Remember that Cass Report in the UK that was commissioned? We already knew it was harmful to trans people and our care, but wait, there's more! She's supposed to be a highly respected doctor, and yet...
Ive been waiting for a good chance to go in on this old gas bag.
The gas bag in question is Hilary Cass, titular leader of the four-year Cass Review into the UKs National Health Services treatment of trans kids at trans health clinic Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). Cass was interviewed on Wednesday by Bostonian NPR branch WBUR News. I should clarify that I despise Hilary Cass for her ineptitude as a practitioner and the thoughtless damage shes done to thousands of trans kids, and I loath the Report her work produced because it is an unforgivable hack job not fit to be used as toilet paper that has still, somehow, become the shining beacon on the hill for every anti-trans journalist across the globe.
Appearing on WBURs On Point podcast with host Meghna Chakrabarti, Cass and her interviewer spend about an hour misgendering trans kids (for a laugh, I guess), and thats still not the most annoying thing about the interview. Truthfully, I dont think I could easily rank how annoying the obnoxious crap that comes out of Casss yapper is, so Ill just sort of go through the interview in chronological order and point out the various things that make it clear the good doctor is actually a bumbling buffoon.
To start, after talking a bunch of shit about whether or not puberty blockers maybe might not sort of possibly be unsafe for kidsshe admits theyre fine for cisgender kids, but of course we must draw the line at trans kidsCass says, the more we can let young people go through their typical puberty the more likely it is that they will make the best possible decision.
A statement so flatly ignorant and inflammatory that I had to go scream into a pillow for half an hour before I could continue reading. Lovely. As Ive explained recently to another churlish weasel, blockers are a typical part of gender-affirming care, and the vast majority of medical authorities agree that its the best course of treatment for trans youth. A highly credible study presented at a 2021 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition found a 60% decrease in moderate and severe depression and 73% decrease in suicidality among transgender and non-binary youth who received puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones over a 12-month period.
Next, Cass and Chakrabarti refer to young transmasc or non-binary people as adolescent girls, and discuss why theres been such a significant rise in this particular group identifying as trans over the last few years. Rather than any of the typical reasons that people seen as girls might receive medical attention on a different timetable than their male peers, Cass suggests that early exposure to pornography might be to blame.
I dont know what possible link any normal-brained person could draw between exposure to pornography and self-identification of ones gender, unless perhaps you preemptively view transgender people through a sexualized slant, like some sort of annoying loser who should stop talking and thinking about trans people forever.
Later on Cass accuses WPATH and their cohorts of producing guidelines that, to paraphrase, feed into one another in a circular way. She praises the Nordic studies of working from a clean slate, specifically Finnish and Swedish studies, both of which have serious problems: The Finnish gender clinic from which their study was conducted has been accused by parents of psychologically torturing children and asking them deeply inappropriate questions, while the author of the venerated Swedish study has been speaking out against transphobic misinterpretation of it for years.
Near the end of the interview, Hilary Cass advises trans children and their families to keep your options open, and that its not as urgent as it feels. Classic patronizing slop from somebody who has absolutely no idea what theyre talking about. Because of Cass vile, shoddy Report, trans youth in the UK dont have any options anymore.
Prior to heading the Review, Hilary Cass had absolutely no clinical experience with transgender youth. Unlike her, I know all about trans kids. I was a trans kid, I know trans adults who used to be trans kids, Ive met trans kids. Im not a doctor, and I cant speak to the individualized needs of every single trans youth in the world, but what I can tell you is that we knowhave known for quite a long time, nowthat gender-affirming care works. It greatly improves lives, and sometimes it may even save them.
I dont know how these children and their families will move forward, denied the right to express who they are and receive adequate treatment from doctors who should give a shit about them. But I do know that Hilary Cass has been instrumental in worsening their suffering, and I can only hope that decent journalists deny her the opportunity to spread her callous, uninformed bullshit.
It should go without saying at this point that this woman is a quack doctor, however, it's good to have these reminders about why this woman should be nowhere near or have any say whatsoever in healthcare for trans people.
Don't let people try to pull the wool over your eyes about her and be fooled by the rosy wording of the "recommendations" in that disgraceful report.
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