Cass Met With DeSantis Pick Over Trans Ban: Her Review Now Targets England Trans Care

Cass Met With DeSantis Pick Over Trans Ban: Her Review Now Targets England Trans Care
ERIN REED
APR 10, 2024



On Tuesday evening, Dr. Hilary Cass released a final report commissioned by the NHS, widely expected to target gender-affirming care. The report met these expectations, calling for restrictions on gender-affirming care and social transition, and even advocated for blocking transgender adults under the age of 25 from entering adult care. To justify these recommendations, the review dismissed over 100 studies on the efficacy of transgender care as not suitably high quality, applying standards that are unattainable and not required of most other pediatric medicine. Conducted in a manner similar to the anti-trans review by the DeSantis-handpicked Board of Medicine in Florida, which Cass reportedly collaborated on, the report and its reviews are likely to underpin further crackdowns on trans care globally.

The 388-page report featured 32 recommendations on how transgender care should be conducted within NHS England. It incorrectly claims that there is “no good evidence” supporting transgender care and calls for restrictions on trans care for individuals under the age of 18, although it does not advocate for an outright ban. The report endorses the idea that being transgender may be caused by anxiety, depression, and OCD issues, despite the American Psychological Association, the largest psychological association in the world, rebutting this as lacking evidence. It also claims that transgender individuals can be “influenced” into being trans, a nod to the discredited theory of social contagion and rapid onset gender dysphoria, rejected by over 60 mental health organizations. Lastly, it seemingly endorses restrictions on transgender people under the age of 25, stating that they should not be allowed to progress into adult care clinics.

To support these recommendations, the report was released alongside “reviews” of the evidence surrounding transgender care, using these reviews to assert that there is "no good evidence" for gender-affirming care. A closer inspection of the reviews released alongside the Cass report reveals that 101 out of 103 studies on gender-affirming care were dismissed for not being of "sufficiently high quality," based on the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale—a subjective scale criticized for its flaws and potential unreliability due to a high risk of bias. This critique is particularly significant given the contentious political nature of the subject and connections between reviewers, Cass, and anti-trans organizations.

The Cass Review seems to have emulated the Florida Review, which employed a similar method to justify bans on trans care in the state—a process criticized as politically motivated by the Human Rights Campaign. Notably, Hilary Cass met with Patrick Hunter, a member of the anti-trans Catholic Medical Association who played a significant role in the development of the Florida Review and Standards of Care under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Patrick Hunter was chosen specifically by the governor, who has exhibited fierce opposition towards LGBTQ+ and especially transgender people, and then immediately got to work on targeting transgender care. The Florida review was purportedly designed and manipulated with the intention of having "care effectively banned" from the outset, as revealed by court documents. The Florida Review was slammed by Yale Researchers as “not a serious scientific analysis, but rather, a document crafted to serve a political agenda,” and much of their full critique is applicable to the Cass Review as well.

[...]