Category: Tavistock Series

Time To Think: Hannah Barnes. (4)

Featured

I am reading this at in chunks so I do the review justice. This one will cover chapters 7 & 8. You can read the rest of the series at the link below. Do buy the book. My review is no substitute and it is an important historical record. Also order it at your Library.

TIME TO THINK: Hannah Barnes

Chapter 7 is aptly titles The Bombshell as there are growing numbers of staff expressing concerns, a huge surge in referrals and staff are failing to meet targets over waiting times.

The decision was taken to invite an external consultant to review G.I.Ds and, for a brief point, it looked as though significant change was on the horizon. For some staff this change couldn’t come soon enough as one commented.

The consultant, Dr Femi Nzegwu, made her recommendations which included reviewing the criteria for referrals, a minimum standard for report writing and even a temporary cessation of the service.

Anna Hutchinson shared her recollections of this time.

According to Hutchinson it was Polly Carmichael who ended the discussion about closure, in her view all it required was “brave leadership”.

There is no evidence that NHS England were ever told of the report, certainly the chief executive of the NHS Trust, where GIDs was based, not: He had to find out from the media.

Meanwhile, in 2016/17, when the report was commissioned, referrals were still increasing and the staff doubles from 40 to 80 and still they could not keep up. The criteria was not tightened up and there were multiple agencies able to refer children.

At around this time the first reported outcomes of the Tavistock experiment with puberty blockers started to emerge. The preliminary findings showed a mismatch between positive reports by the patients which were not borne out by the psychological testing. Amazingly there was no improvement of the Gender Dysphoria or the self-harm. Subjects also had higher degrees of suicide ideation.

Despite this no halt was called to the live experiment which included 162 children by 2016. Carmichael actually argued that this progression rate might mean that some children who would have benefited may have missed out! Though she did conceded it was possible that the puberty blockers influenced the trajectory for these kids. Almost as if going through a natural puberty helped resolve bodily rejection.

There was more. The researchers revealed that near a 100% of the children had progressed to cross-sex hormones. Only one stoped treatment citing issues with bone density development. For some clinicians this was a wake up call.

Hutchinson sounds absolutely horrified by what the clinic was doing to some of the more vulnerable children in our society. A horror I share.

For natal boys there is another consequence. One of the arguments for blocking puberty had been the prevention of the development of secondary sexual characteristics would avoid unnecessary surgery in the future. For males, however, the stunting of their male genitalia actually increased the likelihood they would have to undergo an even riskier type of surgery. The Tavistock staff knew that one of the boys in the Dutch study had died following complications of this type of surgery. We know also, from Marci Bowers, a “trans-identified” man and a surgeon, that these children will likely grow up and be not only sterile but inorgasmic. It shocks me everyday that we are still doing this.

Some of the clinicians describe how there practice changed after this research but the clinic itself issued no directive and did not change practice. One of the clinicians drafted a leaflet, to be shared with patients and their families, warning about the issue with future genital surgery. The leaflet needed approval from Carmichael who did not respond to the requests; a decision described as unethical by one 👇 clinician.

The reluctance to commit this to paper invites speculation as to Carmichael’s motives. This was one suggestion.

Chapter Eight.

This chapter covers the fallout for the staff and how some began to modify their practice in line with the new information. Stress levels were high and staff were offloading to one another but the service itself had not reviewed its treatment protocols. Discussions across GIDs, were they occurred were described as polarising.

This chapter also covers what seems to be the dysfunctional relationship with CAMHS (Childhood and Adolescent Mental Health Services). It appeared that the impact of economic policy “austerity” had placed intolerable pressure on CAMHS who were referring to GIDs partly to relieve pressure on their service. It was not that these children did not express unhappiness with their sexed body they did, but they often had co-morbid mental health issues which were left untreated by a referral to GIDs.

A further difficulty was that it was ideologically driven lobby groups, like Mermaids, who stepped in to provide support to parents and children. Mermaids , as we know, believed in the idea someone could be born in the wrong body and pushed the idea that if you did not medicalise these kids they would commit suicide. There involvement would, inevitably, drive up referrals and make existing referrals anxious for the medical pathway.

Matters were not helped by the number of agencies able to refer children to GIDs.

The feeling I am left with is a service spinning out of control and a leadership team unable to take the hard decisions and, at the heart of this problem, children bing irreversibly damaged.

You can support my work by taking out a paid subscription to my substack or donating below. All donations gratefully received and they do help me cover my costs and also to keep content open for those not able to contribute. (I will add other methods as soon as I have figured it out. 😉)

My Substack

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching the history and the present of the “transgender” movement and the harm it is wreaking on our society.

£10.00

Time To Think: Hannah Barnes (3)

Featured

This is a ground breaking book even after all the media coverage about the Tavistock.I think I have written about twenty pieces about the U.K’s main Gender Identity Service but I still finding this an absorbing read and learning things I didn’t know. I am writing this series as I make my way through the book.

I will cover chapters five and 6 in this piece. You can catch up with the series here👇:

TIME TO THINK: Hannah Barnes

The clinic had entered a new era now that Dr Polly Carmichael had taken over the helm. Bernadette Wren also joined during this period as did many new staff as the operations of the clinic expanded. The NHS had commissioned G.I.D.s to provide a national service and referrals were increasing at unprecedented rates. It seems the previous head, Domenico Di Ceglie should have heeded the warning which did, in fact, make him laugh. We are not laughing now.

The picture pained by Barnes, based on her interviews with former Tavistock staff, is of exponential growth in referrals, a complete change in the demographic, and a leadership team seemingly unable to manage the risks for this new client group. Therapeutic work was difficult to schedule and some seem to have embraced the “affirmative” model resulting in more than one account of puberty blockers being offered during the first appointment.

Apart from the time constraints the availability of the medical pathway was changing the nature of the relationship between the clinicians and the children referred to the service. One of them describing a “fundamentalist mindset”.

Newer clinicians relies on the more experienced staff to guide them, in the absence of any formal training. This meant they were all being trained in the “affirmative” model as described by Anna Hutchinson.

Many of the clinicians describe the complexity of the cases they were faced with, including one who had three alternative personalities (known as “alters”) two of them with Australian accents even though the patient had never set foot there. Others had competing mental health conditions and suicidal ideation. Yet for all these patients there was just one treatment pathway, medical intervention to block puberty.

More than one interviewee expressed concern about the influence of lobby groups like Mermaids and GIRES. Rather than resisting this pressure Hutchinson felt that the Tavistock were buckling. The impression given is that phone calls and emails from staff at these organisations were often made to Dr Polly Carmichael.

Hutchinson describes how, originally, she was not too concerned about the use of puberty blockers having assumed /been led to believe, there was a strong evidence base behind their usage. In the next chapter this would change.

This chapter ends with another case study of a gay man with extreme Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that practically kept him housebound. He had been subject to homophobic bullying for many years and now began to question his gender identity. His mother describes how a senior clinician, from the Tavistock, travelled to see him at home and how she reacted to the pressure she felt under, going so far as to describe it as “insane”.

Luckily this gay man escaped the clutches of the Born In The Wrong Body brigade.

In chapter six we meet Matt Bristow, a gay man, who considered himself a “trans ally” and was thrilled to join G.I.Ds. Right off the bat he makes an astute ovservation that so many of the referrals are from traumatic background he wondered if they wanted to reinvent themselves via a new gender identity. Bristow also describes the hostility in some of the therapeutic encounters with patients who resented the assessment period prior to receipt of drug treatment. Patients were also predisposed to be dishonest fearful of being deemed ineligible for treatments.

Those of us with children caught up in this know that our kids are being taught a script on line to dish out to gullible, or complicit, clinicians.

By 2014 the Tavistock had determined that they would lower the age for medical intervention to allow prescriptions for those under twelve. Carmichael referred to this as “stage not age” and announced it in the press.

Carmichael is not being quite accurate in this statement. Further interrogation by the Newsnight Team, which included Barnes, forced an admission that no study had been completed and evaluated at the Tavistock, instead they were relying on the Dutch study. The problem with this was that the Dutch had not experimented on those under the age of 12.

The decision was taken by the senior staff and some staff had misgivings as Natasha Prescott recalls.

While Prescott takes a charitable view of the intentions she does question why the therapeutic aim seemed to be to eradicate any stress or discomfort rather than to teach their patients coping strategies. Other staff members too a more cynical view.

The chapter covers both Mermaids pressure for a reduced age for prescriptions and public statements, by Bernadette Wren, on why GIDs were resisting the pressure. In the end Mermaids got their way.

Barnes questions why NHS England agreed this change in the treatment protocol when no formal evaluation has been published on the ongoing study on these over the age of twelve. She also points out that the Dutch study was not an unalloyed success and even resulted in the death of one of the participants. There had also been a loss to follow up of more than 20%.

This chapter gives a good critique of potential flaws in the way participants were evaluated; in particular the way the patient was assessed for satisfaction with their biological sex, at the outset, and, after surgery, asked if they were satisfied with their target sex. Could the positive results be attributed to this methodology?

All this was taking place against a background of increased rates of referrals, inexperienced staff and a complete inversion of the sexes who were present ing at the Tavistock. From a small number of mainly boys with long standing “gender issues” they were now seeing mainly teenage females who had suddenly emerged as “trans”. This is how one clinician described the waiting room👇. This is what social contagion looks like.

Staff were still under the impression that the puberty blockers being administered were fully reversible. This was despite Carmichael making different public pronouncents for different audiences. She can be found describing PBs as a “pause” for childrens BBC but admitting they are not elsewhere.

This is Carmichael to the guardian.

Against this background the Tavistock was still expanding and doubling its contribution to the NHS trust. They were garnering positive press attention and encouraged to expand its staff, reduce assessment periods, and prescribe to everyone more, and ever younger children. We’re they unchallenged because they were a significant source of revenue?

You can support my work by taking out a paid subscription to my substack or donating below. All donations gratefully received and they do help me cover my costs and also to keep content open for those not able to contribute. (I will add other methods as soon as I have figured it out. 😉)

My Substack

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching the history and the present of the “transgender” movement and the harm it is wreaking on our society.

£10.00

Time to Think: Hannah Barnes (2)

Part of a series on this excellent book. Waterstones may be hiding it but it’s too big a scandal to cover up and those of you cheering on this harmful ideology are going to pretend you didn’t!

You can find part one here:

Time to Think: Hannah Barnes.

Chapter 3 examines the pressure on G.I.D.s to embrace what has become known as The Dutch Protocol; namely the use of puberty blockers in children presenting with “Gender Dysphoria”. We have seem that there were tensions within the Tavistock as different ideologies were competing for dominance. Crudely, some clinicians were familiar with people presenting with distress, expressed as a bodily rejection, which could manifest as anorexia, self-harm, alcoholism or, in more extreme cases the rejection of a limb. (A condition known as apotemnophilia). The other camp, again crudely, believed in innate gender identity or a “Born In The Wrong Body” narrative. For the latter camp forcing a child to go through the “wrong puberty” was akin to abuse. I have said many times that once you believe in the existence of a “gender identity”, at odds with your biological sex, the next steps seem obvious and, perhaps, inevitable.

Pressure to prescribe came from all quarters, from parents;the kids themselves and lobby groups. The use of threats of suicide often accompanying these demands. Older people with a “trans” identity also seemed to use these kids as a kind of retrospective wish fulfilment. Those of us who cover the topic of autogynephilia see another motive; creating the idea of the “transgender child” to deflect attention away from trans-identified males with a sexual fetish; an accusation that can’t be levelled at a child.

Of course by the time we were in the 2000’s there were plenty of Lobby Groups pushing for earlier, medical intervention. We must not overlook the profit motive; Ferring Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Puberty Blocking drug, Triptolerin, funded the initial research into using Puberty Blockers, at Gender Clinics, and they have also donated £1.4 million to the Liberal Democrats, a U.K political party,

The claims made for the “Dutch Protocol” do not appear to be justified by the paucity of research.

In this chapter we find that clinicians were aware that most of these children, left alone, would reconcile to their sex and turn out to be gay males or Lesbians. Nevertheless despite the risk of “false positives” they would, eventually, capitulate.

In 2005 the association for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes (BPSED) came out against this early intervention.

People were sounding a note of caution but one of the more shocking statements would come from an ex member of G.I.D.s staff about the role the possibility of medical interventions may have played in the strategy of its Director.

Elsewhere Barnes speculated that De Ceglie saw his role as making sure G.I.D.s survived as an organisation and that this may have taken priority over other concerns.

Whether due to the pressure from behind the scenes / public lobbying the outbreak of sanity at BPSED would not last. When the guidelines came up for review in 2008, they changed their stance.

For good or ill the NHS were now sterilising children.

The chapter ends with a reflection from Phoebe, a trans-identified male who had surgery to remove his genitals at age 18. Phoebe’s back story is that of a surviving twin whose sister was lost in uteru. Phoebe was a gender non-conforming male who had extensive homophobic bullying. Clearly he is same sex attracted but, age 28, a man who accepts him as a woman has proved elusive. Despite regretting the loss of a chance at biological children, Phoebe claims to have no regrets about his path but also has not managed to quell all doubts.

I am inclined to agree with Barne’s assessment that Phoebe is quite charming. He is also wary of rushing access to medications and surgeries.I am correctly sexing him here, because it’s important not to yield our language, but I wish him well and hope he never has cause to regret his surgery.

By Chapter 4, De Ceglie has been replaced by Polly Carmichael and G.I.Ds had, after a refusal, obtained ethical approval for a research project to block puberty for some of the children in their care. This chapter is a must read to understand why the staff at G.I.Ds chose not to use a control group so they could compare those given puberty blockers against a cohort who had not received them. It questions the results of the Dutch Protocol and whether the Tavistock were honest about the effect of the puberty blockers. In particular they describe them as granting a “pause” when they knew almost 100% of children progressed to cross sex hormones, as did ALL of the children in the Dutch Protocol. It also questions the impact on boys who would require a riskier surgery, using intestinal tissue, because of a stunted penis. (One patient in the Dutch protocol died from complications of the surgery). Moreover it points out that the fact all of the children who take PBs + Cross Sex Hormones will be sterile and not just have reduced fertility as the subjects were told. This is a must read chapter and while the revelations are explosive it is told in a calm and measured way by Barnes.

Barnes also revisits the first patient that started the push to use puberty blockers, patient B. This does not sound like an unmitigated success. It’s worth a long clip of this section.

Barnes references the excellent work of herself and Deborah Cohen for the Newsnight team and Professor Viper’s response to some of the relegations.

Jack

The chapter ends with another case study of a trans-identified female from the foster care system. Jack had a disrupted childhood with a family dealing with alcohol issues. She was a tomboy and attracted to other girls. The foster care broke down when they began to insist Jack ceased hanging out with boys and dressed more “feminine”. Jack had mental health issues and spent two years in a psychiatric facility. She describes a slow and careful assessment at G.IDs which was frustrating at the time. She also did not want to be a Lesbian.

Jack became attracted to the notion she was “trans” after watching the product placement of a trans character on a U.K soap aimed at teens. She also makes a startling observation on a further stint on a psychiatric ward shen she was older.

She also thinks the testosterone may have influenced her sexuality and now identifies as a gay man, attracted to males. In the end Jack took cross sex hormones and had a double mastectomy, neither of which she regrets. She does, however, think safeguarding young people from making a mistake is important.

You can support my work by taking out a paid subscription to my substack or donating below. All donations gratefully received and they do help me cover my costs and also to keep content open for those not able to contribute. (I will add other methods as soon as I have figured it out. 😉)

My Substack

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching the history and the present of the “transgender” movement and the harm it is wreaking on our society.

£10.00

Sonia Appleby case

Sonia Appleby is the safeguarding lead for the Trust that houses the Tavistock, or Gender Identity Development Service (GIDs). Sonia bravely took her employer to an Employment Tribunal ; which she won. You can read the full judgment below.

Ms_S_Appleby__vs___Tavistock_and_Portman_NHS_Foundation_Trust

The full judgment contains many of the red flags that, no doubt, form part of the background to the closure of the Tavistock (G.I.Ds).

Sonia Appleby was the safeguarding lead for the NHS Trust which, until recently, housed the Gender Identity Service. Sonia’s case centred on the six issues she raised under the whistleblower policy and whether she suffered detriment as a result. She won her case and was awarded £20,000 in compensation.

In order to determine the case many staff were interviewed and some were cross examined.

Matt Bristow was not cross examined but his witness statement, on behalf of Sonia Appleby is on the public record. 👇 This encapsulates his concerns. Gay Conversion Therapy, in a nutshell.

Sonia was in the middle of an internal dispute between staff at the Tavistock about the best way to treat their referrals. Some staff believed in an innate “gender identity” where the children know best and it’s the clinician’s role to affirm their “authentic self”. This is an ideologically predicated perspective. Others were concerned about the other potential influences on the child’s internal belief system. Autism, same sex attraction, backgrounds of abuse or other trauma were present in a lot of the children. Some clinician were worried about the role of social media and the explosion of “trans” in the media fuelling a social contagion. Appleby was in the eye of the storm attempting to enforce child safeguarding in the midst of this, highly charged, environment.

The service had seen a steep rise in referrals, from mainly male it had switched to 76% female, waiting lists were long and the first court case, questioning the use of “affirmation” only had already been heard. This was the case of Keira Bell, a case I cover here:

Kiera Bell: Judicial Review

It was not just internal strife that bedevilled the service. The issue had become highly politicised with women’s groups springing up to contest the attacks on female only spaces by trans activists. Controversial lobby group, Mermaids, was garnering a lot of media attention and the promotion of “transgender” children was peddled across the U.K media. Accusations of “transphobia” were rife.

Sonia Appleby had experience as a social worker and a psychoanalytical psychotherapist and was named lead for safeguarding children for the Trust. By June 2016 she was raising the alarm at the rise in referrals and the increasing workloads. She also noted deficiencies in record keeping. Staff were also raising concerns about the role of a private practitioner who had entered the fray.

Dr Webberley has been suspended from practice for a number of years, her husband, who worked alongside her, was actually removed from the medical register this year. G.I.Ds staff were beginning to see children who had not only socially “transitioned” but had already accessed puberty blocking drugs from private practitioners such as Webberley.

Dr Carmichael’s response to this requested meeting is described as “interesting” in that she expressed concern that she “was unsure the agenda here”. She claimed she was simply wondering what the agenda was for the meeting. The tribunal was not convinced by this explanation”.

This was Sonia Appleby’s first protected disclosure. Mermaids, Rogue Medics and tensions within the team.

The second list of concerns is even more damning. Again Dr Webberley features; as does the number of gay kids presenting as “transgender”; parental encouragement of their child’s identity; and Dr Carmichael’s unwillingness to listen all feature.

There emerged some confusion about who was taking these issues forwarded and during a flurry of emails Appleby became aware that Dr Carmichael resented her being approached by her own staff. At this point a Garry Richardom is brought on board to play a role in safeguarding internal to G.I.Ds. This relationship gets off to a rocky start because he objects to her use of Jimmy Savile as a warning to the service.

Sonia explains this was something she routinely did to embed safeguarding in the service by using the example of Jimmy Savile who is the most high profile example of the NHS failing to spot /act upon a major safeguarding risk.

By 2018 a group of ten staff raised concerns with Dr David Bell. The claimant also raised another list of concerns raised by a staff member. Again the issue of homophobic parents raises its ugly head and a lack of understanding of the effects of puberty blockers.

She then conducted an audit of safeguarding referrals and noted that the rate of referrals was very low at G.I.Ds compared to other areas of the Trust. Appleby felt relations with Dr Carmichael were strained she was cast as someone asking “awkward questions”. At the same time Dr David Bell began interviewing staff and preparing his own report documenting concerns. This report was damning and would be leaked to the press. Once again homophobia is identified as an issue as well as the “excessively affirmative” attitude of staff who were seen as unable to withstand pressure to medically intervene.

Dr Carmichael’s response appears defensive.

At this point the claimant needed to establish a working relationship with a Dr Sinha who joined the service. This got off to a rocky start as he was briefed that she did not like to be managed and worked too independently, he reported that he found her argumentative but was unable to provide examples, to the tribunal, of incidents that led to this conclusion. There follows some exchanges that illustrate that Sonia Appleby was regarded with suspicion even when collecting data which was required for her job.

There followed a fifth protected disclosure based on the exit interview of Dr Matt Bristow. By this time Sonia Appleby is regarded with suspicion across the service and evidence is brought to the tribunal that staff were being discouraged from bringing safeguarding concerns to Sonia. Email trails who that staff were complaining about her “insubordination” and Dr Sinha embarks on disciplinary proceedings resulting in a letter being placed on her file. The tribunal found the way this was handled to be unfair to the claimant. Dr Sinha was found to be hostile and “punitive”.

Sonia was labelled as “not on side” by Dr Carmichael and evidence is presented illustrating that Sonia was safeguarding issues were not being referred, to her, by staff.

The tribunal concluded that there was a message being communicated that Appleby was hostile to the service and being cut out of issues in relation to her role as child safeguarding lead.

The tribunal found that the claimant had suffered detriment and an award of £20,000 was made. The picture that emerges is of a service riven with tension and suspicion where raising safeguarding concerns was viewed as a hostile act. The recurrent theme is one of homophobia which echoes my own experience. Our gay youth are poorly served/actively harmed by this service, in my view. The removal of the service from the Tavistock was long overdue.

You can support my work here. All contributions gratefully received.

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching the history and the present of the “transgender” movement and the harm it is wreaking on our society.

£10.00

Bernadette Wren:Tavistock 3

Featured

Part 3 on this talk by Wren.

You can see earlier parts of this series on this page:

Bernadette Wren

We rejoin Wren explaining about the rising referral rates to GIDs and the witch from predominantly male referrals to 75% female. Wren repeats the statement, made earlier, about the poor research base for the treatments for which she makes referrrals.

At this point Wren tells us that adults who have undergone these treatments do have a degree of continuing mental health issues, based on studies (which she does not name), but with small amounts of regret. For children and adolescents she references a Dutch study (again no specific reference provided) which followed a small group of “treated” referrals who were all doing well. She does, however, concede that this group tended to be very well functioning and arrive at the clinics at an older age. It is worth noting that the Tavistock were ideally placed to have conducted their own research. The childhood and adolescent branch of the tavistock was set up in 1989. They began administering puberty blockers in 2011. This talk was in 2019.

The next slide shows the diversity of the Tavistock’s clientele.

Evolutionary Biology

Finally we get to the question of evolutionary biology. Wren begins by pointing out that evolutionary biologists assume that humans are motivated by the aim of reproducing and leaving partial copies of ourselves on this earth; we are assumed to have an imperative to pass on our genes. She then breaks off and makes an interesting comment.

She continues by focussing on research re homosexuality which, she is careful to point out, she is not conflating with gender atypical presentations. She then says “Obviously, like Gender Dysphoria we assume like homosexuality has existed throughout history and in all known cultures” . I would say that is a highly contested statement, the latter yes, but “Gender Dysphoria” is a relatively new concept which has pathologised people who do not conform to expectations for their sex, many of them homosexual.

Wren continues by acknowledging that homosexuals are a statistically small section of society but then swiftly moves on to argue that sexuality can be fluid, particularly in females. (Is this how she is able to ignore the targeting of Lesbians who do not wish to entertain “male lesbians” as partners?).

Wren expresses caution about looking for a biological explanation, for both homosexuality and gender identity, because it risks being oppressive. If we seek explanations we could also seek the means to “cure” or “suppress” these experiences. This is where lumping homosexuality in with “gender minorities” is deeply unhelpful. The former does not need a lifetime’s dependence on cross sex hormones or risky surgeries.

Theories of adaptive advantage to homosexuality, she continues, are that they may confer advantages to relatives who do reproduce. Gay Uncles and Lesbian Aunts helping with child rearing, I assume she is referring to.

Next she turns to considering whether there is a biological basis for “gender identity”. Her hypothesis is that an explanation will not be located in a single gene but will be multi-factorial. She then switches to point out a third of their referrals have features of autism so, I assume she is making the link to autism as an inherited trait.

Heritability of “Gender Identity”.

Most of the evidence comes from twin studies. One such was by Holderman et al, in 2018. They looked at eleven studies. She breaks off to add a not of caution that these studies run the risk of conflating gender non-conforming behaviour with a transgender identity. [You don’t say! Exactly what we think has been happening at the Tavistock!]. Despite expressing reservations about the methodology, such as using sex stereotypes to determine whether a child displayed “opposite sex behaviours”, she repeats the conclusion that gender identity shows a pattern of heritability around 28% to 40% for identical twins, half that for non-identical twins.

Next she explores the work of Melissa Hines who looked at girls with disorders/differences of sexual development. They tended to show toy preferences aligned with “boy” choices but she concludes this was because they were less responsive to social cues directing them to “girl” toys.

Brain Structures

There is research looking at whether “transgender” individuals have brain structure more aligned to the opposite sex, with which they identify, or their natal sex. The criticism of these studies, that I have encountered ranges from small sample sizes ; failure to control for homosexuality; failure to consider the impact of opposite sex hormones and failure to account for neuro-plasticity. Wren concludes that the picture is uncertain.

Wren concludes that the explanations are likely to be multi-factorial, possibly a genetic predisposition, an interaction between social and biological factors and the role of culture; whether an individual lives in a society that encourages or suppresses atypical “gender identities”.

Wren also points out that if a biological maker were identified that may limit treatment for those who do not have that marker. That’s quite the statement. What it means is that Wren is happy for people to be medicalised even if it is discovered that they do not have the condition! She justifies this by reference to bodily autonomy and Human Rights.

Reproduction

There are a lot of “ifs” in this next statement. I guess when you have presided over the sterilisation of children you believe what you need to so you can sleep at night.

In the next bit Wren postulates that gender non-conformity in “cis-gendered” people may be an attractive feature signalling genetic superiority and this somehow leads to the idea that we may replicate gender diversity for some sort of evolutionary advantage. This, to me, feels like clutching at straws.

Cultural Evolution

Leaving evolutionary biology, Wren moves on to cultural evolution. This is the idea that these things can be “culturally transmitted” which, to me, seems dangerously close to the idea it is a social contagious.

She further reflects on how this might impact, in particular, adolescents for whom “there may be complex social forces shaping the formation of an atypical gender identity”.these social forces, she continues may be: 👇

In other words all the features of a typical adolescence that few people escape.

By jove she’s close to getting it!

But, not quite. She speculates on the interconnected ness of this generation and the speed of the transmission of ideas and how our youth are “a generation who are , almost routinely, asking themselves if they might be “trans” or differently gendered to explain their feelings their bodily alienation and discomfort and they are resistant to cultural norms for male and female behaviour and heteronormative sexuality”

Because of the above some people, she concludes, will feel they are “a better fit for another gender or indeed to attempt to be a different sex” . So, not to challenge societal norms at all, just take drugs and surgeries to better fit with the sexist stereotypes associated with the societally enforced, norms of behaviour you are putatively rebelling against!

Her conclusion.

Is it me or does she look haunted as she finishes with this statement?

Questions

There are questions about autism and how an inability to read social cues might lead to feeling of gender dysphoria. Wren answers this with reference to how their autism and their emerging gender identity may play a role. I don’t know the intention of the questioner but, to me, the concern is that autistic girls, and boys, may latch onto “Gender Dysphoria” as a more palatable explanation for not fitting in.

Another man asks a question which relates to cultural issues giving rise to “Gender Dysphoria” . This question very nearly hits the mark.

Wren thinks it is a very good question about “whether there are aspects of our culture that are amplifying gender dysphoria” and furthermore, in respect of the dramatic increase in numbers “as a service we are really on the backfoot in relation to these numbers” . She admits there are issues around the question of the high number of females referred to the Tavistock. She conceded that the pathways to the clinic may be very different for “people born into female bodies” ! Of course there are!

The next question centres on future directions for research. Wren can’t resist a side swipe at the Daily Mail who, she says, would have you believe the “trans lobby is very powerful” . Research, she answers, is very much focussed on the brain as preferred by “trans” people who see it as a route to validation. She talks about a focus on the suffering of those with “gender dysphoria” and whether the problem is an individual problem or societies for a lack of acceptance. (It does not seem to occur to her that if we tolerated behaviours that don’t match sexist expectation, for your sex, we could work to transform society instead of putting children/adolescents on a path requiring drugs and surgeries). She herself does not have a preferred area of research but does state that the Tavistock have just obtained a very large grant to track the people that have been through their service, for long term follow up for ten, twenty or thirty years. (Which is interesting because the Tavistock have previously claimed that is too difficult because people have changed their NHS numbers). Here was her answer.

The final question asked if a biological, or other cause is found and a treatment to resolve Gender Dysphoria (absent drugs and surgeries, I assume he means) would it be ethical to take this route? Wren answers with stories of people who reconciled to their sex after having been, initially, certain about their gender identity. She is careful to say they would not practice “Conversion Therapy” but if the young person was willing they would work, therapeutically with that person. This sounds as if a young person was so certain and would not co-operate then they would not get the chance to reconcile their sex /sexuality.

My conclusion.

Looks like we have our answer about which way the service is heading.

If you are able to support my work you can do so here. All gifts gratefully received.

D35496A1-6A40-413E-9A06-28E4F8EB3D8C

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching Gender Identity Ideology and all its harms so we never forget.

£10.00

Bernadette Wren: Tavistock 2

Featured

Part two on this talk by Wren to a room full of evolutionary biologists.

You can read part 1, here, which covers the first fifteen minutes. A link to the YouTube is included.

Bernadette Wren:Tavistock

We return to Wren discussing the variety of ways societies have accommodated, mainly men, who do not conform to cultural expectations, for their sex. Many of these accommodations look, to me, as, potentially, benign ways to accommodate men who wish to have sex with men. The Hjira, who Wren references, though, may have a darker underbelly in that young boys may be groomed into these roles to provide a sexual outlet for older, married men who wish to have sex with boys. Likewise gay men may be left with little choice. This may be the only way for homosexuals to survive in India. See this account here. 👇 (Homosexuality was only legalised, by India, in 2018)

Hijra

Wren continues with this statement about “cisgender” people.

I am going to assume she means that people who identify with their birth sex can also be resistant to sex stereotypes, which of course is true. There have been people, I would argue the vast majority, who depart from sexist expectations for their sex. Despite Wren’s obsession with “de-pathologising” she has played a role in problematising behaviour at odds from cultural expectations for your sex. This has specific implications for gay people who can display “gender non-conformity” at an early, pre-sexual age. This deviation is not, however, confined to homosexuals, there are many, straight women, who have dominant personalities and there are “theatrical” straight males. The situation we have arrived it is one where the only “real” women are deemed to be the ones who conform to sexist “gender roles”. If this keeps up the vast majority of women will need to exit our sex class for not “womanning” correctly.

After a wander through other cultures, Wren returns to the U.K. context to explain that Western nations are catching up with the issue of “third genders”. [I sense she is building up to explaining the meteoric referrals to the Tavistock with her “look there are an estimated one million Hjiara people”. ]

On referrals to the Tavistock, Wren advises that many young people arrive with total conviction about their pathway. They feel it is an “un shiftable” part of their self ; some of those people went on to detransition.

Authentic Self

Some clinicians also share this believe system 👇. Those of with children who are part of the gender church will recognise the phrase “true self” or “authentic self”. Both recurrent phrases from the true believers. [The evidence for a biological under-pinning to “gender identity” is very poor, by the way ]

Gender Fluid

Wren is careful not to exclude anyone from the trans umbrella so she quickly adds this 👇to encompass the part-time larpers. She also avoids saying “healthy body” by using the term “non anomalous” for the bodies she sends to be cut up.

Non-Binary people

Non-Binary people claim to be neither male nor female but this does not preclude them from going under the surgeon’s knife. Wren advises that they want more “tailored” surgeries. To get an idea of the more extreme manifestation of “tailored” surgeries you can have a look at what is in offer in the United States. Nullification is the removal of all genitalia like a Ken Doll. Men can also opt to have a “neo-vagina” but retain their penis. Non-binary females can have a double mastectomy.

Referral Rates to the Tavistock, Children’s Service

All that scene setting was to prepare the audience for the following slides.

Unlike the earlier slides, Wren does not appear to want to linger on this one. As you can see there has been a dramatic increase in girls.

This is as good a point as any to break off, even though I have only made it to the 20 minute mark. Part 3 to follow. Now the Law suits are rolling in, I want to provide detailed coverage of the belief system underpinning practice at the Tavistock.

Article in The Times.

You can support my work here: Don’t prioritise me above legal cases. I get by but donations help me to keep going. Irrespective my work will remain open access.

D35496A1-6A40-413E-9A06-28E4F8EB3D8C

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Investigating the Gender Industrial Complex, Gender Identity Ideology and the impact on women’s and Gay rights.

£10.00

Bernadette Wren:Tavistock

Featured

Can evolution explain Gender Diversity? (Part 1)

This post reviews a presentation by Bernadette Wren, while at the Tavistock, to a group of evolutionary biologists. You can find the link here:

Can Evolution explain Gender Diversity?

Wren opens by explaining this is a highly contested field, she is habitually nervous when speaking on this topic but she is confident the people in the room are too scholarly for there to be any uncivil discourse. She explains that she, herself, is curious about the topic and does not take a particular stand.

Here she comments on the issue of uncertainty in the practice of “gender medicine” ; emphasising the lack of a firm foundation for the management of “gender variance”.

She expresses the hope that an evolutionary perspective could reduce stigma for those who are “transgender” and perhaps this will lower the temperature in the public debate. On the referrals to the Tavistock she has this to say: 👇

The Tavistock, she advises, see people who are questioning the assignation of their “gender” and “gender roles” insofar as “they embody a set of expectations about how someone will live and how they will feel about being in the body”. Wren talks about their intense distress about their sexed body and suggests, in the past, this may have been a hidden distress. She argues that these feeling are not new but what is new are the numbers and the certainty with which they present, accompanied by demands for urgent medical intervention and pushy parents who she calls “assertively supportive”.

She described the Tavistock approach as “broadly affirmative”. They take the distress seriously and don’t assume a “psycho-pathological” causality, however, she claims, they do bear in mind if the onset of distress is linked to any trauma. She adds a caveat that they do not lose sight of an “unconflicted trans and gender diverse experience”. This is quite telling. Previous clinical practice would have maintained that anyone feeling as if they are “born in the wrong body” requires serious exploration of the underlying causes. Now we make a default assumption this is a natural development, a variation, unless evidence is presented to the contrary. This has major implications for how patients present themselves, perhaps downplaying psychological issues to swiftly access medical treatment? It also has consequences for how Gender Clinics respond to this condition and, it is my, firmly held, view that this is why we are seeing an explosion in the numbers of detransitioners. Here 👇 Wren still sees their service as “gatekeeping” medical intervention.

This is a list of names involved in a Tavistock working group looking at the, potential, role of evolutionary biology in “gender variance”. I have not encountered these names before so, I am merely including this slide for archival purposes and in case their names recur.

Next Wren shares some Gender New Speak and makes it clear she does so without apology. Check out the definition of SEX!

Next, Wren puts up a slide with estimates of the prevalence of people diagnosed with this condition. The slide is less interesting than what she says while it was on screen. I will include it for completeness. Surprise, Surprise, once you start talking about and publishing on “transsexuals” the prevalence increases.

Wren now cites the work of an evolutionary biologist “herself a transwoman” to muddy the waters about sex/gender, so let’s take a little detour to learn about the biologist whose insights she shares. 👇

Joan/Jonathan Roughgarden

While the above slide is on screen, Wren treats us to the above named 👆 scientist who has spent time cataloguing the lack of sexual dimorphism in the animal kingdom. Joan was Jonathon up until the age of 51. You can find a Ted Talk of his on YouTube. Here’s a statement he made in that talk.

Roughgarden takes us on a whistle stop tour of diversity in the animal kingdom including, of course, the clownfish. He has also written a book, Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in nature and people. Below are a selection of quotes:

Roughgarden acknowledges we are divided into biological males/females based on whether we make large or small gametes.

He accepts the universality of the biological distinction but throws in a reference to claim a difference between sex and gender.

To insist on the salience of biological sex is a mistake called “essentialism”.

Instead we can choose who counts as a male or a female; how convenient for Joan/Jonathon.

He then adds some TRAlinist revisionism by re-classifying Joan of Arc as a “transgender man”; claiming we had a wealth of transvestite saints in the middle ages and that eunuchs were early transgender people.

Finally, before we leave Roughgarden to his musings, here are his thoughts on how to deal with “transphobia”; eerily reminiscent of calls to Lesbians to seek help to get over their hang ups about Lady Penis.

Intersex: Via Fausto-Sterling

Of course no discussion about biological sex would be complete without weaponising people with disorders/differences in development (DSDs). There are many conditions which lead to atypical chromosomal development, funnily enough these conditions occur in either males or females. They carry with them differing levels of severity in terms of the medical consequences. Fausto-Sterling famously claimed there were 5 sexes and “intersex” conditions were as common as red hair.

Worth a detour to share some of Fausto-Sterling’s thoughts. 😳.

Cultural Genitals to Lady Penis in women’s sport. 😳

Was Anne just having a laugh? (Worth including this just because of the tone of this public admonishment 😂).

All of which leads Wren to make this observation, which demonstrates that societies have handled the identification of the sexes reasonably well, even prior to karyotype tests.

I will leave part one on this talk, at this point. What you need to take away from this is that Wren and her fellow travellers really do think the world would be a better place if we stopped recognising biological sex. In their fantasy world this would eradicate sexism and make the world a better place.

To believe this you have to disregard facts like sex selective abortion *still* happens (even in the United Kingdom), at least 98% of sex offenders are male which is one reason WHY women fought for single sex spaces. Even after multiple surgeries men are still recognisable, as men. The fantasy of “passing” males means blocking male puberty and, as we know, this means the eradication of the ability to orgasm.

In the U.K, have had the vote for less than a 100 years *1, we still don’t have equal representation in parliament and, unless one party comes out for Women’s, sex based, rights, unequivocally, our votes will be rendered meaningless.

. (*1 women were granted the vote in 1918 but it was not extended to all women, over 21, until 1928).

You can support my work here, should you feel so inclined. Rumours to the contrary, women fighting this are not awash money. Unlike the organisations receiving the billions funnelled into spreading Gender Identity Ideology, by “Charitable” Foundations.

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching Gender Identity Ideology, the impact (negative) on women’s sex based rights and gay rights, not forgetting the, Mengele adjacent, medicine practiced at the Tavistock.

£10.00

Treatment & Assessment: Tavistock

Featured

A look at this paper by Gary Butler, Natasha De Graaf, Bernadette Wren and Polly Carmichael, from March 2018.

Paper below.

Assessment & Treatment for GD

I have said many times that once you believe in an innate “Gender Identity” the pathway to normalising bodily modification becomes easier. What is astonishing, to me, is the fundamental mischaracterisation of those of us who are loosely identified as “gender critical”; as if we are the ones who cannot tolerate diversity of personal expression. Let us unpack this introduction to the paper. 👇

Children and adolescents are presenting, in ever increasing numbers, with “Gender Dysphoria” which manifests as a rejection of “conventional gender expectations”. There has long been a feminist project to reject sexist stereotypes, my feminism has never argued, if you don’t conform to those expectations, you should modify your body so it is more “congruent”. It astonishes me that some of the same women railing against “beach body” propaganda 👇 can see the regressive nature of “gendered expectations” ,in this campaign, but not in the idea the way you feel about yourself necessitates, not just a diet and a spray tan, but serious, life-altering, drugs and surgeries.

It would seem to be a reasonable line of enquiry to wonder whether these excessive pressures on teenage girls, in the age of the “selfie”, might have contributed to rise in females presenting at gender clinics? This is the scale of the increase. 👇. Notice that the paper adopts the captured language of the gender industrial complex by referring these girls as “birth assigned females” .

What did one of the paper’s authors, Bernadette Wren, Tavistock employee, have to say about this phenomenon? Here she is speaking to the Women’s and Equalities Committee. (Source Hansard). 👇

The cutting edge of a revolution.

Notice here Wren reveals the influence of trans lobby group Gendered Intelligence. She is not a neutral observer, this is what she is calls a “revolution many of us have really fought for”. Yet, what we have witnessed is a new form of bodily hatred, in the female sex, and we have responded by taking the cutting edge of the scalpel to young girls’ breasts.

In another admission Wren says her service has never turned anyone down for physical intervention.

Wren also ponders on whether we may find we have embarked on a path that is very “unwise”. Yep, you can say that again!

The Paper also recognises the pressure within the service to embark on medical treatments. This looks like an admission that there examples of this within G.I.Ds.

Elsewhere Wren acknowledges the influence of the internet and a growing tolerance of bodily modification, as a factor driving referrals.

This 👇 exposes a fundamental contradiction (one of many) within Gender Identity Ideology. If we were really more tolerant of “diverse gender expression” surely we would not be encouraging hormones and surgeries so your body confirms to stereotypical expectations?

Apart from the over-representation of females there is a startling percentage of autistic kids at gender clinics. This is so noticeable many people argue there is some connection between the condition, being neuro diverse, and “gender dysphoria”.

A more plausible explanation, to me, is that many of the ways we express ourselves as women, or men, are not innate but depend on our ability to pick up social cues. I am not a proponent of “blank state”, but we do learn, culturally determined, expectations, for our sex. Since this is something more difficult, for people with autism, the resultant feeling of incongruence could be predicted. Add in a typical propensity for black and white thinking and it’s the perfect storm for autistic people. I should add that I am no expert but I have an autistic nephew and have found it so instructive to see how he navigates the world.

That Stonewall tweet.

Another issue that lays bear this ideology is illustrated by the age range of referrals to the Tavistock. The youngest referral, to the Tavistock I have found, is age three.

Recently Stonewall sent out this tweet, which caused a lot of controversy. I believe the term is they were ratio’d

This sparked a lot of backlash but it’s not an unusual belief in the gender ideologue sector. Here’s what this paper says about the age of presentation of “gender incongruence” . It simply never occurred to me to judge my two boys, when aged two, according to gender conformity in their play.

Here the authors lend credence to “non–binary”, “gender fluid” and “gender neutral”. I cannot take anyone seriously who buys into this nonsense. Sadly our political elite openly spouts this ridiculous ideology, even in parliament, and some seem to think it’s a solid foundation on which to make public policy and enact legislation. How these people can express a belief in the fluidity of “gender” while performing irreversible, medical, interventions in kids as young as ten is beyond my ken.

The people doing this to our kids don’t know what they are doing. How are these two statements, in this paper, compatible? You simply cannot claim something is physically reversible and that the effect of locking puberty is “largely unknown”. 👇

Another admission in this excerpt 👇 and they really do suggest the answer may be to start kids younger?

The paper spends some time discussing the issue of capacity to consent, informed consent and Gillick competence. They then outline scenarios where a child is not able to consent and this must be given by a parent /guardian. So, what if the parent doesn’t agree? Sadly, we know the answer to this from the experience of parents in Australia, the U.S and Canada; the State will remove the child from your care!

They proceed to recognise that the effect of blocking puberty, in the male sex, stunts genitalia and may compromise the ability (it does) to perform “traditional” surgery to construct a “neo-vagina” . I am going to go out on a limb here and say they should have thought about this before they started blocking puberty! It’s also a lie that they can create a clitoris in males. Sadly, our boys really believe this and if I sound merely angry I am failing to convey my white hot rage at these charlatans!

Not only is it not possible to make a clitoris out of penoscrotal skin it is becoming clear that these boys will not have the capacity to orgasm. I make no apology for including this quote, from Marci Bowers, again. Bowers should know they had the surgery as an adult man and have made a living performing these surgeries, including his most famous patient, Jazz Jennings.

They also know that the vast majority of these kids, if left alone, would desist and many would simply be homosexual.

Something tells me these excuses for a failure to do long term follow up are because they know what is down the road and are terrified to find out that they were indeed “unwise”. Remind me again who campaigned to change NHS numbers?

No conflict of interest?

I want to say a word about how journals accept it when these authors blithely claim they have no conflict of interest. Not only are they ideologically blinkered, their professional reputation, and salaries, rely on the Gender Industrial Complex. Additionally, now the law suits are coming, they have to pretend they didn’t know all of this, even though it’s increasingly apparent.

Our children have been lied to!

Scholars with a background in medicine/medical ethics will do a more expert job tackling this paper, I am neither. I am not a neutral observer, as long term readers will know. All I can see is the harm to my own one and I while I have to refrain from expressing this, in so many settings, I cannot repress the knowledge. Like too many parents I have a ringside seat to the self-harm my own GP is colluding with…

You can support my work here, only if you have surplus income and don’t prioritise me over any legal cases trying to bring this ideology crashing down.

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching the catastrophic impact of the Gender Industrial Complex on children as well as the pernicious influence of Gender Identity Ideology on women’s and gay rights.

£10.00

Tavistock: Domenico Di Ceglie 3

Featured

Part three: Questions and Answers

This is the final part on Domenico Di Ceglie, the man who set up the children and youth service at the U.K’s main gender clinic. You can read parts 1 & 2 here. These posts are part of my series on the Tavistock.

Tavistock: Domenico Di Ceglio

Tavistock: Domenico Di Ceglio 2

This piece will focus on the question and answer session, following his talk which I covered in parts 1 & 2. The Q & A starts 48 minutes in:

Questions and Answers

Di Ceglie ends his talk with a reference to robots which struck me as quite an odd final comment and appeared to have little connection to what had gone before:

Then I remembered he also said this in part one and I wonder if he is envisaging his work as going beyond what it means to be human?

The question and answer section is quite revealing but it is a shame that, through time constraints, or perhaps deliberately, the audience will not have had time to register some of the more damning, and contradictory, slides which I covered in part two. In particular this one which sets out the risks of the treatments dished out at gender clinics.

Still there were some important questions at the end.

Two came from Bob Withers, a Jungian therapist, who I immediately recognised. Bob has done excellent work in this field. I did a series on Bob’s work: 👇

Bob Withers: Series.

His first question :

You may recall that Di Ceglie stated that no biological underpinning to explain the ”transgender” experience has been found and, believe me, they have been looking. There is a deep desire to find a ”Born this way” narrative to explain why some people experience “Gender Dysphoria” and to present the steep rise in referrals to clinics as a natural phenomenon. There is, as yet, no research that has convinced me. The studies that I have seen tend to cover small sample sizes, fail to control for homosexuality and even include men on synthetic cross hormones. I do not think we will find a common explanation that covers teenage girls, baby gays and heterosexual males who like masturbating in their wife’s knickers!

Di Ceglie valiantly tries, in a somewhat rambling reply. He concedes that no single biological cause has been found, as yet, and that the causes are multi-factorial, but include biology. He also claims that some people have a more rigid mindset (Does he mean autistic people?) and are unable to be fluid in their thinking and these people need to be helped by physical intervention. He also is careful to allow for the variety of choices re physical interventions because ”some people may choose one intervention and not another”. A sort of pick and mix of cosmetic surgeries for your ideal gender ”presentation”.. Humans as ”meat lego” is the phrase that comes to mind, as coined by Mary Harrington. This also reminds me of the man who took the NHS to court, multiple times, because he wanted fake breasts but he still retained a penis. I wrote about him below.

The Elephant in the room.

If you build Gender clinics they will come.

Di Ceglie further elaaborates on this theme by focussing on the patients as ”service users” and how the Tavistock needs to have a range of options to respond to the different needs, which I would call ”desires”. Remember in the opening to his talk he said this.

After Di Ceglie’s ,rather rambling, answer Bob’s rejoinder is much more down to earth.

Di Ceglie’s response:

He then repeats the uncertainty about knowing the final outcome for a specific child and here I must remind you, once again, that we are giving children, as young as ten, irreversible medications based on these theories.

In his next sentence he confirms what I suspected was his belief system. Some of these children have a fixity in their belief systems and features of autism. We already know autistic kids are over-represented at Gender Clinics. Di Ceglie exhibits no concern that they are harming a vulnerable group, instead he links the biological cause, for autistism, suggests a biological underpinning for Gender Dysphoria. He is not explicit about this but it was the inference I took from his response and is common belief among Gender Identity Ideologues.

The next question from another audience member is about the interaction between same sex orientation and a transgender identity.

Di Ceglie gives the stock answer we can get from any Trans activist on twitter. He sees sexual orientation and gender identity as two distinct things and to justify his stance he points out that some of their male subjects go on to have ”Lesbian” relationships. Nobody objects to this redefinition of the word Lesbian. He further points out that ”people assigned female at birth may go on to live in a homosexual relationship with another man”.

Final question, on camera, is from a Canadian woman, from Toronto, who advises that the Canadian Gender Clinic removed Ken Zucker because he was practicing reparative therapy, a form of Conversion Therapy, in her view. She explains that he was teaching kids how not to be ”trans”. She claims this was done in a coercive and controlling way and generating depression and anxiety in the children at the clinic.

Di Ceglie does not defend Ken Zucker but just talks about the complexity of the work and here the session breaks and no further questions are on camera.

I will leave the final word to Marci Bowers, a male who identifies as “transgender” and also performs the operations called ”sexual reassignment surgery”.

I hope this has provided some insight into the kind of thinking at work at the Tavistock. If you can support my work you can do so here. I do now have a limited income but I do still need assistance to keep the show on the road. You can donate to my paypal or my

https://ko-fi.com/stilltish

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching Gender Identity Ideology and it’s impact on women’s rights and the impact on gay rights.

£10.00

Or https://ko-fi.com/stilltish

Tavistock: Domenico Di Ceglio 2

Featured

Domenico Di Ceglio set up the childhood and adolescent services at the Gender Identity Development Service (G.I.Ds) at the Tavistock. This is part two on a talk he gave at a conference on “Transgender” issues. You can find the rest of my series, on the Tavistock, below.

Tavistock 

You can watch the talk on YouTube, below. 👇

Domenico Di Ceglie

Part one is here

Tavistock: Domenico Di Ceglio

This is the title of that talk. Transgender , Gender and Psychoanalysis, with this subtitle.

In part one Di Ceglie covers his motivation for setting up the children and adolescent service at G.I.Ds; the astronomic growth of referrals and the tensions between staff who wished to provide only therapeutic support, to children, and those who advocated for the administration of puberty blockers. As suggested by the title he uses metaphors to convey his role in managing these tensions. A psychoanalyst might suggest that this allows him to distance himself from the choices he made during his tenure.

We pick up at around the 30 minute mark. Di Ceglie is using the myth of Scylla and Charibdys, from Ulysses, to convey his position at the Tavistock. Both Scylla and Charibdys pose a risk to Ullyses and his sailors but only Charbdys can sink the ship. Ullysses, therefore, steers close to Scylla even though he knows she will snatch some of his sailors and crush them with her grip, before swallowing them. Di Ceglie clearly feels the service is under threat so he needs to balance these risks and sacrifices will have to be made.

Di Ceglie then reflects that it was the more valiant of Ulysses’ sailors who fell victim to Scylla and offers an explanation with reference to G.I.Ds staff calling them ”crusaders,” , which is very revealing.

He explains that the Tavistock tries to steer a middle way neither neglecting the mind nor the body. He claims that they work to break the cycle of secrecy and shame involved in an atypical gender identity. He further argues that the foster uncertainty about the outcomes for any child. I don’t see how this is compatible with this statement: If we are allowing a social transition and puberty blockers there is near certainty (98%) of progression to cross sex hormones. They will be sterile and, as we saw in part one, they will have near zero chance of any orgasmic capacity.

He is also keen to dispel any suggestion that they practice ”reparative” therapy i.e that they seek to reconcile the child with their sex/sexuality. I imagine this is motivated by the wish to avoid the fate of the Canadian Gender Clinic which he mentions more than once during the talk. (Ken Zucker’s clinic was accused of practicing conversion therapy on gender confused kids and his clinic shut down. He won a legal case but was not restored to his post)

He does share a case study of a natal male who adopted a female identity, following the death of his grandmother. After giving him some help to articulate his grief he reconciled to his sex and desisted.

He further claims that clinics who are rigid in their approach to these children run the risk of embedding the cross gender identity even further. He may be correct in this but, again, it does not square with the medical treatments. He does, thankfully, recognise an 80% desistance rate if allowed to go through a natural puberty; shame he does not include how many end up good old-fashioned homosexuals.

Clearly the clinic are making judgements that some children are unlikely to change their minds. This clip suggests early onset gender dysphoria is believed to be more intractable.

He next speculates that gender dysphoria is more intractable with those with paranoid schizophrenic tendencies and even those who have been subject to traumatic events in childhood. This is starting to echo the criteria used to dish out lobotomies or Electric Shock treatment.

Empathising versus Systematising.

This looks at the work of Simon Baron-Cohen who conducted research into children with atypical ”gender ” development and seems to be driven by defining certain behaviours more ”male” / “female” and, presumably, looking for evidence of “true trans“. Unsurprisingly females scored higher on empathy and men on systems. Between a likely biological predisposition and female socialisation women’s scores are , to me, unremarkable. What did surprise me was the scores for trans-identifying males. While they did score lower on “systemising”, than the control of males who were not identifying as ”transgender”, they also had lower scores for empathy. Curiously although Di Ceglie talks of the value of further research into identifying potential desisters this does not appear to have been a research area of interest to the staff at the Tavistock.

Di Ceglie claims it is possible to identify good candidates for early intervention. Not on e does he refer to detransitioners but they may not have been as significant a phenomenon when this conference took place. The YouTube video was uploaded two years ago but it may have pre-dated the Kiera Bell case. It would be interesting to know if he is paying attention to the rising rates of regret.

At the end of the conference Di Ceglie rushes through his final slides so I had to slow down the speed to take screen grabs. He has two slides on the benefits of early transition quoting research papers from 2006 i.e before the current surge in transgender kids /youth. He also claims that puberty blockers are ”considered to be fully reversible“ on one slide but look at the next slide, it directly contradicts this statement.

What are the risks?

It is unclear what the long term impact is on bone development, height, sex organ development it may affect brain development, and it may even lock in the Gender Dysphoria.

Those are some big risks!

Now we have a growing number of detransitioners the chickens may be comimg home to roost. Currently there are 35,000 members on the reddit detrans forum. It is growing at an alarming rate.

In part three I will cover the question and answer session.

You can support my work here. Every donation helps because we are up against billionaires funding this ideology, globally. Contrary to the propaganda I am not funded by Evangelical Christians, the Far Right or Viktor Orban. I rely on donations to cover my costs but do not donate if you are on a limited income.

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/STILLtish

Researching Gender Identity Ideology and it’s impact on our gay /autistic youth, kids in care as well as the sex based rights of women and adult homosexuals, especially Lesbians.

£10.00