Parshall Partners

Transforming A Bad Idea

         In the dark and confusing world of “transgenderism”, a shaft of light is breaking through that should encourage anyone who cares about good science, common sense and compassion. 

         In April 2024, the Cass Review report, led by Dr. Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health in England, concluded that medical interventions like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors who are “gender-distressed” offer “remarkably weak” evidence that these approaches provide real help.  The report went on to say that young people have been “let down” by a lack of research and an “exceptionally toxic” debate.

         The report stated that a more holistic assessment should be made that includes mental health testing and screening for things like autism as well as helping with social transition rather than turning to medical solutions first. The report also suggested restricting the routine prescribing of puberty blockers for children and if these drugs are to be used, they should only happen within clinical research trials. The report demanded that future treatments be backed by rigorous research that included long-term track of patients.

         Dr. Cass wrote that, “Based on a single Dutch study, which suggested that puberty blockers may improve psychological wellbeing for a narrowly defined group of children with gender incongruence, the practice spread at pace to other countries.” She noted that, unfortunately, doctors relied on this one study and started to prescribe cross-sex hormones to teenagers and even adolescents who fell outside the study’s scope.  She concluded that children “deserve very much better.”

         Pushback from the established medical community was swift and immediate, including the British Medical Association (BMA) that rejected the findings of the Cass report and refused to endorse it, saying its findings were “unsubstantiated”.

         So here is where the light comes in.  The BMA has now published a review of Cass’s findings and found the methodology to be robust and no longer oppose the recommendations in the report. A spokesman for the medical group stated:

“A strength of this work has been the ability of clinicians with differing perspectives to engage constructively to ensure the concerns of the profession and those with lived experience were explored…While interpretations and policy preferences in the group, as in the profession indeed in wider society, have diverged, there has been consistent respect for the underlying data and for the ethical complexity of the decisions involved.”

         The Cass Report took four years, derived data from 113,000 children and found no evidence to support giving sex hormones to minors.

            Parents, be encouraged.  When Planned Parenthood wants to hand out cross-sex hormones to your child or when your local school district wants to hide your child’s struggle from you while adding and abetting his dilutional thinking, remember you have good science, common sense and compassion on your side.  Don’t let the ideologues disguised as so-called experts fool you. As Dr. Cass said, your child “deserve(s) very much better”

         Those are my thoughts. I’m Janet Parshall.