Children in the U.K. as young as 12 years of age may begin taking transgender puberty blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones without parental involvement, but a review of such National Health Service (NHS) rules has been ordered prior to a landmark court case that aims to challenge them.
The rules that allow even pre-teens to be prescribed what many experts now say are “experimental” treatments, without parental discussion, have been created through an agreement between NHS England and the Tavistock and Portman Trust, which operates Britain’s first children’s gender identity clinic, reported the Times on Monday.
Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is now being sued in a case filed by a mother, known as “Mrs A,” of a 15-year-old autistic girl who is on the wait list for transgender treatments at the children’s gender clinic.
“What is challenged is the current and continuing practice of the defendant … to prescribe puberty-suppressing hormone blockers and then subsequently cross-sex hormones to children under the age of 18,” said Mrs A’s barrister, Jeremy Hyam QC, reported the Guardian in January.
Hyam continued:
That treatment is given to children – not just under the age of 16, but under the age of 12 – on the basis that those children themselves consent to the treatment and gave fully informed consent to that treatment, even though the nature of the treatment has side-effects which, we say, supported by the evidence, they cannot properly take into account.
The Times reported NHS England has now ordered an independent review into the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in children claiming to be transgender.
“The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which is responsible for clinical practice guidelines in England and Wales, also has been asked to develop guidance for the first time about referring children to gender identity services,” the news report stated.
Current NHS rules have been largely based upon 2012 guidelines issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an organization whose reputation has been called into question by an increasing number of medical experts and analysts because it receives funding from transgender industry and advocacy groups.
Atlanta, Georgia-based pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Quentin Van Meter explained to Breitbart News that WPATH was launched by psychologist John Money and sexologist Alfred Kinsey to push a political agenda for gender ideology.
“This is not a scientifically based organization,” Van Meter said. “It’s essentially a pseudo-professional group of people who are pushing an agenda and have been since the beginning.”
“To be a member in WPATH, you only need to have an interest in transgender issues,” he explained. “There is no professional degree required, no training specifically, no certification. If you want to be a member, all you need to do is pay your dues.”
As the Times noted, Gene Feder, professor of primary care at the University of Bristol, also pointed to the low quality of WPATH’s guidelines.
Feder will testify in support of Keira Bell, 23, who is also suing the Tavistock Trust. Bell received treatments at the children’s gender clinic and now regrets how her case was handled.
“I do not believe that children and young people can consent to the use of powerful and experimental hormone drugs like I did,” Bell said, according to the Guardian, and added:
I believe that the current affirmative system put in place by Tavistock is inadequate as it does not allow for exploration of these gender dysphoric feelings, nor does it seek to find the underlying causes of this condition.
Hormone-changing drugs and surgery does not work for everyone and it certainly should not be offered to someone under the age of 18 when they are emotionally and mentally vulnerable.
The treatment urgently needs to change so that it does not put young people, like me, on a torturous and unnecessary path that is permanent and life-changing.
Numerous studies and reports from “detransitioners” are now showing that children and teens who claim to be “transgender” are actually suffering from other, more profound, mental illnesses, that preceded the gender confusion.
In 2018, for example, Dr. Lisa Littman set out to understand why the number of young girls identifying as transgender at Britain’s children’s gender identity clinic had increased from 41 percent in 2009 to 69 percent in 2017.
Littman found 62.5 percent of the girls whose parents participated in the study had been diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder prior to the onset of their gender confusion. For example, nearly half of the children had already attempted to harm themselves or had experienced a trauma.
Parental responses showed 87 percent of the teens announced they were transgender after increased time on social media and/or after “cluster outbreaks” of gender dysphoria in their groups of friends. Responses indicated most children who “came out” as transgender became increasingly popular as a result of their announcement.
“Peer contagion has been associated with depressive symptoms, disordered eating, aggression, bullying, and drug use,” Littman observed.
Breitbart London reported in December six psychologists who resigned from the NHS Trust’s children’s gender identity clinic “raised concerns over its treatment of children … saying that they felt pressured to ignore psychological treatment and begin hormone treatment for minors.”
Yet, in a recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics of the British Medical Journal, “gender-affirming” doctors advised the transgender industry how they can prevail over parents who are reluctant to allow their children to participate in treatments, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.
“Neglect, as a medico-legal term, can be used to initiate an evaluation by Child Protective Services and remove a parent as a child’s legal guardian in the most severe instances,” the authors stated, citing others in the transgender industry who continue the narrative that “gender-affirming therapies … improve quality of life, decrease depression and decrease high-risk behaviours.”
Establishment media, such as the Washington Post, are repeating similar narratives on the benefits of transgender medical treatments and even going so far as to claim puberty blockers are “reversible,” when numerous medical professionals assert the claim is false.