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For people who are so obseesed with GIDS, you'd think they might actually understand what happens there, but, guess not!
Thread below on what this actually /likely/ means (TL;DR extremely likely to not be what TransgenderTrend are making it out to be)
Thread below on what this actually /likely/ means (TL;DR extremely likely to not be what TransgenderTrend are making it out to be)
GIDS appointments do typically ask about things like mental health issues, and, oftenn, do block progress in assessment appointments while waiting for CAHMS to do their own assessments.
For me, this took place about two months before my first actual GIDS appointment - GIDS scheduled me in before, using someone at GIDS to basically do a screening appointment.
We're going to put aside whether this is always useful for this thread. In my opinion, often, it's not - I know people who've been discharged from GIDS for having a diagnosis of anxiety which is actually the fear learnt by bullying received for being trans.
(This isn't the thread for this, but, shortly - the GIDS waiting list being so long means we're creating a vacuum for bullying, and for trans kids to develop MH issues during down to lack of support)
(So please keep that in mind when looking over rates of diagnoses of, for example, anxiety, in trans kids at GIDS sessions)
Ethicacy of the notes being sent is questionable mainly as the person I saw just sent over ALL of her notes to GIDS, including details which really could've been left out (one thing I remember was even the names of my friends being included in this!)
CAHMS also phoned my school at the time to tell them about bullying I was subject to thanks to being trans, which then led to me being outed to my school administration, causing all kinds of nightmares later down the road.
During assessment periods of (minimum 6, up to dozens of appointments) GIDS have a habit of just blocking progress while waiting on a course of therapy / diagnostics at CAHMS to complete, and for them to hear back.
IMO, things like this might be at least *a* reason to why we see absolutely wacky waiting times. During these course of therapies, you *still* have to attend appointments, which basically just focus on "How is CAHMS going?" for about an hour
This includes CAHMS waiting lists too - my waiting list for CAHMS was about 5 months, but, GIDS will just wait out however long that takes.
So, the average CAHMS waiting time will often have a direct impact on how slow progress is being made at GIDS.
So, the average CAHMS waiting time will often have a direct impact on how slow progress is being made at GIDS.
It's easy to see why GIDS now has a problem here - mass referrals to CAHMS, combined with ballooning CAHMS waiting times will then cut into their own waiting time period, with the addition of not having enough staff to begin with.
If they don't want to improve their actual treatment progress and adopt WPATH best standards, it then checks out to identify "where are we waiting on other organisations" - here, that's CAHMS.
Having people in-house (as it were) to take on diagnostic roles and provide treatment for MH conditions means you don't need to wait on another part of the NHS to provide these assessment -
For my, my 6 session CAHMS thing GIDS requested came back with the "no GIDS, any mental distress is just down to the wrong puberty, and that's on you" (with better wording of course)
Given the CQC report with highlighted waiting times and inconsistent assessment processes, hiring for these roles as part of your strategy checks out. It removes those sessions where you're simply asked "How's the therapy?" for 45 minutes, and get to the trans bit at the end.
(People who don't like trans kids just want to claim it to be that way, as it gives easy scores and lets them pretend like their points are so bulletproof, that even big scary GIDS are taking them on board)
My second worry is that the current GIDS culture is one of reliance on others to do your job for you - whether that be CAHMS doing first assessments or the endocrinology department at UCLH explaining that you shouldn't be discharged at 18 if you're on blockers.
I feel hires like this, while good in practice to speed up the process, don't address the issue that the mental state of patients does get worse during appointments, as we're obviously letting them go through the wrong puberty, and denying access to blockers during that time.
But, while I do worry though about if having these in house means being subjected to the culture of trying to explain away transness on other factors that exists there, I really doubt this is a sign of trying to just straight up do conversion therapy at GIDS.
Aside: I have thoughts about needing all this to debunk one tweet - almost as if Transgender Trend are co-opting some strategies from their cousins in America with QAnon
Short, simple tweets designed to get people to your forums and reading conspiracy posts does apply to both.
Short, simple tweets designed to get people to your forums and reading conspiracy posts does apply to both.
