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World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Files

191012141530

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 849 ✭✭✭MilkyToast


    The "people angry that women in prison are being locked in cells with convicted rapists are really just closeted trans" thing has already been done.

    Not everything is a rerun of a historical progressive cause célèbre. Sometimes, you're just wrong.

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ~C.S. Lewis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    A rerun of a historical progressive cause célebre is exactly what it is though every time people come out with this kind of crap:

    It seems a bizarre position to throw the report to one side and potentially allow further abuse of children to continue.

    Is that a risk worth taking, on your side of the argument?


    One would need to be very insecure in themselves to think “I really don’t want to be seen as supporting the abuse of women and children” by people whom it’s patently obvious, couldn’t give a shyte, and change their opinions accordingly.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,808 ✭✭✭take everything


    Could this be the actual start of adults having the guts to actually be adult about this and not cravenly giving in to the last few years of progressive but unscientific feelings.

    Not even regarding the trans debate but just generally.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Nah, it’s the opposite effect, having tolerated the decades of laws and socially regressive and restrictive policies based upon pseudoscientific nonsense and feelings based upon festering prejudice and ignorance in Irish society. It’s why this part of an earlier article was particularly insightful given the Catholic Church still maintains control of every aspect of education in 90% of schools in Ireland:

    The draft document attracted criticism from the Catholic Secondary School Parents Association which accused policymakers of “seeking to promote an ideology that refuses to acknowledge basic biological facts in favour of a new gender self-identity doctrine”.

    The Association of Patrons and Trustees of Catholic Schools said Catholic school ethos must be accommodated to take account of the “constitutionally protected right of patrons to run their schools from a faith-based perspective”.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2023/04/24/new-junior-cycle-curriculum-will-oblige-schools-to-teach-about-gender-identity/


    In spite of the fact that it won’t be required to be taught in the 90% of schools which are owned and maintained and managed by the Catholic Church, they want to suppress it in the 10% of schools over which they have no authority or responsibility whatsoever by attempting to play the victim 😒



  • Registered Users Posts: 849 ✭✭✭MilkyToast


    I'm not sure about generally, but regarding the trans issue; yes. You can tell because the only people trying to contradict the Cass Review are the most true believing of TRAs, and this time they're having to do it without the backing of the NGOs/charities that would usually support them, because those are all staying incredibly quiet compared to their usual form. That's why the TRA message is so all over the place.

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ~C.S. Lewis





  • I'm not trying to "get at" anything, other than asking you questions to clarify your position on the matter.

    It's abundantly clear that no matter how much I have tried to gather than clarification, answer there doesn't come.

    I have found the same perspective with activists; speaking around the issue and dismissing any relevant evidence on a whim, rather than engaging directly with the issue itself.



  • Registered Users Posts: 73 ✭✭tarvis


    A long and informative interview - very welcome and very overdue. It seems Newstalk has opted out of the MSM wide ‘no discussion allowed’ .



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    It subsequently became abundantly clear what you were getting at when you came out with this:

    It seems a bizarre position to throw the report to one side and potentially allow further abuse of children to continue.

    Is that a risk worth taking, on your side of the argument?

    You’re not looking for clarification on anything, what you’re attempting to do, unsuccessfully, is based upon your own position, ascribe a position to me that I do not, and never have held.

    Naturally, given your perspective, you will perceive other people who are not in alignment with your position as activists, while you speak around the issue, dismissing any relevant evidence on a whim, rather than engaging directly with the issue itself, which is exactly why I asked you to spit it out whatever you were getting at, precisely because I’d no idea where you were going with your line of questioning.

    I do now, but I rather than simply doing the “I know you are but what am I” thing on it, I do not see you as an activist, nor would I ever call you an activist, and what I would call you is guaranteed to incur at the very minimum a threadban for being uncivil.

    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on




  • Interesting analysis here of the "citation cartel" between various organizations that seek to promote the same view on gender issues.

    In other words, organizations that support WPATH and its conclusions cross-citation each other to give the impression that they were legitimate views to present to healthcare professionals.

    In other words, it's like a Ponzi scheme for research purposes to promote one agenda above all else.

    Through circular referencing, authoritative medical bodies misled the public by manufacturing a consensus on ‘gender-affirming care.’



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    In other words, it's like a Ponzi scheme for research purposes to promote one agenda above all else.


    You cannot possibly have missed the fcuking irony:

    Below, journalist Christina Buttons (who, for full disclosure, I am in a relationship with) dives deeper into the newly discovered citation cartel in gender medicine, providing her own analysis.

    https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/gender-medicines-citation-cartel


    I disagree with her assessment though, it’s how the peer review process, citations and references functions. Naturally, given her perspective, based upon her prior positions, she is bound to characterise academic works and publications not intended for the general public, as an attempt to mislead the general public. At least she’s got some discernible principles though, unlike her former employers:

    There is a critical distinction between speaking truth and being tactless, between sticking to the facts and sticking it to the libs.

    https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/why-im-leaving-the-daily-wire

    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,779 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    The report seems to confirm that this new group of people who are presenting with gender issues are talking rubbish.

    I think we all knew this.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,784 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    I don't think it's fair to say the majority of people presenting with gender dysphoria are talking rubbish. I think the massive increase in young people presenting with troubles at gender clinics or at GPs wanting puberty blockers or cross sex hormones really are suffering. From various things, and in the case of young women in particular, I think they're often basically suffering from the unpleasantness of being a young female in a massively sexualised society.

    One thing I don't think is causing this increase is that transgender people were "always there" but just didn't dare to come out.

    I do think there's an effect of social contagion (where have all the anorexics gone?) and I do think they're being exploited by people with other agendas.

    And I suppose there are some, a few, who are just attention seeking, but I suspect they'll be more "non binary" or some of the other Ze/Hir or whatever invented stuff.

    Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls: "Very concerned about statements by the IOC at Paris2024 (M)ultiple international treaties and national constitutions specifically refer to women & their fundamental rights, so the world (understands) what women -and men- are. (H)ow can one assess fairness and justice if we do not know who we are being fair and just to?"



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,779 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    For girls presenting with these issues, the report seems to confirm that it's a phase and maybe this cycle will last 10 years or so and then die out when the new fad comes out.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,401 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    Good article here delving in to some of the possible reasons why so many girls are trying to "opt out" of womanhood. There certainly are some parallels with anorexia. The difference being we don't generally agree that teenage anorexics need to lose more weight and facilitate that with medication and surgery

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c7cc515f-001f-4ab4-bee1-67872a6b8667?shareToken=f15a86047ec311ddbc801e8ca205873f



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,784 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    Right. But would you say that anorexics were just talking rubbish? It seems obvious to me that the girls displaying these issues are genuinely in distress.

    The question is how to respond adequately to their distress - and blocking their puberty, while it may seem like a successful treatment - because it reduces the unwanted sexual attention they're getting from males - is not solving the problem.

    And yes, going through puberty, and out the other side, does cure the problem in the majority of cases. Another reason why puberty blockers are the wrong answer to genuine distress.

    Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls: "Very concerned about statements by the IOC at Paris2024 (M)ultiple international treaties and national constitutions specifically refer to women & their fundamental rights, so the world (understands) what women -and men- are. (H)ow can one assess fairness and justice if we do not know who we are being fair and just to?"



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,779 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    Well rubbish in the sense that they don't have gender issues. They are not trans.

    They have something else. Anxiety, mental health issues or else they are just odd balls.

    I personally thought most are a mixture of odd ball people and stupid. The parents are the same.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,511 ✭✭✭AllForIt


    That's hilarious.

    Tatchell is one of those people who believes it's possible for humans to literally change sex.

    …and he's got a phesasant to prove it

    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    One thing I don't think is causing this increase is that transgender people were "always there" but just didn't dare to come out.

    I do think there's an effect of social contagion (where have all the anorexics gone?) and I do think they're being exploited by people with other agendas.


    They’ve not ‘gone’ anywhere volchista? Among teenagers their numbers have more than doubled in the last few years among the US population:

    Eating disorder-related health visits — which include hospital stays, pediatrician visits, telehealth talk therapy, and everything in between — more than doubled among people younger than 17 in the past five years, according to a recent report from the data company Trilliant Health. From 2018 through mid-2022, visits among this age group  jumped 107.4% across all eating disorders, from around 50,000 visits at the beginning of 2018 to more than 100,000 in 2022. Visits related to anorexia nervosa, which has the highest death rate of any mental illness, jumped 129.26%. 

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna80745


    They too face long waiting lists for treatment in the UK:

    https://news.sky.com/story/amp/young-people-with-eating-disorders-on-the-rise-amid-worrying-wait-for-treatment-analysis-shows-12931298


    And the same Professor O’ Shea who is so concerned about this topic, has also been tackling obesity for decades (his background in endocrinology does help!):

    https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/doctors-warned-to-stop-telling-obese-patients-eat-less-move-more-is-their-treatment/a1838111061.html


    Tbh the comparisons to anorexia and schizophrenia or an infinite number of mental disorders really, really don’t further anyone’s argument. I won’t say they have an agenda because that implies that there is some thought put into their argument, and not just whatever forms in their minds that makes sense only to themselves.

    The comparisons aren’t helpful, as there are far more differences between the conditions and their effects, than there are similarities. I’m not going to claim you personally don’t understand them, when I know you absolutely do given your own background in medicine, but when people see you making the claims and comparisons, it’s why they imagine there must be something to be said for them, when in reality, there just isn’t.





  • It's embarrassing at this stage.

    At one point, the LGBT community was respected — around the time of the gay marriage referendum.

    At some point since that moment, a tiny minority of ideological extremists have dragged the community through the mud for their own purposes — increasing the risk of hatred and violence against gay people and others.

    What has happened with the WPATH files has only fuelled this hatred.

    The only way to stop this hatred is to stop lying to people about what's actually going on. It's causing unnecessary harm to too many people — gay people, women, children, and even trans people who want nothing to do with the extreme element that speaks in their name.

    For God's sake let the moderates get back to being the voice of reason. This has gone too far.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    At one point, the LGBT community was respected…

    No it wasn’t? That’s why it exists 🤨

    It’s why the few headballs formed the LGB Alliance, because they felt they weren’t being given the respect they felt they were owed. I mean, they were right in the sense that they weren’t given any respect, but that was because of their opinions, not because of their sexual orientation.

    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on




  • It's starting.

    It's the beginning of the end.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,401 ✭✭✭Vote4Squirrels


    You’re very very wrong.

    The reason the LGB Alliance was formed was because LGB people had been ideologically hijacked by the rest of the acronym, the TQIA2S+ etc. They saw that RIGHTLY they were just part of society, lived their lives and had thankfully gone from tolerance and acceptance to just being the same as everyone else. And they wanted to use that.

    They were formed because for all the talking about ending conversion therapy - the current medicine based gender ideology is nothing but that! Young lesbians are being told that they must accept physically intact biological males as lesbians, they are not allowed to hold a simple lesbian-only dating nights without males protesting outside, often violently.

    Young people who don’t follow old fashioned stereotypes are pushed into “transitioning” - when they may well grow up to be health happy gay adults, they are pushed into becoming straight trans men and trans women. Theit sexual orientation is not a phase - it’s hard wired into them. You “transition” a young woman, who might dress stereotypically male but be attracted to women and you’ve removed one lesbian.

    It’s insidious, it’s regressive and it has damaged gay people - hence the need for the LGB Alliance.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,779 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    Do we have a sense of how many Irish parents allowed their children to receive puberty blockers?

    Are these people completely stupid?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,401 ✭✭✭Vote4Squirrels


    1. I think the figure was 200 or so if I recall a report from the HSE correctly. Oh and all paid for by the Treatment Abroad Scheme - I.e. us taxpayers.
    2. Yes, perhaps an argument could ke be made for naive but I’d agree with you.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    What’s the difference between what I wrote, and what you wrote?

    It’s why the few headballs formed the LGB Alliance, because they felt they weren’t being given the respect they felt they were owed. I mean, they were right in the sense that they weren’t given any respect, but that was because of their opinions, not because of their sexual orientation.

    Mine was more a summary I guess 🤔



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,779 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    Naive is too kind.

    This has been obviously a stupid fad the last few years. Bizarrely there are some parents who are encouraging this.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    I think the figure was 200 or so if I recall a report from the HSE correctly. Oh and all paid for by the Treatment Abroad Scheme - I.e. us taxpayers.

    The HSE said fewer than 10 patients at Children’s Hospital Ireland are receiving puberty blockers.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2024/04/10/hse-to-consider-uks-cass-review-on-gender-as-part-of-healthcare-update-informed-by-best-evidence/#:~:text=The%20Cass%20Review%2C%20published%20on,toxicity%E2%80%9D%20of%20the%20trans%20debate.


    It’s neither all paid for by the Treatment Abroad Scheme, nor is it paid for by ‘us’, the taxpayer. It’s funded by public funds, same as every other treatment available on the public healthcare system, and that’s not even touching on the conditions to qualify for the Treatment Abroad Scheme which, thankfully parents, regardless of whether they are taxpayers or not, or their children who aren’t old enough yet to be eligible to pay tax, are not paying for it.

    Opinions like that remind me of the woman who complained that abortion services were being provided for in the public healthcare system, yet she couldn’t get a new electric wheelchair for her son. I couldn’t be arsed pointing out to her the fact that one has nothing to do with the other, both services are chronically underfunded, all services are, because it’s the public healthcare system. Taxpayers benefit from it far, far more, than those who are not yet taxpayers.



  • Registered Users Posts: 849 ✭✭✭MilkyToast


    I think when you're aware of this issue and you've been reading about it for a while, things that are not very obvious to someone with no contact with the issue, or who's only seen puff pieces on the telly, can seem like they should be glaringly obvious.

    If I try and put myself in the shoes of a parent who is relatively ignorant on this issue and whose child has come to them expressing that they are sure they're the opposite sex, who is armed with all the talking points that have been drilled into them by older (majority male) trans-identifying people who hang out in the teen trans spaces online trying to 'crack eggs' (a TRA euphemism for making someone - usually a child or teenager - 'realise' they're trans), and asks you to take them to the doctor. And then, following the script, they ask you to use a different name for them, to buy them a chest binder or a bra. When you see that doctor you're referred to the gender services because your GP hasn't a clue what to do, so now you're taking a trip to another country, which makes the whole thing seem bigger and more serious, and when you get there, the gender clinician, by your bad luck, is an activist, forged for this moment, who says the phrase "would you rather have a dead daughter or a trans son?" - at which point you, as a parent who wants to do the right thing, as a person who trusts the medical establishment, as a busy mother with a full time job who's just been told your child might commit suicide, are just about ready to agree to anything that the 'experts' tell you you should. Because you've only caught the tail-end of an interview on the radio one day while you were rushing your kids from one extra-curricular to another where someone described puberty blockers as a 'pause button', and you still remember holding your baby girl in your arms in the moments after she was born and wondering all the things she'd become, and an expert just told you that she might kill herself if you don't go along with everything.

    I've seen this story play out again and again.

    At this point, some people take to the internet, do their research, and find ways to help their children that aren't 'affirmation' strategies involving drugs and hormones - that happens. But some launch headlong into doing exactly what the activist experts and their script-wielding child tell them they should do to 'save her life' - and I can understand that as well. I don't envy them one bit.

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ~C.S. Lewis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    I've seen this story play out again and again.


    I could see fathers telling their sons “I don’t care, you’re STILL not leaving this house in that dress!”


    Seen that story play out again and again too.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,373 ✭✭✭✭Birneybau


    We can see what you wrote.

    Headballs indeed. 🙄

    We understand nuance.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Some of us understand nuance, others do not.

    It’s why I specifically referred to the headballs who set up the LGB Alliance and why, as opposed to suggesting that they had anything in common other than their opinions and the belief that they weren’t getting the respect they felt they were entitled to for their opinions.

    It’s difficult to describe anyone who could come out with this sort of nonsense as anything oher than a headball. I’ve tried, but lesbians, to the best of my knowledge anyway, are not facing extinction 😒

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/25/lesbians-facing-extinction-transgenderism-becomes-pervasive/


    You reckon they understand nuance?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,401 ✭✭✭Vote4Squirrels




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,401 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    Gay men and lesbians who aren't sexually interested in people of the opposite sex and who object to being pressured and coerced into accepting them as sexual partners are now "headballs".( And let's be honest, it's mainly the lesbians who are being pressured into accepting males as partners, what a shock 🙄) This stance would have been in no way controversial a decade ago.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    That’s not who I was referring to as headballs? Nuance, y’know? This is exactly what I said:

    It’s why the few headballs formed the LGB Alliance, because they felt they weren’t being given the respect they felt they were owed. I mean, they were right in the sense that they weren’t given any respect, but that was because of their opinions, not because of their sexual orientation.

    Nothing to do with, and no mention of, any or anyone’s sexual orientation.

    The stance that wasn’t in any way controversial a decade ago was that homosexual children were just confused and seeking attention, that it was a phase and they’d grow out of it and become happy straight adults, lesbians are just prickteasing all the hot blooded manly men, or were still in denial; gay men are only after your children, and you’re in denial if you don’t believe it; traps are out to… well, they’re apparently after all the hot blooded men too! 😳

    What a difference a decade makes, apparently.


    EDIT: I forgot ‘political lesbianism’ was an idea floated about for a bit, but the origins of that idea were a few decades earlier, and hell if that wasn’t a couple of headballs trying to convince women to have sex with them. They were Feminists though, so nobody cared for their opinions, about anything. That much at least, hasn’t changed:

    Political lesbianism is a phenomenon within feminism, primarily second-wave feminism and radical feminism; it includes, but is not limited to, lesbian separatism. Political lesbianism asserts that sexual orientation is a political and feminist choice, and advocates lesbianism as a positive alternative to heterosexuality for women as part of the struggle against sexism.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_lesbianism

    Post edited by One eyed Jack on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,511 ✭✭✭AllForIt




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,373 ✭✭✭✭Birneybau


    The breakaway LGB alliance broke away because they are same sex-attracted and they have nothing in common with trans people who have inserted themselves into the LGB discourse.

    Wanting to change gender is not bi/homosexuality no matter how much they try and elbow in.

    The opinions of the headballs 🙄 were nope, that's not us.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    They broke away because they got stonewalled, basically is what happened. They felt they weren’t being listened to, and they were absolutely right.



  • Registered Users Posts: 849 ✭✭✭MilkyToast


    I only just found the time to read this article about an interview with Baroness Ruth Hunt, former CEO of Stonewall (and now a life peer for her efforts, thanks to Theresa May).

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stonewall-tried-to-silence-warnings-of-weak-evidence-for-trans-healthcare-n299v00c3

    The whole thing is one big reverse ferret, but there are some notable dingers.

    They're morphed homophobic attitudes held by bigoted transphobes! No… wait. The homophobia is internalised by the young women claiming a trans identity!

    Regret and agendas, no less.

    In response to an information pack that was sent out to schools in 2018 by Transgender Trend, advocating the same careful approach now advised in the Cass review, Stonewall under Hunt's tenure had this to say:

    Fast forward to mid April, 2024, and suddenly…

    There's a lot of this going on, for what it's worth. The TRAs are still being loud, as they've always been and always will be (though probably about another issue, soon), but in quarters where it matters most, and where reputation matters… many ferrets reversing.

    Or rats jumping ship.

    You decide.

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ~C.S. Lewis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,479 ✭✭✭plodder


    That's not quite the case. It does sound like the typical Irish fudge though.

    Schools will be expected to follow learning outcomes detailed in the document, even if they believe it clashes with their ethos. More latitude, however, will be given to schools in the detail of how these issues are taught and the resources used.

    One of the learning outcomes says students should be able to “recognise the factors and influences that shape young people’s self-identity, such as family, peers, culture, gender identity, sexual orientation, race/ethnic background, disabilities, religious beliefs/world-views.”

    "gender identity" with no mention of sex. Are they saying sex has no influence over identity? And what about social media? Does that not have any influence on young people's sense of identity? This document is clearly biased and written from one perspective only.

    Though I see it was changed to remove the reference to gender being a "spectrum". Does that mean gender is binary again? "Cisgender" was taken out as well. How can you describe the new concept of gender without terms like cisgender (whether people agree with them or not)? Sounds like a bit of horse-trading with language went on, conceding a few things here and there, but that's not how a school curriculum should be developed. We can't be pushing the old religion out of schools on one hand, while bringing a new kind of secular faith in on the other. It's too contested and incoherent.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    It must be very disappointing for the transphobic commentators that services for transgender people are been expanded. Children will be assessed and given appropriate treatment more promptly. How is that a victory exactly ?

    The hysteria around the Cass report is something of a pyric victory.



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  • It's not "transphobic" to follow nor to trust medical advice.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    So if medical advice recommends gender affirming treatments your fine with that. I believe in following the recommendations of clinical staff as has happened for years. Maybe you don't ?

    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on




  • Medical advice changes over time. When better evidence surfaces, the recommendations and protocols change accordingly.

    Medicine is fluid in that respect. Once upon a time, ranitidine (Zantac) was widely recommended for the treatment of acid reflux. Clinicians at the time were "following the recommendations" of the research of the medicine. However, as recently as 2019, it was established that ranitidine is carcinogenic (cancer causing), and so the medicine was discontinued a year later.

    Clinicians would have been violating their duty to "first, do no harm" by ignoring this evidence. Medicine exists within a framework where it evolves over time according to the best available evidence.

    That's the way it has always been and the way it should be.

    Political ideology has no place in medicine.

    As for the "recommendations of clinical staff as happened for years", take a look at what psychiatrists and psychologists have said on the matter i.e. those working at Mermaids and Tavistock. They were aghast at the standards applied, and the complete disregard for protocol. It was all about affirmation, affirmation, affirmation — no matter what. It was dangerous nonsense, and it was rightly called out in the end. Of course, it was often due to the healthcare professional's fears of being labelled as "transphobic" for wanting to help patients in the right way.

    If in the future the best available evidence conclusively establishes that giving puberty blockers to children is completely harmless, then yes — the recommended advice may very well change. But until that time, we should exercise extreme caution given the risks to children that the Cass Report and many other reports have documented. This isn't controversial, it's common sense — and it's the same attitude we apply to every other single aspect of medicine.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    As has been shown Dr Cass is not without her own biases so the single report by her doesn't trump the expertise in the field which has been gathered over decades. The do no harm bit is important because if an expert clinician decides that gender affirming treatments is the correct outcome for their patient they would be doing harm if they were denied that treatment for political or ideological reason.

    In certain parts of America where the siren call of transphobic wingnuts has been listened to - medical experts are been compelled to do harm to their patients by denying treatment for political reasons - which is a horrific situation for those patients, and a horrific situation for doctors who are been compelled to break their oath.

    Its criminal that a medical matter has been turned so highly political by a failed political ideology who see the only path to power as stoking culture wars.

    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on




  • The "expertise" you refer to doesn't exist. It never has existed. This was experimental medicine to begin with.

    Mermaids and Tavistock both failed in their duty of care towards children. Is this the expertise you are referring to?

    Clinics across Europe have similarly had to upgrade their protocols away from the rush-them-through, affirmation model. Is this the expertise you are referring to?

    No, Dr Cass' report speaks for itself. Other researchers can work through the evidence for themselves. If there are any inconsistencies with the research, then new research can counter it. Until then, we have no reason to dismiss the report. That's how academic research works. We can't casually dismiss evidence we don't like.

    But we have every reason to dismiss the legitimate bias that some people have against the report because it misaligns with their ideological perspective. That is the most suspect bias of them all.

    Put another way, if the Cass Report backed up the views of activists, they wouldn't be making the same points they are today. It's all about what is expedient to their own interests and their own interests first.

    The consideration and duty of care toward children is always held secondary.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    Sorry but people who have worked in the field are clinical experts - unlike Dr Cass.

    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on




  • As I said, this was experimental medicine to begin with. Therefore, you had clinicians who opted for one treatment path (immediate, unquestioning affirmation), and other clinicians who opted for a different treatment path (cautious).

    What the Cass Report does is zoom out to the bigger picture to establish the evidence-base of both.

    It establishes that those clinicians (the "experts", as you call them) rushing children through to affirmation were actively harming children. Those clinicians that were more cautious have been shown to have been correct.

    Now, a protocol can exist to ensure no more children are harmed.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    All medicine is experimental with costs and benefits. Nothing changes.

    No one is rushing children through gender affirmative treatments and Dr Cass report describes the actual clinical percentages that have been normal practice at the Tavistocks for decades. Less than 15% of referrals go on to receive medical interventions and a much smaller percentage receive gender reassignment treatment. Dr Cass clearly describes this.

    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,361 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    What are you saying isn’t quite the case plodder? Just so I’m clear on what you’re saying. I just don’t want to be putting words in your mouth or making assumptions.

    There being no mention of sex in the article doesn’t mean there’s no mention of of sex in the curriculum, there’s a whole glossary of terms, and I’ve no doubt teachers will do a stellar job as always in delivering exactly the curriculum which the schools board of management agrees on in line with their relationships and sex education policy. You can read the whole document for yourself here and see what you make of it yourself, it was developed in consultation with a number of stakeholders, so everyone still has equal opportunity to claim it’s biased:

    https://www.curriculumonline.ie/junior-cycle/short-courses/sphe/sphe-2023/rationale-and-aim/

    You can read the Bishops take on RSE In Catholic schools here:

    https://catholiceducation.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/RSE-Post-Primary-Schools-Republic-of-Ireland.pdf


    “A new kind of secular faith” though? The old religion isn’t being pushed out at all, it’s not interfering with the old religion in any way, shape or form whatsoever. There’s no new “secular faith”replacing anything. It’s just updating the curriculum to reflect modern Irish society, that’s all. Schools will still have ultimate responsibility and control over what is, and isn’t, delivered in their schools in accordance with the ethos of the school, though I don’t imagine too many will be going this far to attempt to provide “balance”:

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/parents-vow-to-withdraw-children-from-sex-education-class-given-by-catholic-group-1.3908704


    No, I don’t know what possessed them either 😒

    But Atheist Ireland does a good write-up on it if you’re interested? I’d be lying if I were to suggest it’s unbiased, but you’ll figure it out for yourself anyways:

    https://atheist.ie/2023/07/new-guidelines-for-catholic-sex-education-during-curriculum-sphe-atheist-ireland-writes-to-minister/



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  • Issuing puberty blockers to children on the basis of changing gender was most certainly new to all those clinicians practicing or involved with this new wave of medicine.

    It was as new as you could get.

    To then pretend that clinicians knew everything they needed to know, and know everything they need to know — is not realistic. As I said, it's a very unusual position to adopt.

    According to you, the Cass Report is wrong, all those clinics in Sweden and Finland and Denmark are wrong; all those clinicians are wrong. All the research is wrong.

    But you're right?

    No, sorry — I'm sticking with the best available evidence.

    As I said before, the same people who (rightly) ask us to "trust the science" when it comes to other matters are unwilling to hold to this principle when it comes to evidence they don't like, evidence that contradicts their ideological perspective.

    When it comes to evidence against my position and my sincerely held idea, evidence should always trump that idea — even when I don't like the outcome. When the evidence changes, people should change their mind.

    Otherwise, we're dealing with unalloyed dogmatism.



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