Dr Hilary Cass has now published her long-awaited review into support and treatment options for children who suffer from gender confusion, with the paediatrician criticising “ideologically driven” clinics that refused to cooperate with her investigation and warning that the wider social debate on this issue remains “exceptionally toxic”.
The Cass Review offers a strong — some would say unanswerable — challenge to the ‘gender affirmative model’ which in recent years has become the norm in the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS).
Faced with cases of gender distress, this approach encouraged clinicians to ‘affirm’ rather than question a child’s chosen gender identity, before then putting them on a medical pathway that can have lifelong, irreversible consequences.
So does this mean the battle for free and open, evidence-based discussion of how best to treat gender confusion in children and young people has now been won?
Sadly, we think not.
As Graham Linehan pointed out in this clip from an FSU ‘in conversation’ event we held back in 2021, the problem is too ingrained.
Yes, the days of NHS England handing out puberty blockers as if they were sweets looks to be over, but the underlying problem of the ‘ideological capture’ of our public institutions is as much an issue now as it was when Graham alluded to it during our conversation three years ago.
It’s a point that’s also born out by the FSU’s case data for Q1 2024: 44% of our cases during this 3-month period involved providing support to members who had got into trouble, either in the workplace or the public square, simply for questioning the basic tenets of gender ideology.
As Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch put it in a piece for the Times recently, the Cass Review is not the end of the matter, merely the beginning of a process that will only be completed once the leaders of this country’s public institutions step up and recover impartiality.
You can watch the full video of our ‘in conversation’ event with Graham below.
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