The cass review, as its called, came out last week, and it recommends a new approach for clinicians. This is a Polarising Subject for some people. So, what mightjournalism do differently in how it covers it . Hannah barnes is a former bbc producer who investigated some of the uks gender Identity Services for the corporations newsnight programme. She went on to write a book about it. I asked her when she first started her investigation. First came across it at all in 2017. I was off on my first Maternity Leave and there was a piece in the times Byjanice Turner Which was talking about this really rapid increase in the referrals of Teenage Girls to gids the gender Identity Development service and she had spoken to two clinicians who worked at the service. It wasnt really a Big Sort Of Whistle blowy piece but they had talked to her and said what theyd seen and itjust i thought it was very interesting, but i was off and, you know, spending time with my baby. And there was also a documentary
Quality of the evidence and, actually, what they found is very similar to whats come out in the cass report, which is threadbare evidence. I suppose the issue is exactly what cass was talking about weak evidence. You know, this was new medical territory. You know, how do you approach stories when youre reporting on this kind of medicine . Well, the same way that you would any story, you know youd speak to the people who are experts, you listen to them and its really. I think its a really unique feature of this story compared to anything ive done before. Im a generalist. Im not a healthjournalist. But, generally speaking, if you ask questions or you critique an Evidence Base and, really, we have known for a very long time that the Evidence Base is practically non existent when you do that, you wouldnt usually be accused of hating or wanting to kill the Patient Population who are being treated by that. But youre saying thats what happened to you . Well, yes, it does happen. You know. I g
which is threadbare evidence. i suppose the issue is exactly what cass was talking about weak evidence. you know, this was new medical territory. you know, how do you approach stories when you re reporting on this kind of medicine? well, the same way that you would any story, you know you d speak to the people who are experts, you listen to them and it s really. i think it s a really unique feature of this story compared to anything i ve done before. i m a generalist. i m not a healthjournalist. but, generally speaking, if you ask questions or you critique an evidence base and, really, we have known for a very long time that the evidence base is practically non existent when you do that, you wouldn t usually be accused of hating or wanting to kill the patient population who are being treated by that. but you re saying that s what happened to you? well, yes, it does happen. you know. i guess the question is. to ask questions, you re then accused of being transphobic and you kn
which is threadbare evidence. i suppose the issue is exactly what cass was talking about weak evidence. you know, this was new medical territory. you know, how do you approach stories when you re reporting on this kind of medicine? well, the same way that you would any story, you know you d speak to the people who are experts, you listen to them and it s really. i think it s a really unique feature of this story compared to anything i ve done before. i m a generalist. i m not a healthjournalist. but, generally speaking, if you ask questions or you critique an evidence base and, really, we have known for a very long time that the evidence base is practically non existent when you do that, you wouldn t usually be accused of hating or wanting to kill the patient population who are being treated by that. but you re saying that s what happened to you? well, yes, it does happen. you know. i guess the question is. to ask questions, you re then accused of being transphobic and you kn