The U.S. conservative movement's authoritarian plans

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Thanks for highlighting what’s wrong with these people. So ridiculous that they’re hyper focused on hating the left instead of doing anything beneficial for the country.

Dismantling the left would be fantastic for the country.

Dumb.

Right?

So with so many things the republican party ants to either take away from people or continue to deny, it’s pretty dumb of people to vote against their own self interest.

I guess the UK closing down the Tavistock Center,

Just on this point because it's a fairly simple matter of fact: the Gender Identity Development Service based at the Tavistock Centre in North London is being closed because it was overwhelmed with demand from across the country, and it is being replaced by regional centres across the country. It has nothing to do with what the treatment should be, only how it is delivered.

Just on this point because it's a fairly simple matter of fact: the Gender Identity Development Service based at the Tavistock Centre in North London is being closed because it was overwhelmed with demand from across the country, and it is being replaced by regional centres across the country. It has nothing to do with what the treatment should be, only how it is delivered.

That's not what I heard, I believe there are multiple whistleblowers and possibly even a book regarding the shoddy practices and questionable treatment at the center.

Do either of you have sources?

Do either of you have sources?

The UK’s National Health Service will close the world’s largest pediatric gender clinic, the Gender Identity Development Service in London (GIDS) often known as the Tavistock, after the NHS Trust which houses it. An independent review condemned the clinic as “not a safe or viable long-term option” because its interventions are based on poor evidence and its model of care leaves young people “at considerable risk” of poor mental health. The clinic must close by Spring 2023. It will be replaced by a new regional hospital-based service. Regional centers will typically be children’s hospitals that also provide related services for mental health and autism, and have expertise in safeguarding, supporting looked-after children and children who have experienced trauma. Staff will therefore work across these related services “in order to embed the care of children and young people with gender-related distress within a broader child and adolescent health context.” Regional centers will partner with more local services based in community mental health services, to ensure that children can be seen close to where they live.

This reorganization is clearly intended to break the silo within which transgender medicine has operated for decades, in the UK as in other countries. Along with this reorganization comes a belated recognition of the poor state of knowledge around endocrinological interventions for gender distress, especially the off-label use of Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone agonist (GnRHa), often called “puberty blockers.” Dr. Hilary Cass, former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who is chairing the independent review, wrote to the National Health Service asking it to conduct systematic research. She emphasizes that there is “no way of knowing whether, rather than buying time to make a decision, puberty blockers may disrupt that decision-making process” and disrupt brain development “which could have significant impact on the ability to make complex risk-laden decisions, as well as possible longer-term neuropsychological consequences.”

Advisers to SEGM have been raising alarm about the unfolding scandal at the Gender Identity Development Service for some years. Marcus Evans served on the governing board of the Tavistock Trust, and in 2019 he resigned over the Trust’s failure to heed warnings raised by staff within the clinic. Also in 2019, Michael Biggs uncovered the Gender Identity Development Service’s experiment with puberty blockers which the clinic had suppressed because the outcomes were not positive. He published the first analysis of the psychological functioning of adolescents in the experiment, and subsequently used the experiment’s data to measure the negative effects on bone density. More generally, advisers to SEGM have published several articles drawing attention to the paucity of evidence for puberty suppression and to the ethical problems of informed consent.

Other countries should learn the lessons from the UK (and from Sweden and Finland). First, there is insufficient evidence to justify the general clinical use of puberty suppression or cross-sex hormone use in youth experiencing gender dysphoria. Second, a treatment regimen that focuses exclusively on gender dysphoria, ignoring co-occurring mental health conditions, will not provide optimal care for young people. The shut-down of GIDS is not merely a restructuring move in response to the clinic’s failed operations—it ’s a move away from the “gender-affirming” intervention care model, and toward whole-person-affirming care that is rooted in developmental psychology.

Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has been told to shut the clinic by spring after it was criticised in an independent review.

Instead, new regional centres will be set up to "ensure the holistic needs" of patients are fully met, the NHS said.

The trust said it supported plans for a new model due to a rise in referrals.

The changes will take place after an independent review, led by Dr Hilary Cass, said the Tavistock clinic needed to be transformed.

She said the current model of care was leaving young people "at considerable risk" of poor mental health and distress, and having one clinic was not "a safe or viable long-term option".

...

The Tavistock has faced increasing pressure in recent years.

There were rising referrals and a long waiting list but at the same time some former staff were raising concerns about the way it operated.

Then, former patient Keira Bell went to court saying she had not been challenged enough about her decision at 16 to take drugs that began her transition from female to male - a decision she later regretted.

Earlier this year, Dr Cass's report said there was a lack of understanding about why the type of patients the clinic was seeing was changing, with more female to male patients and more autistic children. Dr Cass also highlighted inconclusive evidence to back some of the clinical decision making.

...

But in 2020, questions about the service were raised after it was rated "inadequate" by inspectors, following concerns raised by whistleblowers and reported by BBC Newsnight.

The Cass review was commissioned in September 2020 amid the rise in demand, long waiting times for assessments and "significant external scrutiny" around GIDS' approach and capacity, the NHS said.

In an interim report earlier this year, Dr Cass said:

The service was struggling to deal with spiralling waiting lists
It was not keeping "routine and consistent" data on its patients
Health staff felt under pressure to adopt an "unquestioning affirmative approach"
Once patients are identified as having gender-related distress, other healthcare issues they had, such as being neurodivergent, "can sometimes be overlooked"

...

Dr David Bell - not related to Keira Bell - is a former consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock NHS Foundation Trust, where he raised concerns. He said it was a "good thing" the service was closing down.

Proper funding was needed for mental health services for children and adolescents, he said.

He told the BBC: "Some children have got the double problem of living with the wrong treatment, and the original problems weren't addressed - with complex problems like trauma, depression, large instances of autism."

So to be clear, even explicitly biased sources like SEGM concede that the service is being replaced by regional services, rather than the care no longer being offered.

What's Tavistock?

A medical center in the UK that handled youth gender medicine, closed after whistleblowers and lawsuits exposed some slipshod practices.