Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No68
Newsletter Theme: LGBT Youth Scotland raises more questions than answers
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One of the ways that transgender ideology is defended is to represent this teaching as an antidote to transphobic and homophobic bullying and ‘hate. Here a concerned grandparent raises some questions about the trans lobby and Rachael Hobbs unpicks some of the statistics used to promote the claims of bullying. Of note within this work is the way in which attitudes towards homosexuality and ‘transgenderism’ are combined, as if they are part of the same ‘problem’. The reality is quite different, and indeed, in society, in serious surveys, like the British Attitude Survey, what we find is that tolerance towards homosexuality is significant and growing, while concerns about the transgender trend is also growing. This can be represented as a growth in ‘transphobia’ but could, more accurately perhaps, be a reflection of questions and disagreements amongst the public about the consequences of transgender ideology, rather than any growth in ‘hatred’ or any growing desire or support for bullying.
Lastly, we print a letter sent by Dr Jenny Cunningham to concerned MSPs, to help them in their attempt to raise issues that have been highlighted by Dr Hilary Cass. Please feel free to use this letter as a framework for contacting your own representative to encourage them to consider the changes that are needed in schools and children’s services.
There are surveys and there are surveys: a case of LGBT ‘truth’
Iain Morse is a concerned grandparent and retiree; additions are by SUE review analyst Rachael Hobbs.
Never mind the Cass Review, LGBT Youth Scotland, a charity funded in good part by the Scottish government, is now advising Scottish primary and secondary schools to teach non-standard pronouns and the existence of multiple genders, and to accept gender self ID at any age. Under pressure from the Scottish government, schools pay (‘from as little as £850’) for this ideological advocacy in return for membership of LGBT Youth Scotland’s Charter for Education programme. The charity has also called for the Sandyford Clinic, which specialises in providing ‘gender services’ to transgender-identifying children in Scotland, to reverse its decision to suspend prescriptions of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to the newly referred.
LGBT Youth Scotland’s central role in both shaping and implementing Scottish government policies on these matters rests on their report Life in Scotland for LGBT Young People 2022, which has been cited as authoritative by Scottish government ministers. At first glance, it looks like a piece of work: 100 pages in length, featuring impressive graphic design, full of statistics and tables, and boasting of being based on responses from 1279 participants.
But here’s the problem. Respondents, aged from 13 to 25, were selected via social media and, additionally, via sessions with young people run by LGBT Youth Scotland and other affiliated groups, with questions answered through an online survey. Any deemed ‘phobic’ were eliminated. Hearsay says that some respondents received informal ‘help’ filling out their surveys.
In the appendix, the report correctly notes that because the survey responses ‘constitute a convenience sample’ (p. 97), i.e. a sample that is not statistically accurate or applicable to even LGBT young people across Scotland, ‘it is not possible to generalise from these results’ (p. 97). And yet that is exactly how the research has been used and abused by activists, organisations and the government!
It is instructive to consider the CV of LGBT Youth Scotland’s chief executive, Mhairi Crawford. After completing a Ph.D. in Physics in 2004, she worked in business sales and consultancy before her appointment as development director of WISE, a charity promoting women’s participation in STEM sectors of industry. As development director, she solicited corporates which ‘sponsor’ WISE for accreditation, a widely used business model for charities.
Having moved to LGBT Youth Scotland as its chief executive in September 2019, she has presided over the introduction of an ambitious plan focused on attracting potential sponsors to expand the charity’s fee and grant income. The 2022 report and spin-offs achieved just that, identifying schools, universities, the NHS and the police as all needing improvement. The charity also has access to leading SNP politicians and has supported legislation related to hate crime and gender recognition.
We see the fruit of this today, with LGBT Youth Scotland expanding its paid services to schools. Meanwhile, Crawford rejects Cass and advocates puberty blockers. Needless to say, Crawford does not appear to have a single academic or professional qualification relevant to the medical or psychiatric treatment of young people confused about their ‘gender’ or sexuality.
LGBT Youth Scotland’s published accounts for the year ending 31 March 2023 reveal a healthy income stream including grants from Scottish government of £447,677, from Scottish local authorities of £345,893, from trusts and foundations of £450,199, and from NHS Scotland of £154,023 – a total of £1,397,792. Further income and endowments increase this figure to £1,641,246 for the year. Nearly all of this comes from the public sector, where budgets are being squeezed and front-line services are crumbling. Wages and salaries for the charity cost a total of £1,321,737, of which £254,648 went on key management. One employee, whose identity is not disclosed, received more than £60,000 for the year. The charity spends more on its staff salaries than on any other costs.
LGBT Youth Scotland is not the only charity funded by the Scottish government in this area. The Equality Network, a miniature simulacrum of Stonewall, received most of its funding for the year ending 31 March 2023 – £480,584 – from the Scottish government, but it is growing an income stream from training and research fees, in this way amassing £34,305 for the same year. The Equality Network includes Scottish Trans, both organisations supporting Scottish government legislation on matters such as gender self ID, hate crime, and so-called conversion practices. The spokesperson for Scottish Trans, Vic Valentine, has no qualifications relevant to judging ‘transgender’ clinical matters. Scottish Trans have also rejected Cass’s findings, with Valentine asserting that the decision to pause the use of puberty blockers will ‘harm trans children and young people’. Wages and salaries for the organisation’s staff in the year ending 31 March 2023 totalled £422,299. Oh, and the newly appointed chief executive, Dr Rebecca Crowther, has a degree in theatre studies and a Ph.D. in ‘wellbeing, and greenspace’.
Then there is Time for Inclusive Education (TIE), which recently advised Police Scotland on hate crime, training officers with an example of a ‘transphobe’ taken to be based on JK Rowling. The organisation was cofounded in 2015, as the TIE Campaign, by a Glasgow student, Jordan Daly, and a petrol tanker driver, Liam Stevenson. In the year ending 31 March 2023, TIE’s income, mainly from grants, totalled £357,592, with total staff costs of £225,081 for the same period. TIE, like LGBT Youth Scotland, is expanding its income stream from advising public sector bodies in Scotland. There are other relevant charities receiving grants; for example, £100,000 went to Stonewall.
It is impossible to judge whether any of these charities achieve anything at all, because they measure their own performance often by surveys of LGBT youth ‘happiness’, ‘wellbeing’ and lived experience testimonials. More seriously, they have been used by the SNP–Green government in Edinburgh to propose, endorse and implement unsafe policies in relation to children and young people, whatever their nascent sexuality and however they ‘identify’. Telling little children they might be in the ‘wrong body’ is not a kind thing to do.
Thoughts about the survey
The survey on which the Life in Scotland for LGBT Young People report was based follows a pattern of posing closed, leading questions that are likely to produce the results the organisation is seeking, compared with professional surveys which, as standard, avoid loaded questioning so as not to skew the results.
A key statement declares that ‘The vast majority of participants believe that homophobia, biphobia and transphobia are a problem, both across Scotland as a whole, and in their local area’ (p. 33). On closer analysis, however, we find a potential skewing of the results through the three affirming options of ‘A big problem’, ‘A bit of a problem’ and ‘Not a problem at all’. Here the middle option, which is ideally neutral in a survey, is a negative response. Ignoring that, we also find that the ‘a bit of a problem’ answers have been combined with what is arguably a very different answer of, ‘a big problem’, which leads us to the banner headline of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia being a problem across Scotland.
The report continues by stating that transphobia specifically is believed to be a ‘big problem’ by 59% of respondents (p. 34). This item of data is left suspended due to no follow-up, the writers possibly not wanting to delve too much into what might be subjective stances on contested matters – as transgender issues tend to be.
It proceeds instead to interpret findings for us, positing that ‘rising levels’ of perceived homophobia/biphobia/transphobia might be due to ‘a rise in this behaviour following increased anti-LGBTI content seen online and in the media during the discussions surrounding issues such as GRA reform and the banning of conversion practices. Additional research would be necessary to shed further light in this area’ (p. 35). Additional work, however, is unlikely and unnecessary now that the highlighted figure has been presented as evidence of the problem of transphobia.
Further on, we find that participants were asked whether they had experienced a hate crime in the past year (38% of the 1183 who answered this question; p. 39), and then whether these crimes had been reported to the police (11% of cases; p. 40). We are left not knowing what these hate crimes were. As LGBT Youth Scotland and other transgender rights activist groups believe that what JK Rowling has said about women’s rights is a hate crime and may well educate children to this effect, these figures are difficult to assess. Nor do we know if prosecutions resulted from these ‘hate crimes’. Were these crimes the crimes of ‘misgendering’ or expressing support for single-sex spaces? We do not know. Conveniently, the report side-steps this landmine by simply not following up with any further commentary.
Instead, the report goes on to describe how all respondents were asked how they would feel about reporting a hate crime and ‘What makes you, or would make you, feel safe and supported by the police and/or the legal system?’ (p. 42). The presumption is that more needs to be done and the question leads respondents in this direction.
Answers regarding the police relate to issues like anonymity of complainants and the need for the police to show ‘visible allyship’ (p. 42), but no consideration is given to the potential bias this could create, the loss of impartiality, or the need for justice and truth.
When asking about how supported the participants felt at school or college, the survey again asked about what improvements could be made, necessarily creating a list of apparent needs generated, in part, by the very nature of the question framed. Demands such as a need for ‘inclusive facilities’ (pp. 59 and 60) are left in the air – and so the buzzword of inclusion is left without a clear sense of what this would mean, or what would be considered exclusion (is LGBT Youth Scotland defining exclusion as the provision of single-sex spaces to avoid infringement of women’s and girl’s spaces?).
Note also that small print in the report concedes that words have been added where missing, and that some editing has taken place. Read the whole report at one sitting and you will notice that the vocabulary and tone of this lived experience testimony is remarkably consistent. At times, it reads like a script that is repeated.
Overall, the report engages with subjective interpretations of many perceived problems, but even if taken as a true representation, it raises as many questions as answers. Why, for example, at a time when the police have been keen to adopt an LGBT allyship approach, do we find that only 17% of respondents would feel confident about reporting a hate crime to the police (p. 40)? Or why, when schools have adopted a policy of transgender awareness and promotion via RSHP education, do only 10% discuss their experience in schools as good (p. 59)? Why have feelings of safety on public transport fallen from 79% in 2012 to 48% in 2022 (p. 43) – the very period during which transgender ideology and transgender rights activism have flourished?
Perhaps the answer lies in the very ‘education’ that children and young people are receiving, the ‘awareness raising’ about ‘transphobic’ bullying, the growth of LGBT Youth Scotland services in schools, and the narrative that is being pushed on often vulnerable young children by activists whose message is one of victimhood and exclusion. Here, what we could be witnessing is a destructive and debilitating growth of a victim narrative that is fed to children and then reinterpreted as a rise in ‘hate’ among the public.
The survey results may tell us something, but the, at times, biased nature of the questions and the interpretation of the data make it difficult to differentiate real social changes from propaganda. The authors of the report note that ‘hate’ may be increasing due to controversies over issues like self-identification and a perceived rise in transphobia, and there is indeed some evidence of real changes in public attitudes. But these attitudes arguably reflect the adoption of an increasingly questioning approach to the assertions and demands of the transgender rights lobby, growing concerns about the loss of women’s spaces, and the growth of discussion and debate about the potentially negative impact of the promotion in schools of transgender identities and the social transitioning of pupils. In this context, the attempt made by LGBT Youth Scotland to paint an often one-sided picture of victimhood and abuse should be understood as a tactic to shut down debate by using ‘research’ to bully those who genuinely want to find the truth around this issue.
Additionally, a major problem with the results of the LGBT Youth Scotland survey is that from the transgender ideological perspective, questions about transgender identity are often mischaracterised as a form of hatred, and with limited details about what this ‘hatred’ includes, we cannot tell whether there is serious bigotry and hate occurring or, as is arguably more likely, what is being reflected is simply more questioning.
Questions to ask about what schools and children’s services are doing following the Cass Review
Dear …………………
I know that the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee will be meeting with Dr Hilary Cass on Tuesday 07 May 2024. As a retired community paediatrician, who along with many healthcare professionals has expressed significant concerns both about the Sandyford gender identity service for children and young people, and the Scottish government’s guidance on Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools, I am writing to urge MSPs on the Committee to be frank with Dr Cass about the present gender identity services and the guidance to schools.
The guidance – which is essentially a reworked LGBT Youth Scotland document: Supporting Transgender Young people (2017) – recommends that teachers unquestioningly affirm pupils’ expressed desire to be treated as the opposite sex and socially transition them in school. The right of children over 12 years to keep this information from their parents is asserted and adhered to by some schools. (See my pamphlet for the Scottish Union for Education on the government’s guidance attached.) The Cass Final Report strongly cautioned against the social transitioning of children and young people.
While the decision by Sandyford Clinic and NHS Scotland to cease providing puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to young people under the age of 18 is hugely welcome, it is the case that those already on these hormones will continue their treatments. What is more, when adolescents turn 18, they are transferred to the adult gender identity services, which follow an ‘affirmative gender care’ model, in which young people’s gender identity is affirmed and referrals for cross sex hormones and irreversible surgical reassignment procedures are expedited. At present, the adult services continue to follow protocols aligned with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care (7th edition). Under WPATH guidelines, young people’s comorbid problems (such as mental health conditions, autism, history of abuse or being in care) are not considered an obstacle to gender reassignment. In her final report, Dr Cass described WPATH guidelines as very poorly evidenced.
In 2021, the chief medical officer for Scotland wrote to the National Services Division (NSD) proposing to update the 2012 Gender Reassignment Protocol for Scotland (CEL 26 2012), which “incorporates recommendations from the 7th edition of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care, September 2011”. (1) A draft update has been submitted to the Scottish government , but both the government and NSD agree that further work is required. (2)
Meanwhile, Scottish children and young people remain at risk from potentially harmful government guidance and unevidenced experimental gender transitioning.
References
Gender Reassignment Protocol (January 2012) CEL-26 (2012), available at https://www.publications.scot.nhs.uk/files/cel2012-26.pdf
National Gender Identity Healthcare Reference Group: winter 2023 to 2024 update (22 November 2023), available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-gender-identity-healthcare-reference-group-update-winter-2023-to-2024/pages/next-steps/
Thank you for your attention.
Yours sincerely
Dr Jenny Cunningham
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