Matilda Gosling @matildagosling Twitter profile

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Matilda Gosling

25 days

I’m thrilled that my second book, Teenagers: The Evidence Base, will be published by @_SwiftPress on 30 January. You can pre-order it (which apparently matters for later sales) here: You can also buy Evidence-Based Parenting here:

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

2023's started well.

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

A 🧵 on unintended consequences of mental health interventions, and why some school and workplace schemes may be contributing to the problem they were designed to solve. 1/10

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

A short🧵on the implications of the #CassReview for research. One extraordinary finding among many: it was not possible to assess long-term outcomes of treatment pathways because NHS gender clinics would not co-operate. 1/7

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

I have two papers out today for @SexMattersOrg . The first is a technical paper on the placebo effect. The (limited) data shows that puberty blockers and hormone treatment have no more effect on teenagers’ mental health than taking a placebo pill 🧵 [1/16]

Gender-questioning teenagers: puberty blockers and hormone treatment vs placebo - Sex Matters

This technical paper adds to the literature on the treatment of gender dysphoria by using data from comparable studies on teenagers’ mental health to assess whether puberty blockers and hormone...

sex-matters.org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

TLDR: 1. Interventions aiming to boost mental health aren’t necessarily positive or even neutral, and need careful planning to avoid negative impacts. 2. Doing nothing is sometimes better than doing something. /Ends #edutwitter

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

New research is published today by @SexMattersOrg , written by me and @stellaomalley3 . It’s the first of a 3-part series for parents looking at the research on gender identity in teenagers.🧵 1/12

Teenagers and gender identity: the evidence base – part 1 - Sex Matters

by Matilda Gosling and Stella O’Malley Introduction and Part 1: Why might teenagers question their gender? A paper aimed at parents and those who simply want to understand more about gender identity...

sex-matters.org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

Dr Margaret McCartney: “We are medicalising gender stereotypes.” #FirstDoNoHarm @CanSG_org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

. @drlucyfoulkes & @drjackandrews have a well-argued theory: bringing attention to mental health makes some people think normal feelings of distress are actually mental health problems. This increases their symptoms, exacerbating the issue. 2/10

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

The new draft of the Brighton & Hove Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit has just been published by @BrightonHoveCC . It doesn’t yet seem to have considered recent legal advice or evidence reviews, including Monaghan and Cass. Quick 🧵1/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

1 year

The final part of my series for @SexMattersOrg is published today. This part looks at practical suggestions for parents and carers of gender-distressed teenagers who want to follow a supportive waiting model. It’s based on expert interviews… [1/13]

Teenagers and gender identity: the evidence base – part 3 - Sex Matters

by Matilda Gosling Part 3: How parents can support their children This paper is the final part of a series summarising the evidence base on teenagers and gender identity for parents. This part of the...

sex-matters.org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

My paper for @SexMattersOrg on treatments and outcomes for gender-questioning teenagers is published today too 🧵 [1/13]

Teenagers and gender identity: the evidence base – part 2 - Sex Matters

by Matilda Gosling Part 2: Treatment and outcomes This paper is the second of a three-part series summarising the evidence base on teenagers and gender identity for parents. This part examines...

sex-matters.org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

5 months

Policy is catching up with evidence.

ITV News

@itvnews

5 months

Children will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at gender identity clinics, NHS England has confirmed

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

What is the impact of ongoing tensions over sex and gender on the women’s sector – on rape crisis centres, refuges and women’s prisons, among others? My research with @SexMattersOrg , published today, investigates this question through interviews with sector leaders. 1/11

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

10 months

This CAMHS doc is available to teenagers with mental health conditions in Hampshire; there’s a hard-copy Sussex version too. It’s a general mental health guide, but contains (of course) a section on gender, listing how it might feel to struggle with your gender identity. (1/8)

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

Schools and workplaces may mistakenly assume that taking action on mental health is always positive. Recent research in this area doesn’t seem to have filtered through yet to many of those commissioning and running activities/interventions. 9/10

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

Some studies of universal mental health interventions in schools show worse mental health in the intervention arm than in the control arm – e.g. teenagers in ‘WISE Teens’ programme had worse MH & worse relationships with parents after taking part. 3/10

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

1 month

Here, @HarrietHarman describes working through the implications of the GRA & EqA with the women’s sector to find consensus, “and it worked”. But whatever happened in 2010, it’s not working now for many women – as this @SexMattersOrg research makes clear.

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

5 months

Females taking testosterone are more likely than other women to have heart attacks (ref 1). They have higher cholesterol and worse bone health (ref 2). They frequently experience painful vaginal atrophy (ref 3) and other symptoms. 🧵

Hannah Barnes

@hannahsbee

5 months

NEW: NHS England has announced that new youth gender services will provide masculinising and feminising hormones to children from ‘around their 16th birthday.’ This goes further than GIDS ever did: YPs cld only access hormones at 16 if they’d been on puberty blockers for 1 year🧵

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

This study on a mindfulness intervention with 13- to 21-year-olds shows increased depression and physical symptoms in the younger adolescents (though not in older ones) who took part. 4/10

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

6 months

The grumpy one on the back of the bike has a parenting book out today. #EvidenceBasedParenting @_SwiftPress

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

Prompted by the invitation here, a thread. Two provisos: 1) I’m not a lawyer, clearly (though I research education policy, among other things). 2) The thread starts off about Robin White’s analysis, but is mainly about something else. 1/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

There’s also evidence of possible harm from group interventions to help teenagers with behaviour problems – some behave worse, drink more & take more drugs at the end of intervention than at the start of it (poss due to being w. similar peers). 5/10

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

10 months

Preferring to be by yourself; feeling alone; disliking puberty/having periods; feeling anxious about PE and having to get changed in front of others - these are normal parts of being a teenager, not signs something is deeply wrong. (3/8)

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

There’s increasing evidence, too, that workplace interventions on mental health are failing to achieve their ambitions, with a common thread being a lack of evidence for popular activities. 6/10

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

“You can’t unboil an egg,” says @FondOfBeetles , discussing male advantage in sport. #GameOnForWomen

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

But one that found positive effects cautioned that this was only for clinician-led interventions – there were no positive effects for mental health programmes delivered by teachers. 8/10

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

10 months

Most of this list is common to the mental health conditions for which these teenagers will have been referred - e.g. low self-esteem, feeling hopeless, feeling alone - or else are experienced by pretty much everyone who goes through puberty. (2/8)

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

Data on long-term outcomes from a large cohort is a key area of missing evidence. Blocking it doesn’t seem helpful, whatever your views on transition – data is for wider benefit, and especially future cohorts of gender-questioning children. 3/7

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

10 months

This is an NHS service arguably playing a role in making children believe they are experiencing gender distress - being part of the problem when it needs to be part of the solution. Children referred to CAMHS are among the most vulnerable there are. (7/8)

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

Conclusion: the limited data we have indicates that gender medications, in the form of puberty blockers and hormone treatment, are no better than taking a placebo in improving teenagers’ mental health. [Ends]

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

Will intervention or public pressure bring about this co-operation in future? It was an opportunity to understand long-term outcomes of social and medical transition (and, data allowing, watchful waiting). Government even passed a statutory instrument to help this to happen. 2/7

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

TLDR. The Toolkit is some distance from “excellent”. As to the original question: “Would you care to suggest why my analysis is wrong in law?” – promoting and attributing excellence to a document that’s legally incorrect, and in multiple ways, provides an answer. /Ends

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

26 days

Back to schools, reviews of studies have found mixed findings on effectiveness of universal mental health interventions. 7/10 No evidence of effectiveness: Evidence of effectiveness:

School-based interventions to prevent anxiety and depression in children and young people: a...

Considering unclear risk of bias and probable small study effects for anxiety, we conclude there is little evidence that educational setting-based interventions focused solely on the prevention of...

www.thelancet.com

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

Another🧵on the research that @stellaomalley3 and I have done for @SexMattersOrg on gender identity and teenagers, this time looking at the state of the evidence base. 1/15

Teenagers and gender identity: the evidence base – part 1 - Sex Matters

by Matilda Gosling and Stella O’Malley Introduction and Part 1: Why might teenagers question their gender? A paper aimed at parents and those who simply want to understand more about gender identity...

sex-matters.org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

🧵looking at @WPATH ’s new Standards of Care from perspective of research on gender-questioning teenagers (something I’ve been investigating). TLDR: astonishing cherry-picking of research to fit a narrative given its promotion of “evidence-based care”. 1/16

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

2. Cass calls for clinical research linked to unified research strategy to fill evidence gaps (my view: get hold of missing data before clinical trials. Without new evidence saying otherwise, there’s enough existing evidence of harm to make puberty blocker trials unethical.) 5/7

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

AFAIK, on the one occasion on which a Toolkit has come before the courts, the council in question decided to withdraw it rather than have to defend it before a judge. We might infer that their lawyers did not consider it to be “excellent”. 26/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

1 month

In this clip, Green Party co-leader talks about her party’s policy to make misogyny a hate crime. But what would this policy actually mean? (Hint: this is why ‘What is a woman?’ is an important policy question.) 1/9

Carla Denyer

@carla_denyer

1 month

The ongoing abuse of women and girls is unacceptable. The Green Party will focus on ending domestic violence, training police properly, and make misogyny a hate crime. #C4LeaderDebate #C4News #VoteGreen

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

1 year

1. Children have got a roughly 25-40% chance* of seeing their gender distress persist if they don’t socially transition. If they socially transition, their chance of seeing it persist is 97.5%. That’s almost everyone. Social transition bakes in gender dysphoria.

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

This paper was published yesterday, looking at mental health in gender-questioning teenagers after 2 years of hormone treatment: . A quick 🧵on its approach/conclusions. (1/11)

Psychosocial Functioning in Transgender Youth after 2 Years of Hormones | NEJM

Limited prospective outcome data exist regarding transgender and nonbinary youth receiving gender-affirming hormones (GAH; testosterone or estradiol). We characterized the longitudinal course of ps...

www.nejm.org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

First issue. @BrightonHoveCC doesn’t “promote the removal of single sex spaces” but does promote the admission of people of the opposite sex into those spaces – at which point, those spaces are no longer single sex. So single-sex spaces ARE removed (reminder: “excellent”-RW) 6/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

10 months

CAMHS is reflecting back to its vulnerable teenage service users their current symptoms and implying they have yet another thing to deal with - a struggle with gender identity. (5/8)

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

This 2nd thread summarising research on sex, gender & the women’s sector – with @SexMattersOrg and out today – focuses on the words of the women I interviewed. Please use these, repost them, quote them. It is their voices that will bring change. #SectorSilenced #Women #SexMatters

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

10 months

Only 3 out of the 14 items (arguably 2) relate to gender dysphoria, not referred conditions or teenage reality. Imagine being a 14 year-old who ticks off most of the other items on the list. Would it give you comfort or make you think you have another pending diagnosis? (4/8)

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

Professor Kaltiala: “Adolescence is the most important period for identity development.” #FirstDoNoHarm @CanSG_org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

Once gender clinics have been persuaded not to block the acquisition of data, it would seem sensible to look at what it implies for childhood social transition, too, before experimenting further with it (cf links into a medical pathway, with known negative side effects). 6/7

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

The placebo effect can be strong. This excellent paper, recently published by psychiatrist Dr Alison Clayton, shows why puberty blockers & hormone treatment present the “perfect storm environment” for the placebo effect [2/16]

Gender-Affirming Treatment of Gender Dysphoria in Youth: A Perfect Storm Environment for the...

Archives of Sexual Behavior -

link.springer.com

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

Now onto the rights of girls. @BrightonHoveCC “has seen no evidence” that male pupils who identify as trans present more threat to girls in single-sex spaces than other girls do. But we know that having mixed-sex spaces puts girls at risk of assault. 7/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

3. Cass wants more in the way of systematic review; system learning; & provisions to prevent ‘incremental creep of practice in the absence of evidence’. This is positive - especially if gender services can be stopped from blocking development of a collective knowledge base. /Ends

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

There is much more in there, but it is astonishing that Brighton & Hove Council is publishing something so contrary to expert legal advice and mounting counter-evidence in the summer of 2024. 8/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

This new paper therefore does nothing to change the conclusion that gender medication - and in this case, hormone treatment - is no better than placebo when it comes to teenagers’ mental health. (Ends)

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

1 year

This thread on social transition of children was doing the rounds yesterday. As it purports to be “evidence-based”, let’s see what the evidence actually says. It’s poor quality across the board, by the way.

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

1 year

This is happening tomorrow! @HJoyceGender , Michael Biggs and I will be talking about medication for gender-distressed children. What does the evidence show when it comes to physical and mental health effects, and what does it mean? @SexMattersOrg

Child gender medicine: the evidence – webinar - Sex Matters

Watch the recording About the speakers Missed the webinar? Make a donation At this Sex Matters webinar, on 23rd February 2023, our director of advocacy, Helen Joyce, talked with sociologist Michael...

sex-matters.org

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

"The philosopher Karl Popper argued that scientific beliefs must be falsifiable: there must be some experiment you can perform that puts your beliefs to the test. A belief which cannot be criticised cannot be falsified, and so cannot be science."

John Armstrong

@johnarmstrong5

4 months

The Cass Review shows that the academic community has failed gender-questioning children. I explain how the erosion of academic freedom allowed this medical scandal to happen. 👇

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

2. @BrightonHoveCC : Makes no definitive requirement of Brighton’s schools that they provide 11+ children with single-sex facilities when it comes to changing rooms. @k21fem : ‘This is incorrect as a matter of law’. 4/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

And it starts with a massive thank you to Allsorts. They’re name-checked 40 times. How many times does it mention organisations who believe gender-questioning children aren’t best served by an affirmative model? Trick question. It’s zero. *Balance* 11/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

Some final thoughts. In more than 20 years distilling research on issues affecting children and young people, I haven’t seen such a shaky evidence base affecting lives so irreversibly before, in this case through “gender-affirming care”. 10/12

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

On a quick review, some examples of where the new version of the Toolkit falls down (I’ll do more on this anon w. a bit more time). 1. @BrightonHoveCC : Single-sex toilets can be used by both sexes ‘on a case-by-case basis’. @k21fem : ‘This is incorrect as a matter of law.’ 3/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

So what does Allsorts think? Balanced? -Sex is “assigned at birth” (News to me. My children’s sex was observed at 20 week scan.) -Use chosen pronouns, always. -Children should identify into single-sex spaces. -Supports transitioning, despite Cass. 13/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

The draft Toolkit is now open for consultation until Friday 11 October. If you would like to respond, the link is here: /Ends

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

On p.7, RW declines to offer alternative guidance, saying that the government’s guidance on gender-questioning children in schools is “shot through with anti-trans hatred”. This is a serious and specific charge from a barrister. No examples of this hatred are given. 3/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

4 months

Other points on data/evidence/research from Cass: 1. Services to feed into a national dataset, information from which will contribute to an ‘active learning environment’. Presumably this means that treatment paradigms will be updated as new evidence emerges. 4/7

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

1 year

"...avoid treating anxiety as if it is a permanent personality trait. And where possible, treat adjustments and avoidance as temporary measures, in the service of gradually helping young people tolerate and face their fears." Advice from @lfoulkesy

I’m a psychologist with a history of anxiety. Treating it as a permanent problem might make young...

When we give children the label but no tools to challenge it, their worlds grow smaller, says Dr Lucy Foulkes, an academic psychologist

www.theguardian.com

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

3. @BrightonHoveCC : Trans-identified children can share bedrooms with children of opposite sex on a case-by-case basis. @k21fem : ‘A school is likely to be acting unlawfully.’ Cites effects of violating dignity/creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading etc environment. 5/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

The Toolkit suggests schools teach that “most, rather than all boys have a penis and testicles and most, rather than all girls have a vulva and vagina”. This seems to me to be the promotion of a partisan view, even with the caveat that genitals relate to sex. 10/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

3 months

The barrister @moira_robin has published commentary via Translucent on the Government’s RSE Draft Schools Guidance. Astonishingly, it’s not always based in material reality. Let’s start with this statement about stereotypes. 1/10

www.TransLucent.Org.UK

@TransLucent_Org

3 months

From @moira_robin regarding RSE Draft School Guidance. Please note @GillianKeegan "I cannot remember reading four short paragraphs and 282 words from the government that contained such misinformation, muddle, and sheer madness so tightly".

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

5 months

One reading of the #WPATHFiles is that being deeply invested in a conclusion makes contradictory information unlikely to change it, no matter the weight or consequence.

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

5 months

“I feel the best time for surgery in the U.S. is the summer before their last year of high school.” Despite the widespread and growing expression of concern within the WPATH Files over the negative side effects of gender medicine, WPATH members urge that irreversible surgeries

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

5. @BrightonHoveCC : misgendering, including refusal to use neo-pronouns, requires challenge and possible action. @k21fem : would represent indirect belief discrimination under the EqA. 7/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

The Cass Review, in its final form, will hopefully go further to change things positively for teenagers in England. In the meantime, why is the Scottish Govt not trying to learn from this? 11/12

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

A women’s sector leader on a sector partner stating it was exclusionary to discuss women’s issues within a support-group setting #SectorSilenced #Women #SexMatters

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

Again, I’m not a lawyer - but I’m a researcher, Brighton resident and former school governor, and spend a lot of my time analysing education policy. I know a bit about the city’s Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit. Understated TLDR: it needs some work. 5/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

4. @BrightonHoveCC : Social transition happens when children feel they are ready. @k21fem : There is no ‘recognition or understanding of the best interests and welfare of the child who may be psychologically impacted by social transition’. 6/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

This graphic shows the headline results. In no cases was the effect of gender medication on mental health higher than the placebo effect (in fact, it was smaller in 3 out of 4 measures, but we can’t rule out this difference being due to chance). [8/16]

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

10 months

It links on these pages to the Proud Trust, which tells children they usually know their gender from the age of 3 or 4; that children are never to young to “be yourself” and change pronouns; and talks about medical transition as part of “becoming who we are”. (6/8)

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

But competitive sport has its own provisions under the Equality Act (section 195). Competitive sport may be segregated according to sex, regardless of gender identity, where it’s fairer or safer to do so. This is not what the Toolkit says. 22/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

9 months

I’ll be at the University of Kent tomorrow discussing my research for @SexMattersOrg on gender identity in teenagers, along with implications for parents/parenting culture. Free and open to all ⬇️

Parenting studies

@CPCS_UniKent

9 months

Tomorrow afternoon Gender, Identity and Parenting Culture Ft. @matildagosling and @CCCUSociology 's Jennie Bristow 3pm, SR1 Cornwallis East, Darwin Road, @UniKent @SSPSSR @KentLawSchool @UniKentArts @KentPsychology @AmandaGosling3 @DervlaMurphy4

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

When services aren’t single sex, impacts on female prisoners and survivors of male violence include rekindled trauma, actual or perceived lack of safety, less ability to speak openly about experiences & poorer quality support. Some women self exclude to avoid being with men. 3/11

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

Putting children on a transition pathway isn’t a solution to their feelings of distress and may mask other issues. The lack of unambiguously positive mental health effects suggests a need for an urgent reappraisal of the gender-affirming care model. [Ends]

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

“Gender-affirming care” (social & medical transition) has serious issues. Social transition may make children’s gender dysphoria persist. Medical transition causes physical harm to healthy bodies, & research showing mental health benefit is so flawed as to be meaningless. [2/13]

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

In short, this is a response to Robin White’s tweet that isn’t really about RW at all. Instead, it’s about @BrightonHoveCC Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit, which formed a cornerstone of RW’s analysis. 27/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

Again, it’s about balance, this time between the needs of different protected characteristics. E.g. when males (regardless of gender ID) enter female-only spaces, girls feel less comfortable. Observant Muslim and Orthodox Jewish girls can’t undress in the presence of males. 16/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

The quoted EHRC guidance has been superseded by this, which shows it isn’t discriminatory to maintain single-sex spaces if objectively justified (and surely compliance with the Schools Regs is objective justification to provide single-sex spaces?). 20/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

11 days

This 🧵 will quote legal advice on the lawfulness of the previous iteration of the Council’s Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit by leading human-rights barrister Karen Monaghan KC ( @k21fem ). 2/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

This paper, released yesterday, suggests social contagion isn’t a factor in teenagers questioning their gender. On the evidence provided, I’m not sure it’s right to reject this out of hand. 1/6

Jack Turban MD

@jack_turban

2 years

🚨We have a new paper out today in @aap_peds 🚨 We examined 2 hypotheses: 1. That youth identify as #trans due to "social contagion" & adolescents assigned female are more susceptible 2. That youth identify as trans to flee LGB-related stigma Neither was supported by data. 🧵

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

The Toolkit is governed by s.406 & 407 Education Act 1996, which prevent the promotion of “partisan views” in lessons and require “a balanced presentation of opposing views” in political issues even outside the classroom. 8/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

My study builds on this theoretical base to analyse the effect of gender medication on mental health when compared with the placebo effect in a comparable group of teenagers. [3/16]

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

None of the links the Toolkit offers to sporting body policies is still valid. There’s since been recognition made by England Rugby and UK Athletics that it’s not safe/fair to include males in female competitive sport. 23/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

We know that discussions about sex and gender are political, as RW implies ⬇️ (sex is arguably factual, but I’ll leave that one for now). Does the Toolkit comply with @BrightonHoveCC legal obligations not to promote partisan views and to secure balanced treatment? No. 9/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

Changing rooms? Same approach. Cite the law and then give reasons not to follow it. The EHRC quote given here is 10 years old and is wrongly presented as bearing the same weight as the Schools Regs. “We would therefore encourage schools to enable this wherever possible.” 19/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

Part 1 looks at reasons why teenagers might question their gender, and whether there’s evidence they do so due to an innate, immutable sense of gender identity (TLDR: there isn’t). 2/12

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

Such is the influence of Allsorts that they’re cited as the Toolkit’s co-author alongside @BrightonHoveCC on the Gendered Intelligence resource list. 12/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

Can children understand what it means to consent to treatment that means they will probably be unable to have children and to have full sexual function as adults? Are parents able to consent to such treatment on their behalf? My analysis suggests not. [9/13]

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

'It’s the behaviour of people who are... certainly not prioritising the emotional well-being of kids. The overall message is not “you are loved”. It is “you are hated. But don’t worry! I love you!”' Some devastating analysis by @glosswitch .

The Critic

@TheCriticMag

7 months

How do we expect children to feel if grown adults keep telling them that they are hated? @glosswitch argues that fearmongers have no excuse

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

Most GQ teenagers are same-sex attracted (perhaps 80%, according to GIDS data). Google Trends data here shows an interesting correlation/pattern-switch in recent years. 4/12

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

The Toolkit does similar on sport. “Single-sex sport? Well, if you must, but we’d really rather you didn’t. Gender identity, please. Even for competitive sport.” 21/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

See, in particular, the need to “advance equality” and “foster good relations” between persons who share a protected characteristic and those who don’t, and that gender reassignment is only one of the characteristics, which include “sex”. 15/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

7 months

Rather than provide alternative guidance, RW cites @BrightonHoveCC 's Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit as “excellent”. The Toolkit will be the focus of the rest of the thread. 4/28

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

1 month

The Green Party is therefore actively advocating against women’s rights under the guise of fighting misogyny. People in Bristol Central and Brighton Pavilion might want to take note. 8/9

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

The existence of detransitioners lends weight to the argument that we shouldn’t be making such complex decisions, with permanent effects, on behalf of children who may later change their minds. [8/13]

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Matilda Gosling

@matildagosling

2 years

There are no studies that compare gender medication and placebo treatment directly. I therefore compared mental health (MH) outcomes from gender med studies with placebo arm from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) testing drugs for MH conditions in teenagers. [4/16]

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