Whither now, Cass?

At the final frontier?

Adapted from Caesar crosses the Rubicon by Adolphe Yvon (1875): public domain

After the latest exciting week in UK transphobia, it is past time to return to the topic with which we set out just 7 or 8 short days ago. For a week is a long time in politics, as former Prime Minister Boris Who? can well attest.

So, we are back with episode 4 of the Cass Review. The Pom-pom Menace. Or maybe Attack of the Clowns. Because don’t imagine, just because Pink News have done their story and moved on, it is all done and dusted.

What are they up to?

I’d like to start with an apology. That is, in previous pieces on this topic i got their plans wrong. Specifically, i thought they were intending to use gender recognition certificate (grc) data as some sort of super-index/match key in order to create a research database.

In fact, the truth appears to be nothing so awful (and i did amend my last outing on Cass to remove mention of matching).

I spoke to the Quant Team, and what they appear to be about is creating a research database that can then be queried for, er, research purposes. This they will do by combining data from a number of files already available within the NHS, including data from:

• Endocrine services related to GIDS UCLH/Leeds
• Adult GICs