Their report is not a news article so I wasn’t sure if a link post directly to it would be allowed.
They are a team of researchers and pediatric clinicians with experience in the field of transgender healthcare. Their summery of their report is as follows:
* Section 1: The Cass Review makes statements that are consistent with the models of gender-affirming medical care described by WPATH and the Endocrine Society. The Cass Review does not recommend a ban on gender-affirming medical care.
* Section 2: The Cass Review does not follow established standards for evaluating evidence and evidence quality.
* Section 3: The Cass Review fails to contextualize the evidence for gender-affirming care with the evidence base for other areas of pediatric medicine.
* Section 4: The Cass Review misinterprets and misrepresents its own data.
* Section 5: The Cass Review levies unsupported assertions about gender identity, gender dysphoria, standard practices, and the safety of gender-affirming medical treatments, and repeats claims that have been disproved by sound evidence.
* Section 6: The systematic reviews relied upon by the Cass Review have serious methodological flaws, including the omission of key findings in the extant body of literature.
* Section 7: The Review’s relationship with and use of the York systematic reviews violates standard processes that lead to clinical recommendations in evidence-based medicine.
So after all of us trans people called it out as bullshit, and we were told to shut up and listen to the “experts”, turns out we were right
“The Cass Review was commissioned to address the failure of the UK National Health Service to provide timely, competent, and high-quality care to transgender youth. These failures include long wait times—often years—and resulting delays in timely treatment by skilled providers. Instead of effectively addressing this issue, however, the Review’s process and recommendations stake out an ideological position on care for transgender youth that is deeply at odds with the Review’s own findings about the importance of individualized and age-appropriate approach to medical treatments for gender dysphoria in youth**”**
It’s one of the more damning academic critiques I’ve read
You’re telling me that the report about trans healthcare that has no opinions from actual trans people or experts in trans healthcare but plenty from the kind of people who would like to see them eradicated has serious flaws? Ya think!? 🤔
Oh look, the thing trans people told everyone about, and were promptly told to shut up, was true.
Again.
It was very clear to me as a mere biology graduate reading it that the review itself was constructed to provide a pretence for the political culture war around trans healthcare. Not to actually make any real claims in of itself, but to serve as a nebulous ‘the science’ that could be pointed to – that’s why there’s so much plausible deniability built into it’s construction. It actually advocates for very little in terms of HOW we should care for trans people but has some nice quotable paragraphs that cast doubt on existing care without making any real concrete claims because it cannot back them up with evidence. If it actually advocated for what it has produced in terms of changes to UK policies on trans healthcare, it would have been much, much easier to attack more immediately by nonpartisan experts.
Unfortunately it has already achieved it’s goal – it’s unlikely we’ll see any reversal of course any time soon. This will appear in science textbooks right next to paragraphs on phrenology and race science as a cautionary example.
This has not been peer reviewed. This has not been commissioned by a health authority or science academy.
Its a law school affiliated group and not the law school itself.
This is very much like the kind of rebuttals to the IPCC climate change deniers will put out.
In the pyramid of evidence the Cass Review comes out at the top as a systematic review on behalf of a major health authority
This should be blindingly obvious to anyone with a basic knowledge of medical science and how it works. I notice many responses seem ignorant of medical science and how it works.
You’re serious… The Cass Review was flawed this whole time?! If only someone had warned us!
8 comments
[Here you can read their full response the the Cass Review that this news post is talking about.](https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/integrity-project_cass-response.pdf)
Their report is not a news article so I wasn’t sure if a link post directly to it would be allowed.
They are a team of researchers and pediatric clinicians with experience in the field of transgender healthcare. Their summery of their report is as follows:
* Section 1: The Cass Review makes statements that are consistent with the models of
gender-affirming medical care described by WPATH and the Endocrine Society. The
Cass Review does not recommend a ban on gender-affirming medical care.
* Section 2: The Cass Review does not follow established standards for evaluating
evidence and evidence quality.
* Section 3: The Cass Review fails to contextualize the evidence for gender-affirming care
with the evidence base for other areas of pediatric medicine.
* Section 4: The Cass Review misinterprets and misrepresents its own data.
* Section 5: The Cass Review levies unsupported assertions about gender identity, gender
dysphoria, standard practices, and the safety of gender-affirming medical treatments, and
repeats claims that have been disproved by sound evidence.
* Section 6: The systematic reviews relied upon by the Cass Review have serious
methodological flaws, including the omission of key findings in the extant body of
literature.
* Section 7: The Review’s relationship with and use of the York systematic reviews
violates standard processes that lead to clinical recommendations in evidence-based
medicine.
So after all of us trans people called it out as bullshit, and we were told to shut up and listen to the “experts”, turns out we were right
“The Cass Review was commissioned to address the failure of the UK National Health Service to provide timely, competent, and high-quality care to transgender youth. These failures include long wait times—often years—and resulting delays in timely treatment by skilled providers. Instead of effectively addressing this issue, however, the Review’s process and recommendations stake out an ideological position on care for transgender youth that is deeply at odds with the Review’s own findings about the importance of individualized and age-appropriate approach to medical treatments for gender dysphoria in youth**”**
It’s one of the more damning academic critiques I’ve read
You’re telling me that the report about trans healthcare that has no opinions from actual trans people or experts in trans healthcare but plenty from the kind of people who would like to see them eradicated has serious flaws? Ya think!? 🤔
Oh look, the thing trans people told everyone about, and were promptly told to shut up, was true.
Again.
It was very clear to me as a mere biology graduate reading it that the review itself was constructed to provide a pretence for the political culture war around trans healthcare. Not to actually make any real claims in of itself, but to serve as a nebulous ‘the science’ that could be pointed to – that’s why there’s so much plausible deniability built into it’s construction. It actually advocates for very little in terms of HOW we should care for trans people but has some nice quotable paragraphs that cast doubt on existing care without making any real concrete claims because it cannot back them up with evidence. If it actually advocated for what it has produced in terms of changes to UK policies on trans healthcare, it would have been much, much easier to attack more immediately by nonpartisan experts.
Unfortunately it has already achieved it’s goal – it’s unlikely we’ll see any reversal of course any time soon. This will appear in science textbooks right next to paragraphs on phrenology and race science as a cautionary example.
This has not been peer reviewed. This has not been commissioned by a health authority or science academy.
Its a law school affiliated group and not the law school itself.
This is very much like the kind of rebuttals to the IPCC climate change deniers will put out.
In the pyramid of evidence the Cass Review comes out at the top as a systematic review on behalf of a major health authority
[https://static.s4be.cochrane.org/app/uploads/2016/09/ebmpyramid.jpg](https://static.s4be.cochrane.org/app/uploads/2016/09/ebmpyramid.jpg)
This comes out at the bottom as “expert opinion”.
This should be blindingly obvious to anyone with a basic knowledge of medical science and how it works. I notice many responses seem ignorant of medical science and how it works.
You’re serious… The Cass Review was flawed this whole time?! If only someone had warned us!