Heathrow's Last Gate

Hello

I'm in Washington DC for the Genspect Life Beyond Transition Conference. It starts on Thursday. I have just discovered Glinner is in town so once I've finished this I'm going to meet him for a pint recce.

Hormone news

I was unable to attend the Women's Rights Network/Sex Matters Do No Harm event in Parliament on Tuesday, but I had guest GenderBlog correspondent on the ground who very kindly filed this report.

At the weekend I was pleased to get a scoop in Mail on Sunday which pre-empted the announcement that cross-sex hormones will no longer be prescribed to new u18 patients on the NHS in England. You can read the BBC and the BMJ follow up here. Hannah Barnes' superb twitter thread on Monday raised a number of important questions in the light of the decision. And if you're wondering what will be happening in the light of the above decision outside England, you are right to do so. David Thompson has a piece on the situation in Northern Ireland.

If you're not on twitter, do let me know. A large proportion of people who get my Post Office newsletter are not on social media at all and so I try not to post twitter threads. I'm guessing that's slightly different for the people who are subscribed here, but it would be useful to know for sure.

If you keep hearing about that X/twitter and haven't yet taken the plunge, again - it's very easy to sign up. People call it the flat roof murder pub of social media. It is, but it's our flat roof murder pub.

More Hormone News

On Friday I attended a High Court hearing which resulted in a pausing of the judicial review into the paused puberty blocker trial. James Esses, Keira Bell (who I'm hoping to bump into with Graham) and the Bayswater Group wanted the JR to continue - notwithstanding the pause - in order to stop the puberty blocker trial before it can resume. The government's view held sway but it feels like an elegant compromise. You can read more here. Keira couldn't make the hearing, but it was good to meet James Esses and some of the legal team bringing the review.

There was a moment at the beginning of the hearing where I inadvertently caused some consternation amongst certain people of this parish. I might as well explain everything here. Apologies if I come across like an a**e, now or then. I'm not trying to be, I promise. So:

It was mentioned in court that the claimants' legal team had applied for an anonymity order for a Bayswater Group witness and that this was unopposed by the government and the other interested parties. At this point the judge looked to the press bench to see if there was any objection.

Having not been told about the application, nor the full reasons behind it, I rose to say (words to the effect that) it was my impression an anonymity application had to granted for specific reason, not the generic ones we had just heard. Any decision to make the order also had to be proportionate when balanced against the interests of open justice and public interest. The grounds on which the application was made should also be open to the media so they have better information on whether or not they should be challenging it.

I did not do this with the intention of exposing the identity of the Bayswater group witness or even knowing who it is. At this point, I don't care. It was done to observe due process. Anonymity applications should only be made with good reason and all interested parties (including the media) should be allowed to ask what those reasons are.

That is not to criticise the legal teams or the court - they couldn't know which members of the media (if any) were going to be present at the hearing. The matter was quite rightly aired as proceedings began, giving the judge, the media and/or other interested parties the chance to comment.

Both I and my colleague from PA Media - Nina Massey - were agreed we should ask to look at the grounds for the application to see whether or not we would seek to challenge it.

If a trans rights, NHS or government witness applied for an anonymity order before this or any other court hearing, I would either request further information or expect my media colleagues to do so. Then we would decide whether or not to challenge the application, something I suspect many people reading this newsletter would support.

This was thought to be entirely proper by the judge and the claimants' legal team. The claimants' legal team mentioned some further details about the application in court whilst kindly agreeing to supply us with a redacted copy of the application.

On the basis of the further details supplied verbally Nina and I quickly agreed it was very unlikely we would issue any challenge to the application. On receipt of the anonymised paperwork, we didn't.

I know the issue of medicalising children is extremely upsetting for a lot of people. Journalists, lawyers and the courts are sensitive to those difficulties but in a High Court hearing all parties, including the media, should be able to have some idea of what is going on and why.

Park your high horse, Wallis

Oh I know. Tomorrow is another day, and I am looking forward to meeting a number of detransitioners from various jurisdictions to hear what they have to say about their experiences. I will be reporting its outcomes to you on the GenderBlog website and via this newsletter.

Until then, do have a read of Jo Bartosch's piece on International Women's Day. It's a belter.

Stay well.

Nick

This is the GenderBlog newsletter. If you have been forwarded it and would like to join the mailing list so each newsletter (and GenderBlog blog post) drops, freshly-baked, directly into your email inbox, please consider making a small one-off donation via the donate page on my GenderBlog website. Thanks.