The LGB Alliance advocates for the rights of people who may be gay or bisexual, but are instead being persuaded they are “transgender” and are seeking help for gender dysphoria and being placed on paths to surgery and sterility.
LGB Alliance said it agrees with Dr. Hilary Cass’s finding that the unprecedented rise in gender questioning young people and poor mental health has reached crisis levels.
But the group’s CEO, Kate Barker, said in a statement: “It is shocking, therefore, that the very intervention Dr Cass recommends – more mental health provision for young people – is hindered by practitioners’ fears that helping a child to explore their feelings might be thought an attempt to prevent them from being ‘trans’ and so considered to be a conversion practice.”
“We hope this important finding is noted by politicians and that the Cass Review will demonstrate, once and for all, that conversion practices legislation would do the greatest harm to those it purports to protect.”
Minister for women and equalities Kemi Badenoch warned last year of an “epidemic” of children who might grow up to be gay or bisexual but were instead caught up in an ideology that was making them believe they were “transgender.”
The government has proposed banning co-called “conversion therapy”—which enables people to try and change or suppress their sexuality—but the bill to outlaw it has so far not been introduced. However, with the polls indicating Labour will win the next general election with a large majority, such a ban could soon be back on the agenda.
The campaign group Transgender Trend said it broadly welcomed the Cass Review as it has long called for a therapeutic approach for gender-questioning people, but echoed concerns that professionals could find themselves accused of practising “conversion therapy” for challenging someone’s “identity.”
Transgender Trend said in a statement: “No formal science-based training in psychotherapy, psychology or psychiatry teaches or advocates ‘conversion therapy.’
‘Captured By Zealous Ideology’
Dr. Cass revealed in her landmark report, an independent, four-year review into NHS gender services released on Wednesday, that some of her team’s investigations were “thwarted” by a lack of cooperation from the adult gender services.Ms. Barker said: “It is deeply troubling that attempts to gather evidence for The Cass Review have been deliberately blocked. All of its recommendations are at risk whilst institutions remain captured by zealous, anti-science proponents of gender identity ideology.”
She added it was clear that the young people who are “most at risk from un-evidenced, experimental practices and medication are overwhelmingly lesbian, gay or bisexual,” and that socially transitioning children makes it “more likely they will be propelled towards a medical pathway.”
Ms. Barker said she remains concerned that private providers are operating entirely outside of NHS guidance and are not being regulated. Cross-sex hormones can still be obtained from private providers by children who have the means to pay for them.
“It’s clear that unregulated private clinics are profiting from dysfunctional NHS provision to monetise the distress of children and the desperation of their parents. We support ‘Best Practice Not Private Practice’ and urge the government to crack down on unethical private clinics which refuse to follow NHS guidance.”
Puberty blockers are no longer allowed to be prescribed to under-16s on the NHS unless the child is taking part in a medical trial, with one such trial expected to be up and running by the end of the year.
Ms. Barker said it was made clear in the report that “puberty blockers are not a ‘pause’—they are a fast track towards cross-sex hormones.”
‘A Hideous Error’
The charity Sex Matters, which campaigns for clarity on laws and language around sex, echoed the call from the LGB Alliance to halt proposals for a ban on “conversion therapy” because of the unintended consequences it could have in forcing professionals to unquestioningly “affirm” someone’s chosen “identity.”Sex Matters said in a statement: “If you take the report seriously – and you should: it’s a global standard-setter, far above anything produced anywhere else – you cannot possibly support a legal ban on so-called ‘conversion practices.’”
“The ethical, careful, multi-disciplinary approach she advocates, in which a child’s gender distress is not ‘exceptionalised’ but understood as just part of what’s going on for a child who is likely to have many other social and medical risk factors, is exactly what the proponents of a ban characterise as ‘conversion therapy.’
“They support gender affirmation – which, as Dr Cass’s report demonstrates, is unethical and unsupported by the evidence.”
Sex Matters added that the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on conversion therapy in the UK should now be “torn up,” because it is “based entirely on the debunked affirmative model.”
“So should the various bills on conversion therapy be [torn up]. All are now clearly out of line with the direction of travel and with Dr Cass’s steer for the future of NHS gender medicine.”
The statement added that hard questions must now be asked about how professional and regulatory bodies and medical schools were “captured by this evidence-free approach.”
“But right now, the most important thing is that the signatories recognise that they made a hideous error, and state publicly that they no longer endorse the MOU.”
Children Have Been ‘Badly Let Down’
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in response to the wide-ranging report that some of the so-called “gender-affirming treatment” children and young people have been receiving could have unknown consequences.Mr. Sunak’s official spokesman indicated the prime minister supported the report’s call for a more “holistic” approach to treatment for gender-confused children.
He said: “We have talked about the importance of children and adolescent safety and well-being being paramount. That is part of previous work such as the NHS announcement to end the routine prescription of puberty blockers.”
“It is behind our robust and clear guidance to schools, it is categorical that social transitioning is not a neutral act and no one should be forced to use preferred pronouns or accept contested beliefs as fact.”
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the Cass Review reveals that children have been “badly let down” and Labour accepts all of the report’s 32 recommendations.
Ms. Cooper told Sky News, “The report is very clear that children and young people have been badly let down and have been receiving treatment that’s not based on evidence.”
“So I think the Cass Review is really important—we welcome it, Labour accepts all of its recommendations.”
“I think they should be implemented now, as swiftly as possible, and we would like to work with the government on doing that.”
The minister for victims and safeguarding, Laura Farris, said the government is “looking carefully” at the 400-page Cass Review when asked whether it would legislate to ban people accessing prescriptions to gender-blocking drugs from private clinics and online.
“We are absolutely clear that there should not be obtaining of any drugs that haven’t been prescribed and [Dr. Cass has] given very strong conclusions on puberty blockers, so we will be looking carefully at what she said and acting accordingly,” Ms. Farris told Times Radio.
