This is the Keira Bell judicial review against the Tavistock. Whatever the outcome, it's worth remembering the case is about access to fully reversible puberty blockers rather than the partially reversible cross-sex hormones she regrets taking.
If you can't access puberty blockers your body undergoes irreversible changes - eg an Adam's apple and a change in your voice - with a permanent deterioration in your quality of life. That's why it's morally wrong (and unlawful) for the NHS to deny treatment to trans kids.
Profound sympathy too for detransitioners who once took puberty blockers. They are statistically tiny in number but every one, including Keira, is a life, a person, an existence, not a pawn in some political battle.
Just a reminder that, although Government is now running furiously from the description of the "VIP" channel, this is the language it used itself.
And a further reminder that, although the NAO suggests "VIPs" were merely those *introduced* by (mostly) Ministers, this leaked document suggests they were also *processed* on a different track.
See our blog post citing leaked documents - widely ignored by the press - which predated the NAO Report by a number of weeks. goodlawproject.org/news/special-p…
The practical effect of the judgment will be that puberty blockers will very rarely be prescribed to those under 16 which will mean (given they are only useful to those undergoing puberty) that they are very rarely prescribed.
In short, those who supported the litigation are perfectly entitled to say that they have 'won'.
The Government which said Pestfix won a contract for £108m and then said it was actually £32m plus some further contracts which it then said numbered ten making eleven in total now says the seven contracts it has published are all there is. But I'm sure all of this is just fine.
As Government makes application after application to kick into the long grass its mishandling of these staggering sums of public money it's just worth remembering what a complete dogs breakfast we have ALREADY uncovered.
On the basis really of very little information - the briefest (mis)descriptions Government had published of the contracts it had entered into - we brought three judicial review challenges: of Clandeboye, Pestfix and Ayanda.
Let's be clear about where transphobia is in the UK. Transgender Day of Remembrance remembers trans people murdered in acts of transphobic violence. And @WeAreFairCop chose that day to tweet "#SayYesToHate".
It is hard to read this as otherwise than as a direct call for further anti-trans violence and murders. This would make it a terrorist group which should be proscribed as such. Yet it numbers amongst its supporters high profile members of the UK's "gender critical" community.
Here (in response to the usual disinformation campaign from bot accounts) is what the ONS says about crime against transgender individuals: you are twice as likely to be a victim of crime if you are trans compared with those who are cis.
Because Government Press Officers are claiming Ministers were exonerated by the National Audit Office report, let's take a look at what it actually says.
(1) we cannot give assurance that government applied appropriate commercial practices
(2) departments failed to document why particular suppliers were chosen or how conflicts of interest were managed
(3) no source was recorded for about half the VIP cases. So how could you manage conflicts of interest?
Where sources were recorded they were likely to be the private offices of Ministers.
So, so grim. Amazing work from the Guardian. But there will be dozens, if not hundreds, of contracts like this that we will never know about. theguardian.com/world/2020/nov…
Huge credit to @lawrencefelic. So difficult landing stories like this - amazing work.
You just know what the Guardian has been able to report is the tip of the iceberg. We will ask our lawyers to take a look and see if we can show you more. But much more difficult when it is a sub-contract.