The Cass Review: Interim report

Let’s have a look at the NHS’s interim Cass Review report. The NHS commissioned the Cass Review over concerns about the care children and teenagers were receiving at the Tavistock Clinic, including whistle-blowing by staff working there, and a report by NICE (The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence) in 2021 that found: “The evidence for using puberty blocking drugs to treat young people struggling with their gender identity is ‘very low’”.

The interim report found that:

“We need to know more about the population being referred and outcomes. There has not been routine and consistent data collection, which means it is not possible to accurately track the outcomes and pathways that children and young people take through the service.”

“There is lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response.”

“Because the specialist service has evolved rapidly and organically in response to demand, the clinical approach and overall service design has not been subjected to some of the normal quality controls that are typically applied when new or innovative treatments are introduced.”

“A fundamentally different service model is needed which is more in line with other paediatric provision, to provide timely and appropriate care for children and young people needing support around their gender identity. This must include support for any other clinical presentations that they may have.”

Dr Hilary Cass is an honorary Consultant Paediatrician at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, a former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health from 2012-2015, and also acted as the Senior Clinical Advisor for Child Health for Health Education England.

What is more likely, that Dr Cass is stupid, or a horrible bigot who hates trans people, or that she is a seasoned professional who can understand and analyse all of the information available, rather than treating academic papers like cards in a game of Top Trumps?

I’m posting this video from the 2021 LGB Alliance conference separately from this post about Dr Az Hakeem as it is really worth watching in its own right.

It covers a lot of subjects, including safguarding in schools, and sex and relationships education, and how these things have been hijacked by trans and pro-porn (ie, ‘queer’) ideology.

Dr Hakeem’s section starts at the 01:02 mark (and is less than 20 minutes long), and listening to him talk about his practise, it is really, really obvious that he is not ‘transphobic’ in any meaningful sense of the word (he also talks about the institutional homophobia of the Tavistock).

Dr Hakeem’s comments at 01:12 on sub-cultures are worth hearing too: his idea is that before social media, sub-cultures were based around music (Hakeem was a ‘post-punk goth’ as a teenager), and were about being rebellious and subversive; now instead of music-based subcultures, we have people identifying as non-binary, which is ‘goth, mark 5’:

Goth, mark 1 = post punk

Goth, mark 2 = The Cure

Goth, mark 3 = shoe-gazing

Goth, mark 4 = emo

Goth, mark 5 = non-binary

There’s also a surprise guest appearance from Baroness Emma Nicholson in the Q&A section at the end!

I have my first appointment at Charing Cross GIC in a week, I’ve previously been at Tavistock for a couple of years until now. If anyone has any questions about the UK GIC process feel free to shoot me a message. if you want my personal blog I can also hit you up on there!

-Ryan