The Economist
The closure of a London clinic will help children who identify as trans
29 July 2022
The Biden administration’s confused embrace of trans rights
23 June 2022
Activist doctors are urging GPs to prescribe cross-sex hormones
That will remove the final remnants of gatekeeping from gender medicine
“We did not get the sense that gender medicine was open to scrutiny or self-criticism on standard medical criteria, such as side-effects and long-term outcomes,” he says. A spokesman for the RCP says the course is about “exploring the complexities of this subject”, and “supporting health-care professionals to support their patients in making choices”.
19 February 2022
Britain’s proposal to ban “conversion therapy” is not what it seems
Such therapy is always pointless, often cruel, and occasionally dangerous. Yet the government should rethink its plans, because the proposed law is muddled. It conflates sexual orientation with the nebulous and changeable concept of “gender identity”. The government wants “conversion therapy” to include talking treatments that explore why someone’s gender identity is at odds with their biological sex. A ban would leave the field of gender medicine to those happy to shepherd patients—including the growing number of under-18s who see themselves as transgender—into “gender affirmation”, in which their cross-sex identity is treated as permanent. This approach fast-tracks many children onto powerful drugs and sometimes surgery.
4 December 2021
Portrait of a detransitioner as a young woman
Carol has been a woman, a man and is a woman again. Her story has lessons for trans medicine
6 November 2021
Opinion on the use of puberty blockers in America is turning
Even members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health have some concerns
16 October 2021
Doubts are growing about therapy for gender-dysphoric children
Drug treatments seem to do little good, and may be harmful
15 May 2021
Little is known about the effects of puberty blockers
That has not stopped clinics prescribing them enthusiastically
20 February 2021
After the Keira Bell verdict: An English Ruling on Transgender Teens Could Have Global Repercussions
Worries grow over treatments that can leave children sterile
14 December 2020
Children are victims in the latest identity-driven culture war
Some feminists and transgender activists are on opposite sides
16 November 2017
When girls won’t be girls
Growing numbers of teenagers, convinced they have been born in the wrong body, are switching gender. But young people change their minds about lots of things. What if one of them is their gender?
28 September 2017 - Charlie McCann