The Trans Agenda: The papers: 6 May - 12 May
News you need, the perspective you won't find anywhere else. The trans community's guide to UK news, media and politics and our place in it.
The Trans Agenda
[12 May 2024]
Welcome to The Trans Agenda: The papers, a newsletter that will arrive in your inbox Sunday if you are subscribed.
THE PAPERS Monday 6 May - Sunday 12 May 2024
English newspapers have, as usual, been awash with anti-trans articles in the past week, with a total of 21 negative articles published across major publications. The Times, Daily Mail, and The Telegraph continue to lead the charge, contributing to the ongoing hostile media environment for trans people.
The Daily Telegraph continue to lead the way in being particularly fixated on the topic, dedicating multiple articles to criticising gender-neutral bathrooms and even featuring the issue on their front page with the headline, "Mixed-sex lavatories banned in new restaurants and offices." Additionally, they published articles attacking industry bodies offering guidance on trans inclusion in the workplace ("Bosses take back control from diversity zealots," The Daily Telegraph), plus a few others you can see below.
The Times also focused on supposed issues within the trans community, with one article accusing a private trans healthcare provider of mistreating patients ("Trans clinic accused of betraying patients with care chosen by AI"). They also contributed to the discussion on bathroom access, echoing The Telegraph's stance.
Meanwhile, The Daily Mail celebrated a perceived "anti-woke revolution" with the headline "ALL HAIL THE ANTI-WOKE REVOLUTION!" Other articles in The Mail on Sunday included sensational claims about black market puberty blockers and a court case involving a mother's opposition to her child's gender transition.
The Guardian, while generally considered more balanced by those who haven’t been paying attention, published an article casting doubt on the evidence used in the Cass Review on gender identity services ("Cass tells MSPs gender review did not put too high a bar on evidence").
Monday [Total: 7. Publications 4, positive 0, negative 7, written by trans people 0]
The Guardian [1: Negative 1]
The Times [1: Negative 1]
Daily Mail [1: Negative 1]
Telegraph [4: Negative 4]
This was on their front page:
![Bosses take back control from diversity zealots Companies in the UK and US are rethinking the role they play in dealing with inclusivity. The Daily Telegraph6 May 2024By Lucy Burton Let Women Speak, above, described as a ‘gender critical feminist campaign’. Below, JK Rowling, who has spoken out on trans issues Chief executives are beginning to realise that they didn’t quite think things through when first setting up their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, according to a co-founder of one of the UK’S most active LGBT charities, Stonewall. Simon Fanshawe, one of six activists to set up the group, has said he is increasingly seeing a shift in attitude over the role diversity schemes should have in corporate Britain. “It seemed self-evidently right [in the past] but now they’re saying, ‘actually I’m not convinced that a high street retailer should take a position on anti-conversion therapy,” he says. “Because what’s that got to do with the price of beans?’” It is a debate that is being had in boardrooms across the country, as HR chiefs admit among themselves that some of their peers have embarked on passion projects that have little to do with the workplace. As some of America’s largest companies slash their DEI budgets, Uk-based executives are scratching their heads over which way to go next. Some worry that the advice they have taken on diversity could have misrepresented equality laws, placing little scrutiny on unaccredited external training providers. Others fear DEI teams are simply silencing anyone with a different opinion rather than seeking to improve the diversity of their employees. Fran Itkoff, a 90-year-old woman from California who had volunteered for a multiple sclerosis charity for more than 60 years, was told earlier this year that her services were no longer required after she told a colleague she didn’t understand why she needed to add the pronouns “she/ her” to her email signature. The National MS Society confirmed at the time that she “was asked to step away from her role because of statements that were viewed as not aligning with our policy of inclusion”. The subsequent backlash prompted the charity to apologise for what it called a “mistake”. The dismissal of an elderly volunteer sums up the HR dilemma that some companies now face as individuals take matters into their own hands. It was all “DEI, jolly good” to begin with, notes Fanshawe, but few really considered how these programmes would work in practice. The equality consultant believes that a lot of programmes are not effective or have been used as a “platform for activism”. He thinks the charity he helped set up in 1989 has become part of the problem by demonising anyone who doesn’t agree with its gender policies. “I’ve always said the problem for Stonewall is not what they campaign on but how they campaign,” says Fanshawe. “I’m fed up with being told by Stonewall that I’m the wrong kind of gay.” Harry Potter author JK Rowling has previously criticised Stonewall for promoting transgender narratives to young children and has accused politicians of “snuggling up” to the charity. The chief executive of one company with 750 staff acknowledges that this is “one of the trickiest areas in business right now because you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t”. Organisations which link bosses’ pay to diversity targets, for example, are often praised by some and criticised by others. The retailer Asos last year made an about-turn on such a policy following pressure to re-prioritise profits. As companies turn away from some of their diversity policies, HR specialists worry that important conversations about improving diversity at work are being overshadowed by debates on sensitive areas, such as gender identity. Such issues are often cast as a battle between Right and Left even though polls show that few approach the topic through a hyperpolitical lens. The most common starting point is one of compassion, according to a previous poll by the More in Common think tank. “They understand that for many trans people life can be difficult and most think as a society we have a responsibility to make it less so. None of the people we spoke to, from across the ideological spectrum, saw the debate in terms of a battle,” the think tank concluded after polling 5,000 people in 2022. Yet with employees being dismissed for advancing certain views on transgender issues and companies going to desperate measures for a spot on Stonewall’s annual equality leaderboard – such as removing the word mother from maternity policies – that sentiment is not necessarily reflected at work. There are concerns that while DEI efforts can amount to little more than tick-boxing in some cases, it is simply going too far in others. Senior executives who want nothing to do with any of this will soon find themselves under the spotlight, some argue. Neil Morrison, who is director of HR for utility giant Severn Trent, thinks DEI matters are about to become “everybody’s job” as companies change tack and slash spending in this area. He expects more organisations to cut DEI leaders and instead declare “diversity is everybody’s responsibility”. This shift is already playing out in America, where employers are removing diversity criteria for scholarship programmes after the US Supreme Court, dominated by conservative-leaning judges, banned race-based university admissions. DEI initiatives overall are already slipping down the ladder of importance. Zoom told staff earlier this year that it had dismantled its DEI team amid layoffs, which reflected a wider trend across the West. Overall, the number of DEI jobs in America had shrunk 8pc during the first six weeks of 2024, data sourced by Revelio Labs and The Washington Post showed in February. This stemmed from the likes of Meta, Tesla, Lyft and X all slashing their DEI teams by 50pc or more. “I have spoken to a few people from the chief diversity officer (CDO) network in New York who have seen many CDO roles pulled mid-way through the recruitment process, when CEOS are getting nervous to continue headlining the function,” says Amanda Rajkumar, who was Adidas’s HR chief and the sole female board executive before she left last year. “I’ve also seen some CDOS who reported directly to CEOS go back to reporting to HR heads. Some feel the pendulum swung too far and there has to be a reset.” Sensing the changes, Uk-based chief executives and HR directors are looking for discrete advice. Tanya de Grunwald, who advises companies on HR issues, is putting together a roadmap for boardrooms which feel lost about what to do next. Her list of issues that need to be addressed is getting longer by the day, she says, from lack of adequate legal training to workshops that never get scrutinised by a third party. “DEI started with good intentions but it’s clear that not enough guardrails were put in place, making it vulnerable to politicisation,” says de Grunwald, arguing that there needs to be more nuance in the conversation. Some feel that a review into gender identity published by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass last month has indirectly made a case for free speech and could give top executives the confidence to ask more probing questions. Others could also be influenced by their peers in America, where the president of the country’s largest HR organisation, the Society of Human Resource Management, flagged in December that DEI policies will “come under full-out attack in 2024”. That week, Elon Musk posted on his social media site X that “DEI must DIE”. City investors disagree. One financier says he is on board with a DEI rethink but only if it doesn’t result in a shredding of vital diversity policies. “It’s a pause for reflection,” he says, pointing out that it makes sense for bosses to now discuss where there might be pitfalls in their diversity plans. “The meaty environmental, social and governance (ESG) stuff, such as climate change and inequality, still matters a lot. People who think this is part of a rolling back of ESG are wrong – it’s here to stay.” As the conversation on how to navigate DEI gets louder, diversity consultants warn that any change won’t be easy. Fanshawe worries that chief executives could be so afraid of rowing back on initiatives that many may well end up concluding: “Do you know what? It’s too much trouble’”. ‘Now they’re saying, “I’m not convinced a high street retailer should take a position on anticonversion therapy’ Article Name:Bosses take back control from diversity zealots Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Lucy Burton Start Page:19 End Page:19](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3de67115-bc07-4b22-97ed-c5de5f21f11b_467x496.jpeg "Bosses take back control from diversity zealots Companies in the UK and US are rethinking the role they play in dealing with inclusivity. The Daily Telegraph6 May 2024By Lucy Burton Let Women Speak, above, described as a ‘gender critical feminist campaign’. Below, JK Rowling, who has spoken out on trans issues Chief executives are beginning to realise that they didn’t quite think things through when first setting up their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, according to a co-founder of one of the UK’S most active LGBT charities, Stonewall. Simon Fanshawe, one of six activists to set up the group, has said he is increasingly seeing a shift in attitude over the role diversity schemes should have in corporate Britain. “It seemed self-evidently right [in the past] but now they’re saying, ‘actually I’m not convinced that a high street retailer should take a position on anti-conversion therapy,” he says. “Because what’s that got to do with the price of beans?’” It is a debate that is being had in boardrooms across the country, as HR chiefs admit among themselves that some of their peers have embarked on passion projects that have little to do with the workplace. As some of America’s largest companies slash their DEI budgets, Uk-based executives are scratching their heads over which way to go next. Some worry that the advice they have taken on diversity could have misrepresented equality laws, placing little scrutiny on unaccredited external training providers. Others fear DEI teams are simply silencing anyone with a different opinion rather than seeking to improve the diversity of their employees. Fran Itkoff, a 90-year-old woman from California who had volunteered for a multiple sclerosis charity for more than 60 years, was told earlier this year that her services were no longer required after she told a colleague she didn’t understand why she needed to add the pronouns “she/ her” to her email signature. The National MS Society confirmed at the time that she “was asked to step away from her role because of statements that were viewed as not aligning with our policy of inclusion”. The subsequent backlash prompted the charity to apologise for what it called a “mistake”. The dismissal of an elderly volunteer sums up the HR dilemma that some companies now face as individuals take matters into their own hands. It was all “DEI, jolly good” to begin with, notes Fanshawe, but few really considered how these programmes would work in practice. The equality consultant believes that a lot of programmes are not effective or have been used as a “platform for activism”. He thinks the charity he helped set up in 1989 has become part of the problem by demonising anyone who doesn’t agree with its gender policies. “I’ve always said the problem for Stonewall is not what they campaign on but how they campaign,” says Fanshawe. “I’m fed up with being told by Stonewall that I’m the wrong kind of gay.” Harry Potter author JK Rowling has previously criticised Stonewall for promoting transgender narratives to young children and has accused politicians of “snuggling up” to the charity. The chief executive of one company with 750 staff acknowledges that this is “one of the trickiest areas in business right now because you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t”. Organisations which link bosses’ pay to diversity targets, for example, are often praised by some and criticised by others. The retailer Asos last year made an about-turn on such a policy following pressure to re-prioritise profits. As companies turn away from some of their diversity policies, HR specialists worry that important conversations about improving diversity at work are being overshadowed by debates on sensitive areas, such as gender identity. Such issues are often cast as a battle between Right and Left even though polls show that few approach the topic through a hyperpolitical lens. The most common starting point is one of compassion, according to a previous poll by the More in Common think tank. “They understand that for many trans people life can be difficult and most think as a society we have a responsibility to make it less so. None of the people we spoke to, from across the ideological spectrum, saw the debate in terms of a battle,” the think tank concluded after polling 5,000 people in 2022. Yet with employees being dismissed for advancing certain views on transgender issues and companies going to desperate measures for a spot on Stonewall’s annual equality leaderboard – such as removing the word mother from maternity policies – that sentiment is not necessarily reflected at work. There are concerns that while DEI efforts can amount to little more than tick-boxing in some cases, it is simply going too far in others. Senior executives who want nothing to do with any of this will soon find themselves under the spotlight, some argue. Neil Morrison, who is director of HR for utility giant Severn Trent, thinks DEI matters are about to become “everybody’s job” as companies change tack and slash spending in this area. He expects more organisations to cut DEI leaders and instead declare “diversity is everybody’s responsibility”. This shift is already playing out in America, where employers are removing diversity criteria for scholarship programmes after the US Supreme Court, dominated by conservative-leaning judges, banned race-based university admissions. DEI initiatives overall are already slipping down the ladder of importance. Zoom told staff earlier this year that it had dismantled its DEI team amid layoffs, which reflected a wider trend across the West. Overall, the number of DEI jobs in America had shrunk 8pc during the first six weeks of 2024, data sourced by Revelio Labs and The Washington Post showed in February. This stemmed from the likes of Meta, Tesla, Lyft and X all slashing their DEI teams by 50pc or more. “I have spoken to a few people from the chief diversity officer (CDO) network in New York who have seen many CDO roles pulled mid-way through the recruitment process, when CEOS are getting nervous to continue headlining the function,” says Amanda Rajkumar, who was Adidas’s HR chief and the sole female board executive before she left last year. “I’ve also seen some CDOS who reported directly to CEOS go back to reporting to HR heads. Some feel the pendulum swung too far and there has to be a reset.” Sensing the changes, Uk-based chief executives and HR directors are looking for discrete advice. Tanya de Grunwald, who advises companies on HR issues, is putting together a roadmap for boardrooms which feel lost about what to do next. Her list of issues that need to be addressed is getting longer by the day, she says, from lack of adequate legal training to workshops that never get scrutinised by a third party. “DEI started with good intentions but it’s clear that not enough guardrails were put in place, making it vulnerable to politicisation,” says de Grunwald, arguing that there needs to be more nuance in the conversation. Some feel that a review into gender identity published by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass last month has indirectly made a case for free speech and could give top executives the confidence to ask more probing questions. Others could also be influenced by their peers in America, where the president of the country’s largest HR organisation, the Society of Human Resource Management, flagged in December that DEI policies will “come under full-out attack in 2024”. That week, Elon Musk posted on his social media site X that “DEI must DIE”. City investors disagree. One financier says he is on board with a DEI rethink but only if it doesn’t result in a shredding of vital diversity policies. “It’s a pause for reflection,” he says, pointing out that it makes sense for bosses to now discuss where there might be pitfalls in their diversity plans. “The meaty environmental, social and governance (ESG) stuff, such as climate change and inequality, still matters a lot. People who think this is part of a rolling back of ESG are wrong – it’s here to stay.” As the conversation on how to navigate DEI gets louder, diversity consultants warn that any change won’t be easy. Fanshawe worries that chief executives could be so afraid of rowing back on initiatives that many may well end up concluding: “Do you know what? It’s too much trouble’”. ‘Now they’re saying, “I’m not convinced a high street retailer should take a position on anticonversion therapy’ Article Name:Bosses take back control from diversity zealots Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Lucy Burton Start Page:19 End Page:19")
![Harry Potter and the death of debate The Daily Telegraph6 May 2024Bryony Gordon Another week, another instalment from the seemingly never-ending Hogwarts spin-off series, Harry Potter and the Correct Pronouns. In this latest edition, which absolutely nobody is queuing up outside bookshops to get hold of, JK Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe continue their spat about biological sex, gender and trans rights. I’ll bring you up to speed on the saga so far, just in case you’ve been busy getting on with your life. JK Rowling does not believe that trans women are women. Radcliffe, in common with several other young actors from the Harry Potter movies, does. Last week, he gave an interview in which he distanced himself from the views of a woman he last worked with almost 15 years ago. “It makes me really sad, ultimately,” he said of Rowling’s views on trans people. “It would have seemed like… immense cowardice to me to not say something. “I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments. And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.” Radcliffe acknowledged that “nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person [Rowling]… [but] that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life”. Am I the only person reading this and thinking: “Why on earth is he having to spell this out to people?” Radcliffe was 11 years old when he was cast as the boy wizard Rowling so brilliantly conjured from her imagination. He is now 34, with a child of his own. This outrage that he might have different views from a woman old enough to be his mother seems silly to me. It’s like expecting my husband to swear blind loyalty to the newsagent who gave him his first paper round, and then shouting “HOW DARE YOU?” when he pops in to buy a paper from said newsagent many years later, and happens to express an opposing opinion to the man behind the till about something on the front page. But equally, it seems absolutely tragic to me – not to mention a little childish – if because of that differing opinion, my husband point blank refused ever to shop in the newsagent again. And yet this seems to be what has happened in the case of Harry Potter and the Correct Pronouns, with Radcliffe admitting he hasn’t had any contact with Rowling since she began making her views on trans women clear. This is not a column about trans women, just in case you’re reading it in the hope of being able to froth with indignation. It’s a column about the lost art of conversation, and living in a society where it seems all nuance has been abandoned under the desperate rush to be right (or left, depending on your political persuasion). If the Romans had the Colosseum, we have X, formerly known as Twitter, and what a shame that in years to come, people won’t even be able to visit its remains to admire the grand architecture. Perhaps it’s Pollyannaish of me, but I have this notion of another ending for the Harry Potter franchise, which involves Radcliffe and Rowling coming together and having a proper conversation about these issues, politely – perhaps even in private – instead of baiting each other from afar via social media and press interviews. It used to be that debating was a skill taught at school – the art of disagreement was encouraged, respected, even. Grown-ups did not cut people off because they happened to hold different views. You did not refuse to work with someone, or kiss someone, just because they looked a bit like a Tory. You didn’t demand someone’s head on a block because of their politics. And you didn’t dismiss a human being as a talentless ingrate simply because of his refusal to simper to his first boss for the rest of his working life. Today, there seems to be a prevailing notion that people with opposing views are not just wrong, but somehow inherently evil. Is there another way? The writer Africa Brooke certainly hopes so. She has written an astonishing book called The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Tolerance. Brooke is from Zimbabwe, and resents being told by – mostly white – people that she is oppressed, or that her race is a burden. “You have your story, they have theirs,” writes Brooke in her book, “somewhere in between lies the power of The Third Perspective [which is] a compass for connection, in a deeply divided world.” There is a prevailing notion that people with opposing views are not just wrong, but evil The book is a powerful manifesto to help those who are either “overly cautious and silencing every word before it leaves your lips” or “lacking nuance and shouting every thought without discretion”. Brooke describes cancel culture as “a form of collective sabotage” and points out that “while it’s a breeze to spot intolerance in others, catching it in ourselves? Not so much.” Reading her words is a balm for the exhausted 21st-century soul, forever being pressurised into joining the Left or the Right, while secretly trying to hide the shame of being somewhere in the middle. “Some of us are super cautious, afraid of saying the wrong thing,” she writes. “Others let everything out, sometimes without thinking of the impact. Finding that middle ground – that Third Perspective – where we can be true to ourselves, but also kind and considerate, that’s the challenge of our times. It’s the challenge we’re here to face.” Whether we are up to it or not remains to be seen. But in the meantime, I am glad that voices like Brooke’s are beginning to break through and be heard. We would all be wise to listen, because the alternative – where we shout each other down and ostracise one another for different views – only ever leads to deafening silence. Article Name:The seven-day reset for a longer life Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:Bryony Gordon Start Page:7 End Page:7](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F517843d3-4180-4814-b25d-30283c52b594_585x717.jpeg "Harry Potter and the death of debate The Daily Telegraph6 May 2024Bryony Gordon Another week, another instalment from the seemingly never-ending Hogwarts spin-off series, Harry Potter and the Correct Pronouns. In this latest edition, which absolutely nobody is queuing up outside bookshops to get hold of, JK Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe continue their spat about biological sex, gender and trans rights. I’ll bring you up to speed on the saga so far, just in case you’ve been busy getting on with your life. JK Rowling does not believe that trans women are women. Radcliffe, in common with several other young actors from the Harry Potter movies, does. Last week, he gave an interview in which he distanced himself from the views of a woman he last worked with almost 15 years ago. “It makes me really sad, ultimately,” he said of Rowling’s views on trans people. “It would have seemed like… immense cowardice to me to not say something. “I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments. And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.” Radcliffe acknowledged that “nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person [Rowling]… [but] that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life”. Am I the only person reading this and thinking: “Why on earth is he having to spell this out to people?” Radcliffe was 11 years old when he was cast as the boy wizard Rowling so brilliantly conjured from her imagination. He is now 34, with a child of his own. This outrage that he might have different views from a woman old enough to be his mother seems silly to me. It’s like expecting my husband to swear blind loyalty to the newsagent who gave him his first paper round, and then shouting “HOW DARE YOU?” when he pops in to buy a paper from said newsagent many years later, and happens to express an opposing opinion to the man behind the till about something on the front page. But equally, it seems absolutely tragic to me – not to mention a little childish – if because of that differing opinion, my husband point blank refused ever to shop in the newsagent again. And yet this seems to be what has happened in the case of Harry Potter and the Correct Pronouns, with Radcliffe admitting he hasn’t had any contact with Rowling since she began making her views on trans women clear. This is not a column about trans women, just in case you’re reading it in the hope of being able to froth with indignation. It’s a column about the lost art of conversation, and living in a society where it seems all nuance has been abandoned under the desperate rush to be right (or left, depending on your political persuasion). If the Romans had the Colosseum, we have X, formerly known as Twitter, and what a shame that in years to come, people won’t even be able to visit its remains to admire the grand architecture. Perhaps it’s Pollyannaish of me, but I have this notion of another ending for the Harry Potter franchise, which involves Radcliffe and Rowling coming together and having a proper conversation about these issues, politely – perhaps even in private – instead of baiting each other from afar via social media and press interviews. It used to be that debating was a skill taught at school – the art of disagreement was encouraged, respected, even. Grown-ups did not cut people off because they happened to hold different views. You did not refuse to work with someone, or kiss someone, just because they looked a bit like a Tory. You didn’t demand someone’s head on a block because of their politics. And you didn’t dismiss a human being as a talentless ingrate simply because of his refusal to simper to his first boss for the rest of his working life. Today, there seems to be a prevailing notion that people with opposing views are not just wrong, but somehow inherently evil. Is there another way? The writer Africa Brooke certainly hopes so. She has written an astonishing book called The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Tolerance. Brooke is from Zimbabwe, and resents being told by – mostly white – people that she is oppressed, or that her race is a burden. “You have your story, they have theirs,” writes Brooke in her book, “somewhere in between lies the power of The Third Perspective [which is] a compass for connection, in a deeply divided world.” There is a prevailing notion that people with opposing views are not just wrong, but evil The book is a powerful manifesto to help those who are either “overly cautious and silencing every word before it leaves your lips” or “lacking nuance and shouting every thought without discretion”. Brooke describes cancel culture as “a form of collective sabotage” and points out that “while it’s a breeze to spot intolerance in others, catching it in ourselves? Not so much.” Reading her words is a balm for the exhausted 21st-century soul, forever being pressurised into joining the Left or the Right, while secretly trying to hide the shame of being somewhere in the middle. “Some of us are super cautious, afraid of saying the wrong thing,” she writes. “Others let everything out, sometimes without thinking of the impact. Finding that middle ground – that Third Perspective – where we can be true to ourselves, but also kind and considerate, that’s the challenge of our times. It’s the challenge we’re here to face.” Whether we are up to it or not remains to be seen. But in the meantime, I am glad that voices like Brooke’s are beginning to break through and be heard. We would all be wise to listen, because the alternative – where we shout each other down and ostracise one another for different views – only ever leads to deafening silence. Article Name:The seven-day reset for a longer life Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:Bryony Gordon Start Page:7 End Page:7")
Tuesday [Total: 2. Publications 4, positive 0, negative 2, written by trans people 0]
The Guardian [0]
The Times [0]
Daily Mail [2: Negative 2]
Telegraph [0]
Wednesday [Total: 3. Publications 4, positive 0, negative 3, written by trans people 0]
The Guardian [1: Negative 1]
![Cass tells MSPs gender review did not put too high a bar on evidence The Guardian8 May 2024Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent ▲ Hilary Cass denied she ignored 98% of puberty blocker research The Cass review on gender identity “absolutely” did not set an unfairly high bar for evidence, its author said yesterday, as she addressed “significant misinformation” about her assessment of healthcare provision for gender-questioning young people in England and Wales. Giving evidence to the Scottish parliament’s health committee, Dr Hilary Cass said Scotland could benefit from the more holistic approach recommended in her review, which was commissioned by NHS England. She also expressed frustration at misinformation circulated about the review of evidence regarding the impact of medical interventions such as puberty blockers and crosssex hormones on young people that was undertaken by the University of York as part of her review. “There has been the question of ‘have we set a higher bar for this systematic review?’ and we absolutely haven’t,” she told MSPs. “These young people should get the same standard of evidence in their care as every other young person.” Last month, the review found “weak evidence” for the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat young people experiencing gender incongruence and that this vulnerable cohort had been “let down” by the “toxicity” of the debate surrounding their care. She told the Holyrood committee: “To be clear, there was an incorrect piece on information being circulated that 98% of those papers [focusing on the effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones] had been disregarded and that only randomised controlled studies were included. “Both of those things are wrong. There were no randomised controlled trials, [and] 58% of the 102 papers were included in the analysis because they were of high or moderate quality.” After the publication of her review, Scotland’s only clinic to offer treatment to gender-questioning young people, Sandyford in Glasgow, paused prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The Scottish government has come under increasing pressure to fully adopt the recommendations after it set up a multidisciplinary team of clinicians to consider how to apply them to NHS Scotland. Cass, who suggested Scotland could become a regional centre, sharing research and data across Britain, used the session to address other misconceptions resulting from the review’s publication. “The trans community has been concerned that we’re looking at detransition to say we shouldn’t be giving gender-affirming care,” she said, adding that it was important to understand the factors which lead individuals to detransition: “Were there earlier signs that this may not have been a successful pathway for them?” Cass said she would want to explain any less than successful medical outcome to inform someone contemplating the same procedure, but added: “That’s not telling them they can’t do it.” She told the committee she had “really deep concerns” about private provision, adding that self-medication by young people was “happening way more than we would wish”. Last week the Guardian reported that experts were concerned about under-18s being able to purchase cross-sex hormones online. “It does put people at considerable risk to not have the level of assessment we are describing,” Cass said. She added that the Scottish government faced a “big challenge” in its proposal to ban conversion practices. Cass said that while the practice was “completely unacceptable”, legislators should take care not to deter clinicians from having “appropriate exploratory conversations” or make them “even more anxious potentially about working in this area”. Article Name:Cass tells MSPs gender review did not put too high a bar on evidence Publication:The Guardian Author:Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent Start Page:18 End Page:18](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff5d5b675-99a0-4703-94d4-b628070ca868_230x555.png "Cass tells MSPs gender review did not put too high a bar on evidence The Guardian8 May 2024Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent ▲ Hilary Cass denied she ignored 98% of puberty blocker research The Cass review on gender identity “absolutely” did not set an unfairly high bar for evidence, its author said yesterday, as she addressed “significant misinformation” about her assessment of healthcare provision for gender-questioning young people in England and Wales. Giving evidence to the Scottish parliament’s health committee, Dr Hilary Cass said Scotland could benefit from the more holistic approach recommended in her review, which was commissioned by NHS England. She also expressed frustration at misinformation circulated about the review of evidence regarding the impact of medical interventions such as puberty blockers and crosssex hormones on young people that was undertaken by the University of York as part of her review. “There has been the question of ‘have we set a higher bar for this systematic review?’ and we absolutely haven’t,” she told MSPs. “These young people should get the same standard of evidence in their care as every other young person.” Last month, the review found “weak evidence” for the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat young people experiencing gender incongruence and that this vulnerable cohort had been “let down” by the “toxicity” of the debate surrounding their care. She told the Holyrood committee: “To be clear, there was an incorrect piece on information being circulated that 98% of those papers [focusing on the effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones] had been disregarded and that only randomised controlled studies were included. “Both of those things are wrong. There were no randomised controlled trials, [and] 58% of the 102 papers were included in the analysis because they were of high or moderate quality.” After the publication of her review, Scotland’s only clinic to offer treatment to gender-questioning young people, Sandyford in Glasgow, paused prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The Scottish government has come under increasing pressure to fully adopt the recommendations after it set up a multidisciplinary team of clinicians to consider how to apply them to NHS Scotland. Cass, who suggested Scotland could become a regional centre, sharing research and data across Britain, used the session to address other misconceptions resulting from the review’s publication. “The trans community has been concerned that we’re looking at detransition to say we shouldn’t be giving gender-affirming care,” she said, adding that it was important to understand the factors which lead individuals to detransition: “Were there earlier signs that this may not have been a successful pathway for them?” Cass said she would want to explain any less than successful medical outcome to inform someone contemplating the same procedure, but added: “That’s not telling them they can’t do it.” She told the committee she had “really deep concerns” about private provision, adding that self-medication by young people was “happening way more than we would wish”. Last week the Guardian reported that experts were concerned about under-18s being able to purchase cross-sex hormones online. “It does put people at considerable risk to not have the level of assessment we are describing,” Cass said. She added that the Scottish government faced a “big challenge” in its proposal to ban conversion practices. Cass said that while the practice was “completely unacceptable”, legislators should take care not to deter clinicians from having “appropriate exploratory conversations” or make them “even more anxious potentially about working in this area”. Article Name:Cass tells MSPs gender review did not put too high a bar on evidence Publication:The Guardian Author:Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent Start Page:18 End Page:18")
The Times [0]
Daily Mail [1: Negative 1]
Telegraph [1: Negative 1]
Jayne Ozanne has said this story is “totally untrue”.
Thursday [Total: 1. Publications 4, positive 0, negative 1, written by trans people 0]
The Guardian [0]
The Times [0]
Daily Mail [0]
Telegraph [1: Negative 1]
![NHS bosses behind failures in treating trans children, says Cass The Daily Telegraph9 May 2024By Michael Searles ‘Clinicians were also aware that some young people were actually getting worse’ ‘The team might have questioned whether this was the right treatment for that wider group’ NHS leaders are to blame for the failures in treating trans children, Dr Hilary Cass has said. The paediatrician who led the review into NHS transgender health care services said those in charge had “ducked their responsibility” to the children they were supposed to care for. Dr Cass said accountability for the failings lay with several NHS organisations and “professional leadership”, in an interview with the New Statesman. The former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health refused to be drawn on whether there should be a public inquiry into the controversial Tavistock gender clinic, but said there was “a shared responsibility” for the failings. “It partly sits with the trusts that were seeing the young people, [and] to some degree with NHS England, but also professional leadership,” she said. “I think some professional organisations have ducked their responsibility in ensuring that everyone working in this field… treated these young people as they would any other.” The trusts in question include the Tavistock and Portman in west London, where the gender clinic for children was based, and the University College London Hospital and Leeds Teaching Hospitals, whose endocrinologists – doctors specialising in hormones – prescribed puberty blockers after being referred by the Tavistock. The Cass review was steadfast in its findings that there was a lack of evidence to support medical interventions, including the prescribing of blockers and cross-sex hormones to children and young people up to the age of 25. The interim report by Dr Cass, published in 2022, led to the NHS banning puberty blockers for under-18s outside of a yet-to-be established clinical trial from last month. The review found a lack of long-term data on what had happened to children prescribed the drugs and called for a more holistic approach to their care, after the report revealed accounts of gender-questioning children having mental health problems, learning disabilities, neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, or being confused about their sexuality. It raised serious questions as to how so many children had been given controversial drugs on the NHS. The review also revealed that warning signs had been ignored by leaders, despite evidence of children not improving or deteriorating after medical intervention. Patients questioning their gender had to be referred to an endocrinologist to receive sex-changing drugs because the Tavistock’s psychologists were unable to prescribe them. Dr Cass questioned why these doctors did not reflect on what they were doing. “I would have expected them to pause for thought at that point and consider whether this was the best course of action,” she said. “[Clinicians] see some young people who seem to improve, and that encourages them to go on, but they were also aware that some young people were actually getting worse. And so, yes, I would have expected at that point that the team might have questioned whether this was the right treatment for that wider group.” Dr Cass also hit back at the criticism she had received from activists attempting to undermine her report by lobbying officials with false information. Her team published an official response to claims that the systematic evidence review threw out all but two studies on the effects of puberty blockers and hormones on young people. Article Name:NHS bosses behind failures in treating trans children, says Cass Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Michael Searles Start Page:10 End Page:10](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F216bcfdf-9a6c-48ea-9860-767373ec34d5_1513x400.png "NHS bosses behind failures in treating trans children, says Cass The Daily Telegraph9 May 2024By Michael Searles ‘Clinicians were also aware that some young people were actually getting worse’ ‘The team might have questioned whether this was the right treatment for that wider group’ NHS leaders are to blame for the failures in treating trans children, Dr Hilary Cass has said. The paediatrician who led the review into NHS transgender health care services said those in charge had “ducked their responsibility” to the children they were supposed to care for. Dr Cass said accountability for the failings lay with several NHS organisations and “professional leadership”, in an interview with the New Statesman. The former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health refused to be drawn on whether there should be a public inquiry into the controversial Tavistock gender clinic, but said there was “a shared responsibility” for the failings. “It partly sits with the trusts that were seeing the young people, [and] to some degree with NHS England, but also professional leadership,” she said. “I think some professional organisations have ducked their responsibility in ensuring that everyone working in this field… treated these young people as they would any other.” The trusts in question include the Tavistock and Portman in west London, where the gender clinic for children was based, and the University College London Hospital and Leeds Teaching Hospitals, whose endocrinologists – doctors specialising in hormones – prescribed puberty blockers after being referred by the Tavistock. The Cass review was steadfast in its findings that there was a lack of evidence to support medical interventions, including the prescribing of blockers and cross-sex hormones to children and young people up to the age of 25. The interim report by Dr Cass, published in 2022, led to the NHS banning puberty blockers for under-18s outside of a yet-to-be established clinical trial from last month. The review found a lack of long-term data on what had happened to children prescribed the drugs and called for a more holistic approach to their care, after the report revealed accounts of gender-questioning children having mental health problems, learning disabilities, neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, or being confused about their sexuality. It raised serious questions as to how so many children had been given controversial drugs on the NHS. The review also revealed that warning signs had been ignored by leaders, despite evidence of children not improving or deteriorating after medical intervention. Patients questioning their gender had to be referred to an endocrinologist to receive sex-changing drugs because the Tavistock’s psychologists were unable to prescribe them. Dr Cass questioned why these doctors did not reflect on what they were doing. “I would have expected them to pause for thought at that point and consider whether this was the best course of action,” she said. “[Clinicians] see some young people who seem to improve, and that encourages them to go on, but they were also aware that some young people were actually getting worse. And so, yes, I would have expected at that point that the team might have questioned whether this was the right treatment for that wider group.” Dr Cass also hit back at the criticism she had received from activists attempting to undermine her report by lobbying officials with false information. Her team published an official response to claims that the systematic evidence review threw out all but two studies on the effects of puberty blockers and hormones on young people. Article Name:NHS bosses behind failures in treating trans children, says Cass Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Michael Searles Start Page:10 End Page:10")
Friday [Total: 1. Publications 4, positive 0, negative 1, written by trans people 0]
The Guardian [0]
The Times [0]
Daily Mail [0]
Telegraph [1: Negative 1]
Saturday [Total: 3. Publications 3, positive 0, negative 3, written by trans people 0]
The Guardian [0]
The Times [2: Negative 2]
![Trans clinic accused of betraying patients with care chosen by AI Users of the GenderGP, a private online service, feel they are treated like ‘cash cows’, writes Lucy Bannerman Joseph Oakes, 37, a hypnotherapist Next image › After spending more than £1,000 over the past 15 months with GenderGP, an unregulated private clinic, Theo was already feeling less like a patient and more like “a cash cow”. The 20-year-old student, whose name we have changed, is transitioning from female to male, and is among many of his friends desperate to access testosterone to lower his voice and achieve a more masculine appearance. He opted to go with GenderGP over NHS transgender care, which has long waiting lists, but is now one of hundreds of customers seemingly in revolt over their treatment. They were appalled to discover that the online clinic they trusted as an expert in transgender medicine is now using artificial intelligence to influence their course of treatment. The website, which is registered in Singapore, is transferring its “care” of a vulnerable group of people, many of whom have complex mental health issues, from advisers to algorithms. Not only that, it has admitted in a statement to its subscribers, many of whom pay hundreds if not thousands of pounds to access off-label prescriptions for masculinising and feminising hormones, that it had switched to this new “next-generation” system without telling them. “It makes me angry,” Theo, who is from the Midlands, said. “The AI really reinforces how they’re just completely taking advantage of you. “I knew before that it was expensive and not super-regulated, but it’s now spelt out to you: this isn’t like going to the doctor. This feels like a private company that just wants to make money from the vulnerable.” GenderGP was founded in 2015 by Helen and Mike Webberley, both GPs. The following year they started prescribing experimental hormone treatments to adults and children who identified as transgender. In 2022 Mike Webberley was struck off the medical register and his wife was suspended for putting three young patients at “unwarranted risk of harm”. She returned to practise as a doctor after that decision was overturned by the High Court the following year. By 2020 they claimed to have started almost 2,000 people across 42 countries on hormones. They claimed that 16 per cent of all the patients they supported were under 16. GenderGP was already controversial as an allegedly “Wild West” operator that continued to sell hormone treatments to people in crisis about their gender despite the lack of any good evidence of their safety or effectiveness. It also recommends that “all young people” wishing to transition should have graduated beyond puberty blockers and on to irreversible crosssex hormones “by the time they are 14 to 16”, which is in contravention of NHS guidelines. In her comprehensive review of gender identity services for under- 18s, Dr Hilary Cass concluded that there was “no good evidence” to support giving young people in crisis potentially life-altering hormone treatment. Cass also explicitly criticised Helen Webberley in an interview with The Times, claiming her care “certainly doesn’t come anywhere near anything one would recognise as adequate in terms of a proper assessment and exploration”. Despite Cass’s clear warning that masculinising and feminising hormones should be given only to under- 18s who meet very strict clinical criteria, GenderGP continues to evangelise about unevidenced powers of hormones to transform people’s lives for the better, insisting on its website that “switching your hormones profile from one to the other is surprisingly safe”. GenderGP escapes regulation in the UK because it is private. It uses doctors outside the UK, but within the European Economic Area (EEA), to sign prescriptions. Customers such as Theo can then use these prescriptions at UK pharmacies to access controlled drugs such as testosterone without ever having met the doctor who provided them. The switch to AI has also removed any free way of contacting the service. There is no phone number, no email address and subscribers must now pay for every single interaction. “People are desperate and Gender- GP know that, so they can charge a ridiculous amount of money,” Theo said. “I know friends who have done sex work in order to get money for the fees. “I’ve been able to tutor, so I’ve been OK, but for some of my friends, especially ones with worse mental health, the only way they are able to get the money [for the hormones] is through underground sex work. It’s quite dark.” To join GenderGP, customers must pay an upfront fee of £195 and £65 for an obligatory information-gathering session, followed by a monthly subscription fee of £30. They can book optional sessions to discuss issues such as fertility preservation and surgery for between £45 and £150 a time. The drugs are charged separately: a three-month supply of puberty blockers costs £265. Testosterone gel costs £135. As part of its “future-proofed” service, GenderGP no longer appears to have real staff responding to queries. Instead it tells paying subscribers to “self-serve your information needs” and refers them to a web link for an AIgenerated “knowledge base”. The most basic interaction costs £7.99 for a 15-minute “live chat”. This system, it promised, will be “more sofisticated [sic]”. The backlash has been intense, and hundreds of subscribers have signed a petition demanding that GenderGP reverse its “dangerous” decision to entrust their care to artificial intelligence. “They’re our doctor for essential medicine not a f***ing video game company,” one of scores of customers complaining about the issue on Reddit said. “We [the trans community] are not a cash cow for the likes of Helen,” said another. Some said they were considering obtaining hormones on the black market, to administer themselves. “I can see no other path for me than DIY,” one said. Among them is Theo. “I know it’s not the smartest idea but I do think it’s getting to the point where I might have to get [black market hormones] instead because of how expensive GenderGP is. “I’ve been speaking to a couple of the guys in the gym who take anabolic steroids and have ordered some chemistry tests to see if these substances are pure enough for me to be healthy.” Chemistry sets? “I mean swabs my friends who are chemistry undergraduates have stolen from their labs. It’s basically just measuring for certain substances that could be harmful.” Theo joined GenderGP early last year, after receiving a “proper” diagnosis of gender dysphoria from his NHS GP. After an hour-long online session with GenderGP in which he was asked about which toys he liked as a child and whether he wore “boy clothes”, he had a 20-minute chat with online advisers once every three months. “They looked more like student union officers, or volunteers for a helpline,” he said. “The last two said they were students doing it as a part-time job while at uni. They looked about my age and looked trans too.” He eventually received a prescription from an overseas doctor he’d never met. He received testosterone gel through the post from Smartway, an online pharmacy based in Leicestershire, before switching to injectable testosterone, provided by another UK online pharmacy, Olympia, based near the Olympic Park in east London. Pharmacists must ensure the prescriptions are “clinically appropriate” for the individual, and if not, the pharmacy regulator has the power to challenge their fitness to practise or, in the most serious cases, suspend or remove them from the register. The government is reviewing the law around what it describes as a loophole in the regulatory framework. Roz Gittins, chief pharmacy officer of the General Pharmaceutical Council, the regulator, said: “We have made clear to pharmacy professionals and owners that it is not enough for a prescription to be legally valid. That is just one consideration alongside others, including the responsible pharmacist’s judgment as to whether a prescription is clinically appropriate for the patient. “Pharmacy professionals need to use their professional judgment when considering the risks to the patient of supplying or not supplying against a legally valid prescription. It may be the right thing in some cases to refuse to supply medication and instead signpost the patient to an alternative healthcare professional. Person-centred and compassionate communication is particularly important in these challenging scenarios.” A spokesman for Smartway said that it “dispenses medicines against prescriptions issued by doctors in the UK and EU, in compliance with our respective professional duties”. He added: “It is the clinical judgment of the doctor that will lead to the issue of a prescription. However, we always exercise our own judgment as to whether a prescription is clinically appropriate for that individual patient. If it is not, we will not dispense unless and until we are satisfied. “We do challenge prescriptions and have refused to accept a prescription on occasions on clinical grounds. We typically refer those under 18 back to the clinic. “A patient generally has the right to approach whichever pharmacy they like with a prescription and absent a justified reason, it will typically be dispensed by the pharmacist. “All interactions by Smartway Pharmacy must be non-judgmental, inclusive, compassionate and free from discrimination or bias.” Olympia Pharmacy was contacted for comment. GenderGP has long been unpopular among gender critical campaigners but the latest complaints mark a shift to criticism from its own supporters and users. The use of vague “algorithms” to assess patients’ medical histories and to recommend treatment plans, medication, blood tests and counselling was confirmed by its affiliated website, My Healthy Hormones with Gender GP. It said: “Our algorithms assess people’s medical history, their preferences and goals and aligns them with current international clinical guidelines and best practice, to help you make the best decisions. “Our algorithms make recommendations for you to have counselling or other therapy as and when required and they make recommendations for the doctor on which medication would be best for you to help you achieve your goals.” In a separate message to customers from Team Gender GP, it confirmed “we’re applying bespoke software so that processes like prescriptions, blood tests and medical steps can be efficiently and accurately processed”. Theo said it felt like a betrayal of the trans community. “GenderGP appear super-woke and use all the right kind of terminology,” he said. “They’re trying to be this ‘light’ for mentally ill youth and trying to convince them ‘this will solve all your problems’ but it feels like they just want your money. “It makes me feel really scared that a lot of young, vulnerable people might get a faulty diagnosis and then do something they regret.”](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8bc60fdc-5926-4f0b-a78c-d64f139eb512_1347x844.png "Trans clinic accused of betraying patients with care chosen by AI Users of the GenderGP, a private online service, feel they are treated like ‘cash cows’, writes Lucy Bannerman Joseph Oakes, 37, a hypnotherapist Next image › After spending more than £1,000 over the past 15 months with GenderGP, an unregulated private clinic, Theo was already feeling less like a patient and more like “a cash cow”. The 20-year-old student, whose name we have changed, is transitioning from female to male, and is among many of his friends desperate to access testosterone to lower his voice and achieve a more masculine appearance. He opted to go with GenderGP over NHS transgender care, which has long waiting lists, but is now one of hundreds of customers seemingly in revolt over their treatment. They were appalled to discover that the online clinic they trusted as an expert in transgender medicine is now using artificial intelligence to influence their course of treatment. The website, which is registered in Singapore, is transferring its “care” of a vulnerable group of people, many of whom have complex mental health issues, from advisers to algorithms. Not only that, it has admitted in a statement to its subscribers, many of whom pay hundreds if not thousands of pounds to access off-label prescriptions for masculinising and feminising hormones, that it had switched to this new “next-generation” system without telling them. “It makes me angry,” Theo, who is from the Midlands, said. “The AI really reinforces how they’re just completely taking advantage of you. “I knew before that it was expensive and not super-regulated, but it’s now spelt out to you: this isn’t like going to the doctor. This feels like a private company that just wants to make money from the vulnerable.” GenderGP was founded in 2015 by Helen and Mike Webberley, both GPs. The following year they started prescribing experimental hormone treatments to adults and children who identified as transgender. In 2022 Mike Webberley was struck off the medical register and his wife was suspended for putting three young patients at “unwarranted risk of harm”. She returned to practise as a doctor after that decision was overturned by the High Court the following year. By 2020 they claimed to have started almost 2,000 people across 42 countries on hormones. They claimed that 16 per cent of all the patients they supported were under 16. GenderGP was already controversial as an allegedly “Wild West” operator that continued to sell hormone treatments to people in crisis about their gender despite the lack of any good evidence of their safety or effectiveness. It also recommends that “all young people” wishing to transition should have graduated beyond puberty blockers and on to irreversible crosssex hormones “by the time they are 14 to 16”, which is in contravention of NHS guidelines. In her comprehensive review of gender identity services for under- 18s, Dr Hilary Cass concluded that there was “no good evidence” to support giving young people in crisis potentially life-altering hormone treatment. Cass also explicitly criticised Helen Webberley in an interview with The Times, claiming her care “certainly doesn’t come anywhere near anything one would recognise as adequate in terms of a proper assessment and exploration”. Despite Cass’s clear warning that masculinising and feminising hormones should be given only to under- 18s who meet very strict clinical criteria, GenderGP continues to evangelise about unevidenced powers of hormones to transform people’s lives for the better, insisting on its website that “switching your hormones profile from one to the other is surprisingly safe”. GenderGP escapes regulation in the UK because it is private. It uses doctors outside the UK, but within the European Economic Area (EEA), to sign prescriptions. Customers such as Theo can then use these prescriptions at UK pharmacies to access controlled drugs such as testosterone without ever having met the doctor who provided them. The switch to AI has also removed any free way of contacting the service. There is no phone number, no email address and subscribers must now pay for every single interaction. “People are desperate and Gender- GP know that, so they can charge a ridiculous amount of money,” Theo said. “I know friends who have done sex work in order to get money for the fees. “I’ve been able to tutor, so I’ve been OK, but for some of my friends, especially ones with worse mental health, the only way they are able to get the money [for the hormones] is through underground sex work. It’s quite dark.” To join GenderGP, customers must pay an upfront fee of £195 and £65 for an obligatory information-gathering session, followed by a monthly subscription fee of £30. They can book optional sessions to discuss issues such as fertility preservation and surgery for between £45 and £150 a time. The drugs are charged separately: a three-month supply of puberty blockers costs £265. Testosterone gel costs £135. As part of its “future-proofed” service, GenderGP no longer appears to have real staff responding to queries. Instead it tells paying subscribers to “self-serve your information needs” and refers them to a web link for an AIgenerated “knowledge base”. The most basic interaction costs £7.99 for a 15-minute “live chat”. This system, it promised, will be “more sofisticated [sic]”. The backlash has been intense, and hundreds of subscribers have signed a petition demanding that GenderGP reverse its “dangerous” decision to entrust their care to artificial intelligence. “They’re our doctor for essential medicine not a f***ing video game company,” one of scores of customers complaining about the issue on Reddit said. “We [the trans community] are not a cash cow for the likes of Helen,” said another. Some said they were considering obtaining hormones on the black market, to administer themselves. “I can see no other path for me than DIY,” one said. Among them is Theo. “I know it’s not the smartest idea but I do think it’s getting to the point where I might have to get [black market hormones] instead because of how expensive GenderGP is. “I’ve been speaking to a couple of the guys in the gym who take anabolic steroids and have ordered some chemistry tests to see if these substances are pure enough for me to be healthy.” Chemistry sets? “I mean swabs my friends who are chemistry undergraduates have stolen from their labs. It’s basically just measuring for certain substances that could be harmful.” Theo joined GenderGP early last year, after receiving a “proper” diagnosis of gender dysphoria from his NHS GP. After an hour-long online session with GenderGP in which he was asked about which toys he liked as a child and whether he wore “boy clothes”, he had a 20-minute chat with online advisers once every three months. “They looked more like student union officers, or volunteers for a helpline,” he said. “The last two said they were students doing it as a part-time job while at uni. They looked about my age and looked trans too.” He eventually received a prescription from an overseas doctor he’d never met. He received testosterone gel through the post from Smartway, an online pharmacy based in Leicestershire, before switching to injectable testosterone, provided by another UK online pharmacy, Olympia, based near the Olympic Park in east London. Pharmacists must ensure the prescriptions are “clinically appropriate” for the individual, and if not, the pharmacy regulator has the power to challenge their fitness to practise or, in the most serious cases, suspend or remove them from the register. The government is reviewing the law around what it describes as a loophole in the regulatory framework. Roz Gittins, chief pharmacy officer of the General Pharmaceutical Council, the regulator, said: “We have made clear to pharmacy professionals and owners that it is not enough for a prescription to be legally valid. That is just one consideration alongside others, including the responsible pharmacist’s judgment as to whether a prescription is clinically appropriate for the patient. “Pharmacy professionals need to use their professional judgment when considering the risks to the patient of supplying or not supplying against a legally valid prescription. It may be the right thing in some cases to refuse to supply medication and instead signpost the patient to an alternative healthcare professional. Person-centred and compassionate communication is particularly important in these challenging scenarios.” A spokesman for Smartway said that it “dispenses medicines against prescriptions issued by doctors in the UK and EU, in compliance with our respective professional duties”. He added: “It is the clinical judgment of the doctor that will lead to the issue of a prescription. However, we always exercise our own judgment as to whether a prescription is clinically appropriate for that individual patient. If it is not, we will not dispense unless and until we are satisfied. “We do challenge prescriptions and have refused to accept a prescription on occasions on clinical grounds. We typically refer those under 18 back to the clinic. “A patient generally has the right to approach whichever pharmacy they like with a prescription and absent a justified reason, it will typically be dispensed by the pharmacist. “All interactions by Smartway Pharmacy must be non-judgmental, inclusive, compassionate and free from discrimination or bias.” Olympia Pharmacy was contacted for comment. GenderGP has long been unpopular among gender critical campaigners but the latest complaints mark a shift to criticism from its own supporters and users. The use of vague “algorithms” to assess patients’ medical histories and to recommend treatment plans, medication, blood tests and counselling was confirmed by its affiliated website, My Healthy Hormones with Gender GP. It said: “Our algorithms assess people’s medical history, their preferences and goals and aligns them with current international clinical guidelines and best practice, to help you make the best decisions. “Our algorithms make recommendations for you to have counselling or other therapy as and when required and they make recommendations for the doctor on which medication would be best for you to help you achieve your goals.” In a separate message to customers from Team Gender GP, it confirmed “we’re applying bespoke software so that processes like prescriptions, blood tests and medical steps can be efficiently and accurately processed”. Theo said it felt like a betrayal of the trans community. “GenderGP appear super-woke and use all the right kind of terminology,” he said. “They’re trying to be this ‘light’ for mentally ill youth and trying to convince them ‘this will solve all your problems’ but it feels like they just want your money. “It makes me feel really scared that a lot of young, vulnerable people might get a faulty diagnosis and then do something they regret.”")
Daily Mail [1: Negative 1]
![UK’s equalities watchdog not anti-trans, UN rules Daily Mail11 May 2024By Alex Ward Social Affairs Correspondent BRITAIN’S equalities watchdog has retained its gold- plated status as a human rights organisation – despite facing accusations of being anti-trans. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will continue to hold ‘A status’ accreditation on the international stage following an investigation prompted by complaints. It was forced to undergo a special review after dozens of trans activist groups wrote to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions [Ganhri] umbrella body last year. They complained that the EHRC’s advice to the Government on the definition of sex had discriminated against trans people. It had called for an overhaul of the law to explicitly define sex as ‘biological sex’ and previously advised trans people could be excluded from single-sex spaces in ‘justifiable and proportionate’ instances. If stripped of its ‘A status’, the EHRC would have been barred from speaking and voting at the UN Human Rights Council. Welcoming the decision, EHRC chairwoman Baroness Falkner said: ‘ We always believed there were inaccuracies in the submissions made against us. We are pleased... the accreditation committee agree that we continue to meet the highest standards. I can reassure all those we work with, and the British public we serve, that we take great pride in our independence from government.’ She added: ‘But it is important too to maintain our independence from activist organisations wishing to unduly influence our legal opinions and policy.’ The decision was welcomed by women’s rights groups, who called for a end to the ‘misconceived claims of trans activists’. Maya Forstater, chief executive of human-rights charity Sex Matters, said: ‘This surely must end the trans activist lobby’s spiteful campaign to undermine the EHRC. Ganrhi’s decision vindicates both the EHRC and Baroness Falkner’s leadership.’ The EHRC provides the UK with equalities guidance and enforces legislation to protect people against discrimination. For its part, Ganhri accredits national watchdogs so they can access the UN Human Rights Council as well as other UN bodies. Those that fully comply with the UN’s benchmark Paris Principles to protect human rights are awarded ‘A status’ – while those which only partially comply hold ‘B status’. Countries to have their ‘A status’ removed include Afghanistan, Myanmar and Niger. Russia only had its ‘A status’ suspended in October 2023. Article Name:UK’s equalities watchdog not anti-trans, UN rules Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Alex Ward Social Affairs Correspondent Start Page:14 End Page:14](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc14499d8-009b-4447-a6a7-07b3615be419_895x717.png "UK’s equalities watchdog not anti-trans, UN rules Daily Mail11 May 2024By Alex Ward Social Affairs Correspondent BRITAIN’S equalities watchdog has retained its gold- plated status as a human rights organisation – despite facing accusations of being anti-trans. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will continue to hold ‘A status’ accreditation on the international stage following an investigation prompted by complaints. It was forced to undergo a special review after dozens of trans activist groups wrote to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions [Ganhri] umbrella body last year. They complained that the EHRC’s advice to the Government on the definition of sex had discriminated against trans people. It had called for an overhaul of the law to explicitly define sex as ‘biological sex’ and previously advised trans people could be excluded from single-sex spaces in ‘justifiable and proportionate’ instances. If stripped of its ‘A status’, the EHRC would have been barred from speaking and voting at the UN Human Rights Council. Welcoming the decision, EHRC chairwoman Baroness Falkner said: ‘ We always believed there were inaccuracies in the submissions made against us. We are pleased... the accreditation committee agree that we continue to meet the highest standards. I can reassure all those we work with, and the British public we serve, that we take great pride in our independence from government.’ She added: ‘But it is important too to maintain our independence from activist organisations wishing to unduly influence our legal opinions and policy.’ The decision was welcomed by women’s rights groups, who called for a end to the ‘misconceived claims of trans activists’. Maya Forstater, chief executive of human-rights charity Sex Matters, said: ‘This surely must end the trans activist lobby’s spiteful campaign to undermine the EHRC. Ganrhi’s decision vindicates both the EHRC and Baroness Falkner’s leadership.’ The EHRC provides the UK with equalities guidance and enforces legislation to protect people against discrimination. For its part, Ganhri accredits national watchdogs so they can access the UN Human Rights Council as well as other UN bodies. Those that fully comply with the UN’s benchmark Paris Principles to protect human rights are awarded ‘A status’ – while those which only partially comply hold ‘B status’. Countries to have their ‘A status’ removed include Afghanistan, Myanmar and Niger. Russia only had its ‘A status’ suspended in October 2023. Article Name:UK’s equalities watchdog not anti-trans, UN rules Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Alex Ward Social Affairs Correspondent Start Page:14 End Page:14")
Telegraph [?]
Saturday’s Telegraph is never available on Press Reader and I’m still trying to work out why.
Sunday [Total: 4. Publications 4, positive 0, negative 0, written by trans people 0]
The Observer [0]
Sonia Sodha did not produce her regular column on trans people, instead writing about university protests and, unusually for her, not blaming it all on trans people.
The Sunday Times [0]
Mail on Sunday [2: Negative 2]
Sunday Telegraph [2: Negative 2]
TRANSWRITES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED
Rwanda not safe for LGBTQ+ people, warns refugee, by Ayman Eckford
The 32 things The Cass Review recommends and why they are concerning, by Gemma Stone.
NHS & puberty blockers: Former GIDS patients reflect on long wait times, invasive assessments, by Sasha Baker.
The Cass Review: A government-sanctioned attack on trans lives, by Lee Hurley.
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