Puberty blockers given to children as young as NINE at ‘Scotland’s Tavistock Centre’

Children as young as nine have been handed prescriptions for puberty blockers at a Scots gender clinic dubbed ‘Scotland’s Tavistock’ according to a bombshell investigation.

The report by NHS clinicians found youngsters with gender dysphoria have been given the drugs at the NHS-run national gender service in Glasgow – a ‘disproportionate’ number of whom were on the autistic spectrum. 

Many also conditions such as anxiety and depression, raising fears over future legal action from those who may claim to have been misdiagnosed.

The dossier revealed parallels between the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow and the Tavistock child gender identity clinic in London – set to be closed down after it was heavily criticised in a review by Dr David Bell, a consultant psychiatrist who raised concerns about the way it was treating patients.

The report into the national gender identity service revealed:

• A total of 91 youngsters aged between nine and 17 were referred to paediatric endocrinology between 2011 and 2019;
• Two-thirds of those referred were ‘birth assigned females’;
• Almost a quarter were on the autistic spectrum, and 37 per cent had mental health conditions such as depression;
• Only six out of 64 young people eligible for fertility preservation completed the process.

A report found the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow gave life-changing puberty blockers to young people, some as young as nine 

Campaigners have called for the clinic to be closed. A spokesman for campaign group For Women Scotland said: ‘The parallels with the ill-fated Tavistock are stark. Endocrinologists are halting children’s puberty with experimental drugs.

‘It is essential the Scottish Government acts immediately to close Sandyford… not to do so would be gross medical negligence and likely to attract, as is happening in England, legal cases from former patients.’

Dr Bell, the psychiatrist who raised concerns about the Tavistock, said: ‘There is a lack of evidence worldwide on the effects of prescribing puberty blockers for gender dysphoria and there is significant concern that they may interfere with brain and bone development. 

‘A national gender service is the wrong model. These children and young people need to be understood in the context of the other mental health issues they are experiencing.’

The findings are revealed in a research paper by NHS clinicians who carried out an appraisal of the Scottish service, which they say has ‘clear benefits’ for youngsters with gender dysphoria as it has a range of different specialists.

They appraised the service offered to youngsters with gender dysphoria referred to endocrinologists at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow for puberty suppressing drugs.

Dr Bell also told The Telegraph: ‘The very act of starting them is putting them on a medical pathway, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

JK Rowling and Nicola Sturgeon have repeatedly clashed over trans and female rights in Scotland  

‘Once you are on the drugs you become very frightened of coming off them because you have made puberty into a phobic object.

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‘Sandyford should be shut down. NHS England has agreed that the gender service at Tavistock be shut down for these reasons. It is not that English children have different bodies or genes or minds to Scottish children.’

The report follows an investigation into the Tavistock clinic by Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who was commissioned by NHS England to review gender identity services for young people. 

The Cass review found that many patients had complex needs, but once they were identified as having gender-related distress, other healthcare issues could ‘sometimes be overlooked’.

Having one provider was ‘not a safe or viable long-term option’, it concluded.

In a letter to NHS England last week, Dr Cass warned about the possible effects of puberty-blockers, which have been given to children as young as ten to prevent adolescent body changes such as breasts or facial hair.

The expert said there was no way to know whether these drugs, rather than ‘buying time’ for children to decide on their gender identity, might instead ‘disrupt that decision-making process’.

She raised concerns that the drugs could interrupt the process of the brain maturing, affecting children’s ability to exercise judgment.

Dr Cass said in her interim report: ‘It has become increasingly clear that a single specialist provider model is not a safe or viable long-term option in view of concerns about lack of peer review and the ability to respond to the increasing demand.’

The new report into the clinic in Glasgow comes after the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Bill, which would allow individuals to change their sex without the need for medical reports, passed a first stage vote last week. This was despite seven Nationalist MSPs voting against and two abstaining – the biggest rebellion since the SNP came to power in 2007. 

Nicola Sturgeon’s government has been repeatedly criticised over the bill in recent weeks, highlighted in repeated clashes between the First Minister and author JK Rowling.  

Ms Rowling branded the leader a ‘destroyer of women’s rights’ – wearing a T-shirt with it as a motif – while Ms Sturgeon ratcheted up the row by suggesting the author was not a ‘real feminist’ – and that she is.

A previous report into the Tavistock clinic in North London was highly critical of its gender identity services and led to it being closed down 

Ms Sturgeon said last month: ‘I’ve spent my entire life campaigning for women’s rights, and I’m a passionate feminist with lots of evidence behind that’.

In a thinly-veiled attack on the credentials of Ms Rowling, and members of For Women Scotland (FWS), she said: ‘There are no shortages of attacks on women that feminists, real feminists, as I consider myself to be, should be focusing on right now’, and accusing them of trying to ‘stigmatise and discriminate’ against transgender people.

Asked to comment on the Sandyford report, the Scottish Government, which commissions the service from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said that treatment decisions were ‘rightly for clinicians to make in consultation with patients following specialist assessment’.

The Equality Network and the Scottish Transgender Alliance were approached for comment.