The Chinese coronavirus lockdowns in Britain have reportedly coincided with a significant rise in the number of children seeking gender reassignment therapy at the UK’s socialised healthcare system.
According to a report from the Mail on Sunday, the number of adolescents seeking gender change treatment at the Tavistock and Portman Trust’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in London has increased by a staggering twenty per cent, with 5,500 youngsters currently on the waiting list.
The paper, which uncovered minutes from the controversial branch of the National Health Service (NHS), claimed that the number of children on the waiting list increased significantly during the lockdowns, with 4,600 minors on the waiting list prior to the nation shutting down.
Commenting on a possible correlation between the two, the founder of the Transgender Trend campaign group, Stephanie Davies-Arai said: “Life stopped really, so adolescents at that stage in their lives, where they’re really searching for their identity, turn online.
“They’re bombarded with messages about being trans and that all of their problems and insecurities and anxieties are because they’re trans.”
According to the minutes from high-level meetings at the NHS, the health service is also allegedly concerned about a connection between the rise in children seeking gender reassignment and the lockdowns, with one senior figure expressing concern that “the list had grown substantially during the lockdown”.
The Tavistock trust — the main child gender clinic in England — has come under increasing scrutiny for its practices surrounding gender changes for children, including from former governor of the clinic, Dr David Bell, who has accused the trust of being too quick to assume that young girls are transgender if they exhibit atypical behaviour such as not liking the colour pink or playing with dolls.
“There’s a focus on very, very superficial surface phenomena and lack of probing,” Dr Bell said of the clinic, noting that many children may not conform to gender stereotypes and still not be transgender.
Last year, Keira Bell sued the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, alleging that the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) had pressured her into transitioning as a teenager, a decision which she later grew to regret. The High Court found in the high-profile case that children under the age of 16 should not be given puberty blockers without court authorisation, however, the ruling was later overturned in September of last year.
More recently, an interim review for NHS England by former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Dr Hilary Cass found that doctors have felt pressured into adopting an unquestioning approach to children seeking gender reassignment.
Dr Cass found that medics within the socialised healthcare system felt “nervous” about offering less invasive treatment to children, resulting in youngsters being put on puberty blockers — which can have lifelong consequences — when they could benefit from either waiting or receiving other care.
According to the MoS, the majority of children referred for gender reassignment treatment in the early 2010s were born as males, however, currently, females now make up most cases. It is not known why the change has occurred, however, the paper noted experts have claimed that it could be a part of a wider mental health crisis facing young girls, who are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, or commit self-harm than boys.
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