#UK politics

[tautittology]

A wake.

[ayeforscotland]

Scottish Labour Party straight up embracing the Cass Review. A review filled with holes which is being used to justify on-going wide-spread transphobia and denying people access to trans healthcare.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The methodology for the Cass review was established by a team from the University of York including Tilly Langdon, who has previously been involved in promoting Gender Exploratory Therapy – an approach which, despite its neutral-sounding name, discourages children from identifying as trans and has been likened to conversion therapy. Her approach included setting a very high bar for evidence to be considered in the review, ruling out 100 of the existing 103 studies into the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat trans children. The reason given for excluding all these studies was that they did not incorporate a double blind approach – in other words, they did not involve giving puberty blockers to some patients and placebos to others. This might sound like a reasonable objection on the face of it – until one considers that puberty is a dramatic physical and psychological process, and people can easily tell when it’s happening to them, so a double blind simply wouldn’t work in practice. The Cass review called for more research and, again, few would disagree with this. The suggestion that treatment should be withheld in the process, however, is not neutral. It presupposes that the harm done by puberty blockers (demineralisation of bones, which is usually temporary in the short-term treatment recommended and is similar to what occurs in pregnancy) is more severe than the harm done to a trans child by going through the wrong sort of puberty. The latter is linked to high rates of self-harm and suicidal ideation, together with the need, in many cases, for extensive surgical procedures. Confusingly, the review states that children taking puberty blockers showed “no changes in gender dysphoria or body satisfaction”, which suggests that the author didn’t actually understand what puberty blockers do at all. They don’t make children feel better – they just delay a process that makes them feel worse. This is one of several oddities in a report that lacks internal consistency. It states that there is no established definition of social transition, for instance, and does not offer one, but goes on to talk about it as if there were. It also talks about autistic ‘girls’ identifying as trans in increasing numbers, treating this as mysterious and as cause for concern, despite acknowledging elsewhere that more and more girls are being diagnosed as autistic, so one would expect more diagnoses to be present within any subsection of the young female-assigned population.  Perhaps the most worrying of the review’s conclusions – which should concern people far beyond the trans community – is the suggestion that as far as NHS treatment is concerned, trans people should be treated as children until they are 25. The rational for this is that 25 is the age when (on average) the brain stops developing. As any neurologist will tell you, the brain is in fact never static, and within ten years or so of that age, it begins to shrink. Deciding who has the capacity to make decisions based on brain age could have unintended consequences for the likes of Cass (64).  That aside, what would setting the age of true adulthood at 25 mean for everybody else? If we couldn’t allow people to consent to medical treatment at 24, should we ask them to risk dying for us? If not, then at a stroke we could lose a quarter of our armed forces. Likewise, we would have to give serious thought to what to do about a third of parents who might not be considered competent to look after their newborn children.  And then there are issues like contraception. Right-wingers have long contended, on one pretext or another, that teenage girls shouldn’t have the right to take the pill without their parents’ consent. This is where the review’s suggestion starts to look less like a double standard and more like the thin end of a very nasty wedge.

[northern-punk-lad]

There’s currently discourse on Twitter about children being in pubs if you think children being in pubs is bad you would not survive in a small northern town

[social-battery-low]

To the U.S. and U.K, the genocide in Gaza is simply war and Israel's "self defense" but Iran does retaliatory strikes on Israel and that's an unforgivable "crisis" that must be dealt with immediately...

[michaelgovehateblog]

I actually think the smoking ban is a good thing, it obviously won't entirely stop smoking or underage smoking, at least not for many many years, but making cigarettes less accessible will surely prevent lots of people from even starting smoking in the first place. I dislike giving Tories credit as much as the next person but I don't see anything bad about this or banning disposable vapes

[burrowingregg]

London Mayoral propaganda core ❤️

Biggest joke of all time. Why is shitain first even allowed to run for assembly

[lil-tumbles]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68821646

This is the worst possible timeline this is the worst timeline this is the worst timeline

[fallofcorruptbritain]

Good grief... this stupid woman Truss is a danger to Britain and the whole world.

A failed Tory prime minister who only lasted a few disastrous weeks in office, but who managed to crash the British economy in that time, now suggests Trump should win?!

She shouldn't be allowed out into the community, never mind being given political power.

[ayeforscotland]

The only clinic in Scotland has decided to pre-comply with recommendations set out in the Cass Review ahead of the Scottish Government’s actual assessment of each recommendation.

Management should be hauled over the fucking coals for that.

[ceevee5]

[somewhatvellum]

this will sureily convince the people that the royal family are not out of touch moneywasters and that we should be happy keeping them around for sure

[lovemewednesdays]

the universe is so fucking funny for this. imagine being born for a job. you having that job can only happen if your mom dies. and you wait 73 years for that to happen. and when you finally get that job, you get diagnosed with cancer and quite possibly die within the first five years. absolute legendary move on the universe’s part. lol. anyway, activate the crabs.

[irresia]

how are we doing fellas

[deadrabbitohno]

This expresses my feelings precisely.