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[–]artetolife 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Fantastic news. Interestingly this is being framed as a victory for the Tavistock by some people on reddit but it really isn't.

Edit: lol, just compare the reporting from the Mirror

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-children-under-16-can-23096605

[–]MarkTwainiac 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The Mirror's headline is

Children under 16 can consent to puberty blockers if they understand treatment

Which is totally misrepresents the ruling, which said that kids under 16 cannot possibly understand what the treatment will do to them because at that age they do not have the capacity. What's more, the treatment itself will prevent them from developing the capacity!

The bald-faced lies of the press have become shocking. It's like we're living in the USSR under Stalin.

[–]artetolife 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They slipped the truth in a single paragraph halfway through the article:

Ms Bell and Mrs A were asking the High Court to rule it is unlawful for children who wish to undergo gender reassignment to be prescribed hormone blockers without an order from the court that such treatment is in their "best interests".

In other words nobody was ever asking for a blanket ban on PBs for under-16s but they wrote the article that way anyway...

[–]anonymale[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree that the Mirror headline spins the meaning of the judgment wildly, just by missing out the word ‘only’, but the judgment does not say

...that kids under 16 cannot possibly understand what the treatment will do to them because at that age they do not have the capacity.

See para 151. Rather than ban puberty blockers and hormones altogether for kids the court ruled on how Gillick competence applies to them. Para 138 sets out specifically what a child must ‘understand, retain and weigh up’ in order to be considered able to give meaningful consent. The court also says that the child must understand these for both puberty blockers and hormones as they are part of the same treatment pathway. It is a very strict set of criteria which I doubt GIDS has any chance of showing it can meet for any child currently on its books.