JENNI MURRAY: The Cass report is a voice of reason on trans dogma that must not be ignored

It’s been three and a half years in the making, but finally the Cass report, an in-depth investigation into the most controversial issue of recent years – the medical treatment of those who feel they live in the wrong gender – has finally been published.

There is a lengthy approach to reports of this nature. Find someone highly respected in their field. Pay them to make their inquiries and write a report. Publish and read the report. Put it on a shelf and forget about it.

This must not happen with the Cass report. The subject is far too important to ignore.

Hilary Cass is a pediatric consultant. Her concern is children, their treatment and the way they have been affected by what they have been told about being a girl or a boy and changing gender.

Equally worrying is the way the medical profession and other adults responsible for caring for the young have dealt with pressure from the trans lobby from as long ago as 2010, when the Equality Act included gender reassignment as a protected characteristic.

When former Minister for Women and Equality Maria Miller took over the newly formed Women and Equality Committee in 2015, the first topic they chose to tackle was ‘equality issues affecting transgender people’.

Why, I asked then, when trans people are such a small minority? She should surely deal primarily with women – with violence on the street and in the home, with equal pay, discrimination, lack of childcare. The list was long and familiar, but it was brushed away. It was trans people who experienced widespread suffering, she had been told. She must consider their needs first.

It was the first hint I had of a powerful lobby concerned about those who were unhappy with the gender they had been born with. No one talked about children suffering from ‘gender dysphoria’ back then. And no one thought that children needed special services. In 2009, only 97 children were referred to GIDS – the NHS gender development service, based at the Tavistock Centre. In 2021, over 5,000 children were referred. What happens?

My anxiety grew after an interview on Woman’s Hour with trans activist India Willoughby. What impact did Stonewall have on the NHS and the apparent erasure of women in maternity care? Why did trans women call themselves real women? Why did so many children seek treatment for being ‘born in the wrong body’?

In my research for an article, I spoke with Stephanie Davies-Arai, director of Transgender Trend. She was desperately concerned that young children were being given puberty blockers – drugs that had not been properly tested – which appeared to be driving young people into surgery to change their sex. I was appalled and expressed my horror in an article I wrote.

Friends had warned me not to get involved in this toxic debate. I could not ignore the harm done to women and children, but inevitably, like so many others equally shocked, I suffered the full onslaught of the trans lobby.

There were threats of murder and rape. My alma mater, Hull University, was told it could not name a lecture hall after me. (The Vice-Chancellor was brave enough to ignore them.) The BBC ignored calls to sack me but became afraid to discuss the issue. I wasn’t fired. I canceled myself by quitting. Of course, the bullying from the trans activists has not stopped.

Dr. Cass has suffered just like me. In the introduction to her report, she writes about the criticism she has faced for speaking to people on both sides of the debate – those who favor gender affirmation and those who call for more caution. The knowledge of experienced clinicians was sometimes rejected. ‘There are,’ she writes, ‘few areas of healthcare where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views, where people are vilified on social media and where name-calling reflects the worst bullying behaviour. This has to stop.’

She is a brave woman who has endured such nonsense for nearly four years of her life.

It was Keira Bell’s appearance in court that brought harm to children to the fore. She sued Tavistock for their rush to give her puberty blockers and hormones to become a boy, which led to her having a double mastectomy. She had been just 16 when she was treated at Tavistock and claimed in court that it had been too young to give informed consent.

In 2021, she lost the case, but it was her bravery to speak up and the actions of Tavistock’s whistleblower, psychiatrist Dr. David Bell, who fatally undermined the power that Tavistock had enjoyed. Dr. Bell reported that too many children who had come as patients were unable to make an informed choice. Some were simply too young, some suffered from autism, some were gay. What they needed was talk therapy, not strong drugs.

Since Dr. Hilary Cass began her investigation, is some of what Dr. Bell said, being brought on board – albeit too late. Tavistock finally closed at the end of last month. And a few weeks ago, NHS England finally confirmed that gender identity clinics would no longer prescribe puberty blockers.

Two new gender clinics are planned to open this month in London and Liverpool, where the emphasis will be on talking about gender dysphoria. What psychological difficulties does a child face, what effect does home life have on a girl or a boy? It is definitely better to talk about anxiety with an informed professional than to take strong drugs that will change your life forever.

Dr. Cass deals not only with medical intervention but ‘social transition’. It is, she says, ‘an active effort because it can have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of psychological functioning…it is not a neutral action and better information about outcomes is needed.’

I hope this means that no more primary school teachers are encouraged to allow children to change their name without informing parents. They are teachers, not psychiatrists.

And if you have a five-year-old son who wants to go to school in his sister’s skirt, just let him. It’s about style, a bit of fun, maybe jealousy or maybe, as in my case, spite. My six-year-old son, trying on shoes for school, chooses highly advertised Princess shoes. “No,” said the shopkeeper, “they’re for girls”. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ my son replied.

I bought them. A week later, ‘mother’, they are unwell. Can I get some trainers?’ Of course. There is no need to make such a fuss about it.

And Cass is to be applauded for her courage and common sense.

Nicola is my kind of leading lady

Why on earth would Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan be surprised to be the romantic lead in the Netflix drama? Why do people assume she considers herself ‘hideous’ as she asked in a recent interview?

Coughlan is talented, lovely and attractive. As Penelope Featherington, she’ll make a fine leading lady in the upcoming third series of Bridgerton – and give the rest of us hope that you no longer have to be tall and thin to be a sex symbol.

The worst hospital? It is my!

It’s a concern to find nationwide data ranks your local hospital as the worst place in the country to break a bone. Especially when the report produced this week is by the Royal Osteoporosis Society (ROS).

Twelve years ago I was rushed to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead with an excruciatingly painful left arm after slipping on the ice outside my house.

I had an X-ray taken. A nurse said he wasn’t sure what condition my humerus was in and sent me home in a sling. A week later it turned out that it was so badly damaged that I had to have surgery.

So last November I fell at home and was rushed to the Royal Free to eventually discover I had broken a vertebra. After a long wait, they decided to leave it all to themselves.

On neither occasion was I offered a bone scan. The ROS says every hospital should have a fracture liaison service to ensure bones are tested after the first break and medication given if osteoporosis is detected.

Let’s hope I don’t break anything else before the change is implemented.