(Hello Westminster people - I’m aware that you’re reading my blog! Welcome.)
I’m not going to shut up about this issue because it matters. Children’s safeguarding matters. It matters more than politicians, than the church, than ideologies. When careers start to hinge on ignoring children’s safeguarding, our communities are in trouble.
I wrote two days ago about Keir Starmer’s Mumsnet webchat, in which he, in my view, very poorly answered a question about what was happening to the inquiry that was ordered in September 2018 by the then Minister Penny Mordaunt. It’s not a particularly long blog piece, and you can read it here.
The question was posed to Keir Starmer by Mumsnet member rogdmum; and she posed the same question, well in advance, to Emily Thornberry for her webchat today.
rogdmum:
“Hi Emily
I asked this question of Keir Starmer and I’d like to see how you would respond as it is the issue of greatest importance to me and other parents in the same position right now.
My 14 year old daughter recently announced that she identifies as a boy. She falls under the loose description of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) where adolescents who did not show any signs of gender identity issues as children, develop gender confusion as adolescents. Many of these adolescents are autistic or have suffered from trauma or have serious mental health issues.
Referrals to the Tavistock clinic have skyrocketed from around 100 a decade ago to 2600 last year. The Government agreed to carry out an investigation into the sudden rise, but it appears to have vanished into some hole somewhere.
What will you do to raise awareness of this issue and ensure a proper investigation is carried out?”
The webchat began at 12.30pm and at first it seemed as though Thornberry was going to be able to put in a 60 minute powerhouse performance. There were murmurs of approval and optimism. I learned a lot about her background and her frustrations with the current Labour Party culture. Women were rooting for her. It was all going so well.
And then … well, something went wrong. A couple of simple questions about freedom of expression, no-platforming at universities, and women’s rights, left Thornberry - a barrister, no less - floundering in the wake of her own cognitive dissonance on sex and gender. She started closing down. In tandem, Mumsnet head office (‘MNHQ’) began to delete follow-up questions to Thornberry almost as soon as they appeared, and it was game over.
And in the silly mess it had all become, the one question that had been posed by rogdmum on children’s safeguarding went unanswered. Not just answered poorly - but completely ignored.
So what is actually happening with the ‘Mordaunt Inquiry’ that was widely reported in the media in September 2018 into the 4000% increase in children - mostly girls, many with ASD - presenting as ‘transitioning’, and subsequently facing irreversible surgical and chemical interventions up to and including sterilisation? Where are the findings? Does the ‘Mordaunt Inquiry’ even exist?
I think we should be told - and I also think that any politician aspiring to be our future Prime Minister should be right on top of this unfolding scandal. And crucially, not a single one of these politicians should ever be able to pretend in the future that they didn’t know about the public whistle-blowing coming out of and about the Tavistock and the grave concerns raised about ‘unsafe’ clinical practices in the UK and Ireland.
Children’s safeguarding is everybody’s business. When adults argue against that, or look the other way, we should ask why. Cui bono? Who benefits? Because doctor after doctor after doctor, clinician after clinician after clinician, have been telling us, over and over, that the beneficiaries of child-transitioning ideology are ultimately not the children.
It could be argued that we should be changing society to be more tolerant and progressive around gender expressions and gender roles, and not expecting pubescent children, mostly girls, to irreversibly change their bodies to ‘fit in’ with socially-determined artifices and absurdities when they are at their most vulnerable.
Thornberry’s cognitive dissonance appeared to be especially stark when she jumped from one answer to the next with contradictory conclusions about the state and nature of the world we inhabit. To a mother worried about her daughter, Thornberry confidently asserted, ‘I don't think you need to be worried about your daughter, I think your daughter will grow up in a world that is more tolerant and understanding,’ and straight after talked about us living ‘at a time when our society seems to be becoming more divided’. Thornberry’s answers to questions today were so dependent on what she perceived to be the context, and the importance of the context in respect of her career ambitions, as to be become politically meaningless.
I think Mumsnet political webchats are dying on their arse. I’ve noticed that far fewer Mumsnet posters are now prepared to take part in them, citing their reasons on other discussion threads as feeling ignored, patronised, used, and curated - and having their questions and follow-ups ‘erased’ and ‘disappeared’. And then the wannabe political leaders put the ‘good bits’ on Twitter and ignore the rest.
And none of them will answer this: what happened to the ‘Mordaunt Inquiry’? Why are FoI requests being refused by the Conservative Government when this was a Conservative-instigated inquiry - causing concerns even within Conservative ranks?
Meanwhile, in this series of webchats by the Labour Leadership candidates, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy are up next, if they want to do it. Watch this space.
Acknowledgements
Mumsnet and its members and writers of content, especially re this webchat - https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_live_events/3813967-Webchat-with-Labour-leadership-contender-Emily-Thornberry-MP-on-Wednesday-February-5-at-12-30pm?pg=1
Caroline ffisk article 5th Feb 2020 - https://conservativewoman.co.uk/just-end-the-stalling-and-give-us-answers-over-gender-switch-children-mr-hancock/?