ANALYSIS: The Cass Review heralds how all trans medicine will die

ANALYSIS: The Cass Review heralds how all trans medicine will die
In effect, the study research completely blew off the input of the people most affected by access to treatment
Published 1 day ago on April 15, 2024 By Brynn Tannehill, FAIRFAX, Va.

By Brynn Tannehill | FAIRFAX, Va. – This past week, the Cass literature review for the UK’s National Health Service for transgender youth was completed after four years in development. Although touted as independent, it was anything but. Dr. Hillary Cass consulted with far-right religious anti-trans activists like Patrick Hunter, and took cues on how to ban trans health care from Florida’s rigged process.

The results were predictable: it effectively recommends banning transition related care for anyone under the age of 25. Because of backlogs in the NHS system, this means that transgender people cannot even begin applying for care until they are 25 and will likely have to wait until they are 35, even if they have had a transgender identity since an early age. It also recommends a ban on social transitions, and any sort of social affirmation.

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You might think, “Oh, this is just the United Kingdom,” and that it doesn’t affect you. But it does. We have concrete evidence that Cass was coordinating with Ron DeSantis appointees, who in turn were selected for their religious fervor and connections with anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups in the US like the Alliance Defending Freedom. The Cass review illustrates how they are planning to end access to transgender health care for all adults in the US.

Basically, the process is to get a decision-making body (like the FDA) to commission a “review” of the evidence for health care for trans adults. The reviewers will be people who already know the outcome they want and who are only interested in p-hacking their way to a non-conclusion. The formula looks like this:

Do a lit review.
Find filters that excludes all of the evidence in support of health care for trans people (i.e. requiring RCT and double-blind for inclusion).
Declare that there is no evidence for transition related care.
Recommend “neutral” interventions like talk therapy, when there’s no evidence this works.
The FDA or state medical boards use the phony lit review to justify bans on the use of any off-label treatments for gender dysphoria, along with any gender confirmation surgeries.
With the death of Roe v. Wade, this is entirely legal. SCOTUS won’t stop it; they’re likely to uphold the decision-making authority of supposedly neutral medical authorities, and the lit reviews commissioned by them. If Trump is elected, this will happen nation-wide. If he isn’t, we’re going to see roughly 25 states eventually ban health care for trans adults the way they did to trans youth.

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