UPDATE 4
22 April 2024
Dear Supporter,
Welcome to the latest update from Save Mental Health. Do please send us any ‘news’ you would like us to share or comments on the articles featured on our website. If you would like to get involved and help us at Save Mental Health, please get in touch by clicking Contact Us on our website and sending us a message.
Here are some highlights from the news over the last two weeks, along with Save Mental Health’s latest recommendations for helpful organisations and books.
Responses to Cass Review
As mentioned in the last update, the final Cass Review report was published on 10th April.
The review found ‘no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress’. We will not go into detail here about the findings as they have been widely published and discussed. Instead, we will consider some of the responses.
The review has been broadly welcomed even, to some extent, in Scotland, where there had previously been resistance. Some concerns have been expressed, however, amongst supporters. For example, Kathleen Stock in her article in Unherd ‘How a Cult Captured the NHS’, draws attention to the way in which Cass had to tiptoe around the sensibilities of activists. She comments: “It is as if a modern-day medic had been tasked with reviewing the efficacy of trepanning, and then ordered to defend her findings in front of fanatical fifth-century devotees.”
Peter Jenkins’ provisional appraisal of the report for Critical Therapy Antidote is also worth reading. He reflects that the review was “probably destined to disappoint everyone at some level” and that while there is “much to celebrate in terms of its clarity and careful reasoning”, the report “doesn’t challenge the idea of ‘gender identity’ itself. Peter Jenkins also raises concerns about Cass’s “unhelpful dithering over social transition” and asks, “What is the role of psychological support – to provide therapy as an alternative to medical transition or narrow the selection process for medical treatment?”
Dr Kathryn Webb, clinical psychologist and visiting academic at the University of Oxford, welcomes the report’s findings, but calls for a review for gender distressed adults. She makes an important point, particularly in view of the fact that six adult gender clinics refused to co-operate with Dr Cass’s research into the long-term impact of prescribing puberty blockers and sex hormones – a refusal Cass criticises as ‘ideologically driven’. The harm that may be caused to adults who undergo medical transition, is clear from the troubling accounts of detransitioners such as Ritchie Herron who was in his mid-20s when he had gender reassignment surgery, despite struggling with complex mental health difficulties.
The final Cass review has, unsurprisingly, been subjected to a ‘disinformation’ campaign with activists and others, such as MP Dawn Butler, complaining that the review excluded 100 transgender studies. Dr Cass reports in the Sunday Times that she has had to deal with ‘some pretty vile emails’ and ‘pretty aggressive’ responses, particularly from those in activist groups. As a result, she has been advised not to travel on public transport.
The BBC’s ‘More or Less’ programme on R4 has debunked the ‘disinformation’ claim with the help of Dr Cass. The programme concludes that “It’s not true that the Cass Review overlooked 98% of the relevant research but the systematic reviews that informed Cass found around 40% of the research was low quality and, as a result, was not used to form the conclusion”. You can listen to their analysis in full on BBC Sounds here.
In the programme, Cass makes the point that “this particular body of evidence is uniquely poor compared to almost any other body of evidence that the University of York has looked at”. She adds: “Adults who deliberately spread misinformation about this topic are putting young people at risk and in my view that is unforgiveable.” We couldn’t agree more.
“Guidance and reviews are not enough”
Save Mental Health is a signatory to James Esses’ letter. It was delivered to Prime-Minister Rishi Sunak, requesting a public inquiry into the failure of societal institutions, including schools, to safeguard children from the damage caused by gender ideology. The letter, with more than 130 signatures, has been signed by parliamentarians, clinicians, therapists, lawyers, social workers, detransitioners, academics, journalists, campaigners, and commentators. JK Rowling is the latest to add her signature.
The signatories call for “a public inquiry into the failure of societal institutions to safeguard children from harm. An inquiry that considers these issues holistically is the only answer to an ideology that has managed to infiltrate an entire society. Crucially, a statutory public inquiry will be able to legally compel evidence and make concrete recommendations to ensure real change is brought about”.
Also see News
“We are ashamed of the role psychology played in gender care”
In another development related to the publication of the Cass Review, 16 senior psychologists have written to The Observer pointing out how seriously the profession has failed children. They state “…it was clinical psychologists who promoted an ideology that was almost impossible to challenge”.
These psychologists also refer to: “…our professional body, the British Psychological Society, that has failed (despite years of pressure) to produce guidelines for clinicians working with young people in this complex area; and that, forced into making an official response for the first time, now minimises its own role in events and calls for ‘more psychology’ as the answer.”
The psychologists conclude: “We are ashamed of the role psychology played in gender care”.
Unprofessional professionals
How would you feel if you had shared your most troubling thoughts and feelings with a therapist, only to find that the therapist was making jokes about you on social media? In a shocking exposé in the Daily Sceptic, academic psychologist Dr Kirsty Miller reveals a series of memes and social media comments posted by clinical psychologists about patients, their own mental health problems and other health professionals. One psychologist posts “If I hear you say the phrase ‘illegal crossing’ today there is a strong chance I will drop kick you in the face”. Another posts that ‘I’d be lying if I said my mental health was fully stable off my meds”. There are inappropriate comments about people with learning disabilities and alarming posts about therapists inadvertently sharing identifiable patient information online.
Dr Miller attributes much of this behaviour to the infiltration of Critical Social Justice ideology into clinical psychology. This ideology aims to undermine expertise, competence, and professionalism and, as a result, may encourage behaviours that, until quite recently, would have been considered entirely inappropriate for a health professional.
All practitioner psychologists have to register with the Health & Care Professions Council which has guidance for registrants on the use of social media. We believe that the posts and memes shown in Dr Miller’s article contravene the HCPC’s ‘Top Tips’ for social media use listed here. Save Mental Health will be contacting the HCPC with our concerns. If you also have concerns, you might like to contact the HCPC yourself: https://www.hcpc-uk.org/contact-us/fitness-to-practise/
RECOMMENDATIONS
Not the Easy Way
Dr Peter D’Lima and Dr Claire McGuiggan are educational and child psychologists who founded Not the Easy Way. They work with schools, families, and businesses, providing consultation, training, and coaching to help facilitate free speech and the expression of different viewpoints.
Not the Easy Way offers programmes to primary and secondary schools such as ‘Speak Space’ which is designed to ‘build effective communication, tolerance and emotional resilience’. They recently created a ‘Magnificent Boys’ project to ‘explore concepts of masculinity and inspire magnificent young men who contribute positively to society’. If you are a head teacher or an employer experiencing problems with the expression of free speech in your school or workplace, do take a look at Not the Easy Way.
The Queering of the American Child
The Queering of the American Child: How a New School Religious Cult Poisons the Minds and Bodies of Normal Kids a new book by Logan Lancing with James Lindsay. It explains what Queer Theory is, where it comes from, how it finds its way into schools, and what it’s doing to children. The authors argue that Queer Theory is a cult that preys on children and needs to be understood by parents, teachers and indeed anyone who is concerned about the spread of ideology in schools and wider society. We would highly recommend this book as the more knowledge we have about this theory and the way it is being applied, the greater our ability to oppose it.