Can you support our challenge to the Scottish Government?
The Scottish Care Inspectorate published Guidance for children and young people’s services on the inclusion of transgender including non-binary young people in May 2024. This guidance was developed on the basis of advice from LGBT Youth Scotland. Safeguarding concerns have repeatedly been raised about this organisation. See:
ScotPAG views the Care Inspectorate Guidance as a highly irresponsible document which ignores Dr Cass’s findings that children in care are particularly vulnerable to the major harms caused by gender ideology. Please write to the Minister responsible for children’s care protesting the irresponsible guidance and demanding that it is withdrawn. A sample letter for you to use is provided below
Let's campaign for change together!
Dear Minister,
The Scottish Care Inspectorate published Guidance for children and young people’s services on the inclusion of transgender including non-binary young people in May 2024. As you are aware, this guidance was developed on the basis of advice from LGBT Youth Scotland. There was no wider consultation within the sector or with qualified professionals with expertise about child development and children in care.
As you will also be aware, safeguarding concerns have repeatedly been raised about this organisation, see https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/paedophile-andrew-easton-wrote-coming-out-guide-given-to-schoolkids-as-young-as-13/
and
You will also be aware of the findings of the Cass Report which provides evidence of the highest standard including systemically scrutinized research. Presumably you will also be aware of its findings based on international research which confirms:
• Gender ideology is an unconfirmed pseudoscience
• The promotion and ‘product placement’ of gender ideology in schools can be
psychologically harmful for children
• The promotion of the idea that any individual can change sex is confusing and has the
potential to make any child anxious
• Research reports that breast binding is physically harmful for the majority of girls
• Social transitioning is not helpful for any child as it reinforces a delusion and inevitably
puts pressure on other children to collude with a false belief
The Care Inspectorate guidance for children and young people’s services was developed because of a concern about how to support children and young people with gender distress. This guidance, based on advice from LGBT Youth Scotland, was issued in the wake of the interim CR (2022) and endorsed the existence of gender identity in children. It recommended that children in care homes should be allowed to use the accommodation and toilets/bathrooms of the opposite sex if they felt they were “transgender”. It even advocated that bedrooms and bathrooms should be provided based on “gender identity” rather than sex. It should be noted that the Care Inspectorate has yet to produce any guidance on the inclusion of gay and lesbian young people in care services. The guidance not only puts children at risk but also puts workers in these services in the invidious position of risking disciplinary action for not following this harmful guidance that contradicts the Cass recommendations and the growing body of research on the harms of social and medical transitioning.
Following the publication of the Cass Review, the guidance has since been updated in May 2024, but still fails to properly address any of the significant safeguarding concerns identified in the first guidance. The second guidance still relies heavily on LGBT Youth Scotland advice which publicly stated they do not agree with the Cass Review recommendations:
“We disagree with the recommendations made by the Cass review as puberty blockers have been shown to give trans young people more time to think about their identity and prevent changes that are an uncomfortable and dysphoria inducing experience.” (LGBTYS April 2024)
This is all the more concerning given the well documented evidence that the majority of children who think they are “transgender” have co-morbidities such as traumatic experiences, autism, and other additional support needs (Barnes 2023).
The guidance offers no counter information such as the well evidenced research from various studies which highlight that puberty is the ‘cure’ for most teenagers’ bodily unease and that the vast majority of young people who are gender questioning desist as adults (Griffin et al, 2021). Nor does the guidance refer to the various studies reporting the significant side effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones (NICE Guidelines, 2019) Furthermore, the guidance fails to make any reference to the growing reports of poor outcomes of medicalization from de-transitioners.
Rather than advising care services to recognise this vulnerability and to safeguard children in care, the Care Inspectorate has adopted LGBT Youth Scotland’s support for social and medical transition. The Care Inspectorate Guidance is a highly irresponsible document that ignores the findings of the Cass Review that children in care are particularly vulnerable to gender ideology. Given that children in Scotland are no different from children in England in terms of their safeguarding needs, the promotion of gender ideology either via a 3rd sector party or through any other means is entirely unacceptable. The Care inspectorate’s guidance is not fit for purpose, and, in the interests of safeguarding children, it should be withdrawn with immediate effect.
I look forward to receiving your response outlining how you intend to proceed
etc.
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