There’s a good piece about the puberty blocker ban in The Guardian by Aidan Kelly, a doctor, in which he explains how we’ve ended up in the farcical situation where fashion writers, bigoted journalists and arrogant celebrities are considered experts in trans healthcare but clinicians and prestigious medical organisations are not.

In this area of healthcare, like no other I know of, the professionals with the requisite expertise are positioned by their critics as having been “captured by ideology” and therefore lacking in credibility. Meanwhile, those without the expertise are positioned as “independent”, which critics argue makes them better able to evaluate the evidence – despite having never worked in the field and having no understanding of its complexities.

This simply wouldn’t happen in any other kind of healthcare, but in the UK the entire discussion has been given over to people who get their information from Twitter. Which perhaps explains why there’s been virtually no reporting on the international condemnation of the Cass Review from health professionals, or of the extensive analyses that demonstrate that the government is prioritising ideology over evidence in its healthcare policies.

There’s a good overview here, from the US organisation FAIR:

Though there is much more evidence now to support gender-affirming care than in 2008, there is also a much stronger anti-trans movement seeking to discredit and ban such care.

British media coverage has given that movement a big boost in recent years, turning the spotlight away from the realities that trans kids and their families are facing, and pumping out stories nitpicking at the strength of the expanding evidence base for gender-affirming care. Its coverage of the Cass Review followed suit.