychologist thought my sleep issues were related to the autism, she then thought it could be masking homosexuality, or transgender issues, but not autism, she didn't think I had ADHD either.
I went back (privately) to the Psychiatrist who I'd seen 10 years prior. He diagnosed PTSD from the accident, along with the lingering effects of concussion, from there I received the correct treatment. Fast forward to today, everything is fine, the only change is that I now take the ADHD & Autism much more seriously.
But its concerning that there has been a push to diagnose autistic children with other issues. My experience is that my social development from being a child, to a teenager, to young adult was slower than for neurotypical children.
Thanks David. You are a very courageous person. The road for people with ADHD/Autism can be hard enough without it being some sort of semi-automatic pathway to gender issues being raised.
And the example about the accident/concussion rings bells with me too. My niece had an accident and concussion was noted. Months later when she was not coping at Uni/training college and mental health deterioration was noted. Thankfully before she was put on some sort of inappropriate regime she went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed the lingering affects of concussion. She has been treated but is not as sharp mentally as she was before the concussion.
The work of those funnelling children into gender clinics and the like seems to me to deny this truism
'when you hear hoofbeats think horses not zebras'
Back in the olden days when you saw/experienced discomfort as a teenager you thought 'growing up can be tough/puberty can be tough' not 'living in the wrong body' or 'gender reassignment'.
Extreme activism on both sides of gender/sexual politics have effectively poisoned the well so that nobody wants to talk about this stuff. I am sick and tired of it. Thank-you Weka for continuing to speak out for reason and compassion and biological reality.
These are nuanced issues that do not translate well to a tweet or a soundbite, and require a bit of reflection and effort to understand.
Punching one another in the face is an admission of failure. Long live democratic debate.
There is only one side of the "debate" that has sought to shut it down. There is only one side that has used violent language as well as actual physical violence to prevent people speaking about how this ideology harms women and vulnerable young people.
Only one side has had to be brave enough to risk their employment, their social standing and their actual physical safety to tell the truth.
'No Debate' and those stealthy figures such as the pharmaceutical industry the Pritzker family and Jon Stryker/Arcus foundation have been working for years on this.
For NZ
Arcus Funding (Us based) helped set up the International Trans Fund – it has been top or near top of the list of sponsors for Gender Minorities Aotearoa for the last few years.Scroll down to the bottom: https://genderminorities.com/
Depends on how you define violence. I define it as doing bodily harm or threatening bodily harm. If it is defined as saying things people don't like and hurting their feelings I guess the both sides argument makes sense.
I tend to agree about the difference. Also, one person's violent language is water off a duck's back to another, so without specifying, none of us know what the other means.
One recent example, I wouldn't call this violent, but it is nasty, was some of Sall Grover's supporters took a social media post from Tickle and turned it into the sweaty balls meme, including selling candles with the meme on it as a fund raiser. While I understand the anger, this crosses a line imo, is counter productive, and is the sign of people who don't care that much about others.
I don't think that is comparable to https://terfisaslur.com/ (actually violent language), but I do think it's not nothing.
What Tickle's doing to Sall Grover is a real test of our integrity, I think. A transsexual replied to a tweet in which I called Tickle a man, pointing out that Tickle's a fellow transsexual, ie has had the surgery and has a birth certificate that says 'female', and it's just nasty to refer to him with male nouns/pronouns. For once, I couldn't agree. I've always considered transsexuals as being different from the porn-addled cross-dressers calling themselves 'transwomen' these days, but I just can't bring myself to feel any goodwill towards Mr Tickle.
My sympathy over the sweaty balls stuff diminishes rapidly when I think about the fact that he is basically trying to establish that women don't exist as a sex class.
The sweaty balls stuff is about what it does to us. It changes the landscape of what is acceptable. I don't find it hard to see how such a thing can be done to women (is done to women). Why would we sanction that?
It was also a strategic blunder on SG's part of not have distanced herself from it.
Hard agree about the integrity test. I'm biting my tongue more atm than most other times. Most days I also want to ask if it's ok yet to call NACTF a bunch of c*nts, so it's not like I don't understand what it's like to be that politicallly angry.
It's not the GC feminists themselves that are causing trouble and strife on the GC side, but some of the more excitable and unstable religious conservatives inserting themselves into these issues and stoking a culture war for their own political ends.
Examples: phobia against gender non conforming people is a real problem, but tolerance shouldn't be taken to a ridiculous extreme of sacrificing the needs of women and girls.
The Guardian article is a wealth of random occurrences. I don't doubt that a group of Proud Boys may have " interrupted a drag queen event in California, intimidating parents and children and screaming transphobic and homophobic insults. ". However, I consider women responsible for that as much as I consider unassociated men responsible for the regular abuse that women's rights events across the globe.
Quoted in the article is GLAAD – an organisation that created and maintains a list of non-believers, as mentioned below:
"The GLAAD Accountability Project monitors and documents individual public figures and groups using their platforms to spread misinformation and false rhetoric against LGBTQ people, youth, and allies. Some groups have misleading names inferring unwarranted expertise or credibility, when their main focus is advocating against LGBTQ people, and some claiming to be grassroots efforts have ties to national organizations with long histories opposing LGBTQ Americans."
I've read surveys consider violence to be correctly sexing someone, or challenging their use of opposite sex spaces etc. It is also apparent when looking at injuries or death figures, that the inclusion of sex workers in third world countries make up a majority percentage of victims. Female sex workers in those countries also suffer the same level of violence, injury and death.
The reason I am being pedantic about this, is that while women have to defend themselves against unearned smears, they are kept from talking about the things that matter to them.
It is an effective tool for silencing or wearing people down.
I would be more careful with my bedfellows. Cosying up with conservative right-wing outlets like NRO and FT might be fun initially but their mission is far from liberal
I think this dismissing of "cosying up with conservative right wing outlets"has been another way of shutting down debate.
Some GC women used any Platform they could to try and get their message out, because the media (particularly in this country) shut down voices sounding the alarm. The newshub report on TVthree when they showed Posie Parker adjusting the zipper on her jersy (and they blacked it out) claimed that she was giving a white supremiscist signal. This shameful misrepresentation again marginalized and silenced many women who were trying to raise the alarm.
And yes, I agree with Visu who stated the fact that there is only one side who punched the other side in the face. And no condemnation from Marama Davison when asked about this
So what exactly are you suggesting roblogic? Gender-critical feminists shouldn't oppose transgender ideology because social conservatives also oppose it?
I think know who I sit with Joe 90. It is the side that has been called bigots, transphobes and even Nazis and I have stuck with this side because I know I am none of those things and neither are the vast majority of GC women.
Isn't it about time you faced up to the fact that you have cheered on the side that have insisted on gender affirming care that has all but been discredited by the Cass report? And that what has happened to young, gender confused kids is nothing short of a medical scandal?
I have been asked to respond to your comment Joe 90, so I will. When I clicked on your link it was an article that if you sit at a table with Nazis you are a Nazi. I didn't see any examples of GC Nazis there. Your arguement is guilt by association, but you fail to mention who the associates are. Who are the Nazis in the GC movement? It will not surprize you to know I have extensive networks in this movement and I haven't come across any Nazis. There are certainly some people, such as extreme christian groups I share virtually nothing in common with. But I completely capable of discerning that.
I think Joe90 you will find it very difficult to face that you have championed a cause that has turned out to be quite harmful. Or at least it is my impression that you have championed a cause.
Are you saying Joe 90 that you haven't been an advocate for gender ideology and trans health care? If that is the case i.e that you haven't then that is good.
Btw, I only said it was my impression, I didn't claim it as a fact.
And I would appreciate it if you didn't tell me to stfu. I find that a little bit abusive to be honest.
But for a bit of light relief, you may find James Dreyfus's tweet today enjoyable, discussing this very acronym:
I’ve been on this site for 10 years. 10 years. And in all that time, I never understood what STFU really meant. I always thought it was a shortened version of Stuff You! Today, I finally figured it out…
Give me a heads up if you do. I'll be your first follower.
I've got to admit I fought against having to resort to social media, so my account is basically to get information re gender ideology. However, that has meant that I follow a LOT of middle-aged women, whose style of humour is very appealing.
get one today, because if they haven't already, twitter are about to introduce fees for new accounts. Which means an end to most new truly pseudonymous accounts.
You overstate the case joe90. All I was suggesting was not to jump into right wing conspiracies, which is where this debate can lead if it's not carefully focussed on medical outcomes and fairness for women.
Sites like reduxx and gaysagainstgroomers that focus heavily on demonising gender nonconformists and fringe communities. Pizzagate is probably the most famous example
Reduxx is not a right-wing site that promotes violence. They are a group of female writers posting on matters to do with women’s rights, and violence AGAINST women and girls.
I can only find GaysAgainstGroomers as a social media handle, and AFAIK they are a loosely affiliated group via those platforms.
Did a search on Reduxx for "Pizzagate" and came up with nothing.
These are disconnected from the commentators on this site.
Roblogic was supporting us GCFs (and his own GC position) long before you were on the scene. Settle down eh, and maybe have a conversation without accusation.
Some people who should know better, have failed to denounce the violence at Albert Park. That signals a deplorable lack of willingness to engage in good faith.
For example, apart from the multiple cancellation events, there have been numerous lists circulating that single out individuals and organisations for censure (and provide details for targettted harassment)
I am unaware of any such lists being created, circulated and used by middle-aged women, and would appreciate if you have any links to such. (This is not a half-hearted request, I'm collecting links on this issue ATM).
Shinigami Eyes – Browser plug in which "A browser addon that highlights transphobic and trans-friendly social network pages and users with different colors." https://shinigami-eyes.github.io/
Report a Transphobe – Publicly available Google spreadsheet
BlockTogether – a website that at the time of closing June 16 2020 had the following stats:
303k registered users.
198k users subscribing to at least one list.
4.5k users offering a list, with at least one subscriber.
3.7B actions.
There are numerous other lists – that rise and fall depending on author and exposure.
The one notable example I can find on t'other side, is the Cultblocker list that provides a list of accounts to automatically block to avoid harassment. They do not provide the list of accounts publicly as far as I can determine and I don't know whether it is still current as it used the now defunct BlockTogether referenced above for some data. https://cultblockerpro.wordpress.com/
Yeah my twitter handle is on one of those stupid lists.
We can see from the antics of Destiny Church (vs rainbow crossings and drag storytime), that there are a significant numbers of people who feel their values are being trampled by the LGBTQ+ movement and its quasi religious hegemonic tendencies, and are willing to take action.
There are much more extreme and violent examples overseas.
I find that I am unwilling to apologise for the actions of others – particularly men with whom I have no relationship, and absolutely no influence.
I consider their painting of the rainbow crossing to be an action that I wouldn't personally take – but also consider the original painting of the crossing to be an expenditure I do not support.
(I do have real concerns about painting rainbows on a road that might attract children to run onto it. It makes no logical sense to me.)
About taking responsibility for a lone gunman in the States. Whereas in NZ the Greens attended Albert Park and they failed to condemn the violence against the women there.
I also agree about Rainbow crossings, particularly as I live in Wellington. Please fix our pipes.
But also the Rainbow flag, crossing etc appears to have been colonised by the TQ. A lot of lesbian women I know now hate the Rainbow Flag which is sad
About taking responsibility for a lone gunman in the States. Whereas in NZ the Greens attended Albert Park and they failed to condemn the violence against the women there.
I also agree about Rainbow crossings, particularly as I live in Wellington. Please fix our pipes.
But also the Rainbow flag, crossing etc appears to have been colonised by the TQ. A lot of lesbian women I know now hate the Rainbow Flag which is sad
The inference that women here are culpable for that man's behaviour in any way is not one I will accept. It was a horrific incident, in the same way that Bondi Junction was a horrific incident. The person responsible is the one who wielded the weapon, unless some connection can be made to others persuading them to take action in such a murderous way.
National Review: the propaganda arm of a Conservative thinktank
First Things: American Catholic Christian Nationalists
There is a wider agenda here, to get the working class angry about gender theory, instead of much more acute and urgent class injustices that are more mundanely eroding lives and the wellbeing of entire nations.
I don't purity test sites before reading. I check out information provided by alternative recognisable sites. Shanreagh's linked article on the National Review was mostly a copy of paste of Jennifer Bilek's work. She has her own blog where the information may be more palatable to you.
I am also aware that left-wing journalists were hounded from their left-wing publications for wanting to write on this issue. Suzanne Moore from the Guardian is one that comes to mind. Conservative platforms do not appear to suffer from the same groupthink.
I see the First Things link goes to another full reprint of a Bilek article.
It'd be better for discussion if you critiqued the content.
Ok I haven't read the link tbf Roblogic, but for goodness sake! Does it not occur to you that maybe the working class are able to think for themselves and feel geniunely angry about gender ideology and its imposition on them and their kids. Maybe those working class parents see the crap their kids are being taught for themselves and get it all by themselves what a pernious hold this ideology has had on society.
There is a wider agenda here, to get the working class angry about gender theory, instead of much more acute and urgent class injustices that are more mundanely eroding lives and the wellbeing of entire nations.
I might be a bit thick tonight or misreading this.
Correct me if I am wrong but the way I read this is that your thought is that 'people' are using gender to rile the WC when there are much worthier issues to be tackling.
I have left off the 'theory' as I don't think there is much theory involved when 12 year girls and younger see naked men with erect penisesor even flaccid ones in changing rooms or when women are confronted with a man in a public toilet, let alone having sporting options denied them and WC women do actually often play sport.
If by some chance you did mean this then perhaps ponder on the fact that women comprise 51% of most populations and that WC women and others are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.
If I have misread this could you pl rewrite it so it is less confusing
Sorry I was not. I was posting an old article by Jennifer Bilek reported in First Things which shock horror is some sort of Christian magazine.
If you had read my post you will have noted it was about who and when we were being warned about these wealthy males & their companies behind the trans movement. Bilek was one who warned. Her paper, at the time, was more interesting than who printed it.
Now of course the 'who' published and 'why only they' published is interesting too. Most of us would have thought that our support ie for women's rights to sport/safe spaces would have come from the left. We (women) were of course wrong about this.
I had no idea what the initials were in your post NRO or FT so ignored it but now realise now that FT apparently stands for 'First Things.'
As a woman I actually support the views against Drags in libraries both from a taste/exposure point of view and because I think it is a waste of money for Councils in these straitened times to be paying for this. Opportunities exist for parents keen to go with their children to these events for them to book and pay for them.
Again on the crossings as it was a political act to place them there in the first place the painting over is also a political act. As a political act the rainbow crossings have served their purpose and many people now are just sick of the sight of rainbow anythings.
Many trans advocacy groups appear to be cautiously welcoming these recommendations. However, there are many who are not and have quickly tried to condemn the review. Within almost hours, “press releases“, tweets and commentaries tried to rubbish the report and included statements that were simply not true. An angry letter from many “academics”, including Andrew Wakefield, has been published. These myths have been subsequently spreading like wildfire.
Four myths so far examined, explained and rebutted
1 Myth 1: 98% of all studies in this area were ignored
2 Myth 2: Cass recommended no Trans Healthcare for Under 25s.
3 Myth 3: Cass is demanding only Double Blind Randomised Controlled Trials be used as evidence in “Trans Healthcare”.
4 Myth 4: There were less than 10 detransitioners out of 3499 patients in the Cass study.
The author has said they will be adding as further myths are publicised.
Here is the second tranche of rebuttal on the myths on the Cass Review. This is done by an organisation call Quackometer. NB I have not purity tested the organisation but the work done seems level headed and fair.
One of the interesting things about this comment thread:
Women – biologically sexed, are commenting in good faith and highlighting the actual and real concerns.
Men – as usual, not affected by the encroachment onto women’s spaces by men wanting to be women, continue to punch down on biologically sexed women by all but characterising their views as histrionic or ridiculous.
I thought the importance of this study was the concern over whether the choice to transition is being properly informed or is resulting in desirable health outcomes?
Or perhaps it's just another attempt at finding ammunition for TERF's to further alienate a group of people who already experience exclusion from our wider society?
The former would be more believable if you'd continued to feign concern about trans people's wellbeing and kept the ulterior motive quiet.
[terf is routinely used as a slur against women, often in misogynistic ways including violence and sexual violence online. It’s also a highly inaccurate and misleading label. I moderate its use on TS. Please find other language if you want to comment further – weka]
"Or perhaps it's just another attempt at finding ammunition for TERF's to further alienate a group of people who already experience exclusion from our wider society?"
I suspect those you would call TERFs, are the ones who are most accepting of diversity of people in society. What they don't do is comply with demands to lie about reality, nor be quiet about the impacts of legislative or policy changes.
As one of those you would call a TERF (I have my own words associated with that ACRONYM so it's not a problem), I consider it interesting to observe the implicit and sustained rejection by men of other men in their sex category that don't meet their expectations of what a man is.
"I consider it interesting to observe the implicit and sustained rejection by men of other men in their sex category that don't meet their expectations of what a man is."
Oh boy do I feel this. Toxic masculinity is a minefield. You ride an e-scooter once in you're life and all of a sudden you're not a viable candidate for propagating the human race.
To clarify; I'm a straight white man. I can only speak to the experiences detailed to me by friends and family. Some of them being trans. Some met before or after their transition, and some electing not to transition and instead presenting themselves as their gender identity (cause hormones and surgery are scary.) I'm someone that's just trying to make the best sense of things and be accommodating to them.
Where I get upset is the insinuation of it being an elaborate ruse to allow "fake women" to invade women's spaces.
The clarification above means no, I can't truly experience the impact of a masculine face in a women's restroom. People look behind their backs at me nervously on dark nights if we're coincidentally heading the same direction (which leaves me feeling like a monster, but I get it.)
But I do have friends who have transitioned, and I don't like hearing them being lumped in with deviants and perverts. And I see a lot of the research akin to flat earthers trying to find evidence, not in a pursuit of truth but to confirm what they already believe to be true. And their truth belittles my friends.
Shanreagh's response is good, I need more time to digest that. That's fair, medical research needs a (gender) critical eye keeping watch. But comment's like James'? That's just cruel and divisive.
What’s cruel and divisive is that the problems with the no-debate crowd have long been raised by very brave biologically sexed women and females has resulted in perjorative slurs being developed and thrown at those biologically sexed women and females simply because “no debate” was the aim.
as a homosexual male, I think its extremely important to let adult human females have their agency of female spaces and voice their concerns around the safety of those spaces, along with their (proven) concerns of the medical establishment, at the behest of the “no debate” crowd rushing to put very young children on a wide array of drugs simply because the child appears to show an inclination for a gender preference that is other than their biological sex.
Then along come the (largely) straight males shouting (and punching) down the adult human females and ridiculing them and calling them slurs.
as far as I am concerned, the division hasn’t been fomented by adult human females, but by the likes of Shaneel Lal, and other trans rights activists.
My thanks also, James, for your thoughtful insight and understanding – and very clear expression of the situation many biological females such as myself find ourselves in.
a flaw in your argument is the absence of acknowledgement of AGPs. Once that is factored in, the whole analysis changes.
The concept of "gender identity" was not imposed on women by men, it was an ideological concept designed to include all despite difference.
My first knowledge of the problem was in the 90s, with two events. One was the challenge by transsexual males to the women-only policy at Mitchfest. The other was a similar challenge to Vancouver Rape Relief. Both organisations tried to accommodate trans women, it didn't work. Because what those TW wanted was to colonise women's spaces.
VRR survived, Mitchfest didn't.
So yeah, GI has always been imposed on women be men.
Further, in the more recent iteration, it's has largely been men harassing and abusing women who speak out. Men speaking out don't get the same kind or level of abuse, although some of them get the same kind of cancellation.
Shaneel Lal is a non binary young person who inherited gender identity culture – because he did not conform to cis gender male stereotype.
But he wants to enforce gender stereotypes and roles on women. He's also one of the ones that abuses women who speak out. New misogyny same as the old.
The final report is a carefully worded document designed particularly for the systems of power in charge of child health, wellbeing and safeguarding: health systems and their managers, medical practitioners and their professional bodies, MPs and government departments, and NGOs.
It’s also a damning indictment of the poorly evidence medical experiment that has been done on gender non-conforming children in the past decade. It’s likely to be the biggest medical scandal many of us will see.
Above from Weka's opening paragraphs.
Both the report and Weka's post cover both aspects of the Cass Review. We are not going to get anywhere by allowing poor- and ideology-based factors to govern the health access we give to children who are struggling with mental health issues. This why many of the responses do focus on the so-called evidence for doing these irreversible actions.
The reason is so that the care we (as a society) give is the best and most evidence based care we can provide.
We all bring our own experiences and many women of an age will bring experiences that were also poor. Some suffered needlessly/others died prematurely as a result of Drs' actions as documented in the Unfortunate Experiment here in NZ.
We lived through times when women who had contraception failure had to fly to Aus for abortions, when there were blatant shortages of certifying consultants who were not fronts for anti abortion campaigners, times when searching for a new Dr in a new city you went to look at a file called the 'Hot & cold Drs' file before making a decision. This file had notes of women's experiences with Drs in a large town or city so you knew who to avoid. Rural people or some smaller towns, sorry, you just had to take who had decided to put out their shingle there.
Like the NHS gender clinics the Unfortunate Experiment occured at a publicly funded provided organisation. In some cases this means there is no choice as many cannot afford to go privately.
So forgive us/them if this shocking care for the trans community just seems like a re-run of what has gone before of systemic wrongs being allowed to flourish. The patient is at the very end of much poor quality care just as they were in earlier times.
Of course getting better care will mean a lessening, hopefully, of irreversible chemical 'treatment' and surgery in gender non-conforming children in the UK. It will also mean a greater need for counselling & support in the UK. If the same pattern about funding for counselling out in the community applies to the UK as it does in NZ, ie hopeless access, then I feel we are right to continue to point this out.
You may think that this forewarning or harking back to similar failings means we do not care. No in fact we do care and that is why the Cass Review is making many women hopping mad, quite apart from the justifcation/I told you so feelings.
The fact that:
no records are kept, or none that the clinics wanted to share with Cass,
there was a one eyed one track to either prescriptions (puberty blockers then cross sex hormones) or surgery
the lack of access to long term counselling
All of these are distressingly familiar to women who are responsible in many cases for their own health/wellness as well as being the most likely to be taking children to health professionals. It is also this care for distressed children that has 'lead some parents by the nose' to a situation where chemicals and/or surgery are presented as TINA options.
Dropping the puberty blockers are "safe and fully reversible" links here. Please add if you have any.
The MoH's advice 20/12/17
Transgender New Zealanders: Children and young people
…
Puberty blockers
For young people where these feelings continue into puberty or emerge during puberty, particularly if associated with distress, it is important to see a health professional. Puberty blockers are a medication that can be used to halt the physical changes of an unwanted puberty.
Blockers are a safe and fully reversible medicine that may be used from early puberty through to later adolescence to help ease distress and allow time to fully explore gender health options.
Service providers that can help access blockers include:
Sue Bagshaw has defended the use of puberty blockers .Her clinic prescribes them at a rate that exceeds th UK ….65% of children who present with gender distress are put on puberty blockers.
How much of that is because of our woeful mental health provision?
If you're going to say 'let's not use them' [puberty blockers], we're going to have redouble our efforts to ensure the mental health of transgender diverse young people is looked after," Bagshaw said.
"And at the moment, it's not."
Offering psycho-social support as first-line treatment for gender dysphoria in young people was challenging, she said.
"It's actually quite difficult to help them to understand that they're being listened to without doing something, and that's the nature of brain development and it's also the nature of short appointment times."
Psychological interventions were also expensive, she said.
I have just watched this documentary. It is called The Lost Boys – searching for Manhood. It follows several detransitioners and desisters (you'll hear the difference in the documentary) This is a sad gentle film.
'These 5 young men walked the path of finding their true selves. Their stories will shape how you see the trans movement.'
Released 23/1/24 by the Centre for Bioethics and Culture.
This is being released at public showings in London where the same secrecy is being followed as with the films about ‘What is a Woman’. Dates put up, times put up, general location put up but exact one will be released very close to the starting time. They are expecting protesters. those who follow MrMenno on X will not be surprised that he is taking a lead role in getting this out to the public.
I was born in 1957. I have a confession, I was a jealous seven year old, jealous of boys with cap guns. If we allow this stereotyped theory to continue regarding gender would it be that in 2034 if I were a seven year old, would my lust for cap guns see me transitioned? I fear it might because as far as I can see, transgender theory is all about female and male stereotypes which many of us fought against from the seventies. Women must be hyper feminine and men hypermasculine that is the message this retrograde ideology gives to me and defenders can dress it up all they like…our most vulnerable youth have been used in this social experiment, those who are gay, lesbian, or autistic..one truly has too question the motivations of those who created it. In fact we have read the back stories of so called pioneer sex change theorists and it is grubby reading. I do not trust an historic history like that to guide how we support our most vulnerable youth.
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TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
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Execellent article. Thanks so much Weka. Very comprehensive.
This is a watershed moment in the fight against the imposition of gender ideology in medicine. It is a scandal!
This article is about the shut down of dissenting clinicians who had concerns about giving these drugs to troubled children and adolescence.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/12/this-isnt-how-good-scientific-debate-happens-academics-on-culture-of-fear-in-gender-medicine-research
Thanks to the Standard for being one of the few platforms in NZ that didn't shut down debate
I second Anker's thanks to The Standard.
I agree with you Anker.
Thanks weka for providing such a clear outline of what needs to be discussed, which can act as a primer for those who want to know more.
I agree with Anker too. Heaps of reading material …
Thanks to Weka and The Standard in its efforts to the why and what is the so called "affirmation model" promoted to children and young adults.
We don't "shut it down". But I sure as hell disagree with virtually all of you who are so damn concerned about this minor issue. Frankly I can't see what so many are so concerned about the genitalia and hormones of others. It is almost pornographic to observe.
Fundamentally I can't see what difference this report makes. But to me the entire 'debate' on this just reeks of bigots trying to tell other people how to live their life. For no apparent reason apart from a desire to meddle in the lives of others for no obvious or apparent reason apart from some kind of moral indignation that other make different choices to the ones that they would take themselves.
It is akin to having adults telling teenagers that they shouldn't be able to deface themselves by poking poke holes into themselves to insert jewellery. Why exactly? In the end there is a damn high probability that they will do it anyway.
Or another one that comes up often through history is that people under the age of X shouldn't be able to get tattoos just in case they change their mind in later life. FFS: it is their damn choice to make. It is also their choice to take the risk of regret.
Basically this is just feels like another instance of a witchfinder or Mrs Grundy trying to tell people how to live their lives and how they should all be as they'd prefer. I really just despise meddlers who think like that. The whisperers in corners talking about others and ultimately throwing then on pyres for imagined offences against 'nature'.
I'd get interested if there were evident instances of coercion in forcing others to do these procedures. But reading though this morass of commentary of data I can't see any mention of that actually happening.
What I see is that people frequently having regret about their own choices. Some from not getting the emotional or bodily effect that they felt they should have gotten. Some at suffering the short end of the risks of the procedures that they decided to take.
How exactly is this different from something like plastic surgery. Or body building. Or steroid misuse. PTSD from voluntarily being in a dangerous profession like military, firefighting or whatever. Or deciding to try addictive drugs..
There are whole TV shows or docos about regrets from some of those.
What I do see in the commentary is some self-righteous arseholes wanting to restrict the choices of others without even proffering reason why they should be sticking the nosy beaks into the debate as they demonise other for their choices. What exactly is their interest. What motivates it. And why in the hell do they care at all? It has been noticeable that few of the most enthused at pillorying gendered fluid have ever bothered to explain why they find them so terrifying. Instead, they endlessly pull up singleton examples of arseholes who happen to be gender fluid across the world, usually the same ones over and over again to express their terror.
Let me make this absolutely clear. I don't know of a single person who hasn't subsequently regretted some of the choices that they have made in their life. I know that I do, both when I was a teenager and for many other decisions I made in later life.
But in the end there are only a few reasons why society should get involved in the personal decisions that people make. Most of them are related to harm to others like assault/rape/theft/etc and are individual criminal acts, and some related to harm to society – like destroying common property/fraud/inciting riots/hooking people on addictive drugs for profit/etc.
I can't see any of this in what has been described. I can just see the shadow of people like witchfinders, Mrs Grundy and other idiots who want to remove the ability of people to make their own informed decisions. Who cares about people cross-dressing
So far few of the indignant advocates for this particular variation of prohibition have been even remotely convincing. Like prohibition, it appears to be a meaningless gesture. If thinking people want to do something and it doesn't impact significantly on others or on the whole of society – then I can't see a reason to drive it underground. I simply can't see a victim in all of this kerfuffle about gender.
What I see is another stupid debate about toilet gender – where almost all of the pathetic indignation was about a problem that did not exist. Toilet are regulated by densities of people – not gender. Choices about having gendered toilets are made by the owners of facilities fro what they perceive are the wishes of their clientele – not by legislation or prohibition. If you want to change
I'll go and have a look at the detail of Cass report at some point. But from what has been said, it just looks like a scientific study on efficacy of treatments (which require control populations to determine significance). It looks like the studies it was looking at are too few or of too poor a quality to actually draw too many conclusions. It also doesn't appear to have been particularly assiduous at looking at the reverse cases (again required by double blind) by looking at consequences on non-treatment.
Which is always going to a be a weak point because as someone said in the Wikipedia article..
You can't give treatments to those who don't want them. It is unethical. You cannot deny treatments to those who do need them as that is also not ethical. That means it is near impossible statistically hard to build a case for either way.
That really means that to decide if there is a actual problem, the best approach is probably to do what is happening now. Let people make their own decisions about themselves based on the information present at the time, then study it longitudinally.
I should really tidy this comment up and post it to the top of the site…
sighs (in a good way)
Your long reply misrepresents (or misunderstands) concern raised, while simultaneously showing a decided lack of knowledge.
Many who raise concerns are accepting of non-conformity in presentation or personality. They are concerned about significant iatrogenic harm from unnecessary medical interventions.
You mention tattoos.
What tattoos are paid for by the Ministry of Health? Are tattoos associated with decreased bone density, a drop in IQ, loss of libido, connected to a delay or interruption in emotional and psychological maturity? Do those tattoos lead onto more significant body modifications – again paid for by the Ministry of Health – that will reduce or remove fertility, reduce or stop sexual function and enjoyment, and increase the chances of many significant diseases – kidney disease, MS etc. At this point – do the Ministry of Health commit to funding the re-inking of your tattoo until death, as that will be a requirement.
Let's just agree, your comparator was both trivial and poor.
If this is what you call "bigots trying to tell other people how to live their life." then you have very little understanding of what those "bigots" are concerned about, and why they are concerned.
"I'll go and have a look at the detail of Cass report at some point. "
Yes. It is apparent you are riding on reckons in this rant. A bit of reading might do some good.
Are you able to provide any other example of a state of being that is not considered a pathology but DEMANDS and receives significant, expensive and ongoing medical interventions on demand from our health system?
Did you consider that those who witnessed the harm from other ill-evidenced treatments, might be wanting to avoid the same level of harms being visited on those children most vulnerable to this response?
(As for the benefit of single-sex spaces for females – I'll leave that for now. The issue of iatrogenic harm to children is the topic of the day, and you have a mountain of evidence to catch up on.)
I deliberately picked a range of examples that are based on choice specifically for your benefit.
I notice you cherry picked only one example to respond to and ignored all of the others. Kind of hypocritical of you don't you think?
For instance so why shouldn't this be like plastic surgery which I also raised as a matter of personal choice. Mostly done in the private sector outside of reconstructive surgery. I suspect that in your view that also shouldn't be done.
Perhaps you'd like to look at that as the basis of your defence of your views.
Sure, and exactly how does that give you the right to right to impose your views on it on others. Inform if you wish. But to advocate for a prohibition as you seem to be doing is just ridiculous.
Have you read the actual report? Do you you understand the statistical arguments. The statistical reasons to exclude or include studies?
That level of understanding is not apparent in your comments. What I can see from your writing on it is that you are relying on the interpretations and opinions of others. I simply can't see a high degree of understanding evident in your commentary. I suspect you are simply being implicitly dishonest in that statement as well because you are holding someone else to standard that you'd fail yourself.
"For instance so why shouldn't this be like plastic surgery which I also raised as a matter of personal choice. Mostly done in the private sector outside of reconstructive surgery."
Plastic surgery – when it relates to cosmetic surgery – is another poor comparator. The Ministry of Health does not fund or provide this on demand. ACC would be unwilling to fund revision procedures or required medications arising from unintended or unwanted outcomes from plastic surgery.
"I suspect that in your view that also shouldn't be done."
Suspicion unfounded. Unless you were talking about cosmetic surgery for children, in which case I would expect there to be quite high restrictions, mostly reliant on whether there is an underlying condition or not – eg. cleft palate.
"Have you read the actual report? Do you you understand the statistical arguments. The statistical reasons to exclude or include studies?
That level of understanding is not apparent in your comments. What I can see from your writing on it is that you are relying on the interpretations and opinions of others. "
Oh, Hello Pot.
No, I haven't yet read the full report (just a visit to the website) – as I have to get down to Warehouse Stationery to print it out – hardcopies being my preference. I actually have issues with some of what I have read, but they are trivial compared to the iatrogenic harm currently happening to children.
I HAVE, however, read many of the documents relating to WPATH SoC – both 7 and 8, The Endocrinology Society, the AAAP which form the basis for gender affirmative care. I have read the DSM-5 articles relating to the diagnosis. I have read the studies produced by the likes of Jack Turban et al, and the systematic reviews produced by Sweden. Occasionally, I read a random study from a list. I have also listened to the testimonies of clinicians, researchers, whistleblowers and patients from gender clinics. I have also had the edifying experience of being on a hormone blocker for several years now, and have spoken with others on the same medication about the significant impacts this has on their lives, function and well-being.
I have taken every opportunity to stay informed over the last few years, and did not require the Cass report to support my current position which is based on acquired knowledge.
"I simply can't see a high degree of understanding evident in your commentary. I suspect you are simply being implicitly dishonest in that statement as well because you are holding someone else to standard that you'd fail yourself."
I honestly don't care about your opinion of me, and am not writing my comment as a thesis for you. In fact, due to experience on this site, and observation of your exchanges – I would consider it a waste of time – so I challenge your comparators in the same patient way I would with a novice whose knowledge is limited, and so they approach it with glib comparators and misunderstandings. It's a initial untangling of the ball of ignorance, rather than knitting the full jumper – if you get my drift.
Besides, people – including myself – have provided numerous links in this thread, and over the years for those whose interest is peaked to get started. Everyone has their own method of investigation and research. I suggest you do what you keep saying – I'll go and have a look at the detail of Cass report at some point – and start playing catch up.
At this point, I'm comfortable waiting, you've got a lot to do.
Molly has responded to you Lynn and I agree with all her points.
Quoting Portia Predny from Apath shows how little you have read on this thread. I posted above about research from the University of York. The Cass Review got the University of York to conduct a rigorous evidenced based study of the various transgender healthcare guidelines across regions and countries. This research included the Australian guidelines as well as New Zealand. Their research found that out of 21 guidelines studied all bar two fell well below acceptable standards. The only two standards that were of an acceptable level were Sweden's and Finlands. So organisations like Apath and New Zealand's Patha have been completely discredited.
Part of Cass's remit was to run research as part of the review. The team were supposed to gather data from the adult gender clinics of people that had transitioned as teens.
So that the effectiveness of the model of care used in the past decade/s could be assessed.
Because GIDS at Tavistock had failed to keep records or track the outcomes of its patients. That's one of the reasons why the government set up the review.
Nearly all of adult gender clinics refused to co-operate with the review, and withheld data.
The clinics have now been told to hand the data over. They are also now going to be formally reviewed.
https://archive.is/Sk03a#selection-2733.0-2749.207
Ok. So that is a purely bureaucratic issue in another nation. Sloppy. Hardly earth shattering.
However that has nothing to do with anything outside of the NHS. Here is just means that the reporting provisions for similar centres should be reviewed. Just as happens in areas like oncology, pharmac, etc etc
It has absolutely nothing much to do with
The other side of that is nothing in the review about saying that there isn't a need to provide services that have been provided by the GIDS. In fact there is a recommendation that they continue.
You wouldn't know that is the case from many of the comments here or offshore. What I see is a whole pile of people trying to play god over the choices of others and doing it in a total reprehensible way with distortions of "what this review means".
And that is before I get time to have a peek into the actual report.
one of the great things about the CR is that it is centred around the health needs of gender dysphoric children. The debate is polarised, but she treads a very good middle ground without losing sight of the child safeguarding issues.
Yes, she is talking about the need for continued provision of services. Of course 🤷♀️ She talked about it in the interim review as well, including when GIDS was being closed. It's been a key part of the whole thing.
It's mentioned in the post, where I quote the piece about holistic services. What that means is stopping using the affirmation only model that says children must be affirmed in the gender they profess and treatments follow that and only that, and instead do all the things that used to be considered standard for distressed children and youth: mental health assessments, taking into account abuse histories, checking of undiagnosed autism and considering that many kids will grow out of their gender ID and settle into being lesbian and gay instead.
All of that has been discussed for a long time in many countries, including NZ. The reason not many people know about the issues is because No Debate has suppressed public discussion. We don't have good reporting on this in NZ.
One of the reasons I am writing these posts is to present the resources that people can use to inform themselves without having to wade through all the polarised fights. And secondarily, to provide a space on TS that will allow people to work through the issues without the vitriol and evidence free reckons that is happening elsewhere.
lprent, apologies for the previous comment, which weka quite rightly moved to Open Mike.
Here are some of the studies I've read recently – am currently going through my Bookmarks for another reason – that form SOME of the basis for my position and current understanding:
Development of Gender Non-Contentedness During Adolescence and Early Adulthood – February 2024: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-024-02817-5
Reduction in Mental Health Treatment Utilization Among Transgender Individuals After Gender-Affirming Surgeries: A Total Population Study: 2019 https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010080
The follow-up to the above 2020 https://segm.org/ajp_correction_2020
I'll leave it there, because I don't want the number of links to trigger off moderation, although I have many more. From those that support my current understanding, and also from those that advocate for affirmation only care – including not just acceptance of self-diagnosis, but immediate and significant medical and surgical treatment.
Well, no. The point here is why the adult gender clinics refused to share the data. It's an ideological issue and not a bureaucratic one. And it applies in NZ as well, where clinicians are afraid to speak out because of fear for their jobs and careers.
The studies the Cass report looked at Lynn was extensive, but the quality of the studies was poor. These drugs have been prescribed to children off label.The evidence isn’t there. That's why Cass (a senior Paediatrian) concluded that the evidence to support the benefits of puberty blockers was weak and the risks, including long term ones were uncertain. That is why they have been banned in the UK for under 18 year old. Because there has been no adequate research conducted on these drugs for gender dysphoric youth. In other words there use has been experiemental. They have been experimenting on children. Tell me you think that is o.k.?
Cass has recommended that puberty blockers should only be prescribed to people under the age of 18 as part of a rigourousresearch study which needs high levels of ethical consent which the design is likely RCT.
The studies were poor for both views.
From what I see in the studies is that there isn't evidence one way or another. Finding that some people have regret about their decisions simply isn't unexpected and is their choice if they are informed about the risks.
What I don't see is much evidence that any of the procedures are inherently life-threatening or cause harm to society.
So why exactly do you want to take informed choices away from people who are willing to take the risks for themselves.
A wish to arbitrarily interfere in other peoples lives? Explain who made you the arbiter for other peoples choices.
The more pertinent question is why are people saying 12 year olds can't give informed consent to puberty blockers.
Following from that, why it took whistleblowers at Tavistock and ex-patients going to court to be able to even get the question looked at seriously.
This is why the Cass Review happened. Puberty blockers are now banned for that use because they were being used off label by clinicians in organisations that didn't keep adequate records and who blocked investigation multiple times and where many people were afraid to raise concerns.
Pro-transition GOs and clinicians and the NZ MoH all said that PBs were safe and fully reversible. There was no evidence that that was true. Last year the MoH removed the "safe and fully reversible" phrase from its website after members of the public and child safeguarding orgs asked questions and did OIA requests.
The BMJ quoted in the post said,
my bold and italics.
It's unethical to be using drugs on children without clinical trials that support that use. It's unethical to continue to use those drugs on children when there are good reasons to be concerned about the impact of those drugs on brain development and bone density.
You might not see the damage being done, but this is true of many people, and again, the is why the Cass Review was necessary.
correction, MoH changed their website in 2022
https://thestandard.org.nz/the-cass-review-reader-investigations-into-the-treatment-of-gender-dysphoric-children-and-youth/#comment-1996760
Its very simple Lyn. Clinicians have a duty of care. Health treatment isn't like goods and services that consumers are free to purchase (and of course children don't have much power here either as their parents rightly supervise their purchases to some degree).
I haven't made this decision. Dame Hilary Cass after a four year review of gender medicine has. She is a senior paedetrian. She got York Universtiy to undertake research under the most rigourous scientific conditions. Their research found that most advisory groups who set the standards of care, including Patha NZ are sub standard. This is a daming finding. They have completely lost credibility.
You may be confused, thinking that I want to outlaw or ban men who want to present as women from doing so. This is incorrect. They are entitled to do so and I will do what I do with all people I meet, take them as I find them. But by wearing a dress or even having cosmetic surgery, they don't become women. That is scientifically impossible. And like all GC I will fight to ensure that women only spaces are maintained when sex matters.
You do not seem to relize that the Cass review points to a medical scandal of significant.
BTW it is highly debatable that children can give informed consent to these treatements cause their level of cognitive development. Adults can.
Appalling medical misadventures that don't affect us are easily dismissed as a "minor issue." They're not so minor to the people who are affected by them.
We aren't "concerned about the genitalia and hormones of others," we're concerned about alleged medical professionals messing with the genitalia and hormones of children based on no good evidence and in many cases causing permanent damage. The Cass report is damning and there's no reason to believe the situation in NZ is any better.
The question is always about choice and informed choice.
I can and did go into the army as a teenager. That was a choice that carried risk.
I have family members that have had grommets for hearing issues. That carries medical risks.
My problem is that I see a number of idiots trying to remove the informed choice to take risk from others. What I want to see is reasons why the state, idiot politicians, or a collection of indignant meddlers have to take decisions for others. So far I don't see any.
Moreover I also can't see any need for society. If parents, teenagers, and adults choose to take informed risks about themselves or their children that have little or no consequences for others – I also can't see any reason to stop them.
That is my issue with this. State why you have the right to remove choices from others. So far all I see is that you want to play god with other peoples genitals without their consent. Crimes act anyone..
This argument is based on a false premise. Medical treatments (as opposed to cosmetic treatments) should and do have different standard for effectiveness and risk than other treatments.
100% Nic the NZer
"The question is always about choice and informed choice."
I can see that the issue needs to be broken down into ever smaller pieces for you. In this respect, the Cass Report – alongside the WPATH files – also reveals an issue with "misinformed consent".
(Still awaiting your answer on what other non-pathology get significant and harmful state funded medical and surgical interventions?)
"That is my issue with this. State why you have the right to remove choices from others. So far all I see is that you want to play god with other peoples genitals without their consent. Crimes act anyone.."
I suggest you stop this attempt at redirection, you come across as a flailing idiot in search of an actual argument.
This argument that people concerned about lack of informed consent and lack of options are being concerned about 'genitals' you know 'dirty' etc is a deliberate strawman.
Similar arguments, and the minimisation that goes with these arguments, were advanced several times by this poster on other what I call loosely women and children's issues.
Would he have raised the same arguments around the discusion about the poor service offered to the women in the Unfortunate Experiment….you know focused on genitals and reproductive organs. 'Ick' Genitals and reproductive organs are parts of the human body. The discussion of experiments on them is no less concerning than any other part of the body.
In fact rather than posters acting as god this has been the forte of those involved in the poor biased care being offered to children. Doctors and the like.
I mentioned yesterday that some parents also have, in giving their consent to irreversible medical 'experiments' on their children, when commonsense & watchful waiting or treatement that did not involve irreverseability,may have suggested otherwise. Parents led by the nose to a service that presented two options only. Parents who in giving their consent for their minor children who were acting as God or 'in loco Deus' as I said.
This isn't about removing people's right to choose anything, the Cass report is an evidence-based medicine review. It's effectively found serious problems with the "informed" part of informed consent and with standards of professional therapy and medical care, and that children and young adults are being harmed as a result.
There is a difference. These kids are being transitioned when they are children. they have no idea of the possible longterm costs such as infertility and lack of sexual function. They and their parents are told untreated they will commit suicide.
I have met three young women who have detranstioned from being 'male'. Each regrets this and each bears the costs with courage. I have heard on a couple of occassions of other girls who in early adulthood are deeply depressed and won't leave their rooms because the shame of having made a wrong decision. Are the medics who gave them testosterone interested? Compassionate? When kids stop being glitter kids their peers bully them mercilessly and their doctors lose interest very quickly. I transcribed this from the video diary of a fourth young woman who provided her coming out story on Youtube. She had a trainee psychologist, an authority figure who put into her mind the idea that she was trans. She had never heard of it and thought it glamorous. And at the next appointment she told the psych that yes, she was transgender. She had a mastectomy at 18 after puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.
I effectively went from being a little girl to a teenage boy pretty much overnight. It was the first 10 weeks of high school that I transitioned to male. It just blows my mind actually that I was allowed to do this. And I was endorsed to do this … by medical professionals. They were the ones who put this in my mind; told me this was possible; and supported me. They never gave me enough push back to say ‘are there other issues’? They knew I was going through therapy and I was very open about the fact that I had been the victim of domestic violence and abuse by men. And they knew that I had trauma about men being abusive towards women in my life and also me and my family. They knew that I had issues in my life. I was self-harming. I was depressed. I had so many issues and instead of trying to figure those out first they just slapped this label of trans on me and sent me off on my way to transtion. Looking back I do think that was abusive in a way – to send a child, a literal child, I was 13 years old I was barely a teenager. …. I had this idea put in my mind and I don’t blame myself. At the start of my detransition I blamed myself a lot. I felt stupid. I felt I did this to myself. But now I don’t. You know. I’ve heard a lot of stories of other detransitioned women like me – who felt that they were pressured by medical professionals to continue down this road. This is the fault of the system that we have at the moment with trans kids. I was experiencing gender dysphoria but it wasn’t because I was trans – it was because I felt safer in a male body. And I was vulnerable and I was hurting.
she sounds like an amazing young woman.
Agreed, Anker. Thank you, Weka, and The Standard.
New Zealand, and particularly the Greens, need to square up to this. I supported the Greens for the best part of 20 years, my entire adult life, because I regarded them as the party of science and evidence-based policy. They aggressively abandoned those principles as soon as this became politically and ideologically convenient, throwing longtime members and supporters under the bus in doing so. Absent accountability and a thorough cleanout, I will not trust them again.
I alternated between Greens and Labour, and had a lot of respect for the older Green MPs. I'm very disillusioned with the current state of affairs, and will not support them with my vote.
I posted this on Open Mike, rather than Wekas excellent article on the Cass report.
I realize it may give shifted there, but this is information I wanted to draw to the attention of the wider Standard audience.
Both Patha (the Professional Assn Transgender Healthcare Aotearoa) and Inside Out have come out against the Cass Review,This very thorough article responds to Patha's, IO criticisms and shows they are spinning misleading at best, lying at worse.
https://www.speakupforwomen.nz/post/correcting-the-homework
The Universtity of York conducted a comprehensive review of clinical guidelines available across a range of countries. They critiqued the guidelines based on a number of measures. Only two sets of guidelines met a high enough standard, Finland and Sweden. Patha can second to last. Patha are now completely discredited.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38594049/
Ok, I am very sorry I am having trouble copying the link to York University, but will keep trying
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Review
While not supporting every action of every trans rights activist, I would tend to count myself as an ally (observer status only) in many of their causes. My current views have much to do with my two (now young adult) niblings (both doing well), and my initial lack of support and understanding – notably a botched effort to deter the older nibling from venturing too early (for me) and too far along their unconventional gender identity path.
Still think that, on balance, it's better to delay/withhold most/all irreversible interventions for as long as possible, but some youngsters seem to know their own minds, and can be quite determined – as it was, and ever will be.
For interest, there has been some criticism of the Cass report – believe it or not.
Drowsy M Kram, thanks for your comments.
Organisations such as Patha have now been completely discredited.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38594049/
Sorry if you are having trouble with link. That could be my fault.
The SUFW article goes through what Inside Out, Patha and Dame Sue Bagshall have said in response to the Cass review. It takes there statements and then using Cass's words from the review, shows that their arguements are untrue.
one of the truly great things about the CR is that it subverts the narrative that children should be allowed to make decisions independently and that everyone else has to support that (the affirmation only approach). She is squarely putting the responsibility back on the shoulders of the adults, especially medical professionals and policy makers.
There is a very big difference between someone who is in their early teens knowing their own minds, and being able to make decisions at that age about becoming a lifelong medical patient with iatrogenic disability. Even more so when those teens are distressed via mental health, abuse, autism and living in a regressive, sexist and homophobic society. And even more so when they are deeply immersed in social media culture that is designed to manipulate them into social media culture.
I am curious, did you read Ritchie, and Keira Bell's stories?
No – are they consistent with a belief that "on balance, it's better to delay/withhold most/all irreversible [gender-affirming] interventions for as long as possible"?
https://theconversation.com/transgender-regret-research-challenges-narratives-about-gender-affirming-surgeries-220642
https://www.aamc.org/news/states-are-banning-gender-affirming-care-minors-what-does-mean-patients-and-providers
I'd prefer that "for as long as possible" not be extended to 'forever', but bans can creep, and morph – in all directions. Watch out Kansas.
https://reproductiverights.org/maps/abortion-laws-by-state/
I don't know, but I would be interested to know. My point here is that if we're not listening to the first hand accounts of what hormone therapy and surgery means in real terms, then we don't have an adequate understanding of what medical transition is. That lack of understanding has implications for politics as well as youth and clinicians.
I follow a lot of detrans people on twitter, it's not like those two stories are rare or outliers.
From that, I have repeatedly heard people saying they weren't given enough information to then give informed consent. No-one can consent to what Ritchie now lives with, so an additional question is have children and their families been lied to?
And I have little doubt that the lobby groups, activists and NGOs have played a big part in the idea that the drugs and surgeries are safe and a better option.
There's also a lot of blather from the reactionary side of the GC movements that obscures good understanding.
So again, this is one of the values of the CR. She's saying we have to have good evidence now.
NZ is unlikely to follow US politics imo, and more likely to follow the UK. Because of the structure of our legal and health systems, and because of the cultural differences.
I can't see the rationale for not suspending PB use in gender dysphoria until the research has been done. Equally, affirmation only could be replaced with the kind of holistic models Cass is talking about. And we absolutely need the research on detransition rates and outcomes from current treatment (which was blocked by ideologues in the UK).
Any trans health care in NZ needs to include care for detrans people. Do you see the inherent resistance to that yet?
Yes, that's unlikely, although “it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future” – recall MAGA Muller, not to mention our current pro-gun MPs.
"Inherent resistance" to "health care" "for detrans people" "in NZ"? Not seeing it, inherent or otherwise, but that's not evidential.
And I might not be understanding (the point of) the question – there are manifold examples of elective and recommended medical procedures that can have negative outcomes, and that includes deliberately withholding treatment. Health professionals do their best to tidy up, or (in what is, I hope and believe, a small percentage of cases) cover up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botched_(TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_New_Zealand
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/hospitals-and-specialist-care/surgical-mesh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartwright_Inquiry
can you point me to NZ healthcare services for detrans people?
are detrans people covered by ACC for their injuries?
No, I can't. Maybe there are no such healthcare services available in NZ. That's certainly possible – we’re a small country, and relatively less well-off (as a whole) than we once were. Seems to me that the pressure/stress on our health services and professionals has been increasing for some time.
I don't know, but hope someone does – maybe case-by-case?
I don’t know either, but I hear rumours that detrans services aren’t available and that ACC won’t cover detransitioners.
My point here is that detrans people exist. We know that some of them have huge regret for the lifelong disabilities they now live with, and some of those disabilities are severe. Please read Ritchie’s story.
The reason there aren’t detrans health services (this is true in other countries) is because acknowledging the existence of detrans people and their needs breaks the covenant of ‘affirmation only’. There is a direct ideological and political conflict between TRA healthcare demands and the needs of detrans people.
Here Owen Jones interviewing Freddy McConnell, mentions the mythical figure of a 1% detrans rate, and FM gives a No Debate response. Afaik no-one knows what th detrans rate is because the research hasn’t been done. In the case of the UK, that’s in part because the adult gender clinics refused to cooperate with the Cass research team (see my post). That’s a medical scandal in its own right. But the 1% figure is used to minimise the existence and needs of detrans people.
https://twitter.com/tlitb/status/1779561925967327678
Note that TRA healthcare demands probably aren’t what you are talking about. Their demands are a range of things including the idea that anyone who wants hormones and surgery should have them. They are also the ones that have blocked holistic approaches that take into account mental health, abuse, autism, and other approaches.
This is political.
Detrans people are caught in that because when they need medical specialists to help them deal with persistent urogenital pain and dysfunction for instance, there aren’t any. Because of the politics.
But people who haven’t transitioned yet are also caught in those politics. Affirmation only stops us talking about the numbers of lesbian and gay kids going through major body modification when they would otherwise just turn out to be lesbian and gay kids.
Naturally – nontrans, trans and detrans people are all real, imho.
This really shouldn't be controversial in any sense of the word, but it's a fast-moving and politically-charged field – a minefield really.
https://theconversation.com/transgender-regret-research-challenges-narratives-about-gender-affirming-surgeries-220642
As unlikely as it seems that reading Ritchie’s story will alter my view that “on balance, it’s better to delay/withhold most/all irreversible [gender-affirming] interventions for as long as possible“, I will steel myself and give it a go.
minefield seems a good descriptor at this point.
Given the variety of healthcare options, and the difference in change and impact dependent on sex, it is hard to grasp the variety of the different aspects that have to be reviewed.
For example: testosterone in women can act as an anti-depressant, can vastly improve energy and libido levels while simultaneously atrophying organs and impacting on fertility, and causing internal pain. Relying only on short-term surveys will capture the patients reports of well-being but not any underlying medical issues.
I'm sorting through bookmarks at the moment, and IIRC, I have a link to a table that goes through the different healthcare options separated by sex. (As expected, the hormonal treatment impacts much more significantly on females, and results are more permanent). I will post here if/when I find it.
There is a info page on Gender Minorities, but it contains the usual curated talkpoints, but will link fyi:
https://genderminorities.com/2021/03/28/detransition-support/
quick glance at that and it seems an improvement. Last time I looked at a NZ resource it was basically saying that detrans people are the ones who the evil terfs have convinced aren't trans and if they just had better support they wouldn't want to detransition. Something like that.
There is a bit of that retained in the document…![wink wink](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/wink_smile.png)
100% WEka about children being able to make their own choice about gender medicine. Ludicrous idea.
Weka, this is excellent. Thank you
My thought is that this should be a time of reflection about medical 'misadventure'. My initial thoughts are that it is similar to The Unfortunate Experiment (Cartwright report)
https://www.womens-health.org.nz/the-cartwright-inquiry/
The Cartwright report looked at capture/unwillingess to 'pot' anyone, dominance of the medical establishment.
One of the good things that came out of the recommendations of this enquiry was the establishment of a series of Ethics Committees throughout NZ.
1 Thinking more about it makes me wonder about the involvement of Ethics Commitees in the setting up of the gender industry in NZ. NZ has around 10 times the number of children on pubery blockers than other similar jurisdictions.
As far as I can see NZ children have no features that would predispose them to being 10 times in need of irreversible medicines than children in other jurisdictions.
I am thinking that having accepted less than stellar research from the UK (some of which was not accepted by Cass), the NZ gender industry has been able to build on this to set up their own clincs without an oversight or need to go to Ethics committees.
2 Bearing in mind that gender dysphoria appears in the DSM-5* it appears that not enough time or money has been devoted to the provision of non chemical or surgical options. This I call watchful waiting and I would couple this with access to long term regualr counselling for both patient and parents.
*A diagnosis for gender dysphoria is included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a manual published by the American Psychiatric Association. The diagnosis was created to help people with gender dysphoria get access to necessary health care and effective treatment. The term focuses on discomfort as the problem, rather than identity.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/symptoms-causes/syc-20475255#:~:text=Gender%20dysphoria%20is%20the%20feeling,some%20point%20in%20their%20lives.
Health care includes counselling and ties in with the maxim of 'first do no harm' & watchful waiting. In pre teens I read somewhere the most effective 'cure' is puberty ie going through puberty without suppressing drugs or cross sex hormones. Support to get there without drugs etc is what I call watchful waiting.
3 Is this somehow a reflection that society has not in fact accepted that people can be same sex attracted?
'Young confused-about-identity children/teens are often gay.'
https://lgballiance.org.uk/conversion-practices-bill-blog/
Kemi Badenoch said:
Headline/teaser paragraphs from
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/06/kemi-badenoch-strong-evidence-gay-young-people-trans/
This then leads me to think that despite many western jurisdictions doing their very best to outlaw discrimination, give rights to gay people to live as everyone lives eg marriage etc, not everyone supports this.
In fact it appears to me that some parents would rather their child suffered from irreversible chemical and surgical interventions than accept a child that who is gay. Thus my view that some parents are acting 'in loco deus' my pig Latin for 'standing in the place of god'.
Hence my view that parents are a necessary part of the counselling that should be marshalled to help children with gender dysphoria. Counselling for any type of childrens mental health is under funded in NZ (on the basis of my sister's experience trying to get help for her troubled teen, not gender related). She paid mega bucks to see a psychiatrist herself to initiate the family help the family needed.
4 Is this a case of social contagion or a type of reverse moral panic? Cool, calm researched oriented scholars need toinvestigate this.
Despite the denials and those trying to induce guilt in those who suggest this, this aspect of social contagion is worthy of investigation. We have several instances in recent history eg the McCarthy hearings etc where a witch hunt sought to out wrong thinking people, to the questions that remain during the initial times of the pandemic over the ability of those who set up a moral panic by believing bad actors/ideas on the efficacy of vaccines. This went far beyond the normal questioning etc of the new, anythings. Further back we have witch trials to condemn observant women who did not go along with the prevailing orthodoxy.
5 In the 'olden days' puberty blockers were used to delay what was called precociuos puberty.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/precocious-puberty/symptoms-causes/syc-20351811
6 What to do now? Have we someone who is willing to tackle the concept put forward by Patha that the Cass findings are not relevant to NZ.
https://patha.nz/News/13341582
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/nz-government-wont-say-if-it-will-follow-uks-move-to-ban-routine-use-of-puberty-blockers-as-treatment-for-trans-youth/XM4LR3XIVZF2JAKJU74OOELSOU/
Below from this article
Shanreagh, this might be slightly off topic, but maybe kinda related. In primary school I was picked up with autism. Much later a Psychiatrist would diagnose me with both ADHD & Autism. I was prescribed Ritalin, my life changed for the better.
In 2018 I was recovering from an accident, I was referred to a psychologist as I wasn't sleeping. The psychologist thought my sleep issues were related to the autism, she then thought it could be masking homosexuality, or transgender issues, but not autism, she didn't think I had ADHD either.
I went back (privately) to the Psychiatrist who I'd seen 10 years prior. He diagnosed PTSD from the accident, along with the lingering effects of concussion, from there I received the correct treatment. Fast forward to today, everything is fine, the only change is that I now take the ADHD & Autism much more seriously.
But its concerning that there has been a push to diagnose autistic children with other issues. My experience is that my social development from being a child, to a teenager, to young adult was slower than for neurotypical children.
That's an interesting anecdote, David. Thanks for sharing on here.
Thanks David. You are a very courageous person. The road for people with ADHD/Autism can be hard enough without it being some sort of semi-automatic pathway to gender issues being raised.
And the example about the accident/concussion rings bells with me too. My niece had an accident and concussion was noted. Months later when she was not coping at Uni/training college and mental health deterioration was noted. Thankfully before she was put on some sort of inappropriate regime she went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed the lingering affects of concussion. She has been treated but is not as sharp mentally as she was before the concussion.
The work of those funnelling children into gender clinics and the like seems to me to deny this truism
'when you hear hoofbeats think horses not zebras'
Back in the olden days when you saw/experienced discomfort as a teenager you thought 'growing up can be tough/puberty can be tough' not 'living in the wrong body' or 'gender reassignment'.
..thank goodness you went back to your original doctor.
Extreme activism on both sides of gender/sexual politics have effectively poisoned the well so that nobody wants to talk about this stuff. I am sick and tired of it. Thank-you Weka for continuing to speak out for reason and compassion and biological reality.
These are nuanced issues that do not translate well to a tweet or a soundbite, and require a bit of reflection and effort to understand.
Punching one another in the face is an admission of failure. Long live democratic debate.
Nga mihi nui
There is only one side of the "debate" that has sought to shut it down. There is only one side that has used violent language as well as actual physical violence to prevent people speaking about how this ideology harms women and vulnerable young people.
Only one side has had to be brave enough to risk their employment, their social standing and their actual physical safety to tell the truth.
Truth Will Always Matter.
I agree Visubversa.
'No Debate' and those stealthy figures such as the pharmaceutical industry the Pritzker family and Jon Stryker/Arcus foundation have been working for years on this.
See this article from 2022.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-money-behind-the-transgender-movement/
and this from 2020
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/01/the-billionaires-behind-the-lgbt-movement
Some of these families and their companies also have interests in chemical/pharmaceuticals and surgical devices etc used in trans surgery
Tabletennis back in 2021 pointed out the links that the Arcus Foundation had in NZ to sponsor various groups
Tabletennis16.3
18 July 2021 at 5:24 pm
"There is only one side that has used violent language …"
Well, no, I don't agree, Visubversa.
Depends on how you define violence. I define it as doing bodily harm or threatening bodily harm. If it is defined as saying things people don't like and hurting their feelings I guess the both sides argument makes sense.
I tend to agree about the difference. Also, one person's violent language is water off a duck's back to another, so without specifying, none of us know what the other means.
One recent example, I wouldn't call this violent, but it is nasty, was some of Sall Grover's supporters took a social media post from Tickle and turned it into the sweaty balls meme, including selling candles with the meme on it as a fund raiser. While I understand the anger, this crosses a line imo, is counter productive, and is the sign of people who don't care that much about others.
I don't think that is comparable to https://terfisaslur.com/ (actually violent language), but I do think it's not nothing.
What Tickle's doing to Sall Grover is a real test of our integrity, I think. A transsexual replied to a tweet in which I called Tickle a man, pointing out that Tickle's a fellow transsexual, ie has had the surgery and has a birth certificate that says 'female', and it's just nasty to refer to him with male nouns/pronouns. For once, I couldn't agree. I've always considered transsexuals as being different from the porn-addled cross-dressers calling themselves 'transwomen' these days, but I just can't bring myself to feel any goodwill towards Mr Tickle.
My sympathy over the sweaty balls stuff diminishes rapidly when I think about the fact that he is basically trying to establish that women don't exist as a sex class.
The sweaty balls stuff is about what it does to us. It changes the landscape of what is acceptable. I don't find it hard to see how such a thing can be done to women (is done to women). Why would we sanction that?
It was also a strategic blunder on SG's part of not have distanced herself from it.
Hard agree about the integrity test. I'm biting my tongue more atm than most other times. Most days I also want to ask if it's ok yet to call NACTF a bunch of c*nts, so it's not like I don't understand what it's like to be that politicallly angry.
Punching one another in the face? I'm only aware of one side that's resorted to punching, roblogic.
Similarly, it's one side in particular that's done its best to get people fired for wrongspeak:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/18/judge-rules-against-charity-worker-who-lost-job-over-transgender-tweets
what do you think has been the extreme activism on the GC side Roblogic? What are your examples?
The tras have championed a no debate campaign.
It's not the GC feminists themselves that are causing trouble and strife on the GC side, but some of the more excitable and unstable religious conservatives inserting themselves into these issues and stoking a culture war for their own political ends.
Examples: phobia against gender non conforming people is a real problem, but tolerance shouldn't be taken to a ridiculous extreme of sacrificing the needs of women and girls.
I agree it is, but it's hard to tell from your link what you are meaning specifically. Can you please give two actual examples?
Plenty of sad stories to go around, it's likely that QAnon nutjobs are a significant factor. (Not feminists!)
Hi Rob,
You link to the HRC. That organisation has promoted some very harmful ideas for women and children lately.
Jennifer Bilek (again) has a series of 3 guest posts on her blog which are worth reading:
https://www.the11thhourblog.com/post/all-aboard-the-human-rights-campaign-and-the-making-of-transgender-industry-leaders-part-i
The Guardian article is a wealth of random occurrences. I don't doubt that a group of Proud Boys may have " interrupted a drag queen event in California, intimidating parents and children and screaming transphobic and homophobic insults. ". However, I consider women responsible for that as much as I consider unassociated men responsible for the regular abuse that women's rights events across the globe.
Quoted in the article is GLAAD – an organisation that created and maintains a list of non-believers, as mentioned below:
"The GLAAD Accountability Project monitors and documents individual public figures and groups using their platforms to spread misinformation and false rhetoric against LGBTQ people, youth, and allies. Some groups have misleading names inferring unwarranted expertise or credibility, when their main focus is advocating against LGBTQ people, and some claiming to be grassroots efforts have ties to national organizations with long histories opposing LGBTQ Americans."
https://glaad.org/gap/
I've read surveys consider violence to be correctly sexing someone, or challenging their use of opposite sex spaces etc. It is also apparent when looking at injuries or death figures, that the inclusion of sex workers in third world countries make up a majority percentage of victims. Female sex workers in those countries also suffer the same level of violence, injury and death.
The reason I am being pedantic about this, is that while women have to defend themselves against unearned smears, they are kept from talking about the things that matter to them.
It is an effective tool for silencing or wearing people down.
I would be more careful with my bedfellows. Cosying up with conservative right-wing outlets like NRO and FT might be fun initially but their mission is far from liberal
I think this dismissing of "cosying up with conservative right wing outlets"has been another way of shutting down debate.
Some GC women used any Platform they could to try and get their message out, because the media (particularly in this country) shut down voices sounding the alarm. The newshub report on TVthree when they showed Posie Parker adjusting the zipper on her jersy (and they blacked it out) claimed that she was giving a white supremiscist signal. This shameful misrepresentation again marginalized and silenced many women who were trying to raise the alarm.
And yes, I agree with Visu who stated the fact that there is only one side who punched the other side in the face. And no condemnation from Marama Davison when asked about this
So what exactly are you suggesting roblogic? Gender-critical feminists shouldn't oppose transgender ideology because social conservatives also oppose it?
I think he's suggesting people should be careful who they sit with….
indeed.
I think know who I sit with Joe 90. It is the side that has been called bigots, transphobes and even Nazis and I have stuck with this side because I know I am none of those things and neither are the vast majority of GC women.
Isn't it about time you faced up to the fact that you have cheered on the side that have insisted on gender affirming care that has all but been discredited by the Cass report? And that what has happened to young, gender confused kids is nothing short of a medical scandal?
that avoids responding to Joe's point.
I have been asked to respond to your comment Joe 90, so I will. When I clicked on your link it was an article that if you sit at a table with Nazis you are a Nazi. I didn't see any examples of GC Nazis there. Your arguement is guilt by association, but you fail to mention who the associates are. Who are the Nazis in the GC movement? It will not surprize you to know I have extensive networks in this movement and I haven't come across any Nazis. There are certainly some people, such as extreme christian groups I share virtually nothing in common with. But I completely capable of discerning that.
I think Joe90 you will find it very difficult to face that you have championed a cause that has turned out to be quite harmful. Or at least it is my impression that you have championed a cause.
Put up or stfu
Are you saying Joe 90 that you haven't been an advocate for gender ideology and trans health care? If that is the case i.e that you haven't then that is good.
Btw, I only said it was my impression, I didn't claim it as a fact.
And I would appreciate it if you didn't tell me to stfu. I find that a little bit abusive to be honest.
It IS abusive, Anker.
But for a bit of light relief, you may find James Dreyfus's tweet today enjoyable, discussing this very acronym:
https://x.com/DreyfusJames/status/1779456415838409030
The replies are worth the read…
Ha ha ha. Good one. I am not on twitter though so I couldn't read the replies
Give me a heads up if you do. I'll be your first follower.
I've got to admit I fought against having to resort to social media, so my account is basically to get information re gender ideology. However, that has meant that I follow a LOT of middle-aged women, whose style of humour is very appealing.
get one today, because if they haven't already, twitter are about to introduce fees for new accounts. Which means an end to most new truly pseudonymous accounts.
You overstate the case joe90. All I was suggesting was not to jump into right wing conspiracies, which is where this debate can lead if it's not carefully focussed on medical outcomes and fairness for women.
Can you give some examples of right wing conspiracys Roblogic? I assume you are referring to gender critical right wing conspiracys or maybe not.
And yes Rob I acknowledge that you have been a solid supporter of GC views.
Sites like reduxx and gaysagainstgroomers that focus heavily on demonising gender nonconformists and fringe communities. Pizzagate is probably the most famous example
Reduxx is not a right-wing site that promotes violence. They are a group of female writers posting on matters to do with women’s rights, and violence AGAINST women and girls.
I can only find GaysAgainstGroomers as a social media handle, and AFAIK they are a loosely affiliated group via those platforms.
Did a search on Reduxx for "Pizzagate" and came up with nothing.
These are disconnected from the commentators on this site.
Well, good. I have no wish to go digging in sewers but I assure you they exist.
That kind of vague smearing is unlike you Rob.
Molly you are gold!
I'm not gonna promote hate sites
@Roblogic
"I'm not gonna promote hate sites"
No one asked you to, Rob.
We don't need to curate for adults, the way we do for children. People can assess information themselves without need for pre-warning.
Roblogic was supporting us GCFs (and his own GC position) long before you were on the scene. Settle down eh, and maybe have a conversation without accusation.
Sorry, who am I accusing? And how would you know how long I've opposed transgender ideology?
So are people who support trans rights implicated by the violent far left antifa thugs who.have jumped on to their cause?.
Some people who should know better, have failed to denounce the violence at Albert Park. That signals a deplorable lack of willingness to engage in good faith.
It would be helpful if you were more specific.
For example, apart from the multiple cancellation events, there have been numerous lists circulating that single out individuals and organisations for censure (and provide details for targettted harassment)
I am unaware of any such lists being created, circulated and used by middle-aged women, and would appreciate if you have any links to such. (This is not a half-hearted request, I'm collecting links on this issue ATM).
For example:
GLAAD Accountability Project: https://glaad.org/gap/
Transgender Map – who have removed menu navigation to list but still retains posts which can be found using the search "vs." to pull up 66 pages.
Link to author Abigail Shrier for example of entry – https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/topics/media/abigail-shrier/
Shinigami Eyes – Browser plug in which "A browser addon that highlights transphobic and trans-friendly social network pages and users with different colors." https://shinigami-eyes.github.io/
Report a Transphobe – Publicly available Google spreadsheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v-4Rk-ynHC0MrG5FyuDZsYp743w0WFiO6caY80Yg4Y8/edit#gid=224057797
BlockTogether – a website that at the time of closing June 16 2020 had the following stats:
303k registered users.
198k users subscribing to at least one list.
4.5k users offering a list, with at least one subscriber.
3.7B actions.
This website was used to write a thesis: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=senior_theses
There are numerous other lists – that rise and fall depending on author and exposure.
The one notable example I can find on t'other side, is the Cultblocker list that provides a list of accounts to automatically block to avoid harassment. They do not provide the list of accounts publicly as far as I can determine and I don't know whether it is still current as it used the now defunct BlockTogether referenced above for some data. https://cultblockerpro.wordpress.com/
Yeah my twitter handle is on one of those stupid lists.
We can see from the antics of Destiny Church (vs rainbow crossings and drag storytime), that there are a significant numbers of people who feel their values are being trampled by the LGBTQ+ movement and its quasi religious hegemonic tendencies, and are willing to take action.
There are much more extreme and violent examples overseas.
I find that I am unwilling to apologise for the actions of others – particularly men with whom I have no relationship, and absolutely no influence.
I consider their painting of the rainbow crossing to be an action that I wouldn't personally take – but also consider the original painting of the crossing to be an expenditure I do not support.
(I do have real concerns about painting rainbows on a road that might attract children to run onto it. It makes no logical sense to me.)
100% agree Molly.
About taking responsibility for a lone gunman in the States. Whereas in NZ the Greens attended Albert Park and they failed to condemn the violence against the women there.
I also agree about Rainbow crossings, particularly as I live in Wellington. Please fix our pipes.
But also the Rainbow flag, crossing etc appears to have been colonised by the TQ. A lot of lesbian women I know now hate the Rainbow Flag which is sad
100% agree Molly.
About taking responsibility for a lone gunman in the States. Whereas in NZ the Greens attended Albert Park and they failed to condemn the violence against the women there.
I also agree about Rainbow crossings, particularly as I live in Wellington. Please fix our pipes.
But also the Rainbow flag, crossing etc appears to have been colonised by the TQ. A lot of lesbian women I know now hate the Rainbow Flag which is sad
Sorry, I missed your link the first time around.
The inference that women here are culpable for that man's behaviour in any way is not one I will accept. It was a horrific incident, in the same way that Bondi Junction was a horrific incident. The person responsible is the one who wielded the weapon, unless some connection can be made to others persuading them to take action in such a murderous way.
Shanreagh was posting links to right-wing sites – my comment (7) was intended as a reply to that, but I messed it up from my phone.
Just had a look. Can't see the links to right-wing sites that you mention. Particularly not ones that promote violence.
National Review: the propaganda arm of a Conservative thinktank
First Things: American Catholic Christian Nationalists
There is a wider agenda here, to get the working class angry about gender theory, instead of much more acute and urgent class injustices that are more mundanely eroding lives and the wellbeing of entire nations.
I don't purity test sites before reading. I check out information provided by alternative recognisable sites. Shanreagh's linked article on the National Review was mostly a copy of paste of Jennifer Bilek's work. She has her own blog where the information may be more palatable to you.
https://www.the11thhourblog.com/
I am also aware that left-wing journalists were hounded from their left-wing publications for wanting to write on this issue. Suzanne Moore from the Guardian is one that comes to mind. Conservative platforms do not appear to suffer from the same groupthink.
I see the First Things link goes to another full reprint of a Bilek article.
It'd be better for discussion if you critiqued the content.
please fix your username.
Sorry, I must've added the letter when trying to post. I keep getting timed out, and resorting to a lot of copies and pastes.
Apologies.
Ok I haven't read the link tbf Roblogic, but for goodness sake! Does it not occur to you that maybe the working class are able to think for themselves and feel geniunely angry about gender ideology and its imposition on them and their kids. Maybe those working class parents see the crap their kids are being taught for themselves and get it all by themselves what a pernious hold this ideology has had on society.
I might be a bit thick tonight or misreading this.
Correct me if I am wrong but the way I read this is that your thought is that 'people' are using gender to rile the WC when there are much worthier issues to be tackling.
I have left off the 'theory' as I don't think there is much theory involved when 12 year girls and younger see naked men with erect penisesor even flaccid ones in changing rooms or when women are confronted with a man in a public toilet, let alone having sporting options denied them and WC women do actually often play sport.
If by some chance you did mean this then perhaps ponder on the fact that women comprise 51% of most populations and that WC women and others are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.
If I have misread this could you pl rewrite it so it is less confusing
Sorry I was not. I was posting an old article by Jennifer Bilek reported in First Things which shock horror is some sort of Christian magazine.
If you had read my post you will have noted it was about who and when we were being warned about these wealthy males & their companies behind the trans movement. Bilek was one who warned. Her paper, at the time, was more interesting than who printed it.
Now of course the 'who' published and 'why only they' published is interesting too. Most of us would have thought that our support ie for women's rights to sport/safe spaces would have come from the left. We (women) were of course wrong about this.
I had no idea what the initials were in your post NRO or FT so ignored it but now realise now that FT apparently stands for 'First Things.'
As a woman I actually support the views against Drags in libraries both from a taste/exposure point of view and because I think it is a waste of money for Councils in these straitened times to be paying for this. Opportunities exist for parents keen to go with their children to these events for them to book and pay for them.
Again on the crossings as it was a political act to place them there in the first place the painting over is also a political act. As a political act the rainbow crossings have served their purpose and many people now are just sick of the sight of rainbow anythings.
Here is another article setting out the myths that have been promulgated about the Cass Review.
https://www.quackometer.net/blog/2024/04/breaking-down-cass-review-myths-and-misconceptions-what-you-need-to-know.html
Four myths so far examined, explained and rebutted
1 Myth 1: 98% of all studies in this area were ignored
2 Myth 2: Cass recommended no Trans Healthcare for Under 25s.
3 Myth 3: Cass is demanding only Double Blind Randomised Controlled Trials be used as evidence in “Trans Healthcare”.
4 Myth 4: There were less than 10 detransitioners out of 3499 patients in the Cass study.
The author has said they will be adding as further myths are publicised.
Here is the second tranche of rebuttal on the myths on the Cass Review. This is done by an organisation call Quackometer. NB I have not purity tested the organisation but the work done seems level headed and fair.
https://www.quackometer.net/blog/2024/04/breaking-down-cass-review-myths-and-misconceptions-what-you-need-to-know-part-2.html
The only personal view I have found so far (not looked very carefully) is this about the WPATH guidelines
One of the interesting things about this comment thread:
Women – biologically sexed, are commenting in good faith and highlighting the actual and real concerns.
Men – as usual, not affected by the encroachment onto women’s spaces by men wanting to be women, continue to punch down on biologically sexed women by all but characterising their views as histrionic or ridiculous.
Or telling them to stfu
LOL – which according to the James Dreyfus thread I gave you, means Lots Of Love for us middle-aged women…
Their arguments are so weak and irrelevant that the inevitable Nazi slur gets bandied about. A sure sign that there isn't a leg to stand on.
Which ones?
I thought the importance of this study was the concern over whether the choice to transition is being properly informed or is resulting in desirable health outcomes?
Or perhaps it's just another attempt at finding ammunition for TERF's to further alienate a group of people who already experience exclusion from our wider society?
The former would be more believable if you'd continued to feign concern about trans people's wellbeing and kept the ulterior motive quiet.
[terf is routinely used as a slur against women, often in misogynistic ways including violence and sexual violence online. It’s also a highly inaccurate and misleading label. I moderate its use on TS. Please find other language if you want to comment further – weka]
"Or perhaps it's just another attempt at finding ammunition for TERF's to further alienate a group of people who already experience exclusion from our wider society?"
I suspect those you would call TERFs, are the ones who are most accepting of diversity of people in society. What they don't do is comply with demands to lie about reality, nor be quiet about the impacts of legislative or policy changes.
As one of those you would call a TERF (I have my own words associated with that ACRONYM so it's not a problem), I consider it interesting to observe the implicit and sustained rejection by men of other men in their sex category that don't meet their expectations of what a man is.
That is NOT acceptance in any shape or form.
"I consider it interesting to observe the implicit and sustained rejection by men of other men in their sex category that don't meet their expectations of what a man is."
Oh boy do I feel this. Toxic masculinity is a minefield. You ride an e-scooter once in you're life and all of a sudden you're not a viable candidate for propagating the human race.
To clarify; I'm a straight white man. I can only speak to the experiences detailed to me by friends and family. Some of them being trans. Some met before or after their transition, and some electing not to transition and instead presenting themselves as their gender identity (cause hormones and surgery are scary.) I'm someone that's just trying to make the best sense of things and be accommodating to them.
Where I get upset is the insinuation of it being an elaborate ruse to allow "fake women" to invade women's spaces.
The clarification above means no, I can't truly experience the impact of a masculine face in a women's restroom. People look behind their backs at me nervously on dark nights if we're coincidentally heading the same direction (which leaves me feeling like a monster, but I get it.)
But I do have friends who have transitioned, and I don't like hearing them being lumped in with deviants and perverts. And I see a lot of the research akin to flat earthers trying to find evidence, not in a pursuit of truth but to confirm what they already believe to be true. And their truth belittles my friends.
Shanreagh's response is good, I need more time to digest that. That's fair, medical research needs a (gender) critical eye keeping watch. But comment's like James'? That's just cruel and divisive.
What’s cruel and divisive is that the problems with the no-debate crowd have long been raised by very brave biologically sexed women and females has resulted in perjorative slurs being developed and thrown at those biologically sexed women and females simply because “no debate” was the aim.
as a homosexual male, I think its extremely important to let adult human females have their agency of female spaces and voice their concerns around the safety of those spaces, along with their (proven) concerns of the medical establishment, at the behest of the “no debate” crowd rushing to put very young children on a wide array of drugs simply because the child appears to show an inclination for a gender preference that is other than their biological sex.
Then along come the (largely) straight males shouting (and punching) down the adult human females and ridiculing them and calling them slurs.
as far as I am concerned, the division hasn’t been fomented by adult human females, but by the likes of Shaneel Lal, and other trans rights activists.
Thanks James, another thoughtful response.
Right on James.
My thanks also, James, for your thoughtful insight and understanding – and very clear expression of the situation many biological females such as myself find ourselves in.
IMO your third para is of particular relevance.
An unsubstantiated reckon about a group you are not part of.
This all began as
1.a response to decriminalisation of homosexuality and acceptance.
2.feminists claiming gender equality – despite difference between male and female
3.the emergence of a culture derived from not consorting in public as same sex (thus transvestites and "butch" dressing women).
The DSM of 1980.
The concept of "gender identity" was not imposed on women by men, it was an ideological concept designed to include all despite difference.
Support for it is as high amongst women as men.
It was National who brought in gender ID on drivers licenses and passports – and all its MP's voted for self-ID.
Shaneel Lal is a non binary young person who inherited gender identity culture – because he did not conform to cis gender male stereotype.
Just like some gay people a generation earlier.
a flaw in your argument is the absence of acknowledgement of AGPs. Once that is factored in, the whole analysis changes.
My first knowledge of the problem was in the 90s, with two events. One was the challenge by transsexual males to the women-only policy at Mitchfest. The other was a similar challenge to Vancouver Rape Relief. Both organisations tried to accommodate trans women, it didn't work. Because what those TW wanted was to colonise women's spaces.
VRR survived, Mitchfest didn't.
So yeah, GI has always been imposed on women be men.
Further, in the more recent iteration, it's has largely been men harassing and abusing women who speak out. Men speaking out don't get the same kind or level of abuse, although some of them get the same kind of cancellation.
https://terfisaslur.com/
But he wants to enforce gender stereotypes and roles on women. He's also one of the ones that abuses women who speak out. New misogyny same as the old.
Above from Weka's opening paragraphs.
Both the report and Weka's post cover both aspects of the Cass Review. We are not going to get anywhere by allowing poor- and ideology-based factors to govern the health access we give to children who are struggling with mental health issues. This why many of the responses do focus on the so-called evidence for doing these irreversible actions.
The reason is so that the care we (as a society) give is the best and most evidence based care we can provide.
We all bring our own experiences and many women of an age will bring experiences that were also poor. Some suffered needlessly/others died prematurely as a result of Drs' actions as documented in the Unfortunate Experiment here in NZ.
We lived through times when women who had contraception failure had to fly to Aus for abortions, when there were blatant shortages of certifying consultants who were not fronts for anti abortion campaigners, times when searching for a new Dr in a new city you went to look at a file called the 'Hot & cold Drs' file before making a decision. This file had notes of women's experiences with Drs in a large town or city so you knew who to avoid. Rural people or some smaller towns, sorry, you just had to take who had decided to put out their shingle there.
Like the NHS gender clinics the Unfortunate Experiment occured at a publicly funded provided organisation. In some cases this means there is no choice as many cannot afford to go privately.
So forgive us/them if this shocking care for the trans community just seems like a re-run of what has gone before of systemic wrongs being allowed to flourish. The patient is at the very end of much poor quality care just as they were in earlier times.
Of course getting better care will mean a lessening, hopefully, of irreversible chemical 'treatment' and surgery in gender non-conforming children in the UK. It will also mean a greater need for counselling & support in the UK. If the same pattern about funding for counselling out in the community applies to the UK as it does in NZ, ie hopeless access, then I feel we are right to continue to point this out.
You may think that this forewarning or harking back to similar failings means we do not care. No in fact we do care and that is why the Cass Review is making many women hopping mad, quite apart from the justifcation/I told you so feelings.
The fact that:
no records are kept, or none that the clinics wanted to share with Cass,
there was a one eyed one track to either prescriptions (puberty blockers then cross sex hormones) or surgery
the lack of access to long term counselling
All of these are distressingly familiar to women who are responsible in many cases for their own health/wellness as well as being the most likely to be taking children to health professionals. It is also this care for distressed children that has 'lead some parents by the nose' to a situation where chemicals and/or surgery are presented as TINA options.
I am humbled by your thoughtful reply, Shanreagh.
@No-skates – -what she just said.
Thank you Molly.![smiley smiley](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/regular_smile.png)
Well said, proud of you.
mod note.
Apologies. I'll avoid using the term from here on.
cheers.
100% gsays
Dropping the puberty blockers are "safe and fully reversible" links here. Please add if you have any.
The MoH's advice 20/12/17
https://archive.is/bmiY9#selection-1679.0-1679.49
this Family First press release covers it,
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2209/S00147/puberty-blockers-not-safe-reversible-ministry-of-health.htm
You have no idea how fucked off I am that I have to rely on FF for this, instead of it being all over progressive media.
You’re welcome 😀
Sue Bagshaw has defended the use of puberty blockers .Her clinic prescribes them at a rate that exceeds th UK ….65% of children who present with gender distress are put on puberty blockers.
How much of that is because of our woeful mental health provision?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/475757/puberty-blocker-use-jumps-as-expert-backs-results
I have just watched this documentary. It is called The Lost Boys – searching for Manhood. It follows several detransitioners and desisters (you'll hear the difference in the documentary) This is a sad gentle film.
'These 5 young men walked the path of finding their true selves. Their stories will shape how you see the trans movement.'
Released 23/1/24 by the Centre for Bioethics and Culture.
https://cbc-network.org/about/
This is being released at public showings in London where the same secrecy is being followed as with the films about ‘What is a Woman’. Dates put up, times put up, general location put up but exact one will be released very close to the starting time. They are expecting protesters. those who follow MrMenno on X will not be surprised that he is taking a lead role in getting this out to the public.
I was born in 1957. I have a confession, I was a jealous seven year old, jealous of boys with cap guns. If we allow this stereotyped theory to continue regarding gender would it be that in 2034 if I were a seven year old, would my lust for cap guns see me transitioned? I fear it might because as far as I can see, transgender theory is all about female and male stereotypes which many of us fought against from the seventies. Women must be hyper feminine and men hypermasculine that is the message this retrograde ideology gives to me and defenders can dress it up all they like…our most vulnerable youth have been used in this social experiment, those who are gay, lesbian, or autistic..one truly has too question the motivations of those who created it. In fact we have read the back stories of so called pioneer sex change theorists and it is grubby reading. I do not trust an historic history like that to guide how we support our most vulnerable youth.