I have co-authored an article with Cal Horton for the science magazine Scientific American. We take a concise look at what the Cass Review is, what it found, why the methods used were troubling, and how it is being used to harm young people.
You can read the article here. I hope it will be helpful as a basic explainer for why trans community groups, academic experts, and clinical specialists are so concerned about the Cass Review.
Writing for Scientific American was a really interesting experience. It was of course radically different to publishing in a peer-reviewed journal: we put the piece together in a matter of weeks, and it was not scrutinised by academic experts from our specific field of study. At the same time, there was an extremely rigorous editorial, fact-checking, and copyediting process that also made it very different to publishing in most magazines or newspapers.
I was deeply impressed with the sheer amount of time and care the Sci Am editors put into this piece. On one hand, their contributions ensured the piece is written in accessible language, with an international (and especially US-based) readership in mind. On the other hand, we had extensive discussions to ensure that all points made in the article could be rigorously evidenced, including some very detailed exchanges about the specifics of UK law, and what exactly the Cass Review document does and does not have to say about exponential growth over different periods of time. We had to be able to strongly back up any even slightly contentious point.
It was a challenging experience, but one I felt very held by as an author committed to consciencious research practice. Publishing this piece in Sci Am definitely ensured that it was as good as it could possibly be.
Dr Ruth Pearce 
Always well respected from my experience.
conflating gender and sex creates confusion.
The ideology of gender is that it’s binary and with almost all cultures around the world adhering to this binary ideology, identifying as one or the other is an expectation thrust on everyone.
sex, being the domain of nature, is naturally a spectrum. Where on that spectrum we land will be determined during fetal development, but living in binary gendered societies, surely we as individuals are best placed to decide which, if either, gender is the more appropriate. Unfortunately, at birth we have no say beyond how we present physically, and that is limited information to which the medical professionals have access before determining our sex. Perhaps sex determination at birth would be better deemed provisional in law, and only made permanent later when we can be involved. After all, it is our life.