The more I hear about this case, the more unhappy I get. Susie Green of Mermaids has posted a comment to a tabloid newspaper today. I don’t want to link to them, but she has copied it to Facebook. You may need a Facebook login to read that. In case you can’t here are some key points.
Two independent gender specialists have attested that the child’s gender issues are real and are not being encouraged by the mother. This is not mentioned in the judgement, in which the judge appears to blame the mother for the child being trans.
A claim that the mother is a drug user is included in the judgement, despite the fact that it is anonymous and has not been substantiated.
The judge has banned the mother from defending herself against any of the charges made against her.
The Tavistock gender clinic, which has been treating the child, was not consulted for an opinion on the case.
Susie says, “The Mum was subjected to multiple malicious anonymous referrals to social services.” This is a common experience for parents of trans children. The judge appears to have taken all of these complaints as valid and reasonable.
Susie says that meetings were called by the school and GP to discuss the child’s welfare, without the knowledge of the mother. The clear implication being that both school and GP were treating the mother as a danger to the child. But it is only the mother whom the judge criticizes for being uncooperative.
There was no careful handover of care – the child was taken from their mother in a raid in the middle of the night and taken to live with a father they had not seen for 3 years.
Susie says, “This child consistently and repeatedly asserted that she was a girl.” This is not included in the judgement, but a single claim by a teacher that the child claimed to be a boy is included.
There appears to be something very underhand going on here, and sadly I believe that the same tactics will now be used against other parents of trans children, and against anyone in schools and social services who tries to help them. Please sign the petition.
This sort of behaviour is rampant in social services areas with weak management. Some social workers are allowed, within their work, to over rule the opinion of medical experts. Unproven allegations against the family members are taken as fact. No one looks at the child. They look at the paperwork. They tick boxes: the actual child disappears from their view. All that is left is that the paperwork is correct and they can ‘prove’ they did no wrong.
It is exceptionally distressing when you hear the details of what some mothers are accused of, with no evidence whatsoever. Never mind when there is evidence that their parenting is fine. I had a social worker phone me to ask about breastfeeding an older child and tooth decay. I explained all the scientific, peer-reviewed literature. I sent it to her, citing sources and including entire documents.
The mother was actually a G.P.
In her report, the social worker wrote “Will go on the inter-net until she finds someone who agrees with her point of view.”
Once social workers go down this path, there is only legal avenues left. And they have to be started before they trigger the family court system. Once they do that, you’re wrapped in utter secrecy and can be imprisoned for mentioning the child, the case, or what is happening.
It’s a tragedy. An utter farce and a complete tragedy.
Finding a great lawyer the only way to go. Although the lack of legal aid now means that is find a great lawyer, and a great deal of money. 🙁
It’s always worth checking the record of the social work department in that area. It really is a post code lottery.
Social work is broken. It needs money, good management and a hell of a lot more dedicated social workers. Like teaching, you can end up with the good social workers leaving with stress, whilst the mediocre stay in job and become locked into paperwork patterns.
Management is the key. Good managers make the system work. Inept managers oversee the brutalising of families and the needless removal of children without even noticing what they are doing. After all, they didn’t do anything wrong, they ticked all the boxes…
Except that in this case the social workers were very supportive, and may lose their jobs because of it.
If the social workers were supportive, I don’t understand how it got to this stage. It’s social workers who present the evidence?
The judge makes it clear that he believes that the social workers were misled by the mother, and that this was a major professional failing on their part.
While the sociaal workers in this case were clearly behaving professionally it seems as if the kinds of failings Morgan Gallagher is talking about in this case apply to the school and the GP. I wish I knew how you spread best practise and good management, the best parts of our public services are very good indeed, but then you get cases like this where there is mess in which staff don’t seem to have the best needs of the child at heart.
Malicious reporting of (ususally in my limited experience) mothers to social work departments is a really hard problem to deal with, and traumatic however ‘good’ the outcome, not to mention a waste of public resources on private quarrels. Or worse quarrels where there has already been a court judgement but the loser doesn’t like it and uses malicious complaints as a way to attempt to change the decision.
Which leaves the question of who brought it to court if the social workers were happy.
The obvious answer would be that the father did, and that he had the money to do it.
*sigh*
I agree that this looks like the judge is bigoted against transitions human beings.
The father may be rejecting his child’s identity, or simply trying to control the mother, and the child.
I wonder if the child has been allowed an advocate, on any level.
Makes me weep.
I have no information about who brought the case to court.
This seems very reminiscent of the Cleveland “satanic child sex abuse” scandal. When are the various “professionals” going to be investigated, and when will this judge be checked? In a few years the child will be of age, and it seems again that children are being abused by the system.