The NHS has announced that the Gender Identity Development Service, UK’s only gender clinic for children is to be closed. Our Duty has been critical of this service provided by The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation trust since our foundation in 2018.
Announcement
Our Duty Statement
Parents of children who believe themselves to be transgender have been challenging the treatment protocols of GIDS at The Tavistock for many years. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/parents-battle-state-sponsored-sterilisation-of-trans-children-mb55fxt60
While we welcome the closure of the Tavistock’s GIDS, we are very concerned that the medical pathway seems to remain an option. Furthermore, with the announcement of two new child clinics due to open in the Spring, we are worried that this might simply increase the NHS’s capacity to maim and sterilise our children. In some regards the long waiting lists that were held to be a problem at GIDS did help provide thinking space for many youngsters, and doubtless quite a few avoided the fate on offer.
With the average age of presentation at GIDS being 15.5, combined with the waiting lists, it is a fact that over half the children whose parents we represent become eligible for the adult clinics. These clinics (10 at the last count) are already regional in their provision. Alarmingly, they are all committed to ‘affirming’ incongruent sex identities. Some are even advertised as ‘by trans for trans’ (see Indigo in Manchester).
It is this presumption that medical transition is a valid pathway that needs to end.
While it might be an option for mature adults, of sound mind, who accept that it is a cosmetic procedure and nothing more, and who pay for it from their own purse, it is certainly not appropriate medical treatment for patients who are physically healthy. Gender medicine seems antithetical to the whole idea of a Health Service.
Tavistock response to the announcement
Background from The Cass Review
Letter from Dr Hillary Cass to NHS Commissioning: https://cass.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Cass-Review-Letter-to-NHSE_19-July-2022.pdf
