The debate over transgender issues has once again become a hot topic on our Letters Pages, brought into new focus by last week’s publication of the Cass Review into children’s gender services in England.
Today one of our readers expresses concern over the Scottish Government’s response to the review.
Jill Stephenson of Edinburgh writes:
"The Cass report is damning in its assessment of gender clinics and their activity. It applies, however, in England, but not in Scotland. The Westminster Health Secretary, Victoria Atkins, has strongly welcomed the Cass report and undertaken to implement measures deriving from its recommendations, for example, the cessation of the use of puberty blockers and hormones on children.
In Scotland, the SNP regime likes to do things differently from what is being done in England, often simply to assert its separate authority. That means not closing or restricting treatment at the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow, which focuses on children’s gender issues, even though its counterpart in London, the Tavistock, has been obliged to cease this kind of activity.
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Scotland's Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Maree Todd, is confident that gender clinicians in Scotland 'are practising to a very high standard'. She will hold a review of Cass’s findings, but she has said that involving trans rights activists with 'lived experience' is 'good practice'.
Dr Cass criticised the American methods used by clinics such as Sandyford as 'lacking developmental rigour'. It seems, however, that the Scottish Government’s capture by lobby groups such as Stonewall, Scottish Trans, LGBT Health and LGBT Youth Scotland, which receive funding from Holyrood, will continue to exert significant influence over government policy in Scotland.
This is a time for parents to be ever more vigilant about what is being done to their children in the name of 'progressive' policy."
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