UK’s National Health Service has ordered the closure of a controversial gender clinic for children over a report revealing that some health staff felt pressured to take “an unquestioning affirmative approach” to children experiencing gender dysphoria.
The Tavistock Centre, in north London, is known as the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). Tavistock was founded in 1920 and originally focused on helping WWI shellshock victims. Since then it has grown to encompass a variety of services under the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust banner, with GIDS focusing on child gender issues. Since 1989 GIDS has treated 19,000 children with gender dysphoria (the feeling that one’s true identity is the opposite gender of their physical body).
The external report expressed concerns, among them the lack of knowledge about the effects of puberty blockers. Dr. Hilary Cass, the head of the review, wrote a letter to the head of NHS England on July 19:
…the most significant knowledge gaps are in relation to treatment with puberty blockers, and the lack of clarity about whether the rationale for prescription is as an initial part of a transition pathway or as a ‘pause’ to allow more time for decision making.
We do not fully understand the role of adolescent sex hormones in driving the development of both sexuality and gender identity through the early teen years, so by extension we cannot be sure about the impact of stopping these hormone surges on psychosexual and gender maturation. We therefore have no way of knowing whether, rather than buying time to make a decision, puberty blockers may disrupt that decision-making process.
It’s interesting to read a professional admitting that they do not know everything about gender dysphoria and transition because every time I hear an “expert” they sound as if there are no unanswered questions and that we have a full understanding of the effects of hormone blockers and surgery. If you want to see people who are completely sure of their realities, check out Matt Walsh’s documentary, What is a Woman, read Bonchie’s piece on it, or just read below:
Pediatrician tells Matt Walsh ‘your sperm don’t make you male,’ ‘wonderful’ puberty blockers are ‘completely reversible’ in ‘What Is a Woman?’ documentary https://t.co/umKVYPgmbT
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) June 2, 2022
The Centre isn’t being closed solely for those issues, however, as the NHS has decided to go for a more regional approach instead of having only one gender clinic in the country. Long wait times—sometimes as long as two years to get an appointment—are also blamed.
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The gender issue is at the core of the matter, though, and patients and their families are preparing a class-action lawsuit against the facility, with the plaintiffs represented by the law firm Pogust Goodhead. Its chief executive Tom Goodhead told the UK Times:
Children and young adolescents were rushed into treatment without the appropriate therapy and involvement of the right clinicians, meaning that they were misdiagnosed and started on a treatment pathway that was not right for them.
These children have suffered life-changing and, in some cases, irreversible effects of the treatment they received . . . We anticipate that at least 1,000 clients will join this action.
Times Radio interviews Goodhead here:
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Tavistock was previously sued in 2020 by former patient Keira Bell, who asserted that she’d been put on puberty blockers at the age of 16 “after a series of superficial conversations with social workers,” and had her breasts removed at age 20—which she regretted. Unfortunately, she lost, with the court writing “it was for clinicians rather than the court to decide” whether Bell was mature enough to consent to such procedures. She was not old enough to get a pint in a pub, but she was old enough to consent to puberty blockers. Ok.
The massive rise in gender dysphoria in recent years and the rush to unquestioningly prescribe every “gender-affirming” drug and surgical procedure is causing serious damage to many young people. More and more tragic stories are starting to come out, and my guess is it’s just the beginning of a tsunami.
I’m all for letting adults do whatever they want with their bodies. But for my money, surgery and powerful drugs are not the answer for children and teens who experience gender confusion.
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