ELIZA TAYLOR AGAINST STUFF
Case Number: 3528
Council Meeting: 21 June 2024
Decision: Not Upheld
Publication: Stuff
Principle:
Accuracy, Fairness and Balance
Comment and Fact
Ruling Categories: Gender
Overview
- On 28 April 2024 Stuff published an opinion piece by Damien Grant, headed Pay attention to review into gender care for youth. Eliza Taylor complains that content within the article is factually skewed or inaccurate and in breach of Principles (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance and (4) Comment and Fact. The complaint is not upheld.
The Article
- The British National Health Service’s Cass Report, released in April 2024, is an independent review of gender identity services for children and young people. This Stuff opinion piece is largely informed by that report, posing questions about the lack of evidence to support current treatment of gender dysphoria, particularly in children, but also touching on this issue for young adults over 16 years.
- The article discusses the significant increase in the number of cases in the UK of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria who are administered puberty blockers, the vast majority proceeding to masculinising/feminising hormone treatments and some on to gender-affirming surgery. The article says the concern is that the diagnosis of gender dysphoria in children inevitably leads to a pathway of medical interventions, with little evidence of the impact of those treatments.
- The Cass Report states that among the drivers of gender-dysphoria are mental health and cultural trends yet medical interventions such as puberty blockers and consequential hormone usage is the common response.
- The article points out that the Aotearoa New Zealand Ministry of Health (the Ministry) has recently changed their advice on puberty blockers on their website, removing a previous reference to the medication being safe and reversible and that the Ministry is now fully reviewing their advice on the subject.
- The columnist writes that with the publication of the Cass Report he could no longer avoid confronting the issue of the treatment of children’s gender dysphoria in Aotearoa New Zealand and concludes “that it is possible that we are looking at a major medical misadventure with a cohort of children having their lives compromised.”
- There are a number of links in the article that expand on references made, including a link to The Cass Report.
The Complaint
- Eliza Taylor acknowledges that the article is an opinion piece and therefore limits her complaint to “matters of factual accuracy”.
- Ms Taylor complains the columnist implies children are receiving hormone treatment and getting gender-affirming surgery, neither of which are available to children under 16 years in Britain or Aotearoa New Zealand. She says, “that the way this article is written would make someone believe this (hormone treatment and surgery) is happening” to children here.
- The complainant notes that the columnist has not specifically said that children are getting surgery, but it is implied in how his statement is written and that this was likely to result in an uninformed individual putting surgery and hormone treatment alongside below-age-of consent treatments.
- She disagrees that the Ministry has changed its advice on puberty blockers with the removal of the statement saying puberty blockers were safe and reversible. Ms Taylor does not think that this removal constitutes a change in position. She also suggests that saying “that the advice has changed” could be misinterpreted to mean the advice is the opposite to what was previously given i.e. unsafe and irreversible.
The Response
- Stuff say that Ms Taylor has misread the context of the statements linking puberty blockers, hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery. They say that the columnist is summarising what critics are saying and it should be read in context of a previous statement, saying “When you distil the serious complaint by those against the current gender-fluidity of modern culture, it is that the medicalisation of children’s gender dysphoria is wrong.” Stuff disagrees with Ms Taylor’s interpretation quoting the Cass report as saying:
“This is an area of remarkably weak evidence, and yet results of studies are exaggerated or misrepresented by people on all sides of the debate to support their viewpoint. The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender related distress.”
- They also say that the columnist notes that “there is a high correlation between those who have puberty blockers and go on to have hormone treatment.”
- Stuff says that the removal of the Ministry of Health’s statement about puberty blockers being “safe and reversible” does constitute a change, though the Stuff editor offered to tweak this statement for better clarity.
The Discussion
- The columnist’s concern is the increasing number of children presenting with gender dysphoria and who are prescribed puberty blockers with this almost inevitably leading to hormone treatment and possibly surgery. The complainant sees this as inferring that children under 16 receive hormone treatment and surgery.
- We agree that there is some ambiguity about the age criteria for treatments but are satisfied that this has been clarified with a quote from the Cass Report later in the article. It reads:
Moreover, given that the vast majority of young people started on puberty blockers proceed from puberty blockers to masculinising/feminising hormones, there is no evidence that puberty blockers buy time to think, and some concern that they may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development.
- The Council accepts that the removal of the description “safe and reversible’ from the Ministry of Health’s website does constitute a change, particularly given the importance of such wording in this context. We reject that the change suggests that the opposite position has been taken.
- We acknowledge that while standing by the statement about a change in the Ministry’s policy on puberty blockers Stuff did offer to correct the wording to offer better clarity.
- The complaint is not upheld.
Council members considering the complaint were Hon Raynor Asher (Chair), Alison Thom, Ben France-Hudson, Hank Schouten, Jo Cribb, Judi Jones, Marie Shroff, Rosemary Barraclough, Tim Watkin.
Council member Clio Francis declared a conflict of interest and withdrew from the meeting.