Latest news with #CassReview
The Hill
4 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Justice Thomas delights conservatives in shunning gender-affirming care ‘experts'
Justice Clarence Thomas's shunning of 'experts' defending gender-affirming care is delighting conservatives in their assault on liberal influence in academics and medicine, a mission now reaching the courts. The conservative justice argued in a solo opinion concurring with the court's 6-3 decision to uphold Tennessee's transgender youth care ban that so-called experts have jumped on the bandwagon to embrace such treatment while evidence to the contrary mounts. 'This case carries a simple lesson: In politically contentious debates over matters shrouded in scientific uncertainty, courts should not assume that self-described experts are correct,' Thomas wrote. Thomas's opinion quickly garnered the attention of prominent Republicans, including Vice President Vance, who made his debut on liberal social media platform Bluesky by complimenting the opinion as 'quite illuminating.' 'I might add that many of those scientists are receiving substantial resources from big pharma to push these medicines on kids. What do you think?' Vance wrote Thursday, quickly sparking thousands of replies dripping with snark. Since Trump has taken office, his administration has abandoned President Biden's defense of gender-affirming care. Trump's Justice Department dropped the legal challenge to Tennessee's ban, and in May, his Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared there is a 'lack of robust evidence' for the treatments. In a New York Times opinion piece following the Supreme Court ruling, the mother of the transgender teen who challenged Tennessee's law mourned the decision to block care for her daughter. 'I am deeply afraid for what this decision will unleash — politically and socially,' Samantha Williams wrote. 'Now that the Supreme Court has denied the rights of young people like my daughter and families like ours, what's next?' Major American medical groups have said gender-affirming care for transgender youth and adults is medically necessary. But Thomas in his opinion wrote that it's legally irrelevant, saying trusting those groups would otherwise allow 'elite sentiment' to 'distort and stifle democratic debate.' 'There are particularly good reasons to question the expert class here, as recent revelations suggest that leading voices in this area have relied on questionable evidence, and have allowed ideology to influence their medical guidance,' Thomas wrote. The Supreme Court's decision instead looks to Europe, citing health authorities in Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The justices particularly emphasized the Cass Review, an influential 2024 report from England questioning the treatments. 'Health authorities in a number of European countries have raised significant concerns regarding the potential harms associated with using puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender minors,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. The increased prominence of conservatives' attacks come as public trust in health officials and agencies continues to plummet more broadly, a decline that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trust in state and local public health officials dropped by 10 percentage points to 54 percent, while the share of those who say they trust the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has also slipped five percentage points, according to January polling from KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation. 'Justice Thomas soundly put to rest the persistent sham that we should quiet down and 'trust the science' when it comes to life-altering experimentation on minors,' Katherine Green Robertson, chief counsel of Alabama's attorney general's office, said in a statement following the decision. The state filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case that urged the justices not to decide it on 'euphemisms about 'affirming care' and unsupported appeals to 'expert' organizations.' 'Alabama is proud to have armed the Court with a full rundown of the medical community's shameless political collusion on this matter, which should permanently discredit every organization involved,' she said. The justices' reliance on outside research has come into question before. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson caught heat after a study she cited in her 2023 dissent in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which sharply limited the use of race as a factor in college admissions, was disputed. In an impassioned dissent expounding on the benefits of diversity in education, Jackson pointed to a friend-of-the-court brief by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which referenced the 2020 study. 'It saves lives,' she wrote, pointing to the research which showed that having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that a high-risk Black baby will live. In the following months, critics began to debunk the claim, suggesting at first that the justice misrepresented the statistic, and later, that the research itself was inaccurate. 'Even Supreme Court justices are known to be gullible,' lawyer Ted Frank wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed at the time. It's not just studies that support left-leaning views that have come under scrutiny, either. A month before the Supreme Court weighed a challenge to mifepristone access, one of the two common drugs used in medication abortion, a medical journal retracted two studies claiming to show the harms of the pill. The studies, published in the Sage journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology and backed by an anti-abortion group, were retracted after a reader raised concerns about the study's accuracy and a review found the conclusions 'invalidated in whole or in part.' U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk had pointed to the studies in his decision siding with the conservative medical group Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which invalidated the Federal Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of mifepristone because it overlooked safety concerns. The justices ultimately ruled unanimously last year that the anti-abortion doctors did not have standing to challenge access to mifepristone, declining to address the underlying regulatory or safety issues. In the gender-affirming care case, the Supreme Court's decision aligned with the conservative voices that have called on the court to give credence to political forces over educational ones — and the shift did not go unnoticed. 'The vibe shift is real,' Roger Severino, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation who ran HHS's civil rights office during Trump's first term, told supporters after the decision. 'Not only was it political in the last election, President Trump's closing argument is that 'she is for they/them, and he is for you,'' he continued. 'And here, the court — not that they're political animals — at least they're consistent with where the American people are.'
Metro
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Metro
Christian group threatens Westminster Council over 'indoctrinating' pride flags
A London council has been threatened with legal action after hanging trans-inclusive Pride flags around Regent Street from this weekend. Group Christian Concern says Westminster Council is 'indoctrinating' visitors to the famous West End location and breaching planning control. The Crown Estate, which owns most of the property on Regent Street, lodged plans in March to hoist hundreds of flags in 20 locations between mid-June and mid-July to support Pride events. But after being permitted by Westminster Council in mid-May, Christian Concern says the council is opening itself up to potential legal action. In recent years, the display has included over 300 LGBTQI+ Progress Pride flags, developed in 2018 by non-binary American artist and designer Daniel Quasar. Based on the iconic rainbow flag from 1978, the redesign celebrates the diversity of the LGBTQ community and calls for a more inclusive society, celebrating trans, black and brown, gender non-binary and intersex community members. But hardline Christians say the flags, which on June 22 will replace Union Jacks currently flying to mark VE Day, create division by excluding more traditional views. Christian Concern has previously made the point to the council that the Cass Review prohibits the indoctrination and confusion of primary school children with trans ideologies. But the group claims: 'The flags do just that, exposing the hundreds of thousands of children who walk up and down Regent Street, including those who visit Hamleys, to a message and symbols which will be unlawful to teach and display in schools.' Last year, Christian Concern launched a petition signed by 31,000 people calling for a similar display to be stopped. Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: 'Many people experience these flags as an attack on historic, traditional beliefs about sex and gender. 'They send the message that people holding these views, which are worthy of respect in a democratic society, are not welcome. 'The majority of the public does not know the highly controversial and harmful symbolism presented by the Progress Pride Flag. At the heart of the flag is the trans flag – pink for girls, blue for boys and white for the 'transition' phase. 'This ideology has been discredited by the Cass Review, the closure of the Tavistock, and most recently Supreme Court ruling. When will the Crown estate catch up with the rest of society? 'If the council chooses to proceed with the display, we will have no option but to pursue legal action.' The proposed flags will be hung from supporting wires, making use of existing fixing points which are intended for reuse. In the planning report, Westminster planning officer Shaun Retzback noted that the flags would be hung at 20 locations along the street running from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly from June 22 until July 17. He said: 'Flags are, in principle, an acceptable, colourful addition to Regent Street's buildings and there is a longstanding tradition of such displays. More Trending 'The flags proposed, to be strung on lines across the street, are not harmful to visual amenity for the temporary period sought, neither are they harmful when considered cumulatively with other flags and banners displayed on buildings in the street at present and across the street from time to time.' A Westminster City Council spokesperson told Metro: 'The council supports festivals and celebrations from our different communities across the year. Pride is an annual and established fixture and has been supported by the Council for many years. 'Pride flags are in keeping with a cosmopolitan City that welcomes millions of visitors every year. All public community celebrations have a fixed duration and are both proportionate and fitting. Given similar pronouncements in previous years we await further information about the Christian Legal Centre's legal challenge with interest.' Metro contacted the Crown Estate. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: £20 Pan-Indian feast from a Michelin-starred chef: 10 unmissable Time Out deals MORE: Enjoy the weekend's heat with London's best boat restaurants MORE: 'Swan Whisperer' banned from Hyde Park after residents objected to him kissing the birds
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Health
- Telegraph
US tells states: Follow Cass Review in treatment of ‘trans' children
The US government is pressuring states to halt funding for puberty blockers for children and follow the UK's Cass Review. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which provides health coverage to more than 160 million Americans, urged directors to adopt the findings of the report, which concluded children who think they are transgender should not be rushed into treatment they may regret. In a letter sent to medical directors, seen by The Telegraph, the agency said that Britain has 'diverged' from the United States and that the National Health Service's new approach is more effective. Under Donald Trump, the US has quickly moved to ban all 'destructive and life-altering procedures' associated with transitioning children. Some 27 states have enacted laws that ban or restrict gender‑affirming care for minors. But puberty blockers are still available in many others. 'Several developed countries have recently diverged from the US in the way they treat gender dysphoria in children,' the letter reads. 'The United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland have recently issued restrictions on medical interventions for children, including the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments. 'In particular, the Cass Review, an independent review of the evidence in the United Kingdom, noted that despite the considerable research in the field of gender dysphoria in children, 'systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.'' Led by Dr Hilary Cass, the review was prompted by concerns about the high rate of young people being referred to the Tavistock gender clinic in London, which referred children as young as 10 for treatment with puberty blockers. The final review, released in April 2024, concluded that too many children were being pushed towards medication with not enough mental health care. Dr Cass recommended that the most important treatment for the majority of children should be talking therapies instead of irreversible medical treatments such as puberty blockers. The letter went on to imply Britain is more effective in upholding the US government's commitment to 'do no harm to America's children'. 'In recent years, medical interventions for gender dysphoria in children have proliferated,' the letter added. 'These interventions include surgical procedures that attempt to transform an individual's physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex or that attempt, for purposes of treating gender dysphoria, to alter or remove an individual's sexual organs to minimise or destroy their natural biological functions.' The letter also said medical interventions for gender dysphoria in children have 'proliferated' in America and the Cass Review, which is rumoured to be backed by Mr Trump, could be used by states to reduce cases. The move is a rare example of British policy influencing American direction under Mr Trump, who moved to ban puberty blockers almost immediately upon arriving in the White House. His administration has largely been critical of Britain's policies, repeatedly raising concerns about free speech. In May, The Telegraph revealed the president had sent a delegation to meet British anti-abortion activists who say their freedom of expression has been threatened. A five-person team from the US State Department spent several days in the country and interviewed campaigners. Trump has intervened on transgender issues Trans activists have long fought to retain puberty blockers as a treatment option for children with gender dysphoria. Democratic attorneys general in Washington, Oregon and Minnesota sued the Trump administration over its plans to pull funding from institutions that provide gender-affirming care. The US president has signed a number of executive orders targeting transgender people, claiming that it is a radical ideology driven to 'deny the biological reality of sex'. In January, he signed an order that aimed to restrict gender-affirming treatments for all young people below the age of 19 by asking federal agencies to stop endorsing interventions such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery for minors. In July 2024, The Integrity Project at Yale Law School released a white paper which said the Cass Review had 'serious flaws'. It suggested that the review 'levies unsupported assertions about gender identity, gender dysphoria, standard practices, and safety of gender-affirming medical treatments'. The white paper concluded that the review 'is not an authoritative guideline or standard of care, nor is it an accurate restatement of the available medical evidence on the treatment of gender dysphoria'.
Telegraph
28-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
NHS orders clinic to stop prescribing cross-sex drugs to children
The NHS has ordered a GP practice to stop prescribing cross-sex hormones to children who want to change gender. WellBN GP surgeries in Brighton have flouted the Cass review's recommendations by prescribing the drugs to children, as first revealed by The Telegraph. The practice, which runs three surgeries, has been the subject of a legal challenge by the parents of Child O, an anonymous 16-year-old boy who claimed he was prescribed cross-sex hormones without having been properly assessed by a gender-identity clinic and without his parents' knowledge. WellBN said the NHS 'has forced us to temporarily pause initiating new NHS prescriptions for gender-affirming care to anyone under the age of 18', including a ban on taking on prescriptions from private sector providers. The administration of cross-sex drugs, also known as gender-affirming hormones, involves giving hormones such as testosterone to help someone change their physical appearance. They are different to puberty blockers, which stop the onset of puberty by suppressing the release of hormones. The Cass review, led by the paediatrician Baroness Hilary Cass, said all under-18s questioning their gender should be seen by a team of experts for a range of conditions including mental health issues and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. The independent review concluded that medical pathways to change genders had been ' built on shaky foundations ' and called for puberty blockers to be banned, citing the 'weak evidence' to support their use in this group of patients. It urged 'extreme caution' in relation to cross-sex hormones. However, WellBN GP has continued to prescribe cross-sex hormones to patients such as Child O, allegedly after minimal consultation. The practice has also allegedly continued to take on prescriptions from private providers whose checks are less robust than the NHS. The parents of Child O allege the GP had prescribed the drugs without their knowledge, in spite of him suffering from mental health issues for most of his life. They also claim that his school had facilitated his 'social transitioning', which is when someone changes their name and way they dress in alignment with their preferred gender, without pursuing medical treatments. Paul Conrathe, a senior consultant solicitor at SinclairsLaw who is representing Child O's father, said the intervention was 'long overdue'. 'This surgery has been providing a highly controversial life-altering treatment without following the recommendations of the Cass review or cautious guidance of the NHS,' he told The Telegraph. 'Patients now need to be moved into appropriate specialist treatment as soon as possible. Activist medicine should have no place within the NHS.' The practice uses an 'informed consent' model – discredited by Lady Cass's review – which gives patients, including children, information about the cross-sex drugs and side-effects to inform their decision. Critics claim this approach does not further look into possible causes to want to take cross-sex hormones or whether there are other issues, critics claim. 'Should refuse' children NHS England previously wrote to GPs telling them they 'must refuse' requests to prescribe puberty blockers because it is a criminal offence and 'should refuse' cross-sex hormone requests to children unless carefully considered. The trans health hub team at WellBN said NHS England and NHS Sussex did this 'by threatening to close us down altogether if we did not comply' in a letter addressing its patients. 'We are waiting to have a meeting with NHS Sussex to discuss this, and we will do our best to turn this decision around,' the update said. 'We will continue to prescribe to young patients who are already under WellBN's care and/or for whom we have already overtaken private prescriptions – the demand is specifically in relation to the initiation of new prescriptions.' It said it had to consider the health of its 25,000 patients, including 2,000 transgender and non-binary patients. The practice told patients they could 'still have a comprehensive trans health review' at their clinics with a 'supportive and affirming clinician'. It also said they would be able to 'discuss HRT [hormone replacement therapy] with you'. The letter was signed off 'with solidarity and rage' from the team. Stephanie Davies-Arai, the director of Transgender Trend, said there was 'a strong school-to-clinic pipeline established in Brighton'. 'Children are thoroughly indoctrinated in schools and then referred on to the WellBN clinic for hormones. The clinic has been unsafely prescribing cross-sex hormones to minors in breach of the Cass review recommendations and NHS guidelines for some time,' she said. 'NHS England should step in much earlier to prevent these ideological practitioners from harming children.' Keith Jordan, the co-founder of Our Duty, a support and advocacy group for parents with gender-questioning children, welcomed 'the increased NHS scrutiny of those prescribing cross-sex hormones to adolescents'. 'Clinics that provide treatments based on ideology and not clinical need require closing down. We maintain that young people cannot provide truly informed consent for such irreversible interventions due to their developmental stage and the complexity of long-term consequences,' he said. Lasting effects Last week, the Government announced that it was launching a review into the prescription of cross-sex drugs following the threat of a judicial review. Experts will analyse the available evidence and recommend a decision in July, officials said, raising the prospect that the drugs could be outlawed for children in the UK, like puberty blockers. It is understood two clinical reports led by experts in Sweden and Finland caused Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, to order the review, according to a report in The New Statesman. The new evidence specifically raised concerns about the impact of starting cross-sex hormones under the age of 18, finding that years of treatment 'will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease', stroke, 'decrease fertility, impair liver function and increase the risk of cancer'. An NHS spokesman said: 'NHS England and Sussex Integrated Care Board have jointly acted in response to concerns about the inappropriate prescribing of hormone treatment to children and young people. 'The NHS clinical policy for masculinising or feminising hormones follows the recommendations from the independent Cass review that these hormones should only be prescribed with extreme caution from the age of 16.'
Glasgow Times
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Glasgow Times
UCU calls for staff rights to use facilities matching gender identities
It follows the Supreme Court ruling last month that the words 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex. In the wake of the ruling the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued interim guidance, saying trans women 'should not be permitted to use the women's facilities' in workplaces or public-facing services like shops and hospitals, with the same applying for trans men using men's toilets. More detailed draft guidance was published last week, with a consultation period running until June 30. The guidance says people can be asked to confirm their birth sex so long as it is 'necessary and proportionate for a service provider, those exercising public functions or an association to know an individual's birth sex to be able to discharge their legal obligations'. It cautions that any such question 'should be done in a sensitive way which does not cause discrimination or harassment'. The University and College Union (UCU), which is the UK's largest post-16 education union and represents more than 120,000 education staff, held its congress on Monday where delegates backed four motions committing the union to 'fight back against unprecedented attacks on trans people's human rights'. General secretary Jo Grady said: 'Our congress has once again committed our union to stand shoulder to shoulder with the trans community in the fight for equality. 'This year trans people have suffered a wave of attacks against them, but UCU remains steadfast as one of their most vocal allies. 'We refuse to allow trans people to be the collateral of a right-wing culture war and while they continue to experience violence at home, in the workplace and on the airwaves, we will stand by them.' As a result of one of the motions, the UCU has resolved to call on employers to support the right for staff to use the gendered spaces appropriate to them, saying that the Supreme Court ruling contradicts the current practices that allow this at most post-16 institutions. The draft EHRC code will be presented to women and equalities minister Bridget Phillipson in July (Ben Whitley/PA) As part of the motion the congress also committed to issuing a statement to members and on social media platforms 'expressing concern' at the ruling and 'reaffirming our steadfast commitment to defending trans people', and to call on employers to develop and implement trans-inclusive policies 'as a matter of urgency'. Another motion criticised the Government's 'decision to ignore the damning critiques' of the Cass Review, and in its wake the union will write to the Health Secretary condemning the report's findings and methods. Published last year, the review concluded children had been let down by a lack of research and evidence on medical interventions in gender care, which led to NHS England announcing a new plan which requires new referrals into the clinics to have been seen by a GP and mental health specialist or paediatrician first. The UCU will also advocate for healthcare that 'affirms and values' trans people in its letter to Wes Streeting as it criticised the ban on the supply of puberty blockers for young trans people – which was made permanent in December and which means they are not prescribed on the NHS to children for the treatment of gender dysphoria. Plans remain in place to set up a clinical trial into the use of puberty blockers this year, although no patients have yet been recruited while ethical and regulatory approval is awaited. Two motions were concerned with the actions of US President Donald Trump's administration, with one condemning its 'concerted attacks upon trans people'.
