Thread by @TwisterFilm

1./ The Biggest Lie About the Cass Report
This video is just one source that claims the trans lobby has long supported the holistic mental health approach that Cass now recommends. This is a lie. Let me tell you the real story of the trans lobby's attitude to mental health.

2./ 25 years ago the trans lobby began a campaign to dilute and remove references to mental health in trans healthcare. A particular target was the Standards of Care of the global trans healthcare organisation WPATH and its predecessor HBIGDA. Why did trans activists do this?

3./ Up to 1998 the Standards of Care included a prominent warning (Principle 1) that sex reassignment "may be requested by persons experiencing short-term delusions or beliefs which may later be changed and reversed." It urged psychiatric oversight. The trans lobby hated that.

4./ They also hated Principle 3 which warned, “case histories are known in which the decision to undergo hormonal and surgical sex reassignment was, after the fact, regretted and the final result of such procedures proved to be psychologically debilitating to the patients.”

5./ The trans lobby instead argued that anyone who said they were trans should be believed. No questions asked. This is the opposite of a holistic mental health approach. If everything people say about themselves must be believed, there would be little point in psychiatrists.

6./ Instead of an approach to trans healthcare that said no one should get hormones or surgery "simply because the patient has requested such procedures" (Standard 4.1) the trans lobby argued life-changing treatment was a human right. That's why we're in the puberty blocker mess.

7./ By the late 90s a campaign by the trans lobby was underway to remove any psychiatric gatekeeping. Trans activist Tracie O'Keefe from Press for Change went to WPATH (HBIGDA) conferences to argue the idea of protecting people with psychiatry "pathologises gender dysphoria".

8./ When the Tavistock published a report of the first global conference to discuss puberty blockers, O'Keefe wrote a review for Press for Change arguing the emphasis on therapy was insulting. "Psychoanalysis is to gender dysphoria what aspirin is to baldness", ie irrelevant.

9./ So complete was the lobby's animus against counselling, O'Keefe went on to lead a campaign to remove even the reference to dysphoria from the name of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association. It implied a mental health condition. It was renamed WPATH.

10./ The attempt to separate being trans from gender dysphoria continues. Here's Gender GP claiming any assumption dysphoria is part and parcel of being trans is transmedicalism. But if trans is not linked to a medical condition, WHY on earth should the NHS spend money on it?

11./ Trans activists who now claim they agree with a holistic approach to mental health are disingenuous. They insist high levels of mental health issues in trans people are explained solely by the stress of living in a "transphobic" society. Why doesn't this framing help people?

12./ This is the opposite of a holistic approach to mental health. A counsellor who takes such a narrow, lazy and ideologically-driven attitude will feel no need to explore deeply the issues in gender dysphoric kids Cass cited: troubled families, experience of abuse and autism.

13./ The trans lobby can't have it both ways. For decades they campaigned relentlessly to remove the involvement of mental health professionals in gender identity healthcare. When Cass wants to bring this back the trans lobby can't claim, 'We told you so'.

14./ I wish trans activists who helped create the conditions for the puberty blocker scandal felt any regret for the children they harmed. Tracie O'Keefe doesn't. He promotes blockers; in between performing impromptu ballet in public places. As you do.

15./ Tracie now advises health institutions. Here he explains it's a myth humans are male or female. 10% of us aren't. It's a natural variation like having red or purple eyes (eh?). "We are not delusional.". Hope that's clarified everything.