“All I could think was… we’re in the middle of what a lot of people consider potentially a massive medical scandal we’re seeing detransitioners talk about how let down they’ve been, how irreversible the interventions are, how angry they are that nobody paid any attention to anything else that was going on in their lives.”
“Everybody saw what was happening, but nobody said ‘stop’. Concerns raised are dismissed, complaints attacked. There’s something powerful and disturbing at play” – Dr. Juliet Singer
a work of great importance.
calm, assiduous & utterly thorough.
A controversial, highly polarising & “special exemptions” topic, that has successfully determined “the nature & grounds of debate” with great artifice & exceptionalism, large sections of which are rendered “off limits” aside from a single option of compulsory blank-check approval & all-cowering acceptance.
Left to it’s “own terms”, it has inevitably resulted in a “major medical scandal”, the collapse of an institution, extreme controversy & a series of major public inquiries.
In this aftermath, Hannah Barnes, a veteran of current affairs, investigative reporting & analytic journalism, has set out to deliver a definitive & factual reckoning on this alarming, horrifying & deeply disturbing controversy & the mass of social carnage that it has left twisted in it’s wake.
An extremist “reductive absolutist” ideology has been fabricated & tightly (even viciously) policed around the “trans” phenomena, particularly when regarding children.
An utterly specious & supra-simplified “narrative” has been soldered into public & official lore, that offers a 1-dimensional “everything’s wonderful” falsehood regarding this extreme & bizarre practice.
there are over 100-hundred “forms” of sex/gender they tell us, but only one way to view them all.
criticising or deviating, even slightly, from prescribed proprietorial protocol, can get you & your career into serious trouble, with real life penalties & punishments.
Just ask Nicola Sturgeon.
Barne’s takes a much more subtle & measured approach, treading very, very carefully, but accurately, & following the evidence, whilst also gathering masses of highly detailed testimony from scores of ex-employees, patients & parents, & related professionals.
her diligently researched, ultra-factual approach – & hugely substantive, direct from the afflicted & former insider consort – amount to an inescapable conclusion.
no matter the angle, no matter the stance, affiliation or personal opinion on “the matter”, whatever has been “allowed to happen here”, is absolutely & completely insane & even sinister.
Let’s let the text/reality speak for itself …..
“offering an extreme medical intervention as the first-line of treatment to hundreds of distressed young people”
“prescribing powerful drugs with unknown consequences to children.”
puberty blockers for children “are used ‘off-label’ – not for a condition they are licensed for – in the treatment of gender dysphoria in young people. the drugs – “act on the pituitary gland” puberty blockers or gonadotropin-realising hormone agonists or “GnRHas”.
downplayed or withheld severe side effects include – “changes in sexuality and sexual function, poor bone health, stunted height, low mood, tumour-like masses in the brain, and, for those treated early enough who continue on the cross-sex hormones, almost certain infertility.”
“transitioning can often require several complex surgeries and a lifetime on medication.”
“We work with patients who are often on the edge of society as a clinical group.”
the website (the Portman Clinic) states that it ‘offers specialist long-term help for children, young people and adults with disturbing sexual behaviours, criminality and violence’.
“So whether it’s in their violence, whether it’s in their self-abuse, people have a psychological structure where they use their bodies, or other people’s bodies, ‘to express their concern’. So from that point of view, somebody who comes in and says, “I want to be in a different body” – it’s not that different to what we knew with our… perverse patients, our violent patients and our… alcoholic patients, you know? They use their body to express their distress.” – Stanley Ruszcynski, former clinical director of the Portman Clinic
“the Trust ‘does not sanction the routine use of mind-altering, brain altering, development-altering or body-altering medications… for the treatment of mental disorders’.” – Dr David Taylor, former medical director at the Portman Clinic
“60-70% of all the children referred “will become homosexual”.
Perhaps most disturbing to me is the presence of extreme, peculiar & hyper-fringe specialist groups who are allowed to furtively script & shape policy, if not simply “call the shots” outright. Much like other “minority rule” extremists interests, actors & think tanks, these dangerous & distasteful interventionists operate “through” the more “legitimate & professional” body or channel (parliament, the NHS etc), all whilst delivering an extreme agenda by a backchannel, away from the direct responsibility & accountability of the organisation itself.
This is a really, really, really detrimental & threatening flaw/crisis in the way we conduct our societies & politics.
In the case of the GIDS & Tavistock scandal, its foremost this diabolically weird group called Mermaids, which was then run by the now disgraced & elusive (she resigned in 2022 in another scandal after massive pressure relating to safeguarding issues with the charity concerning paedophilia advocacy by Mermaids senior staff Dr. Jacob Breslow) Susie Green.
“Over time, Sue Evans’ concerns weren’t simply about geography.
One ‘red flag’ was what she perceived as the subtle, but undue, influence of patients-support groups on GIDS’s clinical practice. Evans recalls how Dominic Di Caglie and his successor, Polly Carmichael, would regularly attend meetings of Mermaids, for example, and on return encourage staff to change practice. It was on the advise of Mermaids, Evans says, that the GIDS team sopped including birth names on clinical letters. This might sound small, but the influence of Mermaids grew.
Mermaind ‘contributed creatively’ to the development of GIDS and in Di Caglie’s eyes was a ‘complimentary organisation’ to the service.
over time, Mermaids became even more political and harder to work with. Their position appeared to be that there was only one outcome for these children and young people – medical transition. The annual Mermaids meetings were not always pleasant, one clinician recalls. ‘I didn’t ever want to go… you’re going to these people who are really slagging you off and saying, “Why don’t you give medication, you’re killing the children.” It’s a really extraordinary world to work in where you’re working in a service… being absolutely attacked for just trying to stop and think with [children].”’
“another GIDS ex-clinician describes Mermaids control as “omnipresent” & that the two organisations were “virtually inseparable”.
“There was pressure from patient and parent groups [Mermaids, GIRES, Gendered Intelligence etc], a pressure that was ‘quite onerous’ and one that ‘made it very difficult for people to have freedom of thought’.
It was very difficult to ‘retain impartiality’ – ‘because you will be criticised. If you say what you think is impartial, someone will say you’re prejudice,’’
‘clinicians will differ in their ability to resist the pressure too comply’
“early intervention “Mermaids wanted it to happen” & the issue was “becoming really political”.
“ – such was the closeness of the relationship GIDS and Mermaids, Polly Carmichael’s line manager – Sally Hodges – agreed to ‘coordinate the contents’ of GIDS website with Mermaids so they were ‘consistent’.”
“The influence of these outside groups – Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence – was felt at GIDS ‘Family Days’. Neither Jacob or Michael (patients) speaks favourably of these events, Michael branding them ‘chaos’ and lacking any kind of structure or boundaries. Jacob did not like the fact the the sessions for young people attending GIDS were invariably led by trans adults from either Gendered Intelligence or Mermaids. These adults had often not been through GIDS themselves, Jacob says, and were only interested in hearing about positive stories. ‘I couldn’t discuss my way of thinking’ he says, because those facilitating the discussion only chose people who were like them fully sold on medical transition and its merits. “ – there was no diversity of opinion allowed or presented”
so not all rainbows then.
Gendered Intelligence & Mermaids seem to resemble other once “legitimate” sexual pressure & lobbying groups such as the notorious PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange), B4U-ACT, & NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association), self proclaimed “paedophile advocacy groups”.
What is also horrifying in the book, is the relentless data & accounts (from patients & clinicians) on how damaged so many of the young people seeking transition/identifying as “trans” were. It is absolutely harrowing.
“Many were self-harming, others were housebound with anxiety, some older adolescents were engaging in risky sexual behaviours. A number came from abusive families and were living in care.”
it goes on & on … eating disorders, attempted suicide & a substantial number with a history of sexual abuse.
“most startling was the fact that 75 per cent of the young people ‘had been or were currently undergoing child and adolescent psychiatric treatment for reasons other than gender dysphoria when they sought referral’.”
‘traumatised, deprived and sexually or physically abused children were referred for puberty blockers without their pasts being properly explored, how she was ‘shocked by the complexity of referrals’; how some young people being assessed did not even have some of their ‘most basic needs met’; how staff that raised concerns about the safety of children were labelled ‘transphobic’’
“GIDS essentially provided a ‘one size fits all’ intervention, – The ‘affirmative model’ views the young person as the expert on themselves when it comes to gender. If anyone, of any age, self-identifies as the other gender, then they are affirmed as ‘trans’.” – Dr. Kirsty Entwistle
“Entwistle’s caseload included children with parents who’d been long-term psychiatric patients, families where the mother had accused the father of rape, a number of children who had only ‘minimal verbal communication skills’, and ‘many’ who had witnessed domestic violence. Three per cent were families where a parent was a registered sex offender. ‘That seems above average’, she reasons. ‘so that needs to be audited. Does everybody have… sex offending parents on the caseload?’
“We were just support workers. You know, we didn’t have any proper training… And we were working with some of the most disturbed kids that you could imagine.”
“I may be wrong, but I think Polly [Carmichael] was afraid of writing things down in case it got into Mermaids’ hands” – Anna Hutchinson
‘anything you put on paper would be picked up and scrutinized’ [by Mermaids] ‘anything that suggested they were doing anything dangerous, worrying,’ – Mermaids’ view was that ’this is increasingly normal practice, mainstream, safe thing to do, which doesn’t have any significant consequences, and we just should be doing it quickly And saving all these poor kids lots of trauma’. – Dr Alex Morris
“There were always scapegoats, ‘There were always people who represented the concerns of the group, and they were always driven out by one way or another.’” – Anna Hutchinson
‘There was an unwritten but mandated directive from the Tavistock management that safeguarding concerns should not be brought to her attention and that GIDS clinicians were ‘discouraged from reporting safeguarding concerns’ to her.’ –
“GIDS were aware children were not safe and were wilfully ignoring it.”
“I think it was calculated subterfuge, supported by the Trust.” – Sonia Appleby
“They just literally held on to the idea that it’s better to say as little as possible to the world outside the clinic.”
scattered throughout are descriptions of the kind of mind-bending, body horror surgical procedures & resulting somatic freak anomalies that these confused kids are pushed into by adults when they are just trying to figure themselves out.
vaginoplasty, testes implantation, double mastectomies, micropenis construction, ovary extraction, severe bacterial infection, post gender reassignment surgery, replacement surgery, insufficient genital skin to transfer (from undeveloped sexual organs) thus requiring a “more hazardous” surgical operation where a prosthetic shaft is constructed from “segments of the bowel”, “unfavourable medical outcomes” & ”irreversible consequences”.
“So many former GIDS clinicians I have spoken with use the same word to describe the service and their time there: mad.”
“Neither organisation involved in referring and prescribing puberty blockers off-label to children will say that it has the data behind their own published papers.”
“Again, a systematic evidence review was completed, leading to the conclusion that ‘gender reassignment of minors is an experimental practice’.”
initial enthusiasm by staff was often quickly contorted into serious concerns, apprehension or despair, as the significantly numerous ex-members Barne’s interviews confirms.
“growing unease” & “ethical concerns”
GIDS felt “factory-like” absolutely crazy”
“are we medicating traumatized children?”
“managing children in aa ‘clinically aggressive way’ that was at odds with the usual medical practice”
“challenges regarding Mermaids ‘rogue medics’ and the political expectations of the national service”
“coerced into not reporting safeguarding issues, and to do so is ‘transphobic’”
‘constant peculiar feeling that there was something going on’ – Dr. David Bell
“It was not the norm for doctors to prescribe powerful medications to people – especially children – they themselves had not diagnosed.”
homophobia was also apparently highly prevalent at GIDS.
Gay staff report this especially, but it is also confirmed by straight members.
“Homophobia was ‘everywhere’ – ‘It could be completely silencing people who are gay’ ‘it could be dismissing the reality that sexuality can play a role in how someone identifies.’
He says there were “many negative comments about gay people.”
He recalls families who remarked ‘thank god my child is trans and not gay or lesbian.’”
“Initially, some of them had identified as lesbian. And some of them had experienced a lot of homophobia and then started identifying as trans. It was almost like a stepping stone,”
the sanctified & singular standardization of public discourse around trans does not entertain the reality that “trans” or pro-trans people can quite comfortably be homophobic, heterophobic, highly misogynistic, racist & any other shade of conventional prejudice.
The mandatory “celebratory” & “all positive & all progressive” terms & coverage means that these problems go unchallenged, or are simply not even considered possible by the consecrated group under the specialist protections they are bestowed.
It is ironic that so much of the confrontation & contesting against the “trans” affront comes from lesbians themselves, & the “gender critical feminists” (many who are lesbian).
In effect, the T+ of the LGBQT+ is now attacking & warring with the LG of the same aggregated “political” ideology vehicle.
It begs the question whether the “ideology” actually serves or represents the primary people it pertains to inclde, assist & protect?
Or was it just the pretext & cover to devise a formula, tool or indeed “weapon” that could be manipulated to serve secondary interests or functions by “other actors”?
Who, in the hell are these people?
What happened here?
What are we dealing with?
What is their objective exactly?
the profit motive:
“GIDS eventually took over a whole floor. ‘But because it was brining in so much money they could not challenge it’.”
“That to my mind is the elephant in the room. You know that he reason Paul Jenkins did not want [David Bell’s] report to be circulated was he didn’t want to jeopardise the budget that came from this enormous number of referrals.”
if you can open up a whole new international, multi-billion-dollar market opportunity in extreme surgery, prosthetics, drug & pharmaceutical consumption (life long dependency) & supporting industry? Where synthetic “panaceas” can be sold, artificial outcomes flogged, & huge annual profits extracted from making people, especially children, feel “inadequate” about themselves & their form, you don’t need to ponder for long.
Without question, there are massive profits & major industry that will cash in on this new preying on freshly exacerbated vulnerabilities.
Don’t forget the “post truth” advantages in this insane experiment also.
“It seems that ideology and feelings have been allowed to trump traditional medical evidence in the work of GIDS.”
“Polly [Carmichael] feels it could be argued that the Mermaids approach more aligned to the American model”
“They’d talk about their favourite trans YouTubers, many having adopted the same name, and how they aspired to be like them in the future.”
in-between chapters, Barnes interviews various patients (& often one of their parents) on their experiences. There is some completely shocking content, in varying forms.
“I kind of wonder if in these moments of distress in people’s lives – it’s not that I’m saying being trans or [poor] mental health causes you to say to say you’re trans, but that that might be the thing you think it is because you’re so unwell… you might think that you’re life might be better if… you’ve got a label for the struggle you’re feeling that isn’t mental health, and it’s part of your identity.”
“I’m not anti-trans. I’m pro my son being the healthy person he is, I’m pro-health. And trans was the most unhealthy thing for my son to be.” Diana & Alex
this is a really, really strong book, with a “definitive” quality, that just switches the gravity back on on this wildly inflamed subject.
It also lays bare the nature of the scandal & conspiracy that occurred when “the afflicted” & extremist minority groups get to determine all parameters & terms.
The other incontestable conclusion is that no matter what, even if you are “pro-trans”, what was done here, & how it was done is totally abhorrent, wrongful, delusion, incorrect & damaging.
Hannah Barnes, 2023, Swift Press, 374 pages