Thread by @JolyonMaugham

Cass Review.

New article in the New England Journal of Medicine, founded in 1812 and amongst the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals. Its 2023 impact factor was 96.2, ranking it 2nd out of 168 journals in the category "Medicine, General & Internal".

I will share some extracts from it but tl;dr it is highly critical. It "transgresses medical law, policy and practice... deviates from pharmaceutical regulatory standards in the UK. And if it had been published in the United States... it would have violated federal law."

It calls for "evidentiary standards... that are not applied elsewhere in pediatric medicine... [and] are not applied to cisgender young people receiving gender-affirming care."

"The report's application of a heightened evidentiary standards probably stems in part from its deviation from standard medical scientific process."

"In contravention of international publication standards, the Cass Review also does not include any listing of the authors... observers must speculate about who else participated in the manuscript’s drafting — and whether they held bias against LGBTQ+ people."

"There is evidence of antitransgender bias in invitations to oversee and participate in the report."

"The Review (and associated studies) misrepresented the data behind its conclusions."

We don't have to speculate about whether Hilary Cass was chosen for her gender critical views. Kemi Badenoch has more or less told her she was.

None of this will change Labour's position.

It will abase itself before JK Rowling and Murdoch, and align itself with Trump and Putin, and others with more power than the minorities they target.

But the rest of us should know: the Cass review is policy based evidence making.