‘Trans people will always exist – and the Cass report doesn’t change that’

The much-anticipated Cass report has finally been published, bringing with it a host of anti-trans naysayers predicting what they call ‘gender ideology’ is going the way of the dodo.

On top of the interim review published by Dr Hilary Cass in 2022, the report, which was commissioned in 2020, makes several recommendations for how trans youth clinics should be structured and run.

The report is a mixed bag of comprehensive reforms which make sense – if implemented correctly – while other more controversial recommendations range from puzzling to possibly malicious.

The Cass report includes a cavalcade of questionable claims, including that there is evidence of a “prenatal” hormonal influence surrounding which toys boys and girls pick to play with, as well as that “for many centuries transgender people have been predominantly trans females”.

The more reasonable recommendations, including the separation of pathways for pre-pubescent children and teenagers, and the implementation of regional hubs over the single clinic England had, have already been undermined by the farce that surrounded the opening of the first new centres this month.

Whether or not you believe Cass will be a “watershed moment”, as shadow health secretary Wes Streeting hoped in his pathetic statement on the report, there’s no doubt that many “gender-critical” groups see it as an affirmation of their anti-trans beliefs.

Turn to any post commenting on it, positive or negative, and you’ll see an array of TERFs lauding the report and declaring those hesitant over its tone and findings are “butt-hurt” trans rights activists.

What’s most concerning is that a major finding in the report, which claimed that effectively all research into trans healthcare is of “poor quality”, has been used to ignore one simple biological and sociological fact: namely, that trans people exist.

Amnesty International UK argue that the report is already being “weaponised” by anti-LGBTQ+ media organisations and groups, and so it has come to fruition that TERFs are using the document as a way to claim that anyone supporting trans people is using “pseudo-science” to justify a myth.

This is complete nonsense: Cass only comments on research into trans healthcare itself, not trans people as a whole. But a sad consequence of the report and surrounding media coverage has been to further stigmatise trans people and anti-trans pundits ammunition to ignore other evidence.

Despite all of this, however, there is one pivotal and wholly immutable fact that TERFs, “gender-critical” groups, and anti-trans bigots can’t silence: trans people do exist. I exist as a trans woman, my friends exist as trans people, there are thousands of us existing – happily – right now. That’s all you need to know. Hundreds of years from now, when the Cass report is a distant relic of a bygone era, trans people will still exist – as we have for centuries, as the report itself notes.

That being said, the inevitability of trans people existing should not hide the growing systemic problems of today, from the lack of access to healthcare, to the vitriolic level of hate against us right now. We should always be fighting for the progression of human rights in society, no matter how far we have come.

Whether or not the Cass Report proves to help or hinder that fight remains to be seen – the preliminary evidence doesn’t look good – so until then, remember that trans rights will always be human rights.

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