Minutes of a Monday #35

#minutesofamonday

Brain Food

“This is really when clinicians working there started to worry, because the evidence base for using the puberty blockers was limited, anyway. That’s why they set out to do the study in the first place, to try to add to it, because we didn’t really have much data. There was a bit more by this point from the Dutch [Dutch Gender Clinic], but it’s still - it’s one gender clinic.

But what GIDS was now doing was applying a medical treatment, which had a low evidence base to start with, to a completely different cohort of people, for whom there really was no evidence that it worked. And, actually, the leaders of the service were quite open about that. They spoke to the UK parliament, in 2015, and in their evidence they said ‘we have extended the use of physical interventions to those for whom there isn’t a robust evidence base, we’re not seeing the young people that are in the Dutch study, but we think it will benefit them.’

Now, it was well intentioned, but it wasn’t evidence based, at that point. And the evidence, really never came to support the widespread use of puberty blockers for this cohort of young people.”

BBC investigative journalist and author, Hannah Barnes talks in detail to the Modern Wisdom podcast about the shutdown of the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at The Tavistock Clinic.

Soul Food

“We watch stories not just to awaken our eyes to reality but to make reality bearable as well. Truth without hope is as unbearable as hope without truth.”

John Yorke, author of Into The Woods.

LOL

Try and not watch to the end….:)

Appendix

“Just: let’s move forward. You kind of have to accept where we are at and then move on. If you get dug into what has happened in the past, you just become too bitter and you can’t move on. That’s my philosophy. It is all about making new memories. Seán is the way he is. We can still enjoy life. It’s just different. That is the way I see it.”

Martina Cox, wife of Seán Cox, whose life was forever changed following a violent assault outside Anfield stadium, five years ago.

AOB

Until next Monday, have a great week.