The long awaited final Report of the Cass Review (https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/) was published on Wednesday 10 April 2024, confirming that there is "remarkably weak evidence" to support gender treatments for children.
This is welcome news but should not have been unexpected. There never has been any evidence to support telling children that they might have been born in the wrong body or that they could be cured by transitioning and body altering drugs and surgery. The medical pathway, which starts with social affirmation in school and/or at home, putting children on a conveyor belt to life-changing hormones and later surgery is now discredited.
The Cass Report must mark an end to the social and medical transitioning of children. It must mark an end to policies and practices in health, social work and education which rest on belief in the existence of gender identity and the denial of the material reality of sex. While health services are the focus of the Cass Report, and the NHS is responsible for scandalous harm to children given puberty blockers and put on a medical pathway to long term harm, it is undeniable that the surge in numbers being referred for these “treatments” was engendered by the wider adoption of gender ideology in schools, in care services, as well as by big business.
The Cass Report's findings vindicate all those sacked, suspended, investigated, disciplined, and/or professionally and personally “cancelled” by colleagues merely for asking for the evidence to support the practices that were being foisted on us by misguided employers and colleagues. It vindicates parents who were told they must affirm their child or risk losing them to a care system in order to make sure they were put on a medical pathway to what they knew would be lifelong harm.
The regulatory bodies, the professional associations and unions, the academia and myriad training agencies all must surely now acknowledge that they acted recklessly and harmfully in promoting nonsense beliefs promulgated by Mermaids and Stonewall etc..
Why did they collude with the silencing of concerns? Did they not understand that any person, any organisation, any belief that cannot be challenged is a threat to children and to any adult who wants to protect them? Yet anyone who challenged faced the threat of investigation and disciplinary action by their employers, professional regulatory bodies/professional associations.(An honourable exception to the capture of regulators was the Scottish Social Services Council who were quietly clear that they would not act on complaints against anyone merely for holding and expressing legitimate beliefs.)
The climate of fear and silence that was created by capitulation to the “no debate” bullying of transactivists will take a long time to clear. Policies demanding that parents and professionals accept affirmation of gender identity must be publicly renounced. This is not the first time that social work has been captured by ideological and extreme beliefs. What we need is an open, enquiring culture which recognises that challenge is an essential part of safe practice.