World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Files
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If people are really interest in who is behind the recent hysteria about transgender issues (which undoubtedly is no one here) then this is a very informative article from the cauldron of hate itself.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/us/politics/transgender-conservative-campaign.html
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Yes, we've all been duped...
Sarcasm for clarity
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There is no "far-right conspiracy" here.
The argument was put forward by activists about puberty blockers — and evidence through the Cass Report has debunked that argument.
People on all sides, left and right — including many transgender people — were opposed to the kind of activism that was forced on institutions and the population generally.
Now we are seeing the logical consequences of the Cass Report's findings play out.
"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it." — George Orwell
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Again your not really interested in discussing the money and influencers behind the coordinated and well financed campaign against transgender people, I wonder why ?
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Unfortunately there is plenty of evidence you have. An issue which was barely on peoples radar a few years ago has been turned into a rallying cry for all the desperate conservatives under the sun. It didn't happen spontaneously - you were played.
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We already know who's behind it.
The major actors are, in order
- US medicine who claim that transgenderism is biologically based*
- Radical left wing progressives, mostly heterosexuals
- Only gay in the village types, as previously mentioned.
* no irrefutable evidence for this claim whatsoever, only clown fish.3 -
I suppose it's a bit like the Emperor's New Clothes parable. When you have a group of people ready to shout you down about things, it's easy for no-one to put their head above the parapet and so groupthink takes over. The government - like it or not - is really interested in making money (usually for big companies) and keeping the plebs from revolting; I'm not sure how much incentive they ultimately had in it. (That may be overly cynical, but there you go). But once the bubble is burst, it's burst - it can be eay to underestimate just how small a loony shouty fringe is when that's all you can hear.
I think maybe the key lesson here is to see what other areas may be similar. I'd argue migration - particularly refugees - is one. #NoDebate or #RefugeesWelcome - either way, it's clear there's no real scope for discussion. Criticism? Well then you're either transphobic or racist. I'd say there's a big crossover in terms of the Twitter profiles supporting both. Yet there's big concerns behind both (encouraging refugees just funds criminal gangs) and a small amount of people making a lot of cash both too.
I wonder what the Cass Report moment will be for that?
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LOL that’s over a year old, entirely US-based and doesn’t take account of the very real problems the Cass report has shown up.
Maybe try to find something a bit more recent and preferably not steeped in US culture wars?
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No, I'm interested in hearing what arguments activists put forward.
It's their own arguments I engage with, not conservatives in the United States.
The Cass Report deals similarly with those arguments.
The reference to conservative groups in the US is the classic smear by association tactic.
"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it." — George Orwell
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Haha, I'm not the one that drank the kool-aid
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Allowed? I wasn’t aware anyone needed permission. That aside, there’s a difference between an ad-hom which constitutes a fallacious argument, and an ad-hom which constitutes a legitimate argument. The difference is whether the point being made is relevant, and as far as Dr. Bell is concerned, it’s a legitimate point to point out that he is nothing more than a snivelling sycophant based upon his behaviour and how he has benefited from the way he continues to behave. The article in question which you assess as being one of the best articles you’ve seen, contains plenty of examples of Bell’s unseemly gloating, an ego that would raise a questionable eyebrow among psychiatrists, and the behaviour of a sycophant. This nugget for example:
The pendulum is already swinging towards a reassertion of rationality. Cass’s achievement is to give that pendulum a hugely increased momentum. In years to come we will look back at the damage done to children with incredulity and horror.
But I wouldn’t restrict myself to basing my judgment of a person’s character on one article alone. Substantially more evidence would be required to make a judgement like that, and there is plenty of evidence to draw from ever since Bell chose to portray himself as a whistleblower in the media. Take for example this article where he suggests that he’s not wrong, history is wrong! 🙄When he appeared on Channel 4 News earlier this year, Bell was asked if he feared being on the wrong side of history. “I’ve often thought about that question,” he says. “It’s a good one. Psychiatry has a sad past. Homosexual men were given behavioural therapies and so on. But history isn’t always right. What matters is the truth. I hate the weaponisation of victimhood, the fact that the fear of being seen to be transphobic now overrides everything.” The current campaign to ban so-called gay conversion therapy is, he believes, likely to become a Trojan horse for trans activists who will use it to put pressure on any clinician who does not immediately affirm a young person’s statement about their identity, decrying this, too, as a form of “conversion”. For Bell, the prospect of not being able to talk openly about such things is a tyranny: just another form of repression. “This is about light and air,” he says. “It’s about free thinking, the kind that will result in better outcomes for all young people, whether transgender or not.”
It’s about free thinking, he claims… just not the freedom to think any different from the way Bell thinks everyone should think, because such thinking would be irrational. But that’s me saying the quiet part out loud. Bell claims the issue is about consent (from his perspective it seems to be predicated on consent obtained by his standards, as opposed to an objective standard like informed consent), because he implies that the patients conclusion which doesn’t concur with his already held beliefs, could be indicative of a dangerous collusion on the part of the doctor:Bell is not against puberty blockers per se – “a doctor should never say never” – but he believes that halting puberty only makes it more frightening to the child: “The child will never want to come off the hormones and 98% do now stay on them. This could be a dangerous collusion on the part of the doctor.
If only there were an oversight body which regulates the medical profession… oh wait, there is -
https://www.gmc-uk.org
There’s a very simple reason as to why Bell holds the opinions he does, and it’s foundation lies in the school of thought through which he was trained as a psychoanalyst:Bell has an abiding commitment to the political ‘left’, and is convinced that psychoanalysts should not stay silent in the face of serious political and social oppression and denial. His paper ‘Primitive Mind of State’ (1996), a psychoanalytic critique of the marketisation of the public sector, has been very influential.
https://melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/writers/david-bell/
I can’t imagine any more Trojan Horse behaviour than inserting oneself into a position which serves their own interests entirely (becoming a consultant psychiatrist and then Staff Governor in Tavistock) while simultaneously attempting to undermine the Tavistock and the NHS which funds the clinic. But that would suggest a carefully planned effort. I’m not one to give credit where it isn’t due, which is why I put Dr. Bell’s behaviour down to the point that he is nothing more than merely a snivelling sycophant:
Kiss up, kick down.
This behavior distinguishes a truly despicable sycophant and is most noticeable in hierarchical situations. Such bootlickers ingratiate themselves to those with whom they are currying favor and abuse those below them, treating perceived underlings dismissively and with contempt.
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It’s very much a coincidence. Employment Tribunals, as the name implies, deal with employment law, and that’s all they deal with. The case being described as a landmark case is similar to your own attempts to portray the decision as indicative of ‘shifting tectonic plates’.
Just to put the case in it’s proper context and give you some basis for an actual comparison, the landmark case was actually a couple of weeks previous, when exemplary damages were awarded against a local council for disability discrimination and harassment:
A council worker who was dismissed after taking sick leave for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the Grenfell Tower fire has been awarded a record £4.6m by an employment tribunal for disability discrimination and harassment.
Only yesterday, the NHS suddenly decided to prioritize biological sex over gender in their charter.
Only yesterday? That’s been the position in their guidelines since 2012… not that they’ve ever been able to enforce it mind, due to cutbacks in healthcare by the same Government who are now attempting to portray themselves as capable of actually governing…
Tectonic plates do not shift swiftly, though I’m not entirely certain that was an intentional attempt at irony, when apparently there isn’t even time in Parliament to discuss a bill which would have constituted a significant shift in public policy:Post edited by One eyed Jack on0 -
Legislation against transgender people is a vote loser where ever it's applied, similar to how abortion bans are a vote loser. The Tories are running scared of a public who is mightily sick of their scapegoating of minorities for the mess they have made of the country. Don't expect a transgender bill to ever come back to parliament.
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Pretty much the only big thing that swings elections is how well off people are. It's been over a decade of people becoming more and more broke, so they vote for the opposition.
It happens everywhere.
If you want to fool yourself that the Tories woes are because the voting people are rebelling against their "legislation against transgender people", work away.6 -
It plays it's part. There is still widespread general support for transgender people so trying to victimize them in legislation is not a popular look.
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You can take this topic however you want but the reality is that the majority of posters here are actually looking to improve healthcare for trans people from the current incredibly low standard to the standard that is deemed acceptable in all other aspects of healthcare.
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They really show very little sign of supporting anything but restricting treatments for transgender children.
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Join Date:Posts: 18010
If the evidence base is there for it then it shouldn't be restricted. If it isn't there then why do you think it should be offered?
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Wonderful article.
Describes a few in this place too.
The issue is never the issue; the issue is always the revolution.
The Entryism process: 1) Demand access; 2) Demand accommodation; 3) Demand a seat at the table; 4) Demand to run the table; 5) Demand to run the institution; 6) Run the institution to produce more activists and policy until they run it into the ground.
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This quote was particularly wonderful...
Such a succinct description of so many who engage in these discussions.
Glazers Out!
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Spiked the font of all things reasonable.
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Shhhhh… 🤫 Jesus Christ you don’t want to be giving people ideas like that 😂
The public healthcare system would grind to a halt in the morning if the equivalent of the Cass Review were applied to all areas in medicine:
Conclusion
Using rigorous methods for judging quality of evidence, more than 9 in 10 healthcare interventions studied within Cochrane Reviews do not have high-quality evidence to support their effectiveness and safety. This problem can be remedied by high-quality studies in priority areas. These studies should measure harms as rigorously as benefits. Practitioners and the public should be aware that most frequently used interventions are not supported by high-quality evidence…
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0895435622001007
Because it’s a question of medical ethics, which varies from one society to another - already discussed earlier in the thread, but public healthcare has to be considered within the context of the society in which it operates and the population it is intended to serve, plus within the public healthcare system there are considerable limitations on resources and the requirements of accountability and responsibility all governed by politicians who are ultimately responsible for determining the policies which anyone working within the public healthcare system, or adjacent to it (private healthcare providers providing their services to the public, funded by public funds), must adhere to.
The public healthcare system simply cannot provide the same level of care for the individual as private healthcare providers, because they just don’t have the resources to provide the same standards of healthcare as the private healthcare sector, for an entire population.As sub-standard (depending upon who you ask) as the public healthcare system in Ireland can be, it’s something of a relief that should a person develop cancer for example, they have a better survival rate than the UK:
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/11/uk-cancer-survival-rates-developed-world-report
If the standard of healthcare in terms of oncology (using oncology as a comparable example) is what you’re suggesting is acceptable, then the standard of healthcare provided to people who are transgender already exists, and going by current evidence in terms of outcomes in oncology, the outlook for transgender healthcare is already about the same, and on a similar trajectory which will be determined 20 years from now in the same way as outcomes in oncology have been measured and assessed based upon evidence gathered from the last 20 years - the prognosis is not looking good:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6070369/
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The public healthcare system would grind to a halt in the morning if the equivalent of the Cass Review were applied to all areas in medicine:
Really? The evidence that chemo and radiotherapy are effective treatments for cancer is poor to non-existent? I don't think that is true. Not all medical interventions are subject to Cochrane reviews. I suspect Cochrane reviews are used for interventions where there is a wide range of possibly conflicting data. But, the efficacy of a cancer treatment is easy to measure. The cancer either reduces or it continues to increase. Same is true for many other "physiological" illnesses. New drugs are tested in clinical trials where it's not hard to figure out if they work or not. It's much harder though to objectively measure the efficacy of any treatment for mental health problems like gender dysphoria.
Also, access to treatments might explain the difference between cancer survival rates in Ireland vs the UK, but it says nothing about the effectiveness of the treatments themselves.
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Really? The evidence that chemo and radiotherapy are effective treatments for cancer is poor to non-existent? I don't think that is true.
That’s ok, it has nothing to do with what you quoted anyways.Not all medical interventions are subject to Cochrane reviews. I suspect Cochrane reviews are used for interventions where there is a wide range of possibly conflicting data.
Cochrane review is considered the ‘gold standard’ in systematic reviews in healthcare. What it doesn’t do is determine recommendations, which goes some way toward explaining why the GRADE system (which gets a passing mention in the review) doesn’t appear to have been used, or sort of used, I honestly haven’t been able to tell, but the methodology used is stated to be either mixed methods appraisal, or a modified Newcastle-Ottawa scale (it explains how the scale was modified in the evaluations themselves).
That’s not to suggest that the Cass Review wasn’t thorough, it was, but the standards of evaluation used by the research team at the University of Yorkshire were actually less rigorous than I would have expected. Then again there’s a difference between me saying that I hardly needed a 400 page review to know that the studies in this area are of poor quality, and a body like the NHS commissioning a review of the available evidence in order to inform policy decisions.That’s the reason I suggested that the public healthcare system would grind to a halt in the morning if the equivalent of the Cass Review were applied to all areas in medicine (oncology was just one example), and why I suggested keeping quiet about it and not giving people ideas.
But, the efficacy of a cancer treatment is easy to measure. The cancer either reduces or it continues to increase.Same is true for many other "physiological" illnesses. New drugs are tested in clinical trials where it's not hard to figure out if they work or not. It's much harder though to objectively measure the efficacy of any treatment for mental health problems like gender dysphoria.
Whether a cancer either increases or decreases as a result of treatment is related to it’s effectiveness, not it’s efficacy, and says nothing about it’s safety. The efficacy of any treatment is considerably more difficult to measure than its effectiveness, because there are far more factors to consider than are normally considered in clinical trials. It’s one of those annoying paradoxes - the treatments are effective, but it’s because they are effective that they provide evidence of their efficacy, and there are considerable gaps in measurements between both standards:https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.35075?af=R
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9641635/
https://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/children/what-are-late-effects-childhood-cancer
On that much, yes, the same is true for many other physiological illnesses (not sure why the quotations around “physiological”, I’m assuming it’s physiological illnesses you’re referring to), but the ability to measure the effectiveness or efficacy of any treatment for mental health problems really isn’t any more difficult to measure than physiological problems. It’s why one of the recommendations of the Cass Review was a localised multidisciplinary approach, as opposed to expecting that GIDS alone would be able to address the multi-morbidity of issues observed in patients attending the clinic for treatment.Personally, from all evidence of how that’s worked out in terms of cancer care in the UK, it doesn’t appear to have worked out well at all, and that’s why I don’t expect that should the NHS implement the recommendation (as they appear keen to do), that the outcome will be any different than that observed where the multidisciplinary localised approach has been adopted over the last 20 years. Cancer care is just an example btw, just one. Taken on their own, paediatric oncology waiting lists, or waiting lists for appointments at GIDS are small, in terms of the overall number of children in the UK on waiting lists for various treatments:
Also, access to treatments might explain the difference between cancer survival rates in Ireland vs the UK, but it says nothing about the effectiveness of the treatments themselves.
And neither did I, say anything about the effectiveness of the treatments themselves I mean. My point was about the difference between the public healthcare system in Ireland and the UK, and access to treatment is only one point of comparison. As a whole though:The public healthcare system simply cannot provide the same level of care for the individual as private healthcare providers, because they just don’t have the resources to provide the same standards of healthcare as the private healthcare sector, for an entire population.
As sub-standard (depending upon who you ask) as the public healthcare system in Ireland can be, it’s something of a relief that should a person develop cancer for example, they have a better survival rate than the UK.
Post edited by One eyed Jack on0 -
Nothing here supports your assertion that "the public healthcare system would grind to a halt in the morning if the equivalent of the Cass Review were applied .." You haven't addressed my point that the efficacy and effectiveness of many every day treatments from cancer care to antibiotics, is simply not in question. Maybe specific questions like the effectiveness of particular treatments in particular cohorts or circumstances might benefit from such a review, but that's a completely different type of question.
Systematic Reviews of the Literature Are Not Always Either Useful Or the Best Way To Add To Science
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666688X21000605
A systematic review makes sense in gender medicine because of how contentious it is and all the conflicting data around it
Below however is a timely reminder of what an absolute sh!t show the mental health treatment of gender dysphoric kids has become. I remember when this article was published in the Irish Times, written by Jackie Grainger and that at the time there was some push-back against it. But I didn't realise the extent of the campaign against her and it's only now I'm wondering where she has been for the last three years? Fighting for her professional life, it seems. It makes an astonishing read.
I know I still haven’t fully processed the impact of being accused of harming children, of being labelled a “conversion therapist”; it was and is devastating, especially having seen the impact of actual conversion
therapy first-hand.I was still receiving emails of support, some from professionals, medical and media, but most from parents. They were desperate, their kids were desperate. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) was telling them they couldn’t help, HSE counselling waiting lists were too long and most private therapists wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole. I couldn’t blame them for not being eager to lose their livelihoods by being accused of conversion therapy.
Ironic it was published in the Indo rather than the Irish Times where the original piece appeared. A bit like RTÉ, the IT dipped its toes in the waters on this topic and due to the pushback against them, both have taken a relatively cautious, restrained and uncurious stance ever since.
Post edited by plodder on4 -
I think there are other actors as well.
The whole Trans thing is an aspect of "identity politics" which was heavily promoted by politicians in the years following the financial crash. I believe that this was done in an attempt to distract people from the decrease in living standards following on from the Crash.
One aspect of this in Ireland was the Gay marriage referendum here. I'd mention two aspects: first, a referendum was unnecessary as the Dáil always had it in its power to legislate for gay marriage. In second place Civil Partnership - which was introduced a few years earlier - was marriage in all but name, with the same inherent rights and duties etc. But a referendum was very useful, as it served to distract people for a while from other issues such as Housing, zero-hour contracts, health fiascos and so on.
Now we have reached the end of that road. One thing Covid did is it gave people a lot of free time to look around and review the previous 15 years, and a lot of us have marked the Governments' page with a massive FAIL - and in the recent referendums we gave a very sharp slap to the government's collective face. I wonder what they will come up with next to try and spin things out?
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Nothing here supports your assertion that "the public healthcare system would grind to a halt in the morning if the equivalent of the Cass Review were applied .." You haven't addressed my point that the efficacy and effectiveness of many every day treatments from cancer care to antibiotics, is simply not in question.
It does, and I already provided evidence that it does in the form of a report which concluded:More than 9 in 10 healthcare interventions studied within recent Cochrane Reviews are not supported by high-quality evidence, and harms are under-reported.
If the Cass Review were to apply to all healthcare interventions, in the same manner as it appears to have been applied to transgender healthcare, then those interventions which are deemed to lack high-quality evidence would be severely restricted, and only available in clinical trials. That’s what I mean when I suggest that the public healthcare system would grind to a halt. You mentioned antibiotics though, and they’re a fun one, well, depending upon your point of view I guess, but the only reason it stands out is because I was reading recently about a newly developed drug which has been approved by the FDA and has shown positive results in clinical trials, which is great. It’s probably best though if the patient doesn’t ask questions, like “what’s in it?” 😬
It makes an astonishing read.Even before reading about Vowst, I had a significantly higher barrier for what I might consider astonishing, which is why I don’t particularly care for all the sensationalism being generated in the media about the Cass Review as if it were actually a landmark review. I’ve stated previously that it brings nothing new to the table, it’s recommendations could have been made completely independently of its findings, much like the way the article you provide, and it’s predecessor published in the Irish Times, are nothing new and completely unrelated to the provision of mental health services for children in Ireland.
In order to better understand what I mean by that, the Irish Times article is here:
And of the three names on the article, none of them are psychologists registered with the Psychological Society of Ireland. It’s worse than that though - because the sector is unregulated in Ireland, anyone can call themselves a psychologist. PSI have been calling on Government to address the issue for some time now:
The idea is to regulate the sector in order to root out quack psychologists, therapists, etc who are a danger to the public.0 -
More than 9 in 10 healthcare interventions studied within recent Cochrane Reviews are not supported by high-quality evidence, and harms are under-reported.
You're still not addressing my point. Cochrane reviews are more likely to be undertaken as I said where there is a suspicion that the current consensus is wrong, or there is a conflict in the data. If such a review were to be undertaken on the general efficacy and effectiveness of cancer treatments or antibiotics, they would show the treatments are highly effective. We suspect this because we see the treatments being used every day, and people getting better from them.
It makes an astonishing read.
It really does.
I was “doxxed” online by a well-known trans activist who posted screenshots of my business address, website and name and urged people to “keep their trans siblings away”. It took a toll along with every other horrible untrue tweet, trashy article and anonymous email, of which there were many.
I was also informed of an anonymous attempted smear campaign by members of one of my accreditation bodies, while receiving many emails privately giving support and agreement by people who felt they could not publicly give it. These included politicians and policy-makers.
and
The university, though full of support for me, said the research was now deemed too big a risk to the minor participants because of the potential for further damage caused by activists online. All that is a very long story in itself, a small part of which includes a well-known Irish NGO CEO telling me one thing privately, but saying they have to “toe another line publicly”.
It's clear in this kind of climate why systematic reviews that can't be interfered with and flow objectively are so necessary.
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I did address your point, twice already. I know what Cochrane reviews are used for and how they can be used to support evidence based medicine, so that it is objective as opposed to merely relying on subjective assessments as you’ve done here:
You're still not addressing my point. Cochrane reviews are more likely to be undertaken as I said where there is a suspicion that the current consensus is wrong, or there is a conflict in the data. If such a review were to be undertaken on the general efficacy and effectiveness of cancer treatments or antibiotics, they would show the treatments are highly effective. We suspect this because we see the treatments being used every day, and people getting better from them.
We don’t have to suspect anything when the evidence either supports it, or it doesn’t, and the way the evidence is measured is from low quality to high quality, as it is measured in these two examples:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004417.pub6/full?cookiesEnabled
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013448.pub2/full
That is the whole purpose of Evidence Based Medicine - in order to improve the practice of medicine rather than defaulting to the idea of “this works because we can see it works!” as opposed to the idea of questioning whether it actually works and whom is it working for? Another commonly used example is in the area of blood transfusions, which we’ve relied upon for centuries in medicine, a practice which is now being questioned and new procedures are being developed as a result. It’s a slow process to change what people are used to, especially when evidence contradicts their experience:https://www.nature.com/articles/520024a
It's clear in this kind of climate why systematic reviews that can't be interfered with and flow objectively are so necessary.
I’m not entirely following what you’re saying here, but systematic reviews that can’t be interfered with isn’t an issue, they are expected to undergo rigorous review. What appears to have happened in this instance is that the Cass Review is being heralded as though it validates some people’s beliefs, or at least those people making the claims feel that their beliefs have been validated, but that is based upon a distorted reading or interpretation or representation of the Cass Review. The Cass Review says a lot, but it doesn’t support their views. It recommends young people getting involved and contributing to research in order to build an evidence base from which they can improve the quality of service provided to young people:
Dr. Cass feels that the NHS now has a challenge to build trust from trans young people and asks those who are of the right age to get involved in studies on gender affirming treatments to ensure that we have the highest quality of evidence going forwards. Dr. Cass wants the community to be involved in designing high quality studies and for the new children’s gender services to have the research infrastructure to deliver these.
I got where CatFromHue is coming from in saying that the reality is that the majority of posters here are actually looking to improve healthcare for trans people from the current incredibly low standard to the standard that is deemed acceptable in all other aspects of healthcare. It’s the fact that knowing how incredibly low standards of healthcare are already that are deemed acceptable, is the reason I immediately thought it’s probably best not to draw people’s attention to the fact that standards in healthcare are already incredibly low anyway.By demonstration of the point, when you mention that it’s more difficult to conduct a systematic review of mental healthcare provision for children and make the point that it’s a shìtshow, I agree. But what I don’t expect is that you would base your opinion on the anecdotal evidence presented by one individual, as opposed to basing your opinion on the evidence provided by having carried out a systematic review of the services provided. Like this one, from the Mental Health Commission, which came to the following conclusions:
In her final report on the provision of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the State, the Inspector of Mental Health Services, Dr Susan Finnerty, has said that she cannot currently provide an assurance to all parents in Ireland that their children have access to a safe, effective and evidence-based mental health service.
The Inspector’s independent review into CAMHS, which she commenced in April 2022 - and included the publication of an interim report in January 2023 - has now been finalised complete with 49 recommendations. Due to the seriousness of the concerns raised by the review, the Inspector has recommended that a comprehensive strategy for CAMHS and all other mental health services for children be prepared and approved by the HSE Board.
Despite targeted improvements by the HSE to solve some of the issues, the Inspector states in the report that it is a major concern that there are ongoing and serious deficits in CAMHS which is increasing the risk to children and young people.
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My (probably unpopular) opinion is that what they're coming with next is the hate speech legislation. The one that doesn't define hate so pretty much any conversation about anything (but especially immigration or why TDs own so many undeclared houses that have gone up in value because of government policies) will be illegal.
Firstly changes to the law on gender recognition were put through at the same time as marriage equality legislation. The public and media was distracted with a popular reform so it was snuck in quietly. I wonder how many people have any idea that the GRA even exists.
In 2022, the words women/woman and female were be removed from the Maternity Protection Act 1994, just before summer recess. However Countess (a women's right organisation) spotted it and Denis Naughten brought it up as an issue. The government backed off. I wonder how many other TDs wanted to say someone but were terrified of being targeted or cancelled to do so. And look sure, I'll be at least fair to moderate transgender groups - at the time, TENI (trans equality network ireland) stated that they have always advocated for the word ‘woman’ or ‘women’ to be retained in policy and legislation.
In 2023 we had what I like to think of as our Reichstag moment - the Dublin riots - followed immediately, as in Germany, by Varadkar using the opportunity to push forward his vile hate speech legislation. These laws have been described by a US House Judiciary Committee meeting on government censorship as "among the most draconian hate speech laws in the world". That's nice. At least we're the best at something.
This type of broad strokes legislation is already being used in other countries to take legal action against "hate speech" (eg: Dora Moutot in France is currently being accused of "publicly inciting hatred or violence against a group" for refusing to believe humans can literally change sex and atoning for her sins. Sound familiar?). Sure all of boards.ie could be shut down on grounds like that. We'll see, won't we.
We had the startling tweet from a Green party senator saying "it's for our own good" (https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1729109961320411284) and the completely unreported response from US Senator Vance saying "Ireland senator wants to criminalize speech that causes too much “discomfort” for people. If this were happening in Russia or China or many other nations we would call it totalitarian and threaten economic sanctions.”
The US doesn't dick around. The words "economic" and "sanctions" should concern people.
Then in 2024 we have the referendum proposing to replace 41.2 with a "gender-neutral article on supporting care within the family", removing the link (in my opinion) between the words "mother" and "woman" from the constitution. Slammed by the public so bye bye Varadkar but hello Harris.
Who has promptly doubled down (of course) and has said the Hate speech law is happening. Speaking on RTÉ’s Today With Claire Byrne programme, Harris said that he had decided to pass the bill before the general election. You know, before he's out of a job along with the rest of them.
I know, I'll get letters…
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