The Tavistock: inside the gender clinic

I give the host credit for attempting to be impartial. I agree that this topic needs to be discussed openly and I hate the culture wars surrounding this. However, despite what other reviewers here have said, I felt her bias definitely weighed heavily throughout the series. For instance, she says that hormone blockers are not safe because they can cause the loss of bone density. While this is true, puberty blockers are widely considered to be safe despite that possible side effect, especially when considering the high cost of doing nothing for these kids. She also draws the conclusion that because most kids who take puberty blockers go on to surgically transition, that is proof that the puberty blockers are impacting them. She says it as if they were influenced to transition because of the puberty blockers, rather than considering that these kids knew themselves enough to understand that transition is what they wanted. There are several other instances in the podcast where you could tell that she definitely leans against the use of the type of treatment the center was offering. While I agree that more research and more data are needed, I also fully believe that when the parents and the doctors are telling people this is the best path for the child given what we do know, we need to concede to their judgement.

Anti-trans? Ashamed? Despite what others are saying, the authors were damned just covering this subject. The sensitivity behind this issue stymies any reporting or discovery that may be oppositional. Phenomenal job and thank you for this series. As seen in the US recently, being too sensitive will backfire- hard. Medicating children before they are old enough to fully understand the consequences is an enormous problem.

I was really hoping this would be a more inclusive podcast discussing trans healthcare and trans rights. A cis person saying “I’m really not trying to be transphobic, but…” isn’t the most helpful form of investigation. This line of thinking is so problematic. Around 1% of people who transition regret it. That is such a low percentage! There are risks for every single medical treatment! Why are we putting this one under the microscope?

This is such an irresponsible, emotional piece of reporting. The Mermaids policy analyst (sorry, blanking on their name) who indicated that Polly Curtis's "just asking questions" approach is an anti-trans dog whistle is completely correct, and Curtis's response - a flat, defensive denial, rather than any attempt to dig into WHY her question may be setting off alarm bells for someone who is no doubt vastly more knowledgeable & qualified to identify these insidious patterns through a combination of practice and lived experience - is beyond telling. Polly Curtis might not be a transphobe in the sense of hating or fearing transgender people, but it is obvious that her sympathies lie with the hand-wringing reactionaries and not with the transgender youth who are maligned by society and their own families. TRASH. Garbage. For all her moaning about a lack of evidence, what evidence does exist indicates that the regret rates and desisting rates for transition are phenomenally low. Studies overwhelmingly suggest that outcomes are good for trans kids who are allowed to transition in some way. The safety of puberty blockers has been researched extensively for cis children and have been in use for decades. The Cass Report has been shredded apart by more qualified people than myself and definitely by more qualified people than Polly Curtis. For all the neoliberal posturing about attempting sensitivity and neutrality, this podcast is at best clumsy and poorly presented and at worst ammunition for bad faith actors. I've liked quite a bit of Tortoise's reporting but like another reviewer this has seriously made me question their standards.