Phobic media are alight: The Cass Review motivated a puberty blockers clinical trial which was paused in February. Now the person responsible is being recused from it due to TERF tweets. (self.queer_defense_front)

submitted 2 months ago by marcela to c/queer_defense_front

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I came across this Guardian post in feddit dot uk original "shit just works" post through local blahaj post and I looked it up. It is mostly circulated by transphobic websites.

It is about one Jacob George being recused from a clinical trial for puberty blockers. The KCL trial was paused in February, with George's involvement, as potentially harmful for the participants. This news item was also mostly circulated by TERF media.

The trial was originally conceived as a follow-up on the infamous Cass Review, and a response to the backlash. It seems the Guardian article makes no reference to the numerous criticisms of the review, instead it quotes her untrue statement that there is insufficient evidence base for blockers, and recommends a recent misleading headline by Cass herself.

Dr Hilary Cass, who led that review, has previously said her report “uncovered a very weak evidence base” for the benefits of puberty blockers for children and young people with gender dysphoria, but “given that there are clinicians, children and families who believe passionately in the beneficial effects, a trial was the only way forward to make sense of this”.

The Recommended article was "Social Media misleads yound on gender transitioning, says England review leader." https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/15/social-media-misleading-young-people-gender-transitioning-hilary-cass

Dr Max Davie, a consultant paediatrician who previously worked at the NHS Children and Young People’s Gender Service, said there was no compelling scientific reason to pause the trial.

He added: “To be clear, there is no compelling scientific reason to halt the Pathways trial. While Prof George’s personal convictions are not the only possible explanation for the MHRA’s abrupt volte-face, it is the only one for which we have evidence.”

The recusal is on impartiality grounds because George had make TERFy posts in the past. I am not sure what to make of this, other than that the TERF propaganda networks are dressing this as censorship of a fellow TERF "Professor" so I will just leave it here.

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[-] anothercatgirl 3 points 2 months ago

Your strange vocabulary is hard to understand. Consider adding a glossary.

[-] marcela 4 points 2 months ago

I am sorry to hear that.

The Cass Review was a study the British government asked for. British institutions have been influenced by trans-exclusionary politics. TERF, rad-fem, or gender-critical views are related to a fringe 1970s flavor of feminism, but in the 2010s has taken the meaning of any transphobic woman and also any transphobic person or movement.

Rowling, the author of Harry Potter has bank-rolled similar individuals and groups. Most importantly, the Cass Review and the Supreme Court ruling are considered moves made by Rowling and other transphobes to roll back trans rights in the UK. The Supreme Court ruling was followed up by an EHRC guidance, an organization that was criticized for transphobic views before.

After the guidance there is a widespread witch hunt of trans people in public bathrooms in the UK, which is similar to many Southern US "bathroom bills". Following the Cass Review, there were many critics of its methods and conclusions, but the UK blindly chose to stop treating young trans people. A clinical trial was designed, a scientific test to see if a treatment is effective, for puberty blockers.

These are drugs that stop some sex-specific hormones from causing changes to the body to make it sexually mature (like growing hair in places, developing muscle mass, growing breasts), because these changes might cause discomfort to young trans people.

A scientist in the team doing the trial stopped it, and several transphobic media wrote about it. They claimed the study stopped because it was considered harmful for participants. This is a talk-point of TERFs, who want these treatments to be prohibited altogether.

It turns out that the scientist who caused the trial to stop was a TERF himself, and another scientist said there was no real reason for it to stop. The scientist who stopped the study was taken out of the team, because his beliefs could make the result less fair.

The media that wrote about stopping the trial are now writing a lot about taking him out of the team, and it seems they try to make it appear as censorship of TERF views.

I hope this helps.

[-] anothercatgirl 2 points 2 months ago

yeah it helps

this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026

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