"There used to be about 50 referrals a year, mainly males with a history of gender issues.
Now there are thousands of young females reporting a sudden gender crisis for the first time. Many are convinced that transition — and the powerful drugs that make it happen — will be the solution to their problems.
Until now the specialists struggling to keep up with caseloads have stayed silent, but alarm over the number of adolescents being prescribed body-altering drugs, has prompted five former clinicians to speak out for the first time.
All five have resigned from the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in the past three years as a matter of conscience.
“This experimental treatment is being done not only on children, but very vulnerable children, who have experienced mental health difficulties, abuse, family trauma, but sometimes those [other factors] just get whitewashed,” one female clinician said. “If someone was suggesting plastic surgery or any other permanent change we’d be saying, hang on a minute.”
The clinicians have warned that complex histories and adolescent confusion over possible homosexuality are being ignored in the rush to accept and celebrate every young person’s new transgender identity...
Therapists once had months to work through underlying issues before making decisions on medical intervention, but the clinicians claim that young people are now routinely referred for hormone therapy after as few as three hour-long sessions.
They believe that physically healthy children are being medicated in response to pressure from transgender lobby groups and parental anxieties.
So many potentially gay children were being sent down the pathway to change gender, two of the clinicians said there was a dark joke among staff that “there would be no gay people left”.
“It feels like conversion therapy for gay children,” one male clinician said. “I frequently had cases where people started identifying as trans after months of horrendous bullying for being gay”...
“Young lesbians considered at the bottom of the heap suddenly found they were really popular when they said they were trans.”
Another female clinician said: “We heard a lot of homophobia which we felt nobody was challenging. A lot of the girls would come in and say, ‘I’m not a lesbian. I fell in love with my best girl friend but then I went online and realised I’m not a lesbian, I’m a boy. Phew.’”
The specialists expressed concern at how little confusion over sexuality was explored when a young person requested treatment to change their body.
“I would ask who they wanted to have relationships with, but I was told by senior management that gender is completely separate to sex,” a third female clinician said. “I couldn’t get on board with that, because it isn’t. Some people were transitioning their gender to match their sexuality.”...
In other cases, she felt young people had concluded they were trans because they didn’t fit traditional gender roles.
“Children’s bodies are being damaged in order to treat societal issues”...
She recalled a case of a 13-year-old child “whose parents were really pressurising us for puberty blockers”. When the clinician refused to refer him, she claims one of the parents, a lawyer, wrote threatening legal letters to the service. The child was eventually referred for blockers.
She would have nightmares about her years at the Tavistock. “I would talk about it as an ‘atrocity’. I know that sounds quite strong, but it felt as if we were part of something that people would look back on in the future, and ask, what were we thinking? In the future I think there will be lots and lots of de-transitioners who feel their bodies were mutilated as young people and who will ask, why did you let me do this? It is very disturbing.”
Studies show that the vast majority of youngsters who begin puberty blockers go on to have irreversible hormone treatment at 16. Some go on to have gender reassignment surgery as adults.
All five clinicians expressed concern over how little young people and their families were being told about the impact of hormone treatment on fertility and sexual function as adults. One claimed young people were unable to give “informed consent” because it was regarded as taboo to discuss the impact of medical intervention on later sexual function in such a young cohort...
Another clinician described how youngsters entered his room enthusing about Alex Bertie, a transgender YouTuber, and My Life: I Am Leo, a documentary about a transgender teen broadcast in a teatime slot on CBBC...
"When you start them on puberty blockers, you’re putting them on a pathway that could lead to sexual dysfunction problems and, for the younger kids, will definitely make them infertile. In what other specialism would physical intervention that leads to permanent change to the body be the first line of treatment for a vulnerable child? Activists will tell you it’s unethical not to intervene. But we know that not everyone with gender dysphoria will go on to identify as trans for the rest of their lives""
So much for transtrenders being a myth
Keywords: kids transitioning to become popular
Related:
Governor of Tavistock Foundation quits over damning report into gender identity clinic - "The trust running the country’s only NHS gender identity service for children is under fire for dismissing a damning internal report that branded it “not fit for purpose”.Marcus Evans, one of the governors of The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has resigned, after accusing its management of having an “overvalued belief in” the expertise of its Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) “which is used to dismiss challenge and examination”... Some parents who contacted the Observer have accused the service of “fast-tracking” young people into changing gender, a charge strongly rejected by the service."
Social media 'is pressurising the young into gender change' - "Social media is fuelling a surge in the number of children seeking treatment to change gender, a director at England’s only specialist NHS clinic for youngsters said yesterday.Dr Polly Carmichael also admitted the service was under pressure from lobby groups to ‘fast-track’ children into transitioning without giving them proper advice"
