The Scottish Care Inspectorate's "Guidance for children and young people’s services on the inclusion of transgender including non-binary young people"is founded on an ideological belief that children of any age can be "transgender" or "non binary" and that best practice consists of affirmation and transition.
"Best Practice"
Some of the "best practice" ideas from the Care Inspectorate Guidance include providing breast-binders for adolescent girls, decorating homes with flags and banners and promoting contact with external organisations such as LGBTY Scotland which openly encourage children to transition without parents' knowledge or agreement.. No Evidence
EBSWA challenged the CI's lack of evidence for their Guidance. EBSWA is aware of significant evidence which points to the risks and harms of telling children that their "gender identity" may be different to their sex. Sex is a material fact which cannot change.
In particular we asked why the Care Inspectorate Guidance did not refer to the Cass Review Interim Report which had found NO EVIDENCE to support social or medical transitioning of children. The Care Inspectorate response was that the Cass Review had been commissioned by NHS England and that it therefore may not be relevant to Scotland and that the vital evidence gathered therefore can be entirely ignored by in Scotland.
We can only conclude that the Care inspectorate have consciously chosen not to properly scrutinise the claims of the trans lobby as they should have? They are choosing to promote guidance that affects all children in care without any evidence of benefit to the child, and without reference to the increasingly well acknowledged harms and risks. In doing so it is refusing to acknowledge the concerns of thousands of social workers and care workers who do not agree that children can be "born in the wrong body". We have not been consulted or involved in developing this Guidance. Now that the Guidance has been published, staff will presumably feel that their concerns are wrong or unacceptable.
The Care Inspectorate ow admits that they were mistaken in claiming that children of 12 can be assumed to have capacity to consent to medical treatment. This is not the case. A medical practitioner must be prepared to agree that a child of any age is capable of giving informed consent to any proposed treatment. Children of 12 or even of 16 or 18 years old may feel that they will never want children, and may believe that puberty blockers ed. Children are protected from making Children are prevented from drinking alcohol, smoking, getting a tattoo, and from sexual activity under 16 years old. Any one with a child's interests In the case of gender transition, they now acknowledge that the medical practitioner involved has responsibility for ensuring that a child is capable of giving informed consent to any proposed treatment. While the Guidance has been amended to reflect this, the assumption that children can give informed consent to social transition at any age.
Instead of providing evidence or even acknowledging the growing body of contrary evidence, the response continues to rely on the paper-thin ideology of self ID of gender identity and the recommendations of organisations which lobby for this to be law.
Children's Rights
Children have a right to protection from harm. Children in care are separated from their parents and families, and often from their siblings. They have mostly had no control over major decisions that have been taken about them: who they live with; what family if any they can have contact with; where and why they are moved in care. Yet they are to be given the right to change their name, the sex that they present as, and to embark on social and then medical transitioning.:These children must be protected from this harm.
In addition the Care Inspectorate does not begin to consider the rights of all of the children in care. Are they to be forced to go along with this fiction? Will they be bullied and humiliated for standing up for their rights to freedom of thought and speech? Many of them will know that changing sex is impossible, that a girl is a girl and a boy is a boy. Must they accept children's homes should be decorated with rainbows and flags and that they are to be encouraged to fundraise for LGBTY Scotland? Will they be bullied and humiliated for standing up for their rights to freedom of thought and speech?
Professional values and ethics
How can social workers, foster parents, care workers who are asking for evidence and not ideology, protect children from harm in the context of Guidance which leaves them at risk of disciplinary action and of deregistration?
Sonia Appleby, a social worker who was the safeguarding lead at the Tavistock Clinic had to resort to an Employment Tribunal in order to successfully defend her professional values and ethical practice in raising concerns about children being socially and medically transitioned. Rachel Meade, a social worker in England has had to take both Social Work England and her employer, Westminster Council, to a Tribunal after being disciplined for privately criticising Mermaids and Stonewall's teachings. SWE withdrew their sanction but have refused to apologise to Rachel or to agree that she has an absolute right to challenge belief in gender identity and the affirmation and transitioning of vulnerable children in service to this belief.
We ask the Care Inspectorate - Must social workers and other professionals in Scotland be press ganged to accept the "queering" of children's care? If the Care Inspectorate does not withdraw, are they prepared to defend their Guidance in court?