"all the harm of conversion therapy, with the excuse that transition may be considered if all other avenues have been exhausted"
If you're not from the UK I recommend you read the Wikipedia page on Section 28 so that you never ask anybody about it to their face:
Section 28 - Wikipedia
Contributors to Wikimedia projects
Especially look at the full size of this gorgeous image, taken when I was twelve:
A drag queen in front of a bus operated by the Stagecoach company in Albert Square, Manchester, UK, during a Stonewall rally in the square for repeal of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. In protest at Stagecoach's owner Brian Souter's high profile support of the legislation, activists have stopped the bus and daubed "28" on its windscreen in huge red characters, which they subsequently washed off in order to avoid arrest for criminal damage.
—15 July 2000, by Schmeditator via Wikimedia Commons
I'm grateful to anyone in the UK who is willing to publish about trans rights and specifically to Sasha Baker and their op ed in Dazed (a lot of your faves once wrote for Dazed btw, try some digging):
The Cass Review – a report looking at children’s gender-related care in the NHS, which was published yesterday – has been welcomed warmly by the anti-trans press, the Tories, and Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting. But for trans young people, it represents the latest in a long string of attacks on their autonomy, and their right to make decisions about their own lives.
The review recommends that the NHS adopts a wide-ranging system of assessment and mental health treatment, with no provision of puberty blockers without enrollment in a clinical trial, and extremely limited access to cross-sex hormones before the age of 18. One of the reasons for the Gender Identity Development Services’ (GIDS) years-long waiting lists – which have made gender-affirming care already out-of-reach for the vast majority of young trans people – was the requirement for two clinicians to attend every appointment. The Cass Review proposes an even more resource-intensive approach, that may exacerbate the existing bottleneck of referrals, if it doesn’t drive trans young people away from the NHS altogether.
The therapy-based approach encourages patients to consider alternative reasons for their gender-related distress, often eating disorders, neurodivergence, or social acceptance (as if being trans makes you popular at school) – all of which must be carefully worked through before medical transition can be considered.
The model offers all the harm of conversion therapy, with the convenient excuse that transition may be considered if all other avenues have been exhausted.
—Sasha Baker, Dazed Digital
The British government is throwing young trans people under the bus
Following the publication of the Cass Review, it’s going to be harder than ever for young people to access gender-affirming care in Britain
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