Children

Children, and children's rights

Trans healthcare: expansion or alibi for cuts?

The interim recommendations of the Cass review have been published. This was a review commissioned by NHS England to look at how the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) can be improved. The service is for under 18s and is currently managed by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. On the face of it there is much to be welcomed. The main recommendations are that the service needs to be expanded, that there should be more research so treatments are more evidence-based, and that the service should be more holistic — looking at the many needs of the children, not just their gender...

Debate: Autism is not a trauma

Jack McDonough’s first letter on the subject of children and gender transition threw in the word “autism” as an “issue” that “supportive professionals” (wrongly) ignore when deciding how to support kids who want to transition gender. He gave no explanation. Challenged by Wilson Gibbons to explain this , Jack in his second letter offers the bold statement that it is a “well documented fact” that there is a “measurable overlap between autism and gender dysphoria (or diversity)”. That he considers dysphoria and diversity to be interchangeable terms, and that he uses the former term when linking...

Mixed verdict from Texas Supreme Court

In February, the corrupt hard-right Trumpist Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, issued a nonbinding legal opinion equating all gender-affirming medical care — puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery — for transgender under-18s with child abuse. Texan Governor Greg Abbott, of similar ilk, then directed the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate any facilities offering this care, and parents of recipients. DFPS stated that it would follow this — nonbinding — directive, opening at least nine investigations into parents of trans under-18s. In March, a district judge...

Teenagers and rights to decide

Jack McDonough ( Solidarity 634) begins by wilfully misinterpreting the term “non-binary”. No one has ever existed, he says, who could impregnate themselves. This is as bizarre, nonsensical and irrelevant: non-binary simply means that someone views their gender identity — not sex — as outside of the male/female binary categories. As socialist feminists we recognise that the roles that men and women play in society are socially constituted and fluid over time. We are not biological essentialists who believe that one’s genitals should dictate one’s role in society. It is perfectly possible...

Letter: Children and the trans debate

Zack Muddle’s article in Solidarity 633 (“Tories say ‘out’ trans students”) contains a number of highly debatable points, slipped in as though they are uncontentious. For instance, Zack writes that: “Many people are trans or non-binary.” Zack doesn’t define what criteria are being used here, but as a matter of fact, all scientifically established definitions of biological sex give the same answer: there is no third type of gamete and every human is born due to the fusion of one of each type of gamete. No human has ever existed who was able to impregnate themselves, and that includes the tiny...

Court upholds Gillick competence

The attempt to undermine the principle of Gillick competence by Keira Bell’s solicitors has failed. Keira Bell took the Tavistock clinic to court for referring her for puberty-blocking treatments when she was under 18. The initial court judgement stated that people under 18 were unlikely to be able to consent for such treatment, and that such treatment should only happen after a court ruling. That went against the established norm where competence of under 16s to consent to treatment is assessed by medical professionals in line with “Gillick competence” - i.e. determining whether the person...

Johnson signals threat to trans rights

Speaking on Sky News, 6 April , Boris Johnson doubled-down on his attack on trans rights. Defending a move to permit and legitimise anti-trans conversion therapy, he signalled a wider range of attacks on trans, women’s, and children’s rights: • Opposition to Gillick competence • Possible opposition to young people and children’s trans healthcare even with parental consent • That trans women should be excluded from women’s spaces “Gillick competence” refers, since a court ruling in 1985, to an assessment that an under-16 year old is legally able to consent to their own medical treatment...

Alternatives to punishment in schools

The left has traditionally been opposed to relying only on “punishment” for anti-social behaviour and instead focuses on how to help people improve their behaviour and relations. There are not bad people, there is bad behaviour rooted in a society which is dysfunctional. In Solidarity 624, I discussed the importance of focussing on prevention and support rather than penalties to reduce incidences of abuse. But prevention cannot help where abuse has already happened. In that situation how can we tackle abusive behaviour without simply relying on punishment? In schools the answer is often...

Kino Eye: The Lost Prince

Most “royal” films are dross, but an exception is Stephen Poliakoff’s The Lost Prince (BBC, 2003), which recounts the short life of John, the youngest son of George V and Mary of Teck (the present Queen’s grandparents). John was discovered to be epileptic. He may also have been autistic. Regarded as an embarrassment, he was hidden from public view in a corner of the Sandringham Estate. In the last two years of life he was visited only twice by his mother. His elder brother, later Edward VIII (the one who abdicated), once described him as “more of an animal than anything else”. John was deleted...

Children failed by a decade of cuts

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was a six-year-old boy who was tragically neglected and then killed in 2020 whilst living with his stepmother and father. In late 2021 they were found guilty in court of murder and manslaughter, and jailed. After his biological mother was jailed for killing an abusive partner , his father, Thomas Hughes, assumed custody. When the first Covid-19 lockdown was announced, Hughes and Arthur moved in with Hughes’ girlfriend, Emma Tustin. From the moment he arrived, the abuse started. Tustin made Arthur sleep on the floor in the front room and stand for hours in the hallway...

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