Following the publication last week of Dr Hilary Cass’s review of gender services provided by the NHS, politicians rushed to insert themselves on the right side of the debate. For many, this meant quite dizzying displays of reverse-ferreting.
After years of dismissing the concerns of medical experts, parents and feminist campaigners about treatments such as the administration of ‘puberty-blocking’ drugs, a remarkable number of MPs found that, in fact, they actually felt the same way. Cass laid out in black and white the lack of understanding of the long-term effects of such medical interventions and politicians could no longer dismiss the concerns of those holding gender critical views. To do so would be to tacitly support medical experimentation on confused children. These days, all the cool MPs are down with Cass.
Take Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, for example. The MP last week expressed regret for his past ‘transwomen are women, get over it’ dogmatism. He said Cass’s review – which exposed the degree to which gender ideologues have captured parts of the NHS – should act as a ‘watershed moment’ in the way care is provided for young people questioning their gender identities.
Streeting will be suffering the whiplash from that jolting U-turn for some time to come but at least he’s come to his senses at last. Conservative safeguarding minister Laura Farris said Cass’s findings would kickstart a ‘fundamental change of direction’ in gender care. Meanwhile, the SNP – always with an eye to a headline on the biggest issues of the day – said… well, nothing actually.
Scot Nat MP Joanna Cherry did speak up, welcoming the Cass review and calling for an end to the prescription of puberty blocking drugs in Scotland. But Cherry is hardly the voice of mainstream nationalism, these days. A long term critic of the aims – and tactics – of aggressive trans rights activists, Cherry has been disgracefully let down by her party. When she received death and rape threats over her opposition to allowing male bodied people, no matter how they identify, into female-only safe spaces, then SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon ignored her plight. There were no declarations of solidarity of the sort Sturgeon gladly made to trans activist SNP members.
That Cherry – an experienced lawyer with the ability, rare among SNP politicians, to follow a thought through to a recognisable conclusion – was punished with demotion from her party’s Westminster front-bench because of her failure to accept the demands of angry TRAs shows just how deeply the SNP has been captured by an ideology that, today, lies in tatters.
After the publication of Hilary Cass’s interim report in February 2022, the gender identity development service (GIDS) provided by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in north London was closed down. But services no longer provided by the Tavistock – such as the prescription of puberty blockers – continued to be available to Scots attending the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow.
One might have thought that services considered unsafe for confused English teenagers would be similarly harmful to young Scots but the SNP government simply ignored developments in England. Why? No good reason, that’s for sure.
The most likely explanation is that with SNP and Green ministers determined to push through reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), making it possible for individuals to self-ID into the legally-recognised sex of their choosing, any concession that trans ideology might be flawed would have been politically difficult.
Such considerations are no longer relevant. The Scottish parliament’s reform of the GRA was blocked last year by Scottish Secretary Alister Jack on the grounds that it negatively impacted on the UK-wide Equality Act.
Scottish Ministers cannot continue to ignore legitimate concerns about puberty blockers and other risky medical treatments offered to young people with concerns about their gender identity. A statement from a Scottish government spokesman that ministers will ‘take the time to consider [Cass’s] findings’ is far from good enough. Cass’s interim report was out more than two years ago. Ministers have had plenty of time to act.
As things stand, in order to protect relationships with a group of angry ideologues, SNP ministers are happy to allow medical experimentation on children ‘fortunate’ enough to have been born north of the border. There is no good reason for First Minister Humza Yousaf to carry forward the obsessions of his predecessor. Nicola Sturgeon may have bent over backwards to placate angry trans activists. Yousaf need not do the same.
If he’s wise, he won’t. Instead, Humza Yousaf should declare a new age of reason in the SNP, apologise to Joanna Cherry for the way his party failed her when she dearly needed help, and announce that the Scottish NHS will – starting with the immediate closure of the Sandyford Clinic – act on every concern raised by Hilary Cass.
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