We know that more than a dozen trans teens have taken their lives since the puberty blocker ban was introduced in the UK, despite the government’s best efforts to cover that up: its small inquiry into trans suicides discounted documented trans suicides. So it’s particularly disgusting to see Hilary Cass, the author of the politically motivated and utterly discredited Cass scandal that’s being used to dismantle trans healthcare, to proclaim that “What is worrying is when people say that if children don’t get these drugs, they will die, because clearly that’s not true.” It is “irresponsible for people to shroud-wave in that way.”

Not for the first time, Cass is parroting the stories of hateful, genital-obsessed weirdos. Morgan Page writes:

The spectre of the trans death, particularly through suicide, hangs over all of the attacks on trans life. No one wants to admit that this is the desired end goal — that trans people simply cease to exist, whether that be through detransition or death seems to matter little. As Janice Raymond famously put it, the goal is for trans people to be “morally mandated out of existence.” Indeed, “shroud waving” threatens to stir up some empathy for the plight of this embattled minority, and we can’t be having that. Anti-trans actors have gone so far as to accuse trans people of acting like abusive husbands who threaten to kill themselves if their wives leave.

It’s a useful strategy, this attack on the idea of trans death, because most cis people will never know a living trans person, let alone a dead one.

It’s worth pointing out yet again that despite its very best efforts the Cass study found no evidence that puberty blockers harmed kids. It did, however, see plenty of evidence that limiting access to healthcare and support kills some of them.